Tag: Music

Charlie Watts

I just read a statement from The Rolling Stones confirming Charlie Watts passed away.

While I have never been a Stones fan, credit must always be given where due. Rest In Peace, sir.

The best Charlie Watts story is a pretty well known one. The stones were in a hotel late at night and Charlie had turned in when Mick Jagger, for whatever reason, started calling him and yelling at him saying something along the lines of where is my drummer.

Charlie got up, dressed in a suit, went to wherever Jagger was calling from and punched him square in the face saying, I’m not your drummer. You’re my singer. Every piece of that story is gold but for me it’s him putting on a suit that makes it priceless.

More Music

Crazy morning, I tells ya.

Five songs worth of vocals, two songs worth of lead guitars, and three songs worth of rhythm guitars… and it ain’t even noon yet!

Obligatory I-worked-on-guitars pic:

Obligatory I-did-vocals-in-the-movie-theater-parking-lot pic:

Obligatory I-drove-home-through-the-center-of-town pic:

Non-obligatory I-managed-to-switch-modes-and-screen-shot-when-I-dropped-my-phone-in-Methuen-Center pic:

I Think I’m Done

The second round of guitar playing didn’t last quite as long as the first, and I’ve reached the point where my hands just won’t do it anymore. I think I’m done for the day.

The progress tally is five songs got all of the rhythm guitar tracks, four got their lead guitar tracks, and one got both. I am leaving things with five songs ready for vocals (car vocals in the morning, maybe?) and four ready to mix. There are seven songs still waiting for rhythm guitar, and one that doesn’t have a song form yet. All of that on top of the 21 that are already mixed and uploaded and counted on the 50/90 site. That puts my current total at 38 out of 50 with a couple of days less than half the project still to go.

Yikes!

I’m going to go make dinner and then play some World of Warcraft with my Bride.

And on an unrelated note, I just read that Don Everly died. Rest in peace, Everly Brother.

More Hurricane Fun

We could be getting hit with an actual hurricane on Sunday. We got hit with the dying remains of one yesterday, and now here comes Henri. Read about it here.

So we had rain almost every day in July. August has been better, but still ridiculously rainy. Our cellar has had water in it for over a month now, and here comes an honest to goodness hurricane.

How’s about a big giant fuck you to mother nature, huh? I think she’s earned it. Asshole.

In honor of this meteorological kick in the balls, here is a song inspired by a hurricane…

…and here is another song inspired by a different hurricane…

Finally Some Progress

I did some singing in the car today and while I am still a terrible singer and still don’t particularly enjoy singing, I feel a lot better than I did yesterday.

I had three songs ready for vocals and four (I said three in my post last night but it was actually four) that had lyrics but no guitars. I finished the three that were ready and one of the ones that wasn’t quite ready. It didn’t go well, but it is good progress and I haven’t made any real progress in a full week. Sigh of relief.

I go to my parents house tonight and I will be there all day tomorrow so no guitar until Sunday. I need to make some serious time for it on Sunday. It’s important. Yesterday was the half way point of the 50/90 project and while I am doing well (38 in the pipeline, 21 of which are finished), I was hoping I would be further along. I am afraid I am losing steam.

I did not, however, take a picture on the way home so… I guess this car music post is finished.

Planning for Tomorrow

I did some 50/90 work tonight. I wrote lyrics to a couple of songs and generally tried to set myself up for some car singing tomorrow. I have three songs that are ready for vocals, meaning they have rhythm guitars tracked and melodies and lyrics written. There are three other songs that don’t have rhythm guitars but do have melodies and lyrics. I added some awful sounding midi guitar tracks to use as guides so I can add vocals out of order.

Now I just have to wake up early tomorrow morning and do it… and it’s 11:33 right now so with each passing moment the chances of getting up early tomorrow get slimmer and slimmer.

So why am I typing this?

Nothing Constructive

I didn’t play guitar tonight. I did play about an hour and 10 minutes of World of Warcraft and with the exception of the last five minutes or so when I died repeatedly I had a nice stretch of slaughtering bad guys and monsters so I guess it was okay. I know we said we weren’t going to play World of Warcraft anymore, but it’s still my wife’s all time favorite, and it is also the only game I have on my PC and my subscription hasn’t run out yet so… yeah.

Star Wars: Old Republic is downloading, so there’s that.

There’s a Pixies song in the soundtrack to The Suicide Squad. Hey, off of Doolittle. Yeah… that set off the old Boston rock fan zaniness in a big way. I had already started listening to a lot of Throwing Muses prior to watching the movie but now we’re just up to our eyeballs in the music of the city of Boston from the late 80’s through the late 90’s. Pixies have been the soundtrack to tonight’s video game violence. I’ve blown through Come on Pilgrim and Surfer Rosa and I’m about 3/4 of the way through Doolittle. For my money, Pixies Doolittle, Throwing Muses House Tornado (or the first record), and Mission of Burma’s Vs are enough to justify the entire god awful decade of the 1980’s. Throw in a handful of Rush records and just dump the rest of the decade down the crapper and you’re good to go.

Did I mention that Betwixt is getting back together for a few shows soon? There’s your 1990’s justification right there.

You know, I wish I had something constructive* to add to the electronic conversation tonight but I just don’t. Go give Doolittle a spin and you’ll feel better. Try Betwixt’s Moustache album too. Also, if you can find Smackmelon’s Space Shot play that too. Trust me.

*Twice through the course of this post, once in the title and once in the body, I have misspelled constructive as constructed. I blame society for my spelling short comings. The Pixies playlist just moved on from Doolittle to Bossanova. We should be Digging for Fire shortly.

Addendum: When I logged out of World of Warcraft, the Steam app said I had 10 seconds to wait before I could play Star Wars: Old Republic. Groovy, thought me. Then when I hovered my mouse over the Start button it changed to 8 seconds, and then to 4 hours and 50 minutes. It’s currently reading two hours and 56 minutes. Okay. I guess we won’t play tonight. It’s all right. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to be a Jedi or a Sith to start with anyway.

Addendum #2: We watched an episode of The Big Bang Theory tonight while we ate dinner. In it, Sheldon played a Theremin. Did anyone else completely forget that there is a Theremin in the Pixies song Velouria? The world is a small place, and music makes time travel possible.

20 Songs Down, 30 to Go

20 songs down. 40% of the project is complete.

I told you I was going to mix a song tonight.

Here it is:

I still have five minutes of “exercise” to do, and then maybe I’ll try to sleep. It’s 11:06 and all is quiet on the parental front. Fingers crossed.

Lunch Time

I have nothing to write about at this particular lunch break.

With two whole days at my parents, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I started watching The Orville again last week and last night I finished the first season. If things go bad I could make a dent in season two. I started watching The White Lotus on HBO when it premiered but I haven’t watched the latest episode. Why? Because the show kinda sucks. Is it a comedy? Because it’s not funny. Is it a drama? Because most of the characters are beyond annoying. It’s just not good. I know it’s only something like six episodes, so I am half way through, I think, but it’s just not good. Oh well.

Music! I can do music! I have two songs to mix. There are six songs that need lyrics, I can handle all of that. Maybe I can start some new songs as well. I wanted to be further along than this before my 48 hour sentence started, but what can you do?

Mostly what I will do while I am stuck over there is miss Jen and Harry. I should be home with them, but I won’t be. That sucks more than I am capable to put into words.

I have 99 minutes left in my shortened work day. I just wanted to mention that because I could.

Looking forward to watching What If? with Harry and Jen tonight.