No progress on day 55. I spent hours stuck in traffic on a closed highway in the morning and then went to a concert in the evening. I got home early enough that I might have been able to spend a few minutes on musical stuff but my brain was completely fried and it just didn’t wanna.
I might have better luck today (day 56) but I’m not holding my breath. The weekend is almost here though and I’m looking forward to a couple of productive days.
I hit a bit of a milestone yesterday. Day 54 had the potential for being shut out with no progress on the ol’ 50 songs in 90 days challenge thing. Fortunately I was able to get a couple of things done. (Spoiler alert for day 55, today, I have about a 99.999% chance of getting shut out)
Before work I sat in my car in the parking lot outside of my office and squeaked out a few bass/drum riffs. No song form yet, just a few 8-bar phrases. I grouped them together as song idea number 49. I thought that would be it for the day and it almost was.
At bed time last night (similar to day 53) I sat up in bed with my iPad and felt inspired with a new little idea. by 10:20pm I had a whole song form worked out with bass and drums down and two tracks of MIDI guitars to act as guides for when I record the real guitars. If the thing I came up with before work was song idea number 49 then logically this second thing must be song idea number 50, right? Correct. My 50 songs in 90 days pipeline officially has 50 songs in it. Granted, 13 of those songs are in various stages of incomplete ranging from pretty much done to barely started, but there are 50 ideas in total.
I’m trying to remember but I think I have finished this challenged three times. The first time I got exactly 50 songs. The second had 51 and the third had 52. I have to check the old playlists to verify that, but I think that’s how it worked out. Should I stop at 50 this time? Should I stop at 53 to continue the trend? Should I shoot for 60? 70? I still have over a month to go… should we turn this into a how-many-songs-can-I-write-and-record-in-90 days challenge?
I have to work in the office 40% of each month. I didn’t go in at all for the first half of the month because I was under the weather and stuff. I had to squeeze it all in during the last two weeks.
Tomorrow, when I work in the office, I will reach my 40% for August. Oh what a freakin’ relief that will be. My desk is 45 miles from my house and that is brutal. Worse, twice this week (yesterday and tomorrow) I will be working in a different building that is 74 miles from home. Yeah, you read that correctly. 74 miles.
I made that drive yesterday for some meetings that I wanted to attend in person. I will do it tomorrow because that building is very close to a venue where I will be attending a concert after work. Yup, Robbie’s going to a rock and roll show.
I started listening to King’s X in 1990 when they had a sort of almost hit record called “It’s Love.” Great song, out of this world vocals with ridiculous three part harmonies, and a shredding guitar solo that made all of those obnoxious hair bands from the ‘80’s look like talentless chumps.
I thought about buying the album the song came from. I read a review in a guitar magazine that really surprised me. It basically said the band’s previous album was great but the new one, the one the article was acutally reviewing, kinda sucked. Based on the one song I knew I found that really hard to believe so I decided to ignore the advice and buy the record anyway.
The next time I was at a record store they didn’t have the new album but they did have the previous album (on cassette, not CD) so I bought it. It was called Gretchen Goes to Nebraska and it was great. It was awesome. It was outstanding. Looking back I feel lucky that I bought that record first because when I eventually did get the record I wanted to buy in the first place… well… it kinda sucked. A few good songs, a few mediocre songs, a few terrible songs with lyrics that made me want to punch the band members in their friggin’ faces (if you know this band and this record then you know which song I’m talking about).
It was okay though, Gretchen was so good that I could overlook the shitty stuff in favor of the good stuff. A few years later they released an album called Dogman that was better than Gretchen. A few years later there was an album called Tape Head that was just as good. Those three records alone justify this band’s entire existance. Every record is good, even the couple of bad ones they’ve released over the years. As musicians, they might be the best band in the world. As lyricists… they are great instrumental performers. Yeah, they often rub me the wrong way. Religion and politics… the two things they tell you not to argue about… yeah. Sorry guys.
Anyway, I’ve been a fan since 1990 and I’ve never seen them live. The three band members ages range from 64 to 75 (I Googled it before I wrote this post just to make sure) and the days are probably numbered. The drummer almost died of a heart attack a few years ago and I thought I missed my chance to see them live.
I had no idea they were touring but Spotify, of all things, told me they had a show in Massachusetts coming up and I bought a ticket. I didn’t ask anyone to go with me because I don’t know anyone else who likes them. That’s okay. I will work down the street from the venue and casually wander over when the doors open. I’ve never been to this place before. I don’t know if its a small theater or a bar or what. I’ll find out when I get there. I’ll bring my point and shoot camera because the guitar player has been known to play some seriously cool gear and I am a guitar gear junkie. I might be easily impressed by such things. That’s okay.
So the point of this rambling run-on-sentence of a post is… one more day in the office and then I can work from home again, and to celebrate I am going to see a fantastic live band that I’ve never seen before despite always really wanting to. It should be a good day. Wish me luck.
I was expecting that day 53 would be another day with no musical progress made at all. I ended up being wrong, but only just barely. Last night at about 10:00pm I was sitting up in bed with my iPad and I had an idea for a sort of drone-esque bass riff. I brought up GarageBand and failed miserably in my attempt to translate the idea into reality, but I did end up with a new song for the 50 songs in 90 days project. It’s just fake MIDI bass and fake MIDI drums with a fake MIDI guitar to act as a guide for when I record the real thing, but the full song structure was worked out. It exists even if it doesn’t really sound like what I was shooting for. That’s fine.
That’s it for day number 53. I filed the song idea as number 48… and there are still 37 days to go. I can’t believe how far along I am at this point. I won’t say I’m almost done (I have finished 37 songs and there is still a long way to go before I finish 50) but I’ve done a ton more than I usually do by day 53. I’m feeling pretty good about the state of things.
Betcha a dollar I just jinxed the whole project.
Yesterday was a light day progress wise. I put rhythm guitars onto two songs. Songs number 46 and 47 to be exact. They both already had lyrics so they are now in the ready for vocals bucket.
37 songs complete, one ready to mix, six ready for vocals, and three ready for lyrics and melodies. That’s 47 songs in total… and still over a month to go. It is lucky that I am so far ahead of things right now because I am probably going to get shut out today (day 53). Its looking likely at least.
I was hoping to have a lot of time to work on music, specifically vocals, on day 51 but I was also pretty sure I would not have time for anything. Turns out I didn’t have time for much. No vocalizing for me yesterday.
I did add two new songs to the list. No real instruments yet, but all of the music has been worked out including the melodies and lyrics. They are songs 46 and 47. I also managed to mix one song. Yet another song with really crappy vocals. Hooray.
I’m not sure how the time is going to work out this week. I have three days in the office coming up and there will be one late night when I will check seeing a band off of my I-have-to-see-them-before-I-(or-they-or-we)-die bucket list. I’ll try to get short bursts of musical work in whenever I can.
Oh yeah, and spoiler alert for tomorrow…
Day 50 has come and gone. You know, as I typed that I had a thought… I sure hope I didn’t forget to update the title of the posts one time, thus throwing off the count of the days. I think yesterday was day 50 but I could be wrong via typo or something.
Yesterday was pretty good. I put rhythm guitars on three songs. They were the only guitar parts I had ready to go. After that it was all about lyrics and melodies. I banged out four songs worth. I tried starting a fifth but my brain sort of shut off at that point and I couldn’t come up with any more.
I’m hoping day 51 (today) will have some vocal tracking and maybe some lead guitars as well. We’ll see. There’s a lot going on today.
Last week we took Robin Sparkles the cat to the vet. We put her in the cat carrier and felt just awful about it. It is the closest I will ever come to feeling like a nazi.
Today we did the same thing with Lily. Like… if I feel this awful doing this to a cat, how could I ever even imagine doing it to a human?
Lily spent the whole day at the vet. I tried to cheer myself up with other things.
Yesterday my step daughter spent most of the day packing. Tomorrow we’re going to help her load up the u-haul pod thingie that is in our driveway right now. That’s the plan for Sunday. Fortunately there won’t be any cats in cages to worry about.
What did I do on day 49? It was just yesterday but I totally forget. I think I added a new song idea. Just a couple of bass riffs in 3/4 time with a super fast tempo. That is idea/song number 45. Oh yeah, I mixed a song. This one. It might have been a decent song if not for the atrocious singing. Oh well.
I think that’s all for day 49. Here’s hoping for something more substantial on day 50… but don’t hold your breath.
Day 47 had no progress. Day 48 was better. Not a lot better, but better.
Before work, while sitting in the parking lot outside of the office, I noodled out a few bass riffs and filed it as idea number 44. After work I put together the song structure for ideas 43 and 44 and then added a bass track to song 42 (which had guitars and drums but no bass).
That’s all. Nothing Earth shattering but a whole bunch better than nothing. The current state is 35 songs done, three ready to mix, four have a full rhythm section including guitars and are ready for lyrics and a melody, and two are just MIDI bass and MIDI drums and are ready for rhythm guitars.
Inside the Red Head's Head 