I got up super early this morning. I wasn’t planning on it, but I was up and at ’em a little before 5:00am. Yikes!
That let me get all of my exercise in, eat breakfast, water all of the plants, do a couple of little things to help Jen get ready for her in-the-office day, finish my normal morning routine, go to the grocery store and get dinner for tonight, and put vocals on two songs… all before punching into work at 8:45.
Wow… it’s been a long day. I need a nap. Doubly so, thanks to the crummy night’s sleep last night. Damn.
The current music recording project is Quarantine Tunes Volume 8. Four songs underway. One ready to mix, two ready for lead guitars, and one ready for rhythm guitars. How do you like that?
I like to borrow my quote-to-live-by from the keyboard player for Spinal Tap. He said, “have a good time, all the time.”
No… sorry, I can’t back that up. I’m full of it. I don’t live my life that way. I more live my life by a quote from the drummer from Spinal Tap. He said, “the law of averages says you will survive.” Actually, Marty DiBergi said that, not the drummer. He said it to the drummer and the drummer agreed… and then shortly after the drummer exploded on stage.
So that might not be a good quote to live by either.
Google used to have a good quote and I would like to say I try to live my life by it, even if Google does not. Google said, “don’t be evil.” I would expect most of us could live by that pretty successfully without much effort, but if that is the case how does one explain the maga cult and the rise of fascism worldwide? That’s the exact opposite of don’t be evil. That’s a bunch of psychotics embracing evil and being as evil as humanly possible all day long.
Crap.
I guess I don’t really have a quote to live my life by. I love my wife and I love my kids and I love my family and I love my friends and I try to be a good employee and a good supervisor and I try to play the guitar as much as possible and I try to embrace the chaos that is the occasional run-on sentence.
Other than that… I guess… have a good time all the time.
What do I think? The Purple song is pretty good. It’s the first release with their new guitar player, Simon McBride. I had only ever heard him on an episode of That Pedal Show, but he’s good. Really good. He’s not Ritchie Blackmore. I should not judge him based on the fact that he’s not Ritchie Blackmore. I am a Tommy Bolin fan and when Bolin replaced Blackmore in 1975 most of the Purple fandom shat on him because he isn’t Ritchie Blackmore. I would like to think I would have given him a chance were I paying attention and not four years old so in that spirit I want to give Simon McBride a chance. I gave Steve Morse a chance too, but he’s Steve Freakin’ Morse and he was already an absolute legend when he joined the band back in the 90’s. I saw the Steve Morse Purple live a few times. The guy was shockingly good. This song is okay.
Ian Gillan sounds particularly good here. I’ll wait for the full album release before I decide what I think for reals. I am not sure when it comes out, but it will be called =1, which is a name I probably would have tried to talk them out of if I were their A&R guy, or their producer, or their friend, or their neighbor who they occasionally talk to when we both happen to be outside doing yard work or something.
As for the David Gilmour song… woah. My one fear with his new record is that it sounds like it’s sort of a family band kind of thing. His wife has been his lyricist since the 90’s, but this time around his kids are playing all over the record as well. That sort of thing usually rubs me the wrong way. Other than that one irrational hang up, this song makes me really want this new album. The song is a killer. If it’s any indication of what we’re going to get with the full album then… yeah, bring it on. I want it now. Now!
Rock stars from the 60’s and 70’s who are still getting the job done in the 2020’s. Gilmour is 78 years old. Ian Gillan is 78 years old. Ian Paice is 75. Roger Glover is 78. Don Airey is 75. Simon McBride is 45 so… yeah, he’s younger than me so he doesn’t count for this discussion. Old people rocking. Who would have thought? Keep up the good work, old people. You too, young mister McBride.
Two days in a row. It is silly how sneaking in 20-30 minutes of guitar playing before work in the morning can just brighten up the whole day. Silly and a little weird, maybe.
I mentioned last night that I started working on a new song for the re-recording project thing. I put rhythm guitars on it this morning after I did my daily exercise and had a quick breakfast. Done and done. I used direct outs from two of my amps again. That’s the norm now. Oh well. It sounded pretty good today. It sounded pretty good yesterday too, I think.
Here’s the obligatory guitar pic. Let’s use it for today’s photo a day project as well. Day 243 of 365. Actually… 366, but we won’t worry about that until the end of the line.
While sitting in the living room tonight being totally annoyed that there was neither a Bruins game nor a Red Sox game (WTF?) I took my frustrations out on another song for the re-recording project. Now I have a song that is ready to get some rhythm guitar tracks tomorrow… assuming I get up early enough and have time to play some guitar before work. We’ll see.
Stupid NHL and MLB both scheduling a night off for their Boston teams on the same night. Jerks. Also, for the record, I don’t care about the Celtics so if they are playing tonight don’t bother trying to cheer me up by mentioning them. If they are playing tonight it will probably annoy me even more.
I mentioned last night that I was hoping to get some guitar playing in before work.
This morning? I got some guitar playing in before work.
I put rhythm guitars on the song I worked on last night, and lead guitars on the only other song I had in progress. I think I might have a little time to add vocals on Thursday morning, so I’m hoping to start another song tonight and put rhythm guitars onto it before work tomorrow. Wednesday is an in the office day so there’s no time for anything there. If I apply myself (HA! Fat chance of that!) I might be able to get to three songs ready to mix by early next week. That would be cool.
The current project is updating, editing, rewriting, and rerecording songs that were originally written for the 2021 Fifty Songs in Ninety Days challenge. I picked 10 songs to focus on. I might decide along the way that some of them are unworthy, but as of now we’re going with 10. Two songs in progress. Many more to mess around with.
I wanted to go to sleep around 10:00pm tonight. Instead at just about exactly that time I started working on MIDI tracks for a song that I want to re-record for Quarantine Tunes Volume Eight. The Great 2015 Re-Recording Project continues (at this rate it might continue for eternity, world without end and all that stuff).
Let’s see if I can sneak some guitar tracking in before work tomorrow. Volume eight now has two songs in progress. One is ready for lead guitars and the other is ready for rhythm guitars. Let’s do this!
There. Finally. I added a new music playlist to the My Music page. Quarantine Tunes Volume Seven is done and done.
This is a bandcamp.com playlist but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not buy it. I only use bandcamp for these things because the playlists look all nice on wordpress.com pages and they seem to work okay too. At least they did the last time I messed around with one. These recordings are absolutely not worth paying for. Believe me. Listen to your hearts content (which, obviously includes not listening at all. That’s 100% fine with me. I kinda suck at this stuff), but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not buy the album. Thanks.
Translating today’s prompt from Jetpack to Robert-speak it is asking me to write about what I like to write about in my personal blog/journal/brain dropping target. I thought I had an About Me page around here somewhere that served that purpose for me. Whatever, I feel a bullet list coming on…
What topics do I like to discuss?
My wife, Jen
My step kids, Bellana and Harry
All things family
Music
Playing music
Writing music
All things related to playing in a band
Listening to music
Arguing about music (I am a grade A music snob and I am always right)
Recording music
All things related to musical instruments and gear
Leaving the house to go and listen to live music (which doesn’t happen often anymore because I am old and go to bed early)
Sports
Hockey, both NHL and minor leagues and sometimes even NCAA
Baseball, both major and minor leagues
Travel
Stressing about money and how we don’t have enough for what we want to do with our lives but still try to find a way if we can
Weight loss surgery recovery and all the gross stomach issues that go along with it that are 100% worth the struggle
Working as a programmer for a software company that develops systems for hospitals
Photography
Digital photography
Film photography
Cell phone photography
Bad haiku that are likely viscously insulting to the actual artists who write real haiku
Technology
Being a total Apple fanboy
Social media and how it is both an obsession and infuriatingly awful
Politics
How the maga cult is the new nazi party and how that fascist pile of orange goo is literally evil
Cats
Yeah, that seems like a good, short list of topics I like to talk about on this cute little bloggie page. Hopefully you, dear readers, are into reading weird, middle aged people from New England who like to write insipid crap about some of these topics, and hopefully I don’t make you wait too long before hitting something you are particularly interested in.
Inside the Red Head's Head 