The Leafs came back to take game two of the best of seven first round series. If Swayman plays goal in game three and wins, will we have a full blown goalie controversy? We’ll see. Game three is Wednesday (I think… isn’t it?)
Anyway, let’s chase those hockey blues away by listening to a newly mixed crappy song. Quarantine Tunes Volume Seven is done save for figuring out the actual running order for the 11 songs. More on that to come in the future though. For now, here’s the last song.
We had some moments tonight that were pretty good. Unfortunately it’s going to be a while before we can rehearse together again.
Also… am I a Vox amp guy now? This rig sounded pretty freakin’ sweet tonight.
Okay, I finished the new Rebel Moon movie. As bad as the first half was (see the post from earlier today), the second half is better. Why? Because with about an hour left in the movie it turns into an unending string of action scenes with almost no dialog. Perfect. It has an obnoxious amount of slow motion, but that’s Zack Snyder for you.
There are a whole bunch of Chekov’s Gun moments. Character A picks up weapon B and dies without using it. 15 minutes later character C is about to die but stumbles on weapon B and uses it to blow shit up. That happens a few times. There is also multiple deus ex machina moments. One of the funniest moments in the movie is where the source of a deus ex machina stands regally and watches a different deus ex machina play out. It’s freakin’ absurd.
Is the movie good? Oh, hells no. Is it as bad as the reviews? Yes. The first half is worse, the second half is just one long, unending battle scene and therefore avoids all of the things that are awful about the first half. It’s still not great, but it’s better. Not enough to save the film from this review though: Terrible.
Will there be another one of these movies? From the story point of view, yes… of course there will. From the standpoint of Netflix and money? Who knows. If people are watching it then probably. If that is the case then you can blame me. Sorry about that.
Unrelated musical note. I finally got around to putting volumes five and six of Quarantine Tunes onto my bandcamp account. Not because I expect anyone to buy it… please don’t buy it… please, it is not worth any money… but so I could add them to my music page here on the ol’ bloggie. I am one mix away from finishing volume seven. I’ll probably post that to bandcamp and the music page as soon as it’s finished.
A couple of years ago I was working on the Record Every Month Challenge and I had a couple of song ideas going at once. I didn’t realize until well into the recording process that the two songs had almost identical chord changes in their respective choruses. Ooops. I could have done the right thing and dropped one of them, but instead I leaned into my lack of creativity and used a line of lyric in both songs and turned them into parts one and two. Doofus, yes, but what do you expect?
Fast forward to the current re-recording project I’ve been torturing the universe with and I thought it would be further fun to sort of duct tape the two songs into one and record the whole shebang as if it were one longer song.
Done and done. I just finished mixing it. Here you go, universe. Enjoy my shitty song!
I played some guitar this morning before work. I have a nice, positive feeling of accomplishment. Granted what I needed to do was practice for this weekend’s band rehearsal but instead I recorded lead guitar parts for two songs. Quarantine Tunes Volume Seven is done with tracking. I have to mix the two songs I worked on today and then it is on to Volume Eight… which I already have one song that is a guitar solo away from being ready to mix.
I played through the direct output of two amps today. No noise. Headphones only. It is most definitely not as much fun as cranking out some actual sound and moving some air around, but it’s still always great to play. I used my ES-335, as you can see in the obligatory photo…
I was never an Allman Brothers fan. I went through an At Fillmore East phase the way most guitar players do. I was a huge fan of Duane Allman’s playing on Derek and the Dominoes Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs album and at some point I needed more and that brought me to At Fillmore East. Duane Allman’s playing is other worldly on that record. In between the stratospheric heroics there were the moments featuring the other guy. That other guy is Dickey Betts. When you step back and look at it closely, his playing is just as good as Allman’s. Maybe not equal (because that’s asking too much from a normal human), but close enough.
On top of being a fantastic lead player, he wrote some incredible songs. “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” is pretty much perfect. I spent a lot of time in my youth sitting in front of my cassette player trying to figure out how to play that song. Just picking up what I could. It’s a twin lead guitar instrumental that to my ear is closer to Fusion than Southern Rock. I’d play along for a while, then stare at the speakers, slack jawed, when Duane’s solos came up, then I’d play along with Dickey’s solos.
Outside of that record though, I never really had much use for The Allman Brothers. Southern Rock as a genre has its moments but generally speaking it wasn’t for me. Respect where respect is due though. Dickey Betts as a song writer, guitarist, and singer is deserving of all of the respect.
He passed away this morning at age 80. Rest in Peace, Dickey Betts. Everyone go give At Fillmore East a spin in his memory.
Not much going on this afternoon. Jen and I had lunch together. Then she went to her computer to do some work and I did some chores around the house. I watched some TV… I finished season seven of the X-Files which means I have reached the (mostly) Mulder-free seasons eight and nine. The next 40 or so episodes are going to be tough.
I didn’t do any additional practicing, but I am packed up and ready to go to Lizardfish Mark II practice later tonight.
Everything I need is already at Mike the Bass Player’s house (except for a guitar), but the back pack has some emergency, just-in-case gear… just in case, you know? Some cables, some strings, some batteries, a couple of nasty overdrive pedals. Just in case. There’s a mic and some XLR cables too, but I don’t think we’ll be singing much today. Who knows.
It’s time to go help Jen cook dinner. The Red Sox have a 5-2 lead over the Angels in the top of the eighth. The Angels just had a lead off triple though. Is the collapse starting? We’ll see.
It has been a pretty quiet day at work today (JINX!) apart from my brief stomach rebellion. I have 32 minutes to go until I can punch out for the day. I am starting to day dream about the weekend a little.
Music. I recorded a vocal track for one song on Thursday. I have a couple more songs that could do with some car music vocals. I have to practice for Sunday’s band rehearsal as well. I have nine songs to brush up on. I don’t know if we have a working PA system or not, but I did pick up a replacement for my dead Shure SM58 microphone. If our old, dinky little PA still works I’ll take it for a test drive. My Vox AC15 amp is in the rehearsal room along with my great big use-with-the-band pedal board. It’ll be nice to visit with my sweet RYRA The Klone overdrive pedal again.
I suddenly find myself in the middle of a whole bunch of TV shows. The X-Files epic rewatch continues, and we’re in season seven which means the quality is taking a steady nose dive. Uh oh. Only a few episodes to go until we reach the two season mostly-Mulder-free stretch. Yikes. I have a new episode of Star Trek Discovery (Disco) to watch. I have a new episode of Manhunt to watch. I have 6-7 episodes of Fallout left. I’ve watched the first two. I didn’t expect it to be so… goofy. I never played the video game so I really didn’t know what to expect. Silliness was not on my menu though. I like the show so far even though I don’t really know what’s happening yet. I’m caught up on Star Wars The Bad Batch. There are only a few more episodes left and I am thinking about rewatching the whole final season. I don’t know. There’s so much else to watch. I’m in the middle of Ripley on Netflix too. It’s pretty twisted. I never read the book or saw the movie so this one is all new to me too. I am enjoying it in a sick and twisted kinda way.
What else is going on? I am hoping to spend some quality time hanging out with my wife, of course. That’s the best part of the weekend. She mentioned she’s going to have to work a lot, which is a bummer, but we’ll make time. I hope to cook for her now and then. Lunches and maybe dinners? We use one of those dinner delivery service things. You know, where they send you all of the ingredients and a recipe with (somewhat) detailed instructions and you prepare the meal yourself. We are supposed to get a delivery today. I like it best when we cook those together. I find that both less stressful and generally enjoyable. Mostly. Some of them are still stressful even when we gang up on them. Does everyone think they are stressful or is it just us?
I did not promise myself that I would avoid the sugar free bakery in Salem, NH this week… so when I go out to do errands… yeah, I am probably going to buy some cookies there. I can stop any time, really. I promise I can stop any time. Totally.
Okay. 20 minutes until quitting time. I haven’t had anything to eat in two hours and 56 minutes and my stomach is starting to ask me why it’s empty. Three hours is usually how long it takes for my stomach to wake up after a meal. We’re pretty much right on target. Here’s hoping I don’t mess up with my snack on the drive home. A repeat of The Foamies… in the car… yeah, that would be annoying. I keep a spit up cup in the car, though I have never used it. Here’s hoping we keep the streak alive!
TMI?
Inside the Red Head's Head 