Day two was basically a bust. Home owner plumbing emergencies will do that to a guy. I started one idea, song number three, but it was just a couple of short bass riffs on my iPhone. That’s all.
Spoiler alert, day three will be a little bit better. Not much, but a little bit.
You know it is summer when that red haired doofus in Massachusetts starts talking about writing 50 songs in 90 days. Day one was yesterday, July 4th. How did I do?
I started work on two songs. The first one started ridiculously early in the morning and it started with guitar, while most songs (including song number two) start with MIDI bass and drums. So two songs with the complete song form and bass and drums and one of the two has the rhythm guitars. That’s it.
I finished two songs by creating half assed mixes. The RPM Challenge’s Record Every Month challenge thing will have an entry this month. I just don’t know which of the two songs to submit. I think the second one might be a smidge better but I put some wobble on the rhythm guitars and I am starting to think I shouldn’t have. Also, the first song is in 7/8 time so… yeah.
Now I can go to sleep. Insert the sigh of relief here.
I am probably going to get my two songs finished for the month of June. File it under the RPM Challenge’s Record Every Month challenge. Yesterday I wasn’t sure if I would be able to finish a song or two, but I had a decent day music wise and now I am in good shape.
Last night before bed I wrote lyrics and melodies for the two songs that got guitar tracks earlier in the day (see the previous post). This morning I cut my exercise short and used the time to record vocals. Both songs were cranked out quickly and poorly. Tonight after dinner I was able to sneak back into the cellar and record lead guitars for both songs. I did so on a guitar with old and dead strings and with a left hand that is 100% free from calluses because I don’t play enough these days.
Oh my goodness, do my finger tips hurt right now. Oh the pain. Oh the horrible icky pain. Ouch-town, population: Me, bro.
I’ll mix the two songs tomorrow night after work. Probably while sitting up in bed wishing I was asleep. You know how it is.
Enjoy tonight’s crappy photos that are basically the same as the crappy photos on last night’s post except I am wearing a work-appropriate collared shirt today where I was wearing an awesome Rush Snakes and Arrows Live t-shirt yesterday.
I told myself I was going to write and record an album’s worth of music this month. 10 songs or 35 minutes. That was the plan.
I have failed, epically.
I started working on seven songs. As of this morning they were only midi bass and drums tracks with a midi guitar track acting as a guide for when I record the actual guitars.
It has been two weeks since I did anything musical at all. Yeah, the 10 song plan isn’t happening and the seven songs are going to mostly fail as well. Last month I wrote and recorded two songs. That’s my new goal. Call it a single. One song for the A-side and another for the B-side.
I put rhythm guitars onto two of the songs today. That’s good. I’m still probably going to fail though because now I have to write lyrics and a melody for both songs, then I have to record the vocals, then I have to record the lead guitars, then I have to mix the two songs and I only have two days left in the month. Most of my recording time takes place in the morning before work, and one of the two remaining days is not only a work in the office day, but its a work in the Foxborough office day and Foxborough is super far away from home so I won’t have any before work time.
So before I sleep tonight I have to write the lyrics and the melodies, and then tomorrow before work I have to record the vocals. Then probably after work I will have to record the leads. Then I can mix after work tomorrow.
Before any of that happens though, I have to have a watch-a-movie-on-the-living-room-couch with my beautiful wife. We’re watching Project Hail Mary again. Know that it is a great movie that is made better by a series of t-shirts with science jokes on them. If you haven’t seen the movie, you should. Then once you’ve seen it you should write a song or two.
I mentioned yesterday that I went to a wake for the parent of an old friend. The old friend is also a former band mate. Back in the 90’s I was the guitar player and sometimes the lead singer (yikes!) and she was the drummer.
That’s right. Our band had a woman playing drums more than 25 years before Rush had a woman playing drums. How cool were we?
Speaking of Rush (again), that’s what this post is going to be about. Rush. Again. The 50 Something Tour. The grand come back. The historically nerdiest band in the world assuming their rightful place as the coolest band to ever come back from retirement and the death of 33% of the lineup. The feel good story of 2026.
Back in the 90’s, the band we were in was made up of all Rush fans. There were three of us and we were all fanatics. We used to try to play The Spirit of Radio and I could almost sort of get there. Not really, but kind of. There was one, maybe two (memory fails me) occasions where the three of us went to see Rush together. Pretty sure we saw them together on the Test for Echo tour in… 1996? 1997? Probably ’97. I can’t recall. Was there another time too? 2002, maybe? I can’t recall.
Our Rush loving drummer had a sister who was a guitar player who was studying at Berkeley College of Music and was approximately 1369742987149176284691327469 times better than I was. I was always sort of expecting that I would get the axe and she would replace me. It’s kind of insane that they never did that. It would have made the band infinitely better.
The guitar playing sister moved to California at some point. She was at the wake last night. I hadn’t seen her since… I don’t even know when. At least 1999, probably earlier than that. The first thing she said to me last night was, “are you going to see Rush?” Did I mention she was a Rush fanatic too?
Side note: All of you people making jokes about how Rush is a boys only club can just fuck right the fuck off. I know more die hard Rush fans who are women than who are men. I married one. So there.
Back to the story, she asked me if I was going to see Rush and I said we got tickets to see them in New York. At this point I had completely forgotten that she lived in Southern California. If I hadn’t forgotten that I would have known what was coming. She said she saw them in Los Angeles. They played four shows… she saw two.
They have only played four shows on this tour so far and she saw two of them. I think I turned green with envy. I mean it. Literally. Green.
The tour reaches its second location tonight. They are playing the first of two shows in Mexico City. I have a valid passport. There’s no legal reason why I could not be there. I should be there. We all should be there.
I can’t wait.
After taking half a billion photos yesterday I quietly turn my creative thoughts to musical stuff.
I say quietly because I didn’t make any noise today even though I wanted to. I guess we’re starting with a failure but whatever.
The first musical thought… I am hoping to write and record demos for 10 songs this month. As of half an hour ago I am up to seven songs in progress. They are all just MIDI tracks right now. No lyrics or melodies or guitars or anything. I’m working on it though. A little progress on most days after failing to do anything for about the first week of June.
The other musical thought tonight is a little more abstract. Generally speaking, the world is kinda shit right now. We have pro-nazi assholes and pedophile protecting pieces of shit everywhere we look. We as a society have just devolved into this awful clusterfuck of awful. Through it all there is one thing…
We have this one beacon of positivity. This single shining example of goodness and rightness standing up in the middle of the ocean of bullshit. Rush. They have only played four shows in one city and it has been absolutely magical and magnificent and perfect and wonderful and I never ever want it to end.
Our tickets are for a night that is just over a month away and it feels like we’re going to be waiting for an eternity to be able to join in the magic, but the day is coming and there will be other shows in the meantime in whose social media posted glory we may bask.
Rush. We don’t deserve them but we need them. We need them to help us claw our way out of the cesspool. I can’t freaking wait for Madison Square Garden in late July.
The pricks did it to us again. Yesterday one of the contractors that was supposed to work on our house blew us off. After their arrival window closed they called and said they had to reschedule. My wife booked 7:30–10:00am today and got them to guarantee they’d show up.
They didn’t show up.
My wife called them at around 11:00am to tell them to go take a long walk off a short pier and they put her on hold for 40 minutes then sent her to voicemail. Boy did she let them have it. Both barrels.
In preparation for this work I had to tear one of the kids bedrooms apart and then totally destroy our entire basement. Since we’ve told them to screw, I started putting things right again. The bedroom is back to normal, an one area of the cellar is done. There is still a couple of hours worth of work to undo. I’ll take care of that tomorrow.
Speaking of tomorrow, I was sort of planning on taking a bag full of cameras to the ocean for sunrise this morning, but the rescheduling screwed all of that up. Instead, I am going to try to do it tomorrow. The forecast at the coast looks pretty good. The only downside is that sunrise is at 5:04am, which means I have to be out of bed at 4:00am. It should be worth it. I’m thinking of hitting a couple of spots near Hampton Beach, NH and then maybe a riverwalk somewhere. Maybe in Lowell? Not sure yet.
I got ready for this by putting film in all of the film cameras, and like a schmuck I burned one shot on the medium format camera. Dumb ass. I also put one of the manual focus lenses that came with my last eBay purchase onto my digital camera to give it a test drive. It worked great.
The lens is smart enough that the camera can control the aperture but not smart enough to auto focus. I have focus peeking turned on though and that is a HUGE help for an old fart with weak vision like me. I’m not sure if I will use it tomorrow, but I might. We’ll have to wait and see.
Other than that the only news right now is that my step daughter is coming home today. She’ll only be here a couple of days before she’s off again, but that’s fine with me. Any time with either of the kids in the house is time well spent.
Also, as a bit of forewarning to regular readers, once I get the cellar put back together you can expect a barage of music posts. I have five songs in progress right now and I hope to start putting guitars onto the demos soon. Duck and cover, everyone.
Until then, never forget that donald trump is a fascist and a rapist and a pedophile. Release the complete, unredacted epstein files. I don’t care if it brings down the entire US government. If it is bad enough to do that then the US government deserves to be brought down.
Finally, on the Rush 50 Something Tour, is Anika Nilles doing a drum solo?
Rush played the Kia Forum in Los Angeles last night (or whatever the place is called these days).
I am so happy. I am so happy. I am so happy.
I said I wasn’t going to watch any clips but I am suspending that rule for this one thing. It’s the first thing that my social media algorithm madness sent my way. Pretty sure it’s the first song in the set. I haven’t watched it yet. I’ll post it here and then watch it.
I am so happy and I can’t wait for July 28th at Madison Square Garden. I cannot wait.
Tonight is the night. Rush returns to the stage in glorious fashion. Weirdly, they are starting this new tour at the same venue in Los Angeles as their final show back in 2015. Back then, Neil Peart wanted to retire. The other guys did not, but they went along and that was that. Then Neil passed away and time went on and eventually Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson started playing together for fun and eventually they brought in Anika Nilles to play drums and Loren Gold to play keyboards and now the tour is kicking off tonight.
So now, turning the attention back where it belongs… to me, we’ll be seeing the tour when it hits New York in late July. Boston wasn’t included in the initial tour announcement so we went with the closest city that was, and that was New York. I’ve seen Rush in New York a few times. If it weren’t for the fucking Yankees and the fucking Rangers and the fucking Mets and the fucking Islanders New York might be my favorite non-Boston city.
So the tour starts tonight but I still have nearly two months to wait before I can join in the fun. So what do I do? They have already stated that there will be multiple set lists so there’s a chance that even if I do get spoiled on that front there might still be surprises. I think I will try to avoid any foreknowledge though. Should I also avoid video clips online? I’ve only heard one song performed by this new lineup. They played Finding My Way at the Juno awards and it was freakin’ bliss. I don’t think I will be able to avoid all videos online, but I’ll probably try to avoid most… if I can… I don’t know.
Basically my point of view on this new Rush tour boils down to jealousy. I really wish we were in L.A. tonight. I’ve seen Rush 25 times. It would be pretty cool if 26 were tonight. I’ll happily wait my turn, but wouldn’t it be cool if around 7pm Pacific time or so… you know how it is.
Break a leg, Rush, both new members and old members.
Inside the Red Head's Head 