Tag: Music

RPM Starts Tomorrow

Tomorrow is February 1st. That means my 15th RPM Challenge will be underway and you, my poor unfortunate reader, will be blitzed with endless posts about a bad musician making bad music. I mean, you get that crap on a regular basis from me, but in February it’s out of control.

I don’t have any plans. I was thinking of using two different guitars, but I am not sure I want to bother with that. We’ll see. The Les Paul needs new strings before I record anything, and if I use the SG as well then that desperately needs new strings. I was thinking of going for a wetter sound over all. Maybe just longer reverbs and some more delays, maybe? My latest gimmicky idea is to use more tempo changes. I used a slight tempo change in one of the last batch of re-recordings and I kinda like how it came out. Maybe more of that.

Beyond those gimmicks, I don’t have any plans. Just 10 songs. 10 faux bluesy, faux proggy rock and roll songs. Dad rock. Stuff like that.

The RPM Challenge started in 2006 but it was just a local thing in Portsmouth, NH. In 2007 they went international, meaning they just put it on the web. I first heard of it late in the month so I missed out. I did one on my own using old songs the following month, then the month after that I tried doing it again with new songs and failed miserably. 2008 was the first time I did it for real and I failed miserably. 2009-2011 were also failures. 2012 was my first success and it made me very happy. 2013-2021 have all been successes too. Well… successes in that I met the recording requirements. Some were more successful than others in terms of the quality, but they are all kinda crappy. I don’t care. I just enjoy it, even if it is really dumb.

Tomorrow is the day. One your marks… get set……. wait for it!……

Sunday Morning Stuff

The plow guy did a great job. He only did our driveway, not the section of the yard that doubles as the kids driveway, but that’s okay. Those cars aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. He did a path from the driveway to the stairs on the side of the house which gains him the title of Hero++. That’s one rank higher than hero. He didn’t do the fire hydrant, but we didn’t ask him to. I went out and did it about an hour ago. Done and done.

I have some laundry to do today. I checked the dryer vent on the back of the house. It’s clear. We are all set to wash the sheets and stuff. Aren’t you happy to hear that little snippet of good news? I’m just a fountain of knowledge today.

The episode of The Mandalorian that introduces Ashoka Tano is so freakin’ good. The episode that reintroduces Boba Fett is almost as good. When he smashes the stormtrooper’s helmet with the gaffey stick? It’s like poetry, man.

Did I mention that the RPM Challenge starts the day after tomorrow? As if I haven’t been boring the crap out of everyone with music posts. Get ready for more, kids!

And that’s where we are at 12:09pm on a random Sunday.

But wait, there’s more! Just before I hit publish Bellana called. We had a FaceTime and it was lovely. Apparently our Dutch friends like to put mayonnaise on French Fries. I don’t know… I don’t know if I can get behind that trend. We’ll see.

The Nerdiest Music Nerd Thing I’ve Ever Done

I’ve done a lot of musically nerdy things in my life. I’m a Rush fanatic so I sort of goes without saying.

Years ago I made a playlist on Alonetone that held songs I wanted to re-record. Before I started actually finishing songs I just kept adding songs to the playlist. When I started finishing songs I added those to the playlist and matched them up with the originals. Now that it’s done there are 114 songs on the playlist.

Through all of this time I kept the playlist private. Today I made it public. Good lord what a nerd I am.

The Great 2015 Re-Recording Project Reference Tracks

Done and Done

At last, The Great 2015 Re-recording project has come to an end. Volume six has 11 songs. For a while there I thought it was going to have 12 or 13, but enough’s enough, right? Maybe at some point in the future I’ll pull together another batch of slightly better than shitty songs, but for now let’s consider this nearly seven year old exercise complete.

The last two songs include one that’s basically meh:

And one that might be okay in more capable hands:

I still have to get volumes five and six onto bandcamp, but for now I think I am just going to rewatch season two of The Mandalorian because this is the way.

Tracking is Done

The Great 2015 Re-recording project started in, you guessed it, 2015. I failed to finish it in a timely manner and it kept getting extended and each time I revisited it I added more songs to it and by the time 2020 came around and I really got to it for really reals it was gigantic.

I just put the last guitar track onto the last song. Tracking is officially done.

What was supposed to be 8-10 songs has turned into 58, I think, and instead of one little best-of playlist it’s going to end up with six.

What did I learn from today’s monumental (#sarcasm) guitar tracking session?

Stringjoy strings last longer than any other strings I’ve ever played, but they don’t last forever. When they’re dead, they are really dead, and the strings on my Les Paul Standard are dead. I will change them before RPM starts next week, I promise.

Also… calluses are important. Ouch.

I’ve got two songs left to mix and then The Great 2015 Re-recording Project, aka Quarantine Tunes, will be over. I want it done today. Let’s move on to new things, shall we?

The Bruins Win

The Bruins beat the Coyotes 2-1. Hard to believe it was that close against a team that bad. I’ll take it though.

The question now is, why am I still awake? The game is over. Go to bed.

My Apple Watch is charged. I was waiting for that but it’s done so go to bed.

I’m listening to music, but I can do that in the morning. Go to sleep.

I’ve got a little cut on the inside of my upper lip. Now that’s a good reason to still be awake, but it’s not that good a reason. Go to sleep.

Okay already. I’ll go to sleep. Sheesh, lay off, you jerk.

Good night.

Joni Mitchell Joins In

Joni Mitchell’s website posted an update tonight stating that she is joining Neil Young and pulling her catalog off of spotify.

My suggestion is to go someplace that isn’t spotify, preferably a record store but we’ll take what we can get, and play the following albums on an endless loop:

  • Neil Young – Everybody Knows This is Nowhere
  • Joni Mitchell – Blue

As more artists join the crusade we can add more records. Sound good?

Song Time

I said in the last post that I was going to play guitar tonight but I decided to mix a song instead. The Great 2015 Re-recording Project only has two more songs outstanding after this one. They both need lead guitars and a mix, but after that the whole shebang is done.

Which means that after RPM is done I’m going to have to think of something new to do to waste my time.