When I say that the sixth and final round of The Great 2015 Re-recording project is scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as available songs is concerned, this is what I am talking about.
Not bad. Not good. Just, meh. I probably should have left this one off.
Spotify had the choice between music legend Neil Young and Covid misinformation spewing bullshit podcaster joe rogan.
They made their choice and it was wrong. They removed Neil Young’s music and backed the podcaster who vomits lies about Covid that literally put his listeners lives in jeopardy. At least rogan probably doesn’t have any horse worms though, you know?
The only thing I use Spotify for is the little playlist that was on the sidebar of this page. I say was on the sidebar because I think I just removed it. I don’t pay for Spotify and I know that I’m less than insignificant to them, but I’ve decided I won’t be using any of their services anymore.
This is meaningless in the grand scheme, but I feel like it’s the right thing to do.
The only song from last year’s RPM Challenge to be added to The Great 2015 Re-recording project is this little sucker. I think this version is better than last year’s, which is nice. Mission accomplished. I also think this needs to be played loud. It doesn’t seem to land as well at a lower volume. That’s probably a sign that the mix is shitty, but I don’t care. It’s done. Again.
Ouch.
I did the last vocal parts for The Great 2015 Re-recording Project this morning. I had two songs remaining, an easy one and a hard one. I started with the easy one and quickly learned that it wasn’t very easy. It may have been easy back in 2014 but it sure ain’t easy now. Maybe I’ll get lucky, thought I, and the hard one will turn out to be not so hard. Nope. The hard one turned out to be really hard.
My throat hurts.
It’s done though, so that’s really good. Happy Happy.
Pics:
Here’s the view from my mobile recording studio window…
And here’s a pointless clock picture, again.
I’m off work tomorrow. I don’t have anything planned, I just needed to take a day off to get my accrued PTO below a certain number to stop the accrual from maxing out. It’s a long story.
I booked it a few weeks ago without knowing that it would end up being a bad day to be out. I might stealthily pop in and make sure everything is okay. Maybe.
What else should I do? Car music in the morning is a given. Mixing a tune or two is also pretty much guaranteed. What else? There aren’t any tv shows that I’m not caught up on. At least I don’t think there are… are there?
I might play some hockey on the PS4. Maybe find a first person shooter with lots of cheat codes? Something like that?
Who knows. Maybe I’ll just rewatch Loki or season two of The Mandalorian.
The nerdy possibilities are endless.
I’ve always liked Neil Young, but I never really dove into his music the way some people do. I know people whose obsession with Neil Young rivals my obsession with Rush*. I never dug that deep. Everybody Knows This is Nowhere and After the Gold Rush and Harvest and Deja Vu are friggin masterpieces. I can’t really tell you what they are musically because Neil Young is such his own thing that it defies categorization, but I can tell you that they are pretty much perfect. After that my knowledge of his career is kind of spotty.
Yesterday though, Neil proved that he is indisputably The Man. He sent a letter to his management and his label telling them to remove his music from Spotify in protest of Spotify hosting Joe Rogan’s podcast. Rogan spews Covid disinformation and puts Spotify customers at risk. Neil Young’s letter says that Spotify can have him or they can have Rogan but they can’t have both.
Kick ass. Neil Young: The Man. If I were wearing a cap right now I would 100% be tipping it to him.
In a world of schmucks like Eric Clapton, be Neil Young.
*Rush did a Neil Young song on their covers EP. Buffalo Springfield’s Mr Soul. That really doesn’t mean anything at all, I just feel happy that it happened. They actually did two Buffalo Springfield songs on that EP but the other was a Stephen Stills song. They covered For What it’s Worth. I don’t know if Neil Young (or Stephen Stills for that matter) ever heard the covers, but I hope he (they) did and I hope he (they) dug them. I guess I just like the idea of knowing that artists I admire also admire each other. I think that’s a happy thought.
Okay, this post is going to be dumb. Just making that claim ahead of time. Transparency, right?
Right.
The Great 2015 Re-recording project was meant to take songs from older music projects and update/upgrade them. Last night I was wondering, which old projects contributed the most songs? In other words, out of all the crap I’ve done, which ones had the best songs?
So I made a spreadsheet because I am a fricken nerd.
There are six Quarantine Tunes projects. Number five is all from this year’s 50/90 so it really doesn’t count. For the other five projects there are a total of 47 songs, which is WAY more than I was originally planning.
Here’s the breakdown of where they all came from:
| Original Project | Number of Songs |
|---|---|
| 2007 RPM Challenge | 2 |
| 2008 Song Fight | 1 |
| 2009 RPM Challenge | 2 |
| 2010 RPM Challenge | 3 |
| 2011 Test Drive GarageBand for Mac | 2 |
| 2011 RPM Challenge | 2 |
| 2013 NaSoAlMo | 1 |
| 2013 RPM Challenge | 2 |
| 2014 50/90 | 5 |
| 2014 April Music | 2 |
| 2014 June Music | 3 |
| 2014 RPM Challenge | 3 |
| 2015 RPM Challenge | 2 |
| 2016 50/90 | 1 |
| 2016 RPM Challenge | 6 |
| 2017 RPM Challenge | 1 |
| 2018 RPM Challenge | 1 |
| 2019 Album in a Day | 1 |
| 2019 RPM Challenge | 1 |
| 2020 50/90 | 1 |
| 2020 June Music | 1 |
| 2020 RPM Challenge | 2 |
| 2021 RPM Challenge | 1 |
| 2012 RPM Challenge* | 1 |
There you have it. The 2016 RPM Challenge has contributed six songs for the win. The 2014 50/90 is a close second with five. Good work, folks! Now I have all the facts. Now I know, and knowing is half the battle**.
*Yes… when I was typing all of that garbage out I missed an entry. Sadly, the wordpress.com editor’s table function doesn’t let me insert a row, so I stuck it on the end. Yeah… I suck.
**Go Joe!
I don’t like Discord. I know that makes me sound old, but it’s just an AOL chat room so it’s not that I am old, it’s that I’ve been there and done that and don’t want to do it again.
The RPM Challenge forums no longer exist as they have been replaced by a Discord server. Okay. I’ll play along.
There I was, typing in a post to the random chat board, and either the app on my machine crashed or the server went down. Like… right in the middle of typing!
Okay, we have established that I don’t like Discord. Now it seems that Discord doesn’t like me either. Well screw you, Chuck!
On an unrelated note, Bellana and her roommate posted another video. They went to Belgium. Just a spur of the moment trip to Brussels. How cool is that? How cool is the EU?
Maybe I’ll share the video one of these days.
On another unrelated note, why is the last post I made last night displaying in a box? Is this post going to display in a box? Did I accidentally click a put-your-post-in-a-box button? I don’t know. Let’s publish this puppy and see what happens!
ADDENDUM: I didn’t click a put-your-post-in-a-box button, but I did post the previous update while I was about 95% asleep and I did accidentally click a stick-this-to-the-top-of-your-page checkbox. It should be fixed now.
The Bruins lost tonight. I didn’t get any music done. I’m not planning on car music tomorrow. I got a chunk of my work project done but not enough to feel comfortable.
I’m going to bed. I can’t keep my eyes open.
Good night, universe. Talk to you tomorrow.
I pretty much always use the same time effects on all of my tracks when I mix a song. I like a super short slap back echo on vocal tracks, a dotted eighth note delay on lead guitars, and a short room style reverb on everything. I don’t want my mixes to sound dry, but I do like them to sound almost dry. I want the mixes to sound like they could be a band playing in a small club or a rehearsal room. For as long as I’ve been doing this stuff, that’s been my go-to goal.
I was listening to some Rush the other day. Moving Pictures. I was kinda taken by the reverb. There is a lot of reverb on those tracks. It’s never overpowering or in your face, but it’s there. Maybe this years RPM will include a little experimenting with different reverb types and lengths.
Maybe.
Inside the Red Head's Head 