Tag: Quarantine tunes

New Music Playlist

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.

Game Two: The Bruins Lose

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.

Rebel Moon Part II Recap

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.

Two-Two-Two Songs in One!

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!

Two Songs

To make up for not having a band practice today, I mixed the two songs that I had that were ready to mix. Both are for volume seven of The Great 2015 Re-Recording Project, aka Quarantine Tunes.

I pretty happy with this one:

I’m not very happy with this one:

I think I have two more songs to work on for volume seven, then it’s on to volume eight. I’ve actually already started one song for volume eight… so are volume seven and eight really just one big double sized volume? I don’t know, I am making up the rules for this stupid thing as I go.

How About a New Mix

Hey, I mixed one of the songs that I put the vocals onto yesterday and the lead guitars onto today. It’s a song from the RPM Challenge a few years ago that is now part of The Great 2015 Re-Recording Project, aka Quarantine Tunes Volume Seven.

I’m not sold on the mix, but when am I ever sold on something I’ve mixed?

More Recording

I finished recording all of the guitar tracks I wanted to do yesterday but didn’t end up having time for. Hooray!

I played through a speaker again, but unlike yesterday I had to lower the volume to a tolerable level. I had the house to myself yesterday so I could approach ear-bleeding volume. Today my wife, the love of my life Jen, is home so I had to tone it down a lot. That’s okay. It’s still more fun playing through a speaker than playing direct into the computer.

I put rhythm guitars onto one song for the Record Every Month Challenge, and lead guitars onto three songs for my re-recording old songs project, aka The Great 2015 Re-Recording Project, or also aka Quarantine Tunes.

My leads weren’t good, but they were better than most of the stuff I’ve recorded of late.

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Dig the blurry light on the amplifier!
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Music Day Recap

Okay, so how much music did I work on today? I already mentioned in a previous post that I put vocals onto three songs and bass guitar (MIDI) onto one. After posting that update, I added bass and drums (both MIDI) to one song and rhythm guitars to three.

That’s not even close to what I was hoping to get to today, but I’ll take it. The guitar tracks I recorded used my Fender Deluxe Reverb at a slightly, borderline absurd volume. It was louder than my usual gig volume… and it was awesome.

When I pick up where I left off I will have to go back to direct signal out of the amps into the USB interface. It’s still fun and it still sounds good, but it’s not as fun. It’s not as epic. It’s not as awesome.

Maybe more tomorrow? Maybe some car vocals? We’ll see.

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Musical Suffering

I haven’t played guitar yet today but it’s still on the agenda. What I have done is sing… a lot. I have been working on The Great 2015 Re-Recording Project this morning.

Remember all of those posts over the last couple of weeks where I complained about having a really bad cold? I am more or less over it now but I learned that singing seems to amplify the symptoms.

Sing a line, cough like crazy, blow my nose, repeat ad nauseam. It’s crazy. I don’t feel sick at all but I can’t stop coughing and I can’t stop needing to blow my nose. It’s all singing’s fault. I have managed to put vocals on three songs this morning but I have to take a break. My throat is killing me. I put a bass part onto one song too but that didn’t cause me any physical pain. That’s good at least.

I am going to take a break for a bit and then go get my hair cut and get an oil change. Then I will come home, do one more vocal part and a couple more bass parts, then I will play some guitar, then I will do some more vocal tracks.

Crazy day, kids. Crazy, crazy day.

My wife, Jen, is at a conference today. I miss her a lot.

Schedule Shuffle

I woke up this morning with every intention of working in the office. Now it’s 9:07am though and I am sitting at my desk at home.

I woke up a touch later than I wanted to, and that was the first issue. By the time I finished my morning exercise (jogging [pronounced yogging] in place for 45 minutes) I just couldn’t bring myself to drive into the office. Instead of packing up my stuff I just ate breakfast and finished the episode of The X-Files that I was watching (the one where the baseball player in the ’40’s is an alien in disguise… not the best episode).

I am still planning on making tomorrow (Saturday) a major musical day. Jen is going to be at a conference all day so I am on my own. The to-do list includes getting a haircut (which I desperately need) and an oil change for one of the cars. Other than that, it’s music. The Record Every Month Challenge and Quarantine Tunes Volume Seven… and maybe a start on Volume Eight too.

I promise you, owe internets, that there will be guitar playing, song writing, and recording done on Saturday. Unless I change my mind and just sleep and watch TV all day, of course.

Anyway, here’s today’s photo a day challenge masterpiece.

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