I haven’t had my breakfast yet, but I did play guitar for an hour. I put rhythm parts onto two faux 50/90 songs.
For the first time ever, my new favorite guitar played through my favorite amp and it was glorious.
Well… the second song was glorious. The playing was sloppy as hell but the tone was epic. The first song… I might want to try that one again. It’s sounds good, but I think I can get it to sound better.
Today is July 4th. It’s a national holiday even though there is nothing left to celebrate here.
There is that summer music challenge thing that I’ve done the last couple of years. Write fifty songs in ninety days. That one. I am not signing up for this on their website because last year another user pissed me off. So I am doing the 50/90 thing but not officially. I guess I am doing a Faux 50/90.
I have one song under way. It’s just bass and drums, it’s in 7/8 times and it might possibly be a 2:55 rocker. We’ll see. I have no idea when I am going to get to play the guitar again, and my voice has still not really recovered from whatever happened a few weeks ago. I need to seriously hydrate on car music days. Things are different now and I have to learn how to do everything again.
While I am on the subject of music… I think I am going to ask the guys in Lizardfish if they want to get together. I’ll let you know how that goes.
I am not sure what I did, but my voice is definitely broken. I worked through half of one song this morning but there weren’t any real high notes so I was able to reach everything, it was just a little off key and I felt like I was struggling. I stopped for the day the first time I hit a part that was even a little bit high and I could not physically get to it.
Was I just tired? Was there something wrong? Does it matter? Back at it tomorrow, right?
Then I was driving to my mothers for a visit and I put some U2* up on the ol’ iTunes and as I tried singing along to Sunday Bloody Sunday it became clear that it wasn’t just a bad morning. It’s like the top of my range was reduced by 75%. I was fine if I stayed low, but as soon as something high came on… toast.
So in summation, there will be no car music for a couple of days while my pitch pipes rest up.
*Harry was watching an episode of Friends the other day and a U2 song was playing in the background and it just sent me straight down the rabbit hole. I know Joshua Tree is one of the biggest albums in history but I am still really disappointed by it. I loved the four records they made before it, but I just didn’t like Joshua Tree. War and The Unforgettable Fire might be among the best albums I’ve ever heard, I listened to my cassette copy of Live Under a Blood Red Sky so many times back in the early 80s that it was stretched and mangled, and Actung Baby is a friggin masterwork… but Joshua Tree? Not for me.
Despite that, I almost never find myself listening to U2. I think this might be the first deep dive I’ve taken in the music streaming age. I was happy to see deluxe editions of all of my favorite records, and thrilled to finally hear the original studio version of 11 O’Clock Tick Tock.
I tried to car music today and it was a dismal failure. I was pretty dehydrated last night and I think it carried over to this morning a little. My voice just didn’t work. I couldn’t hit pitches and I was cracking all over the place. I got half a song done. I think I’ll try again tomorrow, or maybe Monday.
I slept a little late this morning but I was still able to get all 30 minutes of my daily exercise goal in, and I finished Breaking Bad. Finally. I know I still have the movie and the whole run of Better Call Saul to go, but the main show is done and all is well.
Last night I got all excited about the third period of game one of the Stanley Cup Final, only to see Tampa lose in overtime. As I wrote last night, I think I am on the Tampa Bay wagon, but if Colorado wins the cup I will be pretty much equally as happy. I have to admit that I sided with Detroit in the Great Avalanche vs Red Wings blood bath back in… whenever that was. Then Ray Bourque was traded to the Avs and I obviously switched sides. I’ve been a casual Avalanche fan ever since.
Still… threepeat. We haven’t had one of those since the Islanders won their fourth in a row in 1983. The Oilers then won four of the next five and five of the next seven, but the last actual threepeat was a fourpeat in 1983. It would be cool to have another one. I guess I am rooting for the streak more than I am rooting for the team. Whatever. It should be a fun series.
Did you see episode four of Obi-Wan Kenobi? Did you have your mind absolutely blown the way we did last night? Holy shit, I could not love this series more. I have been listening to a lot of Star Wars podcasts during this series’ run and a lot of them are down on the show. I think those people need lobotomies because this show is amazing. It’s bordering on perfect. I can’t overstate how much I am loving this show.
I read yesterday (or was it the day before) that they are going to show the entire series in theaters, and Obi-Wan Kenobi will sort of become the next official Star Wars movie. I am all for it. I told Harry last night and he was so excited he almost exploded. I don’t know how I am going to feel about it Covid-wise, but we’re already thinking of trying to go to a matinee of Thor: Love and Thunder as a possible first trip back to the theater. We’ll have to see.
What else… I was thinking of doing some car music today but I slept too late. Maybe tomorrow. Definitely over the weekend. I don’t have any songs ready for guitars yet, other than one that is ready for leads, so I want to finish the bass/drums bed for a couple more songs too. I have my big amp, the one I used at the last gig, in the music nook now and I want to use it. Things to do, things to do.
You know how each of the last two nights I wrote a post about how I mixed a song? Neither of the audio embeds will work anymore. I deleted the uploads and replaced them with remixed versions of the songs. I changed the reverbs on all tracks on both songs from plates to rooms. I feel a tiny bit better about the universe now.
ADDENDUM: Scratch that. I went back and fixed the two previous posts. I linked to the remixed versions of both songs. That’s better.
Another rerecording of a song from February’s RPM Challenge. Just like last night it’s in 7/8 time and both songs are almost the same tempo (they are not, but they are ooooh so close).
Quarantine Tunes was going to end at volume six, but here we are with the first song from volume seven! It’s like when Kiss goes on a farewell tour and then a year later goes on a comeback tour! WOOHOO
This is my favorite song from February’s RPM Challenge. It’s a little faster, has a couple of new sections, some really awful lead guitar playing, and everything is tuned down a half step.
Volume seven lives!
I worked on guitars for two songs tonight. Rhythm on one and lead on the other. Just like last night the rhythm went okay but the leads sucked. My sense of timing is all out of whack. I’m just not feeling it. Practice! I need to practice!
I swapped out the Keeley D&M drive for the Wampler Plexi Drive Mini. That pedal wasn’t doing it for me before but I tweaked the settings and finally got it to play nicely with the Klon KTR in front of it. It might stay on the board for a while.
I had three songs to work on for car music today. Technically I had four. One of the three is two old songs that I glued together to make one bigger song. It makes sense, I promise. I started with the two non-double songs and was just about to finish up the second song. I was feeling pretty good and was thinking about starting in on the double song. I had been out there for about an hour. My battery was holding out, so was my bladder and my water bottle. Why not?
As I was singing the last line on the second song something weird happened. The MIDI bass track went out of tune. You can do that in MIDI by pitch shifting, but it doesn’t happen magically on its own. You have to tell the track to do it. I did not.
Hearing the out of tune track, which was 100% definitely not out of tune when I recorded the guitars yesterday nor was it out of tune when I did a couple of practice run throughs today, threw me off completely and I had to go back and try a second take. This time the bass was not out of tune? What the hell? Not being out of tune threw me off again and I had to try another take. This time, the third try, it was out of tune again. What the fuck?? I just looped a few bars around the offending moment and let it run. It was out of tune every other playback.
Oh for crying out loud.
I didn’t start working on the double song. I totally lost whatever mojo I had and I had to stop for the day. Oh well.
Here’s the obligatory drive home photo. It is not out of tune, I promise.
Inside the Red Head's Head 