Tag: Rock

Pre-Work Guitars

I mentioned last night that I was hoping to get some guitar playing in before work.

This morning? I got some guitar playing in before work.

I put rhythm guitars on the song I worked on last night, and lead guitars on the only other song I had in progress. I think I might have a little time to add vocals on Thursday morning, so I’m hoping to start another song tonight and put rhythm guitars onto it before work tomorrow. Wednesday is an in the office day so there’s no time for anything there. If I apply myself (HA! Fat chance of that!) I might be able to get to three songs ready to mix by early next week. That would be cool.

The current project is updating, editing, rewriting, and rerecording songs that were originally written for the 2021 Fifty Songs in Ninety Days challenge. I picked 10 songs to focus on. I might decide along the way that some of them are unworthy, but as of now we’re going with 10. Two songs in progress. Many more to mess around with.

242/365
242/365

I Don’t Know… I Don’t Want It

Beat…

Adrian Belew and Tony Levin were in King Crimson (the first time) from 1981 through 1984. The two of them have recruited two world class musicians to play the music from that time period once again. On drums they have Danny Carey from Tool. I am not terribly well versed in Tool’s catalog, but what I do know is good and he seems like a good choice to cover for the legendary Bill Bruford. The other new guy… I don’t know.

I should be absolutely stoked for this new band. Adrian Belew is a fantastic guitar player. He’s one of the most innovative, original musicians ever. He’s a giant. Tony Levin is literally as good as a human being can get. Whether it’s on the bass guitar or the Chapman Stick, or any other chunk of wood with strings on it, he’s as good as it gets. He’s one of, possibly THE, most talented musicians on the planet Earth at this time. I’ve seen him live twice, once just before the pandemic hit when he was playing in the last version of King Crimson, and once back in 1988 (or was it 1989?) with Yes spinoff Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe. I really wanted to see him with Peter Gabriel back in September but we went to Disney World and caught Covid-19 instead.

Belew, Levin, Carey… all people I should be salivating over the chance of seeing them live on stage together. It’s that fourth guy though…

Is Steve Vai one of the most talented guitarists in the history of wood and strings? Yes, that’s a fair statement. Is Steve Vai a musical genius? Yeah, probably. I just… I just don’t really care for his music, that’s all. To me, he’s sort of in the same boat as Joe Satriani. I heard once that he actually took lessons from Joe Satriani at one point. I saw Satriani live once. He opened for Deep Purple. There was no denying his talent. No denying he is an astonishing guitar player. Having said that though, two songs into his set I was completely bored. Enormous talent. Staggering technique. But no actual interesting music. None.

Vai played with David Lee Roth and Whitesnake back in the 80’s. His ability was jaw dropping. His actual music? I’m sorry but it was just boring. It was style over substance in the worst way. That 1981-84 period of King Crimson is very important to me. I am positive that Steve Vai is going to do amazing things with it. I am also sure that I will be bored to tears by all of it.

I honestly feel terrible that I feel this way. I should be giddy with glee over this new band. I’m not. I just can’t. It makes me sad, it really does. My sincere apologies to Misters Belew, Levin, and Carey. And to Mister Vai too. I just can’t get over my preconceptions. I am really sorry.

Happy Panic Day

Today is February 20th. For me, personally, in RPM Challenge terms, the 20th is officially the day that I start to panic. Enjoy!

The 20th is the day where the end suddenly feels very close. We get an extra day this year, thank you leap year, so it’s not quite as bad as usual, but I definitely feel a sudden need to get off my ass and get shit done. I have nine days left after today. I need to get busy.

I put rhythm guitars onto one song and lead guitars onto another this morning before work. My playing was terrible. Absolutely awful. I am so rusty it’s silly, and what playing I have done in the last couple of weeks has not been enough to shake off any of that rust. I feel like I am getting worse… probably because I am.

Where do we stand with the album in a month project as a whole? There are 20 songs in the pipeline. I have not mixed anything yet, so no songs are 100% finished. Six have been completely recorded and are ready to mix. Five have their vocals done and are ready for lead guitars. Two have lyrics and melodies written and are ready for vocals. Five have rhythm guitars done and are ready for lyrics and melodies. Finally, two have their song forms worked out and are ready for rhythm guitars. In addition, the song that I put the rhythm guitar tracks on this morning needs to have the bass guitar (MIDI) rewritten because the bass and the guitar don’t really work well together. I need to change something so they lock in. That sort of goes against the RPM Challenge ethos (is that the right word?) as I don’t like going back and redoing anything. It takes time that I don’t have. In this case though, it sounds worse than dog shit so I have to change the bass.

There you have it. The state of the RPM Challenge project at this point in time. The minimum goal is 10 songs or 35 minutes of music. I am shooting for 20 songs, and then I’ll pick the 10 best and use them as the album I “submit” to the RPM website. Just as a heads up for the future, I really don’t think there are any good songs this year. The best of the best is very much meh. This is not going to be a good album. It’s feeling like my worst ever. Blah, indeed.

Logically I think I am an a good place to finish everything off by midnight on March 1st. Logic does not really apply here though, so my feeling is that I am currently buried under an avalanche of things still to finish. Oh good.

Anyway, here are a few pics that I took as I was listening to a playback of a terrible sounding guitar solo this morning. Ugh.

173/365

I’ve used my Les Paul Custom for every note of guitar that I have recorded this month. There’s a good chance that everything I put down after I get home from the guitar shop tomorrow will be played on my ES-335. We’ll see. I might sneak my Les Paul Standard into a few things too, if I can.

Musical Broken Promise

Yesterday I promised that I would play some guitar today. It’s only 10:00am so there is still time, but I have not played at all today. I was shooting for some before work playing, but I did not. I did something else instead.

Jen is in the office today and I am not. I took advantage of some time at home alone and put vocals on three songs. Think of it like car music without the car.

I now have vocals on eight songs, and another 10 songs that are still lyrics/melody/vocals free. 18 songs in the pipeline. I want at least two more. 

Also, I literally recorded vocals by candle light because I am a total nerd. Yes, there were two candles lit, but there were also like eight other lights on in the room so it wasn’t only by candle light… but you get the idea.

168/365
168/365

2024 RPM Challenge Day 1/29

Every February I try to post daily RPM Challenge updates on a Tumblr page that I set up a thousand years ago and only ever use to try and track daily updates of music projects. Why? Why do I do this? Why do I even keep this Tumblr account? What the hell is wrong with me? 

I find that I post to that page for a week or two and then I fall off and eventually forget all about it. It’s lame. I am lame. You could probably tell that by all the lame posts though, so I don’t expect anyone to be surprised.

Anyway, I posted the day one summary this morning even though I have already done some work on day two today. Whatever. Since I am a content whore I will quote the Tumblr post here because… ya know… reasons. I guess.

The RPM Challenge is underway once again. Will I manage to post daily updates here? Probably not. Oh well.

Day one went really well. I managed to start four songs before I punched into work for the day. Three of them were multiple riffs/changes that I noodled out on guitar. The fourth was just a bass/drum groove that I worked out on my iPhone.

After work I added bass and drum parts (MIDI) and a song form to two of the three ideas that started on guitar. I started adding bass and drums to the third but was unable to finish.

And that is my wrap up for day one. I’ve already done a little work on day two.

Musical Meanderings

There you go. There is my day one summary. I mentioned the morning stuff here yesterday but the after work stuff should be new news.

As for today? I put rhythm guitars (two guitars through two amps each for a total of four tracks) onto song idea number one. I didn’t have time to add them to song idea number two too. Maybe this evening. We’ll see.

155/365
155/365 – The two amps are a Fender Bassbreaker 15 and a Vox MV50 Clean. Both are running direct into my USB audio interface.

Two Rush Items to Note

I have two things I want to comment on that refer to members of Rush.

First, I watched the second episode of Are Bass Players Human Too this morning before work. It focused on Robert Trujillo of Metallica. I knew nothing about this guy as I’m not much of a metal fan, never mind a Metallica fan. I saw them in 1989 when Jason Newsted was their bass player. I guess Robert Trujillo played for Ozzy Osbourne back in the 90’s. I saw Ozzy in the 90’s but Geezer Butler was playing bass at that time. I guess I sort of missed him twice then? Not really.

Anyway, Robert Trujillo is the current owner of Jaco Pastorius’ Fender Jazz bass. The one he ripped the frets out of to turn it into a fretless bass (but what did he put into the gaps? How did that work?). Watching Geddy Lee play Jaco’s bass, even if just for a few seconds, was something that I did not realize I needed in my life. It was a quietly magical moment.

On a side note, Metallica’s bass player owns Jaco Pastorius’ bass, which to many is the holy grail of electric bass guitars, and Metallica’s guitar player, Kirk Hammett, owns Peter Green/Gary Moore’s 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard, which to many (including me*) is the holy grail of electric guitars. How did that happen? Does Metallica’s drummer own Keith Moon’s kit or anything? That would be too weird for my tiny brain to process.

Anyway, on to Alex Lifeson. I mentioned yesterday that Lerxst has released an overdrive pedal. It’s called By Tor. The first write up I read said that it had two channels that shared drive and tone controls. I don’t think that’s the case. I think one channel is just a volume boost and only has a level control. The other channel is an overdrive which has level, gain, and tone controls. That makes more sense.

Check out this demo from (the youtube legend) Andy from Reverb. I started watching this last night but had to shut it off before I finished. I’m posting it here so that I won’t forget to watch the rest of it later tonight.

*Peter Green’s Les Paul is probably my definition of The Guitar Holy Grail. The only guitar that might challenge for that tile would be Eric Clapton’s 1960 Les Paul Standard that is generally known as The Beano Burst. It was stolen in 1966 and has never resurfaced. I’m sure it’s out there somewhere, but unless some collector gives it back to Clapton we will probably never see it again. The reason it might not supersede Greeny is simply that I prefer the spec of a 1959 Les Paul Standard to the spec of a 1960. The neck is supposed to be thicker on 1959’s. By that logic I would probably prefer 1958’s to 1959’s as the neck is supposed to be even thicker on 1958’s. How’s that for cork sniffing? A little too much, maybe? Nope. It’s never too much.

The Shods

The Shods are trying to make a new record and they’ve started a kickstarter project to raise funds.  I swear to you, if you don’t chip in to this project then you are the worst kind of Trump supporting garbage.  I mean it.  Really.

It’s a moral imperative that you click that link and back this project. Now’s the time! Get in on the ground floor! Do your part for your country and back the new Shods record!

RPM Challenge Day 11/28 — #RPM2017

I haven’t been keeping up with the updates, but I have been making progress. Not a huge amount of progress, but we’re getting there.

Let’s take a look at the Trello board, shall we? There are currently three active columns: Idea Stage, Ready for Rhythm Guitar, and Ready for Lyrics and Vocals. you can tell that I put a ton of thought into my naming conventions.

The Ready for Lyrics and Vocals column has three entries. Each one consists of a sketched out song form made up of fake bass and fake drums from GarageBand, and a couple of tracks of rhythm guitar. There is also a photo of my amp settings for each song, just in case I need to revisit it.

The Ready for Rhythm Guitar column has six entries. Each one represents a full song form made up of fake bass and fake drums from GarageBand. It is my sincere hope that each of these will be moved to the ready for lyrics column by the end of business today.

The Idea Stage column has five entries. Each one represents a little guitar noodle recorded into my iPhones Music Memos app. I haven’t listened to any of them in about a week, but I believe two of them are similar to things that were used already in one of the songs.

To sum up, I have nine songs in various stages of progress, and three to five little ideas that might become songs at some point down the line. The running time for the nine songs is currently 31:38 (according to my works in progress soundcloud playlist) and that means I have yet to hit either of the RPM Challenge goals (10 songs or 35 minutes). I haven’t given much thought to the FAWM.org (remember, .org. Never .com) goal of 14 songs, but I usually don’t really worry about that until I get closer to the end. My main focus is always on RPM.

My unstated personal goal for the year is to do what I almost did last year. That is to finish off two RPM albums. I ran out of time at 18 songs last year (although there was a leap day to work with, which helped me get that far) and I would like to have 20 finished songs and then pick the 10 best for my submission.

So that’s where we stand right now. What is the plan from here?

Well, we got a little snow this past Tuesday. Some ice on Wednesday. A ton of snow on Thursday. A little snow last night. It’s snowing right now. The forecast also calls for another decent storm tomorrow night into Monday. In other words, the weather sucks right now and I don’t want to leave the house. That means lots of time for music (theoretically at least). If the storm holds off tomorrow I will have band practice, and I probably have to go grocery shopping at some point. There’s also a truck load of laundry to do. Other than that? I want to get the ideas turned into songs and the six songs that are guitar free to have at least some rhythm guitar done. That’s my minimum goal for the weekend. I’d also like to kick off at least a couple more ideas and get them up to speed as well.

What are the chances of me completing all of this work by tomorrow night? I’d say… 3%. Maybe 2%.

Bring it. Let Us Rock (or something similar).

Another Gig in the Books

Last night’s gig was pretty successful. We’ve played three shows together and they’ve all been at the same place. The crowd was smaller but respectable. Very respectable considering we had a snow storm that morning. The conditions were okay by the evening though so no one risked life and limb coming to see us. Thankfully.

There was a shorter than usual (for us) turn around between last night and the previous show, and the holidays made scheduling rehearsals difficult, so there were only three new songs. One really surprised me. Someone dug up a really heavy arrangement of Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” and we learned it. It is really fun to play, but I thought it would be a dud with the audience. Nope, it got the best reaction of the night. I couldn’t believe it. I guess ol’ Phil just does that to people. Now we do one Phil Collins song and one Peter Gabriel song. I think we should learn some Genesis for the next show. I’m thinking “Return of the Giant Hogweed”.

We need to figure out how to manage time better. Kevin the drummer put together three setlists, all with 11 songs and all about the same running time. We plan on doing three sets, with each one starting at the top of the hour. It never works out that way. We always end up cutting songs from set #3. Last night we started right on time. The second set started a few minutes late but it was close. We tried editing the second set on the fly to suit the crowd’s mood and we ended up with 13 songs. It was long. Very long. Somehow we, as usual, ended up starting the last set at 11:30ish and we had to skip around. The setlist for the third set always ends up being more suggestions than rules. Whatever. One of these days we’ll get the timing right.

Speaking of set lengths, I was very happy to learn that the other guys were all running out of gas by the end of each set and I wasn’t the only one. The last song or two in the first set were tough. My hands were feeling tired and weak and I couldn’t do some of the things I wanted to do. Same with the second set. The last two or three songs were tough. On the third set we were about halfway through and I was toast. I actually had to insist on dropping one song because I didn’t think I could physically play it anymore. What is the solution to a problem like this? Practice. Lots of it. Practice builds up stamina. That’s what I need, and what it sounds like all of us need. Not rehearsals, but sitting at home and practicing. That would help a lot. Unfortunately, there just aren’t enough hours in the day most times. We do our best.

I did not wear ear plugs at all last night. I wanted to hear my guitar as it really sounded. The result? It sounded okay at first. For the rest of the show? Who knows. I was loudish, and standing right next to the drummer who was also loud. By the second set my ears were completely fried. Everything sounded like mush. I couldn’t make out any details to any of the sounds were were making. It was sort of like a great big loud wash of white noise. Fortunately I recovered pretty quickly and my ears are fine today. I think maybe all the years of insisting on ear plugs might be paying off. If I subjected myself to that much volume without protection on a regular basis, I think my ears would be shot pretty much all the time. The moral of the story? Wear ear plugs.

We booked two more shows at Racks Bar and Grill. One for April and one for June. I will be posting about them as they get closer. You should all go. It is a lot of fun. Honestly. No, really. I promise.

Rush — Time Stand Still (not) Review

My wife and I watched the new Rush documentary, Time Stand Still the other night and it made me sad.

The film documents the R40 tour from 2015. If you remember, when the management announced the tour it was alongside a rumor that it would probably be the last major tour the band would do. As things wore on that changed to the last tour the band would do. It was stressed that it didn’t necessarily mean the band was splitting up, just that they were too old (they are all in their 60’s now) to want to go on large tours anymore. They said that one off shows and new records were still possible though. That eased the pain a little.

Then on the last night of the tour, in Los Angeles, Neil Peart did something he never ever does. When the show ended, he walked to the front of the stage, grabbed the other two guys, and took a bow. It sounds silly, but knowing Neil Peart… that was a really bad sign. Not long after that he posted a blog where he said his daughter, when asked what her dad did for a living, answered that he was a retired drummer. Uh oh.

Now we have the documentary, and although they once again never said that “It Is Over”, it was so clearly the case. Rush is done. I would be stunned if there were ever more shows, or more records, or more anything outside of archival releases. There might be solo records, especially from Geddy Lee who seemed the least ready to pack it in, but Rush as a thing seems pretty much over.

The whole thing made me really sad. Not because the band was breaking up, but it was something deeper and more personal than that. Jen asked me to describe how I was feeling and I tried, but I don’t know if I pegged it exactly.

I first heard Rush when I was 10 years old. A classmate brought a tape recorder and a dub of Exit Stage Left to school and a bunch of us sat around his desk and listened to it. I liked what I heard enough to save up my money and buy a copy for myself. I loved it. I didn’t know why. I didn’t have the musical language to understand what I was hearing, I just knew that it was something I had never even imagined was out there and it had a power. It had something that I needed to be a part of.

As I got older, being a Rush fan started to define me. My friends were mostly Rush fans too, and if they weren’t they were still either budding musicians, or passionate music fans. All through my teens and 20’s the obsession continued to grow. Then in my 30’s, something unexpected happened. I fell in love, and the woman I fell in love with liked Rush too and was not only willing to go see them, but was willing to travel around to see them. We went to multiple shows each tour, hitting New York and Connecticut multiple times, but also Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. We planned a few Las Vegas and California trips, but they never panned out. Once we went to Ontario to see them but missed the show. As great as the trips were, even better was the idea that this goofy obsession that I had been feeding since childhood morphed into something that I could share with the woman I loved. It became more than just a part of me. It became a part of us. That was something I never expected, and something more wonderful than I had ever considered. I am so thankful to my wife for sharing all of this with me.

And now that part of my life is over.

We still have the mountain of music, and all the fun memories that will always be there. There just won’t be any new memories, and that makes me a little sad.

I totally get it though, and for Neil Peart at least I have been expecting this for a while. A few years ago Bill Bruford celebrated his 60th birthday by retiring from music. His reasoning was that he was still at the top of his game, but at any moment he was going to be physically unable to play the drums at the level he had come to expect from himself and he was unwilling to be less than his best. The minute I heard that, I knew that soon enough we would be hearing Neil Peart say the exact same thing. Peart lasted a little longer before saying it, but he said it. The guy is the best there has ever been at his instrument. To expect him to be willing to be less than that is pretty silly. I get it, and I back him up 100%. Go out on top. Hell, we’d all do it if the circumstances would let us. I completely respect the guy’s decision, it just sucks for the rest of us.

So I am no longer holding out hope for some future records or shows. I have accepted the fact that Rush is no more. I wish those guys the best in everything they do from here on. I just want to reiterate the fact that for the rest of us… it sucks.