Tag: Rpm Challenge

#RPM2017 — Proof I Haven’t Bailed

Just to prove to everyone who is(isn’t) reading these stupid RPM Challenge posts that I haven’t given up on the project (the way I told the RPM website I was), here is the first mixed song.

It sounds like dog shit in every measurable way.

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).

Mood Swings

I went to the RPM Challenge website during my lunch break to check out any new blog or forum posts. There aren’t many at this point, but come February 1st, there will be a lot. I figured I’d add a blog post about how I sort of want this year’s project to sound one way, but it will probably end up as something different. I think I tapped into something unconscious. This is what I posted:

These days I am stuck in a teeter totter of mood swings that go from depressed defeatism to just roaring mad. This is the world we live in now, I guess. If it weren’t for my wife and step kids I’d probably go nuts.

Join me!

I want this year’s music to be mean and angry and complicated and anti-social and to have as little as humanly possible to do with what anyone else might want me to write or sound like. Of course I lack the talent to write music like that, so at best we’ll get noisy songs that sound kinda mad but otherwise sound like everything else I’ve ever done.

Or, I’ll go into it wanting angry and mean and anti-social and end up with quiet and moody woe-is-me stuff (with the occasional wah-wah guitar solo).

How the hell should I know what it’s going to sound like? I’m not even sure who I am anymore. I had all these preconceived notions about the world outside my door and BANG they’re all wrong.

A wise man (who played in a band called Traffic) once said, “who knows what tomorrow may bring?”

Two weeks from tomorrow. Come on February, you son of a bitch. Bring it on. Do your worst.

Okay, where the hell did that come from? I think I can guess, and I think the answer has to do with a certain American transfer of government that is scheduled to take place on Friday. That’s pretty much coloring every thought these days.

RPM 2017

I just signed up for the 2017 RPM Challenge. I’ve been playing the game since 2007, and playing it successfully since 2012.

Given the political climate in the United States these days, I think we can safely assume there will be a lot of songs about hating fascism. I can’t say for sure that will be the case (last year most of the songs were about how the Earth is not flat…really) but if you are a betting man/woman…

I have already decided that my Fender amp and my pedal board are staying at home until March. If I’m going to do this, I want to do it right.

The musical chaos begins on February 1st.

Left Overs

For this year’s RPM Challenge I worked on 23 songs. One was just too awful to keep alive and I dumped it. One other never got further than one or two bass lines on the iPad. Of the remaining 21, 10 made the final cut. Eight were completely finished but I put them on the B list. Three others were pretty far along in the process, but I ran out of time before I could finish them. Those three might have been good enough to make the final submission, but now we’ll never know.

I made a playlist for the left overs, including the three unfinished songs. I will finish them in the coming weeks, but for now they are just rough mixes of instrumental nothings.

I think if you listen to both playlists you will see that dropping the songs on the B list was the right thing to do. At least I hope so. Either way, I got a ton of new tunes.

Finished

Finished.

Done.

Complete.

…and with a little over an hour to spare!

This makes five years in a row for me. Feels like quite a milestone. I had 18 songs and dropped eight of them for the final album. Are the 10 that I kept the best songs? I think so, but I feel way too close to this right now so I can’t say for sure.

I zipped up all of my mp3 files and a jpeg with the cover art and shared it with RPM via dropbox. Hopefully that works and they get it. My profile has been updated with the 2016 submission, but I’m way too tired to deal with any more than that tonight.

For now, here’s a soundcloud playlist with my 10 goofy songs. Hope they don’t suck too bad.

Dazed

When I left work on Friday I think I had six songs mixed, two songs ready to mix, and a whole pile that were a guitar part away from being ready to mix.

Here we are on Sunday afternoon and I have 15 songs mixed. My head is spinning. I’m not done though. I have to stop for tonight so I can go to band practice and then eat dinner with the love of my life and watch The Walking Dead (priorities, right?).

I still have to mix one more song tomorrow night, and like a moron I actually added a song last night at about 10pm, and then added another one this morning at about 7am. I only need to add vocals to those two and then they’ll be ready to mix too. Vocal tracking will happen tomorrow before work in a great bonanza of get-it-in-one-or-don’t-get-it-at-all.

Beyond that, there are still four more unfinished songs that will have to wait for another day. One or two of them are just awful and were abandoned by choice. At least one of the others was working for me before, but I just ran out of time.

So I expect to have 18 songs available for the finished product tomorrow. I’ll probably drop at least four of them, maybe more. I really want to try and trim the fat for the album I submit this year. Not to imply there’s greatness here or anything like that. I just want it to be less crappy than some of my previous submissions (looking at you, 2015).

Home Stretch

Six songs mixed and uploaded. When I woke up today I had 10 songs that were only lacking lead guitar. I just blitzed my way through four of them and now I have a happy little blister forming on my ring finger. I’m going to take a guitar break and do some mixing, and then if I need to I am going to lance that blister with a steak knife, seal it up with Elmer’s glue and get back to work.

I love February!

Six!

I liked this one from the very start. It was the second song I started working on this February, and it has stuck with me more than any of the others. It’s kinda… swampy… nice little mid tempo groove. The bass isn’t cutting through the mix enough, and there are a few moments when the vocal intonation is a little… fruity, but otherwise it’s not too bad to me. The lyrics are a kiss off to a flat Earther, and the guitars are all Gibson ES 335 pro.