I didn’t get up until after 7:00 this morning. No car music again. I have six songs that need vocals. I want them all done before February 1st. When I say done I mean vocals, leads, and mix. I don’t want to be thinking about any of these songs when RPM starts. I don’t have any specific plans for RPM yet. I don’t know if I want to do anything special for a theme or anything, or if I just want to write a bunch of new songs.
I didn’t watch Book of Boba Fett yesterday. We’re going to try and do a watch party with Harry tonight. I hope so. Jen and I started the new season of Cobra Kai. They are like 30 minute pieces of candy. We blew through the first three before we even realized it.
The show to watch right now, if you have access to it, is Yellowjackets. My spoiler free review of the first six episodes, which are the only ones I’ve seen so far: WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?????
Back in 2015 I worked out a song for the RPM Challenge that tricked GarageBand into using different time signatures. It chugs along at 120 beats per minute switching between 7/8, 6/4, and 4/4 like nobody’s business. It was a cool song to play and I had a lot of fun working on it, but it took me a long time to get the rhythm guitars recorded in a way that was good enough to keep.
There was a section in the middle of the song though… 24 bars… written on a keyboard with the tempo set to something much lower than 120 bpm. It was, to my lame ears, a cool break in the middle of the song. Unfortunately I couldn’t play it at 120 bpm on the guitar. It was just too fast for my fat fingers to grasp. I ended up recording it in pieces. Three bars then one bar, repeat six times, then move to a second track and repeat the whole thing. It was pretty brutal to get through.
That was in 2015. One month later I started messing with the idea of a re-recording project. I didn’t get far. Then in 2016 when RPM ended I went back to the re-recording thing and added this particular song to the list. Apparently I forgot about all of the stress it had caused me when I first recorded it.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago and the re-recording project finally gets around to this song. I had forgotten everything. I started with the bass and drums and had to remember how to trick GarageBand into using different time signatures (hint: it boils down to math). Then I had to remember how to trick GarageBand into letting me use the Session Drummer with the different time signatures (hint: lots of bouncing segments between two tracks, one of which is not the session drummer). Then last night I took my first crack at adding guitars.
Intro? No problem. Verses? Easy. Chorus? Cake. All the little 1-2 bar bridge sections? No problem. The section in the middle (actually, while working on the MIDI tracks I cut a few sections out of the song. One of them was the last eight bars of the middle section so the 24 bar section is now only 16 bars, dig)? Hello? Anyone?
Could I play it?
Not even close.
While I was struggling last night Harry came home from work so I stopped trying. Today I had a little time to get back to it. I scrapped everything I did yesterday and started fresh, mostly just to build up my confidence. When I got to the middle section I did something unusual. I just sat here at my desk, looking at GarageBand, and practiced. Not for long. Just enough to get it under my fingers, even though it was wrong 90% of the time. Then I split the 16 bars into four, four bar segments and started on the first segment. Remember I double everything, so each four bar segment needs to be done twice. It took me a long time to get the first one. The second track went a little quicker. Same with segment two. For segment three, it took a lot longer to get the first track, but the second track was nailed in one take! WOOHOO! Of course that just jinxed me for the rest and I needed like 10-15 tries for each piece.
The end result though… I have the full 16 bars, twice. Kick ass! The punches were nice and clean too, so I can’t even tell that it was recorded in pieces. It just sounds like I am actually able to play the guitar like a big boy and I just did it. Nice.
Wow… I wrote a lot about this stupid little song.
Guitar pictures to celebrate my being able to pretend I don’t suck quite as bad as I clearly do!
I also retired a pick today, and the battery on my clip on tuner is about to die. That’s all the news that is fit to print.
After including three Rush songs in the last post, this new thing should sound that much shittier.
A song from 2010 with new lyrics and a new coat of paint. I waffled on whether to re-do this song for years. Literally. It went on the list of songs to work on in 2016 and was dropped off and re-added at least twice. Now that it’s done… I probably should have left it off.
I forgot to post this yesterday, but I mixed the January song for the RPM Challenge’s Record Every Month thing. I guess that means I am done? We did the actual RPM in February, and then I had at least one song each month from March through January. Three of them were also part of the 50/90, and one was National Solo Album Month, and I forgot to submit most of them to the RPM site, but I still did at least one song each month. Hooray.
I wasn’t planning on any guitar playing tonight. Mostly because I didn’t have songs ready for any guitar parts. So what did I do? I started a new re-recording just so that I could have something to play.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t need to have something to record to play. If I want to play I can just play. No big whoop, right? It’s just that I wanted to play and I wanted to record something so I came up with something to record, that’s all.
I didn’t play for long, and I didn’t play well, but I did play and that’s all that I care about.
I accomplished two things tonight with a little guitar playing. First, I made myself a tiny bit less sad over Bellana going away, even if it was for only a few minutes. Second, I think I may have convinced myself to not use retail therapy to make myself feel better even if only for a few minutes. Well… I avoided retail therapy again. I went to the Rush website earlier and bought a couple of t-shirts. As stated in a previous post today, I am in a rare period of my existence where I feel the need to resupply the wardrobe as it were. Whatever, I almost bought a new Fuzz Face pedal (the Joe Bonamassa signature. It’s supposed to be geared toward humbuckers where Fuzz Faces are more traditionally geared toward single coils even though I am pretty sure that is just bullshit based on Jimi Hendrix, but I digress) but instead I took the little mini Fuzz Face I already had and put it into the signal chain and used the shit out of it.
The only things I had ready for recording were leads on the two January Record Every Month songs, and on one re-recording. I decided that all tracks recorded this evening would be with great big gooey gobs of fuzz. The Fuzz Face on the two January songs and a Big Muff clone on the re-recording. I always always always have a Big Muff on every board at all times. I love fuzz pedals, and Muffs (despite their awful, terrible, horribly sexist name) are my favorites. They are the smoothest and the filthiest, both at the same time. Fuzz Faces have that spitty quality that really bugs me when I am playing chords (usually) but is okay when I am playing leads. Big Muffs are awesome for rhythm too, but only if there’s an overdrive pedal in the chain after them that boosts the mid range frequencies. Something like a Tube Screamer or (preferably) a Klon. So I don’t keep the little Fuzz Face on the board and only pull it out when I am in the mood. Today I was very much in the mood. Actually, I have been since before Christmas, which is when I started jonzing for a new one, but today was the day I decided to act on it.
So when the time came to play tonight, I gave in to the urge to go ape shit on the fuzz. While my playing was particularly shitty, the tones were pretty effin’ gnarly and they made me happy.
Here is a shitty little blurry (why?) pick of the Fuzz Face pedal. It’s a Dunlop Band of Gypsies Fuzz Face Mini that is supposed to be modeled after the pedal Jimi Hendrix used on the live album Band of Gypsies, which may actually not have been a Fuzz Face at all but instead a custom octave fuzz with the octave circuit removed that was just stuck inside Fuzz Face enclosure. If’n you believe the stories and all.
And here we have a picture of my very dusty Wren and Cuff Super Russian. It’s been sitting on that spot on my bedroom floor since February and I really should dust all this stuff before the knobs get all noisy and scratchy. This is my second favorite Big Muff clone. My favorite is on the big pedal board in the cellar. It’s a Wren and Cuff Tri Pi ’70 and it’s probably pretty dusty too. It’s based on the original Big Muff Pi pedals that Electro Harmonix made in the early 70’s. The Super Russian is based on a Russian made Sovtek model from the early 90’s. They are both viscous little bastards and I love playing them.
The Bruins are spanking the Washington Capitals tonight and it’s glorious. I started watching season two of The Witcher, even though I am kinda over the whole fantasy sword and sorcery thing. This show’s not bad though.
None of this is making me miss Bellana less, even though she hasn’t even left the state yet, never mind the continent. It’s going to be a long six months.
And that, boys and girls, is what you call a long and rambling blog post that uses a lot of words to say very little. Enjoy.
Today I did the first car music of 2022 and now I also have the first new song mix of 2022. It’s a day of firsts!
Or thirds. This is the third time I’ve recorded this song. This one probably sounds the best overall, but I think the performance might be a little lacking. I can’t really tell for sure.
I did the first car music of 2022 today. Yippee and Hooray and stuff. I put vocals onto both Record Every Month songs for January and one re-recording of a song from 2010 or 2011 or something. I had to write new lyrics for that one because the original lyrics were garbage. The new lyrics are garbage too, but slightly less garbagey garbage if that makes any sense.
I hate to have to admit this but I have written the same song twice again. I sense a theme for the coming RPM Challenge. One song over and over again. The last time I did it, it was an E minor – A minor thing that I used in two songs. This time it was an E minor 7 – B minor 7 – A dominate 7 thing that I used in the chorus of both songs.
I suck.
I should also mention that the singing was pretty terrible as well. Also, there were two trucks. Ugh. We had snow two days ago and there’s been a little freezing rain this morning. There was a plow and a sander in the parking lot with me. I think the sander covered the entire lot at least twice. He kept driving by me while I was trying to sing and the mic kept picking it up. As if my own voice wasn’t shit enough. The plow… what the hell, bro? He kept plowing little sections of the parking lot even though the snow has been gone for almost two days now. What the hell was he plowing, and why did he have to keep doing it over and over?
No Methuen Center pics today. Instead you’ll have to settle for this one. It was cold out side and very shouty inside. Hence the foggy.
As I was writing this I saw a Tweet announcing that Michael Lang died. He was 77. If you don’t know who Michael Lang is, he was one of the guys who put on the Woodstock festival. If only he’d thought otherwise about Woodstock ’95 and ’99 or whatever the hell years they were. Pretty much the definition of too much of a good thing. Rest in Peace, Mr Lang.
Eight months ago today I turned 50 and my wife got me an amazing birthday present. She bought me a Gibson Les Paul Standard 50s and I absolutely love it. I adore it. It gets me and I get it and we’re besties now and everything is perfect.
I haven’t played any other guitar since that day, even though I own a small but growing army of electric guitars (five, and my teenage self is in awe).
Well… I just broke the streak. I’ve been thinking of a gimmick for the RPM Challenge. Instead of just double tracking all of the rhythm guitar parts (which I always do), why not double track with different guitars? Maybe even different amplifiers? Sure it will make mixing more complicated, but it could be fun. If I do this, I expect the two guitars to be the new Les Paul and the SG Standard that I bought myself in 2018. Unless of course I finally brave the Covid and go somewhere to trade in my Fender Stratocaster for a Les Paul Junior, in which case the Junior would be the other guitar. That’s not likely to happen though, so it will be Les Paul in one ear and SG in the other.
Tonight I decided to break out the SG and use it on a Record Every Month song for January. I’ve got two songs going right now. They both kinda suck, but I’ll finish them. Now the song that has the working title of REM JAN 01 Mac has SGs where everything else since May has Les Pauls.
Inside the Red Head's Head 