This year is off to a good start with my projects. Musically, I just began recording the acoustic guitar album this month and have two songs in the can, mostly. My approach is to record all steel 6-string guitars first, both rhythms and lead, following it up with the classical guitar for both. I'll be doing that on all songs before anything else. Then I'll be practicing bass for a week or two to get used to the heavier strings before recording. Last will be the 12-string guitar, which will also take some practice to get used to. That said, the main guitars on most songs are the steel 6-string so that's the bulk of the work.

I may be putting up a recording log similar to the one for the second album, so you can track what’s being recorded when. It's a fun exercise to look back on later and see what happened during tracking.

In addition to the acoustic album, I’ve been recording acoustic guitars for a vocal project I intend to do next, so the next rock album will have a singer on it once I find one. So far I've used quite a bit of acoustic guitar on those and am recording them already due to studio reasons. To make a long story short, I had to relocate the studio inside my house to the guest room, as the usual location is too noisy to use a microphone in. Since this has made a mess of my guest room and semi-dismantled the recording room, I'm doing all acoustic guitars on everything in a row so I can put it all back and not do this again for a long time.

A few weeks ago I videotaped myself performing all riffs and leads on "The Key" but haven’t edited it together yet. Look for that in the next month, maybe after tax time. I recently edited the guitar building video together, and yes, I know what you're thinking. It's been almost 4 years since I built it! I've been meaning to add more footage but I think I lost some of that. I don't know if I should film some extras or just put it out there already. Probably the latter or it will never get out. I swear I am too busy all the time.

I've also just finished a new round of editing the last novel, making some minor changes to bring out some character issues I sort of overlooked in the initial writing. This will be going out to agents in the next week. Wish me luck!

Just this past week I videotaped myself performing 26 Adrian Smith (of Iron Maiden) guitar solos and have posted one on this page. The songs are most of the big ones and include: "Powerslave", "Rime", "Prisoner", "Wasted Years", "Hallowed", "Phantom", "Alexander the Great", and a bunch more, including two of their newer songs.

I'm playing Adrian in my Iron Maiden tribute band, Seventh Son. He's always been one of my favorite players, though I never learned any of his songs or solos until last year. His blues licks aren't something I normally do and took the longest to get down, but now I like playing those more than anything else. Maybe they'll start appearing in my own leads.

These videos were performed back to back, as you can see from the changing sunlight behind me. Normally you don't get to see leads performed because it's part of the video conspiracy to never show someone playing lead guitar. Did you ever notice that? Videos never show the solos, except in bits and pieces. They always show something else, as if it's just too damn sexy to let anyone see a lead guitarist in action. And hey, maybe it is! I hope you enjoy!

Here's a video of my Iron Maiden tribute band playing The Trooper this past Friday. Check it out!

Check out this video: The Trooper by Seventh Son

My beloved cat Floyd died this morning after 3 months of battling heart disease (see the Terminally Ill blog). I found him around 7:45 this morning when I got up. He wasn't on the bed like usual, purring for food, or in the hallway outside. I got worried and my fears were soon confirmed.

We are very sad and the house seems so quiet without this constant happy, purry, friendly presence. He liked to be around us and even followed us from room to room, making his absence easy to notice now. It will take a long time to get over this and the house will never be the same, even with his sister Isabel here to keep us company.

He recently took a stint as recording engineer, since I started letting him climb on my desk, and while I was recording some guitars, he was really frisky and out for attention. He came up to me on the desk and stepped on the space bar of the keyboard, which is how you start and stop recording, so he ended my take!

I'll soon be loading an acoustic demo of "Home Coming" onto my website. Parts of it were written the day he came home from the hospital. I don't know if I'll even be able to listen to the song for a while without losing it, but I hope you'll enjoy it.

Farewell Floyd! 

Rand

I learned a month ago that a beloved member of my family is terminally ill.  My almost five-year old Turkish Angora cat, Floyd, has heart disease and has been given 3-6 months to live.  We were completely shocked, as he seemed perfectly healthy until I came home from work one Monday to find him breathing hard, like fluid was in his lungs.  I could hear it from five feet away.  I took him to the vet at once and within an hour he was admitted to a special hospital.  I got the first warning of how serious it was when someone literally came running out of the back to get him, like a scene out of an emergency room drama, except with a cat.

 

 

 

They soon had him in a special oxygenated cage to help him breath, and on diuretics to drain the fluid from his lungs.  He has a kind of heart disease that kills with little warning, and you've probably heard of young athletes suddenly dropping dead.  It's the same thing.  Sometimes there is a warning, and this was it.  Unable to process blood like it should, his heart had caused fluid to build in his lungs.  They warned me he was at high risk for sudden death.  I went home with the empty cat carrier, shocked.  I haven't shed a tear in a long time, but Floyd is so funny, affectionate, and hopelessly cute, and I love this cat to death.

By Wednesday he was good enough to take to an offsite cardiologist for what turned out to be the awful prognosis - end-stage heart disease and 3-6 months to live.  Also, the diuretic had worked almost too well and caused kidney problems, so instead of getting him home we had to re-admit him to the hospital, and were warned that if his kidneys got any worse Thursday, they'd recommend putting him down.  I couldn't take it.

He wasn't eating at all either, and I found myself maximizing the visiting hours, spending 4 hours a day in the hospital because he clearly felt better when we were there.  I tried every time to get him to eat all sorts of things he loves, but he wouldn't touch it until they started an appetite stimulant on Friday, five days after his last meal.  At that point he would only eat out of my hand, and no one else's.  I am his primary caregiver and buddy, aside from his sister Isabel, and he clearly wanted me all the time.  It was a little heartbreaking, honestly.  I've never seen him stare at me like that.

 

He finally came home on Sunday after eating on his own enough, and with his kidneys and lungs doing okay.  That day I wrote the solo section on an acoustic piece and soon dubbed it "Homecoming", as it always reminds me of him now.  He has done really well since then, seems perfectly normal, and is on half a dozen medicines, but we know the clock is ticking on him and us.

 

Since Floyd is an in-house cat and so young, we didn't get insurance yet and have paid the price, literally. 

We have to go get Isabel tested to see if she has it, as it's hereditary.  Breeders are supposed to check for it, but these were rescued kittens found somewhere and then on sale via PetSmart on the cheap.  I guess now we know why.

Rand