Yeah, yeah, yeah...
OK, so it's been a few weeks since I last blogged. There have been a few matters to report. Among those:
Last weekend:
Came up with a couple of cool song ideas Friday morning as I woke up. One of those is coming along pretty well and is about to be recorded, as the lyrics are almost finished. The other, while still kind of dormant, has lots of potential as well. At least the subject matter could prove for good storytelling.
Friday night, Decades had a last-minute gig dropped in our lap. We played out at another home-away-from-home, Lonnegan's. The gig went by pretty well, and our drummer was petered out from his hectic work schedule with his sound & lighting company. So after our 2nd set he simply laid back behind his drumkit, pretty much out of sight, and took a little nap through our break. We all had a nice little laugh over it once we discovered where he was. But once we woke him up started our 3rd set, he was cookin'! The little catnap seemed to have actually done him some good. Maybe I'll consider that myself for a gig somewhere down the road...
After being kind of ill for a couple of days, it was nice to have my girls over for part of my weekend. When I picked them up, we had lunch together, did a little shopping and drove all over hell and back looking for a movie I wanted, but couldn't find. After that, we had a really nice time out at Love And War here on the north end of town. We got to sit with Corey and Pam and their kids, and enjoy watching some good live Texas Country while having some great food and a beer or two. I think Corey was feeling pretty good by the time they left, judging by the gin & tonics and the kamikazes that got killed at the table. Oh, that and his request that Pam drive home rather than himself. The girls and I got home, and I passed out in front of the TV as they watched "Nanny McPhee". Next day, we had a nice breakfast and before I took them back to their mom, we had a "quick" (yeah,right!) stop by the pet store. It's like the zoo to them for some reason.
This weekend:
I did it! Came up with yet another Country song idea as I sat down to work Thursday morning. But this time it's finished. The song was complete by Friday morning, just as I had expected it would be. I'm really excited about this one! As a side note, most of my songs are grounded in some sort of reality, or based on some sort of personal experience. This particular song was total fiction, so any resemblance to real persons living or dead is purely coincidental. By Friday morning the song was complete and ready to start recording. So I dropped by Adam's place after work to borrow an appropriate guitar, since my axes are mostly better suited to Rock. Spent quite a bit of time with the tedious, time-consuming process of sequencing instrumental parts. I haven't even begun actual recording yet. I thought I was initially going to run through everything pretty quickly, as I can once I get a good rhythm going. But this time, taking the task on in bite-sized chunks and taking some time seems to be the best approach. The arrangement is pretty heavy on piano and pedal-steel, and to say that my piano chops are rusty would be putting things mildly, especially since my keyboard is "in jail" at the moment. Further complicating matters is that I know little to nothing about pedal-steel, even as I chop up pedal-steel ACID loops to put into the arrangement. Most importantly, since I'm going for publishing here, I suppose it is best to make sure that the demos have the best presentation possible once I start shotgunning them out.
In the middle of everything was Saturday morning. I finally started my karate classes again, and I felt great being involoved again and even better after the class was done. I was a little disappointed that the class was as low-impact as it was this time, because I didn't get as much of a workout as I have recevied there in the past. But, I guess that's all good, since it's been a while anyway. The hard stuff will come soon enough, and I look forward to it! Feels good to be actually doing things again, and feeling productive.
Song material will be posted once copyrights are in place, and of course once it's recorded to begin with. Be watching!