RPM 2012

Wow... February 2012 was the first month I didn't post a single blog. Fortunately, Teh_Beauty came out of hibernation and saved the planet!

I was pretty busy all month with this year's entry in the Record Production Month Challenge, my third time participating. I put up some YouTube videos in the early stages of songwriting, but never got around to discussing the process here. Sorry! The record's all done now, so it's too late to turn back time.

To make up for my neglect, I have decided to post all of the lyrics for the album right here, right now. I don't know if that's really a fair trade, but it kills two birds with one rock and roll. If you're interested in the album, it's a free download called After All The Worrying. Donate if you want. Here are the lyrics:

1. ANOTHER BLOWOUT ENDING
Jupiter, the King of Beers
Nuclear Pepsi Clear
The moon has 4G’s and is made of processed cheese

All the ink dripped on the page spelled liquid rage
And the writing on the wall fueled the flame
The advancing age of space taking aim
Another blowout-ending game

Fig Newtons' anti-matter
Enterprising deals from Shatner
At the bottom of the black hole, Spaghettios

Sold. Virgo Coke. Cold Pluto Cheerios.
Gold gogo in Vitro. Go.

All the crumbs dropped on the page--edible rage
And the writing on the wall fed the flame
The advancing age of space taking aim
Another blowout-ending game today

Hooray! Obey? OK!

2. FUCKING BIRDS
The early bird got up at six, just before sunrise, shut off the alarm clock and

Went out to catch a big worm and cooked it with the Foreman Grill, watching her cholesterol
The other bird chilled out and snoozed for a while despite the
College kids yammering, construction crews hammering
He’ll get a can of worms later from the vending machine at work

or the gym or the bar at the lanes
Not the gas station
No, probably not, uh-uh
Well, they’re five cents cheaper so maybe it’s worth it
No, almost forgot...

The last time the damn can had expired and they wouldn’t pay him back 

Unless he filled out a long form

After all the worrying, the day went off without a hitch, nothing unusual
Most worms got eaten up, the rest went in Tupperware, and put into the fridge
3 days 'til vacation so they’ll have to eat it soon
the dishes are done, and the local team won
the lights are going out, now the birds are gonna fuck

3. SPIDERNANNY
This baby doesn’t like your face too much

umbilical cord gonna tie you up
swinging from the end of your French braid
then choking you ‘til you can’t relate

No sitting in the corner just to wait around
there's pictures of eyeballs in need of scratching out
practicing for the pee pee dance
and spiking the punch with my underpants

Go, Spidernanny, go! No, Spidernanny, no!

Suckle nipple belt buckles then beat the milk out of my ass

Come and climb diaper mountain with me
I swear it’s easy as on TV
When we get to the top I’ll give you a kiss,
With some shit in my grin and snot on my lips

Cockeyed liver dick shriveled mistress. Son of a bitch.

4. A.S.S. PARADE
Johnny thanked God that Friday was over

2AM and still somehow sober
Cabs and cans discarded in the street
Darkened sky but glitter on concrete

A.S.S. Parade... start it up every other day
A.S.S. Parade... you’ve got to wait to walk away

You moved it then. Move it again.

Cut your teeth on the city’s curbjob
Save your change and argue with space hogs
Man in the mirror shuffling the sheep
Leg of lamb that Johnny just can’t sweep

Y.O.U. gotta move it for the A.S.S. Parade, now move it, baby

A is for Alternate, S is for some other shit
Sometimes it’s the Side that’s best, sometimes you slide in what’s left
I guess the other letter makes the lyrics better but
instead of one in governmental records
I choose something less akin to Chinese checkers
bouncing back and forth like the balls of Boris Becker
A racket indeed, yeah, even free parking feeds greed

No sleep ‘til sweeping...

5. RICK + DEBORAH
He should be King Asshole

She’s so flexible
Older than they look carrying school books home
Clear plastic phones, promise ring, touch tone, hot pink hormones
Dialing…

Rick plus Deborah

Love forever
Stayed together through high school
April Fools

[URGENT MESSAGE FOR TONI]

They would be Class Couple

Indestructible kisses on the cheek
Tearful horror weekends and cameramen
Over-privileged friends inside instead
Bridges they fall and transcend

6. YUMMY MOMMY
Meat deceased won’t season their Caesar

The plant in the audience is a real crowd pleaser
Instant fun, an infamous fable
The message for son: "There’s a mess left on the table."

Yummy Mommy good
Mmm... my tummy’s full
Fold rice paper food
Origami Umami

Goblins give chase to the human racers
Opposable thumbs hold disposable razors
The roughest shit, roughage-richened
Fast for son, feast in the kitchen

Yummy Mommy good
Mmm... my belly’s full
Mold rice paper moon
Origami Umami

A phantom hawk sees fancy tomahawks
A fantasy for fans of the quick brown fox

Fox fucks folks--no film at eleven.

Stuffed fruit tart, handcuffed esposa
Die hard hearts lie on soft sofas
Tough on grease, tougher on Greasers
The next song you hear will be called "Heaters"

7. THEME SONG FROM "HEATERS"
Your fiancée called up and asked to keep an eye on you,
So we rented a van and a non-union camera crew to find out what you do.

After a week of watching, we got you where we want you today
So don’t pretend to be shocked when we confront you to say:

"Don’t leave the heater on ‘cause heaters get hot."

8. BRUCE LEE VING
I threw my guitar into the trunk
Pissed off ‘cause tonight’s show stunk
          Just your average holiday disaster
No longer one inch punch drunk
on power chords for fickle punks
          I stopped at a bar and there appeared the Master

Bruce Lee, Lee Ving -- Fists of beer and fury
We’ll beat The Big Boss’s beef baloney
Bruce Lee, Lee Ving -- Fists of beer and fury
We love living and death in the city

Qi for cheating, Jeet Kune G-String
Green Tea bagging, Fear my Little Dragon

I threw my ass back on the stage
Burned the rule book page by page
           Took my shots and damn, they went down faster
Stared into the lights and gave a quick wave
For Martial farts from that mystical sage
           Fuck Christmas to all and thank you Bruce, you bastard

9. CLIENT 9 FROM OUTER SPACE
Revolution less than nine
Politicians scramble to cosign your throne
Default loans. You fought Gods on the ledge...

Hello Client 9 from up there in outer space.
We'll see you out sometime but I bet it'll be another bad, no good fucking place

One dumb look, another dead and gone.
Et cetera...

The debutantes wear his white dress while the wife drowns.

10. STEPHEN HAWKING'S "THE STAND"
Could you sit still when the cloud went by?
Would you sit back and watch them all die?
Mama, there’s no heaven so I’ll do everything that I can.

Time’s not standing still, so I’m standing up
Time’s not standing still, so I’m standing tall

Didn’t you run when they looked to you for help?
Why not search the universe inside yourself?
Mama, there’s no prophecy so I’ll do it the way I want to.

What is good? What is evil?
Not praise. Not sin.
The war, the people
Science will win.

Bring out your dead.
All your ideas are dead.

Hands of God hide façade.

(all lyrics reprinted with permission of myself ©2012)

RPM Challenge 2011 - Day 10

Got a migraine at work so I left early. Escaped in sleep for 4 hours on the couch, then wrote a song. I'm not feeling like I'm making enough progress this year. I want to throw up--literally, figuratively, and musically.

RPM Challenge 2011 - Day 6

Well I've seem to have fallen back on my old habit of just coming up with a lot of riffs that sort of fit together, then starting a new song and completely forgetting how the last one went. Fortunately, I am video recording everything new I come up with AND writing down the tablature (the failure of which was big mistake last year).

I have been slowly adding lyrics to the themes I had started, but the music portion is sort of taking off on its own. I don't want to be inefficient, so I hope they meet somewhere down the road but at the same time I don't want to force fit them. The final progress report for the weekend is not going to look very good. I slept A LOT and worked on music A LITTLE. This is what I've unofficially recorded (titles are just what I saved them as):

"Another Knight Rider Storms the Bus/Bites the Dust" - fairly complete musically, 4 minutes
"Gipsysong" - this one's got the golden riff, and part to follow it, but not much else. it's in 3/4
"Jesusliz" - two big parts so far to this one, and lyrics to the chorus. this will probably morph into that "Man in the Moon" song, which will then morph into "Fireman in the Moon."
"Let's Not Go Bowling" - Frankensteined the music to this one together in Wavepad. i'm still moving things around structurally, but I think I have enough parts for it. i'm not 100% it will actually become "let's not go bowling."
"Riffff66666" - another two-parter Jesus Lizard ripoff.
"Summertimes" - just two parts and a few words. i don't there will be much more than that, but I still need to find something to sing for the chorus
"Survivor of the Tiger" - musically, I've got two parts written with a weak transition between them. I have lyrics to the chorus, but haven't translated it to the guitar yet. i wrote a lot of silly words, but they may be a little too silly.
"wwwwww" - Just a couple of dissonant chords I was strumming late Friday night, but didn't write down how to play them, and the camera is at a bad angle for seeing my fingers.

That's about it so far. I feel like I'm behind, but I'm probably about where I was last year. RoBeastress is out town this week, so I should be able to record a track or two without anyone seeing my tantrums. It looks like I didn't even start recording until the 20th day last year. How the hell did I finish in just 8 days?

RPM Challenge 2011 - Day 5ish

Stayed in but still managed to drink too much last night. I came up with just one riff despite staying up until 5am. It's golden though. This is not it:



That I woke up and made happen after listening to Nirvana/Dave Grohl's "Marigold" a bunch of times. Obviously the words aren't there yet, considering there's only three lines I've come up with so far. I'm falling back on my old ways of writing the cart before the horse again, while my awesome lyrical concepts still sitting in an unopened Word document. Oh well. Whatever gets me to the end.

In other news, why the hell can't YouTube synchronize my fucking audio and video anymore? They play perfectly on my computer, then I upload and whoops, youtube crapped its pants. I would really like to solve that mystery, or better yet, eat some corn bread right now, but I need to write a thousand more songs instead.

RPM Challenge 2011 - Day 3

I came home and unsheathed the guitar for the first time in a few months since I bought a bunch of Ozzy Osbourne mp3s and drunkenly jammed along. I picked up the Yamaha and immediately locked on to a weird chord that I really dug (chorderator.com says it might be called a D#maj7no5/D), then ran for a recording device. I grabbed my new work laptop, which is equipped with a webcam, but couldn't figure out how to work the damn thing.

Fortunately, the RoBeastress came home at that moment and put a stop to my struggle by locating the software online. I banged out the song for a while and I'm pretty happy with all the parts I've come up with. It's still a little sloppy, but I'm extremely happy that I'm still able to come up with shit in a hurry. I know I said I wouldn't be putting up any Tubes this year, but I'm a liar all around. No lyrics or ideas for this one, but I've temporarily entitled it "Another Knight Rider Storms the Bus" due to the fact that the basslines to the Knight Rider Theme Song and "Another One Rides the Bus" fit in the chorus.



If this isn't synched up at all, blame YouTube. It was fine when I uploaded it.

RPM Challenge 2011 - Day 2

I wanted nothing more than to stay home today and write songs, but the Snow Day I was dreaming of ended up being a 2-Hour Delay instead. Here I am again reporting on the day without having even looked at my guitar. There is a plus side to my delayed instrumentation though--I've overcompensated by thinking about song concepts and lyrics. I've come up with 10 really strong song ideas that I plan to pursue. I've officially titled 9 of them (meaning I started a Word Document with their name in ALL CAPS), and I've got a pretty decent jump on lyrics for 4.

This pretty much turns my 2010 technique upside down, since all the songs were fully written and recorded with no consideration for lyrics or melody. This time, the words and moods are going to dictate the songs which is not something I've really ever done. I've got my fingers crossed that it will serve me well, but to be honest, going outside your comfort zone is the true spirit of this challenge, so I welcome the experiment.

I just also really quickly wanted to say that I'm extremely happy that several friends have taken up the challenge this year too. I'm already looking forward to our March victory party/decompression. Ok, enough babbling, here are the titles so far for the still untitled 2011 album:

• This is the Start
• Bazooka Joan
• Let's Not Go Bowling
• C.O.M.E. (Center Of Modern Excellence)
• Any Prize, Any Size
• Stereopoly
• Anthony! Anthoni! Anthoné!
• Planet Carol Anne 2: The Other Side
• Survivor of the Tiger
• Moon Man in the Moon

The last one I'm a little iffy on. I found out that there's a band in the area called Moon Men on the Moon, Man which is sort of close. (Yes, if you're wondering, I look up every idea I ever have to see if someone else had it first). I'm not ready to share any of the themes or lyrics just yet. I may not at all until they're completely finished. No offense. And whatever you do, don't try to give me any ideas! Because I'm a jerk! Face!

RPM Challenge 2011 - Day 1

Somehow, it's February already. That means it's time again for the RPM Challenge--to write and record 10 songs or 35 minutes of material by the end of the month. Most of February 2010 was a fog, but I emerged victorious in my first attempt at completing the challenge.

This year, having just started a new job which is sucking away most of my free time and energy, I've decided to scale back my production a bit. I will skip playing a full drum kit, and probably just do some simple kitchen percussion (I'm looking at you, popcorn tin). I may forgo bass entirely. Also on the outs will most likely be vlogging my process as I go. I'm sure I'll still record what I'm doing on video, but it will just be so I remember what my hands are doing on the guitar. It's quicker just to type my progress anyway.

Or lack thereof. Today, I woke up with a solid concept for one short song, wrote down some random lyrics in my notebook, and hummed some melodies/riffs for another song into my portable recorder. I thought I had a cool original concept for that tune, but apparently "Bazooka Joan" is already an obscure DC comic book character from 1984. Maybe I'll still use it anyway. I'm at least planning to attempt writing lyrics along the way this time as opposed to writing, singing, and recording them all for the first time in the last 48 hours of the project. Sure, that was the most intensely creative experience I've ever had, but why put that kind of pressure myself? 28 days is plenty of time, right?

Yes, but just barely. Tomorrow I need to at least unzip my guitar from its case and start playing something or I'll start to fall behind. For now, I sleep.

RPM 2010 - Done

Uhh... uh... uhhhhhh....




I'll have a more epic wrap-up next week. And music too!

RPM Day 26 - White Out

I was planning on spending last night at the studio finishing up drums and starting vocals, but thanks to a blizzard, I had the shittiest commute of my life. It certainly wasn't the longest (that would be the 8 hour/30 mile drive during a storm a few years back), but it wasn't fun. I couldn't drive five feet without getting stuck. Fortunately a truck was able to push me up a hill, and the rest is history.

That being said, I ended up bumping bass back up to the top of my queue, not because I thought it was a priority, but because it was the only thing I'd be able to safely accomplish given the circumstances. And accomplish, I did. I got 8 out of 9 tracks completed (only the last minute drum-only track remains) last night and this afternoon. No, they're not the most inventive bass tracks in the world, but in lieu of a lead guitar and an authoritative kick drum, it does its job.

The tracks went mostly smooth, though I did struggle with one particular bass line at the end of one track that never really clicked. The most notable issue I had was discovering that my guitar tracks were not actually recorded in standard tuning as I intended-they're all lower (can't recall offhand if it's a half- or whole-step lower). I guess the built-in tuner on my electric/acoustic is a damn dirty liar.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to get up early and walk to the studio and see what words I can come up with. No snow songs, I promise that much.

RPM Days 23-24ish

Day 23

I was in the studio until 2 AM ignoring the blisters and sore muscles in order to finish off my drum tracks. I think my playing was a little better, but I'm not so sure my microphone setup was. There's still not much kick drum being picked up. It's a shame because I really was incorporating it into my beats.  

The other only other thing of note is that I wrote a new track... on drums. This was a result of my worry that I don't have 35 minutes of material. I only had 8 songs written (and one of them is basically two minutes of filler), so at an average of 4 minutes a song, I wasn't going to make it to the finish line. It's possible that my song average is higher (or even lower), but the point is that I just don't know the total track time yet until I have basic mixes done and I don't want to risk not having access or energy to play drums at the last minute. Right now that track is just drums. I have an idea for a melody, but I probably won't dive too far into that song until the end.

While recording, I was a little gentler on the 8-track, and it only locked up once, at the very end of the night. I did figure out how to recover those "lost" songs though. I still can't explain why the system kept freezing, or why the system freezing caused the 8-track to erase the songs' table of contents, but none of the sound files were actually deleted. I basically had to go to the hard drive, copy the songs' .bak files and recreate them as .adl or something in order to get the 8-track to add it back to the selectable menu. It was annoying, but I'm glad I didn't lose any material. I'll be honest, that would've been the last straw.

Day 24

I was asleep on my feet all day because of the past few nights' sleep deprivation. By the time I got home I had no desire at all to jump into bass playing or lyric writing. I got home, shoveled some Chicken Lo Mein into my mouth, and passed out at 9 PM, halfway through Roger Ebert's commentary track on Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. Excellent, by the way.

Morning 25

There was supposed to be a giant snowstorm blanketing New Jersey by the time I woke up today, but at 6 AM, there was nothing on the ground. I was hoping for a bonus snow day to spend working on this project, but instead, I got in my car and went to work. Of course it started snowing heavily as I drove in, so there's still hope that the work day will end early and I'll be able to get a lot accomplished.

I did make some stereo mixes of the guitar and drum tracks before I left today because I wanted to be able to start working on lyrics while driving in my car. Either the 8-track or my computer was running very poorly this morning, so I only managed to make 5 or 6 mixes before I had to leave. While listening to them on the way in, I realized that a couple are mixed a little too low, but at least that's an easy fix. Better to do that now then after I add more tracks.

I also realized just how much I still have to do. Coming up with 9 complete sets of lyrics and then recording them in less than 4 days is complete insanity. Fortunately, I have my new mp3 player, so I can play the track through my car stereo, turn on the mp3 microphone, and babble my way to a melody and lyric. I think I managed to come up with good starts for 3 songs this morning. If I can do 3 more on the way home, I'll feel a little less overwhelmed.

What I'm not so confident about is the bass. Not that I can't play it, but that I simply might not have time. I originally intended to do that before vocals, but right now words are taking the priority. Because the kick drum is almost nonexistent, I know the album needs a bottom end. But on the bright side, I consider myself more of a rhythm guitar player, so the stereo spectrum is fairly full as it stands. In a perfect world, I'd have bass and a lead track, but this is crunch time, and the songs need words.

The other big snag I discovered this morning is that I completely forgot to record drums for an entire song. I'm going to try to get that completed at the studio tonight. Maybe I'll use the out of tune piano to write the music for that drums-only song.

RPM Days 21-22 - The Crying Days

I have almost given up this challenge several times in the past few days. Not because I don't have it in me to write and record all these songs, but because I'm becoming more and more aware of better ways to do everything. I've been making so many mistakes and doing things the hard way, that I just want to start it all over. From the beginning I knew that what I was going to have on March 1st was not going to be the best, but now I'm struggling with the reality of it. I am still passionate about what I've written, but it's getting hard to push through when I know it's not all it could be.

Day 21

On Sunday I finished structuring whatever songs I had written earlier in the month.  Getting to the end of the day was a real pain in the ass, and I came close to smashing my guitar, smashing my skull, or smashing my guitar into my skull numerous times. For all the parts I'd written and recorded on camera, I'd hardly written any of them down. As someone who likes weird chords and rhythms, but has little musical theory knowledge, this was the stupidest thing I could have possibly done. I spent the majority of the day staring at myself on YouTube trying to figure out what my fingers were doing. On a number of videos, I was focused on the wrong hand, which meant I had no choice but to figure out the chords by ear. The RoBeastress reasonably argued that the songs were all works in progress anyway, so even if the wrong chords sounded good, they'd still be mine. Unfortunately, when I'm in music mode, obsessive often trumps reasonable; not getting them exactly right would invalidate the time I spent coming up with the parts in the first place. I think ultimately, I figured out all the chords (and yes, wrote the difficult ones down).

Another problem was that one of my acoustic guitars (the one with the slutty schoolgirl sticker) was tuned a half step lower than standard, but that was a little easier to solve. I just downtuned my acoustic-electric, then retuned it up to record. So a few of the songs that you may have heard before won't have the extra flat of heaviness.

Oh! Yet another issue. Like I mentioned in the last post, I'm recording with the acoustic-electric exclusively here. I've haven't had it that long and I've never recorded with it, so I learned the hard way about one of its quirks. A few hours into the day and I thought my playing was getting shittier, but it turned out that the battery was dying and it affected the sound quality of the chords. I don't know how much was recorded before I changed the battery, but it's probably not too noticeable.

By the end of the day I had 8 tracks of doubled acoustic guitar recorded. I have no idea if it's 35 minutes of material. I believe most of the songs average about 4 minutes, so I am probably looking at the possibility of having to squeeze out one more track. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Day 22

Yesterday I started plotting out exactly what I was going to do with the rest of days and how I was going to accomplish things on the digital 8-track. I decided that I would go for broke and do drums first since they will be the hardest. I bought some sticks and went to the practice space. Nobody was there, so I jumped into the driver's seat.

After recording two tracks of guitar the previous day, I had two slots left on the 8-track without having to bounce or make any other concessions, so I decided that I was just going be economical/lazy and use only two mics. I tried a couple different setups and was never really crazy about any of them, but I also didn't have all fucking night to dick around with precise microphone placement. I'd always wanted to try the Recorderman setup, but I completely forgot about it that technique until about 5 minutes ago. Fortunately, what I did last night was actually pretty close, minus the fine tuning.

There is a serious lack of kick drum presence on the recordings, but I'm starting to think that it's a result of the either my 8-track (and it's obscene lack of EQ) or the kick drum's quality itself. When we recorded our band demo a few months back, we had a similar the same problem. I'm sort of OK with this because my kicking is weaksauce, but at the same time, if I'm going to have sore leg muscles the next day (which I do) I want those beats to register, goddammit.

I started right in on my favorite track and quickly realized that I:

1. Was not in shape
2. Should have used a click track 
3. Had no idea what I was going to play on drums
4. Still wasn't incredibly familiar with my own song structures
5. May have made a horrible mistake in thinking that I was better off with real drums

I basically made up drum beats for each part as I came to it, which is nothing unusual. But recording to the 8-track is better with fewer punch-ins on drums, so I still had to be able to put the parts together. When you're not really a drummer, the fuckups are aplenty, so any time I screwed up, I immediately erased the whole take and started from the beginning again. Whenever I was completely frustrated I used punch-ins. It took me hours and hours just to finish the first song, and that was one I thought would be the easiest!

The next one took a while too, but I do think I got a little better at playing. With my arms at least. My right leg revolted by the third song. I would stare at it and try to move it with my mind, but it just wouldn't do what I wanted anymore. I think it was jealous because my left didn't do much of anything the whole time. I tried to throw in some toms for variety, but the longer the night went on, the less complex my beats got.

On the fourth song, the 8-track froze while I was attempting to undo a part I recorded. This is normally a simple operation with the quick touch of button, only this time "Please wait" stared at me for 5 minutes. None of the buttons gave any response, so I had to pull the plug and restart. I was on a roll with the drum parts for that song, so I turn it back on as fast as I could and immediately hit record again. Suddenly, a different song was playing.

I backed out to the menu to switch songs, and the entire track was missing. CC1, CC2, CC3, CC5... What the fuck? I am confident that the track has not been deleted, but it would completely ruin whatever momentum I had if I were to boot up my laptop, hook it up to the 8-track, then try to recover the files. I had no choice but to move on the next song. When I was working on Song 6, the same exact fucking thing happened. It's not like the machine is running low on memory. There's about 68 hours of recording time left on the thing. I guess I was pushing it to the limit with all of my takes?

At about 1 am, my body said it was time to go home. I was smelly, sweaty, and tired. I could feel a blister forming on the thumb, no thanks to the stick I cracked and then continued using upside-down  for the last three hours. All in all, I got 4 or 5 songs finished completely. 2 are missing (though I had come up with most of the parts for them), and I think there's one that I just don't have any good parts for yet (the song I thought would be the second easiest, of course).

I have regular band practice tonight, so I'm going to try to recover those lost tracks during downtime, then stay another 4 hours or so after we finish. I got about 4 crappy hours of sleep last night, so doing it again tonight is going to suck, but I don't really have a choice. I still have to do a bass track (Wednesday/Thursday?), then vocals for lyrics that I haven't even written (Uh, Friday/Saturday/Sunday?). By noon on Monday, March 1st, this needs to be on a CD, in an envelope, at the post office. I think the only thing that can break my spirit now is if these two missing tracks can't be recovered. I'll get my guitar and skull ready.

RPM Day 21 - Learning the Hard Way

My transition from writing to recording has not been enjoyable. First, I couldn't find my headphones. Then I realized my drum machine power cord is dying, plus, it's annoying to program when I'm in a hurry. And I forgot to bring my guitar and effects pedal home from the studio.

I went back to the studio to see if I could find my headphones (I couldn't) and grab my guitar and other crap. I decided while I was there that I would record with real drums instead of the machine. No, I'm not really a good drummer, but I don't want to deal with programming for hours when I could just play a half-assed version for real in half the time. I also decided that I would record with my electric/acoustic because I've written almost all of the songs that way, and I've never recorded with it before. Electric/acoustic needs love too.

I didn't have the structure of the songs hammered out yet, nor did I have guide tracks recorded, so I decided to concentrate on the guitars first instead of drums. I am holing myself up at the RoBeastress Fortress for the weekend to accomplish this. Last night I bought some Sennheiser headphones and set up shop. Then I realized the headphones were open air, so I went back and exchanged them for some Shure headphones that were more my style. After that, eating dinner, and ebaying (I finally got an mp3 player!), I felt it was too late to start recording. So I played Tetris instead.

I played around with sounds this morning, but ultimately I decided against using the effects pedal with the acoustic/electric. I couldn't settle on any good distortion, and since I never record anything clean, I figured this experiment would be the time to try it. Another potentially foolish decision I made today was to not use a click track. The click that is on the digital 8 track I'm using isn't so hot and I didn't want to waste time futzing with the drum machine again, so I'm just going to wing it. This will be trouble if I fail at real drums and have no steady tempo to insert the drum machine track, but it's the risk I'm taking. As they say, Fuck it, I'm doing it live.

I recorded a track and a half of doubled acoustic rhythm parts and decided to take a food break. The food break ended up becoming food, a movie, and a nap break. The nap ended up being 6 hours long. Thanks Claritin. I eventually finished off the half track, and did a third before deciding it was too late at night to be playing guitar. In retrospect, I probably should have used the electric after all because it's not as loud to play, but I've already committed to this acoustic deal, so I'm sticking it out for better or for worse. I'm also realizing that acoustics probably sound better mic'd and not plugged in, but again, too late.

Oh, another idiot move I've made during this project is recording myself playing songs, but not writing down the chords. Because I basically wrote each song fairly quickly, I immediately forgot how to play them, and I've had to relearn each one by ear instead of memory. I think I'm picking them up accurately, but it's yet another time waster.

Tomorrow, I need to finish recording the rhythm guitar for the rest of songs or else. I'm debating whether or not to put leads on there with the electric, or if I should even bother with leads at all. Or if I should just let the bass track take over for any melodic lead I was imagining. And oh yeah, I need a bass.

I think what I'm really doing here is just putting a simple demo together, far from the solo album of my dreams. I just don't have the time or resources to accomplish that in only 28 days unfortunately. At least I'm learning a lot about this process (though most of it is through trial and error) so I can go into it next time better prepared. And not waste so much time playing Tetris and sleeping.

RPM 2010 - Day 14 - Meet Me Halfway

It's the halfway point in the month of February. I may or may not have 35 minutes worth of music. I'm not really sure. All I know is that if I spend the second half of the month working as slowly as the first half, then I'm not going to complete this challenge.

My band Plowing Mud Forever is playing a show on Tuesday night, then practicing again on Wednesday, so I probably won't even get to start recording until Thursday the 18th, which doesn't give me a lot of time. I don't have my 8-track or drum machine with me, so I think I'm going to be stuck writing and arranging again tomorrow.

With all the snow and cabin fever last week, I watched The Shining a couple times, so I had a half baked idea of writing a song based on the film. I called it "The Shindig." I came up with an intro that reminded me of a helicopter sound like in the beginning of the movie, but then I decided my concept was stupid and wrote other music completely unrelated to The Shining. Some of the lyrics are sort of inspired by the film, so maybe all is not lost. I've also been watching a lot of the Poltergeist series so I'll probably work that in too. I wrote most of this song yesterday, then realized this morning that my recordings didn't actually record, and tried to recreate as much as I could today.

Here's what I've got:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHVeblYfpO0

RPM Challenge - Day 10 - Snow Day

I stayed home from work because of the blizzard today, but unfortunately my camera died fifteen minutes into my writing this morning. I forgot the charger at the RoBeastress' castle, so I had to record using the stinky laptop microphone. At least I managed to finish off a song. There are only three parts to it, and I may edit this down even shorter, but I think what you're going to hear is as complex as it's going to get. All the parts are 4/4 which I try not to ever do, but I wanted to experiment with being normal for a change. It's a very standard pop structure - I think I was channeling Michelle Branch. There are one or two slightly dissonant chords in the chorus, so I'm still keeping it real up in the feel, Catarrh Clothesline style.

I really should have written more songs today, but the technical problems worked against my motivation. I don't know how many more songs I need to write because I haven't tallied up my total progress. I think I have 6 songfuls of songs and another standalone progression. I'll come up with another track on Friday night or Saturday morning (or both) and see if it's time to start recording on the digital 8.

Here's yet another untitled thing with crappy audio and crappy recycled video clips:

http://www.youtube.com/v/_Wy5HOVemfQ&hl

RPM Day 6 - A Man Exploding

I'm going to call this one "A Man Exploding" because I came up with a few lyrics for the verses and that was one of them. This video will look a little sloppy because I pieced some of the sections together after recording. I just wasn't sure how I wanted them to fit, but I think I like this composition. By the time I got to the final chorus, I forgot how to play it, so it's slightly different than the first two. Oh, and because it's the weekend, I'm wearing glasses. It's a new rule. Here you go:

http://www.youtube.com/v/OpFvzLeJXn4

RPM Challenge Day 5 - In It To Win It, and by It, I Mean...

Riffy Doodles and a Helmet Rip Off?

http://www.youtube.com/v/25DIbP94dD8

RPM Day 4 - Into the Wild/Into the Light

Day 4 video - http://www.youtube.com/v/khre1EU8wLo



Day 4 special bonus video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LB41I0SoTMI

Stick it to the Mailman

I had band practice last night so I didn't have too much time to work on solo riffinating. I did come up with a few parts to play around with, but I worry that one may be too close to a Deftones song. I'm not going to bother uploading it until I flesh it out more tonight.

No major progress to speak of from Day 2, so what else will we talk about? How about what I think will shape and inspire my RPM process. I've always loved the first Foo Fighters record because Dave Grohl wrote and played all the parts on the album himself. If I had the time and resources to recreate that situation, I would love to attempt something like that. I'm not such an amazing drummer or bass player, but there's something about DI-Completely-Y that appeals to me. Maybe it shows my narcissism and a difficulty in giving up creative control, but I enjoy working independently on material, and knowing that the album was one person's vision and execution enhances the experience for me. I love the riffs and the songs, and despite the variety in the tracks, there is a still a unifying sound and consistency.

I've also been influenced heavily by Dave Grohl's lyrical style on this album (to be honest, I can't say the same for the Foo's subsequent albums). The sounds and rhythms of the words are more important than the story it doesn't tell. Take these lines from "Watershed..."

I stick it to the mailman
I'm pinned against a pot plant
I'm sick of all the sun-tan
Oily with the ray-ban

I'm skinny as a spit pan
Dealing with the shit plan
Playing with my bad hand
Just another rock band

I don't know what the song means, and I don't think I ever really cared, but I enjoy that each line recalls the previous in terms of rhythm and rhyme. I've never been much of a vocal person so I tend to mimic that kind of playful abstraction. I come up with a line and then sort of reinterpret it in order to write other lines. I end up with a lot of internal rhymes and alliteration, even if the phrases don't necessarily make sense. For instance, the other day I had the phrase "stick it in the mac n' cheese" in my head (for reasons I won't divulge here). Repeating that over and over again, it morphed into a bunch of other lines. With a little bit of coaxing, research, and immaturity, I ended up with this mess:

Stick it in the mac n' cheese
Fuckerfaster Appleseed
Johnny keep it quiet please
Jackin' off to van der Steen  
Jessica inspired the
Splattered Hewlett Packard screen
Watch out for the hackers' scheme
Back it up with McAfee

Yeah, it's impersonal nonsense, but I'm not trying to rewrite "Imagine" (though now that I really analyze it, I sound like I'm trying to rewrite "Watershed"). To me, lyrics are riffs too. You fuck around with them and make them noisy and sloppy where they need to be. Maybe as an experiment, I'll try to write a pretty one this month. We'll see.

First Day, First Song?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTBc9tEDFF8

Playing in front of the computer screen gives me Avatar face apparently. I recorded the guitar portion of the video at a different resolution which I will probably not do from now on. Overall, I'm surprisingly happy with the track despite it only taking about an hour or so to come up with. Here's to hoping all the songs are this easy.

It might not stay at this tempo, and it might not be this mellow in the future, but like I said, it's "a decent framework" (do I have to use quotation marks if I'm quoting myself?). There are a few weird time changes, a few weird chords, but a pretty standard structure. That's sort of a typical Robeast Rollie song, so maybe I need to get a little more experimental for the next 9 songs.

Speaking of me, I told you that I'd tell you about the tale of my "band" name. Catarrh Clothesline is an anagram of my full name. It wasn't the funniest or the most offensive, but it's simple, alliterative, and a little gross. I'm a fan of it. Here were some other of my favorites:

The Saccharine TrollHitler's Anal CrochetElectoral Shit RanchStale Hernial CrotchLeather Lion ScratchInhale Scrotal RetchThe Last Coil RancherTallest Chino ArcherOther Anarchist CellOrchestra in Cat HellAntarctic Hell HorseEarth, Narcotics, HellRear Technical SlothThe Clitoral RanchesThe Citronella CrashRichest Carnal HotelHostile Rectal RanchRectal Chain HolsterEthical Rectal HornsRetinal Scratch HoleAlien's Leather CrotchTorch Each InstallerSectarian Hell TorchHer Lethal NarcoticsThe Tall Heroic NarcsHello Erratic SnatchRectal Crash HotlineAnthill Earth SoccerClean the Shit CorralLeech Scar TriathlonHarlots' Chanticleer  Some of those are pretty awesome, but I prefer the simple, two word anagram. Catarrh is mucus caused by an inflammation of mucous membranes, so a Clothesline of it makes for a fun visual. I have a stuffy nose most of the time, so it fits. And Catarrh is pronounced like Guitar, so that's another plus. Catarrh Hero has been used before, unfortunately. Oh well.

I've got regular band practice tonight, so I don't know if I'll have time to come up with any new riffs. See you tomorrow, maybe.

The RPM Challenge - Day 1

Today, February 1, 2010, the first day of the shortest month of the most controversially pronounced year of my life (I'm sticking with Twenty Ten, haters), signals the beginning of Record Production Month. Similar to November's NaNoWriMo, The RPM Challenge seeks to jumpstart artistic creativity by having participants to write, record, and share 10 songs or 35 minutes of original music by the end of February. I signed up for it this year and will be documenting my progress and problems here, posting audio on The RPM Challenge website, and may post some video on them there YouTubes.

Since this is my first time attempting this challenge and I'm not really sure how to approach it, I have no idea what's going to happen in these 28 days. We're encouraged not to use any prerecorded material or even start writing until February, so I'm going into it with my riffs and ideas formatted from my brain. In fact, I seem to have even sabotaged my writing process further by losing my mp3 player which I'd normally rely on as my sketch pad for songs and lyrics. I guess I'll be going back to pen and paper for a while until I can find the right replacement player on eBay.

So what tools do I have? I have an electric guitar and amp at the practice space, a crappy acoustic guitar at my apartment, and a good acoustic/electric guitar at the RoBeastress' apartment. I've got ProTools, but no laptop to run it on so I'll be relying on my cold, unfriendly digital 8-track for recording. I've also got some rinky dink keyboards and a decent drum machine to round things out. Maybe when no one is looking at the practice space, I'll sneak some real bass or drums into the mix.

It feels like I'm light years away from the point of even starting to put things down on tape (or hard disk), but no matter how I slice it, I've only got 28 days left to finish this. If that's not enough of time constraint, I'm also busy prepping 10 songs for a March recording session with my band Plowing Mud Forever. I am committing myself to this Challenge though, so if I have to go back to the days of Mountain Dew fueled all-nighters and headphone hair, then that's what it will take. I think the key is going to be to always have an instrument or an inspiration nearby. That sounds wise enough to embolden, huh?

Always have an instrument or an inspiration nearby.

I'm also going to try to stop complaining so much. There's just not enough to time in February to whine. Tonight I'm going to go home and dick around on my crappy acoustic and see what I can come up with. Whatever it is, it will probably be out of tune, but at least it's a start. Those don't count as complaints, do they? If anyone is interested in following me on the RPM site or linking up or whatever sociomusical networking is to be done there, my "band" name is Catarrh Clothesline (long story, I'll tell you tomorrow).

By the way, another great thing to do tonight would be to fill out Mark Prindle's 2010 "Top 7-3" Reader Survey. The deadline is midnight tonight!