Category: ♫

a welcome distraction

body looks good, grain is not pretty. will need sanding, sealer and paint for sure. color? i’m thinking yellow? orange? mint green? or maybe i’ll do stickerbomb? i dunno yet.

neck is… well… it needs a bit of work, but nothing i can’t handle. back bow is minor, hopefully the truss rod works. frets need leveling, like across the board. needs sanding, sealer and probably 1000 coats of poly. but i can make that happen easy enough. need ideas for a logo to put on the headstock.

hardware is surprisingly not as terrible as i was expecting. i’m probably gonna order a set of locking tuners and new pickups anyways, but the rest is actually fine. i may even try these pickups first and see, maybe they sound good?

i like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.

more potato quality… for a guy who pretty much has a recording studio in his basement, i really fucking slack on using it. anyhow, recorded on my pc using a blue snowball. whatever, it’s fine for a work in progress. same little thing i was working on the other day. i’m happy with the next progression, even though i played it poorly. not sure if it will remain acoustic only or if i will switch to electric and add drums and bass. we’ll see. still need to work out some more parts.

i haven’t decided on what this will be about. i think it still needs to crystalize a little in my head. i have some ideas.

play it by ear?

really good jam yesterday, despite y not being there. things are slowly coming together, things are getting tighter, less mistakes being made. j and m only took one 420 break and both were motivated to keep going. i played my heart out as well… i guess i have some demons i need to exercise or something (shocker, right?).

i’m starting to believe in j’s plan that by next summer we’ll be able to play a show.

the other day j said something as well which i thought was interesting. both m and i play by ear. we can’t read music. heck, i can barely read tab and i don’t even think there is tab for drums. j on the other hand relies 100% on tab. so every song we learn, he needs to study and m and i just kind of fuck around until we get it. because of this, j claimed we were superior musicians to him. which is kind of funny, because j has always been one of my musical inspirations/mentors/idol. i’ll take it as a compliment.

anyhow, towards the end of the jam, m pulls out a little thing he’s been fucking around with for a while and holy moly, i fucking love it! pardon the potato recording quality.

little rough still, this was the very first time either j or i played along to it, so there is work to be done for sure. but man oh man, this is something. can’t wait until next weekend to flesh it out more.

hi ren

i don’t hear voices. i’m a functional and productive member of society. i am well respected in my industry. i am a mentor to many. i have a family that is thriving. i create things. i have no debt. i am successful. by all measures, i am a fully functional, well adjusted human. at least from the outside.

but fuck me does this ever resonate with me to my core. i listened to this when he released it a year or two ago and really liked it, but didn’t really process it. but now here i am, saturday morning, getting ready for my weekly costco run, listening to this again and every hair on my body is standing on end, my stomach is turning, my heart is pounding… and who the fuck is cutting onions at this hour? jesus christ.

thank you ren. i hope you’re doing ok. i’m working on being ok myself, i’ll get there eventually.

exploring

when was the last time i wrote a whole song? it’s been a while. actually, the last time i really remember writing a whole song, not just little riffs was when i still had my explorer and lived on greene av in that awful apartment where everything went wrong. that’s when my explorer was stolen, along with the bag that had all my notes. damn, that was a long time ago.

i miss that guitar. i should buy another one. or maybe build one. actually that’s not a terrible idea. almost symbolic? ok lets do it.

maybe i’ll document the build here when i get the kit. will very likely need to order a ton of other stuff, i’m sure the tuners, pickups and pots will be the hottest of hot garbage. we’ll seeeeee!

i’m working on something now, Asus2 with a G# diddly thing to Emaj… and then to… something. haven’t figured it out yet. i have the progression in my head, i just can’t quite place it yet. lyrics.. oh man, i have a few ideas, just need to decide on what fits best once i have the rest sorted.

so tired

i’ve been getting these bouts of insomnia that just fuck everything up. last night i couldn’t sleep at all. eugh… felt like i had just smoked a whole pack of cigs at once, stomach turning, heart racing, cold, hot, and constantly needing to stretch and yawn. gross.

i gave up at about midnight and just plopped my ass down in front of the screen again. minutes turned into hours and then my alarm went off signaling the start of a new work day. great. a quick shower, 2 redbulls, and then to the office i went. looked and felt like shit. still do.

i guess on the plus side, i discovered a youtube channel i kinda like.

gentlemen of culture, i present to you night city

for real though, there is something about synthwave music that just feels so nice. especially when you just want to zone the fuck out.

i wonder if tonight i will crash hard or get a second wind? i’m hoping for the former.