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Day Three Hundred Forty Six

First of all, last night's setlist from Grace Potter goes something like this:

1. Ah Mary
2. Hot Summer Night
3. Goodbye Kiss
4. Oasis
5. Apologies
6. Stop The Bus
7. White Rabbit
8. Nothing But The Water I
9. Nothing But The Water II
10. Medicine
11. Sugar
12. Paris (Ooh La La)

She played a few more than 9 songs, it turns out, but I wasn't complaining in the slightest.

Now, as for today's activities... I chatted with J. over Skype for a bit this morning. We talked guide tracks and drum tracks. I expressed my frustration over not having finished off the guide tracks yet, and he essentially let me off the hook by telling me he was exploring alternative drum sounds. Apparently, he's got some cool electronic stuff he wants to try out, and has been working with that.

He also provided more clarification on the guide tracks, and reassured me in the process that his changes shouldn't affect what I'm working on laying down guitar-wise. According to him, if I "work with the old drums, the new ones will fit right in." This was the first confirmation that I was supposed to be using the drums in my guide tracks. Mind you, I figured that would be the case, but it's still nice to have that confirmed. Also, he asked how B.'s mic was working out, and told me that he now wants two guide tracks. One that's just basic, and the next that's halfway between the first and the final performance. I'm really thinking I should just shoot for the final performance on this one. Still, all of this will help me in the long run.

Never did end up teaching today. I appeared at work (where we were scheduled to meet) at the appointed time, and they had left already. I consoled myself by picking up "Alpocalypse" by Weird Al, and "Revelator," the debut album by the Tedeschi Trucks Band.

Read some more of the Keith Richards bio when I got home, and then started in with the acoustic. The good news is that after fighting with that blasted progression for what feels like forever now, I am fairly certain that I have finished it off! Granted, it will have to meet with B.'s approval, but I'm still feeling pretty good about it. After I got that done, I started to really dive into the guide tracks. Didn't get anything recorded, but I did finish breaking down one of the songs in terms of what we played, and the structure of the whole thing. We did some pretty odd stuff all those years ago. Got started figuring out the second one, but didn't get all the way through it yet.

The other thing I did tonight, as long as I had the list of songs handy, was to start looking through it to see what was done, and what still needed to be worked up. I think with what we have finished off/far along toward completion right now, we could make a solid run at a full album, but there are still a few that need working up, and one old one that we wrote really early on that I'd like to revisit. For some reason we had crossed it off years ago, but when we were chatting a few weeks back, the song kept coming up, so we'll see about that one.

Productive day today! Will hopefully catch up with B. sometime this week. We texted a bit tonight, but that was it. Maybe by then I can have more songs done.

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