Skip to main content

Day Three Hundred Nineteen

I opened today. On a Tuesday. I never get to open on Tuesdays, and I really enjoyed it, partly because it let me look at everything that came out this week. This morning, that brought back a time in my life that has drifted away, and inspired a purchase. Peter Murphy, who has now put out more studio albums as a solo artist than he did as the frontman of Bauhaus (3 more, actually), released his first solo record since 2004 today. The album's called "Ninth," and it was a much simpler purchase than buying the last one was. More on that story in a second.

Maybe I was looking for musical ispiration today, or maybe subconsciously I needed a short walk down memory lane. Either way, I got what I needed. Not that anything B. and I are doing references Peter's solo work or Bauhaus directly, but there is a sense of openness, of haunting, even to Murphy's most rocking stuff, that I wish we could find a way to bottle.

Sat down with the acoustic tonight, trying to work on the record. Didn't make much progress, but I figure that as long as I'm working on it, I'm eventually going to stumble into some sort of routine. I do have a handful of chord progressions that I could lay down, but I figure I'll work on that tomorrow, when I have the day off.

The one sentence version of that story: I drove an hour (one way) through thunderstorms and tornado warnings to find a coy of his last record, 2004's Unshattered. The crazy things we do for love.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day Two Hundred Six (Year Four)

Today was the first official day of the second half of my "album-in-a-month" challenge. As for today's goals, I wanted to see what I could get done in regards to track order, and get at least a little bit of a start on the lyric writing process. I spent more time working on the track order question than I did on the lyrics today, but as a result of that, I ended up with something that I think will work in terms of order. I did sit with the notebook for a few minutes at the very end of the day, and got a solid starting line of lyric and some other ideas that I hope will be jumping off points for lyrics. What I'm thinking I might do, however, is switch my focus from the lyric writing part of the process directly to the recording part of the process.  That way, if I can get the music recorded and burned onto a CD, I can take the music with me in the car, and listen and try to see what images and thoughts the music brings up.  It's a tactic that has worked for...
Post a Comment
Read more

Day Three Hundred Fifty Nine (Year Three)

Finished up last night's project for the Start Experiment tonight.  It feels awesome to have the drums laid down for this first song.  It's amazing to me just how much more like music this progression sounds with a drum track behind it. Tonight's project is recording the bass line, which should go pretty smoothly, considering that it's already written... I just haven't gotten around to it yet.  Granted, it took me about an hour to get the drums set up so the patterns were recorded in the right order.  Even with notes, these things take a lot of time, I guess. Two things dawned on me today that need sharing: 1) I haven't done much listening at all this week, except for what has happened in the car.  It's still Drive-By Truckers right now, but that needs to change tomorrow. and 2) There hasn't been a whole lot of work on the Buddy Holly tune in the last couple of days.  That needs to change tomorrow and Saturday if I'm going to feel good abou...
4 comments
Read more

Day Three Hundred Forty Two (Year Four)

Tonight was a slightly unfocused night in the studio. It was a night of acoustic stuff, but most of what I got accomplished involved tinkering with different songs by Jackie Greene and Johnny Cash.  If nothing else, I set up the next list of songs I want to figure out. Tomorrow night I need to start getting back to the Acoustic Goldmine book, as well.  Every time I sit down with the acoustic for an extended period of time, I reconnect with the emotional side of that instrument.  There's so much to learn still in that book, so much information designed to improve my playing.  I need to take better advantage of it. I know it's crazy, but I'm already looking forward to Friday.  I really need to spend a lot of the day in the studio.  Getting a weekday off of work is such a rare commodity.  I need to do a good job of using my time wisely. 
Post a Comment
Read more