"Muse" - ings on Rock & Life

Today involved a bit of playing and a bit of listening. Both to bands with immense critical acclaim. The playing was Wilco ("I Must Be High"), and the listening was Spoon. I had always heard good things about Spoon, but never actually heard anything by them. I made the mistake of mentioning this to a co-worker the other day, and then watched while she practically had a heart attack. I wound up buying "Gimmie Fiction" at her suggestion, and finally put it into the CD player tonight. I love how their music is so heavily groove oriented and acoustic at the same time. In spots it almost feels dancy in nature. Can't wait to hear more of their stuff. Not as much actual playing as I probably should've done today, but still a good day.

Worked a little bit on both sides tonight. For the electric half of things, I ran through a bit of "Every Thug Needs A Lady" by Alkaline Trio. There's not a ton of electric on the recording. In fact, the song feels more bass driven than anything else, but in my head it screams for more electric. As for the acoustic side of things, I played around with another song that I'm pretty sure I've mentioned on here before, "Dynamite" by Son Volt. I've always been more of a Tweedy (Wilco) guy than a Farrar (Son Volt) guy, but this one speaks to me. Also, put them together in Uncle Tupelo, and I'm always going to be a fan.

Picked up the electric tonight as a way to decompress from my work day, and got myself so lost in playing that I forgot to do laundry, and almost forgot to post on time. It feels so great to just lose yourself in the music. I didn't really work on anything constructive tonight, I just sort of let it happen. (It's a short post, I know)

So, what I printed out last night, I sifted through tonight. As for my conclusions, they go something like this: considering that I'm a bit over a month in, and that in the year before I started I hadn't played all that much, I feel good with what I've accomplished so far. Not fabulous, for I realize that there was more that could have been done in the last 36 days, but good. If there's anything I need to do a better job of, it remains seeing the things I've begun through to some sort of end. I've started working through "Fine" and "I'm Tore Down," but haven't gotten them to performance levels yet, I've started going all the way through the circle of fifths, but haven't finished the keys with flats yet, I've started to work more on acoustic stuff, but haven't found the balance between that and my electric playing. And I've hardly done any work on my original music. J is probably thinking I've given up on h...

A bit of housecleaning seemed like fun today. In the past thirty-five days, I've started in on a lot of different projects in regards to the overall goal of improving my playing this year. It dawned on me today that it would be beneficial to print everything out, and catch up with everything I've started. That being said, I've just printed out the first 34 days as a way to check up on myself at roughly the one month point. Also, in getting back on the "Top 5" every five days, thing... here are 5 Covers Most People Didn't Know Were Covers. The artist on the more famous version is in parentheses. 1) California Sun - Joe Jones (The Rivieras) 2) Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood - Nina Simone (The Animals) 3) Kansas City - Little Willie Littlefield (Wilbert Harrison) 4) Hey Joe - The Leaves (Jimi Hendrix) 5) Ruby Baby - The Drifters (Dion) and if you really need a bonus, here's another one that's a bit more common. 6) Hard To Handle - Otis Redding (The...

Today was kind of a lost day. I sorted some CDs in the morning, then stepped out for a bit and lost the next 6 hours. My car was involved in a hit & run while I was inside a store, and whoever it was left no insurance information. So between talking to the people at the store where I was to see about security cameras, filling out reports, calling the police and the insurance agent, and then having the police show up at my door to check on the car, my entire afternoon was essentially shot. I DID, however, sit with the acoustic for a bit to try and forget the day, and will likely do so again before I pass out for the night. Hopefully tomorrow will involve less crunching of cars, and more rocking out.

First day in a week that I didn't have to work. I did two things today to further the quest. 1) I sat for awhile this afternoon, and played some acoustic for the fun of it. I've spent so much time in the last few days dissecting songs that it felt good to just play. 2) Having the day off, I decided it was time to start going through all of the burned CDs that have now been down here for three weeks or so. Thus far, I've found some old band demos (from both projects), a pretty decent sounding collection of solo tunes, and a LOT of CDs I burned when I was driving back and forth to college every day. Throw in a few things my CD player won't read, and some discs with nothing but data, and you have the whole picture. Probably won't finish going through everything tonight, but that'll at least give me something to finish tomorrow. It's been fun so far... we'll see what other treasures I turn up.