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Somewhere in this apartment, on the back of an unused band postcard was a list of 10-12 things to do that I was supposed to do the next morning, no doubt scratched out with a nearby marker found late the night before. Pretty simple stuff. A sample: (1) buy soap, (2) wash dishes, (3) find jeans (4) finish new song.
The first three are confidently crossed-out with a much more indelible marker, but #4 was going to take a little more time. By design, of course–items 5-12 would require some serious effort, and we procrastinators make lists like this all the time so we feel like we’re accomplishing something.
But I had real ambition to finish this song. After coming up with the simple portamento synth part and mining Garageband for a drum beat, the bass line wrote and played itself. This was the point in that afternoon when I made that list.
When I got to “(4) – finish new song”, I was going to try and come up with some sort of vocal, but decided to plug in the pedals and add a little noisy guitar. I recorded three tracks in three takes, with the idea that I’d listen to the parts later on and pick out my favorite bits.
Walking around with it 8 weeks later, I realize that listening to music to pick out your favorite bits. After 20 or so listens to this one, I realized I enjoyed looking around for them as much as I did hearing them.
I think I lost that list long before I got to #12. But I never got to vocals, and I like it just fine. Most importantly, now I can cross ‘post song’ off today’s list.
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It’s been a really nice summer. Not too hot. A bit more rain than usual, but that hasn’t hurt anyone. Down in Virginia where my parents live, they finally got the lawn green. I don’t know how the tomatoes came out, but the string beans from their garden were absolutely delicious.
I cat-sat this weekend. He sleeps 18 hours a day, yet can effortlessly jump 4 feet into the air onto a windowsill between the 5″ gap between the window bars. We had a rousing game of shoelace, which he won.
I rode the Cyclone at Coney Island yesterday. I love that thing.
Things are going pretty well. So I’m not quite sure how this power pop throwaway 2 1/2 minute summer song I threw together tonight ended up with a title like ‘Big Mistake’ and a decidedly bitter lyric. But it’s definitely a summer song, with a catchy melody, sweet bird-chirpy acoustic guitars and what Tony secretly refers to as my ‘Neil Diamond voice’.
This one has a badly played noisy guitar solo that I should probably take another stab at instead of writing about weather, gardens and housepets, but that’s what fall and winter are for.
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Getting a new song in under the buzzer, and on the tree of life, it’s a tortoise. Or perhaps, a glacier. Something about the continental crawl of this one resonates with me. It came about from some lazy playing, putting the capo bar all over the neck of the guitar, rambling into the mic, dropping from F to F minor. I really need to change my strings.
Anyways, sometimes you’re a big rush to get somewhere, sometimes, you’re definitely not. Sometimes you don’t think it’s ever gonna see the light of day, and sometimes, it definitely don’t. Once in a while, however, it do. Or does. I could noodle about with a tremely acoustic guitar for hours before I even noticed my foot fell asleep.
This song reminds me of Boston, particularly the North End. I am pretty happy with the lyrics.
