6/21/2021 - 6/27/2021
6/21/21
Wooooo. good stuff today.
i know i said it yesterday but i feel like i’ve been on fire lately. remember ‘bored, and worse, fine with it’? i think i mentioned it in week 1. Mai knows about it anyway, haha. i never knew what to do with the bridge of that song, and something just came over me with what to do about it.
it’s this quick paced 3 part harmony that teases a phrase heard at the end of the song which is nice. i whipped up a basic version of it, and then i quickly realized it was full of wrong notes making it feel amateur. so then i tried to meticulously chart it out to figure out what was wrong. i did that for so long.
working to make fantastic wrist with aaron taught me a lot, i would have never ‘heard’ that before, nor known how to remedy it.
i also added like insane guitar and a synth lead that made the song feel enormous. it feels way way close to done now, i just gotta smooth it all out and prepare it for final vocals.
I’ll share that bridge part tomorrow, i want to tweak it a bit first.
6/22/21
alright yo.
usually at about 6pm i like to go on a little walk. sometimes it’s around the block, and sometimes it’s to this place called fort negley. it’s a legit civil war fort, and in the summer, they bring in a shit load of goats to eat the grass instead of cutting it. kinda cool. so i was there and there were legitimately like 50 - 100 goats covering the place. i love those little fucks.
also, when i walk i usually listen to the atheist experience podcast. i’m an atheist if you didn’t know, but i don’t love screaming it from the rooftops. it’s weird but it can end friendships…or is that a friend i want? anyway.
i got back and I worked more on the song yesterday to hammer down those harmonies. it’s a little better? i don’t know. check it out:
other than that i worked on this song called ‘shook & tattered up’. this was one of the earliest ones, i think i started this in December. and i really like how it’s feeling now. I added some spoken word bits from a youtube video that made me realize how to cut off my ex. isn’t that silly? put insane effects on it and pushed it to the background, and now the song feels like this anxious dope swarm which is definitely the goal.
I’ll probably share that one next week. tomorrow is a hang day so won’t have anything musical to share, but as always will have thoughtssssss
night night
6/23/21
as i mentioned - no music work today. also. i woke up at 6:30 for no GD reason. this is my main issue
i got the tracks rig today and installed it in my rack unit. it looks and feels very neat. my mind is spinning with the countless ways to run shows now - solo, with aaron, or full band…
got ramen with my roommate, michael, and graci. delicioso. then we went to the basement, which is one of my favorite venues in town (played there many times). tbh? the bands all sucked. but it’s fun to drink beers at the basement no matter what’s going on.
i remember looking around and being like “meh i am so short”. that has always been my number one gripe in life. i’m not over it exactly, but i’m as over it is i’ve ever been.
anyway, stayed up late laughing and conversing with lots of friends. always cherish this
6/24/21
a good sign is when a song you just wrote gets stuckin your head. you know you hit a good thing when you got that going on.
i stayed up late and slept til 8 - which was alright, but not quiiiiite enough. definitely felt tired and off all day. but, feeling okay right now which i’m surprised by.
most noteworthy thing today is that i ordered $366 dollars worth of cardboard. lmao. just to ship the vinyls. it’s very funny to me, but i’m also grateful that i’m in a place where i merely see this as a necessary business expense. before, you would have never been able to convince me that that’s something i’d have to spend money on.
speaking of, i put up the test pressings for sale. it’s on the first dibs page - you get access for a week before it hits the larger audience!
anyway, i messed around with the tracks rig to get a feel for how it will be used. my other roommate sal programmed my ableton live session, so i’m waiting to link up with him to be able to do the official run of it all at least once.
wrapped up some packages, drove by my ex’s house (i have to to get to the nearest mailbox), and also did yoga to boards of canada and black moth super rainbow. it was surprisingly easy.
i’m excited for a day of music making tomorrow.
6/25/21
i promise i’m fine, but fuck today. i woke up at 5:30am. tried to sleep til 6:30am, then just caved and got up, had cereal, took a shower, and worked on the crossword. I ended up trying to sleep again at 8:15 or so and only squeaked in an extra half hour? idk.
tried to nap later on at 5:30p and my roommate kept waking me up recording ride cymbal rolls.
lack of sleep is the bane of my stupid existence. it makes me feel so trapped and depressed. I can’t just break through the feeling when i feel like this - it’s so oppressive.
anyway. needless to say i didn’t get anything done which pisses me off because I had an empty house all night.
i talked to a realtor and a lender about buying a house. i don’t even feel that much conviction to do so, but it was free and easy to check into it. no idea.
what it comes down to is that i need more space. i have 300 vinyls coming in and based on how things are going, i’m going to need more room for all sorts of things.
i’m also almost thirty. maybe it’s time to do something 30-ish
additionally, i’ve been wondering loosely if nashville is my place or not…? not a major feeling, but toying with it. dunno. i like living here but i wonder. i guess who doesn’t wonder. right?
maybe i should go on tour and get a taste of more cities and people.
music’s always the answer, truly
anyway. thanks and sorry i didn’t have more. this weekend will be social so i’ll have stories but probs won’t work much on music.
love to you
6/26/21
alllllright. today i actually did get some music work done. I began programming one of my synths - the one i’ll use live - for all the fantastic wrist songs.
i thought it would be way more daunting but it’s actually really fun. also i thought the parts would totally stump me. Tetris is pretty hard what with that like “ding ding ding ding, ding ding ding ding…ding” keys part that comes in before ‘there’s no gesture big enough’'…
i’m terrified to get to facebook, because those chords are fucked.
anyway, made great progress there in the morning and a bit at night. But i spent most of the day at graci’s house just hanging and vaguely helping her shoot this music video. part of why she asked me to come was because her sister is a huge BP fan and she just wanted to meet me, hahaha. i gave her a fantastic wrist cassette.
while I was hanging, I kept feeling somewhat restless to leave because I knew I had to do yoga, eat dinner, potentially work some more, and then maybe get to this weird show later at night.
but, i remember just feeling like i wanted to stay and that i was laughing and enjoying myself and appreciating the people i was with. and i thought, when in life should you ever fuck with that?? i’m realizing more and more that having a good life is just about following the laughter.
if you’re laughing, you’re doing amazing.
anyway, i eventually did leave 7 hours later, grabbed some pad thai, worked a bit more, then went to the comedy club with my roommate to see my other roommate do improv. funnnnyyyyy. went home and did yoga. now i’m typing this.
love you
6/27/2021
phewwww. super fun day today. let me run it down.
woke up and showered, packed up orders, ate breakfast, got my recycling, etc. Michael came over and we went to his place to do some stuff. got a coffee, went to the post office, dropped recycling, target, trader joes. bang
then my friend alec came over, hot chicken in tow, and we ate while i helped him set up a web store. fun shit for me.
then michael came back over and took me to an andy mckee concert for free. michael shot some videos for him. amazing!!! we met him backstage and he is definitely the nicest person i’ve ever met. i’m sure a lot of you know him
got home and mick and smoked and listened to his new record. and we listened to a good weird test pressing.
music life