Had a gig last night at The Beachcomber, so that ate up most of the day, creatively; but I did get a couple entries into the CD cover contest already. Very promising.
Showing posts with label RPM Challenge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RPM Challenge. Show all posts
Friday, February 12, 2010
FEBRUARY 12
Had a gig last night at The Beachcomber, so that ate up most of the day, creatively; but I did get a couple entries into the CD cover contest already. Very promising.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
FEBRUARY 3
Well, Day Two went swimmingly. Paul said he was in, so we have a studio in which to record, only it won’t be available until next week. This delay actually works out well because that gives me time to tweak the songs, the song which are all written, by the way, and none of which contain a run ponderous run-on sentence like this one.
SHOES BY THE HIGHWAY actually came to me late on Day One and is a keeper. Now that I think of it, the theme might have been floating around in my head for almost 25 years, after driving from Washington State to Colorado one Thanksgiving and getting stuck in a blizzard in Evanston, Wyoming.
Yesterday was also Ground Hog’s Day and my friend Julie pointed out that there were no good Ground Hog’s Day songs. That was a theme that fit perfectly with my title, ROOT HOG OR DIE, so I worked up a little ditty that asks the musical question, ‘if Andie MacDowell sees her shadow today, does that mean six more weeks of obscurity?’
Actually, Julie’s idea was for something called GRINDING THE HOG, as she said, ‘I'm envisioning it as a song about seasonal affective disorder.. being sick of winter.. the rodent pops out and sees his shadow, and it makes you hog-i-cidal. "When he pops out of his log.. it'll be time to grind the hog." Work in the phrase, "tastes like chicken" and I think it will be an epic winter anthem. "I dream of hitting him with a trowel. I've never been a fan of Andie MacDowell.." This songwriting stuff is cake.’ Truer word, Julie, truer words…
My wife was kind enough to point out, every day for the past 13 years, that I’ve never written a song about her. I asked her, ‘Do you listen to the kind of songs I write? Do you really want one written about you?’, but she said ‘yes’, so I finally came up with WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BLOND I MARRIED? before lunch (which was a fine tuna salad the aforementioned songless wife made, at my request, with catsup, mayonnaise and pickle relish. Any woman that would do that for you deserves a song, I guess).
ONE EYED KING might be the weakest of the bunch, but I have some time to whip it into shape or walk away from it completely. Which is what I did to FLAVOR OF THE WEAK. I’ll still write that song some day, but while I was futzing around with the chords I came up with the song DRINK UNTIL YOU WANT ME, which help removed the taste of ONE EYED KING from my ears and won a place in my heart.
That’s ten by my count. I’ll play around with them some more today, but I really need to get to work on the 30 songs The Stools are doing on Feb. 11th. The band only knows about 15 of them and I’m not that strong on 5 or 6 myself. The award winning video director Michael Pelosi is supposed to be shooting some tape that night, so it’d be nice to actually know all the words at least.
SHOES BY THE HIGHWAY actually came to me late on Day One and is a keeper. Now that I think of it, the theme might have been floating around in my head for almost 25 years, after driving from Washington State to Colorado one Thanksgiving and getting stuck in a blizzard in Evanston, Wyoming.
Yesterday was also Ground Hog’s Day and my friend Julie pointed out that there were no good Ground Hog’s Day songs. That was a theme that fit perfectly with my title, ROOT HOG OR DIE, so I worked up a little ditty that asks the musical question, ‘if Andie MacDowell sees her shadow today, does that mean six more weeks of obscurity?’
Actually, Julie’s idea was for something called GRINDING THE HOG, as she said, ‘I'm envisioning it as a song about seasonal affective disorder.. being sick of winter.. the rodent pops out and sees his shadow, and it makes you hog-i-cidal. "When he pops out of his log.. it'll be time to grind the hog." Work in the phrase, "tastes like chicken" and I think it will be an epic winter anthem. "I dream of hitting him with a trowel. I've never been a fan of Andie MacDowell.." This songwriting stuff is cake.’ Truer word, Julie, truer words…
My wife was kind enough to point out, every day for the past 13 years, that I’ve never written a song about her. I asked her, ‘Do you listen to the kind of songs I write? Do you really want one written about you?’, but she said ‘yes’, so I finally came up with WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BLOND I MARRIED? before lunch (which was a fine tuna salad the aforementioned songless wife made, at my request, with catsup, mayonnaise and pickle relish. Any woman that would do that for you deserves a song, I guess).
ONE EYED KING might be the weakest of the bunch, but I have some time to whip it into shape or walk away from it completely. Which is what I did to FLAVOR OF THE WEAK. I’ll still write that song some day, but while I was futzing around with the chords I came up with the song DRINK UNTIL YOU WANT ME, which help removed the taste of ONE EYED KING from my ears and won a place in my heart.
That’s ten by my count. I’ll play around with them some more today, but I really need to get to work on the 30 songs The Stools are doing on Feb. 11th. The band only knows about 15 of them and I’m not that strong on 5 or 6 myself. The award winning video director Michael Pelosi is supposed to be shooting some tape that night, so it’d be nice to actually know all the words at least.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
FEBRUARY 2
Well, Day One got off to a good start. I knocked out five of the ten songs I wanted to write and designed a mock-up for the CD front and back covers, but I still haven’t heard from Paul about the studio.
I did the GOOD ENUF song in the morning and then jacked around with album cover for a little while. During lunch HER FLOWERS ARE MY WEEDS came to me (a lovely lunch, by the way, prepared by my wife, of a baloney sandwich and pretzels with a diet coke; just for the records), and as I was working out those chords I also got THE JUKEBOX LIED AGAIN and LAZY MAN’S LOAD too.
I played a little poker on Facebook, tried to commit a few crimes on Mob Wars and then finally tackled that talking blues, now called THE TOO RICH TO BITCH BLUES, in honor of that blue’s great, Ernie Boch, Jr.
I sent off some emails apologizing for a mix up over a drum set from our gig over the weekend with The Fools, watched the Celtic’s game and called it day. Who says I’m a good for nothing, lay-about? Oh that’s right, everyone.
Well, if I can get into a studio and get these pigs on their feet, we’ll just see if I’ve been wasting my time or not. Five more songs to go. Maybe I can get a few of them today… or at least one…I still my have to redo the CD cover. My wife says it looks like an Ah-ha video…
I did the GOOD ENUF song in the morning and then jacked around with album cover for a little while. During lunch HER FLOWERS ARE MY WEEDS came to me (a lovely lunch, by the way, prepared by my wife, of a baloney sandwich and pretzels with a diet coke; just for the records), and as I was working out those chords I also got THE JUKEBOX LIED AGAIN and LAZY MAN’S LOAD too.
I played a little poker on Facebook, tried to commit a few crimes on Mob Wars and then finally tackled that talking blues, now called THE TOO RICH TO BITCH BLUES, in honor of that blue’s great, Ernie Boch, Jr.
I sent off some emails apologizing for a mix up over a drum set from our gig over the weekend with The Fools, watched the Celtic’s game and called it day. Who says I’m a good for nothing, lay-about? Oh that’s right, everyone.
Well, if I can get into a studio and get these pigs on their feet, we’ll just see if I’ve been wasting my time or not. Five more songs to go. Maybe I can get a few of them today… or at least one…I still my have to redo the CD cover. My wife says it looks like an Ah-ha video…
Monday, February 1, 2010
FEBRUARY 1
So, I’ve signed up for something called the RPM Challenge, which basically, I have 28 over the course of February to write and record a CD. Band across the world are doing it (this is the fourth year of the Challenge) but there is no prize; it’s done just for the music.
Their web-site is here: http://www.rpmchallenge.com/ if you want to check it our, or even sign-up.
I want to use The Stools for this project, but we are trying to learn a ton of new songs for our live set and I don’t want to confuse them with even more songs that I haven’t even written yet. I guess we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it, as they say. First things first: I gotta send an email out to my old friend Paul who’s got a funky little studio that would be perfect for this kind of project and see if he’d be interested.
Actually, first things first, maybe a should write some songs. It can’t be any of the old stuff. We’re on the honor system here and they’ve all gotta be fresh caught songs. Hmmmm….
I keep a list of titles for songs that I might want to write some day, so I’ll just go through it and pick the first 10 that appeal to me. Actually, I’m only going to pick 9 because I was talking with Dan Margarita on Facebook the other day about the history of the talking blues, and that got me in the mood to write a talking blues, so one tenth of my list is done.
TALKING BLUES
Ok, now for the other nine, in no particular order:
GOOD ENUF
HER FLOWERS ARE MY WEEDS
LAZY MAN’S LOAD
ONE EYED KING
ROOT HOG OR DIE
FLAVOR OF THE WEAK
SHOES BY THE HIGHWAY
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BLOND I MARRIED?
THE JUKEBOX LIED AGAIN
Now there’s an album worth of titles. I’m always confused when musicians take so long between albums. You just sit down and do it. Get it out of the way. Money where your mouth is time. Let’s knock the first song on the list, GOOD ENUF, off right now. Of course, the lyrics might get tweaked a little as it is recorded, but I just want to come up with a frame to start hanging the music on.
The Grammys were last night and I can’t imagine any of Lady Ga Ga’s songs took more than a half hour to write. So let’s jump in. Free associate. Lady “If I Lead with My Vagina Maybe They Won’t Notice I Have No Talent” Ga Ga.... Grammys… Award shows… Phonies… Here we go….
IT’S AN HONOR JUST TO BE A NOMINEE
THAT’S GOOD ENUF FOR ME
GIVE THE AWARD LITTLE GEORGE CLOONEY
IT’S JUST A PLEASURE TO BE IN HIS COMPANY
I DIDN’T EVEN PREPARE A SPEECH
WINNING SEEMED SO OUT OF REACH
WHEN YOU’RE UP AGAINST A BALDWIN AND THE KID WHO PLAYED SCREECH
HELL, THAT’S NO DAY AT THE BEACH
WHY DO I COME HERE, THE FOOD AIN’T THAT GREAT
MY SENSE OF IMPORTANCE IS STARTING TO DEFLATE
COULD THIS BE A METAPHOR
FOR YOU ACTING LIKE A WHORE
GIVING A PRIZE TO EVERY COMPETITOR
ABOUT AS SINCERE AS DREW BARRYMORE
Good enough for Government work. Like I said, just wanted something to hang the music on. I can tweak it later. I got the melody in my head, now I just have to figure out some chords…And then do it nine more times.
No problem.
Their web-site is here: http://www.rpmchallenge.com/ if you want to check it our, or even sign-up.
I want to use The Stools for this project, but we are trying to learn a ton of new songs for our live set and I don’t want to confuse them with even more songs that I haven’t even written yet. I guess we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it, as they say. First things first: I gotta send an email out to my old friend Paul who’s got a funky little studio that would be perfect for this kind of project and see if he’d be interested.
Actually, first things first, maybe a should write some songs. It can’t be any of the old stuff. We’re on the honor system here and they’ve all gotta be fresh caught songs. Hmmmm….
I keep a list of titles for songs that I might want to write some day, so I’ll just go through it and pick the first 10 that appeal to me. Actually, I’m only going to pick 9 because I was talking with Dan Margarita on Facebook the other day about the history of the talking blues, and that got me in the mood to write a talking blues, so one tenth of my list is done.
TALKING BLUES
Ok, now for the other nine, in no particular order:
GOOD ENUF
HER FLOWERS ARE MY WEEDS
LAZY MAN’S LOAD
ONE EYED KING
ROOT HOG OR DIE
FLAVOR OF THE WEAK
SHOES BY THE HIGHWAY
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BLOND I MARRIED?
THE JUKEBOX LIED AGAIN
Now there’s an album worth of titles. I’m always confused when musicians take so long between albums. You just sit down and do it. Get it out of the way. Money where your mouth is time. Let’s knock the first song on the list, GOOD ENUF, off right now. Of course, the lyrics might get tweaked a little as it is recorded, but I just want to come up with a frame to start hanging the music on.
The Grammys were last night and I can’t imagine any of Lady Ga Ga’s songs took more than a half hour to write. So let’s jump in. Free associate. Lady “If I Lead with My Vagina Maybe They Won’t Notice I Have No Talent” Ga Ga.... Grammys… Award shows… Phonies… Here we go….
GOOD ENUF
(Norris)
IT’S AN HONOR JUST TO BE A NOMINEE
THAT’S GOOD ENUF FOR ME
GIVE THE AWARD LITTLE GEORGE CLOONEY
IT’S JUST A PLEASURE TO BE IN HIS COMPANY
I DIDN’T EVEN PREPARE A SPEECH
WINNING SEEMED SO OUT OF REACH
WHEN YOU’RE UP AGAINST A BALDWIN AND THE KID WHO PLAYED SCREECH
HELL, THAT’S NO DAY AT THE BEACH
WHY DO I COME HERE, THE FOOD AIN’T THAT GREAT
MY SENSE OF IMPORTANCE IS STARTING TO DEFLATE
COULD THIS BE A METAPHOR
FOR YOU ACTING LIKE A WHORE
GIVING A PRIZE TO EVERY COMPETITOR
ABOUT AS SINCERE AS DREW BARRYMORE
2010 DUTCHCO MUSIC/BMI
Good enough for Government work. Like I said, just wanted something to hang the music on. I can tweak it later. I got the melody in my head, now I just have to figure out some chords…And then do it nine more times.
No problem.
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