10/11/2014 CJ at Mickey's

with Gentle Brontosaurus. We played the night before the Pixies played Madison.

Setlist to come.

TD 8/16/2014 Mickey's

with Red Tape Diaries and Perverse Engineer

Setlist to come

TD 11/8/2014 at Mickey's

Played with Indonesian Junk and Neens.

Setlist to come.

TD 12/17/2014 at HNS

w/ Neens and Gentle Brontasaurus. There was a white elephant gift exchange. Turn out was ok for a Wed night but nothing outrageous.

I played great (was well rehearsed). Mental note to bring shorts next time, sweaty pants kept restricting my kick leg. Johnny Sucrose borrowed my kit and said he liked the way the kit was tuned.

Setlist to come.

The Cost of a Tour

I'm always curious about how much it costs to run a tour, so this post about Pomplamoose's 2014 tour was fascinating to me.

I have some editorial comments about whether or not it was all money well spent, but since my ass doesn't seem to be getting out of town any time soon I suppose I should shut my pie hole.

But this guy can leave his pie hole open and comment all he wants.

Breeders Tribute Progress

Gonna try to bang out the last 4 tunes from part 3 this weekend, bringing the total done to 47 songs. I think I've determined that there are 66 unique Breeders tunes in the catalog, 12 Amps, and 10 solo (88 total). 53% or better done (it feels further along than that though as the list of songs that I actually am willing to learn dwindles ever more).

Breeders Tribute Gear

I've been going along doing this Breeders tribute without much concern for gear. I've used what I had access to...which is mostly a small battery operated VOX digital modelling amp, a knock-off telecaster, and a knock-off stratecaster.

Finally looked up today what exactly they play:

To my complete shock, the strats are 1991 Strat Ultras, which have a HSS pickup configuration...which just happens to be what the strat knockoff that I'm using has.

I've been considering picking up a les paul someday but the choices are so many that I didn't know what to get. Based on what they play and what I've heard and my price range...I think the choice to make is a Epiphone Les Paul Traditional Pro in gold top. ($499) I've heard before that "studio" models are for shit, and what the gals play have the humbuckers (P90s in their case, though that won't probably be in my price range) that have both parts showing (instead of it being one single plate cover). Either that or go with a standard plain in gold top ($399). I'm not running out to buy anything cause I have access to plenty of guitars, but someday maybe.

I have a list of pedals on the wishlist for the future (probably far ahead future) too:

Ibanez tube screamer (prolly TS9 with 3 knobs and the big foot switch, $99)

Boss super chorus CH1 ($99)

Boss digital delay DD3 ($129) or DD7 ($149)

EH nano Holy Grail reverb ($120)

Noting that today I saw reference that the gals use Boss DS-2 Turbo Distortion ($75) ...but of course they are playing through Marshall half stacks too. Probably not needed with the tube screamer.

Boss RC-3 Loop Station ($199) sounds like fun, but doubt I'd ever learn to use it.

All of this ignores that I already have all the effects I need in the little battery amp (though they aren't easily switchable)...that I have no need to perform on guitar...and that I don't own a real guitar amp.  That's why none of this is a near term need or even want. It's all dreams in the useless ether.

PS: The below (from LSXX tour) is ridic.

UPDATE: I totally forgot to list the black and white telecaster with "Echo" written on it. They don't use this very often but it has started to show up in some of the new tunes. 

And, of course, Jo has played a Rickenbacker bass (Pod) and a Music Man Stingray (first Kim's red one and later a tan one that I presume to belong to Jo). Sometimes the red P bass from Pixies makes an appearance too and even the Thunderbird got played by Mando.

FW Recording Project

I totally forgot to mention that two weekends ago one of my bands recorded an album at my house with me at the controls. It was a jerry-rigged kind of affair and I'm sure I did it all wrong...but here's what we did (making use of what was on hand and the little knowledge that I have):

Drums: I mic'ed the drum kit with 4 mics. Snare top, shared crash/hi hat, and shared ride/rack tom were all Shure SM48s. I had special drum mics available to me with tom mounts, but after testing that on some BreedArs recordings I decided that, since I didn't have enough inputs available to mic everything and I didn't want to use true condenser overheads (due to bleed) that the drum specific mics were just too focused. I needed to be able to share mics in a psuedo-overhead kind of way. The kick drum was mic'ed with a kick specific Sensenheiser dynamic mic. I ran all four mics into a little digital mixer that I have and then ran the stereo mix out of the mixer and into a second analog mixer that I have. Essentially this created a drum "bus" or "subgroup"

Bass: Ran through a DI box and into the analog mixer.

Guitar: Used a Sensenheiser guitar amp specific mic. Stashed the guitar amp in a nearby room with the door closed and volume relatively low (like 3 out of 10). Ran the mic directly into the analog mixer.

Vox: We had two vocals, one at the drum kit and one at the guitar station. Ran each as their own line into the analog mixer. There were no effects on the vocals. In an early planning stage I had planned to run the drums through the analog mixer and then everything else through the digital mixer (instead of vice-versa) and that would have allowed me to add effects to the vocals, but I ended up reversing it in an attempt to use the Aux sends (more on this below) on the analog mixer and then never switched it back. The natural sound of the room actually seemed fine and their voices sounded pretty good really. Not dry at all.

So all told, we had 8 inputs...which is all I had available to me. I had been worried about bleed between mics (especially into the vocal mic at the drum kit) but it didn't end up being a problem (maybe because I never needed to listen to each line as a separate track).

Note that I could have just mic'ed the room and called it a day, but I wanted the vocals to be clear and mic'ing things directly seemed like it would give me more control. And I think it did.

The output from the analog mixer went into my usb computer interface and then into Audacity. Originally I had hoped to run the vocals through aux sends to give each vocalist their own monitor mix and for me to monitor the mix from the recording interface...so they'd get what they needed and I'd get the final mix levels. But I couldn't get the aux sends to work with headphones. So I ran a headphone line out of the interface and split it 3 ways using a very ghetto assembly of extension lines and Y splitters. So we all had the final mix in our cans. This ended up working really well because then they could give me feedback on the final mix which probably saved disappointment after the fact.

It was hard to get the mix levels right. Even at low levels, the Audacity mix tended to clip easily...and even slight changes either made, say, the guitar too quiet or clipping. So we goofed with it and ended up getting an okay balance.  The bass guitar seems really quiet in the mix, but when you listened to the playback, it was in there plenty. So I'm not sure why that's the case. I've noticed that with the BreedArs project too, the bass line comes in quiet and distorted, but then sound fine on playback. Probably just a cheap interface that doesn't like low frequencies.

And then we played the songs live. No editing. We did a dry run on Tuesday night (about 2 hours) to get the levels and to get used to playing with the headphones. I spent an hour before rehearsal on Tuesday setting up from zero (I hadn't realized we were going to rehearse until last minute). Saturday and Sunday (about 4 hours Sat, about 2 hours Sun) we did the real recordings. We did 2-3 takes per song and that was plenty.

Now we are selecting the best takes. I plan to goof a bit with compression and noise reduction on the final selections and see if it makes them sound better, but I may also just leave them alone. I think the source file is good, the level is strong but without clipping for the most part. I think we did pretty well considering.

I'm gonna export everything as WAV and mp3 and upload the WAV to a bandcamp site and the mp3 to a reverbnation site. Then I'm gonna burn the WAV files to cd. We are gonna DIY a jewel case cover and use printable cds. We're only gonna make about 20 copies for close friends and family. Everyone else will either get a "bootleg" cd or download it off web.

Still have final edits to do, but so far I've been pleased with the results and I learned a bunch.

So True It Hurts

Bass Tab Font

I made a bass tab font. No biggie.

Breeders Tribute Update

I picked the next group of songs for the tribute recording project maybe a month ago.
"Only in 3's"
"The She"
"Little Fury"
"London Song"
"Doe"
"Opened"
"Too Alive"
"Put on a Side"
"Sinister Foxx"
"Tipp City"
"I Am Decided"
"Forced to Drive"
"Bragging Party"
"Empty Glasses"
"Istanbul"

Two weeks ago I spent a weekend working out the drum parts (hurt my back sitting on the drum throne stooped over writing notes using my snare as a desk too long...and it still hurts...old!), and last weekend and the week prior recorded the drum parts. They aren't perfect, but most are "good enough."

Last night I was in good "Kim" voice coming off of a long CJ rehearsal that ended with me singing "Into the White," "Manta Ray," and "Bam Thwok" right in a row...so I rushed home and started recording. Got down lead vox for all but Only in 3s, Too Alive, Bragging Party (discovered 3/4 of way through song that I'm missing the lyrics for the last verse), and Istanbul. It was a late night (relatively) and I found myself a bit exhausted with sore legs and back after standing playing bass for 3 hours and then standing a 4th and into a 5th hour to sing...but well worth the effort.  Again...old.

I realized on the ride into work that I've established a very strong pattern for this project which makes surprising sense. Typically when you are recording from scratch you start with drums to set the foundation. I've done this in this project too even though it isn't necessary at all because I use the original recordings as scratch tracks and don't even listen to the tracks I've recorded until the whole song is done. Why, I wondered? It is as simple as the fact that drums are the easiest thing to pick up first. They are intuitive. Even a non-musician can clap along to a recording. I spend a few weeks listening and learning and writing out notation for the drums...and then I record them when they are pretty good. I can't wait to record, I have to work out the drums, practice them a few times, and then record soon. If I go a week or two without working them, I lose them. By that time I've heard the tunes enough times that the vocals are second nature. So I do those next. Once I have to figure out actual notes...my go to is bass. It always has been even back in the days before I PLAYED bass. When I wanted to learn a song in my 20s, I played along to it by picking out the root notes first, and then translating those into chords. And so it is now. Once bass is done all that's left is lead and rhythm guitar. I've been doing lead first, because, I think, they are single notes and easier to pick out. Then I wrap up with guitar because I'm terrible at playing the barre and power chord structures. It is an entirely logical, and accidental, system.

Breeders Tribute Progress

I went ahead and finished the last 8 songs of "Pointless Recording Project Part Two" (having Monday off was admittedly key to getting this done). This brings the current total on "theBreedArs" project page to 32 songs. Depending on how one counts these things (what counts as a Breeders song and what doesn't is a more philosophical question than you might expect)...that leaves somewhere between 26 and 45 tunes remaining in the full catalog (plus, perhaps, a few rarities that I don't want to even think about). As the great Barney Stinson was want to say when no one at all in the world wanted him to do something: "Challenge accepted.

Breeders Tribute update

I'm up to 24 Breeders Tribute tunes posted now. I feel myself leaning in to the concept of just fucking recording them all.

My standards are going down too. Get it done is the new policy. Really what the fuck difference does it make? No one is paying attention anyway.

There is something profoundly satisfying about finishing a song...warts and all. It may be the last safe high in my life.

So the Pointless Recording Project Wasn't So Pointless Afterall (plus running live sound!)

Been recording Breeders covers since April and calling it pointless, but really it was learning for recording what I will consider a demo but the rest of the group will consider a major studio release for one my bands. I'm not sure we're ready to record, but people get excited about these things and I've at least talked them down to not spending money on the thing and instead just spending my time. We've narrowed the recording session to a targeted 8 hours over one weekend in September. Which weekend tbd. I started working on the details in earnest last night. I think I will use the analog mixer to create a "drum bus" of 4 mics on the drum kit. Run that into the digital mixer along with 2 vox, a guitar mic, and a bass DI xlr line. Then into the interface and on to ye olde shitty laptop. A bit of on-board reverb on both vox. Stick the guitar in a separate closed room. Hope for the best on bleed into and from the vocals. We'll see how it goes. If all else fails I'll throw a stereo pair on the bitch instead and call it done.

In other news, hanging out pretending like I'm gonna become sound person for a band with a Sunday night residency gig. Reading the Yamaha bible on "Sound Reinforcement." Watching videos online about running a digital board. Fairly certain that I could run the sound at this gig with absolutely no knowledge what-so-ever, but I'd like to learn proper-like all the same. Debating offering myself up to run sound at Showase 1&2 in 2015 as a "work toward goal" but haven't pulled the trigger yet. Probably I could have my shit reasonably together by then. Also thinking about pestering my buddy that I shadowed that one time to let me do it again. I kinda got overwhelmed on that deal and dropped the ball. But I think I've taken enough steps forward now to get back to it again.

Breeders Part 2 Status

Finished "Head to Toe" last night and posted it this morning. I'm really pleased with it. Threw a kazoo on there cause I couldn't figure out the effect in one place.



The way these things always seem to go I was feeling stuck...then suddenly recorded all the vox. Then one day...all the drums. Then...a round of bass and they were done. So all that's left is guitar parts now and some minor backing vox. Decided it would be nice to have one finished song, so wrapped up "Head to Toe" last night.

Once I get on a roll, they seem to come really quickly...which begs the question...why stop? If all goes well I will have 31 songs completed at the end of this stretch.  They only have about 64 songs total(at least that I'm aware of). So I'm halfway through doing all of their songs. A tipping point if you will. Sure, what's left is what doesn't interest me...but that's the way it was when we learned the Pixies tunes too. Eventually I'll love them all through repetition. Anyway, it seems like a real possibility. And wouldn't that be a hoot...to have learned the entire catalog...and every part on every song...for a single band? At the rate I'm going, the whole thing would likely only take 4-6 months.

And then they will release new music...and of course, the current total is 76 if you include The Amps and 84 (soon to be 86) if you include the solo series. Both of which I am likely to include. Still...it is a Pixies-size catalog, and I know that is a chunk I can handle.

Breeders Tribute Part 2

Put down drum tracks for a few songs (can't remember which ones now) a week or so ago. Last Friday I recorded 11 vocal tracks because I was in good voice that day. Essentially I got down everything except "Fate to Fatal" (no idea what the lyrics are) and "Don't Call Home" (this is really low, I'm gonna have to work on it awhile).

The plan is to do these 13 songs, though I'm still waivering about "Freed Pig" and "It's the Love" since they are covers ("Shocker" is too, but it is a must). Technically "Pacer" is a tune by The Amps, but that's probably close enough.

Shocker in Gloomtown
Head to Toe
Bang On
Don't Call Home
Fate to Fatal
Fortunately Gone
Hellbound
Walk It Off
When I Was a Painter
Lime House
Freed Pig
It's the Love
Pacer

SVFD, July 2nd, Frequency

Opened for Wiseguys and Scalawags and The Bottles.  We played the same set we've played at the last two shows including encores.  All went pretty well. A small but friendly crowd. We are officially on hiatus until after the trombone player recovers from having a baby (that's a first).

Setlist:
Rascal King
About a Girl
Came Out of A Lady
Sergio
Lost Again
Spiderwebs
Rudy
Lemuel
Red Rubber Ball
I Don't Love You Anymore
Dandelions
Thigh High
Mr. Smiley
Wallet
Metro
Somewhere in the Between
I will survive

Three Gigs, 6/25 & 6/26

I played three gigs in two days.

TD, High Noon Saloon with Damsel Trash and Venus in Furs, 6/25/2014
The other bands killed it. John the sound guy was really nice to us. We brought in $53 on a Wednesday night. People danced. JP broke two strings and RS broke one string. I played okay but not great. We have played better shows, but we survived and dealt with disruptions better than normal, so I was proud of us. I may or may not have gotten my butt signed by Damsel Trash.

Setlist to come

CJ, at GRC, 6/26/2014 noon-time
We turned CJ into a KiD fronted group for the purposes of performing for little girls. It went really well. I didn't sing as well as I would have liked, but well enough. AVzang told me it was a good set, which meant a ton to me, and that she liked that we covered "Winterlong," which was nice because it means she was actually paying attention. A kid requested "Where is my mind?". The boys were swell about the whole thing. I la la luvs them.

Setlist:
Debaser
Build High
Bam Thwok (first time we ever performed in public)
I Bleed
Monkey Gone to Heaven
Gigantic
Where is My Mind (added by request)
Winterlong
Manta Ray (skipped cause we were short on time)
Into the White

SVFD, National Women's Music Festival, 6/26/2014
This was the first time I ever played a national festival and I was both excited to do so...and uneasy because all performers at the festival are supposed to be women and I don't identify as a woman. So playing the festival basically meant being in the closet about being trans and lying, which I felt shitty about.

The sound check and the change-over was a little chaotic and confusing, but things mostly worked out okay. Stage sound was really poor but I'm told the sound in the house was good. I played through a borrowed sweet SWR rig with a 4x10 cab...but it might as well been a piece of shit because I could barely hear it standing right in front of it. Anyway, it was DI'ed to the house.

All that said, we played pretty well and had fun on stage. I managed to make eye contact and have a fun exchange with most of my band mates. Our sign language interpreter was really nice and fun and BL goofed with her throughout the show.

I was mostly off book except for Lemuel. Though I glanced at my notes for "Sergio" and "I Will Survive" because I was tired. I think looking at the notes might have hurt more than it helped.

Setlist:
Rascal King
About a Girl
Came Out of A Lady
Sergio
Lost Again
Spiderwebs
Rudy
Lemuel
Red Rubber Ball
I Don't Love You Anymore
Dandelions
Thigh High
Mr. Smiley (cut for time)
Wallet (cut for time)

I will survive

Breeders Tribute Part One Update

19 songs

6 weeks

boom...done

Cannonball

Flipside

Hag

Full on Idle

Roi

Huffer

Divine Hammer

Saints

Invisible Man

I Just Wanna Get Along

Do You Love Me Now

No Aloha

Son of Three

New Year

Drivin' on 9

Roi Reprise

Mad Lucas

Off You

SOS

I'm calling this first 19 songs "Part One" now. I fully intend to do more, but I need to work on other things for awhile. This project was becoming a reason to avoid other obligations, so I gotta stop for awhile.  

"Part One" was done over a period of 6 weeks, but I was trying to figure out how much time EXACTLY was spent. I didn't work on it at all for 10 days of that time because I was out of town. And somewhere about two weeks into the project I nearly gave up on it entirely because "the guitar parts were too hard." So I'm sure there were some fallow days around that time. I figure about 4 hours a day for 5 weekends and an average of an hour a day on weekdays. So that's about 60 total hours of work or so. That's to arrange all the parts from scratch or internet tab (such as it was), learn the parts, record the parts, mix the songs.  The only cheat on that is that I'd been working on learning some of the drum parts for about a year and I knew parts here or there for a few of the other songs. But 90%+ of the parts I learned in those 6 wks, sometimes moments before recording. The songs include rhythm guitar, lead guitar, bass, keyboard, violin, cello, drums and vocals. There are only two sampled parts...on "Mad Lucas" and on "Off You"...the weird Moog noises. All the rest is me playing.

Update on Breeders recordings

Steady progress. Was thinking Friday morning that it would be cool to have all of Last Splash done and be able to create an album order playlist. Was shocked this had not occurred to me before. So I started and finished Mad Lucas, Roi Reprise, and Driving on 9 all over the weekend. Also re-recorded drums for New Year (better but still not great) and posted all four. This leaves only "Off You" of the original 15 tunes I started undone...and only SOS undone off Last Splash. I recorded most of SOS this weekend too, including the bass line that's been giving me fits for months (it is pretty close, but still not convinced it is "right"). Mostly I just have to get down the vocals and the KeD morse code thing, which is less straight forward rhythmically than I'd thought (sometimes it follows the morse code pattern and sometimes not-so-much).

Highlights of the weekend were whipping out ye olde violin, nary touched for almost ten years and barely touched even back in the day, and producing not entirely offensive sounds with it. Also set the Vox amp to tremelo reverb and got a decent approximation of the Mad Lucas vocal effect.

The songs are coming more easily now, which I supposed shouldn't surprise me as all things come more easily the more that you do them. It DOES feel a bit like I've unlocked some mystery key that was blocking me even just a few weeks ago. I'm beginning to understand their language.

TD, Wurst Times, 5/24, 2014

We played in the last slot at HNS for Wurst Times alt-brat fest. I was shocked to find it relatively well organized for a festival...backline available, drink/brat tickets organized, show ran on time, attendance decent. The kit I used was out of tune and the snare sucked (luckily brought my own) but was actually pretty decent (even had good cymbals). I played pretty well once I figured out not to play the horribly out of tune floor tom and use the 2nd rack instead. A couple of years ago I would not have even noticed this so I guess I'm getting "better".

A decent gig.

It is almost as if we practice every week and are playing gigs once a month now and have our shit together.

Setlist to follow.

Breeders Project Update

Up to 8 tunes posted now. Seven more are in process and close to done. Picked out 10 more to work on next cause I decided that I totally love doing this even if it IS kind of embarrassing.

It's the little things...

Case in point. When I recorded "Huffer" I played the guitar "solo" straight through. In real life Kim and Kelley exchange parts on this as call and response. It bothered me that it didn't sound like two people playing on my recording. But I didn't want to re-record it as two separate lines cause...well that would be hard. So instead I took the line of myself playing it all and copied it and pasted it into two new tracks. One track I panned right and deleted every other part. The other I panned left and deleted the opposite parts. The result sounds like two people playing like on the original. I'm very please with myself about this.

I know that this is just the kind of digital tom-foolery that Kim hates...but it is fun to learn how to use the software and to make it sound kinda like the original. I'm "fixing" very little. It's all me on there...even the mistakes for the most part.

See 1:14 through 1:24 on the recording below.

Soundcloud

After toying with posting these on Youtube and deciding it was too much of a pain in the ass, I created a Soundcloud account, which I'm still learning to use. Seems like it might be an okay home for this project.

My second logo bastardization masterpiece

Ok I'm pretty proud of this:

I'm not sure if it is better than this one or not, but it still feels pretty spiffy:

For someone who sucks at design, I seem to have an eye for a certain brand of altering logos.

FW 4/25; SVFD 4/26; CJ 4/26; SVFD 5/3

Holy crap I forgot to blog FOUR SHOWS!  I'll have to dig back to get set lists for these...

FW 4/25 at LRC
Went pretty well and I got it on tape.

SVFD 4/26 at LRC
A certain member had the wrong location and so showed up five minutes late to start and without her music. She still kicked ass, though the set had to be abbreviated. Sadly we were supposed to play 1-1:30pm and I was supposed to haul ass to Busking for Books and get there by 1:45pm...but I didn't get there until around 2pm due to the late start at LRC.

CJ 4/26 at Busking for Books
Busking for Books was 1-3pm and I was stuck at LRC, so I didn't arrive until around 2pm. But that was okay, they started without me. In the middle of Manta Ray a little girl jumped on "stage" and started dancing. Also, during Wave of Mutilation someone was carried out on a stretcher from State Street Brats...right when we said "You think you're dead..."

SVFD 5/3 at GRC board fundraiser at Brink
I played pretty well and remember very little else about this other than the guitar player broke a string and, of course, I was the one with a replacement.

Oh right!

I just realized why Flipside still sounds empty. I totally forgot about the horrible distorted keyboard.  Well that will be easy to add.



And I forgot KeD plays through the stop.

Breeders Trib Update

I had kind of given up on the damn thing and decided it would go down as incomplete. I think that hearing my own voice on "tape" was a very discouraging thing.  And the guitar stuff just seemed insurmountable.

But sometimes one gets a second wind.

So last night I added guitar parts for about 3 songs and started messing with editing the drum parts on New Year (they are mostly correct, but my time is just slightly off in a section and I started a fill too soon, so I figured it was a good opportunity to learn how to edit things. I could try replaying a clean performance, but the learning factor is high for fixing it with editing. This would make KiD crazy, but it is a good skill for me to have since I can't afford an "All-Wave" analog tape setup and a professional engineer. Digital is just easier and since it is all just for fun anyway, totally good enough).

I ended up being pleased enough with Cannonball to quietly post it online. I'm particularly pleased with myself that I learned how to crank on guitar with muted strings via trial and error over a period of less than a half hour. I'm learning lots of things.

I'm not good with editing or perfecting things. I like to get them done, however hairy, and move on. It can make them embarrassing to share, but it is just my way. I am not a detail person. I am not a hospital corners person. Get it done and get out. And so it is with this project like all others. It will bother me until it is done...but my version of done probably will feel like most other people's first drafts.

And those people will never finish anything in their lives.

My philosophy on most things in life is perfectly expressed by The Cult of Done Manifesto:
-There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
-Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
-There is no editing stage.
-Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you're doing even if you don't and do it.
-Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
-The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
-Once you're done you can throw it away.
-Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.
-People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
-Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
-Destruction is a variant of done.
-If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
-Done is the engine of more.

Footnote to all this Breeders stuff

The sound tech for GRC camps 1 & 2 always plays "Cannonball" on her little "waiting around for stuff to happen" house mix. I am TOTALLY playing along to that shit this year while we are running lines.

Breeders Trib Update

Rerecorded the drums for Hag last night as I'd inadvertently erased them.

Don't have the "cut sheet" (is that a term? is it the right term? who knows?) with me but I can say that I've recorded pretty much all of the drums and bass and vocals for like 14 or so tunes. Also have a few lead and rhythm guitar parts in the can. Most of what remains is leads that I just haven't bothered to figure out yet and rhythm guitar that I have to figure out and couldn't play yet even if I knew what it was.

But what I will say is this. My enthusiasm for the project, white hot as it once was, is waning.

I think it is a combination of listening to my own voice on tape and thinking "I never want anyone else to hear that" and being a bit daunted by the rhythm guitar parts. It DOES remind me though, that if I just put a little time into the guitar I probably could master barre and power chords and be oh-so-much better off for it. But for now it hurts my brain and my hands and my pride.

The drum and bass parts, and even a few lead guitar parts, sound OUTSTANDING though. Considering ripping just those to mp3 and posting somewhere. It sort of makes you realize that drum and bass form the core of The Breeders tunes, which had not occurred to me before. They are groo-vy.

I think I best push through this weekend and get as much as possible accomplished, export some mixes, and be resigned to the fact that the thing will proceed no further until some day many years ago when, by that time, I'll have forgotten again how to use all the equipment and will be so horrified with the quality of the performances that I will no doubt start over at that time.

But it does shock one what can be accomplished in just a week or so when one is driven by invisible forces to do something pointless.

Breeders Trib Update

Day three was vocals for no other reason than I was in good voice on the drive home from work and hitting all those low-as-fuck KiD notes without my voice frogging so I went for it.

Lead Vox tracks (and most backing vox) now done for:
Cannonball
Divine Hammer
Do You Love Me Now
Full on Idle
Hag
Huffer
I Just Wanna Get Along
New Year
No Aloha
Saints
Son of Three

Had to look up lyrics for Roi (yes I know it only has one line, but I didn't know what it was) and Invisible Man today on interwebs.

Drums:
Accidentally erased drums for Hag, but the rest of above are done for drum tracks too.

Bass done for: 
Cannonball
Divine Hammer
Son of Three
Hag

Guitar:
Some guitar done for Divine Hammer as well. Downloaded a bunch of tab/chords and live video so I can try to figure out the guitar parts. This will by far be the hardest thing for me and will likely come out the worst (even worse than vox...shocking!). Note that I found out there is a Last Splash sheet music book published in 1994 but it costs between $30 and $100 online. And by the time it arrived I'd be all done anyway.

Probably will try to do SOS (once I master it) and Driving on 9 (cause it is easy) too. Off You is floating around as well (did guitar/vox but not happy with them).

I definitely have decided that this will be a "quick and done" project. I know that it can never be perfect because I'm just not that good at recording/mixing and my vocal and guitar skills can't catch up in time to ever make this great within the next year or so. So instead I'll just power through and shoot to be done as quickly as possible. I still like the idea of a title that hearkens to "90 in 90" but using whatever the final song count is (15-20 tunes) and an equal number of days of recording. If I take two weeks on this project that means I've still got two full weekends ahead of me and surely that will be plenty of time plus whatever gets done week nights. A crazy idea to learn and record that many songs in a couple of weeks, but the speed of completion ends up being part of the fun and the accomplishment.

But we'll see what these guitar parts have in mind.

When It Rains It Pours

I guess I've got the bug again, because there I was recording last night for the second day in a row.

I've been thinking about doing a Breeders tribute album for a long time now. I can't even remember how long...since 2011? 2012? Not sure. What stopped me was shitty recording equipment, fear of the vocals, and a lack of understanding of and skill for the guitar parts, especially the rhythm guitar parts.

Buoyed by too many listenings to Last Splash last weekend and watching other people's musical dreams come true for 3 straight days, in the last couple of days I've laid down drum tracks for the following:
Cannonball
Divine Hammer (plus bass, vox, lead guitar)
Do You Love Me Now
Flipside
Full on Idle
Hag
Huffer
I Just Wanna Get Along (plus vox)
Invisible Man
New Year
No Aloha
Roi
Saints
Son of Three (plus bass and vox)

Also did guitar/vox/bass for Off You.

It is sort of insane.

It feels like this could actually happen, and pretty quickly. The rhythm guitar parts will, of course, be the made limiting factor. But I think I'm gonna push through everything else and see how far I get. Thought about shooting to get it all done in a couple of weeks and calling it "15 in 15, It's Better Than Jail"...but we'll see.

Think I'm gonna try to store all projects on an external drive to avoid the lack of space problem. Was able to make room for several projects last night, but external storage is probably a necessity in general.

Recording Again

FW has an interest in recording and I have no interest in paying for such things, and so I've started futzing with my equipment again to see what is possible.

Last night I recorded several drum tracks for Breeders songs. I did a dynamic mic inside the bass drum and two dynamic mics overhead. Ran those three through a mixer and then stereo out to my usb interface and into Audacity. Turned out real nice.

My laptop then promptly freaked out. The old gal is in her final days and is totally full. It is an XP (no longer supported) machine with a relatively small hard drive by today's standards. I probably need to strip all but the essentials off the thing and then store any large files on an external drive. The Audacity project files are pretty huge.

If I ever have a few thousand extra dollars I'd like to get a dedicated recording laptop and a multi-track usb interface with 8 or so inputs. But this is unlikely to ever happen. Really for what I need, what I have is fine. I just need to clean up the laptop.

As for recording FW, the challenges are less about my equipment than about my expertise in using it ...and about the level of experience with recording in general of the performers. And I'm not sure I'm up to negotiating the ups and downs of the process. But in the meantime I've got a nice start on the Breeders tribute recording that I've been meaning to do for a few years now.

CJ 3/24/2014 Frequency

Only 3 people in the audience. Opening act was...there. Closing act, Sphynx from Austin, was outstanding.

I had a cold, but played well. Drank hot water with honey in a thermos. We biffed start of Dead but got it together quickly.

Setlist:
Debaser
Wave
Down to Well
Rock a My Soul
Isla
Velouria
River
Bird
Dead
Monkey
Manta Ray
Gigantic
Hey
Lovely Day
Nimrod's Son
Where is my Mind
Gouge

TD, Mickey's, 3/22/2014

Played with Stereo Side Effects and Old Buffalo Money. Everyone shared my drum kit (there was a bit of unnecessary fretting about this, it seemed, but it all worked out okay in the end). We played well. I played well. Dropped a stick on "Hold You Under" that caused me to miss the transition to the "hard part" but oh well. Something weird happened during "At the Door" where AS skipped a beat and then that made JP skip a measure...but we all came back together...only to somehow diverge again. But we kept playing and all ended together. Not sure how we managed that. I felt good that I stayed with JP and that we didn't stop. We are well rehearsed and that feels really, really good.

Crowd was medium sized and enthusiastic. They danced. They asked for an encore and we played "Faghatland." We brought down $85 for our band...a decent haul at Mickey's. I had one of those "it's so cool that you're a girl drummer" gals come up to me after the show but I had to run and get something out of my car before she could drool too much on me.I think I handled it better than I have in the past (i.e. I was nicer to her).

Setlist:
1 is for Man
Some Delirium
Going Down the Drain
Hold U Under
Better N Better
Gotta Tell U
Bodies a Burnin
Whole Damn World
At the Door
KUKU
Gun in Your Grave
HSUL

Barney Miller...yes

Someday I oughtta learn dis

TD, 3/6/2014, Mr R

We picked up a somewhat last minute show with Red Tape Diaries and Tween Wolf at Mr Roberts. DISTORTION THURSDAYS! Against my better judgement I asked to share drum kit and bass rig. Though it arrived 20 minutes later than I would have liked, the kit was decent and felt pretty good to play. The hi hat stand really had a nice feel. I've been thinking lately about lowering/flattening my setup and raising my throne. There was a little of that going on here. I had earplugs in and couldn't really hear the bass drum (which was really muffled heavily with a tight batter head that sort of hurt my knee) but the boys said they could hear it great. It did have a really focuses sound. AS played through a little 240W G-K combo that sounded a little pathetic but worked. There was the usual bs about mics/cables/stands and us trying to get out of there with all of our equipment. Since RS stopped having Fridays off and AS got a real job...we all seem to have a license to act like old-old men and go home super early. We're dicks.

We actually played pretty outstandingly. I had a sort of "I really don't give a shit about this gig" attitude going on, and as a result I was more relaxed than normal. I'm settling more and more into playing drums sober and am SO grateful for it.

A drunk guy who's birthday it was shook my hand and asked me if we'd play an Alan Jackson song. I said that we only played originals. He was very insistent that he didn't know anything about what kind of music we played, but could we please play an Alan Jackson song. I smiled and slid away as soon as possible. When we took the stage AS gave the dude a shout out, so I think he was talking to everyone.

Setlist:
1 is for man
KUKU
Hold U
Easy Life
Some Delirium
At the Door
Gotta Tell
Bodies
Sent It
Better
Gun
HSUL

SVFD, 3/1/2014, HNS

SVFD played a benefit for GRC. I played okay...notably biffing the intro to Lost Again and the outro to Somewhere in the Between.

I really don't know why these things happen...messing up shit that I think that I know. Then again...I really should just practice those things into the ground. They are short segments that stick out...I should just bucket the fuck down and get them in the muscles. I'd never mess up a Pixies song I'd practiced into the ground. I have the technology.

I don't accept the argument recently posited that playing songs from memory makes the performance inherently sloppier. It just isn't true. What IS true is that playing things from memory that you don't truly have memorized yet will always be sloppy.

I just don't like having to have a music stand on stage. Others can do what they want, but it makes me feel shitty to have it up there for myself. And it makes me nervous to not know something well enough (then I can't focus on getting my shifts right and interacting with the audience and such). Some of those tunes are gonna be really tough to memorize, but I really have to try. Or at least get the notes down to a manageable size (my notes for Superman are lengthy, but acceptable if I must have notes, for instance). Two page notes written in pencil really doesn't cut it on stage. Notes should be compact and readable from the floor.

Side note: I am disappointed that my most prominent feature in gig photos is becoming my double chin. Sure would be nice to be able to grow a legitimate beard. Le sigh.

Setlist:
Red Rubber
Rudy
Mr Smiley
Spiderwebs
Superman
About a Girl
Rascal King
Somewhere
Lemuel
Thigh High
Lost Again
Came Out
I Will Survive
Wallet (forced encore)

Piano Class Progress and Ear Training

I haven't been posting about the piano class much because...well it just isn't very impressive. But I think it is good for beginners (though possibly moves too fast for a TRUE beginner with no music background).

I get panic attacks about finding notes on the keyboard and about reading the notes on the staff (getting my brain to read both treble and bass clef at same time and not mix them up)...and yesterday the instructor asked us to play 2nd or 3rd intervals and say by ear which was which. When I was playing them and could look at the keys while I listened this seemed easy. They sounded different. But as soon as someone else played them and I couldn't look at the keys I was afloat. Like no idea.

This, of course, is not shocking because I have had a hard time with vocal harmonies in the past. I can't hear them and I can't sing them (unless someone shows me what to sing, I practice it, and then I ignore the other person singing).  I've also never been great at tuning by ear. Only recently have I begun to hear the "warble" of an out-of-tune note...but I still can't tell if the note is sharp or flat.  I even struggle, if you play two notes, to tell you which one is the higher note and which one is the lower note...I have to play them several times and think about it pretty hard.

I'm sure this is a skill that can be learned, but that some people take to it more naturally than others. I'd be on the end of the spectrum that really struggles and would need to work REALLY hard at it and still might never be great at it. I haven't ever really worked at it...and I don't know if I have the patience and interest to work at it.

It frustrates me that people seem to think this is a natural skill and are confused when you can't do it though. It's like they think I'm lying or just not trying hard enough. It pisses me off and makes me feel really insecure.

Everyone isn't good at everything.

I was noticing in class that I'm way better at playing than many of the others. I keep the tempo and play accurately. I can play faster than many.  I also was noticing that while I was bored and noodling around because I couldn't get the interval ear training thing...that I would accidentally happen upon melodies that I recognized and could pick them out by ear. It happened like 10 times.

So it isn't that I'm tone deaf...because I can pick out melodies from memory by ear. I can match pitches by trial and error. And to some extent I know when notes are close to each other or far apart. I just can't tell the intervals. I might know that note one is low and note two needs to be a lot higher...but even though I can hear the melody in my head...I'll have to make a guess to match the second pitch. If I guess wrong I'll quickly guess again until I get it.

Learning the keyboard is definitely helpful for learning the relative position of notes. It took me forever to start to learn that on bass/guitar. On the keyboard it is right there in black and white. It's interesting.

I think the class will be useful, but not earth shattering. I don't think I care about being able to play piano...but it does present one with useful basic skill sets.

TD as Faghat 2/27/2014 at Inferno

For some reason I'm not at all clear on we dressed up like Faghat for a TD show last night. I tried my best to make an ass out of myself with my costume, but no one came to the show. Still, I played great and wasn't nervous at all.

During sound check I asked for some stuff in the monitor (I had to be proactive because nothing was offered) and went though a long stretch of "how's that?" "I'm getting nothing." "how about now" "nope". I was starting to think I was dumb or crazy...but indeed the monitor wasn't working. I gotta say that getting some extra training in sound recently (both shadowing EB and also taking that class with D a year or so ago), while it may not have made me into a sound engineer, has certainly boosted my confidence on the topic. I feel like I know the right terms to use. And I feel better about saying "no, I'm pretty sure that isn't in the monitor, it's in the house." Anyway, they thought they had it fixed but I'm not sure that they did not...but in the end my show mix, even with just the house, was pretty decent. Another boomy bass drum show tho.

I even played Faghatland right (maybe for second time ever) and managed to get structure of Dragonfly correct even without my notes (forgot to pull them out in time).

Setlist:
HSUL
Better
KUKU
Dragonfly
Hold U Under
Gotta Tell
Bodies
Whole Damn World
Going Down the Drain
It's Alright
Gun
Faghatland

Off You

Been working on "Off You".

Here's a helpful live version. Two basses and one electric guitar. She plays some of the chords in much higher positions than I was (the Cm and Dm in particular).

Piano

So starting group piano lessons tonight. I have no idea what to expect and I have no goals or agendas for the experience. I'm not sure that I've ever taken a class or lesson on an instrument when I really didn't care if I ever actually learned to play it...it was just for fun and basic background info. It's kinda weird.

I admit, though, that it has crossed my mind that if it goes well I might whip out the Casio and steal the "Motorway to Roswell" outro (at 4:07 in video below) from RS after my bass line ends. Or play the organ breakdown in Bam Thwok (at 1:23 in video below...though I kinda love CT playing it on tap guitar).

TD High Noon 1/30/2014

We opened for My God the Heat and Red Tape Diaries.  Attendance was sparse at first, but there was a decent crowd by the time we were finishing our set. It was a little snowy out.

I was having a bad day because Walter McBunn got a bad diagnosis. Left for the show stupid early around 7:30pm so I could set up slowly and in peace. There were like 3 people plus the bartender in the venue when I arrived and one of them managed to harass me. I still don't get what his deal was. He said hi to me like 3 times and I said hi back each time and then he got all bad attitude and said hi a 4th time and I was just like "I believe I've already said hi to you several times." I think he was a friend of AS and drunk.  It just sort of amazes me how, no matter how hard I try to keep to myself, annoying jerky people manage to make a scene. That said, both bartenders and the sound guy and the door guy were all super nice and I've kind of decided to go out of my way to be nice to those kinds of people and interact with them more so that in passing.

Anyway, I played for shit. I mean, not my worst show but by no means my best. I was distracted and I'm not well practiced (though I ran set 3 times the week before the show, so was well-prepared ENOUGH). Messed a bunch of stuff up. I wore ear plugs and the mix was a little weird...my bass drum was SO LOUD in the monitor even after he turned it down. It wasn't even that it was loud, it was just so boomy...I could feel the vibrations and it was so fuzzy and ill-defined. It kind of drowned out everything else. Like everything else was perfectly balanced and then there was this BOOM over the entire thing. It was weird. Anyway, threw me off a little bit. I also was thinking too much, almost freaked myself out a few times ("what if I loose the beat here? Ah! Stop thinking, stop thinking, stop thinking..."). Missed some transitions (I need to count the verse in KUKU), rolls were shitty (though not the worst ever), was hitting the rim alot on snare. The boys said they didn't notice. It's good to know that my mistakes are my own, though, and can't be contributed to alcohol. I do miss the relaxing brain rest effect though. I wasn't nervous last night...just really, really AWARE. Too much so.

Had dinner, and then a slice of pizza with one of my free drink tix (gave the rest to the boys) around 8pm.

Setlist:
Some Delirium
Goin Down the Drain
Hold U Under
Gun in Your Grave
At the Door
Gotta Tell U
Jack
HSUL
KUKU
Vacuum Man

CJ, 1/25/2014 Mickey's

We played two sets. German Art Students opened.

I got distracted by an unwanted work text right before load in, and in a strange way I think it killed my nerves and replaced them with anger. Consequently, I played one of the better shows of my life and wasn't freaked out really at all (even though this was only my 3rd sober show & the 1st cj one). I also played with no notes at all for the first time ever, though I had lyrics sitting on my amp for White and Gigantic for if I totally brain farted (didn't need them). Think I finally figured out the right tone/volume balance for the red bass (with and without pick). It sounded good. Used my mic stand bottle holder for water and that was awesome.

The band played pretty well. Tuning was an issue due to cold. CT nearly knocked his amp off the bench during Vamos...which sounded awesome but was a little scary.

It was a medium-small crowd due to low temps, snow, and lots of other stuff happening the same night, but they were enthusiastic. A dude with an "EP-1" t-shirt chatted me up after the show for a long ass time. We definitely have people who are "fans" now that we don't know but who come to all the shows and say moonie-eyed things to us after the gig. I probably had at least 6 people say something to me. It's weird...but I made a point of saying an enthusiastic (un-qualified) "thanks" to each and every one.

Set One:
Caribou
Bone Machine
Break My Body
I Bleed
Allison
U Mass
Ed
La La Love
Holiday
Into the White
Blown Away
Dead
Monkey
Velvety
#13
Cactus
Lovely Day
Here Comes
Vamos

Set Two:
Debaser
Isla
CJ
Broken Face
Down to the Well
Manta Ray
Dig for Fire
Wave (fast)
Letter to Memphis
Bird Dream
Subbacultcha
River E
Hey
Gigantic
Winterlong
Nimrod
Where
Tame
Something Against You
Gouge Away

The Next Level

I've been trying to think of ways to take my playing "to the next level." I've been trying to memorize more difficult songs (it is slow going) as part of this effort. But this week I started trying not to look at my left hand when playing bass. I didn't realize how much I look at it. It's hard to play and not look at it. There's a sweet spot between looking at the music too much (solved my memorizing) and looking at your hand too much (ok sometimes, but best not to be a crutch). I find that in certain live performance situations you can't see the dots on your fingerboard...and you can't see your notes or sheet music. So getting away as much as possible from either thing is a big confidence booster. Plus, if you aren't focusing on those things you can focus on other stuff...like phrasing or dynamics or right hand technique. I'm splitting my time on bass now between playing with a pick (Pixies) and playing without (ska). It has been a real challenge to learn how to stop strings from vibrating when playing with a pick and also to cross strings and also to decide "picking direction" (like bowing or sticking...when to do up strokes and when to do down and when to alternate).  Anyway...there's a lot going on lately.

I've also been starting to go back and listen to the original versions of songs that I've been playing for years now to find things that I missed the first time around. Extra vocal harmonies or inflections...grace notes...or things I just flat out got wrong the first time around. That's slow going too...but rewarding to add something new to a song I've been playing forever. Cases in point:

Added a slide pickup from 9th fret to 4th fret right before the last chorus (just after the bridge) in Rascal King (2:38 to 2:41 in video below)


Added backing vocals on the chorus in No 13 Baby (starts 0:34 in video below)


Working to add the breath noise between the first and second verses in Subbacultcha (hard to hear but at 0:38-0:41 in video below)

SVFD Jan 20th Frequency

Cold and light snow. Opened for Something To Do and The Toasters. My amp was really buzzy so I unplugged my pedal and ran straight through the amp. Ground lift didn't help. Don't know if it was related to amp being cold...or that I was using a new 6er plug...or what. Just fucking weird and random. The stand light that I bought because of the Jan 10th show ended up being WAY TOO BRIGHT. Blinded me with reflection off the page. Ended up not needing it because they basically left the house lights on on stage ...or it felt like that. I put a piece of paper over the light for next time. The audience was oddly quiet. Between the lights and the audience, the vibe was really, really weird. Really dead.

We argued about the set list until the last minute.

I've been feeling grumbly about things lately, but I was more relaxed last night than on Jan 10th and my playing was better. Still not "perfect" but respectable.

Setlist:
Wallet
Lemuel
Metro
Sergio
I Will Survive
Point/Counterpoint
Thigh High
Spiderwebs
Lost Again
Red Rubber
Rascal

SVFD Jan 10th Frequency

I totally forgot to post about this show.  It was a benefit for a lab animal retirement facility. We played two sets. There was an ice storm. My brain was broken and had trouble reading my music and forgot things that are deep in memory. Lights made music extra hard to read so I bought a stand light for Jan 20th gig.

Set 1:
Freedom
Rascal
Spiderwebs
Dear Sergio
Dandelions
I Will Survive
Wallet
Somewhere in the Between
About a Girl
I Don't Love You Anymore

Set 2:
Rudy
Lemuel
Came Out of a Lady
Point/Counterpoint
Grazing in the Grass
Superman
Metro
Mr Smiley
Thigh High
Lost Again
Red Rubber Ball

End of Days

A while ago I was horrified that KiS was bringing this beast on stage with Pixies.  Call it coincidence, reverse-foreshadowing, a trend, or the end of days...but this photo pops up yesterday on KeD's twitter feed:

It makes one wonder if the piece of shit was KiD's contribution to Pixies sessions back in fall 2012 after all. To which I say...I have to rethink everything I've ever believed.

Side note: I'm also really sad that KeD isn't playing the Aria in this pic. 

Walking Bass Lines with Chromatic approaches

Slow day at work.

This is a brilliant lesson.

Piano

So I just signed up for 10 weeks of adult beginner group piano lessons.

O.o

It's in line with 1) looking for more stuff to do (yes it feels necessary) and 2) being impulsive. Luckily, this is the kind of impulsive that only puts me out $150 and makes my Thursdays a little hectic this spring. Which is a-ok.

When I was little I wanted to learn to play piano and acoustic guitar. I loved the way that both sounded. My dad had an old chord organ (later he bought a second, more modern version) and sometime between ages 5 and 10 I taught myself to play it. Basically you played the right hand like normal and the left hand you played chords with a single button, kind of like an accordion. I don't think that I taught myself to read music, so the note names must have been written above the notes for the right hand.

Anyway, that was the extent of my experience with keyboard until I was about 25 (despite having been bought an electric keyboard in my teen years, which I still have). At that point I was living in a house with a piano and feeling ambitious, so I tried to teach myself to play. I actually did okay. At the time I was also teaching myself finger-style guitar in two lines (bass played with thumb, melody with fingers), so I kind of had the hang of reading music in two lines. I didn't advance very far by the time I moved out of that house, but it was at least a start.

Since then I've sort of lost interest in keys. I don't really like the sound of the piano anymore...or the acoustic guitar either really. I've moved on to harder rock. But I still think that keys provide a fantastic theoretical foundation for writing music. And it is a great mental exercise in limb independence. And I've always wondered what the pedals were for and how they worked.

So, ya know, what the hell? I hestitated at first thinking "oh maybe I'll do that SOME DAY but now doesn't seem like the time." Then I noted that the 10 week class goes until May...and that's a long time from now. If I wait for the next round of classes, it'll be next fall. Now is as good a time as any, and honestly, now is probably a good time to have more things to do. And, having taken classes from this particular program before I know, they aren't very high pressure. If I bail on some or don't do so great...it isn't a big deal.  So...like I said...what the hell?

SOS on Bass

Speaking of Breeders shit I've been working on....SOS on bass...here's good view of Jo's left hand around 0:23:


Looks like a 1-4 finger pattern on the 2nd -5th frets starting on E string and moving up

Another ok shot

Flipside

I've been goofing around playing Breeders tunes on drums for about three years now. At one point I was gonna record a tribute album with me playing all the parts, but gave up on that when I figured out that #1) I can't play rhythm guitar like KiD #2) I can't really sing like KiD #3) I probably don't have the right effects pedals or even know how to figure out what the correct effects pedals are.

Since I saw the band play in concert five times this year, and the same basic set with different encores, I watched Jim more closely on the drums. And I got the idea to try playing Last Splash front to back on drums.

It is harder than it seems.

"New Year" and "No Aloha" and "SOS" are still pretty tough for me...but the most interesting song might just be "Flipside." It sounds like a stupid simple song, but there's some kind of weird shit going on. What drew my attention to it is that it looks exhausting when Jim plays it live.

He's just "Ringo-ing" along for a while and then...HERE'S THE MELODY with both hands. Who knows what his feet are doing at that point. It's weird. I can't quite play it right yet.





I think there's a lot to be learned from Jim. Mastering this album is a worthy exercise.