Good morning! My computer says 8;58 but my 'analog' clock on the wall says nine. I like 'analog time' better because you can approximate it. So as far as I'm concerned, it's around nine. Close enough for me...
Music news. RIP Edward van Halen, who influenced a whole generation of guitarists(I myself even went through a 'tapping' phase..). And he seemed to be a pretty level-headed guy as far as his success. When asked, "what's it like being the greatest guitarist of the 80s", he replied 'I don't know. You'll have to ask Yngwie".Swedish guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen(pronounced ING- vay), was also a hot item in the 80s but Eddie stole the show. . When I see a musician pass in his or her 70s or 80s, I don't feel sad. They had a nice long life. But 65 is too young.
Okay, now to my own music news. Tomorrow I make a "road trip" to scenic Pawnee Illinois to work on my new CD. I have a friend there with a good home-studio, much more high tech than mine. He balances all the tracks for me as far as levels and eliminates excess noise. From there, I upload all those 'perfect' cuts to CD Baby, along with artwork and liner notes. Sooner or later I'll get a box or two of CDs, right on the front porch. And then the fun begins...
I'm continuing to work on home recording. Kinda done with the weird little electronic pieces I've been churning out, and have been putting in more guitar-friendly stuff. Got three of them so far, one of which is up on the music page- called Tuesday Welding. It's just some one-chord fluff with some guitar over it. Also getting ready to do more actual compositions, full-fledged tunes. Those take a lot more planning, but are more rewarding in the end.
Not much else to report right now. I'm still having a lot of fun here in the cloistered confines of my music room- and sharing the better results with you guys. But I do miss working with other people. Porch concerts aren't a possibility here, but having people over to play inside the house is doable. Done it before. So that's the next step. I had a nice,semi-working trio before this all happened...
And that's pretty much it for now. Dealing with the isolation, the sterility of our current existence, along with everyone else. You really learn, in these times, how to make the most of very little. Phone calls and errands are that much more important. More crucial to good(okay, decent!) mental health. Hanging in there. So thanks as ever for stopping in and reading. Happy Hump Day to you, however you choose to celebrate it. For now, ich bin outa here. More later.
PS today's tune is from my album Jazz Guitar Vol 4, and is called Love Lunch Later. When I was on the road, from '84 to '86, our bandleader, who was an LA native(Fullerton I think), proposed signing all his correspondence love, lunch, later. How very LA. We did give this tune a reading though.