Angela left early Saturday to visit her grandmother in San Diego. I stayed behind since I know the two of them really enjoy spending time alone together. In my adult life I have not spent much time alone. I find that curious because I've always been a person that takes to solitary time very easily.
As a young boy I spent most of my time alone. I would wander off into the wilds of our family farm and spend my day pretending to be an Indian. I passed many hours this way and I believe it helped create in me an independent imagination. And once a person develops that being alone can be pretty joyful.
Once I started recording music my love of time spent in the company of only myself really flourished. I enjoy getting feedback from others as soon as a song is finished, but I really don't mind not speaking to some one for hours and hours while I create it. I spent so many weekend and evening hours alone in my mid twenties and I enjoyed everyone of them.
This weekend was a return to form for me. Angela left in the afternoon and I took up the task of doing all my chores in 3 hours. I finished my list of things to be accomplished for the weekend as fast as I could and I then journeyed to the gym to put in an hour and clear my mind. Returning I showered and went to the store to stock up on food for my time alone. I finished all of this around 8pm on Saturday and then I got busy working.
I spent the first 2 hours working on a bass line for my brother's song "Sleepy Town". I love this song and when I started mixing it I had a revelation early that drastically changed the way the song sounds. I got it to about 75% done and I have just been struggling to put it all together from that point and finish the last 25%. At the end of the two hours I was disappointed and left with the feeling that nothing I did was even usable. I decided to close that project and move on for the night.
Next up I wanted to finish a song I started a while back with no project in mind. It was always an odd song but I loved something about it. It's called "Taming the Itch". Last week I decided it was close enough to being finished that I could just finish the lyrics, sing them, mix it and call it good for inclusion on "Albino Elephant". I had assumed I would do just this, but when I started working I decided I could not live with the drum track. I started to reprogram them and suddenly the song came a live. I worked on it for about 3 hours and in the end mixed it down an mp3 file and added it to my phone. I then had a smoke and went for a late night walk to listen. Hearing the rough version through headphones got me super excited. I decided that this song deserved a better fate than "albino Elephant", not to disparage that project but I have been wavering on what that album is. With the surprise turn out of this tune I decided to let the past stand as it was and not include any new spruced up tracks on that collection. I just want to document that era as it was. In the future I plan to re-purpose parts of it but I think "Taming the Itch" made up my mind about what the last S no S album will be.
Due to the time change and the excitement "Taming the Itch" cause I couldn't sleep for a while. I started to think about a way to make "Turbo Sunshine" a viable live band and a plan was coming together. I finally succumbed around 5am.
I woke up refreshed an energized at 11:00 am. I made a bit of breakfast and tried to watch "Engineering an Empire" off the dvr. I made it about 20 minutes before I was up and at the computer. I started sifting through half finished projects looking for my next project. I settled on a song called "Far Out With You". I loaded the porject and then changed into running clothes. I smoked a bit of medicine to allow for a proper run and headed off to Griffith Park. It was a fabulous day in griffith park. All told I put in two hours and probably ran a bit over 10 miles. It was wonderful.
I returned to the apartment and showered. I then really hunkered down. I worked for around 4 hours on "Far it with You". It was a bit frustrating to put this one together and in the end I didn't have the instant feeling of satisfaction.
I then wanted to throw down a few vocal ideas to a track Devin performed the music to. It's called "Hey Citizen" and I just love it. I recorded the small bits I had and mixed it down as well.
I've been kicking around a song called "Who killed love?" for a while and decided that it sounded very much like what I have been hearing in my head as the sound for Turbo Sunshine. While walking around listening to "Taming the Itch" I realized that in some ways it sounded a lot like Nine Inch Nails. It got me thinking that 90's psuedo industrial music is such a large part of my musical make up. Since I am not 15 anymore I find the lyrics in that music I use to love to be cringe inducing. I have started to see that there might be a large use of the sonic qualities of that music I once loved in the music I now want to create. Perhaps something like The Dandy Warhols meets Nine Inch Nails. God. I can't believe I jsut typed that. Disregard all of this. That statement means nothing.
I sang the second verse of Who Killed Love? and went out to get beer. I didn't want to lie in bed awake half the night again, so I thought some beer might do me good.
I returned from the store and had a few beers while I loaded the new songs onto my phone. I then lit a cigar and went for a walk. I was loving the new songs and it was only 9 o'clock. I decided I oculd swing one more before the time to sleep was dire. I found a piece of music I had written nothing to yet and just started to sing whatever came to mind. In about half an hour I had the first two verses and the chorus to a new song called "What you would have me do". At this point I had polished my sixer and decided I should have another walk and listen.
It was a great walk. I ended feeling pleased with myself. I came home and tried to watch TV. TV wasn't working for me. I put my headphoens back on and played each song a couple more times.
Finally I went to bed. I was missing Angela as I laid down but I knew she was having a ncie time and that she would return soon enough.
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