2 or 3 of you reading this probably know this, but I used to
make a lot of music. I used to put out around 2 or 3 full albums a year
under various fake band names in various fake genres, around 14 or 15 in total,
but that all stopped a while back. I haven't put out a new album since 2007
and that one took months to make.
I have been plagued with wrist and hand problems for years. Playing in a real live band became impossible so I devoted my time to just making as much of my own music as I could before my wrists were so bad I couldn't do it anymore. It got to the point where playing guitar or bass or whatever was impossible to do just for fun. I couldn't just pick up a guitar and fiddle around with it on a lark. Doing that for 30 minutes would lead to days of pain. Same for recording. I used to just record a song whenever one popped up. But doing one song was painful, so if I'm going to go through that pain I wanted something more worthwhile to come out of it besides one song. Making the albums became the only time I ever played. I would just suck it up and bang out the album then spend the next few weeks wearing various braces, covering myself in Icy Hot and wrapping my arms in heating pads to ease the pain.
I have been plagued with wrist and hand problems for years. Playing in a real live band became impossible so I devoted my time to just making as much of my own music as I could before my wrists were so bad I couldn't do it anymore. It got to the point where playing guitar or bass or whatever was impossible to do just for fun. I couldn't just pick up a guitar and fiddle around with it on a lark. Doing that for 30 minutes would lead to days of pain. Same for recording. I used to just record a song whenever one popped up. But doing one song was painful, so if I'm going to go through that pain I wanted something more worthwhile to come out of it besides one song. Making the albums became the only time I ever played. I would just suck it up and bang out the album then spend the next few weeks wearing various braces, covering myself in Icy Hot and wrapping my arms in heating pads to ease the pain.
This was all worth it for a while. But in
2007/2008 I decided I was going to make one more album and it was going to be my
last one. It was going to be called The Party's Over and would end with a
cover of The Raspberries' The Party's Over song with the lyrics changed to reflect my
quitting music. But that album turned out to be a disaster and I still
haven't finished it all these years later.
The main problem is that my old computer died the true death and I upgraded to a brand new fancy computer. The recording program I always used and had pretty much mastered over the years was a Win98 program. It got through the XP era just fine but it didn't do so well in the Vista/Win7 era. No biggie, I felt it was time to upgrade anyway so I moved up to the latest edition of the big fancy Sonar program. Sonar was essentially just an updated version and it more or less looked the same but it sure as hell didn't work the same. Everything that worked so simply in the previous version was now a tedious frustrating endeavor. I had a bunch of plug ins that I had used and relied on for years which suddenly didn't work anymore. It was a mess. Nothing sounded as good, nothing worked as well, but I soldiered on anyway and recorded all the music. Then I tried exporting some rough mixes of the music and once again nothing worked easily. Trying to figure out how to get this thing to export in the correct format was mind boggling and then once I got it to work, everything sounded terrible. But once again I soldiered on and told myself don't worry about it, you can figure out what's wrong and fix it later in the mixing process. I started recording the vocals and that's when everything went into total disarray. Vocals were impossible to record. My lack of singing ability always hurt recording vocals, but this was more than that, I couldn't get the vocals to record right at all. Volume wise it was all over the map.It would either record too low or too high, there was no in-between and no amount of mixing and FX helped. Even worse, the vocals sounded like I was singing through a CB radio. All tinny and static-y. I tried to figure this out for weeks. Trying everything I could think of, scouring the Google for answers. Nothing helped and eventually it just hit me that, I didn't really like these songs all that much anyway. I had already planned on calling this my last, and worst, CD. I wasn't even enjoying the music and I was working my ass off for it more than all the other CDs combined. So I gave up on it. I have gone back to it 2 or 3 times a year to try to finish it, only to get frustrated yet again and quit. But I didn't just quit this CD, I quit it all. I pretty much didn't play guitar for the past 5 years and I sold most of my recording equipment knowing that I was done.
I did TRY to play guitar some. Playing music is all I want to do it and all I care about. So not being able to do it has pretty much been the most miserable part of my life. These past few years have had quite a few spells of complete depression, anger and frustration over it. Even if I couldn't make music, I'd just like the ability to pick up my guitar and goof around on it. But anytime I tried, I just went into immediate pain so I was stuck with the choice of either don't do this one thing, or do that one thing and not be able to do ANYTHING else from the pain it causes.
But then, for reasons unknown, a Christmas miracle of sorts happened. I read Duff McKagan's book and it frustrated me because all I could think of was the fun I used to have playing along with Appetite for Destruction. I eventually said screw it, picked up my guitar, popped in Appetite for Destruction and played along. Wrists didn't like it, but they didn't complain too much, so I kept on doing it. I started playing Appetite once a week to get it out of my system, but I didn't push it any farther than that. Then when the family came to town for Christmas I was stuck with kids all over me for a week or so. I couldn't get away to play games, watch TV, use the computer, leave, anything. So I figure hey, let me pick up this acoustic guitar to kill some time. Up until now 10 minutes of that guitar would send me into pain. But it wasn't now. I played it nearly the entire time they were here, until one of the kids broke a string. It was starting to seem like I could play again, but I didn't want to push it and try recording again. I told myself to just relish in getting to play it for a while because you know it ain't gonna last. So I kept playing an hour or so a week. I learned the first Wolfmother album and would play that once a week. Then I learned the first Audioslave album and would play that. Then I made a set list of Black Sabbath songs and played that. Then I got into Aerosmith for the first time in my life, made a set list of a bunch of their early songs and learned that. Playing once a week turned into two or three times a week.
Playing Aerosmith was the real turning point. My last fake band was Draven. It was supposed to be my straight forward guitar driven rock band with songs about sex, drugs and rock & roll stereotypes. It was by far my favorite fake band and by far the most popular. Probably because it was the only one where I was actually making the type of music that I listen to. Playing Aerosmith got me back into that mindset. Playing those riffs made me start coming up with my own riffs. Soon a new album was starting to rear its ugly head. But how to do it? I sold and got rid of so much stuff. I really had no way to do drums anymore. And would this one sound any better than the one I gave up on? Then one thought popped into my head: Screw it!
I used to record on a 4 track. No, let's go before that, I used to record on a boom box and a stereo. I would set the boom box in front of my drums, play the drum part. Then play back the drum part on my stereo real loud, play the bass part along with that, set the boom box between the stereo and amp and record that. Then do it again for guitar. It sounded like GARBAGE but I didn't care that it sounded like garbage, I was just excited that I created a song. Then I graduated to 4 track, it sounded a little better, it still sounded like garbage, but it was fun. So the thought occurred to me....who am I trying to impress? When did I decide I was supposed to try to make my bedroom recordings sound like major label releases? Who cares? The few people whose opinion actually matters to me aren't going to listen to it and go oh man, that snare drum sounds a little off. Why am I trying to be perfect when I never will be? Why did I waste so much time on all those other recordings? Who cares? Screw it!
I decided to go for it, it would either sound good or it wouldn't. But I didn't want to destroy my wrists in the process either. It was real bad timing, spring was here and so was the yard work. Now I was mowing the yard, weed eating, chainsawing, etc. I figured it wasn't going to be good to be doing that AND trying to record this stuff so I needed it to be quick and easy. My first idea was to use loops for the bass and drums instead of playing it manually. It would also be an interesting way to write because I'd have to find loops then create riffs that fit them. I did a couple of songs that like. Also I didn't want to use Sonar again so I found this AWESOME free software called Reaper that is by far the easiest and best recording software I've used. I tossed my loops in there, played my guitar over them, and it sounded AMAZEBALLS with very little effort. This was going to be awesome!
But the more I came up with ideas, the less the loops seemed like a good idea. I would come up with an idea then go through my loop collection and be unable to find anything I could use it with. Starting with the loops first worked, but was extremely limiting. I ended up abandoning the loops idea. But now I had to figure out what to do about the drums. I didn't have my electric drums anymore. I still had my MIDI keyboard to play drums with but the drum samples I had on my computer were terrible. I scoured the entire internet looking for the best program I could find. I ended up settling on EZDrummer. It's an amazing program that sounds like a realistic drumset and doesn't have to be programmed through MIDI or use loops, I could play the drums "live" using my fingers and my MIDI keyboard. Problem solved!
LOL!!! Of course not. I figured out that my old midi cables no longer worked because it used the printer port for input and I guess computers don't have those anymore. Who knew?? So I figured out a way to use my computer keyboard in Reaper to control EZDrummer. Problem solved!
LOL!!! Of course not. It had CRAZY latency issues. Like if I was hitting bass, snare, bass, snare, the delay would be so bad that you'd be hearing the bass while I'm hitting the snare and the snare while I'm hitting the bass. So I had to order a MIDI to USB cable for my MIDI keyboard, wait a week and then problem solved!
LOL!!! Of course not. It had the latency issue also. I scoured the internet for days. Lots of people had this problem, everybody had answers, none of them worked for me. I tried EZDrummer in my other recording software and it didn't do this, it was only in Reaper. I was left with only one choice. I had to abandon this software that I loved to go back to the software that I hated. Goodbye Reaper, hello Sonar, again.
Now everything more or less worked, I worried if I was going to have the same problems when mixing and recording vocals but my mantra of SCREW IT kept me going. I was ready to record, now I needed the songs. I had lots of ideas but no full songs. Over the next 2-3 weeks I had what was probably the quickest and easiest writing period ever. Usually my writing period goes like this: I come up with the idea for 2 or 3 songs out of nowhere and decide that means I should do a album. Then I sit down and TRY to write. This usually leads to a few more songs that I end up liking more than the original 2 or 3. But then I hit a rut and have to force myself to pull some more songs out of my ass to finish the album off. Sometimes I luck out and they end up decent, more often they feel just as forced as they were. On all the albums I've done I can hear those 1 or 2 songs on each one and tell those are the ones I did last. They feel thrown together and forced and usually suck balls. This is also something that helps damage my wrists. I end up spending so much time trying to write songs that my wrists are shot before I even start recording, making the recording process torture. But there was none of that this time around. Every single song popped right out nearly fully formed. Even the lyrics came out fast and easy and that most certainly isn't the case normally. Lyrics are usually no fun at all for me. Sometimes I come up with a cool idea and it's fun to write but normally it's just pulling teeth. Usually about half the CD might have decent lyrics and the other half is as many hack rock music clichés as possible just to have something to say. But with this one, pretty much as soon as I started playing the song, the lyrics ideas started coming right along with it. I never had to rack my brain to come up with something to write about it, as soon as the music came out every song just kinda knew what it wanted itself to be about. It's probably because it's the first time that nearly every single song is about something. Every song is either my opinion on something, about something I like, something I feel, somebody I know, based on something real. I didn't have to do any of that let me just say a bunch of cryptic garbage to trick people into thinking this song is about something even though it's not. I'm not saying the writing of these songs is GOOD, I'm just saying it was easy.
Recording also went pretty easy. I had planned for 3 weeks. 1 week for drums, take a break to let wrists rest, 1 week for guitars to let wrists rests and one week for bass. I planned on doing bass last because the heavier strings are harder on the ol' wrists. But the pain wasn't bad at all and I wound up just going from one thing to another. And instead of doing 1 or 2 songs a day, I started doing more and more each day. It ended up only taking 2 weeks to get all the music done and my wrists weren't bothering me at all after a couple of days of rest.
Now it was time for the first real test. I did a rough mix of the music and exported it, praying that it wouldn't sound as bad as the last stuff sounded 5 years previous. I hit play and my heart sank. It was atrocious. So bad that SCREW IT couldn't get me through it. For some reason it sounded like it had 10 layers of reverb on it even though I hadn't put any on it. It was insanely bassy. It sounded mono. I just couldn't understand why it sounded SO different than what it sounds like in Sonar. For some reason I decided to play the songs through a different music player than Window Media Player. I popped it into Quicktime and it sounded perfect. I popped it into iTunes software and it sounded perfect. I popped it into the Zune software and it sounded perfect. I put it on another computer's WMP and it sounded perfect there. I played it in the car and it sounded perfect. I went through all the settings and EQ of that WMP and none of it is turned on. There is no reason why it should play so horribly in WMP but it does and it nearly gave me a heart attack for no reason.
One hurdle hurdled, it's now time to record vocals. I grab my mic, I hit record, I sing a bit, I play it back......more heartbreak. Vocal problems are still present and once again SCREW IT is failing me. It's one thing to just say I don't care if it doesn't sound perfect, but this is unlistenable. The thing that puzzles me the most is that I kept the sound card from my old computer and installed it in the new computer for the sole purpose of making sure my recordings would stay the same. I have no idea what this isn't working and I can't find anybody on the entire internet who has the same problem and can fix it. I tried for days to fix it. I have tried various microphones but all cheap ones, the cheap ones have worked for 10 years, so I assume a more expensive mic won't help, but at this point I'm willing to try anything. I start looking up new microphones and see these new fangled USB mics. I start thinking, if anything is gonna fix this, it's gotta be that right? It would avoid the sound card completely, at worst it would at least tell me the sound card is or isn't the issue. I was going to go for the cheap 40 dollar mic, but.....hold your horses, I said nope....if I'm going for it I'm going for it. I'm gonna get that fancy 70 dollar mic! I've never used a condenser mic before and that might help even more. I promptly went to Ebay and found the 70 dollar mic for 40. Booyah!
Lo and behold it works. It takes some tinkering with some settings, but it works. Magically good. TOO good. This thing picks up every noise in a 12 block radius. If I listen to these songs in my car or in bassy headphones, some of the popped Ps or breath that hits the mic sounds like thunder and scares me. I couldn't even scratch myself while singing or the scratching would drown out the music. But it worked. I still sing terribly but at least you can hear it.
One slight problem with the vocals is that I wrote stuff I knew I'd have trouble singing because before now I never had autotune. I figured with autotune I could go a little nuts and then just fix that stuff like the pros do. I spent a few hours trying to figure out how to use autotune before I threw my hands in the air and said SCREW IT. No matter what I did I couldn't get it to sound human, it only made me sound like T-Pain. I didn't want that. So I just went old school on this bad boy and sang poorly and owned it like a boss!
Mixing was where the SCREW IT mantra really shined. I usually spend a month or so mixing. Once again I asked myself why??? This isn't going to make me rich and famous no matter how many times I mix it. You can only polish a turd so much. I ended up mixing this one in 4 days. Is it perfect? Not at all. Would it make a difference if I spent 3 more weeks fiddling with it? Not at all. It's good enough. And there's a lot of screw ups in there that I normally would've fixed it that I didn't. Particularly on drums you'll hear things get out of time for a second or two. I could've fixed that. I didn't. DEAL WITH IT.
All in all I think this one came out pretty good. There are things I wish were better but they aren't so SCREW IT...boom, you ya cover, boom, ya got your songs, boom, ya got your lyrics, boom here's my new album...NOT my last album: Draven - Rides Again.....
And yes I covered Lady Gaga. SCREW IT!!
The main problem is that my old computer died the true death and I upgraded to a brand new fancy computer. The recording program I always used and had pretty much mastered over the years was a Win98 program. It got through the XP era just fine but it didn't do so well in the Vista/Win7 era. No biggie, I felt it was time to upgrade anyway so I moved up to the latest edition of the big fancy Sonar program. Sonar was essentially just an updated version and it more or less looked the same but it sure as hell didn't work the same. Everything that worked so simply in the previous version was now a tedious frustrating endeavor. I had a bunch of plug ins that I had used and relied on for years which suddenly didn't work anymore. It was a mess. Nothing sounded as good, nothing worked as well, but I soldiered on anyway and recorded all the music. Then I tried exporting some rough mixes of the music and once again nothing worked easily. Trying to figure out how to get this thing to export in the correct format was mind boggling and then once I got it to work, everything sounded terrible. But once again I soldiered on and told myself don't worry about it, you can figure out what's wrong and fix it later in the mixing process. I started recording the vocals and that's when everything went into total disarray. Vocals were impossible to record. My lack of singing ability always hurt recording vocals, but this was more than that, I couldn't get the vocals to record right at all. Volume wise it was all over the map.It would either record too low or too high, there was no in-between and no amount of mixing and FX helped. Even worse, the vocals sounded like I was singing through a CB radio. All tinny and static-y. I tried to figure this out for weeks. Trying everything I could think of, scouring the Google for answers. Nothing helped and eventually it just hit me that, I didn't really like these songs all that much anyway. I had already planned on calling this my last, and worst, CD. I wasn't even enjoying the music and I was working my ass off for it more than all the other CDs combined. So I gave up on it. I have gone back to it 2 or 3 times a year to try to finish it, only to get frustrated yet again and quit. But I didn't just quit this CD, I quit it all. I pretty much didn't play guitar for the past 5 years and I sold most of my recording equipment knowing that I was done.
I did TRY to play guitar some. Playing music is all I want to do it and all I care about. So not being able to do it has pretty much been the most miserable part of my life. These past few years have had quite a few spells of complete depression, anger and frustration over it. Even if I couldn't make music, I'd just like the ability to pick up my guitar and goof around on it. But anytime I tried, I just went into immediate pain so I was stuck with the choice of either don't do this one thing, or do that one thing and not be able to do ANYTHING else from the pain it causes.
But then, for reasons unknown, a Christmas miracle of sorts happened. I read Duff McKagan's book and it frustrated me because all I could think of was the fun I used to have playing along with Appetite for Destruction. I eventually said screw it, picked up my guitar, popped in Appetite for Destruction and played along. Wrists didn't like it, but they didn't complain too much, so I kept on doing it. I started playing Appetite once a week to get it out of my system, but I didn't push it any farther than that. Then when the family came to town for Christmas I was stuck with kids all over me for a week or so. I couldn't get away to play games, watch TV, use the computer, leave, anything. So I figure hey, let me pick up this acoustic guitar to kill some time. Up until now 10 minutes of that guitar would send me into pain. But it wasn't now. I played it nearly the entire time they were here, until one of the kids broke a string. It was starting to seem like I could play again, but I didn't want to push it and try recording again. I told myself to just relish in getting to play it for a while because you know it ain't gonna last. So I kept playing an hour or so a week. I learned the first Wolfmother album and would play that once a week. Then I learned the first Audioslave album and would play that. Then I made a set list of Black Sabbath songs and played that. Then I got into Aerosmith for the first time in my life, made a set list of a bunch of their early songs and learned that. Playing once a week turned into two or three times a week.
Playing Aerosmith was the real turning point. My last fake band was Draven. It was supposed to be my straight forward guitar driven rock band with songs about sex, drugs and rock & roll stereotypes. It was by far my favorite fake band and by far the most popular. Probably because it was the only one where I was actually making the type of music that I listen to. Playing Aerosmith got me back into that mindset. Playing those riffs made me start coming up with my own riffs. Soon a new album was starting to rear its ugly head. But how to do it? I sold and got rid of so much stuff. I really had no way to do drums anymore. And would this one sound any better than the one I gave up on? Then one thought popped into my head: Screw it!
I used to record on a 4 track. No, let's go before that, I used to record on a boom box and a stereo. I would set the boom box in front of my drums, play the drum part. Then play back the drum part on my stereo real loud, play the bass part along with that, set the boom box between the stereo and amp and record that. Then do it again for guitar. It sounded like GARBAGE but I didn't care that it sounded like garbage, I was just excited that I created a song. Then I graduated to 4 track, it sounded a little better, it still sounded like garbage, but it was fun. So the thought occurred to me....who am I trying to impress? When did I decide I was supposed to try to make my bedroom recordings sound like major label releases? Who cares? The few people whose opinion actually matters to me aren't going to listen to it and go oh man, that snare drum sounds a little off. Why am I trying to be perfect when I never will be? Why did I waste so much time on all those other recordings? Who cares? Screw it!
I decided to go for it, it would either sound good or it wouldn't. But I didn't want to destroy my wrists in the process either. It was real bad timing, spring was here and so was the yard work. Now I was mowing the yard, weed eating, chainsawing, etc. I figured it wasn't going to be good to be doing that AND trying to record this stuff so I needed it to be quick and easy. My first idea was to use loops for the bass and drums instead of playing it manually. It would also be an interesting way to write because I'd have to find loops then create riffs that fit them. I did a couple of songs that like. Also I didn't want to use Sonar again so I found this AWESOME free software called Reaper that is by far the easiest and best recording software I've used. I tossed my loops in there, played my guitar over them, and it sounded AMAZEBALLS with very little effort. This was going to be awesome!
But the more I came up with ideas, the less the loops seemed like a good idea. I would come up with an idea then go through my loop collection and be unable to find anything I could use it with. Starting with the loops first worked, but was extremely limiting. I ended up abandoning the loops idea. But now I had to figure out what to do about the drums. I didn't have my electric drums anymore. I still had my MIDI keyboard to play drums with but the drum samples I had on my computer were terrible. I scoured the entire internet looking for the best program I could find. I ended up settling on EZDrummer. It's an amazing program that sounds like a realistic drumset and doesn't have to be programmed through MIDI or use loops, I could play the drums "live" using my fingers and my MIDI keyboard. Problem solved!
LOL!!! Of course not. I figured out that my old midi cables no longer worked because it used the printer port for input and I guess computers don't have those anymore. Who knew?? So I figured out a way to use my computer keyboard in Reaper to control EZDrummer. Problem solved!
LOL!!! Of course not. It had CRAZY latency issues. Like if I was hitting bass, snare, bass, snare, the delay would be so bad that you'd be hearing the bass while I'm hitting the snare and the snare while I'm hitting the bass. So I had to order a MIDI to USB cable for my MIDI keyboard, wait a week and then problem solved!
LOL!!! Of course not. It had the latency issue also. I scoured the internet for days. Lots of people had this problem, everybody had answers, none of them worked for me. I tried EZDrummer in my other recording software and it didn't do this, it was only in Reaper. I was left with only one choice. I had to abandon this software that I loved to go back to the software that I hated. Goodbye Reaper, hello Sonar, again.
Now everything more or less worked, I worried if I was going to have the same problems when mixing and recording vocals but my mantra of SCREW IT kept me going. I was ready to record, now I needed the songs. I had lots of ideas but no full songs. Over the next 2-3 weeks I had what was probably the quickest and easiest writing period ever. Usually my writing period goes like this: I come up with the idea for 2 or 3 songs out of nowhere and decide that means I should do a album. Then I sit down and TRY to write. This usually leads to a few more songs that I end up liking more than the original 2 or 3. But then I hit a rut and have to force myself to pull some more songs out of my ass to finish the album off. Sometimes I luck out and they end up decent, more often they feel just as forced as they were. On all the albums I've done I can hear those 1 or 2 songs on each one and tell those are the ones I did last. They feel thrown together and forced and usually suck balls. This is also something that helps damage my wrists. I end up spending so much time trying to write songs that my wrists are shot before I even start recording, making the recording process torture. But there was none of that this time around. Every single song popped right out nearly fully formed. Even the lyrics came out fast and easy and that most certainly isn't the case normally. Lyrics are usually no fun at all for me. Sometimes I come up with a cool idea and it's fun to write but normally it's just pulling teeth. Usually about half the CD might have decent lyrics and the other half is as many hack rock music clichés as possible just to have something to say. But with this one, pretty much as soon as I started playing the song, the lyrics ideas started coming right along with it. I never had to rack my brain to come up with something to write about it, as soon as the music came out every song just kinda knew what it wanted itself to be about. It's probably because it's the first time that nearly every single song is about something. Every song is either my opinion on something, about something I like, something I feel, somebody I know, based on something real. I didn't have to do any of that let me just say a bunch of cryptic garbage to trick people into thinking this song is about something even though it's not. I'm not saying the writing of these songs is GOOD, I'm just saying it was easy.
Recording also went pretty easy. I had planned for 3 weeks. 1 week for drums, take a break to let wrists rest, 1 week for guitars to let wrists rests and one week for bass. I planned on doing bass last because the heavier strings are harder on the ol' wrists. But the pain wasn't bad at all and I wound up just going from one thing to another. And instead of doing 1 or 2 songs a day, I started doing more and more each day. It ended up only taking 2 weeks to get all the music done and my wrists weren't bothering me at all after a couple of days of rest.
Now it was time for the first real test. I did a rough mix of the music and exported it, praying that it wouldn't sound as bad as the last stuff sounded 5 years previous. I hit play and my heart sank. It was atrocious. So bad that SCREW IT couldn't get me through it. For some reason it sounded like it had 10 layers of reverb on it even though I hadn't put any on it. It was insanely bassy. It sounded mono. I just couldn't understand why it sounded SO different than what it sounds like in Sonar. For some reason I decided to play the songs through a different music player than Window Media Player. I popped it into Quicktime and it sounded perfect. I popped it into iTunes software and it sounded perfect. I popped it into the Zune software and it sounded perfect. I put it on another computer's WMP and it sounded perfect there. I played it in the car and it sounded perfect. I went through all the settings and EQ of that WMP and none of it is turned on. There is no reason why it should play so horribly in WMP but it does and it nearly gave me a heart attack for no reason.
One hurdle hurdled, it's now time to record vocals. I grab my mic, I hit record, I sing a bit, I play it back......more heartbreak. Vocal problems are still present and once again SCREW IT is failing me. It's one thing to just say I don't care if it doesn't sound perfect, but this is unlistenable. The thing that puzzles me the most is that I kept the sound card from my old computer and installed it in the new computer for the sole purpose of making sure my recordings would stay the same. I have no idea what this isn't working and I can't find anybody on the entire internet who has the same problem and can fix it. I tried for days to fix it. I have tried various microphones but all cheap ones, the cheap ones have worked for 10 years, so I assume a more expensive mic won't help, but at this point I'm willing to try anything. I start looking up new microphones and see these new fangled USB mics. I start thinking, if anything is gonna fix this, it's gotta be that right? It would avoid the sound card completely, at worst it would at least tell me the sound card is or isn't the issue. I was going to go for the cheap 40 dollar mic, but.....hold your horses, I said nope....if I'm going for it I'm going for it. I'm gonna get that fancy 70 dollar mic! I've never used a condenser mic before and that might help even more. I promptly went to Ebay and found the 70 dollar mic for 40. Booyah!
Lo and behold it works. It takes some tinkering with some settings, but it works. Magically good. TOO good. This thing picks up every noise in a 12 block radius. If I listen to these songs in my car or in bassy headphones, some of the popped Ps or breath that hits the mic sounds like thunder and scares me. I couldn't even scratch myself while singing or the scratching would drown out the music. But it worked. I still sing terribly but at least you can hear it.
One slight problem with the vocals is that I wrote stuff I knew I'd have trouble singing because before now I never had autotune. I figured with autotune I could go a little nuts and then just fix that stuff like the pros do. I spent a few hours trying to figure out how to use autotune before I threw my hands in the air and said SCREW IT. No matter what I did I couldn't get it to sound human, it only made me sound like T-Pain. I didn't want that. So I just went old school on this bad boy and sang poorly and owned it like a boss!
Mixing was where the SCREW IT mantra really shined. I usually spend a month or so mixing. Once again I asked myself why??? This isn't going to make me rich and famous no matter how many times I mix it. You can only polish a turd so much. I ended up mixing this one in 4 days. Is it perfect? Not at all. Would it make a difference if I spent 3 more weeks fiddling with it? Not at all. It's good enough. And there's a lot of screw ups in there that I normally would've fixed it that I didn't. Particularly on drums you'll hear things get out of time for a second or two. I could've fixed that. I didn't. DEAL WITH IT.
All in all I think this one came out pretty good. There are things I wish were better but they aren't so SCREW IT...boom, you ya cover, boom, ya got your songs, boom, ya got your lyrics, boom here's my new album...NOT my last album: Draven - Rides Again.....
And yes I covered Lady Gaga. SCREW IT!!
RED HEADED WOMAN
You dress
like last night’s regrets
Red lipstick
on a cigarette
If I don’t
notice you you make sure I do
Everywhere
you go you’re the queen of who’s who
Crimson and
clover on my mind
Sweet and
sour all the time
The queen of
hearts, the queen of the night
What’s your
number baby what’s your sign
Red headed
woman
You’re gonna
be the death of me
You drive me
wild
You hold the
keys to my desires
A red headed
woman’s gonna steal my soul
Dress so
tight that it looks like it hurts
Long red hair
and a mini skirt
Every time
you look at me it feels obscene
You’re the
stickiest page in every magazine
GHOULS NIGHT OUT
There’s a
ghost living under my bed
Its skin is
white and its eyes are red
It comes out
at night and it won’t leave
I wish the morning
light would come save me
There’s a
man with fangs looking in my window
He’s got no
reflection and he’s got no soul
I don’t like
the way he’s looking at me
Like a great
white shark in a feeding frenzy
You better
get running
The monster
show is coming
They all
wanna meet ya
And then
they wanna eat ya
The night is
black and the moon is red
If you’re
not careful you’ll soon be dead
Put away
your crosses and your holy water
No point in
praying to the holy father
Killing and
spooking that’s what they’re about
Look out
people it’s a ghoul’s night out
There’s a
sexy witch flying on a broom
She’s got
the spells and she’s got the moves
There’s a
creepy zombie crawling out of the grave
Pulling up
the covers won’t keep you safe
WALKING THE DOG
Mary Mack dressed
in black
Silver buttons
up and down her back
Hung low mistletoe
She broke
her needle now she can't sew
Walking the
dog
I'm just a-walking
your dog
Well you
don't know how to do it
I'll show
you how to walk the dog
Ask your
mama for fifteen cents
To see an
elephant jump the fence
It jumped so
high liked to touch the sky
Didn't come
back 'til the Fourth of July
Mary Mary quite
contrary
How does
your garden grow oh so well
Silver bells
and little bitty bitty bitty babytails
Pretty maids
all in a row
WAKE UP
It’s time to wake up
It’s time to go
Pack up your noise and pack up your
clothes
Cause I’m awake now
I see the truth
I seen how you done me and I know all
your moves
I’m not the one keeping all the
secrets
I’m not the one with the vows I’m
breaking
I’m not the one who’s full of crap
I’m not the one who’d treat you like
that
You’re the reason I can’t be free
You’re the knife sticking in my
throat
You’re the last thing I could ever
need
Get out of my life get out of my home
It’s time to wake up
It’s time to go
I ain’t got a reason to put up with
more
Cause I’m awake now
I see it all
Every lie you told every mask you
wore
I’m just the one who gave up
everything
I’m just the one who kept all
promises made
I’m just the one who got stabbed in
the back
I’m just the one whose face got
slapped
It’s time to wake up
It’s time to go
Pack up your noise and pack up your
clothes
Cause I’m awake now
I see it all
Every lie you told every mask you
wore
I’m not the one keeping all the
secrets
I’m not the one with the vows I’m
breaking
I’m just the one who got stabbed in
the back
I’m just the one whose face got
slapped
Who gave you the right to ruin my
life
Who gave you the right to break me
inside
Who gave you the right to shatter my
mind
Who gave you the right to waste my
time
Just me
FALLING DOWN
I can see
the writing on the wall
I can see
every word you wrote
I can see
it’s crumbling down on me
I can see
everything you don’t
I’m here
waiting for you
Slowly
falling down
I can hear
it all ringing in my ears
I can hear
every word you spoke
I can hear
echoes down the hall
I can hear
everything you don’t
I can feel a
lifetime slipping away
And I can
feel aching in my bones
And I can
feel the end is getting near
And I can
feel everything you don’t
MISERY NEWS
If you got the rope
I got the neck
If you got the hope
I got the net
But if you got misery
You got what it takes to write a song
If you got the love
I got the hate
If you got the heart
I got the break
But if you got misery
You got what it takes to sing a song
If you got the happy
I got the sad
If you got the good
I got the bad
But if you got misery
You got what it takes to hear a song
If you got the breath
I got the choke
If you got the tears
I got the joke
But if you got misery
You got what it takes to laugh along
Well I’ve been down to Mississippi
I’ve been to New Orleans
I’ve been to Alabama Arkansas
Tennessee
But I never met a woman who could
stand the sight of me
They look right through me
They don’t like what they see
They see I’m bad bad bad bad bad
Bad news I know
Somebody tell my mama
Somebody tell my dad
Somebody tell my cousin the only
friend that I had
Tell em that I’m all right tell em
I’m fine
Lie because you have to
Lie because they’re blind
To see I’m bad bad bad bad bad
Bad news I know
I see it in the eyes of every person
I meet
I feel it in my bones from my head to
my feet
I don’t need no drugs and I don’t
need no booze
I can fail on my own cause I was born
to lose
I’m bad bad bad bad bad
Bad news I know
MIDNIGHT SUN
Big eyes,
better to see you
I can see
you wherever you are
Big teeth,
better to bite you
Girl I’m
gonna give you a brand new scar
Big claws,
better to grab you
Hold you
down give you my surprise
Big mouth,
better to eat you
Swallow you
down with a razor smile
I’m the man
in sheep’s clothing
I’m the man
howling at the moon
I’m the man
with the boiling blood
Running wild
under the midnight sun
You can run
you can hide
But you
can’t escape what I got inside
It’s not a
curse, it’s a gift
A gift I’m
gonna share with you before you die
Little girl,
where ya going
I can smell
you pissing fear
You smell
sweet you taste sweeter
I love the
taste of blood mixed in with tears
YOU AND I
It's been a long
time since I came around
Been a long
time but I'm back in town
And this
time I'm not leaving without you
You taste
like whiskey when you kiss me
Oh I'd give
anything to make you my baby doll
And this
time I'm not leaving without you
I said sit
back down where you belong
In the
corner of the bar with your high heels on
Sit back
down on the couch where we
Made love
the first time and I said to you yeah
Something,
something about this place
Something
about lonely nights and your lipstick on my face
Something,
something about my cool Nebraska girl
Yeah
something about baby, you and I
It's been
two years since I let you go
I couldn't
listen to a joke or rock and roll
Muscle cars
drove a truck right through my heart
On my
birthday you sang a heart of gold
Your guitar
humming and no clothes
This time
I'm not leaving without you
You and I
Baby You and
I
I’d rather
die without you and I
Come on and
put your drinks up
BACK DOOR LOVER
Well I’m a
bad mutha hucka if I do say so myself
I don’t cut
like a knife, I cut like myself
I look
pretty good in my snakeskin boots
But you
don’t see me with your eyes, you sense me with your cooch
Go call your
husband, tell him you’ll be late
Hurry up
woman don’t hesitate cause I’m a
I’m a back
door lover
I sneak
inside and I bring you alive
Cause I’m a
back door lover
Your man
won’t see me coming but you sure will
I don’t mind
afternoon delight
If you don’t
mind where I nibble and bite
Take off
them drawers hike up that skirt
I’m gonna
show you how good pleasure can hurt
Step up
lady, don’t be shy
I’m gonna be
your secret guy cause I’m a
For the rest
of your life you will never forget
The bad
mutha hucka that you once met
There ain’t
no other man quite like me
Make ya
shimmy make ya shake down to your knees
Sorry baby
it’s a one time deal
Some other
lonely lady needs to spin this wheel cause I’m a
FIRE IT UP
Everybody out there hates everything
Everything sucks that’s the motto
today
But all people do is whine and
complain
Nobody ever does anything
But I got a plan that will solve this
mess
If you don’t like I could really care
less
Let’s burn this place down to the
ground
Make the whole world a burial mound
Fire it up – Fire it up
A can of gasoline to fire it up
Strike that match let’s fire it up
Let’s make some noise let’s make a
scene
Then go to the desert and do LSD
New York to LA just burning embers
Remember remember the 5th of November
The language police and their fake
outrage
When they’re hanging from trees
they’ll have nothing to say
Greedy politicians with their open
hands
Gonna burn em all alive all across
this land
Fire it up – Fire it up
A well placed bullet to fire it up
Let’s light this fuse and fire it up
Stand together die alone
The greatest strength we’ve ever
known
Stand together die alone
Burn this place down to the bone
Burn down the churches & burn
down the malls
Burn down the schools let’s burn it
all
The red white blue is the red white
dead
Raise your glass and toast the end
It’s time for revolution it’s time for
a change
It’s time to step up and change their
ways
I’ve lived by your rules I’ve paid
your fees
It’s time for cake and anarchy
99 percent –1 percent
You’re all the same thing as far as
I’m concerned
You’re all gonna die & you’re all
gonna burn
Fire it up – Fire it up
A Molotov cocktail to fire it up
It’s time to step up and fire it up
SEE ROCK CITY
Driving down
south, looking for a place
Where I can
unwind and get a taste
Of something
fresh, something sweet
Something
made with love, something with heat
Off the
interstate I found this city
Where every
girl you see’s got big fat titties
Every boy
you see’s playing electric guitar
And
everybody’s dressed like rock and roll stars
Everybody
come see rock city
Nobody knows
see rock city
Cause nobody
leaves see rock city
Everybody
come see rock city tonight
Heroin
cocaine LSD
Do anything
you want and you won’t OD
This here is
rock and roll paradise
We all drink
and drive but nobody dies
There ain’t
no TV or internet
Just
underage girls with dead parents
You might
think that this is heaven
It’s more
like hell but nobody cares
If you
decide you wanna go
Point your
car south put the pedal to the floor
We’ll be
waiting for you to arrive
So we can
party all day and party all night
ONLY THE DEVIL CARED
(The Ballad of Tippy Tom)
(The Ballad of Tippy Tom)
I was born
alone and I’ll die alone
A box made
of pine under sky made of gray
That’s where
I’ll forever lay
The lines on
my face tell the story
A story of
sorrow and woe
I’ve made
people laugh, I’ve made people cry
Ain’t that
how the story goes
I’ve loved
and lost a woman
I’ve loved
and lost a man
I’ve watched
my friends leave and I’ve watched my friends die
I see them
every time I sleep
At the
bottom of the bottle is where I find my peace
I close down
my mind with a few gulps of wine
But the
demons are never pleased
I’ve raised
my arms to Jesus
I’ve bowed
my head to God
I’ve
screamed up to Heaven
I’ve said
all my prayers
But only the
devil cared
These
streets they are my prison
These streets
they are my home
They love me
sometimes
They hate me
sometimes
But they
shelter me from the storm
If this city
was a woman she’d be beautiful and grim
She’d beat
me on down with her feminine wiles
And fill my
soul with sin
Yes I lived
alone and yes I died alone
With a belly
of beer and a lifetime of tears
Like every
sad song you know
But I had my
share of laughs and I had my share of fun
My life was
a blast, my life was a drag
My life was
second to none
