Almost Over

My 2 weeks off is coming to an end very soon and I'm down to my final 2 days.  I'm now trying to figure out which items on my list rank highest and more or less need to get done.  As soon as I return to work on Monday, my mind will pretty much be blown due to my job, and focus even in my off time becomes fairly challenging due to the enormous stress of the day.

It's been a fascinating 2 weeks, though.  I've basically worked on any and all remaining items for the "Yet I Tried for You" EP which should be released fairly soon, hence the top priority.  This included 3 main vocals and a few guitar parts as well.  I was also able to finish writing the lyrics for two of the "Wrecking Ball" songs for that album and recorded those vocals as well.  I foresee "Wrecking Ball" being ready for release probably around September, if all goes well, hence that's also a priority right now on my list.  There's quite a bit more work still needed on that album as well.

Lastly, I recorded the remaining vocals and all the bass parts for the "Epitaphs of Ill-Fated Love" album which I started recording a few years ago.  This is an album I wrote back in 1996 and is probably my favorite album I've ever written, and whereas I was originally going to attack my back catalog in order, I realized this year is the 30th anniversary of writing the album so figured it might be nice to finally have it come to light now.  Also, I had to have a deep discussion with myself, asking the awful question that if I'm not able to get all of my music physically recorded for whatever reason, which albums do I REALLY want done?  And, well, this one is top of the list, so hence I decided to push it forward.  Some of these vocals are pretty tough but I managed to get through almost all of them with only a few minor corrections needed here and there.

I did spend quite a few late nights on the vocals.  Back in the day, it used to take me maybe an hour to record a vocal?  Now, it's pushing closer to three hours due to all the corrections.  Geez.  It's part of getting old, I guess.  Laying down 12 bass parts was also something new for me because I usually don't do those in a line, and I basically (no pun intended) played all of those in a matter of 2 days.  I find bass kind of fun, to be honest, and it's always interesting fiddling around with various lines and such.  Some of these songs seemed to have tuning issues for the bass, though, and this was a new one for me.  I have a bad habit of wanting to play most of my bass lines high up on the neck and it was causing some weird chorusing effect that I wasn't digging too much so I had to fight with it a bit more than I had hoped.

And, the dreaded unthinkable happened...probably something everyone has experienced in a studio sooner or later.  I tripped over a cord which caused one bass to fall into another...ugh.  I'm such an OCD person about keeping my instruments meticulous that I almost fainted but luckily somehow there was no visible damage at all.  How?  I have no idea but I'm certainly grateful for it.

I have one more song to start for the "Epitaphs..." album at this point, the only one involving a nylon stringed acoustic.  Damn nylons...ugh...  I needed to change the strings and meant to do so 3+ weeks ago but never found the time, so I ended up doing it earlier this week.  Of course, the stupid thing won't stay in tune yet so I've had to wait on this song.  I intend to fight with it a bit more today.  You'd think that someone would have come up with a better method of "locking" nylon strings into place by 2026, no?!  It's one of those traditional things that I do shake my head at.  I also change nylon strings so rarely that I always forget how to do it so I had to reference the videos, etc.  Pain in the you know what...but I do love the sound of a nylon stringed guitar for certain things.

I also made a FB post last night and had to edit it later on.  I was slightly ashamed to see that I wrote 2016 instead of 2026; I guess I really don't know what year it is.  As I've said countless times, time in general moves at a very fast pace once you pass 45 years old.

So, it's time to start wrapping up.  There's a lot more work to be done on the "Epitaphs..." album before it can be mixed and released, of course, but I'm hoping I can do all of it so the album can finally see the light of day by the end of the year.  Starting this Tuesday, I'm going to shift back into mixing mode and begin what I'm calling Operation "Release It", meaning finally pushing the 3-4 straggler releases over the finish line at long last.  I honestly needed a break from some of those...you can only hear the same thing over and over so many times before you start to go crazy and lose all perspective.