Well, the proof CD is, at least.

Most of it sounds pretty good, but since I have to fix a handful of typos on the back cover anyway, I’m taking the opportunity to tweak things one more time before ordering the initial stock.

This weekend involved lots of different adventures; starting with hauling us and our friends Ted and Jennyfer out to SBC to catch the oldest playing Titania, Queen of the Fairies in the campus production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which was pretty great, actually. Spending the evening with our friends was fun, and we did a bit of pre-gaming with dinner and drinks at Loose Shoe Brewing. Didn’t get home until around 1am, but that’s what ya do.

We spent most of Saturday hanging out with friends (Ted and Jennyfer, plus Elizabeth and Abby and KT and Kevin etc) at the Virginia Highland Games/Richmond Celtic Festival, watching big burly guys in kilts throw big heavy pieces of wood around, listening to the Fighting Jamesons, drinking black and tans, and eating haggis. It was actually nice to just hang around and enjoy the festival; usually the girls are dancing both days (their performance Sunday got rained out), so it’s lots of busy. We just hung out, enjoying the company, and relaxing. After we got sick of the hotter-than-expected weather, we decamped to Castleburg for a final beer and more pleasant company.

Sunday, given the weather and the aforementioned cancellation, was pretty quiet. I made some decent lasagna incorporating some wonderfully fragrant fresh basil I picked up at the farmer’s market on Saturday, and we sat around eating that, drinking wine, and watching movies on Netflix. Not a terrible way to spend a rainy Sunday.

Oh, I kept pace with what my other friends were doing; both the memorial service for my friend’s wife in NC, and a bunch of my other friends and musical compatriots up in Columbus for Ohio Valley Filk Fest and the Pegasus Awards. The Blibbering Humdingers did not win in our nominated category of “Best Performers” (that went to Playing Rapunzel, who I’m not familiar with, but I’m sure they’re worthy), but it appears all present enjoyed themselves if the videos and commentary on social media are to be believed, and I’m willing to do so.

This week’s already off to a bang, with my spending my afternoon ripping into the finance branch at work for being ridiculously bureaucratic so as to make Terry Gilliam’s Brazil seem reasonable, and then walking off my anger over three miles at the park after leaving. I then spent the rest of the afternoon knocking out some bass tracks for my friend Jonah’s new record, which I expect I’ll be banging on the rest of the week, although I have some time, and I’m expecting the demo copy of my CD to arrive in the mail sometime in the next couple of days, which I’m sure will suggest some tweaks and changes to improve the final product before I order the initial stock.

Anyway, hoping the week involves more of the fun enjoying beers with friends and making music stuff and less the passive-agressive-shifting-to-straight-up-active-agressive emails and phone calls stuff. We’ll see.

Spent most of the week waiting for people to wrap stuff up at the very last minute, which is how my organization rolls. It’s kinda frustrating.

This contributed to a mostly consistent week-long funk, though a little self-medication helped a bit, at least on my regular Thursday night at the grocery store bar with my fellow barflies. I also speed-walked a couple of 5ks, which mostly corrected for the beer.

Gotta have a system.

The weekend looks pretty busy; out to SBC Friday to catch my kid playing Queen of the Fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, then spending the rest of the weekend (or a good bit of it, anyway) with friends and such at the Virginia Celtic Festival and Highland Games, where everybody’ll be dancin’, and folks are coming into town to check it out.

I should also have my test CD in hand at some point this weekend, which I already know will have to be tweaked before the official production run, as I think the vocals on a couple of tracks are a little peaky, and besides, there were a couple of typos on the back cover anyway. Still, I should have my stock in hand by November’s Open Mic before the shows down in Charleston.

Oh, all my friends (including the rest of the Blibbering Humdingers) who are at Ohio Valley Filk Fest this weekend, have a great time! Y’know, The Humdingers are up for a Pegasus Award this year for “Best Performer”; not like we’re gonna win or anything, but it is, as they say, an honor to be nominated.

But yeah, that’s that. I’ll get on my parts of Jonah’s new record next week; I’ve got some nice bass lines worked out, and the script is basically locked down, so my spoken word parts are pretty much set. I’ll probably throw him a couple of solo guitar bits to use or not as well. It’s a really cool project.

Anyway, tunes. Some friends, some classic rock, and a few pieces of childhood in there as well. Not terrible.

1. “Done For Love” – The Badlees
2. “With A Wonder and a Wild Desire” – Flogging Molly
3. “Breezin'” – The B-52
4. “A Trick of the Tale” – Genesis
5. “Queen In Love” – Yngwie Malmsteen
6. “Hurricane Drunk” – Florence + The Machine
7. “Tryin'” – The Eagles
8. “The Bullies” – TMBG
9. “I Won’t Forget You” – Poison
10. “Send Me On My Way” – Rusted Root
11. “Were-Owl” – SJ Tucker
12. “From Around Here” – The Shadowboxers
13. “Veni, Veni, Emmanuel” – Valentine Wolfe

So, the album’s not quite ready yet (give it a few weeks), but in the meantime, I put up an alternate version of one of the tunes for your listening “pleasure.”

Actually, it is a pleasure, since I’m not singing on this one (didn’t suit my voice), but my kid Pat Benetar’d the hell out of it. Enjoy.

After working very hard all day Saturday and a good big of Sunday morning, I finalized fifteen audio tracks, corrected some issues with the cover art and uploaded my final files to the duplication service. I should have a review/testing copy of World’s Okayest… in hand by the end of the week. I don’t think it’s perfect, but at my current level of experience, I don’t think I’m able to make it any better. It was time to let it go.

Phew.

I guess I really should be celebrating the accomplishment, but after pushing the button yesterday, my brain was just kind of fried. I’d been spending a significant amount of effort developing new skills, making use of (and building new) neural connections, all in service of training my ear and learning about phonic concepts like “which frequency ranges contribute to ‘harshess'” and “how to I create a sense of space” while mixing the CD whilst lacking much relevant experience at all. My lovely wife (who’s currently in the midst of a huge project of making a few dozen costume belts for the dance studio) insisted we go out to lunch to celebrate and browse the used bookstore, which we did, though the key observation about that trip was how I was apparently unable decide whether I wanted a drink or not at the convenience store on the way home. I was wrecked.

Part of that, I think, was a rather big event that colored my perception of my personal accomplishment; I woke Sunday morning to discover that a dear friend and fellow musical traveler lost his wife on Saturday. This hit me way harder than I would have expected. I have great love and respect for my friend, who has always been generous with advice, perspective, friendship and talent, and my thoughts are with him in ways that go way beyond the expected pleasantries. As these things also do, it shifted my perspective on the world, at least in the current moment. I want to say I can’t imagine being in his position, but the scariest aspect of this is that I can, and it scares the ever-loving shit out of me. He’d posted some pictures he recently took of her online with their months’ old puppy, and mentioned how he and the dog are both wandering around the house looking for her, and I just broke down. I put the portal to the internet away for the rest of the day after that, it was too hard.

My successful completion of a months-long project, no matter how personally significant, just kind of feels irrelevant in the face of that, and you know, I think that’s probably the way it should be. I can be proud of my accomplishment later. Right now, my thoughts are, rightfully, with my friend in his time of need.

Hasn’t been a terrible week, all told. I got some nice hiking in, had a pretty good open mic this month, made some new friends in my usual Thursday trip to have a drink at the grocery store bar, listened to the “new” Replacements record that just came out, and got some really good advice from some folks on EQing and mixing that’s really tightened up the record, which, if all continues to go well, I’ll have sent out for duplication before the week’s out.

It’s certainly been good enough to overcome the less pleasant stuff, both usual (the office continues to be frustrating) and unusual (I shall spend part of today at a memorial service for the parent of a family friend).

Even if the good did outweigh the bad, I still had a couple of days there where I felt off for no particular reason; having difficulty summoning enthusiasm, even for things that usually get me decently excited. Oh well; I shall persevere. Depression is weird sometimes.

Otherwise, I’ve been continuing to watch our national shitshow (that letter to Erdogan had me double- and triple-checking to ensure it wasn’t satire; an interesting inversion of Poe’s Law, perhaps?), keeping up with current events like the debate (weird one, though Warren held her own, mostly), and the impeachment thing (feels like the administration’s major defense is refuge in audacity), and sadly mourning Elijah Cummings; he was one of the good ones.

The weekend looks pretty typical, with dance husband/dad duty on Saturday morning (it’s another town festival – ’tis the season) and maybe an open mic my friend is hosting tonight (if I can overcome what’s described in the third paragraph above). Otherwise, shopping/cleaning/laundry/cat petting.

In any case, tunes. Another good “Weekly Discovery” playlist from Spotify Little more 90s “altenative” than one would expect (though “Hunger Strike” was a highlight of that period, certainly), but some neat underground 80s stuff, Elton John at his most prog and self-indulgent, and Spinal Tap. Go rawk out:

1. “Right Here Right Now” – Jesus Jones
2. “Cleveland Rocks” – Ian Hunter
3. “Feel The Pain” – Dinosaur Jr.
4. “Scared Straight” – The Long Winters
5. “When You’re Falling” – Afro Celt Sound System
6. “Cars” – Gary Numan
7. “Oogum Boogum” – Alex Chilton
8. “Melt With You” – The Monthly Trades
9. “Hunger Strike” – Temple of the Dog
10. “Walking Down Madison” – Kirsty MacColl
11. “Funeral For a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding – Elton John
12. “Big Bottom” – Spinal Tap

Although she’s kind of taken a bit of a hit in the polls recently, Senator Harris has always been one of my top candidates; she seems to just have the right kind of no-nonsense attitude that I think would serve the office well.

She’s also damn good at taking the piss out of all kinds of daft tossers; to wit:

Also, it appears that I’ve become British with that last sentence. Oh well.

warning: musician living in his head content on deck:

In the midst of all the other stuff going on (college kid home, dance dad duty, new Letterkenny…), I think I have almost all the recording done for the album, and most of the mixing, after getting the eldest to knock out some vocals, taking a quick trip out to Suffolk to do some
“location recording” (needed my buddy D.J. to play a couple of bass tracks on stuff we’d worked together on before, and as much as he’ll deny it, he’s a better pure bassist than I am), and spending a few quality hours with the microphone, the mandolin, and the soprano and concert ukes on Monday afternoon.

I have one more idea I’m going to try and knock out quickly on Tuesday evening (as I’ve got Open Mic on Wednesday), finish the mix, finalize the track order (and update the cover graphics to reflect such), and get “World’s Okayest…” out for duplication by the end of this week, which gives me, ideally, five weeks to get a sample for testing/evaluation and order my initial* stock to have on hand for Atomacon.

I’m really getting to the point where I want and need to get this done (my wife tells me that I’m dangerously adjacent to “keep adding and changing things to the point that I’ll never finish so I won’t have the anxiety of putting this out there” territory). I know it won’t entirely live up to my impossible standards; it’s been a huge learning experience, doing the whole thing basically by myself (other than picking the brains of many of my more experienced peers), both to keep this endeavor affordable, as well as to develop the skills to do it better next time**.

Also, a friend dangled an interesting proposition in front of me and a bunch of other folks recently; he’s currently working on a very ambitious multimedia project and wants us to contribute to it. The stuff I’ve heard so far is intriguing and exciting, and I’m really looking forward to working on it, though I need to clear this one off the decks first, because I know my limitations and all the other life stuff on my agenda, and I just don’t have the time or the spoons to work both of these projects concurrently.

All that said, I really am way more excited than anxious about getting my work out there – everyone else tells me routinely “it’s about time”, because my creative friends/musical family are all wonderful, supportive, and encouraging. That said, even though I’ve been putting these songs out in front of audiences, in some cases for years, making a “permanent” record (ha, puns!) of my creative output is still a bit intimidating.

But yeah, it’s almost real. And that’s cool.

_________________________________________

* – This, is, of course, somewhat optimistic of me, because it’s quite possible I will sell no more than a handful of these things and be stuck with leftovers for years…

** – Again, optimistic that this will be successful or rewarding enough that another crack at this sort of thing makes any sense at all***.

*** – This is where sense and self confidence tell me to stop thinking like that and just be excited about the energy and support I’m getting, and stop sabotaging myself before I really even get started.

As it is every week, it’s been a week. I’ve actually gotten a ton done at work, and I’ve speedwalked/hiked the equivalent of three 5k races, but I’ve gotten next to nothing done on the record. Mixed bag, that.

Hoping to change that this weekend, however; I’m taking the recording rig on the road at some point to get my friend DJ to drop some bass on a track or two. After that, I’ll push some more sliders around, and ideally throw some more instruments on a couple of tunes, and try and bring an end to this soon, because I need enough time to get the CDs pressed before Atomacon.

Otherwise, no gig this weekend, though I’ve got Castleburg Open Mic on the docket for Wednesdasy, and my friend Dirty Metal Lefty is hosting another one next Friday, so I might get out and play twice. Who knows.

One more thing, while I was hiking the park Thursday, I met this guy:

Less than three inches across, just making his way across the trail. I almost stepped on him, but I didn’t.

Finally, playlist – some decent 80s stuff, some friends, and some pre-me Humdingers!

1. “Give Me What I Want” – The Donnas
2. “Summer of ’69” – Bryan Adams
3. “Friend of Mine” – Liz Phair
4. “Your Mama Don’t Dance” – Poison
5. “Summerboy” – Lady Gaga
6. “Golden Slumbers” – The Beatles
7. “The Button” – Mikey Mason
8. “Fear of Bliss” – Alanis Morissette
9. “Nothing Like The Real Thing” – The Badlees
10. “I Remember Her” – Ingrid Michaelson
11. “The Sisters” – Valentine Wolfe
12. “Love Song For Sirius Black” – The Blibbering Humdingers

Yes, I missed the usual Friday post this past week, but, really, I don’t owe you anything, do it?

Last week was pretty typical, all told. I spent a tremendous amount of time putting out other people’s fires at work, and I went out to see the second-to-last Kickers match of the season with my friend Ted on Wednesday night, which was quite a good time, even if the team didn’t exactly set the world on fire.

I missed the post on Friday, because I was busy Thursday night paying bills, doing a little shopping, and packing up gear, because I was off on Friday, and spent most of the time in the Humdingermobile driving up to the Eastern Shore of MD for the Chestertown HP Fest, where we played a bunch of fun shows, including a very seat-of-the-pants-but-very-cool combined set with our good friends Hawthorn and Holly with all of us up on stage together for over an hour. I got to play cajon as well as bass; it was neat. Here’s a shot from Friday night’s set:

Anyway, the band’s been doing Chestertown for years, and I try to tag along as often as I can (it tends to line up with dance dad duty some years), and it’s a really great event in a very pretty town, where all the local businesses get into the act, and basically turn Main Street into Diagon Alley for a couple of days. I also got to see a bunch of friends I don’t get to see all that often, which was quite welcome. Also, I got some good, constructive feedback on the in-process CD from Scott and Kirsten, as we listened to it on the way north on Friday; several of my musical friends have given me useful advice, and I think the record is going to be all the better for it, even if it’s never going to live up to my ambitions; It’s a total learning experience; I know it’s going to make me cringe two years from now, but I’m confident it’s going to represent the best I can do *right now*, which is really what’s important.

Mostly just pushing through the noise this week, getting some exercise in and hopefully getting some more work done on the record. I’m getting close to the point where I have to finish it to make sure I have discs in hand in time for Atomacon.

Anyway, here’s to wishing everyone a nice fall, since it finally seems to have started to settle upon us after a couple of 100° days last week. It’s time for pumpkin spice, fresh apples (got some nice ones Sunday at the market), and comfy sweaters, planet, let’s get on that.