Cortez the Killer (Backing Track)

I’ve been wanting to record and work on my own stuff but I have an issue with an external drive so not much I can do for now. I decided to throw this backing track into Logic and play some shitty runs over it (I’m on the left). Here is the backing track I used. I tried to fatten it up a little but the results aren’t so great. Not much you can do when you have drums, bass, and a rhythm guitar all on one track.

Can a Gibson Firebird play surf???

This is just a very short clip of the room sound from my cellphone. I was curious how one would do with sort of a surfy sound. This is also pretty low volume so you’re hearing both the amp in the room and probably a little bit of the pick attack on the guitar.

And today's throw-away track is?

I had a barebone project that I abandoned from November 17 that consisted of just a few bars of two guitars. I intended to try and come up with something new but I had to deal with some plug-in issues - so I figured I’d find something else to work on after… Didn’t have the energy to start something from scratch. In the end I had no idea where to take this and just faded it. Doesn’t really feel too great but I can maybe use it as a sort of interlude. I don’t know.

*Of course now I have an idea on how to tie it up.

Finally beginning to record again...

Did this this morning. There was something familiar about it to me - and then it hit me… It’s the main chord progression - it reminds me of DIIV. This is the first track I’ve created entirely (from the ground up) since August 2021.

Former British Soldier EXPOSES Israel War Machine

How would you feel if some other country gave your land and home away to someone else. Or, how would you feel if someone came and ousted you out of your home and bulldozed it? How long would you be angry for? I know, for me, it wouldn’t go away. We hardly ever try and understand underlying causes. Or, other times, like Ukraine, we ignore them because they’re inconvenient (NATO caused what is happening in Ukraine). We need to wake the **** up.

Fayedun Away

I recorded this back in 2019 after I watched Bonnie and Clyde with Faye Dunaway. Actually, the bass is from a very shit attempt at covering Jane’s Addiction’s “I Would” - it was horrible. But at least I was able to turn it into something descent by redoing most everything else. Still haven’t found a use for this.

Tell the Biden Administration to breach River Dams [in an effort to save resident orcas]

Wild Orca has an ongoing to campaign to ask that the Biden administration remove dams preventing salmon from returning to their spawning runs. The fact that salmon are deprived of historical spawning grounds in rivers like the Snake River, coupled with human competition for salmon, has inflicted a lot of harm on resident orcas by way of malnutrition, Residents consume only fish, in this case salmon, and are guided by their culture; meaning they will not deviate from foods their culture dictates due to low availability or higher availability of more prey items… You will never find a transient orca that makes a change into preying on fish and you will never find a resident that becomes transient. Anyways, if we all just want to be self-entitled and continue consuming salmon and continue to do nothing to restore salmon runs these orcas are going to disappear. Please consider chiming in on this:

https://www.wildorca.org/takeaction/biden-snake-river-dams-2023/

Up Jumped The Devil (Nick Cave Backing Track by Eric Haugen)

Going to finally finish mixing the cos EP this week - I kept putting it off. Should have six tracks… Another cos EP will come out early winter. Will probably mix a few Wylds things to throw out there as an EP as well in between; I found the original version of “The Veil” that is like seven minutes long and a random instrumental. Will also probably throw in a few ‘covers’. Plan is to get the first cos EP’s tracks out for mastering by Friday.

Squier 40th Anniversary Jazzmaster (Vintage Edition)

Impulse bought this on sale at about half off what they initially went for. Loved how these guitars sounded but always found a reason to not like ones I’ve had (as well as Jaguars)… But now I am in love with this thing. Part of it is I know now how to dial in guitars with setups now (kills me to think I let the binding and blocks candy apple red CIJ Jazzmaster, with Novaks, go because I hated the string tension - I was an idiot). When this thing arrived I thought it looked cool but didn’t feel great. After removing a ton of relief from the neck and adjusting the bridge it’s so good I’m now itching for something like a Japanese Jazzmaster that I can throw in some Duncan Antiquities… No plans to put $240 pickups in a $300 guitar - but I do plan on dropping this off at a shop to get the pots switch to proper CTS pots and the switches and jack switched out for Switchcraft ones… As well as a fret level.

Anyways, I upgraded both my Mac and recording interface recently. Still waiting for Kush to get their plugins working native with Apple silicon. I moved from a 2012 Macbook Pro to a M2 Pro Mac Mini (1TB / 16GB)… All told it has 3TB of SSD/NVME disk space and 6TB of mechanical storage. Was having some issues with dual displays - went to mix stuff and was getting no output to my monitors. Resolved it today (I hope) and since I have to go to the DMV first thing in the morning tomorrow, and the fact that I got off work today at 3 AM and am staying up as late as possible, I decided to fuck around and try and throw something together quick using that Squier Jazzmaster…

Intro to first EP???

10/5/23: I actually put out what was to be the second EP first. So this may be the first track on the still yet to come, now, second EP.

New music coming soon...

I think I put off finishing these two cos EP’s long enough. I move to southern Oregon (from California) this Friday and once I’m over the stress of all this shit I’m going to finish editing and mixing everything. I can still get the first one out this spring which is what I wanted to do. First EP will be pretty low key while the second will be more lively. I look forward to being done with having this stuff hanging over my head and having an empty canvas again.

The version of “Inside Looking Out” above is the initial mix I did right after tracking it.

Wylds - The Killing Moon (Echo & the Bunnymen)

These drums are actually Pete de Freitas - the original drum stem. When I did Will’s solo part I had to do it in two takes; one played on the g string and the other on the high e since I don’t have a 12 string. I guess you can hybrid pick it if you can keep droning the open b. I also didn’t do Les Pattinson’s tremolo picked bass part over the solo.

Ryan Tate from Veterans Empowered To Protect African Wildlife on KONCRETE

This man is my personal hero. For a long time I have thought that we choose stupid things to fight for and wished that we would put ending poaching and trafficking a national priority backed by the force and teeth of our military - this is the next best thing. If I wasn’t dependent on medication for life and a bit younger I’d definitely have looked to join Ryan’s teams. Will definitely be donating to VETPAW. If you give a shit about animals in any capacity you should check this out. I’m hoping one day they can expand into Zimbabwe (which is terrible) and India.