My musical mission thus far in 2022 has centered on a few things: Playing good shows. Getting my gear all in proper operation. Learning how to use my new tools (patchbay, Behringer X18 mixer). Forming inspirations into ideas into actual songs.

I’ve succeeded at the good shows part – I played great in both of my Bings shows, and at times was so locked in with Jay every bit of both of our performances made the other’s even better. Excellent crowd in San Antonio, too.

My solo show was a bit hit or miss, working my way through my first on-stage slow-motion anxiety attack. I couldn’t get air, which made it extraordinarily hard to sing. Then, hilariously, I used the altered tuning feature on my Line 6 Variax to play Wonderwall with a “Capo” on the second fret, and promptly FORGOT TO CHANGE IT BACK! So the next group of songs (Drift Away, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Always Something There To Remind Me, I’m A Believer, No Such Thing, and Hey Jealousy) were all played a WHOLE STEP HIGHER than I usually play them. Which made the whole “not having any air” thing even worse. And made it so I didn’t even end up playing one of my “standards”, the Turtles underappreciated classic “Elenore”, because there was no way in HELL I’d be singing that chorus in F#. I literally just stopped the song and moved on. I felt like such an unprofessional loser, and it ruined my evening. I came home a ball of nerves, and I think mildly freaked my wife out. Being someone who’s more of a depressive than an anxious person, it always freaks me out when the stress hormones get rolling, and it’s hard to recover. I think a pharmaceutical would have been helpful (perhaps a Xanax), but I don’t have that stuff. In the end, the venue was happy, and if I’m being honest with myself, even though I was falling apart inside, I still sounded pretty dang good. Just not as good as I normally would sound. I am kind of glad I didn’t record this one, though.

Moving on to the technical stuff – using the wonderful substance Deoxit, in the past few months I’ve cleaned the pots and jacks on a bunch of my aging things and it’s brought them back to life, particularly my “first guitar” – which technically was my brother Robert’s first guitar – now all it needs is to have its nut glued in properly and it’ll be a fun little pseudo-Telecaster to bang around on. I also cleaned up the pots on my basses, bringing them back to proper function, and even rescued a presumed-dead guitar wireless by merely cleaning the output jack. All I need now are some new strings on some of these guitars and basses and we’ll be in business.

Speaking of guitars and basses, I sold one in December. A Dean ML bass (looks kind of like the guitar Dimebag Darrell from Pantera used to play). It never worked for me, and it was a four-string, so I wasn’t using it, it was basically just collecting dust, and since I only paid $49 for it on a blowout sale at Guitar Center over a decade ago, I still made money on the deal, selling it for $100. I probably could have made more off it, but I just wanted it gone and the dude seemed nice.

Last Thursday I had to head down to San Antonio for the day job and on the way home decided to pop by the Guitar Center down there, and discovered a two-pickup version of my “#1” Sterling by Music Man Ray 5 bass that I use in Chandler and The Bings. I couldn’t believe it. More than that, it was on sale for the same price as I picked the #1 up for back in 2018 (that model has since gone up in price, and this version was even more). I decided to snag it. I couldn’t help myself! Pics or it didn’t happen:

It desperately needs new strings and a cleaning/set-up. But I already love it, and that’ll only make it more awesome.

Back in 2021 I got an amazing deal on a Behringer X18 mixer and am just now learning all the little things it can do. It’s going to be central to the new studio setup as I streamline and get things in order. It has amazing routing capabilities and some really cool built-in effects I can play with for doing live streams and stuff like that. This with the patchbay and my ATEM switcher will definitely enable me to do some really cool, interactive stuff from the studio in the future. I just have to get it all plugged up and learn how to make it all work together. I think my Edirol M-16DX, which has been my trusty studio sidekick for over 10 years now, will become the center of my live solo acoustic rig, making setting up and running all that much simpler, because it can live in a rack bag that I can keep set up and basically just plug my guitar and my vocal mic into it and still have effects and stuff I can use.

The last goal is inspiration – and translating that inspiration into new material. I’ve already written down multiple new ideas for songs – concepts more than phrases, really, but really good, inspiring starting points. And I’ve got a bunch more I’ve collected over the past few years that will be worked into songs. I might even use music that I liked from my old songs and replace the dodgy lyrical content with something based off these new ideas. (It won’t be the first time I’ve done that.) Time will tell for all of it.

I was listening to WTF with Marc Maron and his interview with John Mellencamp, and it was really fun listening to two cranky old motherfuckers talk about all kinds of stuff relating to John’s career, music in general, and how to exist on the planet. In fact, two of the aforementioned song ideas directly came to mind as a result of their conversation. So I’m already snagging that inspiration wherever it may show itself.

In summary, I’m excited for the new year at least as my musical experiences are panning out. I love learning new things and feeling energized when it comes to this stuff, so I’m very optimistic that if I make sure I’m investing time in this instead of sitting on my ass watching Rick Beato videos (not that those aren’t awesome), I’ll actually make some headway getting my shit together and creating things. I like the progress my friend Mandy has made with her dedication to live-streaming on Twitch, and I think maybe I’m going to try and make a Musical Schizo concert there a regular part of my week, once I decide on a day and time to do it and get more used to how all that live-streaming stuff works.

Thanks for reading, take care, be safe, and remember to love one another.

Peace be the journey!
TMS