Never been one to let the carrier drop

http://sheer.us/stuff/2020/SheerCoversIndigoGirls-DeadMansHill.mp3

If anyone is wondering what’s up with the music, well, I’ve been woodshedding my paws off. I’ve discovered that the 12 bar blues are a very effective framework for shedding improvising around, and I’m working on being able to do that comfortably and effortlessly in every key. I recently added a hour meter to my mixer so I could keep track of how much time I’m putting in and it looks like it’s between 1 and 2 hours a day.

I’ve also been working on my guitar skills, and while they are still meager, they are getting to be steadily less so.

So, the general overshot of all this is, good things are coming. I’m not recording because I’m working on upgrading my nervous system, although I will try to still kick out the odd cover so you all know I’m still there. I’ve also had a couple of recording attempts that I felt like went extremely poorly so I didn’t publish them. But I’m still working at it and we’ll be publishing more soon.

One side note – I do still occasionally broadcast on WSHR (http://icecast.sheer.us:8080/wshr) and I also have set up a automatic archiver for it. If anyone wants to have a account so they can look at those, send me a message. Note that if you get in now it’s free, but probably starting in about six months from now I’ll require people to toss a buck in the patreon hat 😉

Just in time for the 4th of july, my patriotism 😉

http://sheer.us/stuff/2020/SheerCoversSimonAndGarfunkel-America.mp3

So, here’s a bit of movie soundtrack for you all. I like to think the triumphant ending is as the GOP is falling apart, the army and the police have been defunded, and we’re all melting down guns like Ringo Starr – we’ve finally figured out a religion that doesn’t make people get killed, all the Abrahamic religions are going down in flames, the ‘let’s lie to people and kill people so we can make more paper money that isn’t actually worth anything’ political crowd can’t find anyone to vote for them, and Donald Trump finally realizes how much damage he’s done and promises to never even try to lead a boy scout troop again, the people who value money over life have finally figured out that they’re making the world a worse place, and no one ever says again “The only good ____ is a dead _____”

Not likely. I’m sure my conservative friends will continue to defend the awfulness they vote for. But maybe in a movie, eh?

No More Dead Wildcards.

So, a long time ago, when I first wandered into Epoch and said, as I recall, “Um, I think I work here now?”, I met this guy – Jeff Lane. He was the first friend that I made at Epoch (back when it was HLC internet), and we used to come in on weekends even though it wasn’t our shift and have bagels and barqs rootbeer and talk about stuff. I taught him some things about how the internet works, and he taught me some things about how life works. He was a really bighearted, great guy. I can’t really say enough about how friendly, likable, and enjoyable to be around he was.

We played a lot of warcraft2 and answered a lot of customer phone calls, and we remained friends throughout the years. The last time I saw him was way too long ago, seven or eight years I think, but we still chatted on facebook regularly.

Recently, he left earth – logged out, as I like to say – his body failed him. I will write more about that and how I think the health care system contributed to it later. But.. I wrote some music for him, and I thought I’d share it with you all.

Jeff Lane.

Godspeed and au revoir, Jeff. Until we meet again… you will be missed.

I did want to mention, because I don’t always get around to putting a comment on each individual post to the effect, that the vast majority of tracks I publish here are co-engineered by Arthur St James, the other set of ears at Sheer Sound Studios. Pretty much all of them are all me, but occasionally they will include drum loops from public libraries or from Superior Drummer. When other musicians play on them I try to make sure I mention it in the “liner notes” that go on the blog with the published track.

Here we have my favorite Springsteen song – The River, covered by me. 😉

The River

Heavy Christmas

For those of you in a holiday mood..

Greensleeves

I’ve been playing a lot with the blues in my repeated attempts to get my left hand a little more into the game. As a side effect, I ended up writing this piece, hope you all enjoy it:

Major Mellow G