Last Monday, I finished my final mixes on my last two songs for the RPM Challenge. What originally began as a 5-song EP, over the course of February, became a 10-song album. Honestly, I wasn’t’ totally surprised that I had more songs in me than a mere five.
Home recording is a solitary activity. I don’t know how many people there are that would self-identify as home recorders. What I found enlightening during February, thanks to RPM’s attempts to connect all of us, is that there are more of us than I thought.
I’m not really sure where my music fits into the larger context of the rock and roll universe. I’m guessing I’ll always occupy some very small, obscure niche. And yet, I sometimes wonder why my music fails to gain any traction at all.
When I tell people that I “play music,” they invariably ask me, “what do you play?” It’s hard to give them an answer that satisfies how I categorize my music because my points of reference are generally obscure bands in the context of popular music.
My music has a definite point of origination—most likely 1992, when I first heard Guided by Voices double CD compiling Vampire on Titus and Propeller. I found it at WBOR, when I’d come in to listen to new music for my weekend radio slot I was doing at the time.
Another group of original songs.
The album possesses an aesthetic that’s all but disappeared in today’s music landscape. It’s like a lo-fi dream that walks through my own rock and roll journey from early 70s AM rock, through prog, punk, some British invasion, garage rock, with a tinge of psyche thrown in. Granted GbV aren’t the only point of reference for my music as it’s evolved over the past few years, but I think they are important.
This latest offering spends some time working its way through 90s shoegaze and has echoes of British bands Swervedriver and maybe even Ride and tracks like “Living in the Worst of Times” and the instrumental, “The Fool.” It also continues with populist subject matter that was part and parcel of last April’s release, Living in Some Strange Days.
The song, “They Don’t Care,” an acoustic number that I basically captured in one take after watching YouTube news footage of the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, comes from realizing that we now have a uniparty that doesn’t care about poor people, black or white. East Palestine is an echo of disasters involving water and necessities of life that had already played out in Flint, Michigan and Jackson, Mississippi, before. As a result, life in America is become untenable for most.
“Guitar Story” is a song about the past six years, from picking up my old Yamaha guitar, and now, being able to play well enough to carry my songs (and some covers) as a one-man-band of sorts. It would be the “single” on the record, I think.
I called the 10 songs Home Sweet Home because the music emanates from our move and it also is an ironic title, also. If the past three years (or perhaps, six), I feel less at home in this world than ever before. Moving to a new geographic location is less jarring than the rapid-fire changes being thrown at us by elites via technology, social media, and now, AI.
The new release now gives me four musical collections. Similarly, I’ve published four books. I’d like to publish another book that draws upon my musical journey over the past few years. Maybe I can combine writing a book with releasing new music in 2024 during next year’s RPM Challenge.