Here’s our third song, “Bubble.” Jen wrote the lyrics for this one. I did everything else. This is the first song we’ve ever collaborated on. As I mentioned before, this song was inspired by a chat Jen had with a friend on Facebook. Enjoy.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 4:03 — 7.5MB)

Tags: music, podcast, RPM Challenge, The Sidebars
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We’re in the process of recording the next song for our RPM Challenge album. If all goes well, we’ll have it out by month’s end. Of course, that’ll only give us three songs. That’s not enough to officially complete the challenge. And that’s OK. We’re going to keep recording after February’s over. All further songs will be posted on this site. Eventually the band will have its own website. But I’ve got a few other projects (not everything on the list, just a few things) that have to be finished before I can start on that.

To give a little more background information on the album, the working title is “Love & Friendship In The Time Of Spiders.” The underlying theme is that most of the songs are inspired by or based around people we only know through the Internet. “The Side Effects” was of course written several years ago. But I do feel like it fits well with this project. It is a love/acceptance song, after all (at least, it is to me). And Jen and I did meet through the old Yahoo! Personals (back when that service was still free of charge). “Hey, Wesley” was inspired by Wesley, the third song, the one we’re working on now, was inspired by a Facebook chat that Jen had with one of our podcast pals in Australia. And the fourth song I’m particularly excited about, as it’s actually a collaborative effort between us and Colin in the U.K. Beyond that, things are still up in the air. I’ve got a couple other songs I’ve just barely begun. But we’ll get there. We’ve got time.

Tags: music, Ourobouros, RPM Challenge, The Sidebars
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Here’s our second song for the RPM Challenge. Still not very likely we’ll make it to ten songs before the end of the month. But after posting this one, we’ll have done twice as many as we did in 2007. I suppose that’s a victory in itself. There’s also a third song in the works that may see the light of day before March 1st.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:42 — 3.1MB)

Tags: music, podcast, RPM Challenge, The Sidebars
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It only took 14 days. But here’s our first song for this year’s RPM Challenge. The simple fact is, I could’ve easily spent another two weeks just tweaking the mix. That being said, I’m proud of how it turned out, and I hope some of y’all out there will enjoy it. This is not the first-ever recording of this song. It was recorded once before by my old band. If you compare the two recordings, you’ll definitely notice some differences.

There’s a lot more I could write about this song. But I think it’s time to let it have some breathing room so I can get on to the next one.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:39 — 6.7MB)

Tags: music, podcast, RPM Challenge, The Sidebars
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One week of February is officially in the can. And that means one quarter of the time in this year’s RPM Challenge has passed. For those who don’t know, the goal of the RPM Challenge is to record a full album (either 10 songs or 35 minutes of music) during the month of February. I signed up my “band” for the challenge, and felt pretty good about things going in. I began working on recording the first song just after midnight on February 1st, and things went well for the next couple days. On Monday night (the 3rd), Jen and I recorded the vocals for that song, and it seemed like all was well. But later, when I started mixing the tracks, I just couldn’t get it to sound right. After spending way too much time (see: hours) trying to “fix it in the mix,” I finally gave up and realized that the vocals would have to be redone. That’s not a huge deal, but it was a disappointment. I debated on whether or not to release the song in its current incarnation. But that just doesn’t feel right. Since then, I’ve recorded most of the tracks for the second song. I’d like Jen to record some vocals for it before Id consider it to be finished. Beyond those two songs, I don’t have much. I’ve got a couple other songs I’ve started but haven’t been able to finish. For the sake of the Challenge, I could reach back and pull out some older, completed songs that I’ve never recorded before. But even with that, I won’t meet the minimum requirements of the Challenge. Regardless, this isn’t a declaration of surrender. More of a “declaration of being stuck.”

On a related note, it’s definitely been interesting to get back into the whole “music thing.” I had spent most of my life, from the time I was a teenager, up until when I moved to California, in the pursuit of a Life In Music. I didn’t necessarily have any plans on that changing after the move. But Real Life, being the cold bitch that she is, came in and put a serious smackdown on my Life In Music ideas. This last week (especially those obsessive hours spent on mixing), has dredged up a lot of emotions that I had clearly pushed very far down. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it was unexpected. I may write some more about these feelings over time. I suppose if I were a true artist, I’d turn ‘em all into songs.

I’ve also been posting updates to the blog (scroll to the bottom of the page and click the “blog” link) on the RPM Challenge site, if you’d like to read more about this last week’s worth of music creation efforts.

Tags: music, RPM Challenge
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Things are looking up for this year’s RPM Challenge. I’ve completed my guitar repairs (scratch that off the to-do list), though they didn’t go quite like I’d hoped. Back in 2007, I purchased a Line 6 Variax electric guitar because I was intrigued by the instrument’s capabilities. Of course I could only afford the low-end model, and the low-end model comes with an equivalent neck. I loved the guitar’s electronics, but hated the feel of the neck. Never shying away from an opportunity to destroy two perfectly good guitars, I removed the neck from my old Fender Telecaster (loved that neck!) and made some DIY modifications that allowed me to swap out the stock Variax neck for the Tele neck. I learned later that this isn’t really an advisable move, as the Telecaster has a different body design than the Variax. But, I had already made the switch and things seemed to be going OK. And then I started getting dead frets on the guitar’s low-E string. I made some adjustments to try and fix the problem, but nothing worked. I did some research online and found a great video tutorial on how to do electric guitar setups. I was particularly interested in the video about fret filing, as I believed that’d be the solution to the dead fret problem. It looked easy enough! I ordered some special fret files from Stewart MacDonald and picked up a few other things from a local hardware store. Once I had everything together, I began filing down the frets, and it seemed like I was making progress. The initial dead fret problem was clearing up. But then, other frets started to go and no matter how much I filed, I couldn’t get them to sound properly. Figuring that I had probably hit overkill with the filing, I decided to give in, and swapped the Tele neck out for the original Line 6 neck.

Line 6 Variax with modified Telecaster neck, on the operating table.

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Tags: Fender, Flickr, guitar, Ibanez, Line 6, M-Audio, music, Musicians Friend, RPM Challenge
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I’ve been working on my guitar, and I’m beginning to think that this project is getting out of hand. This all started when I decided to swap out one guitar neck for another, something I’ve done before successfully. Once I got the new neck in place, the guitar was having some issues with fret buzz. Not good. I found a great video series that showed just how easy DIY guitar repair can be. Based on the instructions in one of he videos, I began filing the guitar’s frets, hoping that’d help with the buzz. And it did. Problem now is, one of the frets seems to be too low, pretty much rendering it dead. I’ve looked at my options, and it seems like the best way to go at this time will be to swap this neck out for the original so the guitar can at least be played again. It’s a shame, as I really like the replacement neck. But I’ve got to do something, as it’s almost time for the RPM Challenge. Will work on it some more later, as it’s getting late and I need to get some sleep.

Tags: guitar, music, RPM Challenge
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Next month kicks off this year’s RPM Challenge. RPM Challenge dares its participants to record a complete album of original music in one month. The album must contain either 10 songs or 40 minutes of music. I originally signed up for the challenge back in 2007, but my guitar broke during the first week, and I had to ship it to the manufacturer to be repaired. I considered the challenge again in 2008, but I never really got into it. After a short AIM conversation I had yesterday with MikeyPod, I’m considering taking up the challenge again this year. Of course, there’s no fame or fortune to be gained in something like the RPM Challenge. But that’s not the point. For me, it’d be a good way to kick start the creative juices, and make something happen this year with music. Also, Ill have to finish my guitar repairs in order to even do the challenge, so that’d at least clear one item from my to-do list. Stay tuned here and also to The Sidebars MySpace blog for updates.

Tags: guitar, music, RPM Challenge
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