My precious plan of 2014 got a pretty bad start - Almost before it was put into practice it suffered a setback and was delayed some 2+ months when I managed to fall at the construction site (expanding my Beyond Dimensions Rehearsals business), smashing down from a couple of meters into the concrete floor and destroying my left shoulder, arm and hand. Resulting in not being able to play the guitar at all for 6 weeks (couldn't even feel my fingers). Now I'm somewhat back, not quite just there yet, but as rehab I've been playing loads of guitar the last weeks, I've probably played more guitar the last month than in whole 2013, and loving every minute of it.
So I'm not quite able to record guitars quite just yet, but very close and I'm trying a bit. Right now I'm working on what most likely will be the opening track of my solo album (and also the title track if I'll stick to my plan), a nylon string acoustic classical little thing (which many probably will be calling an intro). I wrote it a while ago and now when recording it in Pro Tools I'm realizing it's in a very strange meter. Don't know if I'm in some sort of strange state of mind or something, but after hours of figuring and with my knowledge of music theory I ended up with the result that the one of the two parts in it is in 11/4 (or should it be 11/8?) and the other in 13/4. But I mean, hey, it's supposed to be a progressive album so I guess it fits right in whatever it is... This happens to me every now and then, I end up with parts of songs in odd meters without having realizing it until it's being recorded, put into Pro Tools or Logic undressing it and revealing it all. All I hear when I write is melodies and the song itself, my mind never allows me to analyze it. Like the main/verse riff in "360 Degrees", it's in 7/4 (or 7/8 if you will) but I didn't realize it until it was recorded, all I heard was a melody and a riff that I liked when I wrote it. (You'll find it at my Soundcloud site: https://soundcloud.com/pmsaari).
I also finished up another odd song that doesn't fit. A very special one, a really, really hard one for me to get right. It's a real sweet, nice and stripped down little nylon string acoustic lullaby kind of piece that I wrote about a year ago when my daughter was born. I simply wanted to write a song and get that very feeling into it, which was easy, but playing it to be recorded was everything but. Had a real hard time getting the right vibes into this very naked and primitive little piece. It's not at all about being flawlessly performed and tight (it most certainly is not), nor about the clearest and perfect recording, but solely trying to catch that feeling intended when writing it, pure and unforced. This is how it turned out, "Song for Astrid".
My hand and arm are more or less now well enough to rehearse so we've continued the Straight Eight Diablo rehearsals where we left off some two months ago. Hopefully we'll get it all together in the spring so we can get the S8D machinery where it truly belongs - live on stage. The plan is to also start rehearsing with the other bands and project soon.
We had some arranging and writing rehearsals with Lizard Eye a couple of weeks ago. Loads of fun indeed. Yet there's some things in the happening in the Lizard Eye camp so need to be on hold for a while but some news are coming. I believe we have a live gig or two coming up however. Check out the official Lizard Eye website for updates and news on the band: http://www.lizardeye.se/
Next time I'll have some more fleshy info on the solo album, which should be more or less recorded by then.
See ya.
/ PM
