The TE Recordings Sessions-Day Two

Songs:

1)  Who Are You (Smith/Redding)
2)  Cheating Songs
3)  Willin' (Lowell George)

Who Are You was started last night, while I was writing lyrics and then picked up and finished it today.  Done in two takes but I left the mistakes in.  Geoff was given credit for some of the riff and the tag ending.  I'm not exactly thrilled with the end results but Terry Bainbridge, my co producer thought otherwise.

It's tough to start albums but once I start throwing ideals here and riffs there, it does open up a barrage of new material.  I Started Hating Cheating Songs Today, usually done in F, was reversed to a D G A and it seemed to work.  With no acoustic jams or gigs, I have to rely on reference copies of songs, so I added this to the master.   Willin' was finally completed, and was more toward the first version of the Little Feat song but sung with a lot of reservations to it.  I always thought the singer should approach this song with a sense of defeat, but yet with enough courage to keep going.  I think as the years go by, I am managing to sing songs with a bit of more grit and to squash that GD Southern Illinois Goth Vocal that has been a part of the albums that I have made over the years.

The usual crew was in.  Geoff on other guitar and vocal, Robert Knowles on Bass, Terry Bainbridge, production. 

Kris from Blues Rox asked about helping out on the album.  When it comes to the Townedgers  I tend to favor Geoff or our previous band members.  I don't feel that the songs that I sing and play are not made for Blues Rox, it's a not a put down, rather, I'm trying to see if any of these songs would be good enough for them to play.   I'd rather have songs better suited for Blues Rox but Who Are You or Buckingham Nicks are not the right songs for them.  I have my inner demons of life going on and when I put them to music, they are lot more personal. 

I tend to suffer for my art, while revisiting past times and past loves.  It's always been to write out my feelings and put them to music.  There were songs that I did ripped into my past relations, I don't play those any more.   The guys in the band tend to feel the brunt of my despair when I go back to the past and sing about the girl that got away, or Janice for that matter or Jeanette.  Ya think 40 years down the road they wouldn't matter, but for every romance that ends for me, I tend to go back to those times.  I've been made promises to go to high school dance with a couple and get stood up or they found other guys.  I have blind dates to which the girl would write a dear john note and canceling out.  I've gone back to my high school sweetheart twice and found out that I couldn't return back to those days   It turns out that she knew my habits better than me.  She knew I couldn't give up the records, the music and change myself for her.  So she married her high school sweetheart years later.   I saw the girl in my Public Relations class at Kitty's in 1984 and sat across from me for an hour waiting for me to come over and say hi.  When I didn't, she left in tears.  I tried to find her the next day trying to explain my actions, I was shy beyond belief and couldn't believe she find anything interesting with me.   36 years later, I'm still haven't found her and never will.  When Irene Leeson passed away, that would have been my last great chance to see Jeanette, tho I doubt she would have made the funeral.  I could never pick the right one, the one that could put up with my music and crazy record collecting.  The one that I could write music and play songs for her and make her smile. 

The ones I remember most: Amy.  Met her at the arcade at Show Biz Pizza and had a three week rebound relationship, her boyfriend was in love with his monster truck and I guess she was lonely and the first person she saw was me playing QBert and cussing out the machine.  My mom didn't care much for her, nor did the guys in the band.  Had a chance to make out with her, I passed.  We held hands and called it a night.  She called a couple times and then faded from view.  I did call her a year later and was told she moved out.  She did get back to her boyfriend and had a couple of daughters when I ran into them at some concert downtown Cedar Rapids.  No need to thank me for getting them back together, I'm always the other guy.

And I write that in songs.  I guess it's my most inner strength.  And Geoffrey has been the best to translate my feelings into riffs when I can't come up with them.  But it's a emotional struggle, like Logic N Lies, things overcome me.  Somehow, the records ends on a positive note.  There's no guarantee that this recording will have the same results.

After two days, I think the record is going as planned.  But I need to find some uplifting songs to get me through this depressive state of revisiting past feelings to get songs finished.   I'm hoping by May, we can finally get back out into playing again.  By then, I'll be back helping out Blues Rox, Kris n Brian remain my future, not the Townedgers, nor Acoustic Adventures or Acoustic Crabbies.  But maybe for shits and giggles I'll try to learn Unchained Melody and see where that leads.