Painting, Road Trips, Spinning Tunes, And Buzzing Amps

Not a particularly exciting weekend, but not bad either. Every Friday I go into it thinking I’m going to make the most of it. No wasting two days away from work sitting around doing nothing. But really, that’s all I want out of a weekend. I want to do nothing; no obligations, no responsibilities, and no reason to leave my home. That is the ultimate curmudgeon in me. That’s the hermit speaking out of turn, if you will. It’s not that I don’t like doing things, it’s just that all the things I love to do are right here in my home. Records and CDs, movies, guitars, paints, and this little thing with the numbers and letters you type on…these are the items that give me the most creative joy. The outside world, while having lots of things to enjoy, are filled with that one thing I can’t really stand anymore : People.

Despite my inward-aligned personality type and my preference for small groups of people – usually with the same last name – I’d prefer spend time with, I do occasionally find myself in the outside world performing human things like hanging out or at least rubbing elbows with other humans at the grocery or record store. It’s my obligation to society to play nice once in a while. And I do occasionally surprise myself by enjoying time spent with other humans. And it’s definitely a surprise.

Friday evening was pretty laid back. It started like they always do, which was cleaning up the house when I got home. I was surprised by a package on the front porch when I arrived, but once I opened it I wasn’t as nearly surprised as it was a record I ordered off Discogs the week before. Cymbals Eat Guitars’ Lenses Alien album.

I’ve been a fan of Cymbals Eat Guitars since the late 2000s when I heard their debut Why There Are Mountains. Big guitar band that combined the slacker-ish early 90s college rock of bands like Pavement, Slint, Built to Spill, and Polvo with more pop-friendly melodies and chord changes. They had a guitar sound that teetered between grunge and post-punk, but never choosing a side. Lenses Alien was the sophomore LP, and one that I loved a lot but never bought for some reason.

So spinning tunes, running the sweeper, then a few pints while watching Rick Beato videos on Youtube was my Friday evening. Oh, and I started re-watching Better Call Saul with my son and his girlfriend. I ended the night with Scorsese’s The Wolf Of Wall Street.

Saturday morning I got up and around early so I could pick up my best friend by 7:30am. We headed up north to Three Rivers MI to hit up our favorite meat market Bullseye. This little trip has become something we do every couple months on Saturday mornings. It’s just a little over an hour drive and a pretty easy one. Lots of trees and easy highways. It’s also just a nice way for us to spend a few hours together while the rest of the world wakes up. 10 years ago we spent time together by drinking like idiots on a Saturday night at his place, then regretting that decision for the next couple days as our bodies recovered from a hangover.

Well, we’re adults now(we were a decade ago, too) and we don’t like losing a day to a lousy hangover so those days are done. I enjoy my beer on Fridays and in far less quantities than back then. Our Saturday mornings are spent in conversation, listening to tunes, and buying fine grilling meats, the best donuts you’ll ever have, and maybe even a breakfast sandwich. Of course the morning is fueled by coffee.

Oh, and since we’re in Michigan we might stop and purchase some things we can’t purchase in Indiana. Something that’s not legal in our home state(and at this rate probably never will be.) It’s something that I never used to partake in, but getting older and getting more sore I’ve grown to quite appreciate and enjoy. Plus, why the hell not?

Saturday was also spent working on a new painting. It was originally going to be one of my collage/acrylic projects but once I got going I kind of liked the look of what I’d done and felt I liked it sans collage. It was going to be my John Scofield collage, but that will have to be saved for another one. I’m calling it ‘Morse Code’ for all the tiny dots. The dots I supposes are starting to be my calling card, as the last 3 paintings I’ve done have displayed them prominently. One of my best and oldest friends who’s been one of the best artists I’ve known for 35 years said the dots are very “Hubnerian”. I’ll take that.

Yesterday I finished up my painting then got a 3 1/2 mile walk in, despite the falling temps. Yep, we’re once again going from the lower 70s back down into the 20s and 30s. Hell, we got snow yesterday morning. They’re calling for possible snow tomorrow as well. Oh well, this is just the new norm. We’ll forever be dealing with allergies and up and down barometric pressure which will cause me constant upheaval in my head.

While my wife went into town to paint some pottery with one of her friends, I sat on the couch and watched the bulk of Oppenheimer. I’d seen it over the summer in Imax, but I’d been wanting to rewatch it ever since. Still one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. Big fan of Christopher Nolan anyways, but sometimes he can get lost in his own complicated stories(Tenet, anyone?) I think his historical movies are his best, with Dunkirk and now Oppenheimer being Nolan at his finest filmmaking power. Yes, of course I loved his Batman movies – plus Inception and Interstellar – but I do think he tends to get lost in details and ideas that only make sense to him at times. With Oppenheimer he’s working with historical precedence, and so he can get as wild with the visuals as he wants and it still feels believable.

Anyways, I loved Oppenheimer. It’s the best kind of spectacle film.

Another thing I did this weekend was play some guitar. For a long time I would get lost in the idea of practicing guitar. Not really just playing and seeing what I come up with. I was obsessed with the idea of constantly improving myself as a player, but for what? I know chords and scales and theory. I have all the tools, and have had them for 35 years. The most fun I have playing guitar is just that, playing. No practice scales or trying to improve speed. I just love playing. So that’s what I do these days and it is more fun that way. In doing that I’ve actually come up with some riffs and progressions that I want to record.

I’ve got a Vox AC-15 tube amp and an Orange Crush Pro CR60C solid state amp. I go back and forth with which one I use. I bought the Orange to just have something you can just plug in and play on, while the Vox has that crisp tube tone. You know, honestly I don’t really give much thought into tube vs solid state amp anymore. Does it sound good? That’s what matters. I like that I can just turn on the Orange amp and start playing without the amp needing to warm up in order to get to that sweet spot tone-wise. I was using the Orange’s dirty channel, but now I just keep it in the clean tones and use a cheap Boss Distortion pedal for my crunchy tones. And for the Sabbath-like riffage my RAT pedal does the job nicely.

Overall I’m just finding that I love playing, and if some new music comes from it than even better. I have been making drum/synth tracks on Bandlab and then adding guitar and whatever to it. It’s almost like what I used to do with Sony Acid Music back in the early days of recording music. My first solo record the drum parts were all created on Acid Music, then I imported those files onto my recorder and added the rest. It was fun, and I’m finding it to be fun all over again.

Okay, I’ve taken up enough of your time today. Have a good week.