Trent left a guitar book with some articles on portable recorders. These gizmos quickly get expensive. I’d like to hear one. My Emerson videocam has fantastic clarity when the audio is extracted to MP3. My understanding is that stereo is a recording method that captures the slight timing differences as sounds reach one ear before the other, but that definition gets muddled quickly when you read the specs. (It turns out later Trent has one of these fancy stereo hand-helds.)Music was mostly logistics today. Updating song lists, downloading versions. When I am responsible for vocals, I get less picky about the bass line. The current holdup is we are spinning our tires over some three-chord specials, and falling behind schedule. I sense a breakthrough is pending, but there is no way to avoid the fact we just don’t have enough music. I’m considering dumping some popular tunes if they waste any more practice prime time.
But don’t get me wrong. We are rapidly evolving the necessary team and already have a remarkable ability to recover quickly from mistakes, both theoretical and on stage. I know how these things go. I’m generally happy with the rate of advance but am concerned how it is two months and we’ve only begun to play out.
Moving to my “I Warned You” department, the feds have announced intention to seize 100% of social benefits to men who owe child support. This, folks, is the abuse of records at its finest. Some 275,000 men will become destitute. These are not the “deadbeats”; these are the ones with no other income.
The Treasury contends this use of records is not abuse, but is an “unintended consequence”. Unintended by whom? I doubt even one of those men who signed up for electronic payment would have done so if adequately warned of such a move. Oh, and the rest of you complacent people with nothing to hide? You’re next.
I tried to warn both sides they were on a collision course. Many of those men are veterans and disabled, for whom Social Security is their only income. Taking such men’s money merely replaces one category of poor with another, under the disguise of it being so far much easier to pity the children. When a man effectively on welfare falls behind and you don’t provide mercy, you deserve what you are going to get. Now our own government is fomenting rebellion.
Later, Trent called to rehearse tonight instead of tomorrow. I’m flexible. We polished up both old and new material, but the timing without the drum box is still a concern. I’m trying to remember where I’ve seen this before, where without the drum box, each tune gradually slows to a “comfortable” beat to play. But the answer is practice, and practice during rehearsal is very boring for me, it gets kind of like giving lessons.
Finally, I spent the $30 and bought a PA cable. One cable, but since it solved the PA problem, I’ll eventually need two. My theory is that the metal on the old pair somehow oxidized, causing an imbalance, which caused the clipping. Meanwhile, we play with one speaker no more than ten feet from the amp. I asked Lori about recording a washboard track on “Number One”, she’s amenable. That leaves only to find out if Cowboy Mike can play Cajun accordion in D.
