The average human wastes at least a third of their alloted years sleeping and probably another third waiting for something to happen that will make the last third of your time worth living. Then someone comes along and says that life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans and you wonder if planning has any real value. Check out "It's Just Life".

12/20/2008 I retired almost three years ago, took some severance pay and bought an Ibanez guitar, Marshall amp, a small mixer and a CD-R recorder. I soon found out that I would need at least a 16 channel recording studio, a keyboard, acoustic guitar (Ovation) and something tp enhance the guitar and vocals. I had recorded some thirty songs on cassettes back in the late '80s that I wanted to redo them but found that every time I started setting up the equipment to record an old song, a new song idea popped into my mind. and I would have to do the new one before working on an old one... The first new song I wrote after retiring was "The Stakes Are Much Too High", almost three years ago. In that song I was, first of all, commenting on my recent retirement, but secondly, I got into some political commentary which gave a message to those who decide our Nation's future to, "I hope you make decisions that work for the best but don't forget to plan for the worse because it's gonna get worse, it's getting worse." Other songs make broader political statements but "America's Fall" practically predicts the economic crisis not only America faces, but so does the rest of the world too. Keep listening to this blog for more insights on my lyrics and songwriting. 12/26/2008 A few days ago I uploaded a song which my nephew Danny "Wolfgang" and I recorded on Tuesday, "Temptation". It was our first songwriting project together. Up to this point, he would visit for a few days and record the lead guitar on songs I'd done all I could do as a rhythm guitarist. This time though, he did the solos on "Teenage Years" and wanted to play some more. He was fooling around with a pretty cool blues riff which was too good not to record. So, I recorded the riff so he wouldn't forget the riff over the weekend. I wrote some lyrics and shut down the recorder. Tuesday, Danny returned and after dinner he was game for some recording. He heard Friday's recording a few times just to refresh his memory and then was ready to record the whole thing. It was so easy! I sat at the keyboard using the drum sequencer and did the fill-ins and the uptempo shifts while he did the basic rhythm guitar track. One take and that was ready. Then he did a lead track, again, one take. Then he had me find a bass guitar effect on the VG99 and recorded one take bass guitar. Lastly, he instructed me to shut off the lead track and did a separate lead track on another channel. Again, one take was all it took. The musical part of the song was done. Then I sat down and sang two tracks for the vocals and voilla! That's all it took to record, "Temptation". Apart from obvious remixing, and perhaps more work on the vocals, the song is done. One more note, If you shut off the left or right channels while listening to the song, each side can stand alone as a complete song with lead, and vocal. Together though, you will hear a duel of lead guitars which complement each other and go perfectly well as part of the song. Lou