Creative Juices Flowing

Man, what a great weekend! I spent virtually all Saturday sleeping. I woke up at 1/2 past 12, went for a walk in town and was already in bed by 7. My idea of an ideal day :). Had my favorite dish on Sunday morning for breakfast, baked beans (no, seriously), and took the Beemer to the car wash. You have a thirty minute wait for your turn on Sundays, so it's good opportunity to listen to music in the car. I had the Iggy Pop anthology playing. It's been a while since I bought it but I've never heard it through until now. It was time for a change, I've been listening to Pearl Jam for almost a week now.

It got me fired up to record an idea I came up with on Friday while practicing. As soon as I got home, I sat down with the laptop and recorded a basic rythm track with the metronome. It turned out to be pretty unusual for me and I found it damn hard to come up with a second guitar part and a bassline. I did each in three takes and overdubbed a guitar solo. I usually avoid this but I couldn't find any other way to make it work. The second guitar and solo tracks have a couple of errors but I still decided to stick with them to give the recording a live feel. You can check out the results by clicking here, it's the song called "Stress".

By the way, I pretty much gave up on recording vocals for "Guiding Light". I have to accept the fact that I just can't sing. On the other hand, it seems I'm churning out new stuff by the week now that I have a proper rig for recording. I'm also getting better at building drum tracks. The one for Stress took me under an hour and it isn't all that simple if you listen to it closely.

Anyway, after recording the bass and guitar tracks, I went to see the UEFA U17 European Championship final between the Czech Republic and Russia at the Josy Bartel stadium. I have a couple of Czech friends from work, with whom I watched their team agonize in the first half, which ended with a score of 0:0. The second half was much more exciting, with the Russians scoring an early goal after a really stupid defensive mistake. The Russian number 9 is a guy to watch. A big, strong and agressive striker, this one. The Czechs had nothing like him and it showed as they were struggling to get even, with the Russians using every opportunity to kill the game, of course. They finally got their equalizer in the last minute of the game through a header from a corner. The Czech supporters around me went berserk and the teams got ready for extra time. It was the Russians who scored first again after the Czech 'keeper couldn't hold a well applied free kick and a striker butted the ball into the wide open net. However, the Czechs clawed themselves back into the game before the first period of extra time was over, thanks to another mistake, from the Russian goalie this time. The Czech number 10 headed the ball on goal after a nice cross from the right, and though the 'keeper caught it, he dropped it behind the line. 2:2 it remained after the second period of extra time, so it was down to penalties. The Czechs missed their second attempt, and though their 'keeper had saved a shot, the referee had the penalty repeated, since the Russian player hadn't waited for the whistle. Of course, the second attempt went in, giving the Bohemian crowd around a good excuse for their team's loss...