The Eternal Question...

Sometimes I'm curious what my life would be like if I were not a musician. Would it be more or less boring? Would I be more productive in other pursuits, or just sit around and play video games all night?

The song I'm working on right now was "done" at least a month ago. Or so one would think. As a timberlake-esque pop song, it features lots of keyboard, drums, boy-band harmonies, and is just okay... (I do not attempt to compare myself to J to the T). Weeks after completing that project- i.e., a few nights ago- A few drinks in and screwing around on the bass guitar, I gave birth to a fat-ass funky bass riff! A riff so fat it needed to be recorded immediately before I forgot it!

The process is simple enough: Drum loop for tempo, hit record, lay down a fat groove. "Now that's fat!" I said.

Inspiration comes from odd sources and can vary from person to person, and even song to song. Being either lazy, uninspired, and/or drunk at the time, instead of writing new lyrics, I opened up my "Lyrics" folder and randomly chose the aforementioned timerblake-ripoff, and sang the words over the drum and bass tracks. You know- just to create a feeling for whatever this song would turn out to be.

I was about to go to bed and thought "just a quick rhythm guitar track- with some wah-wah and phaser- you know- just to get a feel for where this track is headed"... I laydown a 70's porno guitar groove and should really be getting to bed now. But noooo... There are some things you just can't do with a drum machine, so of course, gotta throw down some funky licks... "just so I don't forget what I'm aiming for"... (he said).

Now it's who-knows-what-time in the morning and I still have work tomorrow. But, let me just lay a little lead guitar in there- so I know what vocal harmonies I want to put it later when I write some real words for the song...

Hit save, rewind, and play...

WTF?! My pop song is officially a funky rock jam!? I mean, seriously- "why write new words at this point?" I thought. I mix down the rough cut and pop it onto the iPod, and finally go to bed. The next day I'm listening to it all day at work and at the gym and can't wait to get back into the studio to work on it some more, which basically means, re-record all those tracks over again, while sober (lol).

Three days later (I do have a day job, after all) and the song is finally DONE!! Embellishments, mixed, mastered, EQ'd. Perfect!

Then as I'm driving to work today, listening to my masterpiece, it hits me: "Conga drums would be sick right here!"

Which bodes the eternal question, "When is a song ever "done"?"*

Look for "You Got It Goin' On" in an upcoming release of "The Bushfinger Music Project GarageBand Show"

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*(quote borrowed from Lars Ulrich - St. Anger DVD)