No Time Like Now

Robert James

This is the eighth song for this year’s RPM Challenge and it nearly broke me.

I had this riff in mind. It was in 6/4 time. Something dark and evil possessed me as I was working out the bass line in GarageBand and I was infernally inspired to snip an eighth note off the end of the bar and change the time signature to 11/8.

That’s why, for the most part, the rhythm guitar part and the vocal melody are both stupidly simple… it’s because if I challenged myself at all I was going to be unable to play in time. The fuzzy guitar lead at the very end is the perfect example. I think it took about 25 takes to get something that was even close to in time… and what I went with is pretty crappy as far as timing goes.

This song is not good, but I will probably put it onto the final RPM Challenge album submission because my prog loving self can’t stop grinning at playing a song in 11/8 time. Sorry, everyone.

The rhythm guitars are my Les Paul Standard into an Earthquaker Devices The Depths into a Klon KTR into a Chicago Stompworks Blooze Maker into a Fender Deluxe Reverb. The leads used the same guitar and amplifier and the pedals were a Real McCoy Custom RMC10 into a Way Huge Russian Pickle into the Klon KTR.

Verse 1
Long time
ago
look out
below

Verse 2
don’t know
who I
could be
tonight

Chorus
No time like now
no way no how
one final
look around
So go
without

Break
home coming
no looking
keep trying
keep crying