Nothing Like a Lazy Afternoon

Robert James

A couple of unusual things with this one. There’s an overdrive pedal in there that I’ve never used before. Meaning, I had never even plugged it in before. I bought it like six months ago and it sat on my dresser just waiting for me to play it and I never did, until this song.

Also, the vocals… well… let’s just say that I am starting to feel like, musically speaking, the creative well is starting to run dry. I’ve been cranking out bad songs non stop since February and they are getting repetitive enough to bug me, and I normally don’t care about repeating myself at all. So what am I doing to combat this feeling of non-creativity? I’m getting a little ridiculous with the whole writing melodies and lyrics that are a challenge to sing. I am not a singer at all, but my first instrument was the saxophone and I pride myself on being able to control my breath for a long time, but even I am losing it on some of the vocal parts I’ve written lately. This one was rough. There’s another one coming soon that was laughably difficult for me, but more on that another day.

The guitars are all Gibson ES-335. I’m getting the itch to use a different guitar, but the 335 is the only one with reasonably fresh strings. My Les Paul is calling me. So is my SG. The amps on all tracks are both a Fender Bassbreaker 15 and a Vox AC15. The pedals for the rhythm parts was just a…. crap, what’s it called… its a very cheap Chinese copy of a Rat. It’s called a… Black Rat, I think and it’s made by… crap… Donner? I think? The leads used the full pedal board that I play with my band and this song used a Klon KTR, a Keeley D&M Drive, and a Mooer E-Lady flanger on filter ode.

Nothing like a lazy afternoon to put things in perspective
Nothing like a walk outside to clear your head a bit
No one’s gonna tell you what to do so set your own directive
Its time to work things out

how about you get over it
rest yourself for a little bit
give it up and just take the hit
there’s only one way to go on

check it out could be worth a look
what you see its an open book
take the bait and you set the hook
if you can’t do it no one can