This is the band mix of this song: https://alonetone.com/robertjames1971/playlists/rpm2020---finished-mixes,-so-far/good-people-(coffee-shoppe-mix) The only note worth making is that unlike almost every other song I worked on this year, the…

Sweet Christmas, this puppy is a mess.... ....and I LOVE it! There is actually two mixes going on at once here. I set everything for the beginning and end sections without even listening to the middle. Once I had the two mixed where I could…

This is a last minute bit of guitar goofiness. I own three Gibson guitars and have been wanting to write a silly instrumental that includes all of them. This is it. The rhythm guitar is my '79 ES 335 Pro, the lead on the left is my '18 SG Standard…

This one is a turd and a half. I knew it was a loser from the word go but my February rule is everything that can be completed will be. As a result we have a song where the guitars are half assed, the lyrics are half assed, the vocals are half…

No one ever rocks in 3/4 time. This is a cheesy attempt to do just that. I woke up one morning with the music for this pretty much complete in my head. I recorded the rhythm guitars and vocals over a simple drum and bass loop. When I went…

This one was fun to play while I was working on it, but now it's kind of a turd. I don't know if I am going to drop anything from this year's RPM Challenge album, but if I do this is definitely a candidate. The lyrics are cheese, the singing…

The miracle here is that I was able to upload this using the guest wifi at Disney World and it didn't take six days! Nice! The lyrics are about how I used to be a cynical asshole when it came to love and relationships and then I met my wife…

Alternate arrangement of this: https://alonetone.com/robertjames1971/tracks/deja-vu-(coffee-shoppe-mix) The guitars are a Les Paul through two Fender Bassbreakers.

This is the moment when my good time with the saxophone came to an end. It's just a simple 12-bar blues but I had this groovy idea for some pseudo ensemble playing at the beginning of the song and my sax skills were not up to the challenge…

Alternate arrangement of this song: https://alonetone.com/robertjames1971/tracks/ending-forever-(coffee-shoppe-mix) Electric guitar is a Les Paul through two Fender Bassbreakers.

I must be nearing the end because all of the playing and singing it getting sloppy. I like the call and response thing in the verse. The punches on the guitars are pretty shitty. I like all the sauce I put on the sax. So it's hit or miss…

I forgot to write an ending for this one. That's why it fades out. Lots of squawky saxophone. I must have been running out of gas when I recorded it. The lower vocal part has a lot of iffy pitches. I'm sort of glissing between notes and I…

My usual generic mid-tempo rock tune. This was written on the guitar rather than on a midi instrument in GarageBand, so I like it a little for that alone. Really though, the whole thing is worth it for the four bar disco break toward the end…

I woke up this morning with an idea for a strummy riff in my head. I telecommuted to work today and in the couple of hours before I had to punch in to work I wrote all the sections and recorded the rhythm guitars to a guide drum track. During…

This is the band mix of this guy: https://alonetone.com/robertjames1971/tracks/time's-up-(coffee-shoppe-mix) The acoustic guitar and the vocals are the same on both mixes. Everything else is different. Today’s the day the end of days…

Another band mix of an acoustic song. I had a hard time getting GarageBand's drummer to fit. I went from way too busy to way too passive to mildly too busy and decided to live with it. I think the problem was probably the 7/4 time signature…

The plan for the RPM Challenge this year is to do an album with two distinct parts. Side One (if you'll indulge the ancient way of thinking) will be a straight up bar band. The instrumentation will be my normal guitar/bass/drums/vocals. Side…

I liked this one as I was working on it. Now that it's done... meh. I feel like I am trying to do too much with way too little. It was a nice idea, and I love anything in 7/8, but I don't know about this puppy. The lyrics are the first time…

This was the first idea I had for RPM this year. It was the first song to have guitars, the first to have lyrics, the first to have pretty much everything. Why then wasn't it the first to get mixed? I don't know. I kinda like this but maybe…

Back in 1991 I was a music major at UMass Lowell in Lowell, Massachusetts. I was in the audio program and I was flunking out because I had zero math skills. I was not flunking out in the instrumental music courses though. I played guitar at…