How are you, Stranger?
No stranger than usual. How ‘bout you, Bud?
I’ll let you know when I’ve had a little more of this coffee. Honestly, I feel like I’ve aged a week since I saw you last.
Hey, it’s only been a week, but this is weird. Things have come to where you act like seeing my image on the laptop is the same as “seeing” me. Did you get a haircut?
I did. Jodi said I was looking more like a homeless person than an aging rock star. What are we doing today? Are we gonna play some tunes?
That’s the plan. First thing would be to check the gear and see what kind of readings we’re getting for latency. I’m showing you at five mili-seconds total for your audio interface.
Wow, that’s pretty good. You’re reading closer to ten, but still in the green. Are you having some weather over there in Santa Fe?
Snowed again last night. That might affect these crazy jitter readings. Should we both hit the “resync” button?
Good idea. Ahh, that’s better. Yeah, all your settings are in the green now. I was online yesterday jamming with a bass player in Michigan and we were getting about the same readings. He was probably a thousand miles from here, but we had a tight session. He’ll make somebody very happy in a cover band doing oldies. No real issues, but he’s not the one we want for this particular ensemble.
Okay, let’s play something together to warm up the guitars, and then I’d like to run over the new songs. Did you get my email with the revised lyrics?
Yeah, I printed them out last night. I think the lyrics are fine, but I do have some questions about where you want the harmony vocals.
I’m not sure about that yet. Let’s use the software to make a place holder recording this morning; we’ll be better able to decide about details of the arrangement after we hear what we did. Meanwhile, and I don’t know if you’d be up for this, but I thought it would be fun to get away from our material for a half hour play some Hank Williams tunes.
Yeah, like which ones?
Anything you’d like. Lost Highway, Lovesick Blues, Hey, Good Lookin’, I Saw The Light, Your Cheatin’ Heart. Any of those appeal to you?
Let’s do I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry. In the People’s Key of E flat.
All right then. You want me to kick it off?
Harpeth Rivers is a New Mexico transplant from all over who has written songs about isosceles triangles, played bass guitar in a band, and declared himself “Retro-eclectic.” His novel-in-progress is entitled Last Year.
