Elvis needs boats

Remember that song, Elvis is everywhere?  Got it stuck in my head recently and can't seem to shake it free just yet.  Its actually kind of unpleasant, and I am resisting the urge to youtube the song because then it may never leave.

So anyway, the other night I went by Brian's for practice and to lay down what I had for the the new song I came up with.  Turns out Ed (guitar) couldn't make it due to illness so the rhythm section ruled supreme!  We started off with bass and drums, with Brian running some beats by me to see what I liked.  Honestly I trust his judgement more than mine, and all the variations he played sounded good.  About the only preference I had was with tempo, as I saw the song more as a bit of a chugger than a fast-mover.

Brian also plays a bit of rhythm guitar (actually more than a bit) so I played what I had and he followed along, then went off working on riffs to go with the bassline.  After that we fired up the drum machine and Brian ran the board to record the bass part so he and Ed had stuff to work off.  It was a little on the tedious side with repetition and everything but it was still fun.  This is all pretty new to me still so I get pretty excited over it.  Of course Brian said he's been doing this for a long time and he still gets a kick out of it, so I guess when you love doing something it never gets old. 

So we broke the song down section by section, and since there's a tempo change we had to come up with different acceptable speeds for the beat.  Once we found the right speeds I went ahead and played through with the track, then afterwards I just played everything all the way through without any tracks, just the bass.  Then we played it back and it came out ok, so we got some cds made up to take home and that was that.  So thats 2 for 2 in song ideas so far, yay.  Now we have to wait to see what Ed comes up with and we can start working more on both those songs, plus the latest song of their's they were teaching me last time.  We're getting closer and closer to a full set of originals being ready to go.  I really do need to start working on some lyrics though.

I also rented Destroy All Humans, which by all accounts is a mess on every level a game can be a mess on.  Right from the beginning I saw the framerate problems and other complaints people had about it.  But as I got about an hour in, suddenly I didn't notice any of it because it was so fun...and I had barely unlocked any of the weapons.  Then as I got further in and unlocked more weapons and abilities, the game became addictive.  I would go so far as to say to ignore the bad reviews and at least rent this one.  If you can get past the first bit and overlook some of the technical problems with the game, you'll find a dearth of sandbox fun to be had.  Not at the Saints Row 2 level, but its still a good time.