Best with headphones. I wrote this song while recovering from COVID and living in a friend's camper for a couple of weeks following a wedding in Tacoma, Washington in August, 2022.

This song is about an old friend and flame, E.P.

I'd love to redo this properly in a studio with a live band and a good singer.

This is really bad, like I recorded it into a 4 channel battery powered zoom thing designed for podcasting, and I don't have a band so I just looped it and played all the parts. And I did the lead vocal and lead guitar at the same time, and I recorded the vocal totally dry and I can't sing 🤣 but you get the picture. It's a demo!

I used a keyboard with a pitch wheel to do the steel guitar part, instead of a pedal steel.

And I used a 6 string active bass with a piece of foam to mute the strings, instead of a double bass 🤣
There are two different guitars that I used to record this. One was my Variax for the looped part, set to the acoustic simulator. The rest of it was my Strandberg. I'm so impressed with that Strandberg, it's a jazz guitar but it's very versatile. I got a great telecaster sound out of it, I actually prefer the tele sound on the Strandberg to the modeled Tele sound on the Variax. I want to rerecord this with a real acoustic guitar next time. Also with about a minute left in the song, the high E string popped out of the saddle while I was recording, and I was able to pop it back into place and keep going without interrupting the take lol You can hear where I switched in the middle of a phrase from the top E string to moving up a position and playing it on the B string instead in the solo at the end.


Chump (Or So I Tell Myself) - rough cut/demo

A song I wrote for my 19-year-old cat, Hermione, on her deathbed.

Studio 423

Let Go

This song is about my father, Dr. Joe Muscato, who has Narcissistic Personality Disorder, grandiose subtype (the same as Donald Trump).

lyrics:

My daddy is a racist, but he hides it from the world,
I asked him, 'If you're so ashamed, why do you doo doo doodoo doo?"
He's quick to point the finger, sees a Black man as a threat
But in the mirror each mornin', an old man filled with regret, oh the

(Chorus)
World keeps on turnin', these hateful views are burn-in
the hearts of the lost, and the souls of the damned.
You know that we all bleed the same,
underneath the sun and rain,
It's time we learn to love, whilst we still can.
 
My daddy hates me 'cuz I'm gayyyyy Though he hears that with a frown
If you ask him why he feels that way, why
He'll deny it up & down
He shuts the door on happiness for folks who ain't the same
but reflected in his bathroom tells a story filled with shame. Oh the

(Chorus)

My daddy is transphobic, but he keeps it to himself,
I asked him, 'If you're so disgusted, why do do do doodoo do?"
He locks away compassion, sees a difference as a sin,
But through another sleepless night, a battle he can't win. oh the (Chorus)


Working on recording my debut solo album! This song is dedicated to my father, Dr Joe Muscato, on his 51st wedding anniversary. It's called "My Daddy is a Racist." I'm playing a Cordoba mini acoustic bass that has been converted to lined fretless, and I have 3 mics going: a Sterling large diaphragm condenser for the vocal, a Sterling pencil mic for the soundhole, and a Shure MV88 stereo USB-C mic going into the phone for the live stream. The piezo on the bass is also running through an Egnator Goldsmith and then into a Zoom H6, along with the two Sterling mics. The Shure is only going to the live stream.

My Daddy is a Racist (Dedicated to Dr. Joe Muscato)

Instrumental, cannabis-inspired late-night jam. Recorded with one of the built-in drum patterns of a NuX MG-100, improvised soloing with the Brian May patch. Tempo = 108 in E mixolydian. The guitar was a Strandberg NX-6 Fusion with Suhr pickups and 10-46 D'Addario NYXL strings.

4:20 AM

And now for something completely different!! Here's a demo of a country/singer-songwriter track I wrote.

I used my Strandberg Fusion straight into a cranked Vox AC30 model for the electric guitar.

This song is personal to me: My childhood and Mom & dad's abusive parenting taught me that love can co-exist with abuse, and that many abusive behaviors are acceptable and normal, such as misgendering, lying, stealing, yelling, and being manipulative and cruel.

These lessons followed me to my adulthood and dating life. I dated this woman for awhile, Eva, who ended up living with me briefly in the basement at m& D's while she was between apartments.

She cheated on me with my twin brother Andy, and misgendering and stealing from me and lying to me were normal parts of our relationship. Because of the example my parents set of a loving and normal relationship, I didn't have a problem with any of this.

I've been working in therapy on healing from these things and learning that a lot of the lessons I got from my parents were examples of abuse.

Part of working on this mentally is being creative and making art with it to get it outside of my head.

So, I wrote a song about her.

I used a 1934 Gibson Southern Jumbo for the acoustic part. Recorded using a pair of Aspen Pittman mics for the acoustic, a pencil up close to the sound hole, and a large diaphragm condenser about a foot away from the bridge. The bass was a P bass with flats. There's also a tambourine and a cabasa, Latin percussion thing too. The drumset was all with brushes. I used a Headrush Looperboard and an Akai Mini Play Plus synth/keys for the "cello" part.

I'm currently taking singing lessons and I have a lot of work to do in that department, but it's just a demo.

Let me know what you think.

Chump - Redeux (Or So I Tell Myself)

A new version of Aspirin & Demerol recorded with accompaniment my friend Danielle Muscato (www.daniellemuscato.com). Thanks to Danielle for letting me use her gorgeous custom Taylor guitar.

Old version: https://soundcloud.com/swarmingthings/aspirin-demerol