All The Time

I starting working on the song All The Time before I left Chicago to move out to Colorado. I'd had an idea in my head for a while of a song with a hook that was just, "That's all the time". It was a night I was on Mushrooms and had just finished a heavy version of For Everyone that I decided to start putting down tracks for All The Time. I got a verse chorus structure going and came up with something a little different for the guitar solo. By the time I was done that night I had the solo done and about three extra minutes of soloing over the chorus at the end and called it a night.

The next thing to do was write the verses. At this time we were really focused on the move to Colorado and step one was for me to get a day job there. I had felt like my Chicago job was a dead end for a few years already and it was borderline toxic so I just couldn't wait to leave. I wrote most of the first two verses of this song about that job and getting out of it, and then made the last verse kind of a positive summary to finish it upbeat.

On thing I new I needed was some backups on the choruses to echo 'All the time'. Initially I was thinking of a crowd sound, but after moving to Colorado and hooking up with my friend Lavette who's a great singer, I decided to go with the female backups sound. I really didn't give her much to go on, she just went through the song three times singing it three different ways and I put them together. The more I listened to the song in 2019, the more it sounded to me too much like 90s era 311 and I shelved it in 2019.

Fast forward four years and a pandemic later I was working on a couple of songs with Aerugo Productions from Tennessee and I thought it's a good time to revisit this and see if I can finish it up and include it on an EP with this other songs. What inspired me to jump back in was having the idea to use Hip Hop drums in the verses in place of rock drums, and working on remixing the drums allowed me to hear it as more than a 90s era 311 song. I rerecorded my own choruses and the verses with the new drum mix and decided I like the song again, enough to make it the title track of the EP. You can check out the lyrics here.

Be Here Now

If you've been following the Dr long enough, you remember this was first released as part of An Anthology of Sorts, you can read the story of the original version here. So what are we doing releasing it in 2023? Well I got an email from Aerugo Productions that they were going to raise the price for recording a song. Honestly I think they are extremely reasonable, and the $50 per song increase is more than fair and still a fantastic value. Since they offered to do one more at the old price for us loyal customers, I looked at my back catalog for songs that I think are pretty good songs and maybe my original version is kinda shitty. Which is to say I looked for songs I think are pretty good songs. I sent them a couple and they picked this one. The ending is actually a little more chaotic, truth be told I know these guys don't get to just rock the fuck out often enough and they enjoy it when they get the opportunity. I really like the addition of piano, other than that it's very true to the original and I like to think I sang it a little better this time. You can check out the lyrics here.

Get It Right

I've lived in Colorado four and a half years now, and this is the only song I've written start to finish since I got here. One night I had a particularly healthy weed and alcohol buzz going and went outside for a cigarette. It hadn't happened in a while but it was one of those moments where some lyrics just popped into my head. I felt good enough about 'em I wrote them down on Paper as soon as I got inside:

Sleepin' on a bed of thorns

I wake up feeling cold and warm

I wonder what the day will bring today

Whiskey and some water I got everything I need

I'll remember how I got here on the way

So now I need some music and what's it about? Well for music I decided to write with the capo on and tried to use open strings and create kind of a weird intro bridge thing. Style-wise I was thinking of the song Seasons by Chris Cornell, but not so dark, more of a country folk thing. What's it about? Well I did have an idea for a song topic that had been marinating for a while. This started back in Illinois when I was having a similar moment to myself outside and the thought popped in to my head, "What if I actually did everything right?" It was a question filled with the regret of knowing you've made a lot of choices in life that haven't helped, maybe hurt, and definitely slowed you down and kept you from reaching your true potential. On another night here in Colorado the same question hit me, only this time it was, "What if I actually DID everything right?" This time the question was filled with hope an confidence instead of regret. After all, I am what I am, I was given what I was given and the choices I made are what got me here, and quite frankly, here is a lot better than I might have predicted 30-40 years ago for myself. So the song is about getting it right. "This time" being kind of a reincarnation reference, the more lessons you learn this time the less work you'll have ahead of you when you get back.

I created an arrangement myself knowing I was going to be sending this one to Aerugo Productions to put down professional instruments, you can check out the demo version here. William and Aerugo Productions did a great job recording their version including some banjo and a fantastic harmonica part.

You can check out the lyrics here.

For Everyone - Wippit Wah Mix

I know I know. It's my 17th version of this song, right? What is it now? Well it was about 6 months ago I had Aerugo Productions record it and put my vocals on it and I thought they did a great job of making a professional sounding hard rock song out of it. What I did at the time was I also tried doing some of my own lead guitar with their version. I think I tried about 20 solos a night on five or six different nights and I didn't like anything really that I was hearing. I had to face the fact that I haven't been playing with a band in about five years, and the little bit I've played by myself since I got here just is not keeping my lead guitar chops up. Anyone that knows me also knows I don't right solos, I just play along with whatever's there, and I'm as surprised as anyone else at what comes out. So finally I said, "Dr, you're just gonna have to break out the wah. Let the foot pedal provide some expression and see where that takes you." I went through the song with the wah pedal about three times and figured it's as good as it's gonna get and sent it off to Aerugo Productions along with my vocals. They sent back the version with them doing all the guitars, and then this version with me basically shitting wah all over them. You can check out the lyrics here.