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Maybe one day I’ll be able to write a serious song, but not today Here’s my first original song for 104 Songs.

“Driving close to eighty in a construction zone. Eating a burrito, talking on the phone…”(Full lyrics below)

I heard one of those news reports about texting and other distractions while driving being more dangerous than drinking while driving. This is about a guy who is in denial of this fact.

Song #3 and Original #1 for my “104 Songs” Project.

LYRICS
“At Least I’m Not Drinking” by Rob Lambert

Driving close to eighty in a construction zone.
Eating a burrito, talking on the phone.

And I was just thinking,
At least, I’m not drinking

Need change for the toll, looking under my seat
I got athlete’s foot and I’m scratchin my feet.

And I was just thinking,
At least, I’m not drinking

Driving in my car I could do twice as much,
If didn’t have to deal with this stick shift and clutch.

Dog jumps in the front, I’m scratchin his belly,
Getting kind of bored, so I turn on the telly.

And I was just thinking,
At least, I’m not drinking

Coffee in my lap, pop a zit in the mirror,
Good looking girl ahead, speed up to get near her.

And I was just thinking,
At least, I’m not drinking

Browsing on the iPod to “Cool It Now” by New Edition
Would be so much easier if I had an automatic transmission.

Get a text message, “I caught you” says she.
I text back “Like Shaggy said, ‘it wasn’t me’”

And I was just thinking,
At least, I’m not drinking

Driving close to eighty in a construction zone.
Eating a burrito, talking on the phone.

And I was just thinking,
Mmmmmmmmmmm, m-mmmmmmmmmmmmm.

And I was just thinking,
At least, I’m not drinking

---

UPDATE:
When I work on it in the future I am going to pick up the tempo and try to make it a little more catchy melodically … also the stick shift themed bridge parts need some work … gonna change those.

I decided to force myself to work on musical stuff for a year. So I made a commitment to myself to record two songs a week and publish them to YouTube for a year. So in a year, I will have recorded 104 songs.

Here are my general rules for myself:

• Live performances only
• In other words, no overdubs or editing (otherwise I’d obsess and never move on from a song)
• Loops are fine as long as I perform them live w/ a looper, although I really suck at this, I’ll probably do it on some songs
• One in four songs must be new original songs written by me. A higher percentage than this is encouraged.
• I’ll usually play just guitar, but other instruments are fine, as long as it’s just me

Why? To force myself to get better. Secondly to force myself to write some songs that will hopefully be pruned and re-recorded in an environment where multi-tracking and editing is allowed and put out a brand spanking new album in 2011.

I don’t expect to ever improve to the point that I can sing like Jeff Buckley or play guitar like Jimi Hendrix or write songs like Bob Dylan but my goal is to (by August 2011) sing better than pre-2010 Rob Lambert and play guitar better than pre-2010 Rob Lambert and write better songs than pre-2010 Rob Lambert!

For the cover songs, I am going to mostly cover songs that are not super-popular, rarely anything you’d hear on classic rock radio. For example, “Hotel California” and even Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” are not going to make the list. Even if it is a popular artist, I am going to try to dig into their albums and pull out songs that you don’t typically hear on the radio. This isn’t an absolute rule though, I’m sure there will be exceptions to this.

As of the time of this writing I’ve done the first two covers. I’m kind of embarrassed of the 2nd song I did…I am sure there will be other suckages, but hey, that helps me set the bar low to make it easier to win the “most improved” award!

So that’s it. Constructive criticism is encouraged, especially if you have specific tips on specific aspects of playing guitar, singing, recording, etc. that you see that I could use.

And here’s my first cover, Prince’s “Starfish and Coffee”, recorded last week as my first song:

I often wear this brown corduroy jacket. A couple of people have called it my “out-of-work actor” jacket. My question is this: Why does the actor have to be “out of work”? Wouldn’t you think that if I was an actor I would be gainfully employed in said profession?

I just ate a small Krackel Candy bar. It was part of a mix of mini candy bars from Hershey’s. It was delicious. Krackels kind of taste like Nestle Crunch. But you never hear of someone going down to the 7-Eleven to buy a Krackel. Snickers, sure. Kit Kat, fine. Reese’s, right on. Hershey’s bar, yep. Milky Way, okay. 3 Musketeers, sure. Nestle Crunch, indeed.

But Krackle? I’ve only eaten them in those from those mix bags. Never bought a standalone Krackle bar or a bag of Krackle bars.

I declare Krackle the Red-Headed Step-Child of Candy Bars.

Mary’s brother Jim and family have been in Singapore the past couple of years and this year, they made an awesome Christmas album to send back to the states. The elder Jim plays most instruments, younger Jim plays trumpet and the whole family shares vocal duties.

The entire albums is great. The standout track is definitely “Go Tell It On The Mountain”. Each family member takes a verse except the youngest, John Edward, who steals the show with the choruses.

Click the play button below to listen:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Or download it here:

Go Tell It On The Mountain.mp3 (right click and select “Save As …”)

If you want to check out the whole album, download all the MP3s here:

Christmas-Singapura-2009.zip

Merry Christmas!

I had a dream. I was in high school and wanted to go to an away basketball game. My car was broke down and couldn’t find another ride. I borrowed someones electric wheel chair and rode it to the game. 40 miles away. In the snow. My dog came with me in a basket on the back. Getting to the game was easy. Getting home was another story. The snow got worse and some hills got steeper. I got stuck and stayed at some people’s farm. They were nice. There was a king there. And sheep. We watched some movie, the dude from Napoleon Dynamite was in it. He did a dance at the end like of ND. I thought that was lame. Eventually I got home. I think that the king came with me, as well as the some nice lady from the farm. I think I had to manually push the wheel chair, which at this point had become more of a riding lawnmower. It had a crank to propel it. I was the cranker. Once we got home, the king and the lady, who was a freelance designer, moved to my town (Herscher, IL) and got married. The end.

This weekend, right after I made the Zabada video, I also made video for another song from Zabada the Album … “Price I Pay”. Maybe next time I make a video I’ll shoot some actual original footage instead of just stitching together a bunch of found photos in iMovie.

Anyway, the deep song is about a guy who takes the nine volt batteries out of his smoke detectors to power his guitar pedals and effects. His house burns down. The fire would’ve probably been prevented, had the smoke detectors had batteries in them. But our humble hero does not have a concern over losing his abode, as soon he thinks he’ll be a huge rock star and will be able to buy many many fancy houses to replace his current home.

Here are the profoundly awesome lyrics for those that want to sing along:

Need juice for my pedals and effects.
Took the 9 volt from the smoke detects.
My house burnt down and I couldn’t care less.
’cause soon I’ll be a rock star like T-Rex.

My house burnt down,
and that’s okay.
I guess that’s the price I pay.
’cause I am going to be a rock star,
Someday.

And yes, that I Mary playing the deeply moving gratuitous piano at the end. Rock.

Instead of being productive during the Sunday rain today, I made a whack video for my old standby song “Zabada“. Rock.

Original Zabada posting is here: Zabada “The Song”
Check out more silly songs here: Rob Lambert’s Virb

Mary did a little extra job last year on a movie called Baby on Board starring Heather Graham and Jerry O’Connell. This movie is so good, they decided to mostly skip the theatres and get it directly to the people by releasing it at Blockbuster!

Here are the exciting scenes:

Feel free to click into YouTube and watch it big!

I tend to keep a lot of notebooks for mostly business/computer stuff, sometimes song ideas and other random thoughts. I need to get more organized with this and develop a better system for capturing ideas and then stick with it.

Anyway, I stumbled upon two quotes in a notebook that I wrote down a while back and they are striking a chord for me about now …

“In your twenties, you want to learn as much as you can, and in your thirties, you want to take as many risks as you can” – Michael Murdoch, CEO AppRiver

“Don’t apologize for a mistake. Apologize if you don’t play. Knowing that effort is what matters gives people the courage to always try their hardest” – Wynton Marsalis

So if you’re my age, hopefully you learned a ton in your twenties, and now it’s time get out there, take a ton of risks, and play like crazy.