What I did with my day off

I had the day off work on Tuesday for the Veteran's Day holiday. Did I record anything? No. Did I play guitar at all? No. What the hell did I do, then? Well, I did a lot of work on arranging my studio properly. It has been in a state of unfinished chaos for weeks, after I got a Roland V-Drum electronic kit and had to tear up the room to find space for it. Folks, I live in a dismal little cave.

With my little bout of housekeeping today, hopefully I'm closer to building an atmosphere more conducive to creativity. I've got some ideas percolating.

Coinciding with my acquisition of the Agile 12-string electric this past weekend, I've been listening to a bunch of '70s-era Genesis (back when they didn't suck). The Trick of the Tail album, in particular, has been in my CD player regularly. This was the first album after Peter Gabriel left the band and Phil Collins took over on vocals. Believe it or not, they made it two whole albums before the "Phil Collins suck factor" took over. That era of Genesis featured lots of 12-string electric from both lead guitarist Steve Hackett and bassist/rhythm guitarist Mike Rutherford (who discovered his own suck factor some years later with Mike & the Mechanics).

Here is the title track from Trick of the Tail, which is one of the poppier tracks on the album but also a longtime favorite of mine. Note the big ol' bushy beard on Phil Collins. Yes, he was a prog musician at one time, and a damned good one. Really.