davehayes.org

apparently i’m not the only one who has a hard time writing anything more than just a riff or a little clip. for some reason my ideas very rarely develop into a finished song, and when they do i’m very rarely ever happy with it.

i’ve always been envious of people who write good songs, because i definitely do not bear the gift of melody. it also goes without saying that i’m not much of a lyricist (as you can see by my substandardly wordsmithed ramblings here). oh well, i guess i’ll just stick to re-vamping other people’s work for the time being.

so this evening i was talking to a girl, and asked her if she used IM. great way to keep in touch with people, has kept me close with friends despite being thousands of miles apart. well, she tells me that she doesn’t use IM anymore, she uses facebook, and to just look her up on there. ok, i’ll just go sign up there and get a hold of her, a few of my other friends have mentioned the site, it’ll be good.

WRONG. facebook supposedly allows alumni to sign up, yet they require you to have a school affiliated email address. would someone tell me how that’s supposed to work? when i left my college, they terminated my email address. it no longer exists and i therefore don’t have access to it in order to get my confirmation email to the site. so even though i am an alumnus, i am not allowed to register at the site. *^$%)@#! thanks a lot facebook.

like everyone else in nashville, i moved here with the hopes of forging a career in the music industry. i was fortunate that things started happening quickly when i moved here. i managed to get hooked up with a songwriter and ended up putting in about 50 hours a week of recording time. that, in addition to a sales job at sam ash, didn’t take long to wear me down. so now i’m taking a break from the music industry and putting some time into building up my car, playing with computers, making friends and just enjoying life. i’m working as a network administrator at the girtman group, and i enjoy it very much.

however, this evening, i noticed that this site is markedly devoid of any musical content at this juncture. i also realized that most of my friends in nashville don’t even really know that i “do” music at all. so, i’m going to take this opportunity to post a few songs that i’ve worked on that i’m proud of the way they turned out. so, without further delay, i present you with a miniature audio resume.

heart of stone by jimmie kirkland. jimmie was a friend and classmate of mine when i lived in phoenix. he had recorded an album, but had written a new song that he was very proud of and wanted to offer as an internet extra on his website. he asked me if i would be interested in engineering, and i was very happy to take his offer. i’m very proud of how this track turned out; jimmie is a very talented writer and performer and his skills as a producer shine through on this track. i engineered and mixed this under the artistic direction of jimmie at our school. i can’t recall who mastered it.

heaven is by will rambeuax and steven bliss. i met these guys when i was working with jaime. i was fortunate enough to get to engineer this demo for them. steven and will played the guitar and bass on the track and i sequenced the drums. the slide guitarist and vocalist were hired musicians and i cannot recall their names. this is my newest work.

changes by tony j. hartman. tony was another friend and classmate of mine when i lived in phoenix. he was an older gentleman who had carved out a living as a songwriter. he was an amazing person and very talented. i learned a lot from him through our time together. tony had written this song and never had a chance to record it. he asked me if i would be willing to record it for him, and i was thankful for the chance to do so. he hired a group of musicians from phoenix (again, i can’t recall the names) to play the song. i engineered the session so he could act as the producer. we actually did two versions of the song, one featuring and electric piano sound that was much more lounge-ish, and this version featuring a piano. this is only the rough mix from the tracking session as i was never able to schedule a proper mix session for the song.

molly’s song by myself. this song is much older than the others, and different in that it features yours truly. i wrote this song for my girlfriend (at the time) while she was away visiting family. i played the guitar, bass and piano and sang. i sequenced the drums using my top secret drum sequencing method. this was the first song i recorded with my current recording rig, and it’s been almost 3 years ago at this point. this could quite possibly be the only time you ever get to hear me sing, so i hope you enjoy it.

well, that’s all for now. over the next few months i’m going to be making frequent trips to johnson bible college in knoxville to work on a record with some good friends of mine who call themselves the refuge. i have done a lot of work with their lead singer in the past (we went to high school together), and i’m sure you’ll see some of it posted in the future. anyway, hopefully this will mark the end of my hiatus and the beginning of a wonderfully fun project and time of fellowship with my friends.

i got to go to shooting with johnny last night at on target in murfreesboro. i took my .45 and he brought a few different guns for me to shoot. we had a good time. the highlight of the trip, however, was getting to shoot johnny’s s&w .500 magnum.

if you’ve never seen one of these things, they’re massive. it was so heavy i had a hard time holding it upright to point it at the target. pull the trigger and KA-FREAKIN-BOOM… everybody at the range comes walking down to our lane to see what we’re shooting. i just about dropped the thing the first time i shot it. it wasn’t painful, just hard to hold on to. johnny even shot it a couple times one handed. i was surprised with how accurate the gun was; even shooting one handed, we managed accuracy that was on par with the other guns we had there.

johnny also brought his ar-15 for me to shoot since i’m kind of interested in buying one. i love these guns. they’re so much fun to shoot and it doesn’t go unnoticed that they’re very cool looking. anyway, here are a couple pictures, one of the .500 mangum in my hand for a size reference and another of me holding the ar-15.

i’m a little late on this update, but better late than never right? i got to go see the nmra world finals at beech bend raceway park in bowling green, ky last saturday, and i had a great time. i can’t get over how nice of a facility beech bend raceway is. all the seating is covered, it’s a 1/4 mile track and the track prep is always top notch.

this is the 2005 mustang of joel greathouse. he took the win in the outlaw 10.5w class last weekend. i got to see this car run 7.06 @ 201mph. it was absolutely incredible. here are a couple other pictures from the event.

on the left is pro 5.0 winner don walsh jr’s car and on the right is the drag radial class runner up chris tuten’s car. credit for the photos goes to the nmra and andrew of turbomustangs.com.