I grew up listening to the White Album more than anything else by the Beatles, and in particular I always loved “Helter Skelter.” Harrison’s “I’ve got blisters on my fingers” captured in a mic at the end of the track was, while maybe a little silly, always one of those amazing rock and roll moments for me.

Then I did this:

I’d realized listening to the demos a few weeks before that I’d mis-remembered the riff to one of my songs, and went back to re-record the bass line to fix it. There was a lot of sliding from the 2nd fret to the 5th and back on this particular song, and, well, sure enough… I’ve got blisters on my fingers.

The good news is my suspicion that my rhythm playing is getting tighter as I go along was right, and the new performances are better. I just need to record an album before recording an album next time, I guess.

The bad news is, while the tone is probably acceptable, I probably should have started with a fresh set of bass strings, so as soon as this heals (and this is a week later, so it’s mostly healed – I’ve punched in new rhythm guitar parts as well, including redoing the entire Strat part with my silver Strat since I think the ML Standard it the bridge works better for this part) I may go back and re-record the part again, and more likely than not give myself another blister in the process.