Red BlondHead
By Drum Bender on January 4, 2026 8:53 am
Weekly Beats 2026, Week 1.
Speed Trash Love Letter.
Hey everyone, happy New Year, and welcome back to Weekly Beats.
This space has a way of pulling me in, seeing what everyone’s making each week makes me want to show up, stay curious, and keep building.
It took me a minute to decide how I wanted to show up for Weekly Beats this year, but I’m glad I dove in and finished a track for week one. I like starting each year with a simple creative direction to stay focused and avoid overthinking.
This year I’m trying 3 things:
1) Leaning into “Speed Trash”, (thanks @OrangeDrinkMusic, I'd never heard that term before) For anyone unfamiliar, “Speed Trash” is the idea of making a song super quick, super last minute (usually because you waited till Sunday 1 hour before the WB upload time), and embracing whatever comes out of that first spark instead of endlessly refining.
2) I wanna go focus on a return to acoustic drums, electric bass, electric guitar and vocals (recorded in that order). It feels refreshing and fun already.
3) Call and response & empty space.
Process for this track
• I started with acoustic drums. I did 4 takes until something felt right. The hardest part was leaving space.
• Next I layered two electric guitars, one panned hard left and one hard right, with slightly different distortion and EQ so they’d complement each other. Shout out to the Bad Monkey Overdrive pedal.
• I don’t have an electric bass, so I used a Monologue instead. I improvised 3 takes. Kept the last one.
• Next, I improvised vocals through a ultratap pedal while looking at a photo of Blonde Redhead. Three takes. Kept the 3rd again.
Overall it took about 3 hours. It felt fast, messy, and creatively energizing. I finished the song late Saturday night, then came back Sunday to make a video. I should have recorded video from the rip, so it would have sync'd up better.
Next week I’ll record video from the start so everything lines up perfecto-ly.
Can't wait to hear your jams!
Audio works licensed by author under:
CC Attribution Noncommercial No Derivative Works (BY-NC-ND)
