
James Alex of Beach Slang
Photos courtesy of Rachel Snyder
Quarantine Diaries: Beach Slang's James Alex Is Making Mixtapes & Watching "Yellow Submarine" With His Kids
As the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic continues to rock the music industry, the Recording Academy reached out to a few musicians to see how they were spending their days indoors. Today, Philadelphia-based rocker James Alex of Beach Slang shares his Quarantine Diary in a special format: What he's doing vs. What he WOULD be doing were it not for isolation.
[10:07 a.m.] What I'm Doing: Waking up, in my bed, to [my son] Oliver bellyflopping on my ribs.
[10:07 a.m.] What I Would Be Doing: Waking up, in a hotel bed, stinking of booze, with a half-eaten pizza next to me.
[12:23 p.m.] What I'm Doing: Butchering Beatles songs on the piano with [my sons] Oliver and Asher.
[12:23 p.m.] What I Would Be Doing: Waking back up in a hotel bed, stinking of booze, with a completely eaten pizza next to me
[2:05 p.m.] What I'm Doing: Playing full-family, full-contact beachball soccer in the backyard.
[2:05 p.m.] What I Would Be Doing: Hair-of-the-dogging at Cheer Up Charlies.
[4:14 p.m.] What I'm Doing: Scraping last tour's blood off my guitar. I really need to get on with guitar maintenance.
[4:14 p.m.] What I Would Be Doing: Wobbling down Red River to see friends' shows and batting my lashes at their drink tickets.
[6:47 p.m.] What I'm Doing: Getting the goons ready for bed—which means watching "Yellow Submarine"—which really means re-watching the "When I’m 64" scene at least three times then acting out the "Nowhere Man" scene at least twice. After that, very promptly, Ollie volunteers everyone for sleep.
[6:47 p.m.] What I Would Be Doing: Loading into Barracuda for the SXSW Official Showcase. "One foot in the door, the other foot in the gutter," you know?
[8:12 p.m.] What I'm Doing: Sweating and grunting during my heavy bag workout. Look, in another life, I’m Sugar Ray Leonard or Marvin Hagler. In this one, I’ll take whatever the good-shape gods give me.
[8:12 p.m.] What I Would Be Doing: Strangling my guitar, spitting beer, shrieking into a microphone and falling in love.
[10:01 p.m.] What I'm Doing: Rehearsing songs for an online show I’m doing next weekend. I’m trying to rip out the distance that comes with that kind of thing.
[10:01 p.m.] What I Would Be Doing: Piling my friends together and crashing Adrian's place.
[12:15 a.m.] What I'm Doing: Working on my next mixtape. I’m doing a weekly series during this quarantine mess. And, yeah, I know, but I just can’t come around to calling them playlists.
[12:15 a.m.] What I Would Be Doing: Being Charlie’s responsibility.
[2:03 a.m.] What I'm Doing: Falling asleep while watching an AC/DC documentary.
[2:03 a.m.] What I Would Be Doing: Talking about watching an AC/DC documentary when I get back to my hotel room.
[4:08 a.m.] What I'm Doing: Zzzzzzzzzzzz.
[4:08 a.m.] What I Would Be Doing: Zzzzzzzzzzzz.
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