When Words Escape

I Love The Ocean 'Cause Only There Do My Fears Seem Small

2010-04-11T18:28:00.009-05:00

MY BAD: First off, play the video at the bottom and then read this. It'll make it seem really dramatic. It's been a really long time. But first off: JOSH GOT INTO SFCM! So stoked. I told him from day 1 he had what it took and he did. We're going to get a house in the Sunset(and live happily ever after?) district and I think that will make us both 10x better guitar players. The Sunset is like a beach town a good 20-30 minutes from downtown SF. I've been there often for parties and when I go to the beach and it's beautiful. School has been pretty easy. I feel like I'm finally in a groove as far as doing my work/practicing goes. Believe it or not, for the first time in a long time, I feel like I'm pretty decent at guitar! I've upped my technique practice a lot and I think it's really showing. I recently picked up La Valentina by Ponce which is just...nice. It's nice to not play a piece that's going a million miles an hour and super stressful. I've also picked up Mudarra's Fantasia! Ha! It's one of the few renaissance pieces I can get into. I just can't dig the renaissance like some people can. I was given a somewhat challenging Pavane by Dowland at the beginning of the year and I've yet to learn more than the first 3 notes. Why? Because it just doesn't click with me. My Turina has really come a long way. I've played it for many, many guitar players and they all seem to like it. I want to audition it for Manuel Barrueco who is arguably my favorite guitarist. But I'm a bit unsure if I should. I've also been somewhat busy with the quartet I'm playing in. We're playing a Domeniconi piece which is pretty cheesy. I'm not fond of this schools guitar ensemble program. This is two semesters where I feel like I'm wasting my time. The first semester being put in a quartet because the large group was filled with masters students was ok by me. I had no problem with that because they are all fantastic players. But I think we should have some sort of system where we pick who we work with rather than David just assigning us. You don't really get much out of that because there's no motivation. We don't even really get to pick our pieces. This second semester, everyone was placed in the large group but I had a part where I only played a few 3rds in ONLY the 2nd of 3 movements. So that combined with a bad attitude quartet makes me wonder why I'm taking the class at all and if I should in the future. I already have all my ensemble credits so I can be done. I'm really stoked for Josh to come up next year. We plan on doing a duet and hopefully doing a competition or two.

CONCERTS: I've been going to my school's concert's a lot more. It's so nice to see your classmates just go nuts on their instruments. I saw the SFCM orchestra play Beethoven's 6 which was just...well...ok? Didn't really get to me. Then I saw a Cello/composition major have his graduate recital. Solo cello doesn't do it for me like I thought it would either. But he did compose a string quartet that sounded like Radiohead which was actually pretty awesome. He had a dancer from the dance conservatory dance(I just said dance in 3 out of 6 words) through out the piece which was added a really nice effect. It may sound a little odd on the surface, but if the composition is right, and the dancer is right, it's a really great experience to lose yourself in the art being shown to you. So I was pretty pleased with that concert. Back in late January I saw the absolute best guitar concert I have EVER seen. Pavel Steidl is hands down one of the best guitarist on the planet today. Youtube him! You'll notice his EXTREME facial expressions. To me, his facial expressions is the guitar talking to us. It's like Pavel isn't there anymore. It's like his guitar has it's own identity and personality and is just speaking to everyone through Pavel's playing. Never have I seen a guitar player use so much color. Never have I seen a guitar player with the left hand ability of Pavel. It was absolutely mind blowing. BUT(and this is a kind of disappointing but) his Bach Chacconne wasn't very good. He played it flawlessly but it just didn't seem to fit his playing. His best work was from the classical and romantic era. I met him after the concert and me and a few other guitarist talked with him. Great guy. I knew right when I walked out those doors that it was the best guitar performance I'd ever seen. As I had mentioned, I've been going to most all the school's performances. I went to the see the school symphony play Tchaik 6 and it just blew my head away. The concert hall was fully packed of people which is always an amazing site and the orchestra played out of their minds. Then after they played, a pianist at our school played Ravel's concerto for the left hand. You know why she's playing it? Because last year, 1 MONTH BEFORE THE CONCERTO COMPETITION, she broke her right hand and said fuck it! I'm just going to learn this concerto for left hand(extremely difficult) in 1 month. And she did. And she won. So it an amazing thing to see. I teared up at LEAST 5 times to how beautiful it all was. I also went to watch the violin concerto competition and the cello concerto competition which were both outstanding.

PUNK MUSIC/SHOWS: It was my best friends birthday and I was feeling like a jack ass for not being able to be there for it. But thankfully A Wilhelm Scream and Heartsounds were playing. Alfredo picked me up and we headed to what's probably my favorite venue ever, Thee Parkside. Heartsounds played much better than the last time I saw them. FUCK! SPEAKING OF HEARTSOUNDS! They signed to Epitaph!! After only about 8 shows together. It's shit like that that makes me really want to be in a punk band. Not that they "made it" and are just swimming in money or anything. But I'd love to be on Epitaph. Who wouldn't? Anyway, this was AWS's set:

Morrisey
Walden
Our Ghosts
Australias
Die While We're Young
Stab Stab Stab
Fun Time
We Built This City On D's and B's
Cancer Dream
Jaws 3 People 0
The Kids Can Eat A Bag of Dicks
William Blake Overdrive
The Soft sell
Famous Friends
Skid Rock
Killing It
Showbiz/5 to 9
The King Is Dead
Congratulations
DREAMING OF THROWING UP
The Rip

I KNOW! Unreal. The longest set they have ever played and they played just about every classic. The crowd was nuts. Although there was this one girl who was pissed that she was standing up front and people were getting pissed at people who were hitting her. It's a pit! That's what happens. It was an amazing set that I just lost myself in and as mentioned on here before, there's nothing greater than being at a punk show. My music rotation has been fantastic lately. I just got out of a Nothington/Get Up Kids/Half Hearted Hero phase and have now moved on to a Menzingers/The Riot Before/Gaslight Anthem/Older Nothington phase and it amazing as well. Smoke Or Fire comes out with a new album soon and We Are The Union just came out with one(waiting to listen to for the summer) so these first 6 months of 2010 have been great for punk music. I just wish I liked Against Me or Alkaline Trio enough to be stoked about their new albums.

ELECTRIC GUITAR: I finally started on the electric guitar journey just a few days ago. I borrowed my friends stratocaster and have been playing it pretty often ever since. It's so weird to just jump into this instrument again. The options feel endless. I want to do jazz, blues, rock, country, EVERYTHING. I just want to be good at everything. A friend of mine lent me 3 jazz books: One for chords and voice leading, one for improvisation skills, and one for scales/modes/patterns. Then I also have a jazz book that my ex girlfriend gave me my senior year of high school. I also brought up the Stevie Ray Vaughn book my older brother got me the same year and then an instructional book on blues that has been at my house forever. I think it's kind of funny how this whole guitar playing life has been going. When I was 14, if you had told me I would be playing Bach Violin Sonata's at 17, I'd call you crazy, and when I was 18, if you had told me I would be burning CD's of Brad Paisley and trying to learn every style of guitar and had hopes to go to Berklee or Musicians Institue, I would have probably never talked to you again. And I'm sure in another 3 years, I'll be doing something or have some outrageous plan that I never thought I would. In getting back to everything, I've been debating a lot on how to approach getting better. "Do I practice technique? Do I do nothing but scales now and then maybe in a month or two try to get into the different styles? Do I already have enough technique? Is it not even about technique? Maybe it's just about style now. How in the hell am I going to learn the fret board?" So while I'm still not completely sure what to do, I've started learning scales and the fret board because there's never really a time where that's not appropriate no matter what kind of style you're playing. I really want to work my ass off in the summer. No more Call of Duty 5 hours a day with friends haha. I want to find a place where I can just go and do nothing but practice. My house is way too distracting and Del Mar would start to get expensive if I drove there every day. I want to wake up by 10 every morning except when I have extra fun the night before which is actually pretty much every night which could be an issue. But who cares? I have a lot of life to live where I'll be sleeping a lot. Maybe I should just build a room. While I know Berklee will accept me, I want to get unbelievable good at everything. Berklee sometimes gets a bad reputation. They accept an enormous amount of guitarist so you get a whole bunch of different attitudes. A lot of people drop out. Some guitar players may not even be that good at all. But when you have over a thousand guitarist, of course they're not all going to be amazing. For this kind of school, I think it's completely on you whether you make it worth it or not. I know I won't get the attention that I do here at SFCM, but I'm ok with that. I want to go there to become a professional and be around the networking. I plan on getting a performance certificate from there and then deciding on what I want to get my masters in or if I even want to get a masters. This is all what I want to do right now though. Things could change in the following 2 years.

LIFE: My life has been fantastic. I went home from spring break which was a fantastic time all around. I went to a bar called Fire On Water and had an amazing time but it ended really horribly which sucked since it was my last night in Corpus. Drove to Austin and College Station and had good times. I really missed driving. Being back here has been pretty good. I've been all over San Francisco the past couple months and am kicking myself that I didn't explore travel more last semester. I love this city so much. Just hanging out at parks is one of the most fun things you can do and all you're doing is sitting! But when the weather is perfect like it is 4 days out of the week and you have a beautiful view of the entire downtown, you don't need to do much more than just kick back and relax. This past Tuesday, I went to the beach by myself, drank a few beers, listened to Explosions In The Sky, and just relaxed. It was an awesome feeling because I had so much to do and just didn't care for that one particular day. Teeya showed up later. But don't worry, I obviously still got my work done on time and practiced a decent amount. I think everyone deserves a day like that. Where they tune out everything that they "have" to do and don't talk to anyone they "have" to talk to. I feel like me and a lot of other kids at my school and probably most young adults that are trying to achieve something become slaves of their craft(which is great! and the only way to succeed at something you really want!) and we sometimes forget to live a little. And living a little isn't just going out once on the weekend. That's to be expected! I know the weekdays are meant for school work and practicing, but maybe once every other week, go out and DO something on a Monday or Wednesday. I live in fucking San Francisco, California! I am 20 years old. I am youthful and youth is something that only comes around once. So everything about the experience felt very liberating. It was such a great time that I think I'm going to do it again this Tuesday and the Tuesday after that and the Tuesday after that and so on and so on. So if you're in SF, take the N to the last stop and go down the beach about half mile and you'll see me laying down with some beer and headphones. In other news, I'm officially out of the somewhat relationship I had. It was something in between friends with benefits and an actual relationship. Pretty much a relationship cause I do like the girl. We essentially(complicated story) mutually ended it because summer is coming. But it was a fantastic time and I'm glad we're still good friends. But why does it always have to happen in April? Fuck! That's 3 relationships that end in April. I can't guarantee when the next time I'll post on here will be. Actually I can guarantee you that it will be once I'm back in Corpus. So that's about a month and couple days away. Get stoked. But yeah, life has just been great. I've been in the heart of downtown a lot more. Last night me and a few people just walked to Pier 1 and drank. We also strolled through this extremely classy hotel where there were tons of older drunk people having the time of their lives. We plan on going back there next weekend dressed up so we can maybe crash a party. Cheesy? A little bit, but it's worth a shot and it's better than staying home. I work well with being really fake and over enthusiastic with adults(I get it from my older brother, Roy). Then the following day I will be attending a CD release party for the Death To False Hope Records band, The Sweet Revenge. 3 story house, BBQ, beer, live punk bands playing outside on the patio. It will be a fantastic time.

Sorry for the odd picture placement. It's hard to use when you upload them from photobucket. Anyway, this is what I was listening to at the beach. Enjoy!

Explosions In The Sky-Greet Death

You Showed Me Life and Lived Nothing Less. 'Cause You're So Above Me

2010-01-11T20:05:00.004-06:00

I update this less and less with each passing month. But that's because I'm a very busy person. That's not entirely true. But maybe that makes it seem like my whole music career is that much more intense. What's happened since the last update? I experienced the best party of my life with the friends I love the most in a condo for new years, didn't practice a damn thing, got lots of Whataburger, listened to great music, and just had a great time being back home. 2010 has treated me quite well so far. This year I plan on living life a little bit more. The first few months of 2009 I was kind of a downer on some days and was hesitant to go out and do things. Then once I got here in SF, I kind of stressed about my school work and practice. Music started to turn into a job for me. I plan on not letting things get to me as much. To be even more outgoing. Maybe it's because the Cowboys lost and I feel like I have nothing to lose, but I'm down to anything at anytime. Party in Oakland? Bus up to Oregon? Bus down to San Diego or LA? I'm down. I need to live life to the absolute fullest and that's what I want to remember 2010 as: the year I lived like I had never lived before. 10/10 on the cheesy scale, I know. But it is what it is.

The past couple months I've been thinking a lot about what I want to do with my life. Obviously music, but what path of music do I want to take? Well I'm at a music conservatory so obviously my options are: perform or teach. Well it clicked to me...I don't really want to do that. Teaching doesn't really appeal to me and yeah, I do want to perform but not for my whole life. You know what I want to do? More than anything in the world? Be in a band. Be in a touring band. I thought this feeling was just a phase but it's stuck and I can't seem to shake it. I don't want to shake it. This is what I want to do as of right now. I've been looking at Musicians Institute in LA and Berklee in Boston. Why those schools? Well they are contemporary schools of music as opposed to the classical school of music I attend. If there was a school for developing the next artist you fall in love with on MTV, these are the schools. Obviously that's not exactly what I'm aiming for, but you get the idea. I'm considering going to these schools so I can be around the right people whether it's the networking or musicians, or the scene. I want to be there. I still love classical music, playing classical guitar and practicing, but this is just how I feel. But I wouldn't be getting a masters degree from these places. Probably just a performance certificate. I said to people a long time ago that all I wanted in my life was to be the absolute best guitar player I could possibly be, and I think I'm starting to see what else I need to do to achieve that goal. I want to be fluent in all styles. Berklee and Musicians Institute would help me with that. I don't even care if it's not a punk band. I'm down to be in a Get Up Kids/Smoking Popes/Bad Astronaut type of band too. Hell, even if I can turn into a studio musician, or a guy that plays guitar for some famous person, I'd be so fucking down. I just want to be in a touring band so bad. But here's a counter feeling. First off, I live in San Francisco. A GREAT music scene. Why not start now? Which is something I've already started working on with Craigs list. And I plan on recording a demo with friends over the summer. But mainly, I've been debating if I should still go to Peabody(another classical music conservatory where Manuel Barrueco teachers) in Baltimore, or New England Conservatory(another classical music conservatory where Elliot Fisk teachers) in Boston, or USC in LA or stay at SFCM(in case anything I have going here gets legit) as planned, and try to make it on my own with out the schools. All of them are great music scenes. So why not continue to be secure with degrees in classical guitar while still trying to do what I REALLY want to do? I don't know. Lots of questions in the air right now. I just want to see where I'm at in 3 years.

School has started up again. It's looking to be a pretty easy semester. Especially since I don't have my old musicianship/theory teacher. So I'm taking musicianship, theory, western civilization, guitar performance, guitar ensemble, guitar lessons, modern guitar lit, and guitar arrangement. Modern guitar lit was fantastic because we learned so much about Segovia and while yeah, I always knew he was essentially the hero of classical guitar and a mega douche bag, I didn't know all the details and what he did is truly amazing. Then in guitar arrangement we got an assingment to arrange the famous piano(but mainly known for being played on guitar) piece by Albeniz, "Leyenda" into another key. I picked d minor. Should probably get started on that. Rufio came out with a couple new songs?! What?! I thought they'd be broken up for good. I wrote about them a while back. They were my 100% favorite band when I was 13 and 14. Oh...those were the days. Juggling around with girls and listening to these heartbreaking, deep, well thought out lyrics that I just related with so well.

Rufio-One Slowdance

We don't have to talk,
We don't have to laugh at all
I just want to be
You and me

You and me dancing the night away
You can feel my heart beating so hard
We look eye to eye
And im swept away.
On a moonlit walk on the beach
Watching the sunrise for the first time
I'm in a trance
From that one slowdance.

This Year I'll Try Not To Think Too Much. This Year I'll Stand Up For Myself. This Year I'll Live Like I've Never Lived Before

2009-12-25T23:07:00.015-06:00

Being home has been fantastic. I've hung out with friends pretty much every night and have been making the best of my time here. Being home is weird in ways. So many memories. So many "Oh that's where" "Oh hey!" "I remember that!" kind of moments while I'm cruising around. But anyway. None of that is important. What is important is that this year is coming to an end that calls for an end of the year list so here we go. I will only discuss the albums released this year though. This post started on the 25th but I didn't finish it until today, the 30th.

TOP 5 EP's OF 2009

5. Straighten Things Out-I Think We Better Split Up

I've been a big fanboy of these guys since I got into them the summer before my senior year of high school. Their song "My Daily Wreck" ruled my Summer of 06. What was great about this EP is that I didn't get sick of it because, well...it was only 5 songs. Their previous effort was 10+ songs of super fast skate punk and while yes, I LOVE that, they didn't change up song structure enough to keep me interested. This EP gives you a slow, mid-paced, and of course, fast melodic skate punk.

Favorite song: Call This Song As You Wish

4. Transit-Stay Home

While yes, I did enjoy Mutiny! by Set Your Goals, I never really took it seriously. This whole super positive pop punk/hardcore seems to be making a little push these days and I really can't think of a band doing it better than Transit. I had only heard 1 or 2 songs by Transit prior to listening to this and this EP is a great representation of their sound and what is to come of the band. I couldn't be more excited for the full length.

Favorite Song: Stay Home

3. The Lawrence Arms-Butt Sweat and Tears

The Lawrence Arms have been around for a long time and I've for some reason neglected them. I had a couple of their albums in mid/late high school but seemed to be turned off by the vocals. That's youth? Well I listened to The Greatest Story Ever Told in August/Septemeber and it went down as one of my all time favorite albums SO as a result of that, I was heavily anticipating their EP. It seems to pick up right where it left off with TGET. From what I've heard, The Lawrence Arms have this great way of structuring their work. It's like everything comes full circle in the end. In a way, even though it's only 5 songs, you feel so completely satisfied and complete with the EP because with just the 5 songs they put out, you feel like you listened to a full length.

Favorite Song: Them Angels Be Talkin'

2. Menzingers-Hold On Dodge

People on the Org went fucking nuts when this came out back in June. I was stuck in a big Descendents phase and had no more room in my rotation so I didn't end up getting this until a month ago. Incredible. Very fun, anthemic, pop punk with some gruff vocals. Not that any of the other bands listed don't describe this, but listening to the Menzingers is what kind of defines my love of punk rock. Sing along hooks, passionate vocals, and simple melodies that stay stuck in your head for weeks. I can't wait till I'm arm and arm with a complete stranger screaming my lungs out to Sunday Morning or Kentucky Gentlemen.

Favorite Song: Sunday Morning

1. A Wilhelm Scream-A Wilhelm Scream

It's not every day where you hear something so good that it makes you...angry. A Wilhelm Scream has made an impact on my life that's hard for even ME to fully comprehend. From start to finish, this EP absolutely rips. Fun Time is one of my particular favorites on the EP. Why? Well with Career Suicide being nothing but a "lets make this as fast as possible" album, we lost that 1 maybe 2 slow songs that they would throw onto their albums. Fun Time is no life changing song, but it's got a chorus that will have you singing for days. Even with the addition of Mike Suppina's shredding skills, Trevor is still very present with his melodic tapping in most of the EP. Bri is defying the laws of punk rock bass players once again, Nuno's vocals are as good as they've ever been, and the drummer(who seems to go un noticed for as amazing as he is) sounds better than he ever has.

Favorite Song: Skid Rock

TOP 5 FULL LENGTHS OF 2009

5. David Bazan-Curse Your Branches
My love for Pedro the Lion and David Bazan has been expressed many times on this blog. His story telling lyrics and great vocal range made me fall in love with him once again. While I don't particularly like the happier songs, the flow of the album can not be denied. Possibly the best part of it is how it ends with such a chilling vibe. It leaves you with your breath still held and I think it's the little things like that that make albums art.

Favorite Song: Curse Your Branches

4. Heartsounds-Until We Surrender

Yet another band that I took time to thoroughly discuss on this blog some time ago. Heartsounds came about earlier this year and got nothing but great responses. It seemed like they were just a huge sigh of relief with all the folk punk singers or org core bands coming out non stop. Very melodic skate punk with awesome guy/girl duo vocals. I think after first listen you might say that all the songs sounds the same, but if given time, you can see that each song has it's own identity. They have a great way of switching up tempos and spreading out the vocals well and had this come out earlier this decade, I'm sure it would be looked at as one of the classic skate punk albums of the era.

Favorite Song: Slave To A Heart That Strays

3. Strike Anywhere-Iront Front

Strike Anywhere is my best friends 2nd or 3rd favorite band so it's always been kind of HIS band that I've just casually listened to. I've really enjoyed some of their songs in the past, but never got too into any of their full lengths. Well finally, they have won me over with Iron Front. My thought on their albums were much the same of my thoughts on Good Riddance albums. Good songs, not so good album. I felt that this release was just so in your face that it forced you to pay attention to listen to each and every single song. Funny thing is that I know of a few Strike Anywhere fans that completely disagree with me. To each their own, right?

Favorite Song: I'm Your Opposite Number

2. Thrice-Beggars

It's hard to start with how long and deep my relationship with Thrice has been. Not once have they released the same album and not once has it been a bad change. But I believe of all the changes, this was the most drastic. The guitars sound so raw and a lot less slick than anything they've done before. Songs seem to be more bass dependent rather than guitar. Dustins voice needs no explanation. He's been hitting any note he desired for a long time now. I told myself when it leaked in July that I would hold out till October to listen to it so I would get the classic "Thrice in the fall" effect and that's exactly what I got. The album flows beautifully and has about a handful of songs that I could understand anyone to label their favorite song.

Favorite Song: Circles

1. Propagandhi-Supporting Caste

While I've never been a huge fan, Propagandhi is and has been one of the most important bands in punk rock since the 90's. My history with them is a lot like Strike Anywhere except I never really got a chance to thoroughly listen to their albums. So when I heard they were coming out with a new album, I was just interested rather than out of my mind excited. Well after seeing the org and my friends rave like I've never seen rave about an album, I knew I had to listen to it. I can personally guarantee you that the first two songs of this album will have your jaw dropped the entire time. My jaw was dropped for a number of reasons. Some of it was the low tuned, thrashy, melodic guitars. Some of it was Todd and Chris harmonizing together. But I think what made my jaw drop so much was the fact that the last album of Propagandhi I had listened to was Today's Empires, Tomorrow's Ashes. The difference between the two albums are significantly different and I just didn't see the intensity of Night Letters and Supporting Caste coming at me. They're so pissed! The intensity. The seriousness! Of all the albums I listened to this semester, this was the one that stayed in my rotation the longest. I knew when I listened to it that it would easily be the best thing released this year and I was correct. Nearly every song on the album is just mind blowing and I don't care if fucking Maroon 5 is your favorite band, you need to give this a listen. One of the great things about legendary bands like Propagandhi releasing new work is that you know fans all over the world will be listening to it at the same time as you. And knowing that I got to enjoy this classic along with the millions of their fans all over the world is pretty amazing.

Favorite Song: Potemkin City Limits

TOP 10 FULL LENGTHS THAT I JUST LISTENED TO THIS YEAR

1. The Descendents-I Don't Want To Grow Up
2. The Lawrence Arms-The Greatest Story Ever Told
3. Joey Cape-Home
4. The Descendents-Everything Sucks
5. Alkaline Trio-God Dammit
6. The Descendents-Cool To Be You
7. Hot Water Music-Caution
8. Broadway Calls-Broadway Calls
9. The Descendents-Milo Goes To College
10. Rehasher-Off Key Melodies

TOP 15 SONGS RELEASED THIS YEAR

1. Hit The Switch-The Everfading Afterglow
2. The Menzingers-Sunday Morning
3. Thrice-Circles
4. Propagandhi-Potemkin City Limits
4a. A Wilhelm Scream-Skid Rock
5. Thrice-In Exile
6. Polar Bear Club-One Hit Back
7. Heartsounds-Slave To A Heart That Strays
8. Heartsounds-Our Last Hope
9. Hit The Switch-Last Light
10. Thrice-Beggars
11. Propagandhi-Supporting Caste
12. Propagandhi-Night Letters
13. A Wilhelm Scream-Fun Time
14. Strike Anywhere-I'm Your Opposite Number
15. Transit-Stay Home

TOP 15 SONGS RELEASED NOT THIS YEAR:

1. Smoking Popes-Megan
2. The Lawrence Arms-The Ramblin Boys Of Pleasure
3. Descendents-In Love This Way
4. Hot Water Music-You Can Take The Boy Out Of Bradenton
5. Hot Water Music-Wayfarer
6. Joey Cape-Who We've Become
7. Descendents-Silly Girll
8. Smoke Or Fire-Culture As Given
9. The Lawrence Arms-The Revisionist
10. The Lawrence Arms-On With The Show
11. Alkaline Trio-Cringe
12. Rehasher-Sinking
13. Descendents-Suburban Home
14. Descendents-Sick Of Me
15. Broadway Calls-Bad Intentions

This was tough. Most of the list could easily change after #2 or #3. I left out a lot of Strike Anywhere, Propagandhi, Swellers, Lawrences Arms, Broadway Calls. I feel like this list makes it seem as if I don't care about such songs as San Francisco or Back To Oregon, or Chapter 13 etc etc.

Band/Album of the year goes to...

The Descendents-I Don't Want To Grow Up

Christmas 08 was some up and down times for me. I was getting over a disaster of a relationship and stressing about auditioning to schools. But on Christmas, my older brother Roy decided to get me "Everything Sucks" by the Descendents. When I opened it the gift, I just kind of laughed to myself and thought, "Really? Everything Sucks? Thank you for reminding me, life." Everything Sucks is considered to be one of the most important albums of the 90's and I could completely understand why. It's incredible. I had always known the Descendents were a huge influence on the 90's(even still today) but I had never taken the time to listen to them. Seems to be an on-going problem with me, huh? After falling completely in love with Everything Sucks, I knew that I had to explore more of their music. It was around early summer when I got I Don't Want To Grow Up. At first listen, I struggled to enjoy it due to the poor quality. But once I got past it, I saw what all the hype was about. This album is filled with instant classics that will never be forgotten in punk rock. The poor quality of recording makes the emotion of this album come out just so much more. The A side is filled with tons of immature/frustrated songs while the B side is filled with tons of heart breaking love songs and comes off just...amazing. I'm actually finding it quite difficult to explain. You just really need to listen to it. Along with I Don't Want To Grow Up, I listened to Milo Goes To College and Cool To Be You. Leaving just about 2 more of their albums I need to listen to. So obviously, they were in my rotation most of the year. The Descendents are now one of my all time favorite bands and have had an extremely huge impact on my life. They are one of the most legendary bands of all time for punk music and I Don't Want To Grow Up is one of the albums that I think will be looked at as one of the most important albums in all of punk rock.

Favorite Song: In Love This Way, Silly Girl

So with that all that said, it's time to say goodbye to 2009. The first seconds of 2009 was me taking shots with all my best friends and right after, I remember saying to my friends that this year would be different and that there would be some major changes for me. It's been the best year of my life. This picture is actually a pretty sweet representation of how I lived life through 2009 because it kind of looks like there SHOULD be someone to the left of me because there's so much space. But that's what makes it great. I didn't need anybody. I didn't have anyone holding me down anymore. I lived my life how I wanted. From getting over a girl, auditioning/partying in Austin/College Station/Houston, sneaking into Texas Stadium with Julia and running around the most legendary football field of all time, flying to Baltimore, Providence and New York City to audition, getting into 3/4 schools I auditioned to, getting 1st place in the ensemble competition in Brownsville and the intense practices that came along with it, essentially saying "fuck you" to Mr. Hii, playing guitar at the open mic at Starbucks, going up to Austin just to party, the shows I got to see, the albums that were released, partying with Andy and that whole crowd non stop, really just the massive massive massive massive increase in partying was a great time. Then the summer was great with the parties(getting old. I know), filming the short movie, playing the cover show, hanging out with different girls(hadn't done it in years). Finally saying goodbye to Corpus was weird but I completely embraced it. My times in San Francisco are times that can't be replaced. Living on my own, the PARTIES, the new crowd of great friends I made, Teeya, going to a music conservatory, finally being around people that are as passionate about music as me. Then coming back home to an awesome number of loving friends and family was fantastic. It was hard to be upset in 2009. Really, my biggest problem was trying to find a way to get a certain girl to stop wanting to hang out with me. THAT'S IT. I will be spending my last moments of 2009 with the friends that I've loved for so long and it will be absolutely beautiful to once again, for the I don't know how many years it's been now, to bring in the new year with all them. It's going to be hard to top 2009, but I will approach it with the highest hopes that I can top it. So thank you to everyone helped this be the best year of my life. Even if you had no idea you were doing it for me.

-Raziel

I See Skies Of Blue. Clouds Of White. Bright Blessed Days. Dark Sacred Nights.

2009-12-15T19:51:00.005-06:00

It was around the end of November when I was at a party with friends and we were talking about how excited we were that we'd be home the very next month. But what I realized after that in order to get to December 16th, you have to go through December 1st-15th first. My face was very similar to this guys face. Finals means studying, copying, asking people for answers who you don't really like, and just praying that you pass your finals. Finals were really rough and it was just such a pain having to study for everything. Which leads to what I say next. I did straight up BAD in school compared to what I used to be doing. And on top of that, I felt like I had a very weak semester when it comes to guitar playing. One of the big issues has been practice. I'm still practicing but they aren't as focused practices as when I was getting ready for all my auditions. I live so close that it's way too easy to "just practice at home" which never ends up happening. So bad semester education wise and bad semester guitar wise. It's not that anything was particularly hard, I was just being lazy and it definitely caught up with me. But ya know? I'm really glad this all happened. It's a really nice wake up call and while yeah, i'd doubt myself too if I were you, I know that I can get at least a 3.8 GPA. None of the classes I'm taking are too hard and now that I've kind of grown up a little bit, I think it's very possible.

So I have this kind of, sort of, not really, completely really, almost, i'm not too sure, half-girlfriend these days. She's pretty awesome, super relaxed, and kinda looks like Meg Ryan. She knows me pretty well so she was searching through her ipod to find something we both will enjoy waking up to in the morning. Obviously she had trouble with this. Well the last thing she said to me that night was how I'm going to love what we wake up to. Eyes shut. Eyes open right at 8am because one of the most classic songs came on, "What A Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong. Imagine being as happy as I am these days, knowing you were going to be home soon, waking up next to a good looking female, being able to see that the SF weather is chilly and rainy, and hearing that song come on. If there is a heavan, it would always start with that. I don't know if it had to do with that, but I had the absolute best performance later in that day. It was for my evaluations and that's where all the guitar faculty "evaluates" your playing. Not once this semester have I put together a performance I enjoyed except for that one. So maybe fun time and Louis Armstrong is what I need before every performance? I haven't done it quite yet, but I'm going to pick up meditation and maybe a bit of buddhism. I'm far too cynical about my playing and it consistently brings my playing down. So hopefully all this will give me a clear head.

I leave to Corpus Christi tomorrow. It will be glorious to be with old friends and family again, drive around the city cutting people off left and right, HEB, whataburger, the beach, BBQ, cheap beer prices, Cowboys games. I'm so fucking excited. But I will miss San Francisco. I'll miss the sounds of the city, music school, the weather, the hobos, the bus rides, all my friends who I saw all day every day. But it's what I need.

The Copyrights-Kids Of The Black Hole

some say it's a black hole
but this town is a place we call home
some says it's a black hole
but they'll never know

I Love The Night, Flying Over These City Lights

2009-11-27T20:07:00.003-06:00

Happy black Friday everyone. I still don't see how you could eat so much the night before and get up super early in the morning to shop. Shopping is already the most annoying thing to do on the planet but then to have to do it in the morning? No thanks. I've done it once and it was a god awful experience. No discount is better than me sleeping. The fact it gets completely dark by 5:30pm is pretty depressing. I hate fixed do. It's a lot more challenging than I anticipated and it's been really screwing with me. But time is key. I made a decision the other day that I simply can not do the Brouwer Sonata next semester. The piece is so beastly and to have to learn it, perfect it, and understand that music within a semester is simply asking too much of me. So I'm pushing it back to the summer and am going to learn Brouwers arrangement of La Muerte Del Angel by Astor Piazzolla like I had originally planned. I don't see it as being a wuss or anything. I have tons of challenging pieces that aren't even close to being perfected. So I can't just go nuts learning super hard pieces. I'm no superman...

So with money being tight, I was in a heavy debate whether or not I should see Thrice and Polar Bear Club for $20. After looking at how much money I have spent/have left and talking to my mommy about it, I decided it was ok, financially, to go. It was at the Regency Ballroom which is a HUGE venue. I pay for my ticket and can already here Polar Bear Club playing. All I can think is "I'm gunna run through those doors and just run for the pit." And so I get my ticket, burst through the double doors, and immediately stop in my tracks. A) because the venue was fucking huge and B) because it was like I walked into a room full of zombies. NO ONE was moving. I made my way up close and pissed off a bunch of people in the process. I don't get why people get pissy if they are just standing around. I saw so many guys right behind their girlfriends getting pissed if anyone came near them which is probably my biggest pet peeve at shows. If your clingy girlfriend can't hack getting hit at shows, then don't bring her. No one was moving. I heard comments like "ugh, this sucks. It's so loud." It was kind of a reminder of how not really popular Polar Bear Club is and how not only fans of punk rock enjoy Thrice. The next band, Dear Hunter came on and my jaw dropped because of how bad they were. I looked around and people were actually enjoying it. I looked up to the upper deck on the venue and people were SITTING. Fucking mothers and fathers were sitting/waiting for the show to end cause they had kids attending. I heard comments like "DUDE THIS IS SO EPIC" "MAN THEY ARE AMAZING!" I hated the feeling. I have never felt so out of place. Thrice was setting up and I heard so many "I'm guna yell Deadbolt!" "DUDE WHAT IF THEY PLAY T&C?!" "What's that album before artist??" comments that made me want to throw up. Really, San Francisco? Are you kids really this lame at shows?

This was the first time seeing Thrice alone. So I had no one to talk to about how stoked I was which was kinda shitty. But fuck, once they got on stage my heart started racing with excitement. Teppei wasn't there though. Which was a true disappointment because he is the heart of the band. But the guitarist from Dear Hunter filled in well. The set was going so smoothly. A very nice mix of Artist, Vheissu, Alchemy and Beggars. Of course, they played Deadbolt and the crowd went fucking nuts. The pits were outstanding. I got tossed around like a rag doll just as I usually do. Being in a pit is such an intense experience. Everything moves so fast. In the matter of 3 seconds, you get hit in from so many different angles. They got to their slower part of the set and I saw this couple singing Beggars, the song, to each other. I mean, I hate to sound like a wuss or something, but I WANT THAT SO BAD. I want to have a girlfriend I can sing my favorite songs with too! That would rule! But then that would involve getting a girlfriend and that wouldn't rule. So Beggars is playing and of course I'm super into it. I was super stoked they were playing it because it's such a great song. I'm obviously loving it as they are playing, but when they got to the outro, I think my life changed. And I know if my brother Randy is reading this, he'll say I'm stupid for loving a band this much, but I take music into such high regard. Anyway, in the album version, it's just an isntrumental outro. But live, Dustin was screaming his lungs out and it just floored me. I was in shock as to what I was witnessing. It was hands down the most intense experience I've ever had while being at a show. Nearly brought me to tears. No words can describe as lame as that sounds. But wow, I was just absolutely mind blown. The rest of the show after that was almost pointless because there was no way they'd top Beggars. Again, I'm not over-exaggerating, but that was one of the most intense/emotional/SPIRITUAL experience I've have EVER had at a show. The song went like this

Thrice-Beggars

Tell me what can you claim? Not a thing - not your name!
Tell me if you can recall just one thing,
That’s not a gift in this life?

Stand Up and Be Counted If You Can't Live Without It

2009-11-20T01:03:00.006-06:00

You ever see a picture that just completely defines your year? And then naturally, you think about the song that just ruled your year? Sure, I'm in the middle of shooting for a film festival, but at the time of this picture, I was running on essentially no sleep for two days yet I was still able to just lean back, smile, and enjoy life. Something I never really got to do in 2008. Being a happy person rules.

It’s all in me but I can’t get the right words out,
Been trying to so long that I forgot what I believe,
The longer I go without it the more it brings me down,
The feeling that I’ve lost all that I’m made of,
What if I can’t get it back?
From deep inside and through your eyes it is incredible,
To feel it coming!
The dwelling doubt subsides and all is calm,
But still the pages long for more,
Tell me I don’t stand a chance in vein,
To believe all I’ve witnessed every killing breath,
Until we love ourselves,
Only then will this story be fit to tell,
Cause if in awe we cant portray its rightful meaning we will stay,
Of war and peace,
The light of one warm embrace,
Don’t let it become your worst enemy,
Go run and tell of what you’ve seen,
Believe it isn’t right,
Tell me it’s not for real,
Life as we made it…

And don't think I've forgotten. It was on the night of November 20th, 2004, that Kayla lost her life. I'll never forget sitting at my friend Arielle's birthday party with a bunch of friends when a girl in the grade below us broke the news. I still remember every minute as if it was yesterday. I had no idea what to do with myself. I was awarded her music scholarship my senior year of high school and would like to think I've honored it quite well thus far. I was never too into Thursday, but I know it was her favorite band. This is pretty much the only song I ever got into so I'll post it. God this song makes me miss high school so much.

Cold Happens All The Time lyrics

Thursday-War All The Time Video - Cold Happens All The Time Music Videos

Music Videos by VideoCure

Now your eyes are a sign on the edge of town
They offer a welcome, when you are leaving

R.I.P. Kayla.

Looking Back On Life, Does Your Past Still Keep You Up At Night?

2009-11-04T14:08:00.005-06:00

In ways you could have predicted this post coming with the high level of bitching I do about my theory and musicianship teacher. Last week in class, I was giving my percussionist friend a hard time because he was struggling with sight reading rhythms. My friend Ari in front of me overheard and says, "Ya know, it's great to have Raz because he makes you want to do better cause you know if you don't he'll give you crap about it" out loud to the class. My teacher then responds in a light hearted way saying "Yeah well he's just a son of a bitch like that." Sarcastic words were exchanged between me and him. But after Friday, I knew that I wanted to email him and tell him 100% how I felt because while I don't want to like him, I knew I had to change my work ethic because I was missing class and hardly doing my work just to spite him(productive, huh?). Well Monday comes along and I have a note in my box saying I will be kicked out of class if I continue my attitude. So because I can't see him Tuesdays and I had my Unit Exam on Wednesday, I decided to email him. I expressed how I don't respect him as a teacher or person but that I would change my work ethic to get my grade up. That's youth?

Usually before I leave to school or out or just anywhere I put my ihome on shuffle so that when I get back, hopefully a really kick ass song will be playing and it'll make me happy. Today before I left school to go practice, I put it on shuffle and Yellowcard's "Starstruck" came on. DANG. 2003! It gave me such a huge rush of freshman year of high school. I was so heavily into pop punk back in those days. I still do listen to pop punk these days but it's a bit different then than it is now. Remember Much The Same? Such a solid melodic punk band that ruled my senior year of high school. Well they broke up that year actually and the drummer plus a member of Break The Silence and a member of Counterpunch formed a band called Unit 91. They just released an EP. By no means is it original but it just really clicks with me. I listened to a few songs back in summer of 2008 when I went to Colorado so there are some fantastic memories attatched to it. Wow what an amazing trip Colorado was. It reminds me so much of pop punk in the early 00's and I think the reason I like it so much may be because it makes me feel 13/14 years old again.

I just recently posted on how I was actually content with my guitar playing. That has completely gone to hell. There have been times this past week where I have serious doubts about myself. My doubts were so high that I've hardly been practicing. It's just frustrating to go into your lessons and get reminded(not verbally) on how undeveloped you are and just how...not good you really are. Larry has never said anything close to that but some of things he says just blow my mind and certain techniques are extremely hard. No one understands just how hard it is to excel in your instrument or just to comprehend music. Getting to that next level is such a mind fuck and you really just have no idea how to handle it except question yourself. Never have I been challenged like this. It's only been 3 months. It's hard to put into words just what exactly is going through my head. But more than ever, music IS my life. Today I decided to turn everything around and got in a really good amount of practice. In order to get a nice 5 hour practice session going, I switched practice locations around the school every hour. The best was the last one where I around 5:30pm when the sun was setting and I was sitting in the practice room facing the window. San Francisco has such great weather. Every day is 60's and every night is 50's. I bitch about wanting diversity but I know I'm going to miss it when I get back home to Texas.

I almost got jumped the other week when walking by myself. I had a insane adventure on Halloween night in the city of San Francisco. I was in a cab home with some friends talking the cab driver about football and once he found out I was from South Texas he swirved to the curb and told me to get the fuck out of his car. He said it with a straight face but then laughed and said he was joking. I've probably said this a few times, but nights out here are so much different than nights out in Corpus. You just NEVER know what's going to happen. God I'm so fucking glad I got out of that city. Love it, but couldn't stand another month in it. One of my really good girl friends moved to LA so hopefully she'll be here to visit soon. Living on my own has made me get tons of great ideas on how to save money and conserve food or dishes. I'm getting really good at ping pong. I drink an amazing amount of water these days. I also drink Budweiser and Pabst Blue Ribbon pretty much exclusively these days. While I have my mental struggles, life is just absolutely amazing and there's no school I'd rather be at. Didn't I mention something about a kick ass melodic punk band? Ok this is probably the most awkward video I post. I debated about posting it but it's the only one that has the album version of my favorite song off the album. Warning: CHEESY lyrics.

Much The Same-What I Know

And I hate the thought of who I am without you
And someday I'll learn to get by on my own
I became a better man around you
And that's one thing you should know
'Cause I know

If You Were Here, I'd Admit That I'm An Asshole. But Now It's Over and I Can' Stay Sober.

2009-10-23T14:31:00.003-05:00

That 70's show is a show that I really enjoyed watching years ago but I try to steer clear of it. Do I really remind you of Eric Foreman from That 70's show? I don't know how many times people have told me that. It was all sort of ironic that my friend Oneida texted me saying that just that because I had JUST gotten the new David Bazan album AND That 70's Show was on mute at the time of the text. Who's David Bazan? Well, maybe if you read this blog more you'd remember I wrote a mini paragraph about him to set up the video I posted on this entry. But anyway, he's the singer of Pedro The Lion. What does that matter? Well, in the fall of 2006, I would HEAVILY listen to Pedro The Lion and would HEAVILY go over to a house and watch That 70's show. And here I am, near exactly 3 years later, in a COMPLETELY different world, still listening to David Bazan's music. Kinda nifty, huh? No? Yeah, I could see why that might not seem like a big deal cause artist come out with new music and life does go on, but I can't express to you how thick of nostalgia it carries and how just...right? October and Pedro The Lion/David Bazan are. His new album is fantastic. It's pretty much the same exact thing as Pedro The Lion but he dropped the name and just made it David Bazan. Only been listening to it for a few days so I don't have any clear favorites just yet but I do enjoy the less happy. I dislike the songs that kind of sound like Keep Swinging and prefer the songs that sound more like Arizona and Transcontinental.

One thing that's been on my mind lately is, "Wow. My program is outstanding. But am I learning these things to soon?" I'm playing some incredibly pieces right now but I'm worried I won't be playing them next year or the year after that. I mentioned a month or so ago that I would be playing Agustin Barrios Mangore's Un Sueno En La Floresta. No longer! I decided to finally, after, 4 years of having the music and loving the piece, to do Agustin Barrios Mangore's Variation on a Theme of Tarrega: Lagrima Variations. It involves the theme(obviously), slurs, a little thirdsy(not a word) part, artificial harmonics, tremelo, arpeggios, and classic Barrios shredding. I have never heard anyone play it and I've never met anyone else that knows the piece besides me and the guy I discovered it with. So I'm quite excited to be playing it. I start the Brouwer Sonata when I return from winter break. Me and Larry started working on the Grand Overture. A bittersweet bummer. Why? Well now I have to actually play it right. It really does piss me off on how bad of a teacher Mr. Hii was. How did he miss so many bad parts about my playing this piece? And that's because he was "giving me his all"? We're actually analyzing the piece and discussing how I should play this part this way because I play that part another way and just TONS and TONS of different things. Larry is just filled with endless great ideas and it really just blows my mind. I have so much music to be playing these days and I absolutely love it.

Last week someone on punknews posted an add for joining his band. Ever since he posted that I've been super super super ancy to join a band and play music. I posted an add on Craigs List saying I was available to join/start a band. Preferably join. I got a few responses. 2 from really really really bad bands. 1 from some old dude playing punk music. Then one from a 26 year old guy who apparantley likes the bands I've listed as inspirations, is a fan of punknews and plays guitar. That sounds awesome but at the same time, it's craigs list and I have that constant paranoya of it being a scam. Haven't responded to him yet. But man, I just want to branch out. I live in San Francisco, California, one of the biggest punk scenes in the country. It'd be criminal if I wasn't more involved. I don't care what kind of punk. I'll play pop punk, skate punk, beard punk, Bad Astronaut esque rock, ANYTHING. Only bad thing about me being in or starting a band is that I'm not in it for trying to make it big. I just want to casually play a few shows a month and just have a good time. I also don't even have the equipment to play a show so I'm not really that attractive of a band member.

Music rotation is great right now. I've got Thrice-Beggars, Swellers-Ups and Downsizing, Strike Anywhere-Iron Front, Hot Water Music-Never Ender, and David Bazan-Curse Your Branches. This is the first time I ever have a Strike Anywhere song in rotation. I'd always just hear a few songs off one of their albums and never got too into it so this change is nice. This is the second Hot Water Music album I put into a full rotation and since they have so many, I'm going to have at least one of their albums in rotation pretty much until the summer. And I've already expressed my feelings for Thrice, Swellers and David Bazan. All that talk of David Bazan would only make it fitting to post a video of him. Again, I really really really highly recommend you listen to Pedro The Lion and or this new David Bazan release. Really really mellow, great story telling songs. This video doesn't really do the album justice because he doesn't really use an acoustic guitar, and everything is very electronic.

Pedro The Lion-Curse Your Branches

Oh, falling leaves should curse their branches
For not letting them decide where they should fall
And not letting them refuse to fall at all

I'm Not Gunna Watch You Kill Yourself To Live

2009-10-20T15:10:00.002-05:00

I DARE you to try not to think of The Grinch theme song while looking at this picture. I should photoshop a santa hat and paint his face green and we would be the perfect part. The dashing fellow you're looking at is Roland Dyens. A current guitar composer/performer and a lock to be remembered for the remainder of time. He gave a master class for us last Thursday and a concert on Friday. Out of the two, I was more impressed with the masterclass. Dyens is a very soft spoken, humorous guy. And it wasn't even in the whole "Oh man he's so famous so everything that comes out of his mouth is hilarious" kind of way. Just a funny dude. His teaching was incredible. So so so musical. I wish I could have played for him but I had nothing to play for him at the time. In intermission, we all went outside and he smoked a cigarette with the other guitar players. I was apart of the circle but didn't smoke but DAMN if there were ever a time I wanted to smoke a cigarette it was right there and then. Are you kidding me? Hanging outside of school and talking with Roland Dyens? Unreal. Probably the main thing I love about Dyens is that he is so musical. Why? Well, being a composer gives you such an edge over the rest of the performers. Being a composer gives you a different mindset. You think about structure more than you think about how technical and accurate your playing is. But that was all on youtube videos. Me and about 6 other guitar players caught the 9 to the Mission and gotta tell you, for Roland Dyens, the venue was kinda rough. Not super nice and if it's in the Mission, you gotta watch your back. The concert started out with about a 6 or 7 minute improvisation which I thought was maybe one of the better parts to the night. After that, he did a few compositions of his own along with some Villa Lobos. Gotta tell you man, I wasn't very impressed. Everything of his I had previously seen wasn't living up to this. He was kind of messy and his sound didn't carry very far. His musical ideas that I love so much were there but I just wasn't blown away like I thought I should have been. Highlights were when he played his arrangement of Chopin's Valse Op. 69 No. 2 and the fact he didn't play Tango En Skai.

It was a cold, rainy day on October 13th. But I knew I absolutely had to go to this show. Heartsounds, The Riot Before, Living With Lions and A Wilhelm Scream. Mapquest is dumb. I got directions and it told me to go all over the place and really all I had to do was take 9th street past a few intersections. So I knew that walking over there wouldn't be an issue. But walking back from the Mission is really sketchy. The show started off with Heartsounds playing their 3rd show ever. It showed. They messed up a good number of times and it was so sloppy. But OH MAN, Laura Nichol is 10x better looking in person. Especially with that AWS tattoo. But the songs they did pull off were fantastic. The Riot Before came on. I think I listened to them about 2 years ago and wasn't crazy about them. But they put on a hell of a live show. Really emotional. Really intense. Loved it and I want to start regularly listening to them now. Living With Lions was kind of cheesy live. I can't exactly explain why but that's the first thing I thought of. I enjoyed it though. I was texting a few friends from SF whether or not I would die on my walk back home at 12:30am. Most of them responded with "Are you with friends? Oh...no? Well...uh...walk in well lit areas." Then a friend in Oakland told me there was an Earthquake there and that we would later get it. So here I am thinking, "Great. Not only am I going to get jumped but the fucking earth is going to split beneath me." But worrying about that came later. A Wilhelm Scream was about to go on. This would be the first time I see AWS live without Joe which was kinda depressing. And it was the first I've seen them where there were a TON of people there. Amazing set. I was right in the face of Bri and Nuno the entire night. I accidently punched Bri's bass. I sang into the mic 1000 times. I 100% have never gotten more into a show than I did that night. Screamed my damn lungs out. Amazing time. Mike gave me a set list. I went up to Nuno and told him I'm from South Texas and he then asked "So yeh used to go to Neeer Miss shows, huh?" And I said yes and he then hugged me. While it was completely gross, it was kick ass. The walk home was rough. Luckily I had my black jacket and black beanie so NO ONE was gunna mess with me. It was really creepy when cars would just slowly drive by you and no one else was on the street. But it was only about a 20-25 minute walk so it went by really fast. Great night.

I'm no longer in a guitar funk. I actually feel decent for now. My right hand seems to be getting better at getting in position for good tone. Practicing a lot of technique is so rewarding. I have the Generalife down but it with out any power. Bach is sounding decent. But obviously there's a long way to go. Life here is still great as well. The weather is always beautiful. I started laughing to myself the other day at how used to this low 60's high 50's with sunny skies weather I am. I'm sure back in Texas it's awful. You can't walk 10 minutes down the street with out hearing a loud and obnoxious siren. School is great for the most part. It weirds me out at the opportunities we get here. Only thing I don't like about the school is that it's not extremely interactive. Or maybe I just haven't been here long enough to find those types of things. I mean I have tons and tons of friends here, but it's mainly because of Golden Gate Hall(my dorm). Only friends I've made outside of GGH are guitar players and a few that I've met at parties and such. The city is great as well. One not so great moment was when me and a few friends went on a 2am run to Pronto's pizza and saw the end a woman getting beat across the street. Cops showed up. She was hysterical. Weird sight. Then about 20minutes after that we saw a car run into a Walgreens. The hell? I know I probably say this a lot, but the situations I've gotten in with people here are just weird sometimes. The bonding that I've had with certain people here and the moments we've had over the period of a few months are just wild. Last night in particular was such a self defining moment for me. It's crazy to see how you react to people who do things you never thought they would do in a million years. This has nothing to do with music. BUT THIS DOES. Let's talk about senior year. Let's talk about senior party. Let's talk about driving for the first time. Let's talk about losing it. Let's talk about 2007. Let's talk about my favorite quote(there's not many since I don't really care for quotes). Let's talk about legitimacy. Let's talk about FEELINGS. My 3rd favorite album of all time.

Lagwagon-Gun In Your Hand

Look, I can appreciate this. I was young too, I felt just like you. Hated authority, hated all my bosses, thought they were full of shit. Look, it's like they say, if you're not a rebel by the age of 20, you got no heart, but if you haven't turned establishment by 30, you've got no brains. Because there are no story-book romances, no fairy-tale endings. So before you run out and change the world, ask yourself, "What do you really want?"

No Regrets. Just Rebirth.

2009-10-08T00:27:00.005-05:00

This past Friday was an experience I'll truley never forget. Kazuhito Yamashita, arguably my favorite guitarist ever, was playing at the performance hall at SFCM and I got to see it for free. I also found out that I get to see the Beijing Duo which consists of Wang Yameng and Su Meng who are currently studying at Peabody. I've been listening/admiring them for their extreme talent since I was 16. Anyway. Sergio Assad(who I still freak out when I see him) introduced him out and right as he was getting to the "and now, here is Kazuhito..." I started to just freak out. I also started to laugh to myself at the fact that Mr. Hii would kill me if he knew I was getting this opportunity. Once the applause started I just looked to my friend and we were both just shaking our heads in disbelief on what we were about to witness. Kazuhito Yamashita is one of the best guitar players of all time. He breaks away from that typical asian stereotype of playing everything super fast and robotically. He is able to play at the fastest of speeds yet still maintain a world of drama. I have never heard and I don't think I ever will hear a guitar player match him in his prime. Such emotion. Such technical skill. His tone? Maybe not the tone of David Russell or Ricardo Cobo, but with his style of playing, it works. Plus, he plays Ramirez guitars. How many professionals use Ramirez these days? Anyway. Yamashita walked out and my breath was taken. I had never been so intimidated by a guitar player or really a human being in my life. He just had this presence that was overwhelming. He played an all Bach program and did it masterfully. He missed a few notes in the last fugue but it was still incredible none the less. A review was written and published about the concert just yesterday. I am 100% against it. The reviewer talked about how some of the things he did was unstylistic to Bach and this and that and this and that about how BACH SHOULD BE PLAYED. If you are heavily into classical music, you know that the argument of "how bach should be played" is a never ending one. Sure, you can't play it romantically and you have to show everything you need to do symbolize the Baroque era but if you do it so blatonly traditional and non original, then what the fuck are you play it for? There is absolutely no art in that. If you want that, then fuck, go to ANY student getting a PHD in Baroque music. Yamashita did everything I expected Yamashita to do. He used an amazing amount of colors, incredible technique and nothing but pure emotion. My only issue with his performance was that he was tuning through every piece during the piece. Every time he hit an open note he was tuning. But it's because of his playing so it's understandable. There was one point to where he between suites, he picked up his guitar while sitting in front of a dead silent crowd and he started just examining the bridge. I wish you could have seen my face. I was freaking out! Anything could have happened at that point! But anyway. While maybe he's not quite on the level he was when he was in his younger days, he is still one of the best in the world.

I've been going through some rough times with guitar. My brain and ability is being pushed harder than it ever has. The funny thing is that the person pushing me like this is the nicest, most positive, most relaxed guy on the planet. It almost freaks me out that he manages to blow my mind yet be so chill and happy about it all the time. You would think someone doing all this incredible damage and frustration to me would be someone with the attitude of Mr. Hii. But nope, just good ol' Larry being Larry. It's sickening how many mistakes and how many errors he points out to me that Mr. Hii never did. And all of Larry's ideas about Bach are just straight up BETTER than Mr. Hii's. Mr. Hii makes you play it like an amateur. Larry makes you play it like a professional. Playing the Generalife is quite possibly the hardest thing I've ever experienced. The attention to detail is incredible. Every note has a purpose. The hardest part is emphasizing the bass notes while keeping the hammer ons extremely light. I can not for the life of me do it. Every time I try, my brain just starts to hurt and I get super close to getting my guitar and smashing it up against the wall. I can honestly say every practice session this past week has ended with me kicking open my guitar case and roughly putting my guitar in it's case. Then I'm constantly dealing with tone. But at the end of the day I know that I'm so lucky to be bitching about such things. I've brought myself to where I'm at now by going through these struggles and eventually overcoming them. I never quit when something is too hard. Only time I've ever done that was 5th grade running club and I still regret that. This is 100% the greatest struggles I've gone through on the guitar but I know that once the semester is over, I'll look back and realize just how much I grew as a guitar player.

Aside from those frustrations, all my classes are going quite good. Only issue is my absences. Too many times I've been out during the week days and get home and don't exactly feel like going to class the next morning at 8am. Too many times being 3 times. But we only have 4 absences available so it's kind of an issue. Regardless if I go out at night, I still stay up till 2 watching Everybody Loves Ramon(wana fight about it?). So I really just don't get much sleep in general. But I find it weird that when I do actually get lots of sleep, I'm extremely tired through out the whole day. Probably more so than when I get my 3-4 hours of sleep. My Guitar Literature is really hard. He has us read 20-30 pages for homework and his lectures all over the place. He's a great guy and extremely smart, but just not a great teacher. His name is Richard Savino. He(along with David Tannenbaum. It's actually where they met and became friends. Now they're teaching at the same school. How bout that?) was on a nationally televised master class with Andres Segovia back in the day. Most famous because he was the guy that Segovia took away his guitar because he hated his playing. Now that doesn't mean he sucks. That's just how Segovia always was to people. It was really nothing out of the norm. And to even further express how much he doesn't suck, he was able to study with Segovia in Spain for 3 weeks in which they woke up early in the morning, played for Segovia at 5am, then practiced all day, then played for Segovia at 5pm. Intense! If you don't know who Andres Segovia is, basically all you need to know is that he is considered the "father" of the classical guitar. He played the classical guitar in such a revolutionary way that he put it back on the map and really made it popular again. Considered one of the all time greats. I don't agree as far as skill wise goes. He had bad tone and bad interpretations, and was an arrogant prick, but what he did for guitar is something no one can overlook. Anyway. I forgot to mention this actually. A couple weeks ago, I played on what is said to be the oldest existing guitar in the world. A Romantic guitar from the early 1800's. It was intense. Speaking of guitars, today I rented out a Smallman guitar. It's worth $24,500 and I only had to pay $4.88 for insurance for my month rent. The thing sounds like a canon and it's really what I needed for the whole mental issue of playing(I was feeling like I sucked).

Life here is still really great. I've experienced some great nights and just some straight up weird situations. Apparantely crime is on the rise in my area and we need to be extra catious which is kinda uncomforting. The weather is still just beautiful all day every day. High 50's low 60's with a cool breeze. Very rarely is there a ugly day. Next week is going to be quite the week. I'm going to see Heartsounds and A Wilhelm Scream on the 13th, Roland Dyens master class on the 15th and the Roland Dyens concert on the 16th. I've been listening to a lot of Thrice with their new record out. Usually we do the Thrice cover show every summer but me and Badih have been considering doing a winter show. Just 3 or 4 songs but this time, ALL from Identity Crisis. Maybe with a T&C encore? Nothing but fast songs! Sounds good, huh? And if it doesn't sound good, just watch this video of them playing it live.

Thrice-As The Ruin Falls

the pain you bring
far greater than all other gain

Meet Me By The River's Edge

2009-09-25T15:28:00.007-05:00

Don't be afraid to take a challenge. Earlier this year, I told Larry that I would play Muerte Del Angel over the Brouwer Sonata because I wasn't sure if I have what it takes to play it. Well, me, Caleb, Eric and Julian took a journey to GSP. I don't know if I mentioned this last time, but GSP is THE place for guitar. It's where most people order their music and it's got an amazing amount of guitars. I asked one of the workers to try out a guitar and he watched me play. He seemed to be impressed and MADE me try out multiple guitars because he wanted my opinion on them. A couple of them were ok, but there was one that I played that just made my entire body have an orgasm. I loved it. Caleb tried out the guitar and started playing a piece by Brouwer and it just made me head spin. Not only because Caleb has great sound, but because I miss playing Brouwer so much. So I decided that day that I would stop being such a wuss and play Brouwer. I got so excited when I made the decision that I e-mailed Larry asking for his opinion. He said to me "Raziel, there is nothing technically that you can't do, but you will need to understand the piece to it's fullest. And that's where I will help you." That was about a week or so ago. And I had my lesson with Larry the following Wednesday. Well something happened after that lesson. I went into a funk all of a sudden. The serious lack of sleep I put myself through. The awful Cowboys loss. My practices were terrible. I was trying to adjust my right hand to how Larry told me to and it was so hit or miss. I was being lazy with learning the Segovia scales. I didn't spend enough time practicing. I was hardly getting any sleep. I just felt super down on myself and these expectations seemed to be overwhelming me. It was Wednesday, which is my lesson day. I also have guitar literature from 3-4:50 with a lesson at 5:30. Every class, we go until at least till 5:15 which leaves me only 15 minutes to warm up. Well I asked my teacher if I could leave at 5 so I could warm up. He said no problem. Well 5 came around and I gathered my stuff and he said "Can you wait just 5 mintues?" So I said sure, 5 minutes isn't a big big deal, right? Well that 5 minutes turns into 27 minutes and I was furious. I wanted to just walk out on him but I didn't want to be disrespectful to him. I stormed out of the class and I didn't even want to show up to my lesson. I just wanted to go home and fall asleep. But I went to my lesson and of course, Larry being the super positive, happy guy he is, completely turned my week around. We talked about different things and he just boosted my confidence so high saying how great of a player I am and how well I'm progressing. We got on topic of my Juilliard audition and being the goof ball he is, he literally kicked his legs up in the air and screamed "WHAT?!" at the fact that I didn't get accepted. Then we worked on my Turina. Never have I been more excited for a piece. What they said about Larry is true, he spends entire lessons on just one phrase. Every single note in the piece is thought out thus far and it sounds great. I'm going to potentially be the first guitarist to play this piece other than Rafael Andia so I'd love for this to be one of my identity pieces. We also worked on tone. Tone is a very delicate thing for me. One thing that is certain is that I have left hand ability. I haven't encountered anything that is simply too much for my left hand. My right hand? It's pretty good I think. I still need some work on apreggio's. I still need a never ending amount of work on both but I'm content with my ability in both for now. But tone. Tone is something that I've never had down super well. Why? I was never taught a proper way. All the players here that have great tone here were properly taught from the time they started. Well me and Larry have been working on it and I'm definitely seeing the improvements. I haven't mastered it yet but I can feel that it's coming. Could this be the last piece? Could I FINALLY after all these years of hearing "Raziel, you have so much potential, but you are not in complete form yet." Potential potential potential. If I can develop great tone with all of my left and right hand abilities, I'd be very very excited to see where my playing went.

About that Cowboys loss. I tried thinking of a not lame way to say this for a while but I don't think it's possible. I'm an active member on Punknews.org and me and a friend both moved here to SF at the same time. Thus we've hung out a couple times. Probably the most enjoyable bro hang out to be honest. I can't talk about punk music to anyone at the school or at Golden Gate Hall. Anyway, enough gay talk. He dropped by right at the end of the Cowboys game because we were headed to the Gaslight Anthem show right after at the Filmore. The Filmore is huge and was packed. Gaslight's popularity is still kind of just weird to me. And it was actually kind of cool in temperature. We missed Frank Turner due to the Cowboys game but that's not big deal. Saw the Loved Ones who were really entertaining. Murder By Death was awful. Gaslight was Gaslight. Great as always. Brian was very talkative which is always kind of a weird experience. They did some weird story telling in the middle to where he's talking and talking and talking and then in comes the music mid sentence. They played nearly all of The 59 Sound with a couple select songs from Sink Or Swim. I listened to the album an incredible amount last September-October and I haven't really listened to it more than 2 or 3 times since then so it brought back a lot of memories. But fuck those memories, I was loving being at a show again. Loving live punk music once again. It was a great feeling.

You know what else is a great feeling? When a record comes out that you have such high expectations for and it 100% goes beyond the expectations. Both the Swellers and Thrice came out with new records and I've just been listening to them non stop. I can't go into great detail because I haven't been listening to them long enough, but The Swellers is probably the most satisfying. I made a post a while back on how scared I was for them once they signed to Fueled By Ramen. I knew they had made the record before signing, but I was still a little scared of what could be. Right from the first listen it was just instant love. They still have their speedy songs. Nick's vocals are better than ever. There aren't as many leads and riffs but I'll take great melody over awesome solo's any day. "The Iron" is pretty much a B-side from A Wilhelm Scream's Ruiner album. "Watch It Go" has the awesome part where they flatten the root of the vi(6) chord. It always builds so much tension when used. But the it's followed by a high vocal which I haven't decided if I like or not. Then the last song is the By A Thread/Skoots attempt that they're always due for. I love it, but it didn't nearly make me cry in greatness like By A Thread and Skoots did. I'm really just in a golden age for music right now. Heartsounds is a band I should probably talk about for a moment. Anyone that knows me well, knows that I'm a humungous fan of skate punk and that fast punk beat. I've said numerous times how I just want a drummer to play that beat the whole time through my funeral. Well when Heartsounds formed just this past summer and they put out a record, I knew that it was a band formed specifically for me. They had to have been thinking of me while making this record. I'm almost positive 10 of the 12 songs have the beat I love so much and while yeah, admittedly it does kind of get old if there's too much(Straighten Things Out), they manage not to bore me with a single song. Duo vocals involving a guy that sounds just like Nick from The Swellers and a girl that is just awesome. Speedy guitar riffs that remind me a bit of Rufio/Near Miss/NUFAN. It's skate punk. Fantastic fantastic skate punk.

Look at that face. That frown. That upperclassman in high school "oh no what happened?" face. The 13th. For the past 4 years of my life, the 13th of a month has been something I have lived for. Why? Oh man. This is going to get cheesy. Well, back in the young days of 2005, I got with my girlfriend on the 13th(August if you're wondering). Well, being young and not very experienced, we thought that it was necessary to celebrate every month of our lovely relationship. I had gotten a job at the same time so every month, I would request the 13th off. That liefest ended after 7 or 8 months and kind of had it's after effects for a month after that. Well, even though I wasn't with the girl, I still felt it necessary to request the 13th off for whatever reason. Then, still bitter, I got with another girl the next year on the same exact date(August 13th. What a great to way to get revenge, huh?). While we were more mature, this girlfriend was just so needy and clingy that it was near mandatory that something be done on the 13th of every month. That lasted 2 AND A HALF YEARS, which still blows my mind sometimes. Thus the importance and eventfullness of the 13th was still very alive. Well, after the break-up, I saw it as near tradition that the 13th be a day to where I have off. Any reason? Answer to that could vary. OK I KNOW. What does this have to do with music? Well, I know that the 13th of every month thus far has been great but I can't tell you the specific events. But I can tell you the past 2 months and the future. August 13th, I SHOULD have gone to see Polar Bear Club in Austin but I didn't. But I did however, get sheet music to a really amazing piece and that's an incredible feeling. September 13th? Well first off, the Dallas Cowboys season opener was held. Second, it doesn't matter if that has nothing to do with music. Cowboys and music are on the same level. October 13th? I'm going to be seeing A Wilhelm Scream(ohmyGUH) and Heartsounds at Three Parkside. November 13th? One of my favorite guitarist, Xuefei Yang is giving a concert and I get in for free. December 13th? Oh man this one takes the cake. Pepe Romero is having his "Guitarrada V" with Richard Brune in the concert hall. It's where a few guys just sit in a circle and check out old guitars and talk about guitars and wow that sounds horribly boring to you but it's going to be a non stop jaw dropping experience for me. Some people have a phobia of the number 13, ya know? I embrace the number. And it's probably how pointless this entire paragraph was on a scale of 1-10.

I'm in an absolute golden age of music. I've been listening to Broadway Calls' latest record. Been listening to Polar Bear Club latest record which as mentioned last post has a few nice moments. Then I finally started getting heavily into Hot Water Music and have been listening to Caution. Then I got Heartsounds, Thrice and The Swellers. I don't know if I've ever had a better rotation going. I mentioned Gaslight Anthem earlier. You know, most girls I've ever been involved with haven't listened to punk music. But damn, if I could find one that listened to at least the Gaslight Anthem or Bad Astronaut, I'd be so happy. Here is a song by them that doesn't really show everything that makes them who they are but the whole 50's guitar sound/story telling lyrics/great vocals which now reading it sounds like the perfect description to the album but if you've heard Great Expectations or The Backseat you'd know what I was talking about. Enjoy!

The Gaslight Anthem-Here's Looking At You, Kid

You can tell Gail, if she calls,
that I'm famous now for all of these rock and roll songs.
And even if that's a lie, she should've given me a try.
When were kids on the field of the first day of school.
I would've been her fool.
And I would've sang out your name in those old high school halls.
You tell that to Gail, if she calls.

And you can tell Jane, if she writes,
that I'm drunk off all these stars and all these crazy Hollywood nights.
And that's total deceit, but she should've married me.
And tell her I spent every night of my youth on the floor,
bleeding out from all these wounds.
I would've gotten her a ride out of that town she despised.
You tell that to Janie, if she writes.

But boys will be boys and girls have those eyes
that can cut you to ribbons sometimes.
And all you can do is just wait by the moon
and bleed if it's what she says you ought a do.

You remind Anna, if she asks why,
that a thief stole my heart while she was making up her mind.
I heard she lives in Brooklyn with the cool,
goes crazy over that New York scene on 7th Avenue.
But I used to wait at the diner, a million nights without her,
praying she won't cancel again tonight.
And the waiter served my coffee with a consolation sigh.
You remind Anna, if she asks why.

Tell her it's alright.

And though it's hard to tell you this.
Oh it's hard to tell you this.
Here's looking at you, Kid.

"This Gun Is Pointed Right At Your Heart." "That Is My Least Vulnerable Spot!"

2009-09-16T21:26:00.004-05:00

You're a damn liar if you don't want to go to the grocery store and buy this right now. I hate most ice cream but even I think that looks delicious. This is going to be one of many, many bitch fits about my aural skills and music theory class and I will most likely repeat myself each time. Back story? I nearly tested out of aural skills but since I don't know fixed-do which is a system of solfeg only taught at certain schools, I had to start all over in first year aural skills. And because of that, they put me in first year theory as well. At first I was just like ok, whatever. Easy semester, right? No. This is too easy. My harmonic dictation this past friday was I V I V I V I. Can I get an inversion? Can I get a neapolitan chord? Maybe a borrowed chord? Maybe some inverted 7th chords? Maybe some modulation? Maybe a chord progression that didn't make sense? Then we had rhythmic dictation and melodic dictation that I would get in the first run through. Look. I am a bonafied bad ass when it comes to aural skills. Theory? I'm OK. But aural skills? I'm great. Give me an interval to sing I can do it. Give me a melody or rhythm to take down, I'll do it. Give me all the melodies we have to sing these upcoming 2 semesters and I can sight read them. Give me all the melodies that I have to do the next 2 semesters after that, and I can figure them out with a couple of minutes. Me and aural skills are one. I didn't really realize how good I was in theory until I started looking at new music and just knowing what was going on all over it. I was in my lesson and me and Larry were analyzing my Grand Overture and I was naming all the chords and the voice leadings and why I'm playing I'm playing the V chord louder and the theme, recapitulation, all that good stuff. I didn't maintain a 3.5 GPA for no reason. I'm a smart guy when it comes to music. I hate going to class. It's painful. Then I have a bad habit of showing it. But I can't help it. Call it me being to stubborn and I need to get over it, but when all this freshman level information is being thrown at me, it brings me down. And I don't like my teacher nearly as much as my old. Dr. Flory was and will always one of the best teachers I've ever had in my life. He was serious, to the point, cared about us understanding, and was such a geek that he would throw in his little jokes that were so awful that it made us laugh so much. My new teacher is a great pianist. A Peabody grad and a really energetic and happy dude. But those first two things I said? We get reminded every day when he says "I mean it's like a mozart sonata..." Then goes and shreds Mozart or Brahms or Chopin. Then he always brings up his times at Peabody and it gets a little annoying. Because I feel that just him teaching at the school got everyone's never ending respect. There's no need to flaunt it. Am I wrong for feeling like this? Do you think this is all me being cocky? Look I came to this school not only for guitar, but to expand my musical knowledge. Being in these classes makes me feel so trapped. It's kind of like being in a prison. I just want to struggle. Struggle makes you care and learn more. I want to get that struggling bond with my classmates. I want to walk out the door and look at them with this same horrified/shocked look as to what we just learned. But I can't get that with this. If someone asked "hey! Do you want to make all A's with easy classes or struggle to make a B in a hard class?" My answer would easily be the hard class. I just want to move forward.

Lessons with Larry are going great. We really focus on musicality and overall interpretation. And we're both very vocal. I know what I want in the piece and he knows what I can do to make it better. We'll be reading/analyzing the piece and we try different things to see what sounds good. It's not like how with Hii, he would tell me one way to play it and never question himself. Any time Larry suggests something, I play through it and he decides if it sounds right. It's like we're just two people working to put the pieces of the puzzle together. I really enjoy it. I've just got so much on my plate and I'm always busy. It's gotten to the point to where 4 hour practice sessions are just barely enough to get through everything I need. With all the technique exercises and all my solo pieces, I need at least 5 or 6 hours to spend a sufficient amount of time on everything. Me and my friend Andreas plan on playing all the Bach two part inventions which would be a dream come true for me. I love listening to those. Glenn Gould plays them like no one to ever walk the planet. I might actually be playing Introduction and Fandango by Luigi Bocherrini AGAIN with 3 other guys for guitar literature. I've been playing that piece since I was a junior in high school. But I'm always down to play great music with a quartet.

Want to hear something really geeky? I was at a party and one of the piano majors started playing ballroom dance music for entertainment. Well after a while it turned into an hour long session of us naming our favorite concertos, sonatas, etc etc and he was just able to play them by ear. It was really amazing. We somehow got to Coldplay and Journey after a while. But at one point someone said, "Play Chopin's Nocturne in Eb Op. 9 No. 2!" And as soon as he started playing it felt like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. Just the first 2 notes make my head spin. That piece takes me back to such a transition period in my life. It was the summer of 06 where in the month of June, my life was awful due to one person and then in the month of July, my month was immediately great due to another person. It's what I consider one of the top 3 most beautiful pieces ever written and I would feel awful if I didn't post it on here at some point.

The past week or so I was in shock of two bands. A Wilhelm Scream/Explosions In The Sky. Why? I've been listening to AWS since I was 15 and EITS since I was about 17 but for some reason when my ipod was on shuffle and I heard a couple of songs by each of them I was just in awe. Unbelievable music. More so AWS than EITS but still. It's been a while since AWS has released anything so I haven't exactly been in touch with them. I listened to We Built This City(On Debts and Booze) and it felt like the first time again. Since I can't really practice in my room past 11pm, I have a bit of free time since I continue to deprive myself of sleep. Who cares if I have an 8am class? Everybody Loves Ramon is on 1-2am and that shit is hilarious. Anyway, what I do is just try to make songs that would work perfectly for bands I really dig. I used to make instrumentals quite often back in my electric guitar days so I wanted to start up again. Figured Explosions In The Sky would be a nice inspiratation so instead of getting up from my chair to turn on my ipod, I youtubed them and found an amazing video of my favorite song by them. It's pretty intense. So turn off the lights, listen to the music, and think about all the dramatic as hell moments in your life.

Explosions In The Sky-The Birth and Death of the Day

Growing Up Isn't Moving On

2009-09-03T22:50:00.004-05:00

Can I say something? I don't know if you know, but I go to the absolute best guitar school in the country. I know I know I know. It probably sounds biased. But look, you know I am and always have been a very realistic person. I always considered this to be one of the top 2 or 3 but I'm 100% convinced it's the best now. Why? Well down the hall lives a guitar player and we ran into each other one night and just started talking music. Our guitar staff consists of Sergio Assad, David Tannenbaum, Larry Ferrara and Mark Teicholz. Growing up, I always saw Sergio, David and Larry as gods of guitar but never really heard Teisholz. Well I asked the guitar player I was talking to about him and he was in shock that I hadn't heard him. People around here argue that Teisholz is the best player of all the guitarist here. I found it hard to believe. But then he showed me a recording of Teicholz's Grand Solo and was nearly convinced. My jaw was dropped in amazement. His playing is flawless. His interpretations, technique, feeling, everything is outstanding. Then he went on to say how last year he was at a dinner with LAGQ(teachers at USC, the school I usually put above mine) and they themselves said SFCM is a better school. And sure, Peabody has Barrueco, but that is one teacher and he only teaches so many students. It was like this huge epiphany and I could hardly fathom it. I go to the best guitar school in the country. Another thing he told me was that my class was the absolute best incoming class San Francisco Conservatory of Music has ever seen. WHAT?! It's hard for anyone to actually understand all this. Fuck, it's hard for ME to understand this. It must be known that I'm having the time of my life here. I'm loving every second and have really just never been happier. The music, the lifestyle, the friends, the parties. EVERYTHING. I love what I do. And while yeah, I miss Corpus and Del Mar(my music major friends) at times, you couldn't pay me a thousand dollars a week to move back there.

Ohhh back to school. It all started with Western Civilization at 8am. 8am. Eight ayy em. So I wake up, eat some cinnamon toast crunch, then take off. The class was intense. The teacher is like a performer. We talked about all sorts of things. A lot about the earth and how it was once all together then separated then about how there are 10,000 foot mountains in the ocean and all this stuff that just tripped me out. Then whenever it would get really intense, he would speak very quietly. Then talked about the evolution of man. Now imagine all that with Stravinsky playing in the back ground. It was just so interesting. My jaw was dropped at some of the things said. My only issue with the class is A) it's at 8am monday-thursday, and B) I hate thinking about things like this. Things that mostly don't have concrete evidence. It's why I hate thinking about religion. It's why I hate talking about space. I don't have any proven facts about these issues. And the famous quote, "The more we know, the less we understand" is just spot on. Then I went on to music theory which isn't an issue since I'm re-taking it. Then I hate sight singing which, sorry, is a big issue for me. I nearly tested out of sight singing but since I was never taught fixed-do, I have to re-take everything. For right now, we're singing 1 2 3 instead of solfeg and it's bullshit. We had an assignment and I asked him if I could do solfeg because it's what's easier and he replied "Well...technically we don't know solfeg yet so no." So pissed. Then no matter what, in every sight singing class in the fucking world, you have that ONE person who tries to out shine the whole class. But the thing about this person is that they are in first year sight singing for a reason. THEY AREN'T VERY GOOD. Ok, you can sing, but can you hit the intervals in front of you? No. And because they have issues from time to time, they bring down the entire class. Say a melody is going Do Fa Sol La Ti Do Ti La Sol Fa RE Do but instead of the Re they sing Mi and because of that, since he/she is so loud, they make the entire class sing the wrong note. Why? Because naturally, if you hear a someone singing so over the top loud, you'll follow the tune. It's like if you were listening to the radio really loud and singing along. Being in both these beginner classes really sucks. I feel like I'm not moving forward at all. It's really annoying at times. I'm not going to class tomorrow because we start solfeg next week and we have assignments using that number system so it's a big waste of time in my opinion.

Then I had the Alexander Technique which was interesting. We did exercises where we put our hand on our head then had to touch our hand with our head. Then a few more things like that. Hopefully I can get good at it. Then I had ensemble. There are 3 groups. One advanced. One not advanced. Then the rest of us that will be put into separate groups. I was in the rest of us category. Most the grad students were in the advanced. Before I get to that, Guitar Lit got canceled for the day and guitar performance was cool. Lots of good players. Anyway, I've been hanging out with a bunch of guitarist. We all get along very well. But there is this one grad student in-particular that I hate/love talking with. He is 100% the most knowledgeable guitarist I have ever met. He just throws out different composers and different pieces and says things that I've never even thought about. It's really a great time but at the same time, it upsets me that I'm not as knowledgeable as him. I want that. I want to be that good. I want to be that smart. And it pisses me off to no end that I'm not like that. But at the same, I have to understand that he is a grad student and has just been in the whole deal much longer than me. But I believe it's this self competitiveness within me that will push me to be a great guitar player. I'm not there yet.

And for me to get there, I will need Larry's help. I had my first lesson with him yesterday. It's weird. He'll send me e-mails just to see how my week is going or send me videos of great Dallas Cowboys moments. It's really nice to have a teacher who you can get along with. We talked about repertoire. I have to have a piece from all 5 era's. He asked if I knew any Renaissance. Well, like every other beginner, I learned that one fantasia by Mudarra. Other than that, no. We will be working on something by either Narvaez or Dowland. Not stoked. Never been a fan of the Renaissance era. He asked if I knew any Bach. HA! Of course! I told him I knew 3 of the 4 movements in BWV 1001 and all of BWV 996. He said I can only play one for the juries so, after 3 years, I am going to retire BWV 1001. It was a weird feeling. It was like breaking up with a girlfriend that you actually liked. But it was time I put my Del Mar College hit single to rest. We will meet again some day. He asked if I knew any Classical and of course I said I knew Grand Overture so we will continue to work on that. Then we get to the romantic. He was really impressed with the amount of Tarrega I know/knew at one point. I said I could do the Barrios prelude I learned over the summer but then I finally grew some balls and said that I needed help with tremelo so I am playing...Un Sueno En La Floresta. In my opinion, it is one of the top 10 most beautiful pieces ever written for the guitar. I'm excited to finally get this beast of a technique down. Then for my modern piece I'm learning what I always wanted to learn,(but couldn't because my old teacher didn't allow it) La Muerte Del Angel by Astor Piazzolla. Probably Leo Brouwers version. And then I will always be playing Etude #2 and of course that monster of a piece by Turnia, Generalife. So that's what my program will be looking like. So we got right to work on the 996 and Grand Overture. We also worked on tone which was a first. Working on using my knuckles. A really great lesson. Larry is a great guy and I'm excited to see what kind of player he turns me into.

I've been practicing so much technique lately. So many scales. So many hammer ons and pull offs with the uncomfortable fingers. So many exercises. It's helping. And my rasgueado is very good now. Let's get this straight. I am an undergraduate. I'm here to develop to a complete guitar player. Not to win competitions. Not to put on monster recitals. Not to record an album. That comes when I'm a master student. I love how this blog was about nothing but punk music during the summer and now it's non stop guitar and classical music. But never doubt me, I up the punx no matter what. The new Polar Bear Club album leaked. Such a disappointment. If anything, I thought they'd get heavier but they got poppier and really just lost a lot of their identity. The Redder The Better was a flawless EP because each song had it's own identity yet still had the same sound. The LP was fantastic as well. But this album lacks so much. Like Vivek said, no athems, no sing alongs, no hooks. It's missing. There is only about 3 songs that I particularly like. I love Polar Bear Club. Everyone knows that. And this is really a huge disappointment. They were one of those bands(like A Wilhelm Scream, Thrice, Lagwagon, The Swellers) who I saw as incapable of writing a bad album. But I'm afraid they did. I'm going to let this grow on me hopefully, but I'm not sure it's going to happen. Here is the first Polar Bear Club song I ever heard and it probably means the most to me. Hearing that guitar melody in the beginning gives such a flashback of Summer of 08. I take music in such high fucking regard.

Polar Bear Club-Hollow Place

It's hard to know where we should go
When home's too far away and "here" is a hollow place
Where people come to softly hum
The songs that scare you most, believe me I'm scared enough

The Constants Aren't So Constant Anymore

2009-08-28T22:37:00.004-05:00

Today was the day it finally hit me. It finally hit me at where I'm at. I'm at a music conservatory. I'll get to why in a little bit. I went to register the other day. David fucking Tannenbaum is my advisor. How sick is that? I'm taking 18 1/2 credits of straight up MUSIC. I love it. I've got Introduction to the History of Western Civilization, Sight Singing, Music Theory, The Alexander Technique (The Alexander technique is an alternative medicine educational discipline with therapeutic effects that studies bodily coordination, including psychological principles of awareness. It is applied for purposes of recovering freedom of movement, in the mastery of performing arts, and for general self-improvement affecting poise, impulse control and attention.-Wiki), Guitar Ensemble, Guitar Literature(classical and romantic), guitar lessons with Lawrence Ferrara and Guitar Performance which is essentially guitar lab. I'm going to be at school from 8-3:30 on Mondays, 8-9am on Tuesdays, 8-12pm and 3-630 on Wednesdays, 8-9 and 12-1 on Thursdays, and 10-11 on Fridays. So many classes! But I'm so excited for it. I just don't know how I'm going to manage my classes, practicing 5 hours a day, hopefully a job and the relationship I will unfortunately end up in. BRING IT.

While getting registered, David told me to go by his office and check out guitars for rent on Friday which is today. So I figured, well, I don't have the money, but playing some sweet guitars would be awesome. So I forced myself to get up early and headed over there. No words can describe. I played on at least 5 or 6 guitars that blow mine out of the water. Playing on guitars that are worth 15-20k. It felt great. I would play a g minor chord and every time I would outloud just go "ohhhhh!" cause it felt so warm. So beautiful. I was playing on Smallman guitars. While playing and talking about the guitar I was playing, David says to me, "Yeah John Williams was playing that recently and just saying how much he loved it." My jaw dropped. JOHN WILLIAMS?! I'm playing on the same guitar John Williams touched?! and enjoyed?! For those who don't know, John Williams is hands down one of the greatest guitar players to ever live. He was considered the hands down BEST for quite some time and I always listen to his records for certain pieces. Anyway, so I explain how I don't have a job and can't afford it and leave and then a fellow student says "Hey! It's free! You don't have to have a job!" My mouth dropped yet again. SMALLMAN GUITARS AVAILABLE TO RENT FOR FREE?! How?! No way! But since you can only rent them out a week at a time, I decided to wait until I have a performance to do so. Incredible offer though.

So earlier today we had a guitar department meeting. Finally. Introduced ourselves. Larry, David and Mark all introduced themselves to us as well as the Guitar Lit. teacher who's name I have forgotten. They gave us a list of all the activities around the city and went on to further explain how San Francisco is hands down the best city in the country for classical guitar. I had always heard it was one of the best, but they went ahead and cleared it up for me. There are just so many things to do around here for guitar. It's an incredible feeling. Then we had a special guest guitar maker who brought in two 19th century guitars and explained them to us. Unbelievable. I got to try them out and the sound and feeling was just amazing. After everything I finally met my teacher Lawrence(Larry) Ferrara. Super nice guy. I can tell he's not going to put me down and tell me I'll never be more than a mediocre musician like one teacher did. We talked for a while and the difference between this meeting and my meeting with Mr. Hii is great. When I met Mr. Hii, I was like a scared child and didn't have any sort of confidence in myself. When I met Larry it started with a nice handshake, a smile, and a "How's it going?" I'm going to get to be myself around him and I'm excited for that. He asked me what I was working on and seemed very impressed. I look forward to his teaching so much.

It was around when David was talking about the program and I was looking around the room at all the guitar players who could whoop my ass at guitar that it hit me. I'm at a music conservatory. This is one of the best guitar schools and one of the best music schools in the world and I am having an unbelievable opportunity to attend such a school. Everything was such an inspiration. There was a free BBQ at some park for all new students and not for a second did I think about going because I wanted to practice so bad. I got back to my room and practiced for 4 hours straight. Practice has been consistent. I'm back to a good 3-5 hours a day and it feels great. I think this is the first non stoked on punk music post I've made ever. How bout that? Well, I'll break that somewhat. I've been listening to the Get Up Kids a lot lately. Get Up Kids? Smoking Popes? I'm a good 13 or so years late on this 90's emo thing. But I love it. Alright. Time to hit the town!

The Get Up Kids-Holiday

Say goodnight means goodbye.
I know you think my life would stop with you away
Maybe I can see you on the holidays,
But you're worlds away

But California...Not California...How Could You?

2009-08-24T14:54:00.009-05:00

I'm getting to know my area quite well. Market street is one of the main streets in the entire city and you can pretty much get anything you want or need on this street. This past week was placement exams week. The theory one went about as expected. I was never outstanding in theory so the exam went so-so. They used a little bit of different terminology that really threw me off. I will most likely be put in Theory 2 which while yeah, it sucks I have to re-take theory, it's really a good thing. Re-learning that stuff is good. Next was my sight singing and dictation. My strong point. When I was at Del Mar, it seemed like the harder the classes got, the better I got at sight singing. I made an A on just about every skills exam and dictation exam back in those days. So the sight singing was ok. I'm definitely rusty with sight reading. All I could think of before was how Josh used to make fun of me for singing like a backstreet boy. "DO MI SO MI DO!" haha. So it went pretty good. Next up was dictation. First part was written and I could have done it blindfolded. Super easy. Then the actual dictation came up and good ol Prime Time Raziel didn't disappoint. I nailed everything with certainty. After the first part was complete, the teacher told everyone who doesn't think they can pass the advanced part needs to leave. About 30% of the room stayed. So the first melodic dictation comes up and after 1 playing, more than half the room got up and left. The melody was played fast and it was at least 8 measures in 3/4 timing. WITH ONLY 3 PLAYINGS. What?! But I managed to get about 60% of it. The rest was pretty simple. Harmonic dictation was a bit rough. Rhythm was easy. I don't think I passed out of it but I definitely got in the advanced class. Oh and keyboard? Piano? Tested out! And to be honest, I don't think I could ever take a piano class that could possibly top my classes at Del Mar. Especially that last semester. Miss those guys and Sutanto. I just had my guitar ensemble audition where I played Etude #2 by Villa Lobos. It went well but I accidentally played the run in free strokes rather than rest strokes. Oh well. After that was some really sight reading in a minor.

It was a few posts ago where I talked about all the great punk shows in San Francisco. As if my mind wasn't already blown away with that, I found out the guitarist playing in San Francisco this year. Ready? AH! Kazuhito Yamashita, Manuel Barrueco, Scott Tennent, Pepe Romero, Xuefei Yang, Roland Dyens, David Russell. What. The. Fuck. Kazuhito Yamashita is the most dramatic guitarist EVER. Barrueco in his prime is the best guitar play to ever live. Scott Tennent is one of the absolute most technical guitarist out there. Pepe Romero has the best right hand EVER and is the best spanish guitar player EVER. And I've gotten a once in a lifetime opportunity to get a lesson with him and seen him in concert. Xuefei Yang falls into the reputation(robots) of all asian guitarist, but she is fantastic and plays what is in my opinion, the most beautiful piece ever written for the guitar in Spring Breeze by Gerald Garcia. Roland Dyens is one of my favorite living composers right now and is in my opinion one of the best classical guitarist around. David Russell has perfect tone and is one of the top 5-10 guitar players around. I just was in shock. Jaw 100% dropped when I saw this line up. I may get the chance to have master classes with Barrueco, Dyens and Russell. What. The. Fuck. I don't deserve this!

I know I say this every update, but living in the city is great. I've walked so much over the past week. The walking does kind of suck because of the hills though. But it's a nice workout. I'm trying to get a job not at the school so I can meet non-conservatory people. I want to have a life outside of the school. So I figure being at punk shows and getting a job is good for that. I'm going to try and work at Cold Stone again! haha. The people that know me best know my order there. Love it, mint with oreos and EXTRA gummi bears. Delish. While walking is fun, it does have it's bad parts. I've walked through some super sketchy streets and encountered a big group of guys I would have rather not. Encounter may not be the word but I walked right through them and it really sucked. Walking at night is a little rough too. All the homeless mock me when I'm on the phone. I can't stress to you how many homeless people there are here. Short story? There was one night where me and 5 or 6 other people were walking to a party that was a good 20 minute walk away. Well we know we're in the somewhat ghetto and we see a group of guys standing outside an apartment building. So we're walking and as we're passing them up, one guy jumps out the front door with a knife and a doo-rag over his mouth and screams. But immediately after says "nahhh jk!" What?! You don't just do that! I nearly pissed myself. If you had told me a year ago today that I would eventually be at a party on a balcony 20 stories high in downtown San Francisco, I would have never believed you.

I'm not sure why, but you can't find any Pedro The Lion videos on Youtube. You can find David Bazan, but none of those videos where it's just the song playing. I highly recommend everyone to re-live the early days of my senior year of high school by listening to Pedro The Lion's Achilles Heel. Very easy to listen to. Interesting voice, interesting melodies, story telling lyrics. Just very soothing and mellow. It's one of the few bands that I like that any girl would love. I love it and am trying to listen to more of their stuff these days.

Pedro The Lion-Transcontinental

The luxury of having been spared the hard part
You'd think would be enough for me to pull this off
But i'm left to bleed to death
Now all the man i've ever been
North am transcontinental

Tear Us Up and Stuff Us Down The Drain

2009-08-18T02:02:00.004-05:00

Greetings from San Francisco, California! Not much music to talk about. The weather is perfect. It's like a perfect Spring afternoon during the day and a perfect October night during the night. Always around 50 or 60 degrees. I love it. I live on the street shown above. A little bit upwards to the left. It's really sweet living the city life so far. Always people walking. Always bums on the street screaming random things. There is a McDonalds right across the street from my dorm so it looks like I will be playing that stupid Monopoly game even though I wanted to avoid it this year. A Burger King down the street. A Subway down the street. A Walgreens literally 30 seconds away. Walking is great. It hurts after a while but it's great. I was originally in a shared room but got to move out to a single so I'm staying by myself now. So that means a lot of good things haha. I visited the Conservatory today. The school is beautiful. Got all my financial things situated. I don't know if it's because I turned 20 today, but I got so inspired to practice. I practiced for 3 hours straight for the first time since March. I loved it. Grocery shopping and shopping for my dorm was awful. Hate shopping. Everyone I've met has been really awesome too. A few girls greeted me with a happy birthday in song with harmonies and everything. It was awesome. I just got back from hanging out with a fellow guitarist and we were just playing for each other and teaching each other new things. I love everything about this experience so far. You can learn something from everyone here. More updating when actual music events happen. But for now I'll leave you a song off of The Greatest Story Ever Told. I've been listening to the album non-stop lately.

Of paper and tobacco and the bad breath smoke singin'
"Hey man, lemme tell you a joke."
"Well what's attached to a leash that it made itself?"
"The punchline is the way that you've been fuckin' yourself."

There's No Telling What I'll Do If I Don't Return To You.

2009-08-11T23:45:00.005-05:00

This is the last post from Corpus Christi for a while.

Goodbye, Corpus Christi. San Antonio may have brought me into this world but I'll always say I'm from here. You have given me potentially the happiest and best year of my life in 2009 so far. But like they say, all good things come to an end, right? I am happily going to let San Francisco, California, the 3rd best city to live in according to this one website, finish off this outstanding year. No more Whataburger. No more HEB. No more driving. No more not having anything to do. No more Gulf Of Mexico. No more parents. No more of my past around every corner. No more disgusting weather. But don't worry, I'll be back December 22nd where I will hang out with my family, eat non stop bobs, make new and rekindle old girls of interest, party, run into all the people I don't want to and enjoy the holidays with the friends I love so much.

New Chapter in life: San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Alkaline Trio-San Francisco

I was drinking you goodbye
My heart floats in the bay
From sour home Chicago
I hear it beating far away
There's no telling what I'll do
If I don't return to you

Tonight I Will Redefine Everything and Tomorrow I Will Start In On My Better Days

2009-08-05T18:50:00.008-05:00

Usually I wait for there to be a good number of things to talk about before updating this blog, but after last night, it was imperative that I do make this entry. I went to go see Funny People with a good friend Oneida last night. I have so many thoughts on that movie and in the end, I'm not sure I liked or disliked it. So we cruise around downtown in her car just hanging out because it's most likely the last time we'll hang out before I leave. She doesn't have the worst taste in music. I heard some bad stuff, some 90's rap, 90's r&b, and some other crap. But she does have Thrice, some Saves The Day, and some Set Your Goals so it's somewhat tolerable to see her dance and sing along with all the crap music. Well it was on shuffle and a band came up. A band that I had heard about back in that huge huge huge scenester/metalcore/"emo"core era in late 2003 and early 2004. Emery. When the music started playing my jaw literally dropped. I felt my masculinity slipping away. It felt like body parts were deteriorating. It was one of those points to where you evaluate yourself and appreciate that you have not become a slave to such music. The thought that people like this music is unbelievable. The thought that people would go see them live and nod their head or tap their foot makes me cringe. Weren't they just screaming about walls a couple years ago? "Oh it's maturing." Nah man. This is just a bunch of d-bags that tried to go for the whole Panic! At The Disco/Fall Out Boy pop-rock sound so they could bank. You kidding? Seriously, if you like this band, please tell me. It will unfortunately be the end of any sort of friendship we had. I'm gunna stamp them. Emery is one of the worst bands around. Top 10 at least.

I just want to be with you tonight
The mood is set and we're here by candlelight
I paid my dues so don't be rude
Stop putting up a fight
I just want to get with you tonight

WHAT?!!!!?? How could 6 guys approve of these lyrics?! It's like they all sat around and said "Alright guys! What words end in ight?! Kite? Night? Candelight? Eat to bite(the catchy Terminal phrase)? Slight? Fight? Tonight? Might? Light? Dike? Knight? Right? Tight? Quite? Alright? AIGHT? Polite? Invite? Site? Alright! Well grab 3 or 4 of those words and use them back to back to back and make sure we sound like super big vaginas in the process! Sweet! 1-2-3-EMERY!." I can't possibly make a post with out good music on it somewhere. I did mention a few good bands earlier. One of them was Thrice and since Vheissu was pretty much mine and Oneida's relationship anthem, I will post a song from that album.

Thrice-Atlantic

But things can't be as,
They seem.
I'm so far from home.
This must be another dream,
But my eyes are,
Open.

Above The City

2009-08-03T20:39:00.005-05:00

Alarm is set for 10:59. Because NPR no longer wakes me up, I set the alarm to nothing but static so that I'm so alarmed that I have to wake up. Well I didn't have to work today so I snoozed it. Then 10minutes later I turned it off completely and ended up sleeping till 12:20. It's funny with me because during school, I'd always wonder how I ever woke up at such a late time and in summer I wonder how I ever woke up at such an early time for school. Anyway, I had to go to Kohls and return some shirts and on the way, I got the idea that I should go to all the music stores in Corpus and check out their classical guitars. I'm very content with my guitar. It's better than 98% of guitars available in Corpus. But it's always interesting to go check out other guitars. Sadly, I don't remember the names of the guitars I tried.

Music Mart: I didn't expect much from this store. First off, it's run by a bunch of assholes who don't like people to touch their instruments. Second, they don't really carry a wide selection of guitars. Picked up a guitar and messed around on it. Gross. The treble tone felt so weak. Just the over-all feel for the wood felt gross. I always feel like I have a time limit there. Like after 10 minutes of playing they'll demand you to buy it.

Guitar Center: Ohhhh Guitar Center. While it is the music store I go to most, I can't stand it. There is always that 40year old mexican with his guitar turned up real loud playing real bluesy solos. Always the little douche bag kid with his hair in his face playing in drop D. Another kid doing non stop shredding. The people that work there are always pretty friendly though. I ran into my old friend Justin because he works there which is pretty awesome. I get in there and there is only one other guy in there. That one guy happened to be an old friend from high school named Chris Agulair. I think I picked up a Rodriguez of some sort to play. It felt ok. Guitar Center has always had OK guitars. Some older guy walked in there and I knew he was trouble instantly. Chris was praising me and he got in the conversation and eventually he was saying he could teach me a couple things. He was very nice about everything. He said I was amazing and all that stuff but said that he wanted to teach me something so I could play it better than his ablities could. Really? Can I just practice and check out these guitars? So he goes on to do a chord progression. I think it was like a i ii V vii i in c# minor. Then he and another guy got talking about music. Talking about what careers there are with music and how if I learn 1 Bach piece, people from all over the world will want to hear me. What? Then it somehow got into Obama and Bush. It was pretty much a disaster. I bought some strings and took off.

Sound Vibrations: I've had mixed experiences with this place. Only been there a handful of times. When I was younger I went in and started playing and I sware one of the workers tried picking a fight with me. Then another time my freshman year of college I was playing and a worker stood and watched me play. But then again, my girlfriend at the time was wearing a dress so he might have just been looking for an excuse to be around. Sound Vibes usually has the best guitars. I remember playing a super sweet Paco that one time my freshman year of college. I've heard that they have an acoustic room with a super nice classical guitar. I walked in today for the first time in a year or so and asked if I could go in. They kind of gave me a weird look. Someone has to be in there with you at all times so it was super awkward. I knew he wasn't going to let me play the nice guitar right away so I got a decent one first to show that I actually know what I'm doing. After about 5-10 minutes I casually went "Oh wow...can I try that one?" and by this point he was super super super nice to me. Forgot the name but it was supposidley this rare brazillian wood. I was pretty excited. It was worth $5000. My guitar is worth $3100. This guys guitar I've played on in the past was worth $5000 and it was from Argentina. To this day, I have never played on a guitar as good as that one. So I was expecting to be blown away. Results? Eh. Great. Great feel and everything but it didn't live up to it. The worker there was asking me how much different it was than the others and trying to convince me to buy it. I wouldn't pay more than $2500 for it. The whole time I was just thinking, wow, this would be at least 3 g's cheaper in a country outside of the US. He was a super nice guy. Asking me lots of questions just about where I started, how I got into classical, what I'm doing now and for the future. But then he asked a question that immediately made me want to leave. He asked if I knew how to play Flight Of The Bumble Bee. Then went on to tell me how there is this guy on youtube that can play it at 380bpm. I. Don't. Give. A. Fuck. Does that make him good? Does shredding make him a guitar god? No. I'm not even going to get into that whole deal because I have before in a myspace blog(November 14, 2008). After I got out, they guy gave me his card and introduced me to all the employees there. They were all really nice people.

Took a couple wrong turns on my way back home but it was a nice drive. I have 12 days left. 12 days left of living in Texas. Maybe for good. It's a really wild thing to think about. This sounds cheesy but fuck, this is a huge turing point in my life. A new chapter. A whole new experience. In this month of August, my life is going to go through so many changes in every aspect. My life has already changed so much in 2009 and now it's going to go in a whole other direction. As of late, I've been listening to a lot of Lawrence Arms and Smoke Or Fire lately. Also this one song by Smoking Popes called "Megan." It's currently my myspace song. But Bad Astronaut does an excellent cover of it as well.

Bad Astronaut-Megan(Smoking Popes Cover)

Somebody came and took my hand
I finally had to go
But Megan I just want you to know
That I waited as long as I could

And We'll Love And We'll Hate And We'll Die All To No Avail

2009-07-26T20:25:00.003-05:00

Thrice. I figured that's the first word you wanted to read out of this new update. I was in the middle of fighting the good fight on Call of Duty with Badih and I get a text message from my friend Joe asking "If you could listen to Beggars(the new Thrice album coming out in October), would you?" Usually with Thrice, I like to wait until it comes out so I said no. He then replied "Well, the album leaked and I have it on my computer." I couldn't resist. I agreed to go listen to it later on that night. I was freaking out! What if it's bad? What could Thrice have possibly done this time? These questions were all going to come at some point but not till October. It was just too much to handle! This album determines whether my fall semester will be good or not! Such standards! Well the time finally came. Me, Joe and Sabrina parked by the pier and experienced it together. I don't know where to begin. It's so much different. But when hasn't a new Thrice album been? But this time it was a different kind of different. I felt like there was hardly a trace of Thrice in it. I heard a lot of Muse. It was just completely different. Yeah all their albums have been, but they managed to maintain this certain sound to them. The sound to where you knew it was a Thrice song. It's hard to describe. Kind of metalish, darkish, melodic, something that I can hardly put into words. But you just knew it was Thrice. It's kind of like 2:06 on To What End from Identity Crisis. It's kind of like 3:21 of So Strange I Remember You(didn't have the album version) or 2:11 of Kill Me Quickly. It's kind of like :27 or 2:37 of Cold Cash and Colder Hearts. It's kind of like at 4:01 of Music Box or 2:54 of Red Sky. It's kind of like 2:35 of Firebreather or 3:33 of Lost Continent or all of As The Crow Flies or 1:10 of Child Of Dust. Kind of like that? I don't know. It's really hard to describe the sound that I just didn't really hear throughout listening to Beggars. I kept thinking of the color purple? If that means anything. I remember really liking it but it wasn't instant love I don't think. We had agreed not to listen to it again until October 13th though. So maybe I can give a different view of it then.

Fuck. Listening to Water still sucks. I leave in 20 days. I'm unbelievably excited for San Francisco. Not just for the amazing school I will be attending and all the experiences out of that, but for the punk scene. That sounded kind of lame but you know what I mean. There is in OBSCENE amount of shows going through San Francisco in just my first semester it almost pisses me off. Then there is just so many new records coming out. Take a look at my myspace and look at all the shows/records to come. 2009 was meant to be a year of change for me and good fucking god was it ever when it came to living life. The music I have listened to thus far and the shows I've been to and pretty much my entire involvement with music has helped make this year one of the best I've ever experienced. And it's only halfway over. I mentioned Muse. I haven't listened to them a whole lot in my days, but this song is ridiculously good.

Muse-Stockholm Syndrome

It's So Comforting To Know I'll Never Have To Think Again

2009-07-19T23:24:00.003-05:00

So I made a movie. My brother always does this 7 day film festival deal and this year he asked if I could act in it. It involved having to wake up at 5 two mornings in a row to shoot at Starbucks. There was actually a night to where I was out till 3:30am and took a nap from 4:15-4:30am to wake up and take off to starbucks. It was pretty rough. I had a shit ton of lines. I hadn't acted in so long so it was a little hard finding my character with a script 8 pages long. I did get this really intense moment when asked about past relationships though. Unfortunately it will only make it on the extra's/bloopers. It can not be posted until mid August though for certain reasons I'm not 100% sure of. Anyway, what does this have to do with music? Well in movies, there is music. There is a church scene and I gave them a BWV 508 to play during the back ground. It's pure beauty and just another example of why Bach can not be matched. I know your asking, "Why have any other piece of music when you already played Bach once?" But it wasn't my movie so there as other music. We managed to get permission from Mike Hale and Suburban Home Records to use Hale's music for our movie and they have requested a copy. I don't know why, but it gets me super excited that the people from Suburban Homes and Mike Hale are going to get to point and laugh at my acting and our cheesy love story. It will most likely be posted on here when it can.

I visited Waco this past weekend with my family to visit my older brother Randy. It seems I always find myself there at some point in the year. It was a good time. Had good food at George's as always. George's is pretty much the epitome of Texas diners/bars. Just super Texan. Loud country music. Neon signs. Abundance of "cowboys and cowgirls." While I'm completely not into that stuff, it's always pretty fun to experience it. I started to think of how I'm going to miss certain things about Texas. Anyway, it was cool seeing Randy play. Heard a ton of old country songs that I still know all the words to. Good meat. Good Crazy Wings. Good everything. Solid.

Sorry this blog has been somewhat dead lately. I was super busy with that movie and other things. This blog will be much more active once school starts. I mentioned in a previous post about the Thrice cover show. Practices have been pretty fun. There is something else about playing music with a band as opposed to playing solo pieces. Both two very different feelings. Well our set list has changed up quite a bit. Due to certain reasons, we are now playing a little bit less of an intense line-up. It goes as follows.

1. Deadbolt
2. Trust
3. See You In The Shallows
4. Don't Tell We Won't Ask
5. Silhouette
6. That Hideous Strength

and MAYBE Under A Killing Moon. Oh hell! I mentioned Thrice again! You know what that means!

Thrice-Trust

When this frame fails me
Will I trust you to carry me through?
I know there's no such thing as safety
But I know what a promise can do.
Will I trust you, will I trust you to carry me through?
I will trust you, cause I know what a promise can do

Wait, Afterall, He Did Get Us Across The World And Back

2009-07-07T12:31:00.006-05:00

Do dreams actually mean anything? Is it all just a bunch of nothing or is it really just your subconscious showing you everything that really is on your mind whether it be about the past, future, or present? Alright, enough 15 year old girl talk. All I can say is that it's about damn time. I got a text from my friend Justin the other day telling me that my wall of fame picture at Del Mar finally got posted. I went on a day adventure with a lady named Bianca and the FIRST thing we did was go see myself on that wall. It was one of the more arrogant moments in my life, but come on, I had been waiting for that thing to go up for over a year. And I have another one going up next year. I'm one of those losers that got on the wall 2 years in a row. I got on the Wall of Fame for being a winner in the Del Mar Honors Commencement competition. I won it two years in a row. I played BWV1001-Adagio, Presto and BWV996-Prelude y presto, Gigue.

It was a cold day in my sophomore year of high school when my friend Joe linked me to a purevolume(I miss the purevolume days) page for The Swellers. I instantly loved it. And I was super envious that the drummer was 17 or 18 at the time because at the time, being in a bad ass, touring punk rock band was my life goal. It was like if No Use For A Name and Millencolin had a kid that could sing a little better, play guitar a little better, and make just as good if not better melodic pop punk songs. Through out high school and college, they played in Corpus at least 5 times in which I made it to 4 of them and I've seen them in Austin about 3 times. Been somewhat of friends(in the way where I talk to them at every show and they recognize my face but remember me as "thatsyouth," "Roys little brother" or "that corpus kid") with Nick and Jono over the years. Well recently, they signed to a major pop punk(hardly punk) label Fueled By Ramen. Yes that's right. The same label with all your favorite bands like: Paramore, Cobra Starship, The Academy Is..., Fall Out Boy,
Panic! At the Disco and Punchline. Notice how I didn't link them because I don't want you to hear such music. Did I even have to say they signed to Fueled By Ramen? Because I'm pretty sure the picture to the left just SCREAMS Fueled By Ramen. And who's that new bass player? I liked both the old ones. Jono and Nick need to get a line up and stick with it before they get looked at as douche bags like Ryan Kepke from Slick Shoes or Chris Connelley from Saves The Day or Ryan Keys from Yellowcard. Don't get me wrong, I'm so stoked for them. They deserve it. But it's a hard thing to swallow when one of your favorite bands signs to such a label. It's a little bit worse when you have pretty much been there with that band for 80-90% of their existence. But I have faith that they will keep producing great music. Their EP was perfect. Their first LP was nearly perfect as well. Both albums were good, up beat pop punk. But those days seem to be coming to an end. I've always known they were super into stuff like Jimmy Eat World and Foo Fighters and Weezer and just that whole really good alternative rock music deal. After hearing 2 or 3 of their new songs and their attitude on writing new music, it seems they have taken a step closer in this direction. My douche bag friend Vivek did some interning work with the dude from O Pioneers!!! and that guy said that it sounds a lot like Piebald. I really like Piebald. That story may not be 100% accurate. I know Vivek was interning for something involving O Pioneers!!! but one thing that is for sure is that he is a douche bag. Piebald is also a perfect band to listen to at parties. Great, easy listening music that everyone can enjoy.

Why did I start posting all the lyrics to songs? It used to just be 4-5 lines. Back to that. Did I mention Weezer? I did. Well first off, they have made so many great songs in their existence as a band but the main reason I'm posting this is because yesterday my best girl-friend left me to study abroad in Spain. She doesn't get back till August 21st and I will be living in San Francisco by that time. In 8th grade, I would play guitar on the morning announcements and I played Weezer's Island In The Sun as she requested. I fucked up a little bit. She'll never forgive me. Mini-Wheats and classic movies will be experienced come late December.

Weezer-Island In The Sun

When you're on a golden sea
You don't need no memory
Just a place to call your own
As we drift into the zone

This World Is Breeding Cold. Ridiculed. Only Good For A FUCK

2009-07-01T17:52:00.007-05:00

First off, I got sponsored! I no longer have to pay for my flight to and from San Francisco! Unreal! Anyway, so last night was the long awaited night. The night I get to see Joey Cape. It's been mentioned thousands of times what I think of his music and how much I love the guy so I won't even get into it. Me and Joe took off to San Antonio around 5:30. Listened to good music on the way up. We had heard the doors opened at 8. Got there at 8:45 to find out the doors opened at 9. Shitty. But while we were standing outside probably looking like a bunch of n00bz, mother fucking Joey Cape walks out the front door and gets out a cigarette. I had no idea what to do. I wish I smoked so I coulda "bummed a smoke" off of him. I just started talking to him. Asked him about touring, what he's doing next and a few other things. I was a bit upset to hear that Lagwagon is pretty much not active and not looking to be active any time soon but I was stoked to hear he's going home after this tour to record a new acoustic record. It's so cliche to say about a guy you meet from a band, but he really was a super down to earth, nice dude. It was unbelievable. Never did I think I'd meet the guy and be able to talk with him.

It was an all acoustic show. This would be the first show I ever attend sitting down at a table. Felt kinda classy. First band went up who's name I forgot. Eh. They could learn a few things from Joey Cape and other acoustic song writers. Whenever you make your pop punk song into an acoustic song, there is so much more to it then just playing the exact same thing on acoustic guitars. Musically, it should almost feel like a different song. The only difference between their actual music and acoustic music was the acoustic guitar. Everything was pretty up-beat and was just kind of boring.

Next up was Joe Snodgrass and Cory Branan. Joe Snodgrass has an undeniably great voice. He opened up with "Break Your Frame" by Bad Astronaut. Him and Cory Branan would just switch off songs. I had never heard of Cory Branan before, but he really really impressed me. He kinda looks like he's hopped up something the entire time and is super energetic and passionate when he sings. He is a fantastic guitar player as well. Listening to his music is like listening to a humorous short story. It was extremely entertaining watching him. Here is a video of Cory Branan.

Obviously up next was Joey Cape. What was an awesome feeling was knowing that no matter what he played, I would be extremely stoked for every song because he has hardly written any songs I don't like. He played songs off his solo album along with songs off the Lagwagon and Bad Astronaut records. Seeing May 16th was a dream come true seeing as to how it's my all time favorite song.

Set list:

1. Not A Dull Moment
2. Only Good For A...
3. Whipping Boy
4. The Contortionist
5. Who We've Become
6. Wind In Your Sail
7. Move The Car
8. Killers and Liars
9. Errands
10. Canoe
11. You Deserve This
12. No Little Pill
13. Minus
14. Last Train
15. The Kids Are All Wrong
16. May 16th
17. Alien 8
18. Lullaby
19. Greg's Estates
20. 500 Miles
21. Grey Suits
22. Violins
23. Razorburn

I was able to snatch the set list and have him sign it. It's still kind of hard to accept that I saw and met the lead singer of my favorite band of all time. He is such an inspiration to me. This year has just been too much for me. I have had so many great things happen. Auditioning for schools, flying to New York, getting accepted into 3 or 4 schools, getting TONS of scholarship money to go to sfcm, running around Texas Stadium, visiting the new stadium, the amazing week I spent in Brownsville with the trio, whipping out every one in that competition, the 4-5 performances I was asked to do in representing Del Mar, going up to Austin numerous times, seeing Propagandhi, listening to great music, enjoying all the what seem to be endless perks of being single, the parties. Everything about 2009 has just been amazing and it's literally only halfway done. And I have just so much to look forward to.

Bad Astronaut-Our Greatest Years

In the ashes of our greatest year
I forced the point and gave them grief
As if I find relief to see the worst in everyone
Still it's hard to be cruel to you
I wish I could- no that's not it
See what I mean to say is this
In this mad world it's hard to see the imperfection in your smile
And it's hard to be true to you
Even though I run away from you, I'm sorry
I wish I had chosen to be true
I'm sorry, I miss your disposition and your strength
I'll miss your disposition and your
Strength to see the best in everyone
Still it's hard to be cruel to you

We'll Raise An Empire From The Bottom Of The Sea

2009-06-26T19:29:00.007-05:00

Anyone that reads this is probably sick of me talking about Thrice but I don't care. They are my second favorite band of all time for a reason. Back in the day of being a young 16 year old high school kid with braces and down on his girl luck, I made a good friend named Badih through working at H-E-B. We either talked about how fucked up bitches were, or Thrice. Mainly just Thrice. He always knew of my guitar playing ability and he used to sing in a band when he was in high school so we started playing together. We played a horrible show on new years of 06/07. We played I think Saves The Day, Thrice, Rise Against and Judas Priest haha. It was a great time in it's own awful way. Me and Badih would later do little recordings of Thrice and Flight Of The Conchords. But it was around Christmas time of 2007 where we got the best idea ever. Do a Thrice cover show. Fucking why NOT? It's about the only way I'd be stoked to play electric guitar again. So I got my friend Joe who loves Thrice as much as me to play bass, and Badih got his close friend Matt to play drums. He had an empty house so we got to play there which was beyond amazing. We ended up playing:

1. To What End
2. Ultra Blue
3. T&C
4. Deadbolt
5. In Years To Come
6. The Beltsville Crucible
7. So Strange I Remember You
8. Trust

The show ended up going about a 7 out of 10. So Strange didn't sound all too great. But it really was a great time. Well we decided to turn this into an annual thing and are doing it again this year. But this time we have added our friend Vivek to play guitar to ease the pressure off Badih's singing. The songs for THIS year go as:

1. Deadbolt
2. Trust
3. That Hideous Strength
4. Firebreather
5. Cold Cash and Colder Hearts
6. Kill Me Quickly
7. Don't Tell We Won't Ask
8. Red Sky

July 31st. At Tanners shop. There may be some metalcore band playing before us. It should be just as fun as last year. Be there. Even if you don't like Thrice. Watch me play electric guitar for a change.

Michael Jackson straight up died yesterday. It's really a weird thing. I heard over the news, "Just like I remember where I was when Elvis died, I will always remember where I was when I heard the news of Michael Jackson dying." My experience? It had been a good day. I got snow cones with Bianca and then headed to pick up my brother from work which is at that huge building by the Omni downtown. I finished up my phone conversation with a good friend Oneida and once my brother got in the car, I just turned up the music. We were listening to Thrice. I actually tested him by showing him all the ending tracks to the Alchemy Index to see if he would catch that they all end in the same progression. He didn't. Anyway, it was at the light where Burger King was to my left where I got a text from my brother saying "Michael Jackson might be dead. He's in a coma." I remember my brother was talking to me about something and I just put the phone down kinda confused. Then I got another text saying "Confirmed." It was weird. I was on a curve, listening to Thrice, listening to my brother talk and trying to kind of grasp the text message I had just received. He's kind of just one of those guys that would live a long time secluded from the world. In come the never ending jokes about his death. I'm not down with it. I've seen people say things of "whatever, his music sucked anyway." False. I don't particularly enjoy his music but I don't think it sucks. The guy is "King Of Pop" for a reason. He had a bigger impact than arguably anyone did in mainstream music history. Sure, the dude had a fucked up last decade or so, but that doesn't undo what he did for music. He is an icon and a legend and will be deeply missed.

I talked too much about Thrice to not post yet another video of them. It's also kind of fun to post something off Identity in one post and then something off the Alchemy Index in the next. Completely different band.

Thrice-Firebreather

Tell me are you free
Tell me are you free
In word or thought or deed
Tell me are you free
While the gallows stand

And bullets lance the bravest lungs
We fold our hands and hold our tongues

Tell me are you free
When the fear falls on you
Tell me are you free
When the fear falls on you

Tell me are you free
Tell me are you free
In word or thought or deed
Tell me are you free
While the gallows stand

And bullets lance the bravest lungs
Will I fold my hands or hold my tongue

Or let the flames lick at my feet
Or breathe in fire and know I'm free
Flames will rise and devour me
Oh, to breathe in fire and know I'm free

Know I'm free!

Me and My Friend Rad!

2009-06-23T01:17:00.005-05:00

Tuxedos are too expensive. What's the difference between a suit and a tux? A vest? Why was I wearing a tux? My cousin was having a wedding and well, I was a groomsmen. I looked sharp! Ok, get to music. Got it. When I got to the church, the first thing I saw was this magnificent, sweet as hell organ. I just wanted to play the melody of the brandenburg concerto I play on it. It was incredible. Anyway, I tend to forget how traditional weddings are. I tend to forget that the actual wedding march is played during weddings haha. I couldn't help but laugh. But the laughing quickly stopped. What I heard was a disgrace to the Wedding March. What I heard was a disgrace to anyone who has ever touched an organ. What I heard was a disgrace to music. The organ player must have been 98 year olds and yeah, he was hitting all the right notes, but for some reason decided to harmonize the right hand with nothing but MINOR 2ND's. It sounded awful. Painful. I'm sure everyone in the church was wondering like I was about to vomit. I couldn't take it. How could he do this? Does he not know? Does he think we're all too ignorant to notice? I wanted to stop it immediately. Seriously, it's the wedding march. The WEDDING MARCH. Have some respect. Not only for the people at the church, but for the sake of traditional music. This will not happen at my wedding. My wedding will consist of a string quartet playing all the brandenburg concerto's along with some other Bach favorites of mine. Then I will have a piano player play a piano version of May 16th for me and my wife's first dance. Seriously, the whole wedding could be nothing but pink flowers and yellow ducks, I won't give a shit as long as I'm in charge of the music.

Hit The Switch just recently put out a new record, "Observing Infinities." I had been waiting for this for so damn long. Their last record, "Domestic Tranquility and Social Justice" was fucking perfect. Not a single song missed. People compared it to early Thrice and we all know how great Thrice is at any stage of their career. Well I just got the new one in the mail and I do dig it, but I'm sad to say it's not as good as their last. The opening track is just way too long. Opening tracks should be sweet and to the point. No 2-3 minute music intro with mediocre music once the vocals kick in. What about a really heavy build up opener and then the second track is really good and energetic? That's good. But this was all on one track. Anyway, they seem to have a different sound. Kind of? It's like I'm listening to two different bands. One kinda skate punk and one a little more thrash with some sort of rock guitar and vocals. I don't completely dislike it but I definitely prefer the more skate punk songs. They were a little thrashy on Domestic and I loved it. Nishtagea Theory was my 3 or 4th favorite off that album. But this is in a different way that I can't really find the words to describe. There are a few songs that leave me just kinda confused with why the song just happened. Tidal Wave is great. Even though Ample Bright leaked about a year ago, I still love it. Last Light is incredible for it's intense outro. I don't think I've dropped my jaw in awe over a gang vocal outro like that in a long time. The last track, The Everfading Afterglow is easily one of the songs of the year. The melody is outstanding. Matt's voice just goes to all the right notes at the right times. Just when you think it can't get any better, it does. You really just have to listen to it. Buy this. You won't regret it.

I mentioned Thrice earlier. Early Thrice that is. For the people who haven't heard Thrice, you should scroll down and watch the Thrice video I posted I think 2 or 3 entries ago. Completely different than what your about to see. This is a song off their album, Identity Crisis. It's actually called "A Torch To End All Torches" not a turbo torch. I posted this rather than a sweet live video so you can view the ignorant user and forever remember him as a dumbass.

Misguided satellite
I circle by habit,
can't find my orbit to save my life
I want to fall,
I want to burn,
like an ignorant craterless meteorite
Long ago I was derailed,
long ago the mission failed
but in the distance there appears a light

Disgruntled architect
building a palace
cant make it perfect to save my life
victimless crime ride the wrecking ball in
evacuate now while I breathe dynamite
Efforts all to no avail
I'm perfection's countervail
torn in pieces, I am made contrite

And in my darkest hour
the brightest light draws near to me
a torch to end all torches,
this is the light that sets me free
all shadows burn away now
but by his grace I am sustained
though all was lost,
now all is found and more is gained

Lift me up and make me whole
Instill in me a new hope
Breathe new life into my soul

Suddenly, It Hits Me; A Feeling I've Never Known

2009-06-13T14:32:00.006-05:00

What's today? The 13th? What does that mean? Does is mean the 500th monthaversary with a girl? No. Does it mean the 300th monthaversary with a girl? No. It means it is the 2 year anniversary of the day I embarked on the best 3 weeks of my life. Think about the best experience of your life. Think about the best days of your life. They probably and hopefully have an album or a selection of songs you can tie with, right? In the summer of 2007, me and about 5 other of my all time best friends went to Europe together with 30+ other people of 3 weeks. We had known about it a year in advance and we hyped it up to be the best experience we'd ever get. Usually, things won't live up to the hype. This trip lived up and surpassed it. This trip was Lebron James. I got to completely escape my home life. I remember feeling terrible before I left. At the last second I asked myself, "Wait! Why do I want to leave my kick ass life behind for the 3 weeks?" But it was just anxiety. Being able to escape. Being able to vacation was absolutely amazing. Not only because of where I was going but it left me off the hook of my restrictions at home. My parents, my girlfriend, my job. All the things that were kind of like chain balls on my leg, I got to get away from and do what ever I wanted with out their permission. Anyway, I had known that The Swellers LP, My Everest was going to come out just days before the trip started. Me and my friend Joe labeled that to be our Europe anthem the day we found out the release date. It was just perfect. Mostly happy. Up-beat. Great melody. Great everything. But not only was it the anthem for Europe, it was also the anthem for the month after the trip as well so there are memories I'd rather not reflect on. My twin brother Romey was listening to it on his laptop in his room with his door open and I literally got up and closed his door because I just don't want to hear it unless I choose to. There is one song on the album called "Skoots" which was always my favorite. It has an acoustic song called "Keep Looking Where Your Eyes Are Looking Now" before it to kind of build up to it. A prelude, if you will. Kind of like The Kids Are All Wrong to May 16th by Lagwagon. Or Feels Like Home to International You Day by No Use For A Name. Not only does this song completely get me nostalgic about Europe, it also gets me nostalgic about the day I got home from Europe which all bitterness aside, is still one of the happiest moments I've ever experienced. So obviously, there is no way I can listen to that and if I do, there is no way I can listen to it with out working up a tear or two. ESPECIALLY when the guitar solo starts and then the bridge and outro. Terrible! But I really just can't explain to you what the album means to me. It was playing on my ipod 24/7 in Europe and was playing in my car(my dads car) all through out summer. The people I grew close with on that trip were people I had known for so long yet never gotten tight with. It really was a beautiful thing. The trip created so many memories. Memories and stories from Europe that can never get old to tell. Stories that I probably shouldn't tell and memories that I try to forget.

I posted about Chris Issac the other day on the tragic accident he lost his life to. I went to his funeral a couple of days ago. Every time(which thankfully isn't often) I go to a funeral, I think of what my friend Joe said to me while we were on our way to our friends dad's funeral. He said, "We should listen to Skoots, man." I asked why and he replied "Cause I don't have clothes for days like these, I never thought they'd come to me." Anyway, I headed to the funeral in Robstown. There were hundreds of people. You couldn't move 2 inches it was so packed. I saw lots of faces that I missed. Funerals are never an easy thing to attend. Hearing from his mom was heartbreaking. There wasn't a dry eye in the place. He idolized his older brother for his guitar playing and his older brother played a very soothing explosions in the sky esque song for him. His mom expressed how he always loved music and always chose to pursue it. It really hit home with me. She then said a number of times for people to always do what they love. Chris's love and passion for music really is an inspiration. It's what he wanted to do. It's what Kayla wanted to do. I wasn't very close with either of them, but I'll never forget them while I'm on this long road with music. The words Mark said to me as I hugged him are words I'll never forget.

Here is a live version of The Swellers-Keep Looking Where Your Eyes Are Looking Now/Skoots

Six of us pack in the car and stare out at the stars
Wondering if you're up there
When I heard the news I went numb
At first in denial but somehow, I knew

Don't look down
Set yourself up for falling
Don't look back; the past is never good enough
Don't look up, you won't find answers in the clouds
Keep looking where your eyes are looking now

Death, another waste of plans
I'm shaking, I can't stop my hands
I'm writing words but I still lost my voice
Shoved in the back room with old friends, we had no choice
I never thought I'd see you here

I don't have clothes like days like these
I never thought they'd come to me
But I'm still here
It wasn't hell that turned you black
The ashes did when you got back
I'm sorry

The same six at all the shows
But now that its a funeral
The room has overflowed
So good of you to finally show support when the admissions free
And the congregation shows their gratitude

I don't have clothes like days like these
I never thought they'd come to me
But I'm still here
It wasn't hell that turned you black
The ashes did when you got back
I'm sorry

Would you have said what Father said you'd say?
Is it hard to set words straight once you're away
They made you speak out of your lifeless mouth
I read words you wrote when you were around
You'd want to be a tree strong in the ground
And you would have said, Keep looking where your eyes are looking now

I'm Going To Get There. Your Going To See Me. Your Going To Say That So Much Has Changed

2009-06-10T12:39:00.003-05:00

Can you believe I'm going to play there? I'm losing days. Only about 60+ left. But I've been having a really good time in each one so it's all good. I made my first friend at the school over a facebook group. A guitar player actually. He's from Sweden. From Sweden. I was looking over the pictures of all the kids in the group and they are mostly foreign names and have these professional pictures of themselves and their instruments. It makes me wonder what in the hell I am doing going to that school. I'm just hoping I'm not going to be the only guy who enjoys going out and having a good time. But then I think about it and realize all these kids are my age so there's no way it could be like that. Not that partying and stuff is my top priority, but you have to have balance, you know? I recently stopped hiding from my fear and started practicing rasgueado. I dislike flamenco music for the most part, but it's a great technique to have. It's been frustrating. It's not my style and my right hand just isn't handling it well. But I have to keep practicing. I've only been doing it for two days so I'm hoping I see results soon. Just talking with another guitar player got me inspired. I already started to feel that competitiveness flow through my body. And again, it isn't so I can be better than him and he feels like he's below me or anything like that. It's just because I want to be the best at what I do. Not to gloat. But for self satisfaction. Because I don't believe in having limits. Rarely will I ever say something is too hard. Challenging yourself is the best possible thing. Especially at the level I'm at.

Lets talk about bands that used to be good but aren't anymore. That list could go on for a while but for now we'll talk about 2. One more so than the other. When I go to work, physically I'm there but not for a second am I there mentally. All I think about is music. Whether it's my guitar playing, classical music, or punk music. Through out the shift, at least 5-10 songs will be stuck in my head and I'll be singing it to myself in my head. One of those recent songs was Punchline's "Getting There Is Getting By." Probably still on my top 20-30 favorite pop punk songs of all time. It come off Punchline LP "Action." back in 2003? I believe. I got it in 2004 for my birthday and it really was a solid anthem(along with other bands) for my first semester of sophomore year in high school. I still consider that year huge for the fact that I developed so much. I experienced dealing with extreme regret, missing another girl who literally flew out of my life, introduced into classical guitar, started going to shows, and just a bunch of other stuff that I hadn't experienced my freshman year. Anyway, one of the guys who made that band was the guitarist/singer who gave them that real pop punk sound. He left after that album was released and that's where it went to crap. They got another guitarist and released an album, "37 Everywhere" and wow, it was some wuss-ass pop music. It was always wuss stuff but this was just bad wuss stuff. I know bands on Fueled By Ramen aren't tough dudes but fuck, it was just painful to hear. A band with genuine pop punk in them, gone down the toilet.

Anti-Flag. I don't know where to begin. They ran my life 9th and 10th grade. I thought I was SO punx listening to them on my huge discman. Especially in "Police Story" where Justin sings "What a bunch of fucking shit!" Then onto how cops beat up homies and stuff. A New Kind Of Army is still easily on my top 10 favorite albums of all time. But boy have they take a turn. In 2005, they signed with major label RCA and released "For Blood and Empire" which I will admit, I rather enjoyed. There were a few really bad songs but I approved of it for the most part. They somehow got put on the Madden 2007 sound track which was a bad sign. Then they released "The Bright Lights Of America" and good god, it was terrible. It's just this radio sounding/call out to the mall punx/immature crap put onto a disc. Unbelievable. They left RCA and hooked up with SideOneDummy which had some sort of hope in it. Nope. They just released "The People Or The Gun" andI don't know what it is, but I'm done with Anti-Flag. Maybe I'm just over the whole gimmick? Maybe I'm over the same recycled, more whored out than my ex-girlfriends guitar riff that they seem to use in at least 4 songs on every album. But the thing is, I did give this a listen. I did give it a chance. I know I was skeptical about it, but I always try to have an open mind. This is just not good and it's a little depressing to see a band that meant so much to me growing up just go to waste. Not every band can be Lagwagon and Thrice I guess, right? Here is a little something nice for you people. Even nicer to have the Souls covering it immediately after. A song that you've probably never heard but you've definitely heard of...

Anti-Flag-That's Youth

When all you hear is that, "you cant " or "give up" or "you're a fool"
and you're so sick of all the in crowd and trying to be cool
And you still dont, still you dont. still you dont know what to do...
But in the end you do your own thing, and you tell'em to get screwed!!!

This World Cannot Be Saved

2009-06-06T20:52:00.007-05:00

It was about midnight friday night where I was just sitting and playing Call of Duty pretty bummed that I'm not going to do anything on a friday night for the first time in months. I had the opportunity to go to a party out on the Island but didn't feel too much like going because it was too far. My friend was trying to convince me to go but I was being kind of lazy. But he said he'd drive so I didn't turn it down. We went down staples up to the freeway and saw that it was closed off with tons and tons of cops surrounding it. Figured something bad went down. I texted my old friend Oneida to see if she wanted to join and she responded saying her friend had died. I asked if it had anything to do with the freeway and she called me and told me all the details. My heart sank. My body just went numb. 3 guys headed to the movies around 9:30pm were rear ended by an underage drunk driver. 1 kid died on impact. The other is in critical condition with very little chance of survival and another that only has a few scratches. One of the main reasons I've always liked my friend Oneida is because she's so thick skinned. A tough girl. And to hear her tear up was very difficult. These guys were just headed to the movies with friends man. All about my age. They have so many loved ones. There is no reason for this kind of thing to happen. They're too young. It really put things into perspective. They just had no idea. The rest of the night I was just kinda rattled and hardly talked at the party. Didn't take one drink. It infuriated me that this all happened because a couple high school kids were being nothing but a couple of fucking high school kids. They were charged with vehicular man slaughter. I hope they serve a damn good amount of time. You can read the story here.

Thankfully I've never had someone extremely close to me lose their lives. But last night reminded me a lot about November 20th, 2004. The night Kayla and Jilayne lost their lives. I'll never forget how that night played out. I'll never forget that sinking feeling. A music scholarship was created to honor Kayla's love for music. I got it my senior year and was quite proud and honored to represent Kayla. I didn't know her personally, but I feel like I owe it to her. Not only do I represent her in that, but in the Thrice cover show I do every summer, the singer, Badih, dedicates it to Kayla. You can read about her story here.

I know this pretty much has to do nothing with music but I thought it should be mentioned on here. Today was a day where I couldn't listen to The Descendents. A mourning day if you will. I listened to Joey Cape last night and today. I've been pretty bummed so far. It's hard to cope with an innocent kid your age dying. And it's hard to not have words for a friend.

Don't drink and drive.

Joey Cape-Home

It's your time
The lights will line your way home
Can you see them?

We Are But Wayfarers With A Wish To Stay Alive For A Cause And For A Dream

2009-06-02T16:22:00.006-05:00

I've known this way cool girl named Kara for a really long time now that I think about it. She texted me the other day asking me to essentially introduce her to punk music. I'm always stoked to do this for people. I've been doing it since the summer before 8th grade where I made a compilation for my future girlfriend/best friend. Had some legit stuff, but also had a bunch of Rufio and Matchbook Romance(West For Wishing EP). The funny thing about when people ask me to do this is that while they see this as just a tiny favor, I see this as a huge deal. I'm having to introduce someone into the music that has ran my entire life. Introduce the music that describes who I am. Introduce someone punk rock music. Such a huge thing to ask of someone. Initially I thought: OK! Here comes 28 or 29 songs of my all time favorite punk songs! Go! But then with help, I realized that it would be clearly just overloading. Too much for someone to handle. Sure, I would expose her to tons of bands, but she wouldn't be able to grasp all the sounds of punk music. So it was decided that I will put 3 songs each by 4 bands. Selecting these bands was really difficult. I debated with my brother which ones they should be. We came up with Hot Water Music, The Descendents, The Get Up Kids, and Audio Karate. Why? Well you get the "orgcore" beard punk. The geeky fun punk from The Descendents. Essentially true, legit emo from The Get Up Kids. And easily one of the most underrated pop punk bands ever, Audio Karate. So the track listing goes as this:

1. The Descendents-Sick-O-Me
2. The Descendents-When I Get Old
3. The Descendents-She Loves Me
4. The Get Up Kids-Holiday
5. The Get Up Kids-Action and Action
6. The Get Up Kids-My Apology
7. Hot Water Music-Wayfarer
8. Hot Water Music-Trusty Chords
9. Hot Water Music-The End Of The Line
10. Audio Karate-Get What You Deserve Inc.
11. Audio Karate-A Whole Lotta Weight
12. Audio Karate-Gypsyqueen

Happy June everybody. Seriously, these summer days are great. I'm really enjoying these last few months living in Corpus. Nights are fun. Days are good. The grass is good. The heat is good. The Descendents are good. The friends and parties are good. It's just been very good. Except for the fact I haven't touched my guitar too much lately. But I told myself I would change that starting this month and I plan on living up to it. I learned the Barrios prelude, I have gotten the first page to Generalife by Turina and I plan on finishing and perfecting the 996 Bach suite. It's that time of the year to where I start playing electric guitar again. Yep. You guessed it! The annual Thrice cover show has come and I couldn't be more stoked for it. Thrice is my 2nd favorite band of all time. I can't begin to tell you how much their music has done for me. I think we're taking it down a notch this year though. Supposed to play slower material but still doing some old ones. Sell outs, huh? Here is a video of one of my top 5 favorite songs by them.

Thrice-Cold Cash and Colder Hearts

We've learned money matters most
So we keep our cards held close
Here at the top of the world

We hold our own by keeping our hearts cold
And we've learned what matters most
So we keep our hearts cold

Start Over Is No Way To Begin

2009-05-28T23:46:00.005-05:00

My older brother gave me a call today. I had texted him earlier in the day expressing my new love for the Descendents and we just talked about punk music/what bands I should check out and all that stuff. He got on me for never getting into The Get Up Kids. Two of my biggest regrets in my near decade of listening to punk music is never heavily getting into The Get Up Kids and Hot Water Music. I've listened to plenty of songs to understand why they are as great and appreciated as they are, but I never went out and bought all of their discography. One of the songs I used to listen to was a song "Out Of Reach" off their Something To Write Home About record. Well, I was going through my ipod to see what Get Up Kids I have and it turns out I had that album. I probably grabbed his CD and put it on my ipod a few years back. Back in the good ol' days(2003), there was no such thing as ipods so I would download music off of Kazaa and make compilations. Well, I was letting the album run while doing things on the internet and Out Of Reach came up. Heart nearly skipped a beat. Nostalgia is such a powerful thing. So many different memories. It made me think of when I had my massive headphones and would walk around school with them. I was a freshman so I probably looked really goofy. It made me think about the people I was close with. The people I would run into during the passing periods. The cold, rainy days of Carroll High School. Days that can't leave my mind. I also remember being in this really terrible band with a few friends. We somehow thought my taste in punk music, the singers taste in ska music and the drummer and other guitarist taste in metal music would make an incredible sound. Obviously it didn't. But there was one practice on a rainy October day where I started the guitar and me and Andy(the singer) sang it together with such intensity. Especially at the 2:47 mark. I remember thinking I was a hard ass too because I was playing with no shirt and my cargo shorts with that infamous strap. Classic. Doesn't sound like a big deal right? But I think those are the best things to look back at. Just being young and having fun with friends. This song can nearly bring tears if I think about it hard enough. At the 1:47 mark, I got a flash back of how I used to look at someone. Isn't that ridiculous?! Nostalgia! Music! It can remind you of how you look at someone! What was it? The 3rd wing of Carroll? Upstairs. I can remember exactly how and where I would stand. The exact position my head was cocked. The exact $11 blue Wal-Mart hoodie with the self made thumb holes that I would wear. The exact position the trees were around me. You gotta love it man.

I love how a majority of the videos I post on this are of soft songs. I don't care though. It's great music. Please excuse some of the images on the video. It was the only one I could find of the song that wasn't live and with bad sound quality. So here it is.

The Get Up Kids - Out Of Reach - MyVideo

There's room to believe
out of sight
out of mind
out of reach
start over is no way to begin

Tell Them It’s Three Years That They'll Have To Wait As Their Whole World Implodes

2009-05-24T12:38:00.006-05:00

Got in the car with my brother and two friends to make the never ending drive to College Station so we could catch the Propagandhi show the next day in Austin. We didn't exactly have a place to stay in Austin. We made a stop at Dairy Queen for some delicious ice cream. Can't go wrong with a vanilla ice cream cone. Anyway, it was at this point to where I took over the driving. While I do hate driving the road to CS, I don't mind it when there is good music and friends. So we put in Supporting Caste because it was only fitting to listen to the band we're going to see the next day. I'm driving, getting into the music, and see this sheriff just cruising on the shoulder of the road maybe 40-50mph. Pass him. No biggie. Well about 2 minutes later he comes up behind me. I go to the side to let him pass. He doesn't pass me. I'm going straight up 70mph. I had the cruise control set. No speeding whatsoever. I go to the side again. He still doesn't pass me. Well after about another 5 minutes of being on my ass, he turns on his lights and pulls me over. Big, hick, stereotypical Texas sheriff. I knew I didn't do anything wrong so while yeah, I was a bit nervous cause it's a sheriff, I wasn't freaking out. Pretty nice guy. Gave me a weird stare along with everyone else. He asked us why we were moving around so much. I said "because we were listening to Propagandhi." Asked us why we were headed where we were. I said "We're going to a punk show!" Apparently my heart was beating fast so he asked me to step outside of the car. I turned to my brother and smiled/opened my mouth in shock. He was quick to ask why I looked at him as I stepped out. "Is he your boss? Does he tell you what to and not to do?" I quickly counter with "Heyyyyyy! That's my twin brother! Can you believe it!?" He responds laughing and saying how much we don't look alike. I love when sarcasm goes over peoples heads. He got all our ID's. He took me behind the car to ask me some questions. Told me that we were all moving around in the car too much. This following part is not a joke made up for humor effect. He asks what schools we all go to(which I couldn't have been with a better crowd). I repeated what they had told him earlier including what school I go to: Cornell, Brown, Texas A&M and San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He asks me, "Aw yeah? Where's that at?" WHAT?! I calmly say "uhh San Francisco." He then asks if I'm in a band. Lighnting was going through my body when he asked me that but I again just said no. We shared a few sarcastic laughs. While he was scanning our ID's and I was just standing on the side of the road by myself, another cop showed up. But he had a nice doggie with him. Searched around and in my friends car for drugs. It was probably at the point where I saw the drug dog in my friends car to where I was like "DAMN. This is happening!" Shared a few more sarcastic laughs with him. Told him he could call me Raz cause earlier he had said how he couldn't pronounce my name and wanted to call me Raz. Got back in the car and took off. Why did we get pulled over? Why did we get accused of having drugs on us? Why?

Because we were jamming Propagandhi's Supporting Caste too fucking hard.

Propagandhi-Back To The Motor League

So it was time. Time to see one of the most legendary punk bands of all time. I was time to see Propagandhi. Canadian Rifle played first. Eh. Ok. Not terrible stuff. Drummer was good. Bridge and Tunnel played next. Never heard them before that night. I was really impressed. TONS of energy and really good music. Next was Trash Talk. Idk man, I'm still waiting to hear why they went on stage and refused to play music. They got half their name right...cause it certainly was TRASH. BURN. Anyway, it was terrible hardcore thrash music. I wanted to kick every slam dancer in the face. Who does that? At a Propagandhi show? Really? It was just god awful music. Propagandhi came on and didn't disappoint. Playing tons of Supporting Caste along with a lot of old classics. The pit was solid. It could have been bigger. Todd has the most intense fist pumps. Chris's voice just never goes flat or sharp. Great show. Great experience. Great times.

I Don't Want To Believe That All Of The Above Is True

2009-05-20T00:25:00.010-05:00

1. Bomb The Music Industry-Scrambles
2. Dillinger Four-Civil War
3. Dead To Me-Cuban Ballerina
4. The Descendents-Milo Goes To College
5. The Descendents-I Don't Want To Grow Up
6. Alkaline Trio-Maybe I'll Catch Fire
7. Piebald-We Are The Only Friends We Have
8. Straighten Things Out-Dawn Of A New Hope
9. Straighten Things Out-I Think We Better Split Up
10. Transit-Stay Home
11. Transit-This Will Not Define Us
12. This Is A Standoff-Be Disappointed
So these are all the albums I have just received. Anyone who knows me knows damn well how strict I am about getting the full appreciation for albums. I don't believe in listening to 5+ records at a time because then you pick favorites and end up neglecting. I'm combining albums on different blank CD's. I usually only listen to a max of 3 records at a time. Propagandhi's Supporting Caste is on it's last leg and Hit The Switch comes out with a new record the 30th so that leaves 2 available spots. Who's it gunna be? Well I had already been listening to The Descendents albums here and there so I'm going to go ahead and make it that.

This is really the main point of this post. Lets rewind back to June and July of 2006. Ready? It was summer time. It was a good time. I had this situation to where I knew what was going to happen with a certain girl but it wouldn't happen until August for details that don't really matter. It was a foregone conclusion. Anyway, the beginning of relationships are always the best because both parties are so fake with each other. It's so happy. So outgoing. You think to yourself, "I'm with the best girl ever! How could we ever fight?!" But it's once the girl realizes your in the relationship to stay till she shows her true psychotic/insecure/jealous/mentally unstable side. Haha it happens every time and it's hilarious. Anyway, I started getting into the Euro punk label Bells On Records. One of the bands they had signed was Straighten Things Out. I listened to their myspace religiously. Fuck, one of their songs "My Daily Wreck" was my myspace profile song! That's huge! So when your going through good times and listening to good music, obviously that music will make its impact. Those 4 songs off that myspace are songs that make me way nostalgic about that stretch of time that was really great for me. Well I'm just now getting all of that album. I want to add the This Is A Stand Off album but there isn't enough space. Should I take off those songs that remind me of those times so I could make the space? I would skip them anyway so why even put them on? Because I have to! I can't just take away the flow an album. They made it like that for a reason. And I've never had those songs on a CD. I want to hear the correct next song that is going to come on just like the rest of their fans do you know? So then I think to myself, can't I just listen to them again and again and ERASE and create NEW memories? This is something I have always been 100% against and have never considered. Sure, I listen to music I used to listen to from high school/early college but those are just one time deals. So I've spent nearly all day thinking about this. Is it even possible? What if it just ends up me feeling shitty every time I listen to it? I felt like I needed a brain the size of the mars attacks aliens to figure this out. I asked two of my good friends Mario and Lydia and they said it would be impossible to make new memories. That it would just keep burning and burning. Still haven't made up my mind. I don't plan on listening to them until mid June/early July anyway so I still have time to think about it. I looked everywhere for a video/mp3/something of the song My Daily Wreck, but no luck. There was a live video but the quality wasn't good. But you can listen to another song(same situation as My Daily Wreck) by them that impacts me almost as much as that one here.

WARNING: If you love acoustic stuff, you will love this

Joey Cape-I'm Not Gonna Save You

I found out the other day that I, Raziel I have the biggest man crush on Joey Cape Gonzalez has been given the opportunity to finally see his hero. I've expressed my love and why I love his music on here so much before so there is no need to further elaborate. June 30th, I'll be there in San Antonio, balling my eyes out trying to touch his shoes. I can't wait.

It's You And Her Against This Cruel World

2009-05-16T13:08:00.005-05:00

Happy Lagwagon Day! If your a close friend, you knew this post was coming. What can I say? The man to the right is my fucking hero. The man who is responsible for writing my absolute favorite song of all time. Joey Cape. I can't even begin to put into words what it means to me. "It's just another saturday." Every May 16th for the last 6 or so years, I have jammed Lagwagon's May 16th the entire day. When I say that, I mean it. I have it playing right now via myspace. When I go to my room I will put it on my Ihome. When I go to play Call of Duty in a little bit, I will gladly get killed more due to not being able to hear because I got May 16th playing. Anywhere I go today I will have it being played in my car. I go all out for this. Someone should make me a shirt. It reminds me most of that near perfect summer of 2004. Partying with friends. Playing shitty punk covers with my brother and Joe. Being off the hook with the girl I had been involved with for a good while. Regularly hanging out with different ladies(I was 14 so this was big). Saying goodbye to an at the time friend. Playing basketball. Just fucking enjoying that sun that the summer brings every year. I know that sounds dumb, but you should know what I mean. I want to get married on May 16th. I want the song me and my wife first slow dance to at my wedding to be May 16th. I want it to be played at my funeral. Why? Because this song pretty much sums it up. It has been my favorite song since the day I heard it and it will always remain like that. Sure, possibly better songs with way better melody and intensity(A Wilhelm Scream) and all that stuff may come around but there's nothing that could possibly overtake my never ending love for this song. Thats heart. Thats love. This song is everything I am.

Wasn't it just the other post I was talking about how crucial music was at parties? Well I had a pretty damn unexpected experience with this. Two nights ago, I went back to Islander Village or the Fountains or whatever it's called to party at another apartment there. 3 girls owned the place. It was a fun time. Only 10 or so people. Kings cup. Beer pong. Country song. Rap song. Dance song. Blah blah blah I'm more than used to it so I don't have a problem. Besides, it's not like its my place so I'm not going to bitch about the music. Anyway. Someone drew an ace during Kings cup so you all know what means, avalanche. I was maybe the 3rd or 4th person to the right so I got a legit amount of time to drink. While I was pouring the lovely bottle of bud light down to my stomach who would eventually hate me for it, a song came on that made me nearly spit my drink out. A song SO out of left field. I was in disbelief that I was hearing it. But that beginning guitar riff was exactly what I thought it was. Brand New's The Queit Things That No One Ever Knows. I was so happy that I started moving to the music during the avalanche. Loved it. One of the girls at the party had been going to warped since 03 so she dug the whole pop punk deal. There was more Brand New (Your Favorite Weapon) played along with songs off Taking Back Sundays Tell All Your Friends album. What a bad ass girl, right? Because of the randomness of that being played and the large amount of alcohol I consumed that night, I will easily put that on one of the top 10 best parties I've ever been to.

I played at Starbucks last night again and it may have been the last time I do that. One person showed up that I was actually surprised she did. Usually when you tell someone/exchange numbers at a party for plans a week ahead, they don't go through. I've enjoyed my friday nights the past month. It's been play at starbucks, hang out, then party. I love that but I'm kind of tired of playing there. The only way I'll play there now is if people request it. People meaning my friends.

Lagwagon-May 16th

Happy Lagwagon day everyone.

How Do I Go On When Your Part Of Meeee. I'm Dying Inside Each Time I See You. Don't Lose Sight Of Me Cause You're All I See

2009-05-13T00:54:00.007-05:00

It's 1am and damnit I want to party. BUT, most people I party with were studying tonight and my close friends are still up in Austin/College Station. Thus, I have been forced to do another one of these. Hows the guitar playing been? Not really there. I haven't been playing anymore than an hour or two a day. Why? Because I really went nuts this past school year and everyone deserves a break. I know my discipline and motivation will sky rocket the second I step foot on San Francisco soil. I was so unfocused on classical guitar today that when Rufio's "Above Me" came up on my ihome, I went to my game room, blew the dust off my old electric guitar, grabbed the amp, and took it to my room to play along. I got off shuffle and went to their album Perhaps I Suppose. The shuffle feature was still on but I didn't bother turning it off. Why is that relative? Because about 6 or 7 songs in, Raining In September came on when Road To Recovery had still yet to be played. Therefore leaving a what? 57% chance of it coming on after that? Well right as I hit the last chord for Raining In September I heard the sweet bass line for Road To Recovery and got super stoked. If you haven't listened to this album which I'm sure you haven't, those two songs are back to back so thats why it was so pleasing. Muscle memory is really in an amazing thing. It's been literally years since I've played through those songs. Playing them brought back so many awesome memories of late 8th grade and most of freshman year of high school. Walking around Carroll with my huge discman, theatre rehearsals, skipping 7th period, the parties, the cheesy girl crushes I had, the rainy Carroll days, just really everything about Carroll for those times. It was fantastic. I wanted to put Rufio shirt I'm wearing above to just go all out but was too lazy to find it. I found myself laughing at songs like "One Slow Dance," "Just A Memory" and "Road To Recovery." The lyrics are so incredibly terrible and cheesy. They are to all of them really.

Love is a bitch.
All relationships end.

You and me dancing the night away
You can feel my heart beating so hard.
We look eye to eye
And I'm swept away.

I remember you and me when we used to
Laugh all night until we fell asleep, oh
And i know we're through
But i've still got thoughts of you left inside my head

I was 14 years old...give me a break.

So as you should have read a few weeks back, I'm teaching. Teaching is pretty fun. A little frustrating at times since I'm dealing with two little girls but it's mainly fun. Catalina, one of my students, is this cute little blonde girl who is super goofy. I'm usually laughing the entire lessons because of the things she says. She told me she wants to be a singer when she grows up and go to either Harvard or Texas A&M CC. Fair enough. Well whenever she doesn't remember something, I write it on her paper and I usually say "I'm going to write that down." Well the first lesson I had with her I asked her how old she was, what school she went to, all that stuff. Well I had forgotten I asked her both those and so I ask how old she was. She says "7. Haven't I already told you that?" Then I ask her what school she went to and she responds "I already told you that too! Windsor Park! Write THAT down!" OWNED.

That fucking esurance song.

I seriously die a little every time this comes up on TV. I only watch two channels(ESPN and Comedy Central) and EVERY TIME with out fail this song seems to make me forget about the episode of Scrubs that made me want to change my life or the news on ESPN. It bothers the never ending shit out of me. Especially that "singing the blues" part that he sings real fast. Annoying! Terrible! Bothered me so much that I learned the chords to it so I could never play them in the same progession. He's doing an G7, A7 and C9 in the beginning which is a I II IV I. Then it goes into a C9, A7, then back to C9 C#9 (OH MY GOD THE GENIUS GOES CHROMATIC)then to D9. Then does the G7, A7, C9, D9, G7 which is a I II IV V I. So I warn everyone reading this that plays any instrument and composes, NEVER compose a piece/song that uses that chord progression in the key of G. Thank you and goodnight.

California, A Place They Say Glistens Gold.

2009-05-11T21:28:00.003-05:00

May 11, 2009

Dear Raziel,

I hope that you had a nice weekend! I wanted to let you know that Orientation at SFCM will begin on August 18th (I mentioned in my previous email that Orientation began on August 21st, but this date has now changed). Sorry for any confusion. Please let us know if you have questions.

Sincerely,

Melissa Cocco-Mitten, Assistant Director of Admission

Reading things like that just never get old. Everytime I open up my e-mail and see one from the conservatory, I get super excited. I recently read an e-mail from them saying that all the single rooms had been reserved and that I would have to share a room. I was bummed but who knows? It could be for the better. My only deal is that I like my privacy and I like being on my own. I lived with my brothers for 17 years of my life so it's not like I can't live with other people, but it's been nice not having to worry about who wants to watch TV or take a shower etc etc. What if when I meet my dream girl(a beautiful violin/piano player) and she wants to go back to my place? What if he is a stiff that will get upset when I come home drunk and play Call of Duty in the late hours of the night? But then again, maybe this guy could be really kick ass. I'm not going to be pessimistic about the whole situation. I'm actually pretty excited to meet the guy. And I'm sure it's going to make some things easier for me. So while yeah, it sucks that I can't live on my own, I'm sure a room mate will work out well in a lot of different ways.

Joaquin Turina-Generalife

Chaos. My trio performed this at the competition we handily won. I was sitting in my room earlier today thinking to myself, what's a challenging piece I could play that not many people play? How can I identify myself? When I was playing with my trio, we tried searching for a trio arrangement of the piece but couldn't find it so we had to base our idea of how the piece goes off the video above. It just kind of clicked to me that playing Generalife would be a great piece to identify myself with. It's simply just bananas. Yes. Bananas. And I have such a good idea of how to phrase it already. I looked for the music and couldn't find it so I e-mailed the performer above asking if he had his transcriptions for sale. He responded in spanish with a link that didn't work. Sucks. I really do want to learn this but chances are I won't be able to find the transcription. Unless I transcribe it from a piano score which I am not willling to do.

I was at a party the other night somewhere in the fountain apartments. I had no idea who the girl was that owned the place but I was singing that classic country song "I sware" with her and a few other people. Why mention this? Because it's music! Music at parties is so crucial. Partying is something I love doing quite a bit. Bad thing is that I only have a handful of friends that love punk music as much as I do and I only party with one of them because he's mah best fwend. This brings me to my next subject. Kind of.
Remember Taking Back Sunday? Of course you do, you loved them in 2004 and 2005. You had to. MTV was feeding it right down your throat and you were taking it like a champ. You had your black shirt with the yellow logo. You had the shit ton of black bracelets on your wrist. You had your black hoodie. You had your dyed hair. They are one of the bands responsible for how high school kids dress today. Well here it is, I actually liked Taking Back Sunday in 8th grade. But at the time I was also way into Brand New, New Found Glory, Saves The Day and Rufio. So my liking for them was prett legit. I hate how that comes off. It comes off like a typical punx kid trying to say he did it first but whatever. But all that aside, I used to really dig them. Years would go by and yeah my punk rock attitude got the best of me and I would kind of keep it in the closet that I still would dig some of their songs. I would have never gone out and said that I dig the new TBS song but if someone asked, I would say yeah its catchy. Alright get to the point. Because MTV fed this stuff to the youth of america, it was played at parties in my high school days. I remember soberly or drunkenly singing along to this song with my friends in my arms. Memories I can never forget. Would sing those catchy mainstream pop punk bands like Coheed and Cambria, New Found Glory, Story Of The Year, My Chemical Romance, Matchbook Romance, Yellowcard etc. etc. So it was pretty sweet that people were enjoying some(never really liked soty or coheed) of the bands I did. Fuck, I'll still say One For The Kids is a solid pop punk record. Well once upon a time a shitty ass genre took over. Hardcore, screamo, emocore, metalcore, post hardcore, all the fucking shitty names that rarely actually described the music they played. That trend thankfully died out but there are still bands trying to jump on it. One of those bands is called This Or The Apocalypse. Why bring them up? Well they recently decided it was a good idea to cover Taking Back Sunday's "Make Damn Sure." Can you imagine that? Your really fucked if you didn't even like Taking Back Sunday to begin with because then it's collaborating two terrible things. But jesus, even with having this somewhat guilty pleasure for TBS, I hated it. I took this as an insult. How dare they try to shit on all my memories? How dare they insult the art of covering music? It just doesn't make sense to me sometimes. I wish I could have been there when they were like "DUDES! Let's cover Make Damn Sure!" Where could it have been a good idea?

You can listen to this disaster here.

But The Truth Will Always Find A Way, To Shine Through And Force Only Dismay

2009-05-08T18:57:00.005-05:00

Done. Over. Finished. Concluded. Completed. No more. No return. Yahtzee! You see that picture to the left? No more will I take that road at 7:45am to school. No more will I weave all around those roads on my way to school. Obviously I'll take the road again some day because Corpus is Corpus, but I won't be a student of Del Mar. I finished up with finals at Del Mar this past Wednesday and I'm pretty excited to say the least. How did finals go? So so I guess. I wasn't too worried about any of them because I have to take entrance exams for theory, aural skills and piano when I get up to San Francisco. Theory final went ok. I studied with Shawn and Christy at a Starbucks and got a good amount done. The test was ok. I did struggle a little bit with the Sonata form though. Sonata form is ridiculous. If your interpretation of where the transition is ends up being wrong, then the pretty much the rest of your answers will be wrong. Second theme group, re-transition blah blah blah. I missed a lot of class this semester due to out of town auditions and competitions. I think I missed up 7 or 8 days of theory total. People who take theory will know that that is a crime. Aural skills went ok. I have made an A on every dictation and skills exam this semester which naturally made me a little bit cocky seeing as to how this was the "hardest" of all aural skills classes. Well, the final dictation and skills exam were not all that easy. I didn't get a measure of rhythm for the first time in 2 semesters and I know I missed a chord on the harmonic dictation. Oh well. Piano final went ok but I could have and should have practiced more.

I look back on this past year of Del Mar. What a time it was man. From the months of August-December, I went nuts with practicing. I was practicing 5 or 6 hours a day and then with at the time unfortunate (it later became to be the best thing that ever happened to me) events in October-December, I pushed up the practicing to 7 sometimes 8 hours a day. In those months, I also won the Del Mar Honors Commencement for the 2nd year in a row by playing BWV 996-Prelude and Presto, Gigue. I also got the once in a life time opportunity to have a master class with one of the best guitarist to ever live, Pepe Romero. The second semester was really something. Guitar department turned into the Choir department. The day before my first audition, I went up to Mr. Hii and told him everything and the guitar department wasn't the same after that. My trips to College Station, Austin, Denton, Providence and New York City were some of the best times of my life. Getting into 3 of 4 schools. Then there was the trio. With a month and a few days before competition day, a member of the quartet left us so we were left with no choice but to do a trio. We learned 3 new pieces and practiced 4 hours a day 6 days a week and fucking killed the competition. My instructor told me he was done with me, talked shit about me to other students, put my goals and ambitions down. 7 students including myself went to the chairman of the department to complain. The ensemble was a mess. There were snitches every where. People were called out during lab or yelled at in the halls. It really was a soap opera for a while. I'll never forget in April 2008, I told my good friend Jimmy Buck, "This time next year, Mr. Hii will not want anything to do with me." I was right. I also put on a guitar recital with Josh.

Will I miss Del Mar? Well you know, I never liked going to Del Mar. I hated the school. The campus was boring. Always construction. But I did enjoy the music program. I felt the teachers there were top notch. The people? Will I miss the people? Well it's always nice to be looked at as the guitar player. There were many times this past semester to where I'd meet people and they would say something like "Oh, your Raziel? I was referred to as the celebrity of Del Mar Music by a girl haha. So I guess it's nice to be looked at with that kind of respect. So maybe I'll miss that. But I will for sure miss my guitar friends. I've developed some solid friendships with most of them. My piano 4 class which consisted of 6 or 7 guitar players would sit at our specific spot every day for 2 hours talking about stuff and scoping the ladies. It's just kind of a weird feeling, because after the triple B(Beers, Bitches and Booze) party on May 16th, I may never see some of those guys again.

After my last final, I walked outside to my car. I stood up by my car and stared at the school for a couple seconds. Looked around the parking lot that I would circle non stop for a parking spot even if I was late because I was too stubborn to park anywhere else. All the memories really of just the parking lot. People I've talked to, people I've hung out with etc. I got in my car, had Potemkin City Limits ready to play and sped off in excitement. I'm done with Del Mar College.

I mentioned in a post last month how there are albums I just refuse to listen to due to the memories they carry. A few songs came up on my ipod shuffle and well damn, I forgot a few.

1. Lagwagon-I Think My Older Brother Used To Listen To Lagwagon
2. Good Riddance-My Republic
3. Near Miss-Testing The Ends Of What They'll Put Up With

Lagwagon-Fallen

My favorite song off their latest EP. I really do miss Lagwagon even though they released the EP above this past August. It was solid. I think 3 or 4 of the songs could have passed as Bad Astronaut songs. I miss Bad Astronaut even more since I know they are never coming back. While I'm always obsessed with Joey Cape, it got to be pretty heavy around January through March of this past year which isn't very healthy. He was heavily influenced by Elliot Smith and we all know how that ended. When I would lazily(is that a word) not practice my piano assignments, I would play tons of Bad Astronaut/Lagwagon/Joey Cape/No Use For A Name/Tony Sly songs. Not the full out song. Just the chords on the left hand and the vocal melody with the right.

I'm getting kind of tired of playing Starbucks open mic. There has been new people to see me there each time, but it's getting kind of old. I need to find another place to play.

Much The Same reunion please?

I'm Thinking Bout A Brand New Hope. The One I've Never Known

2009-05-06T18:28:00.004-05:00

Green Day has caused quite a bit of buzz lately. They have a new record coming out on the 15th. You can listen to a stream of the new album here. Green Day is Green Day. Billie Joe's voice will always be undeniably catchy. I don't even know where to begin when it comes to talking about them. I've never been a die hard fan, but I've always been a fan. I wrote a paper on their song Macy's Day Parade in 8th grade which was pretty awesome. Green Day is what got me and millions of other kids into punk rock music. I remember hearing Hitchin' A Ride in what was it? 4th grade? I instantly fell in love with it. Especially the last part. Even with their success, I would still always defend them because really, in my eyes, they have never made a bad album. A lot of people talked shit about Warning but I personally liked it. While I did enjoy American Idiot, I didn't like how they were presenting themselves. Out of no where, Armstrong and Tre began wearing thick eye liner and the all black suit with the red or white tie and Mike looks like satan apparently. Anyway, songs have been leaking and I've been very un-impressed. That "Know Your Enemy" song that is being played left and right is really repetitive and kind of gets on my nerves. I only enjoyed 2 maybe 3 of the songs on the stream posted above. Could it be that Green Day will finally make a record that I'm just not too into? Maybe, but I can't hate them. They look like morons and could potentially be done with making great music, but I can't hate them. They have done too much for me and punk music.

Apparently pieces that are straight 16th notes are my forte. I've played Bach BWV 1001-Presto, Fuge, Bach BWV 996-Gigue, Presto, Villa Lobos Etude #2 and now I can add Barrios Prelude op. 5 no. 1. Which brings me to why I'm kind of sad with how easy it was to learn this piece. Why was it so easy? Sure, it was in G minor, a simple key signature, but really, this was surprisingly easy for me. I know I've gotten better since the last time I learned a piece, but still, it shouldn't have been this much of a breeze. But I've concluded that it's just the fact that I'm so used to these straight 16th notes songs. I thought it would take me the whole month to learn it well but it took me 5 days. Josh brought up a great point and said that I hardly have any "pretty" pieces which is very true. Gerald Garcia has a piece called Spring Breeze which I will always consider to be the most beautiful song ever written. Xuefei Yang is a world class guitarist who is known for playing this piece. We exchanged myspace messages and then I asked her where I could get a copy of the piece and I haven't received a response in weeks. That's the classical guitar world for you. To separate yourself from everyone else, you need to play pieces no one else plays. You need to play a piece that will define you. At first I was like really? I'm just a 19 year old headed to a conservatory. In a way I almost take it as a compliment. Not that I think she's actually threatened by me, but you know. I guess I would do the same. I'm considering a Chopin waltz among others. But I do know I need to get on top of that kind of piece. All my songs are so aggressive.

Green day - macys` day parade - Watch more Music Videos at Vodpod.

This one is for all the ladies.

I'm Saying Hello Just To Say Goodbye

2009-04-28T20:49:00.007-05:00

What a day of mixed emotions. Today was the day I had my last lessons with Mr. Hii and Mr. Justus. I didn't really think about it before today. I knew it was coming but I didn't dwell on it or really look forward to it. Me and Mr. Hii just talked for our hour lesson. He told me what I needed to do to put myself above the rest of the classical guitar world. What pieces I should play. What I should be listening to. I agree with everything he said. While me and Mr. Hii have our differences, I still do listen to everything he says with an open mind. He gave me the music to Barrios's Preludio op. 5, no. 1. I love that piece so much. Barrios's Bach influence really shines through. He also gave me the music to Mertz's Harmonie Du Soir. My good friend Jesse Goodwin plays this song with such great passion. Mr. Hii said that if I could grab his passion and mix it with my technique and cleanliness, I would be untouchable. A good last lesson. But something happened when I walked out the door. Remember that feeling you got when 3 o clock hit and the last day of your 5th grade year? How stoked you were to finally be done with elementary and moving onto the big middle school? EXACT FEELING. I was walking back to my car just smiling and laughing. I nearly bursted with happiness.

After teaching my students, it was time to make my final trip to Carroll High school. The lesson went as usual. Just me and Mr. Justus talking about random things. He told me that he named a diminished scale "The Razzy Scale" so all his kids would want to learn it. We played through one last jazz song and I headed out the door. While he was grabbing all his stuff, I stood in the hallway and just kinda looked around. That hallway was my home during high school. I would skip out on eating lunch and go practice there. I would lie to my teachers to skip class and go practice there. I would practice there before school started. I had 1st period off my senior year and would just practice around there. I had my one specific spot that I would always sit that I looked at for a few seconds. So many friends and girlfriends/girls of interest sat right to the left of me. Just an incredible amount of memories have come from that hallway. Memories I truley never will forget. I thanked him for everything. He's been my teacher for 5 years now. I will always look at him as the guy that changed my life. Had it not been for him, I would never have gotten into classical guitar or pursued music as a career. He will always be my teacher and if there is ever a point to where I have to thank people or credit people to the potential success I may have, he will always be the first one I acknowledge. I can finally say goodbye to Carroll High School.

I played at Starbucks this past friday again. It was nice. Good ol pal Phillip Hand and Ricky showed up to watch as well as a pretty lady named Bianca. I met the manager Monica and she got all my info because she wants to promote me and the open mic night. So I'm officially going to be playing there every friday night. My set went well. Strings were fresh. One of the barista girls asked if I needed some ice to cool off my fingers. Then I actually saw one of the girls at a friends house the next night. That's Corpus Christi.

No Use For A Name-Pacific Standard Time

What is this the 5th time I talk about No Use For A Name? They're not my favorite band, but I for some reason like to talk about them. Anyway, I saw this video posted up on punknews, told myself not to watch it and then it got me thinking of all the albums I refuse to listen to due to the bad memories they carry. Not that I have a meltdown when I hear them, but I just don't like to be reminded of some things. So I've come up with the list in no particular order.

1. No Use For A Name-The Feel Good Record Of The Year
2. Thrice-Water
3. Thrice-Air
4. Thrice-Earth
5. Smoke Or Fire-This Sinking Ship
6. Lagwagon-Let's Talk About Feelings
7. Bad Astronaut-Acrophobe
8. Bad Astronaut-12 Small Steps
9. Bad Astronaut-Houston: We Have A Drinking Problem
10. The Gaslight Anthem-The 59' Sound
11. The Swellers-My Everest
12. Pedro The Lion-Achilles Heel
13. The Draft-In A Million Pieces
14. Much The Same-Survive
15. Audio Karate-Lady Melody
16. No Use For A Name-Hard Rock Bottom
17. Polar Bear Club-Sometimes Things Just Disappear
18. Hit The Switch-Domestic Tranquility and Social Justice

That's about all I can think of for right now. Damn, mentioning some of those makes me really want to listen to them. I used to feel this way about a lot of albums too. But it wasn't until 3 or 4 years later to where I was ok with remeniscing.

I'm in love with life right now. I can't even explain why either. I'm just super happy with everything. I finally got new music for the first time in nearly a year so. I forgot this sweet feeling to have new music. To have a new project. It's exciting and I've already learned the first page to the Barrios prelude. I have to be in San Francisco August 18th. Start a countdown!

So Many Nights, So Many Nights I Wish To Live Like Them

2009-04-23T18:24:00.009-05:00

There is so much great punk music out there that I haven't listened to. Like the Descendents for example. One of those legendary punk bands that I just never took the time to thoroughly listen to. I had heard a couple songs and enjoyed them but never took it past that point. My older brother Roy got me "Everything Sucks" by the Descendents back last winter which was pretty much the perfect definition of my life at the time. I really really enjoyed it. So much so that I've recently picked up "I Don't Want To Grow Up" and "Milo Goes To College." I asked which was their best and a bunch of kids on punknews argued between mainly those two. I'm also going to give Alkaline Trio a try. There are some absolute die hard fans of this band out there and I'm interested to see what they are all about. I got "From Here To The Infirmary" by them. I'm also getting lots of Dillinger Four and Dead To Me. ALSO the latest Bomb The Music Industry. I will only listen to 2 of these albums at a time though. I hate overloading yourself with music then eventually picking favorites and neglecting an album when you shouldn't. So two albums every two months? Sounds good. Hit The Switch finally comes out with a new full length in late May. Stoked. I'm set till the move to San Francisco!

Guess what? I'm teaching guitar again. Getting paid $240 a month for doing it! It's pretty sweet. If I get another student it will be $400 a month. One six year old girl and one five year old girl. I feel like little girls are more likely to listen and focus rather than young boys. You have no idea how creepy I feel saying "little girls and young boys." But anyway, I'm stoked to be teaching and stoked to finally get back on my feet financially. Maybe I can start making it rain like I did back in my junior/senior year of high school where I threw down money for everything. Funny thing is my junior year I just never spent a dime of that money on my then girlfriend because I didn't know you were supposed to. That's youth?

That's all. Done with Del Mar performing. I had my last guitar recital on Wednesday night. A fair amount of people showed up. I'm never satisfied with my playing. Never. It's impossible. I played the 996 Gigue surprisingly well though. I play this piece by Giuliani called Grand Overture. I play the song really really well. I've been playing it for quite some time now. It was my closer because the ending cadence is super strong. Well I went back on stage to perform it and realized halfway while walking out, I forgot my grip pad for my thigh. Are you kidding me? I need that thing. My guitar was slipping and sliding all over my thigh so it was super hard to focus on what I was playing. Thus, I screwed up big time in the middle section. But I played it off and finished the last section pretty strong so I guess it was ok. We had a reception afterward and it was fun to see some old friends. Random people were asking for my autograph which I thought was hilarious and flattering at the same time.

Mr. Justus told me that I should take a picture just like jesus on a cross because that's basically what I have become to the Carroll guitar department. So someone should photoshop a picture of my face on that jesus on a cross picture and put a classical guitar on me. Apparently they have this thing in their classes to where they always ask "What would Razzy do?" It's pretty awesome.

I had my lesson with Mr. Hii this passed Tuesday. He told me Mr. Justus said to him "What did you do to Razzy? You turned him into a monster." A guitar playing monster is what he was referring to. Hii then went on to give me a speech to always be humbled and never be cocky. He told me a few months ago before I told him where I was auditioning that I wasn't cocky. Well I had my lesson with Mr. Justus later on and he brought up the story and said that Mr. Hii replied to him "Yeah, he's a bit cocky isn't he?" Such a hypocrite. Way to be a man right? He thinks that I'm cocky just because I'm leaving to a bigger and better school. For the last time, I'm not cocky. I'm confident in my abilities, but I know there are tons better than me and I want to be the worst guitar player when I get up to San Francisco. I don't believe that there is such a thing as peaking at guitar. I know each and every day I can get better and that's what I plan on doing.

Hit The Switch-Imperial Horizon

Do you want to know what summer sounds like? Take a listen to that. I listen to that and think of when times were fantastic. I had just gotten over a girlfriend. Started getting into talks with a future girlfriend. Started consistently partying with my friends. Played lots of poker. Played lots of basketball. 2006 summer was great man. I mentioned that these guys are coming out with a new album a couple paragraphs up. Really stoked about that. It's the definition of melodic punk music. Some people have compared them to Identity Crisis Thrice which I %65 agree with. Great band and I can't wait for it to be my summer of 09 anthem.

This Is A Fable Far Too Real. We Somehow Still Cling To.

2009-04-19T18:30:00.005-05:00

I just wish I could have ONE semester at UT Austin. I went up there for the weekend for the 3rd or 4th time this semester and I never have anything less than an amazing time. Fuck, why can't I just go get a delicious Tiger Blood snow cone with Ryan and Michael every day when I feel like it? When I dropped my car off on Dean Keaton, I just looked around and got excited about San Francisco. Austin is no San Francisco but still, being in a big city atmosphere got me thinking. I just wish there was a way I could be like "hey SFCM, I know I got into your school, but I also got into UT Austin and I really just wanna party for one semester with all my friends. Cool? K. See you in spring 10'." Even aside from being able to have weekends like the one I just had, I'd love to just be a part of UT. I'm a huge football and basketball fan and going to the games would be so awesome. But I guess partying with your best friends may not be as important as going to one of the top music schools in the country. Whoever made up logic sucks.

Propagandhi-Potemkin City Limits

Remember that feeling when you heard Big Wig's Reclamation? How disappointed you were that they pretty much failed at their attempt to be aggressive(although "A War Inside" is still a great song)? Well imagine if they had succeeded and you would have Propagandhi's Supporting Caste. I've never been a huge Propagandhi fan. Always enjoyed what I listened to but I never went out and bought all their music. I put the song "Today's Empires, Tomorrow's Ashes" on a mix back in 9th grade and then got around to listening to that album my senior year of high school. I was pretty shocked when I heard this. I knew they were always aggressive and had that real noise-punk sound but damn, the first two songs blew me away. It's heavy stuff. I'm dumb for putting the one poppy song up because people watching the video and reading this will probably be questioning my definition of heavy. So I highly encourage you to visit their myspace.

This Is Me Moving On Without You. This Is The Last Time I'll Be There.

2009-04-16T22:42:00.006-05:00

Tonight will make the second night in a row that I sit down in my room on this lap top with a full suit on being super hot (in both ways) because I'm too lazy to take it off. Why you ask? No big reason really. Last night was the annual Del Mar Guitar Ensemble concert. The guitar ensemble plays x amount of pieces and then we are joined by high school within the city then the ensemble plays another x amount of pieces. I've been doing this concert since I was in high school and never has there been so many high school kids. Atleast 50 kids from all the high schools made it out this year which isn't really a good thing. The whole concert went like this: forte forte forte forte forte forte forte. No musicality whatsoever. You would never guess we're music majors. But that isn't our fault. Our instructor just said to hell with dynamics and it resulted in a very boring concert. Playing the high school songs was fun because I just never looked at them until a couple days ago so it was pretty much sight reading. But the part I enjoyed the most was when Mr. Justus took over to conduct the Del Mar and high school ensemble. It feels so right. I'm so used to it. It feels so natural and I guess at home. But that was the last time that sort of thing will happen which is pretty depressing.

In the middle of the concert, my guitar instructor recognized me for getting into San Francisco Conservatory as the top selection. There was a nice applause and when he mentioned the top selection thing I heard a few "aw!" and more applause. That applause of approval is pretty sweet. But what wasn't sweet was the fact that he recognized me when he's given me so much crap about going to that school. Hypocrite? I wish he would have recognized me and then told the entire audience what he thought. Because last I remember, he "tells it like it is, no matter who it affects." After the concert I checked my schedule at HEB. It needs to be said on this blog how much I hate my job. But i'm stoked that I got the weekend off for an Austin visit. I stood in the parking lot for nearly an hour after having a fantastic conversation with a lady.

Why am I in a suit tonight? Well yesterday I was standing outside with friends like I usually do and Dr. Flory called me inside and asked if I could play at the reception for tonights concert so I said sure. It was an interesting concert. It featured the composition teacher from UT Austin and a former student of his, Ryan Gee. I really enjoyed Gee's "Tiger." Very junglish. Then Dr. Flory has a performer play a suite for unaccompanied tuba and yes it was as non-climatic as it sounds. But overall, it was an interesting concert. Me and Shawn played for the reception afterwards. Good food, good people, good time. Shawn brought a couple easy duets which are always fun to sight read. Sight reading is a musicians way of living on edge. This was nice though. It's nice to get asked for things like this. This is the second time I've been asked by a faculty member(other than my guitar teacher) to play for some sort of event.

Me and Josh continued our preparation for our concert by performing at Carroll High School the other day. I love the school to death, but the sound quality for guitar is just terrible. We also played at Kaffie Middle School early this morning which was fun.We Are The Union-We Are The Union - I'm Like John Cusack In The Way That I'm Holding A Boom Box Outside Your Window, Telling You To Fuck Off

I was putting what I thought was my compilation of great songs into my car but it turns out it was We Are The Union's "Who We Are." I usually don't like to listen to this album for certain reasons. It goes along with about 4 or 5 other albums that I'm just not really down to listen to and wont be for a while. I heard the first song and immediatley jerked to press the eject button but then just decided to let it happen. It belongs to the summer of 2008 era. I remember I heard about this band literally 2 days after they had played in Corpus which sucked because I instantly fell in love with them. The reviewer on punknews said it best, "Set Your Goals with horns." Couldn't be further from the truth. High energy. Feel good lyrics. Young. But they don't have 2 munchkins singing and running around on stage like SYG.

I'm so happy I listen to punk music. What would the word "linoleum" mean to me if I didn't? Would I just live May 16th as if it were some other day? Would I find a girl in a green jacket as hott as I do now? Would I still want to say "music" any time someone mentions hot water? Would I drive as fast? Would all my high school memories mean nearly as much with out them being tied to the what seems to be endless amount of great songs? Where else am I going to get that feeling when I hear "And everytime I think about you! I think about how I have nothing!" being yelled?? Like really. There are times to where I feel sorry for the rest of the world that doesn't listen to punk music. That they are all being deprived of the most passionate/real music there is. When I die, along with some of my favorite songs to be played at my funeral(I will sing the requiem?), I would like just a drummer to do a punk beat for about 2 minutes straight because that's basically whats going through my head a majority of the day.

Please Don't Leave Me! Without Saying Goodbye!

2009-04-13T19:51:00.004-05:00

I mentioned in the myspace blog that I did an open mic at Starbucks. Well hey! It happened again. This past Friday, me and Josh headed to play at around 9 or so. His family showed up, a few of my friends showed up. Even Sabrina! My ex co-worker/mega great girl showed up. We want to try and make some sort of mini documentary for fun so Josh brought his camcorder to film everything. It went well. The only thing about playing there is that there is hardly time to think about dynamics due to the intense noise of the blenders. All of this is preperation for our concert next Wednesday. We plan on playing at Kaffie Middle School and Carroll High School within this week as well. Afterwards I hung outside of Starbucks with Sabrina and she successfully made my cheeks hurt. God that was gay. Also a real cute employee there introduced herself to me.

For some reason I didn't get the new Propaghandi from my friend so I'm still stuck with Broadway Calls. I looked through my box of CD's and found the legendary Pennybridge Pioneers by Millencolin. Who? Millencolin? Aren't they that band that had that one cigar song on that one Tony Hawk game? Yeah I love them! I got real into that album around my sophomore year of high school. It has some untouchable vocal melodies. I also stumbled upon a mix that I made a long time ago back when I was about 14 or 15. I wrote on top of it "Pop Punk Mix!" And wow was it something to listen to.

New Found Glory-Hit Or Miss
Yellowcard-Drifting
Blink 182-Damnit
Allister-Somewhere Down In Fullerton
The Getaway-Ex Marks The Spot
The Starting Line-Best Of Me
No Use For A Name-This Is A Rebel Song
The Ataris-San Dimas High School Football Rules
Finch-Letters To You
The Movielife-Something
The Get Up Kids-Impossible Outcomes
Story Of The Year-Until The Day I Die
Allister-Summertime
Allister-Friday Night
Brand New-Soco Amaretto Lime
New Found Glory-Eyesore
New Found Glory-Black and Blue
The Starting Line-Leaving
Midtown-Still Trying
Matchbook Romance-Tiger Lily
Matchbook Romance-Promise

How much more wuss could I have gotten? Fuck. Some of those were hard to put down. But it really made me happy listening to this CD. I feel like pop punk can actually make someones life happier because there is nothing like listening to catchy/typical hooks on a summer day with friends. But the funny thing is at this time, I was also really into Bad Religion, Anti-Flag, Satanic Surfers and other legit punk bands. I was a troubled kid. I made mixed CD's like this all the time back then. A lot of the times I would make extras and give them to friends/girlfriends/girls of interest and it was sweet because like I mentioned in a previous post, pop punk was still kind of the "in" thing and people were usually pretty accepting. But I'm glad I went through that pop punk stage. Much better than being a 14 year old dipshit who thought he was super punx because he listened to The Misfits and The Casualties.

Millencolin-Fox.

I recently found out from San Francisco Conservatory of Music that I'm the highest paid incoming under-grad. Whats going on with all this? Why did they even accept me in the first place? Especially as the top selection. It's all pretty awesome. I was reading that there are 2 competitions within the school a year, a international competition held once a year, and apparantley the guitar ensemble travels all through out California performing so I get to compete and hopefully see the other major Cali cities. I'm so stoked to be attending a conservatory. I want to be the worst guitar player. I want people to wonder how I got in because I live off competition. I want to be better than everyone else. Not in a personal way. It's just self motivation. Never stop getting better. Never stop making personal goals. Never stop believing in yourself.

I'm just so stoked with life these days. I'm happy.

Lying Is Like Murder, It's Easier Each Time.

2009-04-09T16:56:00.000-05:00

In every music department no matter what school you go to, all the orchestra kids are the same, all the band kids are the same, all the choir kids are the same, and all the guitar players are the same. Guitar players are typically very calm and easy going guys who usually don't get involved with the band/choir/orchestra crowd. And most certainly, we never have a problem with other guitar players. So there's never really any "drama." Del Mar College is the exception to the rule. Lots of things went down last week. I'm fed up with the personal attacks from my teacher just because I'm bettering my music career. I'm fed up being used to make him look good with my playing. I'm fed up with the way my teacher has handled situations with other students. I left school on Friday in pure rage after the studio lab. The arrogance. The immaturity. The hypocrisy. It's just unbearable sometimes. I told my teacher that I did not want to play the guitar concert for him, but I would for the rest of the ensemble because I'm 1st part and it's vital that I play. I told him how I felt about everything completely straight up. Something happened today in ensemble that got my heart racing. I wanted to just walk out. I'm glad me and a few people actually have the balls to stand up to him and speak our mind.

But what seems to bother me the most is that there are snitches among the guitar players. Guitar players who will do anything just so the guitar instructor will take it easy on them in ensemble, lessons, lab, juries. It's sickening. Some have snitched when asked which is bullshit because it is not their place to say anything about anyone. But there is one in particular that was actually listening in on conversations or what was said in the middle of ensemble and would report it to the teacher. Are you kidding me? Suck up all you want, your not going to get anywhere. What are you going to get? Respect? Do you think that's what your getting? No, it's not. He's using you. Stop and think about it. Think about your lesson. He goes on a rant about another student or trying to get dirt on another student right? What happened to your lesson? What happened to the money you paid so you could get teaching from this all mighty guitarist? It went out the window because he doesn't care enough about you or your playing to even consider taking you seriously. Next time he does that, try to dig real deep in your stomach for your balls and say "Hey, how bout we learn something about guitar?" Or not. You don't have to. You can keep being a doormat the rest of your life. You can stay stuck at Del Mar. You can continue you to be someones bitch. You can continue you to play ROMANCE WITH TREMELO.

3 rats running around the music building. What sucks is that 2 of them are guys I considered to be somewhat friends. It's just shitty when you think you know someone or when you think you have that guitar player bond and would never expect them to talk shit about you behind your back. They know who they are. I'm making it quite clear to them how I feel. I'd like to thank the other guitar players for this semester. There is a handful or two of them that have really made this semester entertaining and that have had my back.

What are the best songs on CD's? The best ones? Well yeah, obviously but I feel that sometimes the best songs are the ones that you weren't consistently screaming at the top of your lungs in your car/shower/room/party or whatever. The ones that you seemed to just enjoy in passing while waiting for the next song to come. Explanation.

I put in Saves The Day's "Can't Slow Down" today and "Three Miles Down" came up. What a rush that was. It made me think of my 14 year old self thinking the world was coming to an end because a relationship didn't work out. Nothing all that special about the song. Just an acoustic guitar and Chris Connelly's voice going up and down like it always does. But these types of songs always seem to have that one vocal melody or one lyric that just seem to drill in your head and you don't even realize it. Another example is of the video above. "Retiring" by A Wilhelm Scream from their first LP as A Wilhelm Scream, "Mute Print." The CD is just FILLED with legendary AWS songs. You can't take a breathe with out screaming like a girl because your favorite song (which is about 8 or 9 of the 11) is coming up. So take "Retiring" as the perfect example. Right between "The Rip" and "Stab Stab Stab." That's like standing between Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. It's obviously a very simple song. No crazy shredding guitars like the rest of the album. No epic vocal harmonies like AWS is known for. Really, just nothing all that outstanding about the song. But every time I hear it I feel that rush of nostalgia of my early 2006 relationship and it's a pretty pleasent feeling. Just a good melody. It's the songs that you don't fully appreciate that always seem to mean the most 2 or 3 years down the road. Same case can be made about albums. Smoke Or Fire's "This Sinking Ship" for example. Much The Same's "Survive." Bad Astronaut's "Houston: We Have A Drinking Problem."

Have I mentioned how much I love Joey Cape on this? It's like my love for his music keeps growing and growing and growing even though I haven't heard anything new for a few months now. I heard a clip of this from an article on the org the other day and couldn't stop singing it. You should always watch these videos. They are fantastic and educational. Enjoy.

Your Still All I See

2009-04-08T14:39:00.001-05:00

Let's talk about pop punk. Usually if I feel I'm over-playing a CD in my car, I mix it up with some tunes from the past. I have this massive stack of CD's in my glove compartment for this very purpose. I was going through them and said no to Anti-Flag, Lagwagon, No Use For A Name, Bad Astronaut, Gaslight Anthem, etc etc. 90% of the time I go through these CD's, I pass up on the Rufio/Saves The Day mix. This time it was different!

I will always consider Rufio's Perhaps I Suppose one of the all time great pop punk CD's. The lyrics are SO cheesy in most all of the songs and his voice is so damn high pitched. But every single song except "Face The Truth" is absolutely incredible. My favorites were "Above Me," "Still," "In My Eyes," "Just A Memory," "Dipshit," "Road To Recovery," "Selfishness," and "Save The World." Save The World and Road To Recovery are probably the top among those but In My Eyes will always be a stand out seeing as to how it was the first Rufio song I heard. Listening to pop punk back then was different. It was about 2003/2004 and that was when the whole pop punk deal was still really in. I remember walking down halls and seeing tons of the same Taking Back Sunday and Ataris shirts. I had a Rufio shirt! It was awesome. I think about 3 or 4 different girls wore it at one point. Fuck, the shirt was actually with a girl in another country for two years. It's been around. But pop punk was my deal in those young days. I loved Brand New, Saves The Day, Audio Karate, New Found Glory, Punchline, Rufio, even Yellowcard's "One For The Kid's." But at the same time, I was listening to Bad Religion's "Process Of Belief" and Anti-Flag's "A New Kind Of Army." I still really do enjoy pop punk.

Can we talk about Audio Karate? Talk about underrated. Imagine Rufio's music mixed with Saves The Day's vocal melodies but with a much more raspy and emotional voice. I was really big into electric guitar when I first heard them and I remember thinking they were a gift from the God (that I'm not too sure I believe in) sent to me so I could learn their bad ass songs. "Gypsy Queen" is hands down their best song. But it suffers the same symptoms as the NUFAN and Thrice albums mentioned in past blogs. Speaking of NUFAN...

No Use For A Name-This Is A Rebel Song. God this song is amazing. I miss octave harmonies like that. Not many bands do it anymore. I remember the first time I heard it back in 03' and just being blown away. I didn't get really into listening to it till the summer of 04. What a summer that was. Pop punk galore. Good times all around. I should listen to more pop punk music. I feel like those were some of the happiest days of my life. Being young is just something you only get once. I know I'm still 19 and way young but damn, there was something special about being 14, involved with girls, drinking for the first time, and having your parents drop you off everywhere you went.

I have a confession. I'm a dork. I'm a geek. I'm a nerd. All when it comes to music. I always knew that I had a passion for music, but I didn't know I was a geek about it until recently. A few months ago I met a girl and obviously when that happens you get to know one another. I found myself referring just about EVERYTHING to music. Not intentionally. I wasn't trying to impresss. But it just seemed like everything that I talked about had to do with music. I would point out when I heard descending minor 3rds through out the day which is all the time. I would get super excited if I heard Bach or any other composer on TV. I would bitch about theory homework. I would bitch about pretty much anything that doesn't involve music. I would get excited about ear training homework or about how much I practiced that day. I would just refer EVERYTHING to music and I all of a sudden found out that I'm just a straight up geek. Just listen to 5 minutes of a conversation between me and Josh and you'd notice. Think about it. Past present and future of my life is music. I already have a live journal, myspace and facebook, yet I still didn't feel those were enough to get all my thoughts about music out there! Good thing I'm going to a conservatory with hundreds of kids just like me if not worse right? I'm so excited for that. I'm going to be living here. I've elected not to have a room-mate for my first semester.

One more kick ass note. I talked with my scholarship committee and they let me go below 12 hours for the semester! Which is great because there was no way I was going to pass history. Why? Because I hate history and knowing what happened in US history won't help my music career. I skipped the class so much. There was a 2 week period where I didn't show up. And then English? HA! One of the most bad ass moments in my life was when she told me to write a creative essay as to why I didn't do my homework and I wrote a page as to why English doesn't mean shit to me and that I didn't have time for her bullshit stories. That I've got a great career ahead of me and that her class wouldn't help me in the least bit. I haven't been to that class since late January. So I have no academic classes! And I won't ever need them now that I'm going to a conservatory!

I need more Descendents. More Bomb The Music Industry! I need to get "Above This City" by Smoke Or Fire. And a little more Joey Cape never hurt anyone.

The Ramones Are Dead

2009-04-05T16:50:00.000-05:00

I have a split guitar recital with Josh Garza on April 22nd. It should be very entertaining. Josh will be playing Villa Lobos Etudes-#3, #11, Johann Sebastian Bach BWV 1006-Prelude, Astor Piazzolla-Adios Nonino, Tarrega-Recuerdos De La Allhambra, and Rodrigo's-Zapateado. I will be playing Villa Lobos Etudes-#2, #12, Bach-BWV 1001-Presto, BWV 1006-Gavotte En Rondeau, BWV 996-Gigue and Mauro Giuliani's Grand Overture. Lot's of Bach! So it should be a great concert.

Remember in the last entry how I mentioned how great life was when my senior year was ending and I was listening to Bad Astronaut, Lagwagon and Smoke Or Fire? Well in that time, I was playing BWV 1006-Gavotte En Rondeau non stop. I haven't played it since then. But for some reason I told myself to re-learn it. The feeling I get is quite nice. It's not the hardest song in the world to play. In fact, I know about 2 or 3 songs much more technical that I could play for this concert. But I love playing this Gavotte and there is nothing more important than that. The picture to the left is a score for Viola. I'm a little confused as to why it's written in the key of A major when it's clearly in E and it even states that at the top. Probably something about the Viola that I'm unaware of so I'll trust that I'm the ignorant one.

This is a video of it played by what looks like a zombie on the violin. Ever see Shawn of the Dead? He totally looks like one of the zombies.

I've been wanting to get back into song writing for the longest time now. Not to try and make it big as a solo artist, but just to do it. I used to always make up fast punk songs when I was 14-16 and really into electric guitar. But ever since I fully converted to classical, I've really lost my desire for it. Making up songs on the electric is kind of out of the question since I never play it anymore. But recently, I've wanted to write stuff like Joey Cape. Or like Pedro The Lion. But my problem is that I think guitar first. I have so much experience with guitar, so much knowledge about music theory and chord progressions, that it's almost an overwhelming thought to create anything. And I've been taking jazz lessons for 2 years now and so even when I want to do a simple chord progession I throw in the M7's or 9ths or french chords or borrowed chords or a neapolitan chord. And before anyone accuses me, of course I know I still have an incredible amount of theory to learn and understand. I'm in my last level of theory, but I don't know it all by any means.

But obviously, that's not what Joey Cape is doing. He's doing standard I IV V or other common progressions. Usually in the key of D major. One thing that I like that he and many other artists do, is play the IV chord and then make it a iv chord then onto the I for the plagal cadence. Along with the plagal cadence, it creates a nice little chromatic line with La Si So. Tony Sly also does it in "Sleeping Between Trucks." And all their music is based off vocal melody. I don't have a terrible voice, but I'm no singer. So vocal melodies never really seemed like too big of an issue to me. But they are. Guitar isn't the focus. I've yet to go through with this attempt of writing music, but I feel that when I get to San Francisco I will.

The Less We See The Beauty, The More We See This Mess

2009-04-04T13:06:00.001-05:00

For the past few years or so, I was using myspace to blog about all my performances, competitions and views on music. But that's done now. Kind of exciting.

It's the beginning of April. Usually at the beginning of months, I stop and think about what I was listening to this time last year. The answer to that? No Use For A Name's "The Feel Good Record of the Year." Notice how I did not mention Anti-Flag's Bright Lights of America because it was just god awful. Anyway, I really enjoyed this album. There were a couple parts here and there that kind of bugged me. Like the actual trumpet being played in the trumpet player. But overall, it was damn solid. The songs I enjoyed most were "The Biggest Lie," "Yours To Destroy," "Sleeping Between Trucks," "Pacific Standard Time," and "Take It Home." Later that month I would go on to buy the second half to the Alchemy Index by Thrice. I'll never forget the feeling I got when I heard "Digging My Own Grave." Absolutely beautiful. Thrice is an incredible band. But I won't get into that since I did a while back on my myspace blog. Only shitty thing about both those albums is that they are tied with nothing but bad memories. Which is an unforgivable sin by whoever commits it. I was going through rough times with a person who couldn't be trusted. I was teaching an 8 year old kid who consistently made me waste my gas to go listen to him tell me that as an 8 year old he was too busy to practice.

I have this problem to where I always think to myself that the music I listen to now isn't as good as last years. But then the next year I think the same thing. I think the only legitimate time that was true was last year when I was looking back on 2007's April line up. I was listening to Lagwagon's "Let's Talk About Feelings," Bad Astronaut's "Acrophobe," and Smoke Or Fire "This Sinking Ship." All the while going through the end of my senior year of high school. And the end of senior year was fantastic! Shows, senior party, prom, graduation, gigs, competition, friends, happiness. Can't beat that.

Lately I've been listening to Broadway Calls. Lots of it. I just got out of a Rehasher, NOFX and Descendents phase. I'm still waiting on my copy of the new Propaghandi. You would think listening to Broadway Calls means your the happiest, most care free guy on the planet. Just about last week I was expressing in my live journal that I've got so much going for me. Great friends, great family, only a couple bills, heading to California to a world reknown music school, I don't have any girls to deal with, but all the while, I still end my days with discontent. Why? I couldn't quite figure it out. Someone suggested that I find god. And in the middle of my response of how I've never had god nor do I feel I need "him", it all just clicked.

In year of the 2008, I had a terrible and un healthy relationship. I got so used to being pissed off, cynical, paranoid, pessimistic, and just plain out MISERABLE, that it just became a normal way of living. Eventually, I didn't even realize that I was feeling like that because I was just so used to it. By no means did I ever consider myself close to being depressed. Just discontent. So once it clicked, I decided to change. To not always be down about something. Or look for the negative in any situation. To not be an unhappy person. To appreciate what I have in life. Because I do have a lot going for me right now. Fuck, I was the #1 selected undergrad to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music! I feel that seasons can determine what kind of music you listen to. I usually try to listen to fun punk in the spring and summer. The weather is beautiful. The grass is green. The sun is warm. So now listening to Broadway Calls is just that much sweeter because for the first time since 2007, I'm a happy person.