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?"
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