True Life: Music actually is my life. A blog expressing my thoughts on classical music and punk music. As well as the many experiences as a performer/music major.
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
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.
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
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.
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
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
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.
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
I'm 20 years old. I am a music performance major at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. I've been playing classical guitar for a while now. I have loved punk music since I was about 10 or 11 years old.
Every blog will have at least one picture related to what is being discussed. There will also be a video of a song by one of the bands mentioned through out the post. Usually the title is a lyric or song by one of the bands mentioned. This is no official review blog or anything like that. I'm no writer.
