Friday, April 16, 2010

Childhwwd

So today kinda felt like how I expect all my weekends to be next year, having my all friends out of town for most of the day.
Cons: Well, that sucks!
Pros: How did Yannie get so good at guitar? How Ian get good at drums? By not having friends duh! So I'll have more time to do stuff like this... which is what I did today:

My cover of Best Coast's "When I'm With You." Pretttty gay right?

When I'm With You (Best Coast cover) by G N 8

Yeah, it's pretty slop slop, but I don't really care. There's only three tracks, being
1. Guitar/Vocals recorded at the same time (I'm such a terrible singer)
2. Drums
3. Synthesizer
And I didn't really change anything from the original Best Coast recording, except for the fact that the guitar solo turned into a messy synth solo... and I'm not a girl, I guess.

Well, there ya go.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Brain warp

When I try to open iTunes on my computer, this happens:

Its because, on my computer... iTunes doesn't exist! Shocking! Alas - it is intended!
I have realized after my recent computer crash, that having so much music directly on my hard drive is too much of a load (being on the verge of 6000+ mp3's). I have also realized that my iPod can hold 160GB and my external drive can hold 1.5tb. That's enough space to last me forever.
So there, I have removed all music (cept for the music I record and work on directly on my computer... duh) from my computer and with it iTunes - yet, still having a 2nd iTunes on external, and being able to sync my iPod from there.
Now, also with so much space, I don't have to worry about deleting songs and conserving space. I recovered all the bad music I have ever downloaded - dating back from middle school.
I don't know what exactly is on my iPod anymore, cept a lot of stuff. Let's stay, if someone asks for a random My Chemical Romance song, sadly, I'll probably have it.

I took part in performing as a backstage musician in some community musical theatre this week. It was easy money, kind of fun.

I'm also playing in some event at the high school this month. In such event, my elite musical comrades, being Yannie + Billy, and I will be a backing band for several teenage vocalists performing pop songs of the year 1969. It'll be fun the night of the show, because the three of us make a real killer jam, and we get to do almost whatever we want on stage in front of the whole school. Its just annoying now, because I have to deal with douchebags and doucheteachers - the likes of which I care less for than anyone else. And I also have to learn like 30 songs, that I've never really listened to before. No biggie, though.

My parents were out tonight. We had some pizza dough in the freezer. I made some pizza. I've never done that before. Pretty proud of myself actually. It looked like this before I ate it:


How about that...
Big Boi, Wolf Parade, Robyn Join Pitchfork Music Festival Lineup

Yeah. I bought two of my sister's and my tickets for all three days this week. Wolf Parade, Washed Out, Neon Indian, Lightning Bolt, Raekwon, St. Vincent... I'm gonna die as soon as I see Spencer Krug in person, I know it.

I've never really read books in my life before this year. This past month, however, I read three. I like doing that, think I'll do it more. This week I started Breakfast of Champions. All my sister's have pretty big bookshelves, so I looked at one, and saw the word 'Kurt Vonnegut,' and considered it safe. Then I noticed it had illustrations - considered that very safe.

Last week, I noticed a date on which I was born. I turned 17 years of age. In practice of gift-giving, a very close friend of mine bought me a thing to use. It was an instrument called a Melodica. Its basically a keyboard you blow through, a.k.a. the coolest freaking thing on Earth. I like it a lot. Here's an image:

Before my month long internet hiatus, I basically had no keyboard to play. I consider that a pretty big flaw, considering that I own a copious amount of music makers, and a keyboard is a pretty basic one. Anyways I did have a 25 key oxygen 8 controller - which is useless sans computer. So my good friend and comrade, Ian, had a similar dilemma. His keyboard was too big for his dorm room, where my was too small for my liking. Thus, we traded. Unfair? Ha! Yeah! Its even weighted! Woo! The big one looks like this:

The teeny keyboard below the big M-audio 88, is a Yamaha PSR-2. Its a hella old pint sized keyboard that I took for the back of the band room. No one really knew it was there, and I was probably the only one who thought that that crappy dusty broken keyboard thing was really awesome. Alas - it works! And its sounds very tight (I stole it).
So I guess you can say in a matter of a few weeks, I went from zero keyboard instruments, to about 3 nice ones, whilst spending no moneys.

So Eric Wareheim is basically one of my favorite directors / funny people, and HEALTH is one of my favorite bands. So what happens when they work together? Magic.

I leave you and your accomplished self tonight with this: HEALTH's "We Are Water."

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Lost Boyz

Well, I haven't blogged in a while.

Its because my computer kinda broke, and then I went kinda insane for a few weeks, then I left town for another week. I guess I'll start at about the beginning of march?


That's the crap my computer got. ^ Don't know how, never dropped it, it ain't old, it just did. Anywaysss I took it some to d-bag computer genius on the island and he told me that I was totally screwed. Said that my 'motherboard' was messed up and might as well just go buy a new mac; said that with labor, installing that part would cost him like $900 (He was wrong).

So that freaked me out. (Thought I lost errrrrrrything!)

Then I went to Disney with the school band. That was cool. Went on some rides. Went backstage (CRAZY). Stole some souvenirs. Stole an arm off a mannequin. Went on a bus home.

Then the next week I went to Columbus, OH + Chicago, IL. That was probably 10 times cooler. I went to an NHL game, had a birthday, went to some thrift stores, got some clothes, got to see my sisters, got to see some gay people, got to touch some dogs. Missed a Toro y Moi show. I read the entirety of A Clockwork Orange in a car. I watched Rupaul's Drag Race for the first time. Also saw the master film that is 'Ghost Dog - Way of the Samurai.' I bought some CD's, including the new TL/Rx, That Nigerian Afrobeat Special everyone's been talking about, the old A Place to Bury Strangers, A Herbie Hancock disc, and the new Oh No Ono, Eggs.

Also, while in Ohio, I took my dead computer to an apple store there (You have to make appointments... that's so weird). Anyways, apparently shit like that happens all the time. They replaced the 'hard drive' not the 'motherboard' for $132 and even my keyboard area on the laptop for free. It works as good as new now. Soooo yeah.

Do yourself a favor and DON'T go to that guy for help. He's either a con man or an idiot.

A few more things to blog about:

TYLERs

My buddy, TYLER G, has a hardcore band called "From Ashes To Empires." They made a CD, and its pretty stellar (I think they spent a lot of money making it, so go ahead and buy one for yourself). The recording quality is top notch!

My other buddy, TYLER W, has got a totally rad solo thing going on called "Phillip Oskar Augustine." He recorded this whole deal in his house! Right on! (Hey man, thanks for the note! When I get all my stuff organized again, I wanna send you some trax...)

Uhm, I gotta play in a play now. (I'm filling in for a dude at the theater this week (The play's FAME) and I still haven't really heard the music... bad thing?)