True friend

It's unavoidable. You walk in this world bright eyed when you were young. You came to see that the world had so many possibilities. One of them are finding friends. Friends, are your very first link to what you can become, and what you view yourself as such. You become friends with people first because of similar interests, same area of influence, and having mutual acquaintances. The next stage of friendship is seeing the depths within, and what makes you like them beyond the surface. Dig deeper enough, you find some friends have scratches and burns, have baggage over baggage of crises. A shallow friend would be wise enough to veer away from this. A true friend will empathize, and will stick by you when the storm starts raging.

A true friend will know your innermost secrets and will keep it to his/her grave. True friends will tell you your worst part and will help you build  yourself up to be better.They see the inner spark in your darkest moments.

And the most amazing thing about true friends is they'll stay by you when you are at your worst.
Sometimes, they are even better than siblings. I read a phrase that goes like this: "True friends are the siblings that God didn't give to you."

Working Class (Hero)

The very first time I heard this song was from the cover version of David Bowie's Tin Machine project band.
I was blown away by how they played it. I only heard years later (thanks to Youtube), the original version of John Lennon, which sounded more like a Bob Dylan cover because of its folk style playing. But Tin Machine blows it away and turns it up at 11. And I'm back at the chain gang, working in a place, where another leash is on my neck, while another barks orders at my back. Worst part of this is how your own kind would favor the other either of internal politicking or of preference. They say you get pushed down because you let them. So am I letting them? Or I'm too far off my game to know how to play these cruel games anymore.

would you steal candy from a baby?

It's a figure of speech that means it's so easy that it's like stealing candy from a baby. And at the same time, it's easy and maliciously satisfying. Stealing from a kid. When you borrow from someone without permission, is it still borrowing?

Kind of depressing when someone you know and love would take something from you without your knowledge. Depressing and aggravating. And yes, whatever trust you had from them, it's gone. Gone for good.

I'm just so pissed off about how some people can lie like that. Not telling something from someone is technically lying, but some people aren't aware of that I guess. I want to scream in anger but I'll just blog it, nobody's reading this anyway. No one at least who is involved in petty larceny.

Whatever trust was left, it's all gone now. If you only knew how disappointed I am...

avoiding negativity

Remember that scene in the Matrix movie? Where the Oracle was in the kitchen and tells Neo (played by Keannu Reeves), as he enters to not worry about the vase. Was she precognitive? Or thru slight mental suggestion made Neo turn and he elbows the flower vase? And then the Oracle, asks if by telling him about the vase guaranteed his failure to avoid hitting  the vase with his elbow, and wonders if she didn't mention it in the first place it wouldn't have happened.

That scene made me wonder as well what the Oracle's role in the matrix? Is she a program helping the humans, or a program devised to create controlled-chaos? Had she not made the implication that Neo is the chosen, would Neo pursue being the saviour of the human race?

Do you think some people, may just by simply saying something to you, change the course of your personal events? In my opinion, yes and no. An affirmative since they may lay the plot that at most times is unavoidable. And not heeding their warnings may also give out the same desired effect.

We are the masters of our own destiny, but sometimes  words, as simple as they are get trapped in your subconscious, hence, it may be healthy for you to avoid people who say words that are often times, flat out negative. How do we avoid them if they are within our workplace? Or we are tied to them by blood, by law? Sadly, we should learn to create barriers from those negativity... but it does feel unhealthy a lot of times.

Words that fail to uplift someone may have hints of truth to them, although they're peppered with a salty, bitter flavor. But words that foretell of your downfall, failure are akin to stamping you from moving forward or on going at the right path. Or confusing you to take which path.

How negative is negative? If it fails to support you in your endeavors, if it creates conflict in your decision making, if it becomes inconvenient for you whenever you hear those words... they are negative.
Words of encouragement, words with careful, and learned thoughts will always put you at ease. But words that give off a negative vibe, however slight, is always absorbed by your inner mind. Only time, will teach us to learn from words that create pain and misery...

Making Original Songs

In this day and age when pop music has ruled the scene for decades, it's a bit hard to create a new one without being compared to old classics that have stood the test of time.
What is the formula then, for making new music in a very populated library of songs and tunes?

1. Find your Idol. Then find their style, the sound that makes them distinct. From there, you create your own flavor that may in some ways, mirror your idol's quirks and techniques. Beatles first idolized the old rhythm and blues and Elvis Presley, eventually creating their own sound on succeeding hit albums.

2. Avoid over-saturating your sound with too much effects (bells and whistles). It's like wearing the latest fashion in clothes, sometimes in a year or so, they end up as rags, or  closed up in your trunk, gathering dust.
find the right sound that you know will endure decades.

3. Make innovations in sound. Not simply by using effects, but how you phrase your song/tune. Find that magic that somehow makes the listener go and say, "Wow! I haven't heard a riff like that!"

4. Make new chord patterns. The grunge scene did make their own style, and for a time there was a rebirth in creating music that aren't grounded in songs that have been overplayed in radio stations. Find the right chords that are pleasant to your ears. Your first audience is always yourself.

5.Find a good collaborator/s. Sometimes two heads are better than one. Either you are the one who creates the melodies while the other is a lyrical genius, or vice-versa.

6. Get honest opinion. And accept constructive criticism. Most friends will say your song rocks, real friends will say the god honest painful truth.

These are some of the pointers that I think will help you in molding songs that will sound original than what you normally hear on the radio.

Goodbye Dream Land

Aging  has its pros and cons... what are the pros? You get out of puberty, out of high school, you outgrow the torments, or you get away from them as far as possible. People who claim that high school was a blast were either the bullies, the jocks, the popular ones or the ones who knew how to ride the flow of cruel persecution.

Most of us get away from the zits, the weird part of growing up, but some of us still suffer from it... but we get old, somehow, getting those wrinkles, scars, the silver colored hair (or the hairs that are still there), that look in the eye showing you have weathered the storm and survived it.

You've lived long enough to say: "I know how the world works, and now I know how to play it."

The not so fun part, or the cons, is with aging, your body breaks down with all the poisons you've consumed and all the "happy accidents" that may come along with it. you can't run as fast as you did, you can't eat all that you want like you used to... you can't flirt with the cute young thing unless you want to be labeled as a dirty old person (though in some cases, the young ones flock to you either you're famous... or just sinfully rich).

And you can't do some stuff since society has stated they're only for teens and for the thirty somethings. With that, you tend to say goodbye to those dreams, you weep and beg to stay on, but the badge of youth has been taken away from you.

At this stage, you'd wish you were part of the 27 club, atleast in a short while, you are part of a distinguished list of famous dead people who died while they shone their brightest light.

But no, you're a stubborn candle that stood on, lighting on, with a dim but firm light, only to be outshone, outdone by something new, and a bit more fun.

As you age, you realize, life has passed you by, as trails of new conundrums take over the other ones. Your dexterous hands now brittle with rheumatism, your running legs can't climb the steps as swift as before.

A sad metaphor when you light a candle on your birthday cake, it takes a year away from you...  a year of younger you... you wish a spell could hold that young smile for a decade or two, but time finds a way to get it away... and you smile as  strands of your hair turns to grey.

The world of media has lied to all of us, we see young faces but rarely the old ones. Insurance, retirement, memorial parks and hospitals, that's where you see the wrinkled, withered ones.

you can only dream as long as you're just 30 plus. If you're pushing 40, get back on the lineup...and let go of crazy dreams you thought you could have got.

to those who made the grade

Not everyone is born with a silver spoon. Not everyone has a "luck of an Irish" (pardon the term). But a lot of us have been put down, spat on, humiliated, and missed a lot of golden opportunities. A lot of us fought the good fight, but just didn't make the grade.

Success, sadly, is made both with hardship and a lot of times, fabricated opportunities.

Fabricated in the sense, that some may lie their way to the top (or lay depending on your situation), push off competition (with extreme prejudice, sorry for the cliché), or simply make their way at that right moment, be it by luck, or by deceit.

What does irk me most times, is when these individuals (or groups of people) reach the apex, achieve what few people could, they begin to look down on the others that didn't.

We, the bottom feeders, the needy, the failures in life are either seen as leeches, dregs of society.

Some of us, if not most, have experienced adversities, and unfortunately had a hard time from climbing back up to the challenges in life. But that doesn't mean we are wallowing in our disgrace. That doesn't mean we are forever in this state.

But to label us as failures shows how much these "upper crusts" have been blinded by their "sparkly" higher status in society. The best description would be how a winner in a race would gloat at the last placer, or a person who used to live in a backwater country, now enjoying the fruits of his/her labor in a first-rate society.

Somehow, those who made the grade have forgotten life is a wheel, and it cycles from one point to another. And the higher you are in your mountain, the harder it is when you fall from your own fragile pedestal. Somehow, in their arrogance and self-righteous perception, they have failed to see the what ifs and if they were in the other person's figurative shoes.

Perhaps, their success is cast in stone, but at what cost, and whose stepping-stone have they used and abused to get  all the way up to their successful careers/businesses?

 

Solo performance?

Today I was supposed to play at a club for audition night. And I am so terrified that I asked my contact if I could have the audition on another week instead. I only realized just now how weak my voice is as a solo performer. I was doing last minute preparations for the auditions. My plan was to do two different instruments at a time. One keyboard piece and an electric guitar piece.

I was playing and singing at the same time wearing my headphones and I can hear how my voice trembled on some of the lines. And there were parts where I jumbled my chords on some pieces too.

I knew if I go on tonight it would be a disaster. I want to perform but knowing I'm doing everything solo, I will feel naked on the stage. Even though I am using a song accompaniment thru mp3 files on the computer. It's not the same as playing with a band.

And again, with my voice, I know I don't sound as outstanding as I imagine myself to be. My heart was racing since last night, I was so restless and nervous. I can play music, but playing and singing has been a challenge for me.

I can sing my own songs with glee since I know my notes by heart, and I can safely say no matter how my voice sounds I can sing it with confidence, since it is my own song.

But doing covers is much more different. Either you try and emulate how it sounds originally, or give it your own flavor but not deviating from its essence.

Perhaps it harks back to my aborted piano recital. I have never played alone in public. Ever. I play in tandem with a guitar, I accompany a singer, but I never sang and accompany myself in public before. Never.

So, I need to polish everything in a span of seven days before I can safely say I can play solo. Good luck to myself.

Why we hate Rob Liefeld

I'm not sure why so many of the online community are enraged as to why Mr. Rob Liefeld has a career in the comic book industry. I keep looking at some of his great creations like Cable and Deadpool. If he isn't a good artist/creator, why are these two characters so popular up till now? Cable represents the big-muscled, cybernetic,shoulder pad wearing, big gun guy that was so the rage in the 90s.

Deadpool meanwhile is a mixture of Spider-man's comical quips, and Deathstroke's multi-weaponed assassin. Add to that a healing factor that was added after he was disfigured horribly. (I may be wrong on that detail). Why the hate? For those early years, so much of those fans (who were young kids then), bought copies (variants with chrome designed covers, or alternate drawings, or sketches)of a single issue out of love of his work. (Or a misplaced idea of a money making investment). Unfortunately, the nineties (90's),was the time when bad girls, overly designed, manga-ish, unnecessary cross- hatched work and gimmick loaded covers was the in thing in those days. The only comics I tried out then that seem still cool for me was the Generation X cover by Chris Bachalo.

You can easily tell early on that one would sustain his works, and the other will be derided simply he was a bad choice that became popular. Why do most comic book fans hate Rob Liefeld? Because as an afterthought, they realized the mistake of liking his works in the first place. Their adolescent minds, filled with new ideas, but untrained eyes of what is really good, what is artfully done, over what was hot, and happening back in those days. It's a sad reminder to most fanboys that they were fooled by big biceps, high- concept, obvious character rip-offs, and women drawn as sluts in the heyday that was the 90s. Still, atleast Mr. Liefeld created Deadpool and Cable ... one of them is going to even have a solo movie... ( and media has fooled us again... ah fanboys, when will we ever learn).

When we go up in space again... it should be mandated that they play this song

Why bass players are the boss

1. The bass guitar, in most music (especially modern western), is usually the dominant sound you hear all throughout a song. In most recordings, the bass sound always carries the larger “thump” and is easily audible by the human ear. During listening, the bass player can easily follow the song and play it back much easier than most instruments (Unless the music or song involves sixteenth notes in the arrangement and demands the bass player to work overtime).

2.The bass guitar, be it six string or the usual four string, is normally played one note at a time, rarely does it deal in full chord arrangements in the whole song. Emphasis on rare, which means they do employ full chordal arrangement, but on certain pieces. That makes it easier to listen to the songs and get the general idea quicker than most instrumentalists.

3. The bass guitar player is usually the backbone of the song, as easy as it sounds like, they have to be consistent on their playing, and one minor error can make the other musicians/instrumentalist lost during play.

4. The bass guitar player is usually percussive in its approach (in most modern music); it is always the partner of the drummer. The drummer then usually takes his/her cue from the bassist's eye movements, eyebrow gestures, and head bobbing. Their tempo should usually be very in sync to each other to the minute detail (especially with the bass drum), to create fullness in sound during gigs.

5.The bass player is usually an audiophile, is into mixing, arranging, and will know most instruments (at least either intermediate or advanced level), which makes his/her ears very finely tuned to all the instruments he/she hears during recording, at gigs or at practice.

For a While- Eiderglast

When it comes to writing songs, I have just re-learned to write spontaneously. No pauses or breaks, three simple chords , a guitar and a recorder in front, and just let what my inner mind wants to say. And the result, though it may sound a bit rough, is quite pleasing to my ears. And my ears are quite hard to please.
I would like to acknowledge my bandmates for that one night where we jammed and we played any chords and put words that came on top of our heads. It was liberating and at times very revealing of our inner workings.
For a while

She comes to me, On a warm sunny day,
Her hair glistens like gold She smiles so warm
So warm, her eyes, They shine, invite
Invite, inside a love...
She's a girl I used to know
She was the one I wanted so,
But she, did find Someone to love
Someone who can And I don't have
The one she wants Has riches and gold
And I am just a lowly serf
Ooh I love, to know What's become
Of her, does she
Remember, the way I smiled so full of love
But does she ever know
She's the one I used to know,
And now that's all, In the past...
And it's gone... and it's gone And it's gone
I wish to be, the one she loves
Maybe, one time I could come, and be
The one she wants
For a time, for a while
All alone in the night
She would be
Full of my love
Full of my love
I don't care
If it's only
For a while...