Second Soundcloud account

So my first Soundcloud (music sharing website) account got full quickly so I ended up creating a new page. You can find it here.

This was from an open jam session at the local pub. I'm on guitar, my friend Martin is on drums, and friend and house-bassist Art is on bass. On Jazz and rock for entertainment there was a great jazz guitar player but I noticed he didn't want to take too many solos or anything when we had this jam.

Sunshine of Your Love is the first time I sang live in front of an audience a whole tune. Before I only sang choruses. Looking back to it I think my voice needs a lot more work. I got the words (fumbled a bit though) but I need to work on my pronunciation and melodic sense within my voice. That will take time and work.

There's an instrumental heavy metal jam called Soothsayer by this instrumental rock musician named Buckethead. He was an influence on me when I was getting into playing really fast stuff. We've been playing that tune at the jam a lot because it gives a lot of room for emotional melodies as well as a great rock feel and shred solos for the climax.

My friend Renee, a work associate who introduced me to the open jams sang on all three but her voice doesn't necessarily carry that well. At times it sounds like she could be mumbling. However, I thought her vocal improvisation on Jazz and rock for entertainment was wonderful.

You can check it all out below
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17

Live Tracks from 9/27

Here's the live tracks from last week's open jam. This was the first time I brought my 7-string Jackson to the jam night. I think it sounds pretty astounding. On Smoke on the Water I got a much heavier (more metal) guitar tone. The instrumental improv with Thelma was really sick as well. And the jazz instrumental was a jam with many roads traveled (including a blues) haha. Enjoy the heaviness of 7-string guitar. I notice even though its a much heavier sound it can also get really good trebly tones as well. Also its funny you can hear me doing back up vocals on the chorus of Smoke on the Water. My voice really stands out there haha. Enjoy!

https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/jazz-on-a-7-string
https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/smoke-on-the-water-metal-version
https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/thelma-proto-metal-jam

Ideas for music projects

So I'm planning on buying recording equipment soon and I figured I'd write some ideas down. That's what a blog is for right? Ideas and stuff. Here I'd like to outline some ideas I have for recording and/or music styles that I want to aim at working on. First and foremost I'll mostly be recording guitar and bass and be using a drum machine for drums so the music will be limited to just those three instruments at first. Oh yeah I'll probably also be singing. I'll have to sing because just instrumental music won't work if I want to get more attention. Now onto ideas for style.

Jazz Fusion-This would be the easiest thing for me to work on because I know jazz (but am no means a master) but I know enough to write some heads, changes, and I can improvise pretty well. I actually used to write jazz fusion tunes on music manuscript paper back when I was a kid in high school. This seems like the best bet. I could have it written down on sheet music and it would be easy to show other musicians. Plus I love fusion, its what got me into jazz originally.

Black Metal-I played in a metal band back when I lived in Wisconsin but it was more of a nu-metal kind of sound. More hardcore too. Think breakdowns meet Alice in Chains. I want to play metal but metal that is less based on technique and more based on soul but still gives off that evil sinister vibe that you get from bands like Mayhem. The term black metal to me is much more inclusive because of newer metal bands. I'm particularly speaking about my favorite metal bands from Sweden (sorry Opeth) Tribulation and Ghost. Ghost has an almost pop vibe to their brand of metal and Tribulation has a psychedelic sound but retains that characteristic metal vocals. I will probably start singing and writing vocals to achieve this.

Indie Rock- So this is another style I used to dabble in a bit as a songwriter back in high school. I used to write these songs based on vocals. The vocals always came first and then I'd write the changes to the words. Pretty good way of songwriting actually. Anyways, the songs were always of a popular nature, usually critique on society in some way. Too bad I lost all those songs. I'm a huge indie rock fan so working on this kind of material would be a good fit.

EDM/Electronic-This is a style I'm interested in because it sounds good. I like all the fake synthesizer instruments and computer generated sounds. Some purist musicians think it sounds like shit (can't blame 'em) but I think it sounds hip. This would be an easy style to get into because I already have a computer and laptop but at the same time I don't know how to use the programs. Who's to say I can't find someone who does though?

Rap/Hip Hop-Another style I'm interested in dabbling in. Mostly because of the Nujabes influence. I would never rap a day in my life but who's to say I wouldn't be down to play with a rapper? Also, I like the idea of rap beat instrumentals.

I guess the important thing to consider about all of this is the fact that I have to write songs and keep doing it until I become good and then keep getting better. Long road ahead of me. I'm already a pretty good guitar player and musician but I haven't written an original song since I was in high school. I've been playing popular tunes for a long time. Its back to the drawing board-literally.

Wish me luck

Animals as Leaders, The Madness of Many

I finally listened to some heavy rock and roll music after about a week of nonstop classical music. A new co-worker told me that the new Animals as Leaders was out and sure enough it's on YouTube. The Madness of Many is AAL's fourth record, released in November 2016. The album features Tosin Abasi on guitars, Javier Reyes on guitars and bass, and Matt Garstka on drums. This is the longest and most stable lineup for the band and they've been going strong for years. The album reached number ten on some New Zealand chart and 56 on the US Billboard 200.

I can tell you right now that from hearing the first couple tracks on this album that this is the best AAL album they've done thus far. You can tell that they worked together on every detail of the songs and music. In their past records we can clearly see where this is a Tosin song, that's a Reyes song, or that's a Garstka song. They've finally achieved democratic band mode where they give it their all while working together and the end result is bloody brill.

What can I say about the music? This music sounds like Meshuggah (Swedes have a monopoly on metal) had a black jazz baby that grew up to become a rocket scientist that works at Nasa. This is like space age progressive metal riffery at its finest. It djents (djent, new style of metal based around chugging in odd meters on bass strings) like all hell but it swings hard like jazz fusion (jazz-rock) does all the while maintaining an originality to it that is exclusively Animals as Leaders. They've developed a style and they've honed that style and made it better and better over the years performing and recording together.

Although this album has some complicated meters (rhythms) it never becomes too intelligent to the point where it would bore the non-musical listener who doesn't know what a 32nd or 64th note is or sounds like. While it is complicated music it somehow has a natural feel to it as well. It's hard to explain but the fact that they've achieved this on record is amazing. I don't think they could've done it without working together on every aspect because on previous albums the music gets lost awash in complicated musical ideas that ultimately sound exciting as a guitar player but might bore the average non-musical listener.

Another thing to note about this album is that because I've listened to all their previous albums there are moments on this album that sounds like previous songs. Bands tend to do this. It sounds great hearing familiar riffs and territory ventured once again.
They go through all kinds of complicated jazz changes, metal riffs, and drum beats but it all sounds like some natural planned out jam. It's pretty impressive. Tosin and Reyes' guitar playing is through the roof and Matt's drumming keeps everything tied down through tribal-like shamanistic beats. It's almost metaphysical. If this is the direction that metal is going I would like to see it continue to move forward in this manner. Metal music is so stale and bland these days that I almost can't stand it. There are many times when my friends turn on some metal music and I just want to leave the room. The last couple metal bands I was into weren't really metal in the traditional sense but were still really heavy bands. The idea of having heavy moments in between other styles is really cool and should definitely be explored more.

Metal needs to progress in order to keep from getting stale. This metal band has ascended above and beyond the average musical abilities of most metal groups. They're like jazz musicians at this point. Very cool to see great young players creating great inspiring music and catching the progressive metal zeitgeist at the same time.

The album obviously has a point to make with the album cover of the man going up a flight of stairs inside a human head. They're trying to make some sort of social or mental commentary but honestly I think it would go above most peoples' heads because this is an instrumental record with no vocals. However, you can make stories through instrumental songs. Although AAL is a great band I don't think they've achieved that level of artistic mastery yet. 

This is what intelligent metal sounds like. Not all of us headbang so hard that we hurt our necks.