Things I learned From Playing Guitar Live in Los Angeles

 

So what is it like, playing shows live onstage at small bars and clubs in Los Angeles, from the guitarists' perspective? 

First, you have to realize, that playing guitar live onstage in Los Angeles is very common. There are a million guitar players in Los Angeles. Why? Because its a warm climate and guitars do much better in warm climates than in cold climates. Therefore, there are a million guitar players in Los Angeles. So, you must realize that if you want to play guitar in Los Angeles, you are competing with a million other players, many of which, may be good, very good, so-so, and/or amazing. 

So you've decided to play a guitarist in Los Angeles? Okay, so here are the next steps in your sound once you get on stage in whatever capacity: in a band, in a cover band, or in an original band, or just playing a jam session. 

Second, the type of guitar you use is important. So when you get onstage, the type of guitar you bring to the performance matters most more than anything. You need a cheap but comfortable guitar that you can play at any moment's notice. Cheap, because most bars aren't the most safest for your good gear. And comfortable because you need to be able to play very well in any moment's notice. 

Third, the type of amp matters a lot too. Let's say you're playing in a metal band. I would recommend some cheap solid state amp [digital] that you could haul easily. If you're playing country and western then you want something older like an old small tiny Fender tube amp that you can really crank up. Classic rock? Well, you could do a solid state amp [digital], or a tube amp. 

Or, there's another option. You could run the guitar through the PA, and have the sound technician turn up the guitar loudly. But this is a last resort option, only if somehow you have no amp and you must perform. 

Fourth, you as the player matter. What kind of styles of music are you more inclined to? If you're a metal player, you might play fast three-notes-per-string scales like Malmsteen or Steve Vai. If you're more blues, you might be sounding like Jimi Hendrix or Jimmy Page. If you're more country you're going to sound more like Joni Mitchell backing up Emoulou Harris. So, you, as a player matter a lot. 

Moving forward, you must ask yourself, why am I playing guitar in bars in Los Angeles? Do you need money, do you play for fun, are you trying to be famous, or are you just trying to chill and have a good time? You must have a purpose to what you're trying to do. 

However, because there are a million other guys playing guitar in bars in Los Angeles, you'll find that its difficult to make it in the business. Especially because the music industry and music business has changed so much from when I was a kid [2011] to now [2025], so you'll find its tough no matter how good at guitar you are. 

So, you'll learn that guitar in Los Angeles isn't the most necessary or important, or required instrument in bars. Because the music scene here is so oversaturated with guitar players, you'll find out that its better to be a multi-instrumentalist instead. 

Next, you'll find that you'll have to wear many hats and know how to play musical chairs. 

In conclusion, what do you have to do in order to be a musician [guitar player] in Los Angeles? This will take all of your musical abilities start from whatever age you first became attracted to music. Most musicians get interested in music around the age of 9 or 10 years old. 

So you'll find that you'll have to be a multi-instrumentalist. Most bands won't need a guitarist, so you'll have to be able to be a singer [while also strumming piano or guitar or bass or drums at the same times], or a bass player [non-singing], or a drummer [non-singing], or piano [non-singing] and you must also have the ability to be able lift heavy sound equipment for your band. 

Lastly, you'll also want good old fashioned sound engineer ability as well. For, as you see, its very complicated playing guitar at bars in Los Angeles. 

Rent-Due, Still Playing Clubs

Things I learned From Shows in Los Angeles

Letter from the composer: [sends me chords to play on piano]

Me: Thanks, I'll check them out. 

Happy New Year. Kind of bummed out with a work situation at the moment. But the music is keeping me going. The last couple nights I've been going to shows at the bar and figuring out how the sound technician gets all the sounds. I figured it out. 

There are monitors, subwoofers inside the bar on the top of corners on the ceiling. 

The owner only wants the sound tech to only use the brand new [digital equipment]. But he doesn't want to because he likes a more traditional system. 

The owners says the traditional system is too loud. So he can't use it every night. So he's been loading different equipment [a more fancier analog system] all by himself for different nights in a large SUV style van. Not good because the guy is 64 years old. 

The answer to this dilemma is that he must use a smaller sound system for each and every night. But he doesn't want to because he wants to do what he wants, and is reluctant to do anything the owner says because they've been working together for a long time and they have some sort of dispute about it. 

However, the sound technician showed me the older more basic [analog log system that's very small] and I saw that everything that it had was acceptable and could work within the small confines of a small local Encino bar. 

So, you find that the sound systems used to record music are not important at all to the sound of the recording. 

Rather, it is the direction of sound that is placed or pointed at the audience that determines the sound more than anything else. 

In conclusion, theoretically speaking, you could record a classical music album on an iphone 12. 

Keep in mind, this guy used to run sound for Black Flag.

Happy New Year! 

Existential millennial crisis

This funny term came to my mind today when I was thinking about all of my friends. Existential millennial crisis. My friends are all in their mid to late 20's and life could be better for all of us. That being said, all of them seem to think that there's more to life, and "I want it. I want more. I want more out of this life. And I'm going to get it. Here's how." And then they proceed to tell me all these plans and solutions to said problem: How do I stay happy and get more out of life? 

There are no easy solutions to this. Its something I struggle with everyday. Part of it is a huge mental leap in positivity that cannot be broken by anything or anyone. This can be impossible for some people who aren't tough enough. You just have to have a tough mental attitude. But the answer for most of them seems to be this: "I'm stuck in a rut in LA. I have to get out of here and have a fresh start somewhere else." 

To that I say that the grass isn't always greener on the other side. If you can't make it in LA and be happy what makes you think anywhere else would make you happier? LA and the Valley is a very happy place with all kinds of people doing all manners of occupations. Living in California has been the happiest years in my life. Moving away isn't going to solve all their problems. Having to find a new job might be rough. Leaving your friends and family will be even tougher. 

I would say it would be better to solve the problem before you jump ship. Fight or flight isn't always the best response, especially when it comes to a millennial existential crisis. This seems to be a huge problem for all my friends right now. I actually feel for them because I don't seem to have these kinds of issues or plans, to run away and start anew. 

Two other friends are in a bad spot as well. One of them is getting kicked out by his landlord by the end of the month and instead of finding room mates right away he's sitting around with his thumb up his ass. He's trusting in God and not worrying about it, but in reality this is something he should be worried about and working on to solve. 

Another friend had the option to live with his father but doing so would mean that he wouldn't be able to play computer games 12 hours a day (he's a gaming addict, a very good gamer). I told him he should live with his dad and stop gaming so much, develop other hobbies such as reading (always my advice to all my friends), but in the end he chose the option where he could play games 12 hours a day. He now lives in a small apartment and shares a room with a 45 year-old man. Sounds just great right? No. In reality he's not feeling the situation, and he probably realized that he made a bad decision. Oh well. That's life. 

I've been thinking about all of this stuff and then thought about my own life. Of course, I'm not making a million dollars nor do I have a girl friend but there's more to life than that, and that's happiness. The one thing I have that they don't is that I'm happy where I'm at in life. This doesn't mean that I'm not going to try to do better, get a better job, perhaps go back to school, find a girl friend, etc. It means that I'm not going to run away from my problems related to my current situation. Instead, I'm going to tough it out and fix things here, where I can think clearly about my state.

You have to figure out your problems and work to fix them without running. Life is a complex shismatrix, it takes a lot of time and energy to figure out how to read between the lines. We live in the best state in the country, with the best weather, with more jobs than most states. Life is good here in the Valley, and I like it here. If you aren't happy and can't be satisfied here then you won't be satisfied anywhere. 

You might think I'm overthinking all of this but actually all this dialogue is helping me to process my friends' emotions as well as my own. Life is tough. Stick with it, don't give up. Strive for better. Persevere. But do it effectively. Don't run, don't go off on your own into the wild blue nether. You might not be as happy as you once were.

New Music, Jazz History, and Science Fiction

I've been doing more research into jazz and new music, avant-garde classical music. I've also been reading science fiction and such.

The science fiction novel is easy enough to explain. It's a science fiction novel set in the future where a scientist is trying to find out what happened to a town in Germany called Eifelheim. Then it goes back into Medieval German times where a priest named Dietrich is working as the communication between humans and these insect-like aliens called Kreken. The novel explores this idea: Can we convert aliens? There's other ideas and tons of rocket science abstraction (dense reading!) in it but this is the primary subject of the book. Its called Eifelheim and its written by Michael Flynn. The book was nominated for a Hugo award back in 2007. Although the book came out in 2006 this is already ancient by today's memelord society.

I also picked up two new books on jazz. Both seem superb after only reading a bit. They're two books written by Nat Hentoff. Jazz Life and Jazz Is. Both explore jazz in a variety of ways with interviews, history, and in depth analysis of the music, the musicians, the audience, and the time periods (some of which include when jazz wasn't popular). Hentoff is a Jewish writer (that wrote for pretty much every major publication) that was well known for his politics. He comes to know the music personally because he met and knew most of the "greats" as a kid in New York. I find his insight on the people to be enlightening. He explains that although the people who play jazz are flawed, the music itself isn't. I'm looking forward to reading both books and I hope to learn a lot more about the history (black history) and people that made such great music.

Then there's the readings on and about the new music scene. I've become a listener of the avant-garde, so called "new music", or as I like to say avant-garde classical music. It started during the Chicago trip when I saw Messiaen's Quartet For the End of Time performed and then it just expanded from there like a mothership dropping its young onto an unsuspecting planet.

I've become particularly fond of Xenakis, Ligeti, Guillermo Gregorio (Argentinian clarinetist and improviser), Stravinsky, Stockhausen, and others. Xenakis wrote a great book about mathematics and music but once I got past the initial introduction the book goes a little over my head. Interesting to check out and read about still.

The thing I like about this sort of music is that it sounds like it could've been completely improvised but it was all written down and thought about. They didn't just throw together random stuff and some people say it sounds random and not music at all (a general opinion on the avant-garde) but I've come to learn that music can be made out of anything and everything, a lesson this music has taught me more so than ever. These composers were revolutionary because they didn't follow the standard norms of composition and influenced music of the twentieth century in a profound way. 

Guillermo Gregorio's music is great. His playing is as my dad put it,"dated". He has a sound that was popular back in the mid to late 1960's jazz, free jazz to be specific. He has the sound of Eric Dolphy, if Dolphy was from Argentina and became an intellectual artist inspired by architecture and European art and philosophy. I don't want to generalize him but his playing reminds me of Dolphy a lot. And I dig that very much.

On the other end of the spectrum (the one where European/American art music and rap don't mix!) I read the entire LA Weekly edition that just came out and in the back they had a list of fifteen of LA's best rappers. I'm not a fan of rap but I figured I would check out some of these guys and see if they had done LA proud with their work. DJ Quik has a nice funky style and Tyler the Creator has become a rap darling. Apparently the guy who doesn't give a fuck about anything actually cares.

All of this stuff will enrich my musical and literary palette. I'm trying to improve the blog, do more editing and limiting my posts and sentences, something before I never would have done because I thought too much editing was a bad thing almost akin to censorship. My goal is to eventually be showcased somewhere on a website and for something to come out of all of this. After all, nobody should write for free. But a free thinker must express his ideas to others lest it all sit inside one's head. As Grace Slick (from Jefferson Airplane) sang in White Rabbit, "Feed your head."

Picture is the composer Ligeti

Anime Expo Day Three

So I went to Anime Exp yesterday for Day 3, the final day of the event. I was kind of dreading it at first and I was even planning on not going. However, my friends really wanted me to go so I bought my ticket. Getting the pass turned out to be a hassle because I had to take the bus downtown LA super early in the morning on Friday (also called Day 0). But even that wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. It was fun just cracking jokes all morning on the bus with my friends. Now onto the event itself...

I wasn't really too sure what to expect other than a bunch of weebs in cosplay and hot cosplay girls. The best thing I can say about the event was that there was a lot of hot girls everywhere wearing skimpy cosplay outfits. There was a lot of t and a at that convention. It was pretty good. But that's pretty much where the good ends for me. I'll explain further.

So we get in, walk around, and start looking at merch. I actually ended up not buying anything because I didn't see anything that was cool enough or worthy to buy. But that's besides the point. So I see a Reaper cosplay (from Overwatch) with pies instead of shot guns in his hands and nearby I spot a Blizzard merch stand! I love Blizzard so this should be cool right? I look at this awesome D.Va statue model for like 15 seconds and this employee there comes up to me and tells me I can't look at it any longer unless I buy something of worth at least $8. Talk about a fucking rip off. You mean I gotta pay just to look at Blizzard merch? That was too much. Of course I didn't pay for that but man that kinda put a bad taste in my mouth considering that I've been supporting Blizzard for years. This blog is a testament to that. They're really grubby when it comes to money.

After that we chilled at this bar/lounge area and it was probably the coolest place there. There was a live rock band and they were playing anime/gaming songs. The guitarist was great but there were three female lead singers and their voices just clashed so hard on every note. It was like listening to three annoying women singing the Pokemon theme (it literally was that). However, I'd like to give that band credit because the guitarist, bassist, and drummer were all great players. I could tell in their tone. That was fun.

Later we met up with two friends which made our party five and we went to a Dragon Ball Super panel, the only panel I went to for the event. We got there two hours early because if we didn't we wouldn't have been able to get in (too many people). So we sat down for hours just waiting and I just kept falling in and out of consciousness because I kept sleeping because it was so boring. Once the panel started I found out that the voice actors for English version Goku and Vegeta were pretty arrogant. They thought they were just the coolest guys in the room. English Beerus and Japanese Vegeta especially were very humble. Sometimes I think the creators and/or actors behind the scenes are very undeserving of the fans' love and I would say that guy that voices Goku perhaps doesn't deserve the goodwill of the fans with the way he was talking and presenting himself. It was quite troubling considering I've been watching since I was a kid but let's face it these guys aren't perfect. The panel itself was super boring because they didn't talk about anything interesting or new about the show and the Q & A was just general dumb questions from fans. There was no talk about the current events of Super, just mostly the Battle of Gods and Resurrection of Frieza. In that respect it was also a letdown.

We ate at a food truck which was actually surprisingly good. I got a grilled cheese spicy chicken sandwich with tator tots that was actually pretty good. However, it did set me back like $16 so its debatable if it was really worth it. Overall, I found the event to be just a money grubby give me your money! kind of thing with no real benefit other than to buy cool anime merch that you wouldn't be able to find anywhere else other than online. The real disappointing thing was that Blizzard charged to view their gear and I didn't get to meet any of the Overwatch voice actors. That was the main reason I wanted to go.

I think between falling asleep out of boredom and the fact that Blizzard wanted $8 just to look at their merch, I found the whole event to have been a waste of time and money. However, the convention experience (the people and the cosplays) was a lot better than I thought it would be. I really enjoyed all the Overwatch cosplays! So many Hanzos! I did find it a little weird how many guys there were dressed as girls. Apparently this is an event where you can cross dress and not be called a fairy. There was a lot of people but it never felt like it was an unmanageable amount of people so that was good. Even though it turned out to be a bad experience for me at least I can say I've been to one of the biggest conventions ever! I'd be down to go next year but I'd want to go for more days so I can spend more time to really enjoy it.

Dig the Overlord cosplay!

Metal Show Extravaganza at the Regent

I went to a metal show last night at the Regent, this venue in LA. At first I wasn't going to go because lately I haven't been listening to a lot of metal but my friends persuaded me to go. I'm so glad I went because it was super fun! Let me tell you about it.

The opening band was the band that we went there to see specifically. The Agonist is a female fronted metal (metalcore/deathcore/death metal) band that my friends really love. Its easy to see why. The chick fronting the band has such charisma, style, and a great voice for cleans as well as screaming. I would say that The Agonist sounds even better live than they do on record, and I've heard them a lot on record because of my friends. Seeing them perform was a first for me in the sense that it was the first time I'd ever seen a woman singing super aggressive metal live and doing it with such grace, style, and sonic fury. It was pretty amazing. Definitely a memorable experience!

The next band was called Winter Plague or Plagues, something like that. I can't remember because their name was nothing remarkable. They were more of a stereotypical sort of metalcore band where they played lots of fast heavy riffs with a guy screaming over the top of all of it. The best part was when the keyboardist girl sang a song. The lead guitarist had some better solos than the guitarists in The Agonist but overall their band was a bit too cliche for my metal tastes. Totally the opposite of the next band...

Next up was Death Angel. These were the grandmaster metal musicians of the night. They were older, cooler looking, more talented, and way more metal than all the other bands, even The Agonist. They were my favorite band. The band featured two Asian (most of them are Filipino) guys on guitars and they absolutely shredded through heavy metal guitar riffs and solos. The lead guitarist was so fast and maniacal. There was a sense that anything and everything could happen at anytime during his solos, it was very daring and adventurous even though he was making mistakes and hitting bum notes at times. This set him apart from the other guitarists of the night who seemed to be playing stock solos that they play every night at every show.

Their drummer was a fat white guy bigger than me but who was so fast and technical. He was probably good enough to play in Dream Theater or something, his double bass drum patterns and fills were so spot on. The singer was good but his voice didn't exactly stand out as much as the other musicians. Also, the singer looked a lot like Tom Araya, singer/bassist of Slayer. That was funny because they're both in thrash metal bands from the 80's. Their set was definitely the best of the night. There was a sense that most of the people there went to see Death Angel and their fans really shouted and moshed in the pit hard for them. How could a band called Death Angel not play great heavy metal music?

Finally, after standing around all night we got to hear the headliner. Devil Driver is a popular metal band that plays such stock cliche gun metal gray (to quote Marty Friedman on Megadeth) music that it was too bland to enjoy. Their singer didn't have a great voice, their riffs were generic and fast but not technical enough to be interesting, and the songs didn't really go anywhere. The good thing that I can say about them is that they played their entire set almost as if they were playing an album live in the studio. They didn't even stop to say anything in between songs. It was just start, finish, start, finish, and repeat. I like that sense of urgency from musicians. They played the longest set and after a certain point I wanted them to stop playing and they kept going on and on. Eventually they ended the show. And that was that.

As you can imagine I was really tired after the show ended. I'm actually super tired right now the day after. Thinking about it all now I'm still not the biggest fan of modern metal and I would go so far as to say that Devil Driver was annoying. But still, I'm glad I got to see The Agonist and Death Angel. Also, you'd be surprised how many hot girls were at this show. Seems like metal musicians probably get a lot of hot girls. But that's a story for another post.

Think I'm gonna lay low off loud things and heavy metal music for a while. Till the next concert that is. Btw, that's a young picture of Death Angel.