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! 

Jazz Music Live Stream

Hello all,

Here's a jam session from today, this afternoon. We just played improv, straight-ahead jazz style, as I know how to play it on the guitar. I've been getting more and more into jazz guitar, and Jason's alto saxophone playing has really pushed me. The key is blending in the guitar with the saxophone. 

Thanks for watching and listening. Have a great day! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyRVeekA-yw

Punk show last night

Last night I went to a pretty sick show at the Sugar Mill Saloon. The show was sponsored by Demon Candy Promotions. I was around for three bands. All great. 

The first band was Kittenhead. They're a female-led group consisting of a white chick frontwoman singer, a black chick guitarist, an Asian chick bassist, and a white dude on drums. Talk about diversity! I actually haven't seen a band like that live before. The guitarist and bassist kept switching off instruments. They were proficient at guitar and bass, both of them. However, the Asian chick was the better guitarist. But the black chick was funkier. 

They reminded me of the 90s bands fronted by women like The Cars. But they had a more punk rock edge. The three girls sang vocals and sometimes they switched off between lead vocals. The black chick even had songs where she rapped. And she was good. And funky with her guitar playing. They weren't terrific or remarkable in any particular way. Rather, they were the perfect rock band. Perfect in the sense that you know that these musicians aren't remarkable on their own. However, when they come together as a band they are greater than the sum of their parts. Wowie zowie! 

The second band was called Rosemary Reyes. Loudest band I've ever heard in my life. The guitarist even told me outside the bar that he couldn't hear himself. "Did it sound good?" Sure did, buddy. Okay, first of all, this band is one of a kind and I will never see another band quite like it. For starters, the band is fronted by a 72-year-old woman! 

The guitarist was quite good. He was playing an old 1950s guitar, possibly a Silvertone from the looks of it. He had a Vox half stack setup. He had a great fuzzed-out guitar tone emanating throughout the place. Honestly, his guitar playing was carrying the whole band from start to finish. The old lady singing was doing a punk rock snarl throughout every song. I couldn't understand a word. It was all gibberish. So much for punk rock. BUT...the fact that she's fronting a punk band at that age is freaking inspiring. She's a true inspiration. Even though I wasn't a fan of her vocals she looked cool and even sounded cool. 

I was very impressed with the guitar player. He was playing punk rock so his guitar playing was limited to just hardcore rhythms, power chords, and open chords. He did do one solo but it was like maybe ten seconds long. But he made it sound so good. His guitar was an old 1950s model. It's quite fascinating how those old guitars from the 50s actually look futuristic like they could've been made in 2020. Those were the days. They were so loud. I've never seen a band play there that sounded so loud. It was quite good. The young drummer killed it with a lot of hardcore fills. The bassist was very good as well. Talk about fuzz tone.

The last band was Swords of Fatima. The group consists of a girl singing and playing guitar with just a drummer. Because it's just a duo it sounds more rock and roll, more visceral, more raw, more punk rock, maybe even more blues. I didn't stay for the whole set but the drummer was on point. And her guitar playing was great, especially her rhythms. 

It was late and I called it a night. A good show indeed. You can listen to these bands on YouTube but those videos aren't as good as the real, live, thing. Women in rock and roll are pretty damn cool. 

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.