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

February Update

Howdy partner! I've had a lot of free time lately, but haven't been writing as much. However, I've been extremely busy living an interior life, which of course involves a lot of reading and guitar playing. 

Usually I keep the blog updated very frequently but I haven't finished any novels, albums, or seen any interesting movies. However, I'm in the middle of a couple of great books and I'm even writing a rough draft for a novella, which I will try to get published, eventually, maybe in 2020 when I'm done with it. My goal is for it to be around 100 pages. Its about growing up in the Midwest in the early 2000's, very autobiographical. 

For starters, I've been reading this epic [457 page] science fiction novel by Cecelia Holland, a female historical fiction writer, called Floating Worlds. Floating Worlds is her first and only science fiction novel and it is quite grand. In a way, this book heavily reminds me of Schismatrix Plus by Bruce Sterling, however, this book was written in 1976, some ten years before Schismatrix Plus. 

Basically, the Earth has been run down by pollution. Anarchists control the Earth's government. There are people on other planets and even aliens [Martians and others], called Styths. Our female protagonist gets a government job [ironic b/c they're anarchists], and is in charge of writing a treaty between the anarchists of Earth and Styths, these 'black' aliens with mustaches, claws, and very tall bodies. The female lead ends up getting the treaty by sleeping with the Styth leader, and she even has a baby by him! I'm about half-way through the novel. Interesting to note that the Styths say the word 'nigger' a lot, usually in reference to humans. In addition, Martians and other alien races refer to the Styths as niggers. I imagine that this would upset a lot of the social media crowd these days.

The idea is a very popular science fiction trope: a grand space opera spanning many pages. However, the writing is unlike most science fiction space operas I've read. The writing is simplistic, sometimes even bare bones. Sentences read easily, in fact, you could say the book reads itself, although it is quite long. Its quite something to see that you don't have to be as technical as say William Gibson or even Bruce Sterling to write great science fiction. This is a great example of that. 

In addition, I've been reading Being and Time [1927, 500 pages] by Martin Heidegger, the modern German philosopher.  In Being and Time, Heidegger attempts to explain "what is being". He says that since the time of the Greeks, philosophers have avoided the question, instead referring to the analysis of particular beings. He goes on to explain and define the meaning of being. I can't say that I truly understand everything in Being and Time. However, everything written in it is so captivating that sometimes I can't put it down. It keeps my attention, and makes me think very hard about what he's trying to say, which is to definite being. 

One thing that makes it very difficult to understand is the fact that its translated from German, meaning that a lot of the words and phrases get lost in translation. If you truly want to study Being and Time, you would have to read it in German. The other aspect of understanding here is the fact that the ideas presented are so abstract, so abstract that you can get lost in thoughts, your own thoughts about the ideas presented, as well as the sentences themselves. This is the most difficult philosophy I've read, [and I've read bits of Plato, Aristotle, Sir Tomas More, Francis Bacon, Margaret Cavendash, Hobbes, Descartes, Adam Smith, Voltaire, and Bertrand Russell]. Nonetheless, its a terrific work that keeps me thinking and striving to understand 'being'.  Very motivating!

Moving on, and speaking of Germans, I just today started reading Man in the High Castle [1962, 240 pages] by Phillip K. Dick. I read half the book at the library and plan on finishing it soon. Its a terrific novel with a great pace. There is a show based on the novel on Amazon Prime but it doesn't hold a candle to the majesty of the novel itself. This novel won the prestigious science fiction award, the Hugo Award in 1963-well deserved! 

The Man in the High Castle is an alternate history novel where Germany and Japan won World War II. Now, the Nazi's and Japan share control over the world, including the United States. The book makes use of the I, Ching, an ancient Chinese text used for religion, psychoanalysis, literature, and art. The way its used in the novel is fascinating, a sort of book within a book, with extra variations and themes. Man in the High Castle has everything: art, philosophy, plot, character, suspense, action, and character. I'll probably write about it in my next post. 

Life is moving fast. I'm trying to keep up day-to-day with what is really important. Inevitably, this means that I haven't been playing video games, instead preferring to read, write, and nap [sleep is the best 'drug' you can ever use]. I'm finding that my time is becoming more precious so playing Overwatch just doesn't do it for me anymore. I still play Smash Ultimate with my buddies when I hang out with them. But when I'm by myself I'm going to stick with the more important stuff, reading, writing, napping, and playing guitar. 

Thanks for reading, I look forward to the next post about Man in the High Castle. 

Antman and The Wasp

Yesterday was another scorcher in the Valley so my friends and I decided to cool off at the movies. We saw Antman and Wasp, the new Marvel superhero movie. Paul Rudd (Antman) and Evangeline Lily (Wasp) save the world by telling jokes and saving a family member from a super teeny tiny space-universe. It pays the bills.

The movie isn't really about anything per se but if there is a plot it is this: Wasp and her father are trying to save their mother, who's trapped in a tiny universe. They need Antman's help because Wasp's mother used some kind of telepathic ability to have Antman explain how they can find her. What the what? It makes no sense, and if it did it would still be grade school level speculative fiction. But that's not what makes this movie good. What makes this movie good is that its fun.

The movie is only about an hour long, which is about as long as I can take when it comes to superhero movies these days. After Infinity War this movie is right in the pocket. Evangeline Lily looks great in her Wasp suit, Paul Rudd tells jokes that aren't as corny as Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool character, and the action scenes although cliche, they bring a wallop to the cinematography.

There's sketches of character development in this movie that is sorely missing in other Marvel movies. Antman is a great dad that loves his daughter. Wasp loves her mother and Antman.

The villain of the movie is sort of unclear. We have a villain-esque type character that reminds me of the character Sombra from Overwatch, the video game. Her body is in a lot of pain because her body isn't stable, its shifting through space and time, she is and isn't there physically. Needless to say she can whoop Antman and Wasp's ass, that's why they have to tag team her to beat her down. Great character, it'll be great to see if she joins their squad of superheroes.

This isn't a memorable film and I've already forgotten most of the one liners. However, its a blast of a summer film. Marvel won't surprise me with anything truly great or remarkable anymore. At the very least, I can still have fun.

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.

Is Terry Crews gonna be the voice of Doomfist?

In a tweet earlier today Blizzard announced that Terry Crews has visited the campus for unknown reasons. People are thinking its because he's going to be the voice of Doomfist. This seems highly likely, as I don't think he would've been there just because he's a fan of pc gaming.

In an Overwatch subreddit titled "If Doomfist becomes a hero I'd be so hyped if Terry Crews voice acted for him" Terry Crews responded  "I would LOVE TO PLAY DOOMFIST." He's really into pc gaming and he has to do this for the fans, the devs, and for himself. He would be a great addition to the game.

I know Terry Crews mostly from Everybody Hates Chris, a Chris Rock comedy sitcom about when he was a kid. Terry Crews plays Chris's dad in that show and he's a great actor. I also know him from Brooklyn Nine Nine, a goofy show that delivers the laughs.

Blizzard loves their fans so it is entirely possible that they might hire a voice actor based on thousands of Reddit upvotes and one piece of Reddit gold.

If you didn't know who Doomfist was you can read all about him here.

Real robots and fake Indians

Master of none is this Netflix comedy/drama created by Aziz Ansari and Alan Yang. The show is about the daily life of Dev (played by Ansari), a 30-year old actor living in New York city. The beginning episodes of this show are so good I would say its amazing-possibly a masterpiece? However, the more you get into it, you realize its not what you thought it was. By this I mean I thought the show was like a straight hilarious comedy. But then they try to throw in this real life drama crap like having a relationship and stuff. Let me tell you about some of my favorite moments from the show.

There's this episode where Dev receives an email from some show people that he auditioned for. He wasn't suppose to get the email but it was somehow forwarded to him. It was just written that way. He finds out they said something super racist. "Lets see if he can curry our favor". Pretty fucking hilarious. Later, the white guy that said the racist comment tries to win over Dev by taking him to a Knicks game. The guy buys Dev some nachos and some young white kid eats some of his nachos. "Did that kid just eat my nachos? What the fuck." Dev tells the kid those are his nachos but apologizes once he realizes the kid was waiting for his absentee father that wasn't going to show up. Also, Busta Rythmes shows up at the game and apparently he's friends w/ the white guy who said the racist comment. Dev talks to Rythmes in private about the comment and Rythmes is all like,"Mmmm nope. Because Indians eat curry? That's some racist shit. You should play the race card." Obviously its more funny once you see the delivery of the vocal lines but that episode was definitely one of the best in terms of the comedic content.

There was another episode where Dev and his Asian friend go out with their dads for dinner. The Asian dude's dad's memories pop up of when he was a kid when the guys ask him what he did in Taiwan. Then it cuts to a super stereotypical scene of him as a kid in Taiwan with his pet chicken. And then his parents say they need some meat for dinner and that they want him to kill the chicken. The kid walks out with a knife and pushes the chickens head down and the scene fades. Great scene. Super racist and stereotypical but funny. Every immigrant has a chicken story like that it seems.

Then there's the episode where Dev sleeps with a married woman. The guy catches them at his house and he's all upset, as he should be. The guy's all like,"why the fuck are you still here!" And Dev's like,"I don't know. You said you were leaving. I thought it might be awkward if we were in the elevator together." True comedic gold with that scene. Also, there's the scene where the guy the woman is married to skips Dev in line at the ice cream shop. He points to a fat guy and says,"I'll have what Chubbs is having." Then he takes a bite out of the ice cream and throws it at the garbage can, yelling,"that's disgusting!" Super funny stuff.

My personal favorite part was when Dev was working on a black virus movie (lol) called the sickening and the virus first was exposed and he was auditioning on his laptop in a coffee shop all like,"Oh my god! The sickening! It's happening! Holy fuckin' shit!" Then this stereotypical big black woman that runs the coffee place says,"I don't know what it is you think you're doing but you can't do it here". There was even a guy who was afraid to leave the coffee shop because of Dev. That was a nice hilarious touch.

Okay, so now you know for sure that the show is super funny. However, at some point around the 6th or 7th episode (there are 10) Dev gets in a relationship with some chick that he used to know back in the day. He met her at some party and at first things don't click because she was still w/ her boyfriend but somehow she gets into it w/ Dev. I'm not into relationships and I don't enjoy watching shows about relationships. Their whole relationship is super cute but its sort of cringe worthy in terms of the acting and the overall characters. I know girls who are like the girl Dev was dating but its not necessarily something I would want to see in a show that I thought was suppose to be funny. I guess what I'm saying is that I wasn't into the lovey dovey stuff. It distracted from what I thought made the show great-the great delivery of the jokes.

I do believe there's going to be a second season for this show but you know w/ these Netflix, Amazon Prime, and other streaming only series it does take them longer to create more seasons than regular TV networks. There is definitely something special about this show. At first when my brother was watching it when he visited I thought the show wasn't my thing. But Ansari is a hilarious and good actor. He isn't quite brilliant but he does know how to deliver the lines well. In this day and age to be a funny actor I think you have to be able to improvise better than reading and memorizing lines. I think Ansari is that type of actor. The modern day actor. He's good at what he does. Also, its good to see a brown guy be able to write and act and do it so well. We need more minorities in the spotlight and media. We're all over the music world but everywhere else we're pretty scarce.

If you like funny shows then you should definitely check this show out. Hopefully season 2 delivers some more great comedic material. Hopefully there is a season 2! I can talk about this show with my friends and quote the lines and we all get it and find it super funny. It's all on Netflix. Go check it out.

POA and the Buzz Wizards live at the Baked Potato

  

     Last night I was at the Baked Potato again. The first time I went was ok but this second show was great! The first band that played was a band called POA-Planet of the Abts, which consists of the rythmn section of Matt Abts, Jorgen Carlsson, and Swedish guitarist and lead singer T-Bone Andersson. Matt (drums) and Jorgen (bass) are both from the famous jam band that Warren Hayes plays in, Gov't Mule. What did I think of this band? They were incredible. They blended jazz, rock, blues, and psychedelia all into one slamming power trio. I was sitting right in front of them. The music was so loud-Andersson played a black stratocaster through a giant Marshall stack, it was deafening. Andersson's sound and style is a mix of many other famous players, you can tell who's influenced him right away. The easy thing to say is that he sounds like Jimi Hendrix. But there were shades of the blues (people like BB King, Albert King, etc) in his playing, David Gilmour (they even played two Pink Floyd songs), and even some old school Black Sabbath Toni Iommi type stuff in there as well. Let's put it this way; while he may not be the greatest technician or shredder, he makes up for in terms of pure feel, raw emotion, and great screaming guitar tone that blows your head off with its sheer awesomeness. His guitar playing made my whole night, it was that impressive and amazing. Jorgen's bass playing is very lead bass kind of playing, while Matt's drumming sounds like a laid back John Bonham, complete with all the great fills. They played a bunch of great songs, but what particularly stood out to me was the song they opened with-a rock version of what sounded to me like Afro Blue, a jazz standard. It was incredible, especially Andersson's guitar playing. What stood out was his double stop licks he was using the Afro Blue melody line, and his screaming solo. He would hold a note, give it all the vibrato he had, and just hold it forever. Very simple but very effective. I learned a lot from Andersson's guitar playing-you don't have to show off or be all that great really if you just have a great feel. His playing is all about feel, although he does have his moment in the sun for technical guitar licks. But he isn't as technical as say me or the other guitarist that played after him.
     In addition, another song that stood out to me was when they played Frank Zappa's Dirty Love. That song is just so catchy, rockin', and is perfect for a blues-rock power trio to play. I enjoyed Andersson's vocals on this one especially. He has a pretty good voice. So that was the first band. A Swede that sounds like Hendrix, rather than playing metal like Ywngie and the guys from Opeth, my favorite Swedish band.
     The next band was Toshi Yanagi on guitar (from the Jimmy Kimmel show), Jorgen from Gov't Mule on bass, and Toss Panos on drums. This was their first show together as the Buzz Wizards, a cool name for an instrumental jazz fusion band. Toshi is a much better technician than Andersson is, but he doesn't have the same stage presence or feel. What I can say that was amazing was that the first song Toshi played sounded like something Jeff Beck would play, it was a great, rocking, jazz kind of thing that wouldn't sound out of place in the early or mid 1980's. Although Toshi is a lot older than me, I can tell that he is hip on the scene because he has tons of shred licks that young people would use-licks that sound like Guthrie Govan and Eric Johnson. He had this really cool Strat-like guitar with a Floyd-rose on it that sounded and looked super cool. Also, when it was his time to play, that was when all the Japanese people arrived. By this time (around 11-11 30pm) most of the people from the first set had left. His other songs are kind of songs that sound dated today. He even said some of the songs he was going to play were written back in 1992. You need to write more modern songs dude! Haha, but seriously he had this other really cool tune called 'Assassin', that was pretty far out. Also, it was pretty cool seeing the drummer, Toss, play jazz-rock beats using traditional grip. I've tried it myself on drums and it is not the easiest style to use when playing those more rock type beats-and he can go straight up rock at times, pushing the beat super fast and going for super fast fills. Toshi is a great guitarist but I want to see more out of him as a guitar player, I felt like he was holding back at times, not utilizing some of his best licks and ideas. Sometimes a song would go into a great groove that would have a perfect spot for more intensive solos from the bass, guitar, or drums, and instead they would just end the tune, and I'm just sitting there like "come on dude, you had the perfect set up!". All in all though this was the best show I've been to at the Baked Potato, the best jazz club here in the valley. I even had a cheese baked potato, a coke with margarita salt on the rim, and coffee. On top of the great music and eats, the guy at the door let me stay for the second set without paying-talk about cool. I'm going to start taking off Mondays from work to go to the jam sessions they have there. Planning on bringing my Hagstrom Super Swede Les Paul and show them my stuff. I'm especially excited about jamming there because on Monday Night Jams they have the guitarist Jaime Kime, a great guitarist that played with Dweezil Zappa in Zappa Plays Zappa. I really dig his guitar style. Anyways, it was a great show, check the place out if you can, its relatively cheap for shows, food, and drink. Cheers.