Open Mic Night 11/28

Here's three tunes I performed last week at my local open mic on 11/28/18.
We did three songs
Electric Funeral by Black Sabbath
Hey Joe by Hendrix
Spirits of the Dead (original tune)

It was an interesting night because I had a full band, a trio with my friend Martin on drums and his friend on bass. During Hey Joe the friend got off, and another guest bass player quickly plugged in.

It was a fun night. Not very often that I have a full band. Enjoy!

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/spirits-of-the-dead-1128-full-band-arrangement-trio
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/hey-joe-1128-full-band-arrangement-trio
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/electric-funeral-1128-full-band-arrangement-trio

More music

Here's some more music from the open jams. Its pretty crazy I have something like 24 weeks of tunes I've played at this open jam at Petie's Place, this low-key bar in Tarzana on Reseda and Oxnard. If you live in the Valley you should come check it out sometime. Anyways, here I played with the house band, we did Sunshine of Your Love (a favorite of mines) and John Coltrane's Mr. PC, a jazz standard I learned from the Real Book. Enjoy the music! Leave a comment, let me know what you think. 

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/mr-pc-coltrane 

Jam notes I

I ended up playing with this older guitar playing friend that plays a Steve Vai Jem guitar while I used my Jackson 7-string. These are pretty much just jams we did, no songs or anything. However, this cool girl named Melinda helped out on vocals on the first jam. Lotta soul!

I think it ended up sounding pretty darn good. I distinctly remember the drummer, my good friend Jim X (from the jazz fusion band Oui3, whom I just saw at the Baked Potato on Sunday) saying that its not really a good idea to have two guitarists soloing at the same time. There are moments where it worked really well. I guess it just depends on how you do it. 

Interesting to note that I thought I was super loud, much louder than the other guitar but after listening back its the other guitar that louder. 

I've been practicing a lot of drop2 jazz chord voicings and learning a lot of rootless inversions as well. I brought my friends' bass to the shop for repairs, I gotta go back and pay them $40 for a a $100 bass, expensive for sure. Haven't had band practice for a while but hopefully we'll practice tomorrow or Friday.  

More Jam Tracks

Got more jam tracks for you all. This was a totally impromptu jam as my drummer was out of town in Mexico and couldn't make this session. 

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/soothsayer-guest-guitar
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/bad-horsie-guest-on-bass
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/sunshine-of-your-love-guest-guitar-and-bass

I think this version of Buckethead's Soothsayer is the best I've ever played, that guest guitar player really filled out with some nice chordal and rhythmic riffing comping, it was fantastic, he really made my solo pop out more with the emotional response, which is exactly what you need to play like Buckethead. Bad Horsie was also really well done, at some point I should bring my wah pedal so I can really make it scream like Steve Vai. Enjoy! 

Last week's jam tracks V

Here's the live tracks from last week's open jam we played. Here we started the show off with Paranoid by Black Sabbath. Then we segued into Steve Vai's Bad Horsie and ended everything with my original black metal style tune called Spirits of the Dead. We've been playing these songs a lot at the bar and there's a couple different variations of these tunes on my soundcloud page. However, this stands apart from all those because I think the vocals were especially well done on this night. You'll see what I mean when you hear it. Enjoy!

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/paranoid-best-vocals
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/bad-horsie-most-recent-version
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/spirits-of-the-dead-best-vocals

In addition, good news everyone! So my two man band (this music is me, my friends, and house band musicians at the bar) but now we've decided to work with this metal vocalist named Alex. Its going to be a while before we have some good arrangements and until I get used to his screaming vocals (haha) but we had a practice yesterday and it went really well. I liked the whole two man White Stripes/Black Keys thing but its better off if I only sing the songs I write, and mostly focus on the guitar chords. Really excited to be working in a 'real' band now and hopefully soon we'll get some songs arranged, and be able to play our first gig really soon.

Last Week's Jam Tracks III

Here are the live tracks from last week's open jam at Petie's Place, this bar I frequent a lot.

The first tune we played was Black Sabbath's Paranoid, pretty easy song right? Well, I did kind of mess up the song last week because I forgot to come in w/ some verses and instead just went into a guitar solo, then found my place back within the song. That's how you cover up a mistake folks, go into impromptu guitar solo mode! I'm still working on bringing more emotion into the singing.

Next, we played Sunshine of Your Love by the Cream. This has been like our swansong so to speak. Sometimes hearing my voice makes me cringe hard but when I hear the guitar playing I think again (lols). My vocals are definitely getting better but its still hard to get past that speaking voice to singing voice transition. Ken, the percussionist playing tambourine (and records everything for me, thank you) is really on point with his rhythm here. With him and my friend Martin on drums its like playing with two drummers. Martin takes care of fills and colour and Ken takes care of timing with precision.

The last tune we played was an improvised version of Steve Vai's Bad Horsie. I have a habit of doing impromptu versions of guitar instrumentals by shredders (check out this version of Buckethead's Soothsayer here). The melody from Bad Horsie is pretty strong here, a bluesy funky sort of melody that runs into some metal riffing. The way we did it this time I stopped playing and motioned Martin to do a drum solo. As you can hear it sounded pretty damn good. My friend Martin is really coming into his own as a rock and roll drummer. At the end I did some tapping and held a note for what seemed like eons while Martin played some crazy rolls. That's pretty cool.

Here are all the tracks, enjoy!

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/paranoid-forget-the-verse-ha
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/sunshine-of-your-love-latest-version
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/steve-vai-bad-horsie-impromtu-jam-version

Open Jam Tracks

Here's the tracks from last week's open jam at the local pub. I played two songs, Spirits of the Dead and Hey Joe. Spirits of the Dead is an original doomy death metalish sort of thing that I wrote on the first of October. This version here the vocals are a lot more cookie monster than I would've liked. I think I'll work on making the vocals coarse but not so 'cookie monster'. The cool thing is that this is probably the first time the song was performed as it was intended-screaming vocals and all. Not bad. I even threw down a solo in the song when there wasn't meant to be one. My drummer friend Martin's playing was splendid.

The other tune is Hey Joe, a Jimi Hendrix cover. On this one it was pretty rough. My guitar is sorely out of tune and we fucked up royally on the intro. But hey reader we made it through it. As you can hear even my guitar part goes off you can hear Martin is holding the beat steady on the drums. He has really improved his playing a lot. The longer the song goes the better it sounds, me thinks. The solo was well done by yours truly. Martin's fills at the end of the song are great.

Enjoy the tunes!

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/spirits-of-the-dead-1
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/hey-joe

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

Band Practice Going Good

So I had a rehearsal last night with my band that I haven't played with for the last two weeks because I was in Chicago. It turned out really well. It actually turned out to be our best rehearsal we've ever had. I'm starting to understand the capabilities of the guys in the band.

Me and Martin, the drummer usually play together every week at local bar's jam night so we're constantly improving and evolving our rhythmic dynamics. At first we were having a super hard time locking in with each other but now I'm listening a lot more and using his timing as an anchor. Sometimes he still makes mistakes, especially after trying a technical fill but I know how to anchor the chords down to speed up or slow down accordingly perfectly now and even making it sound musical in the process. Sure he needs work but right now keeping time and locking in with the chords is the most important thing. I gave him some advice last night after practice. I told him he should practice all the rudiments and learn to read drum music. If he does this his "rolls" as he calls them (I call them fills) will start to sound much better and he'll always get back to the music in time as opposed to falling behind the beat and stuff. Important stuff to know. I hope he takes the advice to heart and starts shedding more. As of right now me and him are probably the most important pieces to the band. We now know five songs together that we can play pretty well and because our timing is locking in so well it sounds really good. Rock and roll, metal, with hints of jazz in my harmonies.

Our friend Dmitri actually started off playing bass for the first couple rehearsals. The first rehearsal he played guitar but it was so out of tune (both him and myself, we've since resorted to using the famous Snark tuner) that it was mostly a progressive art rock kind of improvisation. Our timing was so off but the improv was unique. After that first initial jam he started bringing his bass along to our practices and we thought he was going to play bass. The problem is that he isn't a disciplined bass player meaning he lacks the focus to play the same things twice for the song. We aren't playing jazz so its important for the bass to stick to the same harmonies all the time. So before practice I texted him to leave the bass and bring his guitar just to see how it sounds. It ended up sounding really great and its the way we're going to move forward as a band. We'll play without bass. The timing with my guitar and the drums is so good I feel like we don't need bass. Plus the extra harmonies and doubling of the guitar gives the music a stronger and more melodic sound, even if its just Sunshine of Your Love. The way I see Dmitri's purpose in the band is that he's adding colour around what me and Martin are playing. As long as me and Martin sound good anything Dmitri plays sounds good. He's not the best musician either but his guitar playing is much better than his bass playing. Bass takes a lot of timing and not all guitarists can do it very well. However, his guitar playing is quite evolved compared to his bass playing. I noticed he understands harmonies and hears the sounds I'm going for although he's usually always using more of a distorted guitar tone. At first we were practicing with him doing vocals and I would do some too but now I've come to the realization that it sounds better if we go on with myself on vocals. It's just a more rounder voice and tone, even if its rock and metal. More musical. 

And of course I see my role in the band as a songwriter, time keeper, singer, and soloist. If I keep all these things in check it will sound good. I'm really happy that the band is evolving and becoming better. If we really need bass I could always record bass and we could play with a bass track live or something. That actually sounds like a great idea because right now I really love the idea of a three piece with two guitars and drums. I stole the idea from Animals As Leaders but of course because our music isn't as technical or complex we can really steer the music in various directions without getting lost too easily. It's nice.

Pretty soon we'll be ready to gig. Sounds exciting.
Picture is Animals as Leaders, really inspiring band

Buckethead cover Soothsayer

Here's a cover I did at the open jam of a very well known Buckethead song called Soothsayer. I winged it pretty hard, learned the song that day, and the drummer didn't know we were playing it until that night. I'd say we did a pretty good job. I could've shredded harder but I wanted to keep things simple, before anything fell apart lols. I played the song on my 7-string Jackson. The song has a lot of emotional and heart felt feelings because Buckethead recently came out saying that he has a heart condition, an irregular heart beat. He was and still is a big inspiration on my guitar playing and I hope he lives for many more years! Anyways, here's Soothsayer by Buckethead. Enjoy!

https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/soothsayer-by-buckethead

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

New original track, Spirits of the Dead

This is a new track I recently made for my recently formed band. The lyrics are really cheesy but I tried to do like a black metal style vocal with some doom/Sabbath undertones with my 7-string. I think it ended up sounding pretty heavy. The main riff is a riff I played at the bar last week when we were just jamming. Its cool to see it used in a song. The bass line in the chorus sounds like a Black Sabbath song can't remember which one though. Enjoy!
https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/spirits-of-the-dead

Friday 9/22 open jam recordings

So these are from the 9/22 jam session last week. I thought everything went fairly well sound-wise and guitar-playing wise. Some tracks here are actually from a few weeks earlier.. I really like the Too Rock and Roll for You tune, that woman had a good voice for that kinda thing. Check it out, enjoy!

https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/blues-jam-supreme
https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/sunshine-of-your-love-2
https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/cannon-too-rock-roll-for-you
https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/move-over
https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/smoke-on-the-water-2

Holding out for a 7-string

 

Hey, how's it going? I haven't been writing too much lately because the new job position (cheese department clerk) has got me super tired after my shifts. I've been able to keep up with my guitar playing, even attending this week's open jam night at Peties Place, and I'm going to jam with a bass player and another guitarist tomorrow afternoon at my place before work. Wowzah! I haven't been able to keep up with my gaming too much, which does make me a little sad. I was playing Heroes of the Storm today and I was definitely noticing that my playing was much worse than it usually is-because I haven't been playing too often. *Sigh*, disappointment intensifies. 

I did manage to play like two games of Heroes and two matches of World of Warcraft battlegrounds. It was pretty fun. I wish I played more but I had to let my brother sleep, he probably has an early shift tomorrow. I hope my job doesn't stop me from doing everything I usually do. I don't want to stop gaming as much just because of work. At the same time though I don't want to lose out on precious guitar practice and jamming time because of it either. It all comes down to using my time wisely and to the best of my abilities. Being tired sure makes it hard though!

Right now I'm holding out for a 7-string guitar. My birthday is coming up on September 25 so I'm hoping to get the guitar on the same week as my bday. I've been shopping around online and there's some pretty cheap models. I don't want to go too cheap. I was thinking about spending about $200-$250 at max. I don't need a super nice guitar, I just want a cool looking 7-string to practice new jazz chord voicings and bring to jam sessions.

My guitar playing has really improved. I can't wait until after Labor Day so the tambourine/hand percussionist can email me the tracks of my jam from this week. It was really fucking good. I think its the best jam I've ever done there. It was a three song set and we played a jazzed up version of Stormy Monday, a rock and roll jam based on the rock and roll riff by Led Zeppelin, and Jimi Hendrix's Hey Joe. It turned out to be great even though the other guitarist wasn't so hot on any of it. However, the drummer was a total rock and roller and he played great, especially on the rock and roll jam and Hey Joe. It was pretty sweet. It was a really busy jam night, and I didn't get to play until about 12:30 am but hey that's alright. I rocked the fucking house. Now that I know that most people there can't play jazz really I'm going to stick to more straight up rock and roll there. Maybe even start singing some classic rock tunes. I was thinking stuff like Knocking on Heaven's Door, Fire, and Hare Krishna. Simple tunes that have the same chords over and over so its easy for me to sing and solo over. Great idea, amiright?

Back to the 7-string guitar. The brands I'm looking at the most right now is Jackson and Schecter. I can get a great Jackson for $200 but the Schecters run for about $250. Both are within my budget but I'm thinking about going with the Schecter just because I already own a Jackson. However, brand loyalty is totally something I'm capable of haha. I love Jackson, they're a great company and I've played the $200 model loads of times and it was great every time. So we will see.

More articles to come in the next couple days and weeks. I want to get back into writing about games but just haven't gotten around to it. I'm definitely going to do an article about Kel'Thuzad from Heroes of the Storm. He seems bad ass and he hasn't even been released yet on the live servers, he's only on the ptr (public test servers).

Watch this space

New Track titled Voodoo Ritual

This is a new tune I worked on with my bass player friend named Dennis Tabor. He's a great bassist with a lot of style. His bass playing on this track just makes everything sound so heavy. So much low end with also great melodic trebly tones thrown in there as well. The main riff is a simple power chord riff but the chorus is this clean toned chord. Then there's solos on the theme. It's simple but I like to think we did a good job. I think the clean part makes it sound metal af. You can hear the track https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/voodoo-ritual. Enjoy!

New Track

I uploaded a new track to my Soundcloud. Its my first track with drums, although its just a repeated drum loop. Its taking me a while to learn Ableton but once I get the hang of it I'll be able to compose great stuff on my own. The track is called chug it! and its a metal groove. Enjoy!

https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/chug-it

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

Open Jam Nights

The last two nights I went out to open jam nights at these bars. Tuesday I went to this place called the Canby. Its a dive bar not too far from my house. The atmosphere there is a little more street than the other place I went to but the musicians let me jam with them a bit. They were mostly doing covers. I played my friend's acoustic dobro guitar and plugged it into the amp.

The tone I got was a pretty distorted rock and roll tone for an acoustic steel guitar. It was pretty awesome. I started improvising and we went off for a while. It was pretty good but they weren't really improvising type of musicians, they're better at playing songs by the book more so than originals or jamming. So I asked them if they knew Hey Joe and I showed them the riffs and changes in the song. Then we played a rocking version of it. It was pretty awesome.

We even had two singers and they did a good job. My guitar solos sounded pretty great even though I was playing on acoustic and my fingers bloody hurt like hell. Because I couldn't do the bends (too hard on acoustic) I resorted to doing a ton of double stop Hendrix/Chuck Berry style. It sounded pretty good. What sounded even better was my rhythm, the sound of the chords was sparkly clean yet slightly distorted. Heavenly guitar tone for a tone I just dialed in automatically without any setup.

The other bar was this place called Petie's Place and its even closer to my house. I would still classify this place as a dive bar but its a lot nicer than the Canby and it has a much cooler vibe. The people here were much nicer to me than at the Canby. It seemed like at the Canby I had to prove myself to the musicians playing there. They were a bit stand offish towards me at first before they saw me play. At Petie's it was the opposite, they were super nice right off the bat.

There was a house drummer and bass player and everybody else came through to either jam with them or with their own drummer/bass player. I signed up and got onstage and we did a fantastic Hendrix inspired version of Sunshine of Your Love. We did all the songs I played with them as instrumentals. After that I asked them if they could do Stratus and I even began teaching them the main riffs and whatnot but the bass player wasn't having it. So instead we did Hey Joe. It ended up working out great. I sounded great on my Hagstrom Les Paul and I was getting a really good distorted guitar tone. Great for Hendrix tunes. I got a sense that the drummer could play any type of rock and roll and jazz too even maybe if I could've gotten to play Stratus with him but the bass player was definitely a rock and roll only type of guy it seemed. 

Later that night I played again. I was originally planning on playing War Pigs and Black Sabbath but this old guy came up to me and asked me what I wanted to play. I told him those two Sabbath tunes and he was like oh well maybe I should get the other drummer for that stuff, he plays great on that stuff. But I noticed he had drum sticks in his hand and I didn't wanna leave him hanging so I asked him what songs he knew? He said a ton. I asked if he knew Foxy Lady and Spanish Castle Magic and he said he did. So I said lets do Foxy and from that break into Spanish Castle.

It ended up working out great. He played pretty well. We straight rocked that place hard. The bass player was a little off on Spanish Castle Magic but we'll give him the benefit of the doubt, maybe he doesn't know too much Hendrix? So yeah it turned out to be a real Hendrix night of jamming for me.

I had so much fun at Petie's that I'm planning to go to their open jam next week as I'm off that day. I might even work on memorizing lyrics to songs I already know how to play so I can do the songs as its meant to be with a vocalist (not just as an instrumental). People there liked me so much. It was great getting respect from fellow musicians and love from the audience, even hot girls and women. If I keep doing this maybe I can find musicians to play in a band with. At the very least I'm keeping my chops up and playing real music in front of a live audience and enjoying it.

Open jams are awesome!

Should I start busking?

So today I went to work an hour early and just jammed outside as people walked by. I made progress towards another one of my new years resolutions which was to start busking. This was a very good experience. I ended up making 8 bucks and I received a lot of compliments. One lady said thank you when I finished playing. Another guy said I could be famous. A third lady said here's a little something for you till you get big. Talk about a great experience!

I was playing my classical nylon string Granada guitar and using my Fender medium picks. I can still pick super fast as though I'm shredding on electric guitar with this setup. I was mostly playing jazz standards as I brought the mini real book that I own and worked through a couple standards. People recognized tunes because I got comments about it inside the store from that guy who said I could be famous. He mentioned that he didn't know the tunes by name but he knew I was playing tunes. Cool right? I played on all my breaks as well but those were more just improvised jams rather than songs.

The compliments and tips made me feel so good! I was thinking I could find good places to do this and make it a somewhat regular thing. If I can make money and make people happy then this is something I should continue to do. At the same time I'm getting myself out there and known in the community musically.

I'm already thinking about modding my Granada to make it better for busking. The main thing I want is those things that make it possible to wear a strap. I need a strap if I'm going to stand up and play. That would be amazing. Eventually down the road I could get a pickup for it so I could hook it up to my portable Roland Micro Cube amp. Then I'll have a good busking setup. 

Tomorrow I'll leave the house early before work and find a good place to sit down and just play. I'll have somewhat of an idea for a set list sometime soon. I was thinking I should memorize the jazz tunes I play because I don't want to look down at sheet music forever. I remember all the classic rock tunes pretty well. Who knows, maybe I can make more money?

Money and happiness, what a great combination! 

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.