How the Beatles Saved Me During Coronavirus

Hello, ladies and gents. How's it going? Well, the answer to that question is probably all over the place. To be completely honest, the world has pretty much gone to shit, 'in it? That's my British slang for you. There's actually a perverse goodness and grace that has come out of all this disorder and chaos. Consider the fact that if it were not for all of the terrible things that have happened, Trump just may have gotten re-elected, and easily too. Of course, we will see in November. 

But I'm actually hear to discuss music. The Beatles saved me during coronavirus. No other band or musical style have resonated with me this much during the crisis. It's pretty easy to see why I like them so much and why they've made such a big impact on me during this particular time in my life. 

For starters, they're one of the best classic rock groups of all time. Of course, they're more pop than rock, but they had their more rock and roll moments, especially early in their career, like the Revolver album or A Hard Day's Night. Consider the fact that Jimi Hendrix only agreed to go to London and become a rock star there only if he got to meet Eric Clapton and the Beatles. They're so famous they're bigger than Jesus. No offense Jesus, you're pretty cool yourself. 
 

Second, the lyrics. The lyrics in Beatles songs are the bread and butter of their music. The lyrics are always simple but they are powerful. Sometimes the best lyrics are simple everyday thoughts, patterns, and phrases that have been rewritten into a more catchy form. Easy to understand, very difficult to master.  

Third, the guitar and drum parts. Okay, so to actually perform their songs, its nothing really all that special. However, they did it so well as a band, that I'm actually impressed with John Lennon and George Harrison's guitar work. Harrison and Lennon are two of the best guitarists in rock history and Paul McCartney is one of the best bassists in rock. In terms of Paul's bass sound you can judge for yourself, after hearing countless great bass runs throughout the Beatles catalogue, you just know he's a great player. Ringo laid down the groove. 

One of my favorite time periods for the Beatles was when they first came to America, and they were playing stadiums full of screaming girls. John played a Rickenbacker guitar and really strummed the hell out of it. Those were the days. 

Lastly, the personal connection through loneliness, isolation, listening to the music, and feeling so good despite it all. Their music makes me feel good. Sometimes I'll listen to them all day and I can still hear the songs in my head when I lay down at night. Even at that level, their music calms me down and soothes me. The positivity is so strong.

This is the ultimate band for the ultimate cheerful person, the person who smiles when everybody else complains. It's the soundtrack to my life. At least for now.  

The world is burning outside, but it's all good because she loves you, and you know that can't be bad. She loves you and you know you should be glad. [wooooooooooooooo!] 

May 15 Jam Tracks

Ahoy shipmates and welcome aboard. Here I'd like to share some recordings from last week's open mic at Petie's Place, a local pub in the Valley, located on Reseda and Oxnard. 

I've played there over 40 times. Its become my de facto performance space. With a house drummer and bassist, it's very easy to just get up there and play with no strings attached. 

I did a two-song set that consisted of saxophonist Wayne Shorter's Footprints and Jimi Hendrix's' Hey Joe, tunes I've been playing for a while now. Been really working on my tone for the vocals. I've been practicing singing for a long time. I'm no Jack Bruce but I try. Petie's Place got a much better tube amp Line 6 full-stack amp so my tone has improved a lot. Enjoy! 

https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/footprints-live-at-peties-1 
https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/hey-joe 

Guitar, Vocals-Orlando Figueroa
Drums-Jim X
Bass-Art 
Harmonica-Dave
Tambourine-Ken 

Nocturnal Poisoning

Black metal, Dark Ambient 

Nocturnal Poisoning is the debut release by the American black metal one-man band Xasthur, released in 2002. The CD version of the album was limited to only 2,000 copies, making it a novelty. In my last post, which can be read here, I talked about how I got into black metal and a review for the first black metal record I listened to, Leviathan's debut release. It's ironic how I got into black metal on Holy Week and the week Notre Dame Cathedral got burned. I'll remember this week in 2019 for sure. 

Xasthur's first record Nocturnal Poisoning is a nightmarish beast. I first heard of Scott "Malefic" Conners when I saw the Noisey documentary on one-man black metal bands. Scott seemed like quite the troubled guy, much more messed up, and depressed than Wrest from Leviathan, who was also featured in the documentary. He seemed autistic, although I'm not quite sure if he is or not. One thing for sure is that he's an excellent musician. That's what got me interested in listening to Xasthur, Leviathan, and Striborg, all three one-man black metal projects. 

The guitars on this record are extremely distorted, fuzzed out walls of sound. Its as if he had two or more guitar tracks at all times, like a hurricane of guitar noise. The whole atmospheric walls of guitar distortion is a black metal staple, something I learned about from listening to Darkthrone, a 90's secondwave black metal group from Norway. Its that stereotypical high pitched, distorted tremolo guitar riffing that is so characteristic of black metal. It sounds great, especially with aggresive, fast blast beats on the drums. 

The drums used here are nothing all that impressive. In fact, I believe it to be a drum machine based on reviews I've read but they work. They aren't exceptional, and if Conners got a real drummer, or played real drums himself, the sound of the drums would've been much heavier. With drum machines, you always have a sense of something missing. The beats could sound great technically and fit all the songs but it's missing that human soul, to beat the living shit outta drum heads. You need real drums for metal, especially black metal, a genre that thrives off the raw visceral feel of rock and roll. The bass sound on this record is almost nonexistent, not good! 

The vocals are okay. They weren't exceptional. The lyrics are your typical post-1990's black metal fanfare-hate,  souls, hateful souls, yeah we get the idea. The vocals have a lot of fuzz and distortion attached, something that sounds quite good on King Crimson's first album, on the tune 21st Century Schizoid Man. However, the way fuzz is used on these black metal vocals are extreme, like the fuzz is at eleven and the vocals are at seven. The vocals are used sparingly and you can't understand any of them without a print off. Go figure.

The best thing musically about this record other than guitar [I love black metal guitar] is the keyboards. I would say Conners is best at guitars and keyboards, that's where he shines. The keyboards add a sense of dark ambiance that I haven't heard in most metal. Most metal uses keyboards as a cringe operatic and classical thing, not so here. The keyboards add more layers and layers of sound walls, adding to the guitars and overall atmosphere. 

The music is crushingly depressing. You could call this genre depressive suicidal black metal [DSBM for short], and after listening to the whole record you get a sense of uneasiness. "What am I listening to? Is this any good? Who would enjoy this?" That being said, this music is one hell of an acquired taste, as is black metal in general. This album doesn't really have riffs I can remember, its just drones and endless drum loops. I believe the album would get better after multiple listenings but the first one left me puzzled. The production on this record is better than your typical lo-fi black metal, that's one of the record's redeeming qualities. In fact, the production is so good that it sounds like a movie. 

All that being said, this record shows you how dark black metal gets. It's depressing. The vocals are painful to hear, painful in the sense that they are like cries of agony, screams of agony actually. I was inspired to listen to Xasthur because I found Conners to be the non-stereotypical black metal musician. He wasn't over the top, he doesn't write satanic lyrics or wear corpsepaint, and when he was interviewed in the Noisey documentary, he seemed like a genuine person-not fake. I realized from that interview that he was a troubled person and that shows in his music. I think I'd be down to check out more of his album releases and/or demo tapes. I've come to find that a lot of the really great black metal music comes from demos and EP's, as well as album releases. I'd be interested to see where Conners would go musically from here. I would definitely put him on my list of third wave American black metal, and one man black metal projects. It's impressive that he recorded all this on his own. Although I find the music arrangements to be not totally awe-inspiring, he is doing something unique, of his own here, that stands apart from his peers, other black metal musicians.

The Tenth Sub Level of Suicide

Black metal, dark ambient genre 


Here's an album review for the heavy metal music fans. I got into black metal the other day. I was at my friends' house watching a rockumentary about the glam/hair metal band Motley Crue. I saw a documentary about black metal and we watched it. I had already known about the 1st wave of black metal, even some second wave but I didn't know much about the third wave black metal bands of today. Then we watched a music documentary that was specifically about one man black metal bands. That's how I found out about Leviathan. 

Leviathan is a one-man black metal project under the direction of Wrest. He plays all the instruments and does the vocals as well. His main instrument is drums and it definitely shows, as the drums on this record are brutal. Levithan's debut release was this record I'm discussing, The Tenth Sub Level of Suicide, released in 2003. 

1.	"Introit"	1:14
2.	"Fucking Your Ghost in Chains of Ice"	5:40
3.	"Sardoniscorn"	9:54
4.	"The Bitter Emblem of Dissolve"	5:55
5.	"Scenic Solitude and Leprosy"	6:45
6.	"He Whom Shadows Move Towards"	6:38
7.	"Submersed"	3:15
8.	"Mine Molten Armor"	7:03
9.	"The Idiot Sun"	9:33
10.	"At the Door to the Tenth Sub Level of Suicide"	15:02
Total length:		71:05

As you can see from the song titles above this is could be described as depressive suicidal black metal. It sounds like a joke until you hear the music. Then you realize it makes perfect sense. All the songs except for one deal with suicide. Art is supposed to represent something. This album is true horror. The music screams at you, takes you by force, shouting fire in the dark pits. Images from Dante's Inferno comes to mind, although that is to cliche and trite to truly describe this record. This record is more.

The guitar riffs are fast, loud, and heavily distorted. The drum tempos vary from slow to batshit crazy blast beats. There's ambient use of keyboards that appears throughout the album. The bass has euphoric moments where it's very loud in the mix.

The vocals are what makes this album so heavy, heady, horrific, and euphoric. The vocals at first sound like your typical high pitched black metal screams, something like Mayhem or Burzum. However, at some point, you realize that Wrest is doing his own style, but he knows the black metal tradition so well that he still screams along with the black metal ballpark. Some of the screams here are haunting. Wrest sounds inhuman, like humans trapped in hell, impaled on stakes. That sounds so terribly brutal but its also very metal. These kind of vocals are very hard to get used to at first. In fact, the main reason why I didn't get into black metal for such a long time is that I couldn't stand the vocals. The vocals in black metal take some time getting used to. But once you're accustomed to these raw, primal screams, you get into it. It doesn't stay jokey. Sometimes I used to laugh at black metal vocals. Now I find something emotional in it.

I can only sometimes catch what the lyrics are within the screams but I would be down to read the lyrics sometimes online on my next listen to this record. Knowing that I can't understand most of the lyrics makes the vocals that much more intense and surprisingly, more important. The fact that this is a record about suicide shows you a little bit about what Wrest had to struggle and deal with in his life. 

Wrest grew up with abusive parents. He was in and out of group homes in California, sometimes going homeless when not sleeping on friends' couches. Unsurprisingly, he tried to take his own life sometime after the making of this record. He also has controversy surrounding his personal life, as his ex-girlfriend accused him of assault. He's a troubled guy that doesn't own a computer, makes records, but works a regular job in California to support himself.  

What attracted me to Leviathan in the documentary I saw on YouTube about one man black metal bands is the fact that he's a good musician, he wasn't an edgelord black metal musician [not stereotypical, not wearing corpsepaint and hoods] and there are few great American black metal bands out there, let alone one man band American black metal. He's a fucking unicorn. I liked his personality in the interview for the documentary. I realized things about myself from that. I saw that I don't need validation from others for my music or art. That was huge. 

Wrest's guitar riffs are very good. Sometimes he reminds me of Black Sabbath but then he gets into more typical black metal riffs, not unlike Dark Throne. Some of the best moments on TTSLOS are the slow tempos, filled with doom metal guitar riffs and keyboards. This is something that an American black metal band would do a lot better than say Norweigian or Scandinavian black metal bands simply because Americans groove more.

Lastly, I can't state enough how nihilistic and brutal this record is. However, there is beauty in the darkness. The power of choice in our actions, whether to or not do, to be or not to be. This might be the darkest black metal album I'll hear for a long time. There's tons of chaotic ugliness here but the little bit of beauty goes a long way, I can feel that my own darker emotions have value, but I don't have to wallow in it. As one of the first black metal albums that I actually sat through the entire way, I'd say this is some damn good black metal. It isn't for everyone, but there is a release of feelings and emotions after listening to something like this. You're free when you're done. Free in the sense that this music will bring out different emotions in you, and its a release. In short, it makes me feel good.

I used to work with Martin Arevalo, a Mexican black metal drummer I met through open jams. After hearing this I'm ready to get back into playing metal music, focusing on a more doom and black metal sound, slow, and fast tempos. I plan on recording the guitar, bass, and vocal parts at my house, and having Martin record drums at his place. We're going to continue our metal project, called Mass, check us out on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9Z7vL-Ccr8. That's the sound we're going for. I plan on writing more songs and putting together a super lo-fi recording. Maybe we could put it out for sale on Bandcamp when we're done. I've learned from black metal to keep my metal riffs simple and to play more rhythm. I've been able to come up with more catchy, doomy riffs that way. I've been playing straight-ahead jazz with a saxophone player but after listening to Levithan I realized I shouldn't give up on metal. I'll still be listening to tons of classical and jazz music but I still got heavy rock and roll in the mix too.

Purple Haze [Live]

Here's a live rendition of Purple Haze, played and sung by yours truly. With the Petie's Place open mic house band. Petie's Place is a bar in Tarzana, CA that hosts open mic sessions every Wednesday night. This is the first time I've ever done Purple Haze live. Enjoy!

https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/purple-haze

Orlando Figueroa-guitar, vocals
Art-bass
Jim X-drums 
?-keyboard

Open Mic 12/5

Here's five tunes I played at last week's open jam at Petie's Place. I played Sunshine of Your Love, Hey Joe, Electric Funeral, and two extra jams of improvisation. It was a good night. Enjoy the music. 

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/sunshine-of-your-love-125 
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/hey-joe-125 
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/electric-funeral-no-vocal-125 
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/four-on-six 
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/satriani-style-jam-125 

Electric Funeral

Here's Electric Funeral by Black Sabbath played at the open jam I play at regularly, on 9/19. We have Jim X (Ouii3) on drums and a jammer on bass, the bass player kills it here.

Enjoy!

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/electric-funeral-x-drums

New Jam tracks (9/5/18)

So I happened to be off work last week so my drummer and I went out and played an open jam, our only real performance space other than practicing at the studio with occasional friends spectating, sometimes even performing too. 

We start the jam off with an instrumental tune, Buckethead's Soothsayer. Then we play Electric Funeral by Black Sabbath, and end the mini-gig with my original death metal tune called Spirits of the Dead. 

Enjoy! 

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/soothsayer918
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/electric-funeral-95
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/spirits-of-the-dead-95


Good news is that although my singing and death metal screams aren't "good" they are at least decent enough to pass, and I have improved a lot in my general singing and screams. Back to the shed for practice! 

Mass plays Spirits of the Dead

My band recorded an original tune of mine recently called Spirits of the Dead, a tune I wrote on Halloween morning in 2017. Features my friend Martin Arevalo on drums and myself on guitar and vocals with Dmitri on bass. Dmitri also recorded it. Rock and roll!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfdbEKI_y7g

Mass Live at the studio

Greetings everyone, here's a short live set we did at the studio and recorded on a super old video recorder device. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6yxqnEIsCI

Mass is a duo musical collaboration comprised of myself and my friend Martin Arevalo, who plays drums. 

We go through Electric Funeral by Sabbath and Sunshine of Your Love by Cream. We also play one of my tunes called Spirits of the Dead, a black metal song complete with screams done by yours truly.

We're calling the group Mass, as in we the people, the masses. I also see it as a reference to mass, as in Catholic Church, like Electric Church Music, something I heard someone say about Hendrix's music. 

Enjoy the music!

Open Mic Tracks from 5/16

Hello, here are my recordings from last week's open mic. We played Electric Funeral and Poachers as a guitar, drums duo with myself on vocals. 

I think we did an excellent job on the Sabbath tune considering we didn't have a bass player. It sounds pretty bad ass. Although its not perfect metric (timing)-wise I still think its pretty cool. I can do metal too, haha. Check out the tune here https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/electric-funeral-guitar-drum-duo

And the other tune is Poachers, a tune written by new music composer Frank Abbinanti. Here I play it with my friend Martin on drums. I was following the score and he improvised music based on what I was playing. Upon hearing it after I think we could use more practice with this one. However, Martin's drumming wasn't bad. He does pretty well when we improvise. I also like the yelling from the audience. Makes it feel like a rock concert! Check it out here https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/poachers-martin-on-drums

Lastly, I have something different, a jazz/blues in c featuring Jim Xaiver on drums, Mike Mitchell on distorted electric guitar, Ken on tambourine, Art on bass, and myself on clean guitar. Check that out here https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/jazzblues-in-c
I like this one a lot because its jazz, which I love!  

Enjoy! 

Metal Band Recordings

Hello everybody, 

Thought I'd share the studio recordings I made with my short lived metal band, Wolves to the Slaughter. They're pretty much recorded live, I'm just glad that some recordings exist of the three tunes we played a lot. 

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/heroine-vs-the-band-introduction 
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/dethroned 
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/serpent-king 

Personnel included 
Alex Martin Vocals, Songwriter
Dmitri Bass/Recording Engineer
Martin Ruffalo Drums
Orlando Figueroa Guitar/Arranger

Open Jam Tunes

Hey, what's going on everybody? Here are two tunes from last week's open jam. First we have Hey Joe, a Hendrix cover.

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/hey-joe 

I did my best to cover the vocals, I'm still working a lot on my singing. When it comes to the solo I do my best Hendrix-esque guitar licks. I think I do a pretty job of keeping it in that 60s rock guitar vein. 

Surprisingly the solid state Line 6 amp used for the jams sounded pretty great here. I really like this drummer on this one. He's a guy that comes occasionally to the jams. Its funny, he wanted to do Manic Depression but when I could barely play the riff (I forgot it) we had to stop and play Sunshine of Your Love instead (laughs). 

However, I did learn Manic Depression and I'll be ready to play it the next time he's there. 

Anyways, I think that this is my best cover of Hey Joe I've ever done live, so there's that. 

And then for the next tune we have Sunshine of Your Love by the Cream, a song I've been playing at the jam for a while now. 

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/sunshine-of-your-love-most-recent-version

Hearing this back now I think I've done a lot better with my vocals. Still needs work (better tone) if I want to be more professional but its not bad as of right now, at least to my ears. The Hendrixian guitar licks are plentiful and are sounding good as usual. One thing I need to work on is singing louder and with more oomph, ya know. Add some more power and energy into it. 

With this solo here I think it sounded pretty good. Not too much wankery (shredding a la guitar pyrotechnics from the 80s), focusing on hitting the good sounding notes, bending the strings, beginning, middle, end, and then back to the vocals. I like it. 

Enjoy the music! 

Electric Funeral, Music Politics

Here's our rendition of Electric Funeral with my buddy Martin on drums, and Thelma on groans :D https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/electric-funeral
I did a bit of vocals but not the full song. Enjoy!

I've been pretty busy practicing a lot of music, working on jazz guitar, jazz standards, as well as piano. I'm mostly just improvising on piano but I'm getting much better pretty quickly and I've only been playing since October.

The band situation is either getting worse or getting better depending on how you look at it. The drummer has improved a lot and I look forward to continue working with him for a long time. However, the singer might be leaving to join another band, depending on if he gets accepted after the audition process.

In the meantime we're still practicing together with the current singer. However, Martin (drummer) has found a new guitarist (named Stan) that also plays guitar and sings. I sing and play guitar too so if Alex (current singer) ends up leaving we have a good back up plan for the band.

I'm teaching my friend rudimentary rock bass and I'm hoping he can get good fast enough to play with us (our riffs aren't that difficult, just fast mostly).

As if that wasn't enough our current bass player can't play the songs the same way, he just improvises and changes it every time so we're going to have to let him go.

As you can see I'm dealing with a lot of politics! Me and the drummer are the unofficial leaders but man am I glad that he found another guitarist that can do vocals, that will make things a lot easier if Alex ends up ditching us.

Its a lot of pressure and I'm trying to stay positive about the whole metal band thing. One could take a look at my band and just say those guys are just fucking around.

As if that wasn't enough I'm also looking and talking to jazz musicians to play in a jazz setting. Hopefully I can do that soon because my heart is way more into jazz than metal, even if I do have a 7-string Jackson as my current main guitar. 

I'm going to continue to work hard and improve my chops, increase my repertoire and keep playing live at the open jam at Petie's Place, the bar on Reseda. I've got to keep pushing myself. 

Band Update: We're a death metal band called Wolves to the Slaughter, playing a show soon!

Hey, just wanted to do a short update on the band's status. For a short while I was just practicing and performing at the weekly open jam as a duo, two piece band with my drummer friend Martin but now we're working with a metal (screamer) vocalist, we're playing death metal with a little bit of black metal influence, mostly in the drumming. My guitar playing is more straight death metal with 80s shred guitar and progressive rock (jazzy distorted chords) bits here and there, a bit of black metal influence there as well. But I digress...

What happened with Martin's other group was that they decided their guitar player was holding them back so they kicked him out and recruited me to join. I reluctantly joined because at first I left that band (some months ago) because I didn't want to play death metal. But I changed my mind and I've been working with Alex (vocals) and Martin (drums) for a while now. So far we've only been practicing two hours a week but I think we're already ready to gig. We need a bass player but I think I've already found one, one of my friends.

We've got four songs down already that are originals, more if we count covers but we're not sure if we're going to perform covers, you see we've already got a gig lined up. We're going to be playing a backyard show at Martin's friends' house downtown LA (more information available as I find out more) on March 2nd. 

So yeah we're playing a show on March 2nd on a Friday. Unfortunately we aren't getting paid but it will be my first real official gig in California (not counting the open jams). I haven't played a gig since 2013 so this is quite a musical milestone for me and I'm quite pleased with the band, even if we ain't playing jazz (I wish I could be in a gigging jazz band). These guys couldn't play jazz anyways but they are pretty good rock and roll musicians.

It's all quite exciting and cool. Oh, and by the way the band is called Wolves to the Slaughter, I thought of the name and everybody agreed on it that it was cool. Hurrah for democracy! 

I'm using my 7-string Jackson for the band, I'll bring my Marshall amp for the gig, straight through the amp, no effects. The drummer plays a small jazz kit (even though he's a metal drummer), he likes the sound of small snares. And the singer has this whole vocal effects setup with his own personal microphone. The gig will probably go great. I'll post more information once I learn more about the gig. 

Another thing I'm gonna prioritize for the band is recording. I think we're ready for it, I could even record the bass parts if need be. 

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

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

Spawning more musicians

So I've been pretty busy jamming acoustic guitars with my friends lately. I'm spawning more musicians! It doesn't get any better than that other than getting paid for playing music. This past weekend my friend and I went down to Guitar Center Sherman Oaks and he bought his first guitar. I helped him pick out this stunning Luna acoustic electric guitar that sounds really nice.

Today we were at another friends house and they were playing together. Basic acoustic guitar stuff like power chords and simple riffs. It was fun. The Luna sounds great when its plugged into an amp, we learned that today for sure. One of the coolest attributes about the Luna is the moon half moon inlays on the first couple fret markers and the artistic headstock it has. It has this sharpie look black art on the body that looks awesome. Its smooth.

One of them is already showing good signs as a guitarist. I feel like acoustic guitar is better for beginners so I told my friend he would be better off with an acoustic electric that way he could still buy an amp later and plug it in, or buy an electric later once he's got the basics down. He wanted this Schecter electric that sounded so deep and bass-y (because of super heavy strings) but in the end we decided not to go with it. I told him it was a much more metal sort of guitar that's more about playing in drop c or c sharp and chugging metal riffs on the low strings. Definitely not his forte yet.

Usually when I hang out with friends we always play guitar now. In a way I've become kind of a guitar sempai because I'm taken up a teacher role even though that wasn't necessarily what I wanted. I wanted them to work a lot more on the guitar themselves but so far the guys only really play when I'm around. We have a friend that me and my other friend bought a bass for and he had a circuit problem with the pickups and he hasn't played it much ever since despite me telling him that they can fix his sound issue for as little as twenty bucks. 

The original idea was that me and two other friends would eventually create a metal band. The other two guys were suppose to practice their instruments and eventually get to like a beginner punk/metal level of musicianship. Then I would help out with supplying riffs and/or vocals. Its a great idea but its going to take a lot longer than I originally anticipated so that's why I'm working super hard recording and collaborating with other musicians.

I have been able to get some musical works with my friends though so its not like nothings been done. My metal band project will take a while because the guys need to learn how to play better and how to play fast clean but I have other friends and one of them wrote three songs. We even recorded vocals and guitar parts for them already with this super nice microphone that I bought. His vocals aren't the best because he isn't a musician but we did get to test out the mic and the quality was good.

I'm going to give his songs a bunch of edits and possibly rewrite and draft the songs again and see if I can give them more of a indie rock punk sorta vibe. As we recorded it was an indie rock kind of sound but it needs more bite, attack to it if you will. It needs a punk edge to it because the songs are dark.

So all together I'm working with two guitar players in the learning process (one pretty far along that already knows basic chords at the nut), a bass player in training (but still has a long way to go), and a songwriter that works on lyrics. Maybe in the end I'll have the whole Valley working with me on music haha. I have been jamming with a really talented bass player that I used to work with too but it seems that a lot of the time I can't get in contact with him. I rely on texting to contact him and sometimes it doesn't work. Calling never works either.

My main goal right now is to put up some solo guitar stuff, mostly jazz standards. I found out tonight that my Reverbnation account https://www.reverbnation.com/landofigueroaandtheelectricsaxophone?profile_view_source=header_icon_nav is ranked 70 on the indie jazz chart even though all that's on there is low quality jams of things I recorded back in 2015. I'm thinking of replacing what's on there with some better quality music, mostly jazz standards. With my current setup I can record multiple guitar tracks and do a sort of guitar orchestra type of thing. I want to have something up online soon, I'll post when I have it done.

Spawn additional music makers.