Saber - They Say

The last of the three songs I recently finished:

  They Say by Saber (Major Awesome)

CLICK HERE FOR MORE, you rascal!

Saber - Pilgrim Struts

Alright, here's the next one:

  Pilgrim Struts by Saber (Major Awesome)

CLICK HERE FOR MORE, you rascal!

Three (3) NEW Songs! - First up: 'The Palette'

I FINALLY got around to finishing three of my latest tracks. It took way too long, but now I am able to present to you a bunch of songs that I began recording last year and mastered this year. It was a long journey, but I feel it was worth it.

I'm going to start with The Palette. Enjoy! Lyrics & more info on the song after the jump.

  The Palette by Saber (Major Awesome)

CLICK HERE FOR MORE, you rascal!

Rated FA for FUCKIN AWESOME

First Sonic the Hedgehog, because he has been awesome since I was 4 years old.



Next up Neil Patrick Harris, because he has defined Awesomeness in a whole new way. This might be the most epic video I have seen in a long time: We got NPH, sexy stewardesses, a Spider-Man reference and a suit within a suit within a suit - all packed into a broadway-style presentation. I really don't get along well with musicals, but this is FABULOUS i mean awesome.



(...and even if Brooke Shields makes for a pretty cringeworthy drawback, NPH saves the day.)

Musicians to fall in love with - Part 2

Alright, next up - Sting.

Seriously, I'd probably turn gay for that man, that's why I chose to include him in this category. Not only is he one of my greatest musical influences (as mentioned before) and a genious when it comes to songwriting and melodies, he's also extremely good-looking for his age. Other guys can only dream about having his vitality and looks in high age - I will never understand how anyone can still find an Sean Connery of 80 years attractive.

Seriously?

Anyway, I recently found out that Sting went on a so-called Symphonicities-Tour, where his songs from The Police and his solo works where performed with the famous Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra. This enabled Sting to bring many of his songs on stage he wouldn't be able to play with a rock band.

I found these new interpretations of his songs refreshing, but it was hard to get used to them initially since they do differ a lot from the originals. After a while though I had several songs on permanent repeat, and many of them still give me goosebumps; the atmosphere on stage is just phenomenal. Take for example two of my alltime Sting-favourites Mad About You or King of Pain:

Also, Sting collaborated with Alison Krauss to contribute a song to the soundtrack for the movie Cold Mountain (a brilliant movie you should go check out right now), called My Ain True Love which was also performed during the Symphonicities - Tour. Below are both songs as well as another general alltime-favourite of mine in an orchestrated rendition - I Burn For You.

                           

I'm just procrastinating learning for the exams, thank you

This quote totally sounds like something I'd do. I would! And it would be awesome.
Also, if your half the Scott Pilgrim fan I am you should really check out this Vimeo profile; it shows some interesting Making-Of material about the movie. I love Making-Ofs!

Two girls moved above this guy's appartment. Thanks to thin walls or whatever, he is able (or forced) to listen to everything they say, do, watch or listen to. While still pretty funny, those chicks are probably too dumb to breathe - if all of this is actually true then Paris Hilton is fuckin Marie Curie.

One day, when I'm a grown-up and a rockstar and have lots of money, I'll probably be able to afford one of my dream guitars: The Gretsch G.Love Electromatic Corvette. Makes me swoon every time I look at it. I am also currently working on my dream drum kit, but more on that on another occasion (if anyone cares, that is).

'10 Common Medical Myths' - perfect for people who believe that losing weight is harder than gaining it, who like cracking their knuckles (like me) or like eating around midnight (also me). The actual truths behind those myths don't necessarily make anything easier, but still.

'8 Places To Get Free Stock Fotos For Your Website' - The title says it all. Interesting for everyone who blogs, designs webpages or just likes pretty pictures. I have known this list for quite some time now but never consulted it so far, although I'm sure I will find a decent use for it someday.

My Regularly Recurring Song of the Day:


                        

Musicians to fall in love with - Part 1

I've listened to a lot of female musicians in the last few weeks, I don't really know why. I just kind of stumbled upon one after the other, and I have begun to seriously adore some of them. Of course, you have to share this adoration with me.

Now, initially I wanted to start with someone else, but I watched Easy A yesterday and heard an amazing song that I recognized from somewhere. The song is called Trouble Is A Friend and is performed by Australian singer, songwriter and part-time actress Lenka.
The song is beautiful with its straight beat and mellow, almost haunting sound layers. It has sort of an eerie mood to it, I think, but there's something about it that makes me listen to this song on permanent repeat. As I said, it might be the drums, but also Lenkas voice is very calming and just beautiful (a theme you might find again in later posts), and the lyrics are wonderful. They remind me very much of another great musician I will cover later.

Go check out the track here or watch a live version of it below, but beware: I love live performances in general, but here I absolutely prefer the album track. It just brings a very different vibe and depth across that Lenka, even with a very good live band, can not recreate. But hey: female drummer!



Besides: You might know Lenka from her song The Show, which got heavy coverage in several tv shows and commercials. I found a cool live performance, this time with a female guitarist. Not that that's important.

GUITAR MACHINEGUN CHICK

Woah!
Someone I go to university with just sent me videos of the band Blood Red Shoes, consisting of a singing drummer (such as myself which is awesome) and a guitar shredding chick (which is generally very awesome). The music ranges somewhere between The Subways, Bloc Party and The Killers with a gentle touch of Placebo, and it's a pleasure to listen to (and look at, so everybody wins).

Check out this song and be greeted by a Guitar machinegun. Hell yes.




Or, if you want it a little more Placbo-esque, have this:



PS: You were right of course, Tiny, you showed me the band some time ago... at about the same time you showed me Delphic, and I blame them for being so good that I totally forgot about Blood Red Shoes at the time! ;D Sorry and thanks, still!

Songs on Heavy Rotation right now

Seven Nation Army's been covered, it's been done. Even I did it at one point. But nothing - nothing - compares to this amazing rendition to the White Stripes' monster hit.
Please enjoy Ben L'Oncle Soul and his incredible band.



Shit this guy can sing. And the solos are fantastic. And the dancing is just contagious! This has to be the best cover/rendition of the song I have ever heard, nay, that ever existed. That's right. Believe it.

Also, I got myself to finally dive into the music of Tegan and Sara - so far I only had about three to four songs I really liked, but recently I found a lot more to like. This one is most prominently featured in my head lately:




Oh yeah, and I found out that Tegan plays a beautiful Gretsch guitar on stage. I already love her for that alone!

Work In Progress - My Frequency

Apart from our bands Phil and I have a little project going where we can go crazy with whatever we want to record, called Work In Progress. We experiment a lot with instruments, effects, sounds and styles or genres, and the results are always surprising, to say the least.

I just finished the mixdown of a song we recorded during the last few hours; we titled it My Frequency. It's weird, and I'm assuming you won't listen to the song twice.Oh and if you do listen to the song, I recommend doing it with headphones. In the dark. All by yourself. Yeah, that'll probably work best.

Everything is improvised from the spot. First Phil played guitar while I controlled the drum machine, afterwards I recorded a midi bass guitar and both of us did everything else you might or might not hear. It was so much fun you wouldn't believe it, and we both learned a lot.

Have fun :D

Work In Progress - My Frequency

Lyrics:

???

Major Awesome - When We Shared The Moon

New Song!

UPDATE: I tweaked the overall sound a little; just some minor things that no one will really notice except me. Just click the same link below to download the new version.

Yesterday I finally took the time to write lyrics to this song I made a few days (weeks?) ago. Of course I recorded the vocals instantly and did the final mixing, which kept me out of bed for way too long, but I think it was worth it.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE, you rascal!

Major Awesome - The Factory Worker's Blues

I just spontaneously made a new song. I call it: The Factory Worker's Blues.
Despite being completely improvised, it tells a little story. What does it tell you?

Enjoy!



PS: No time and mood for updates lately, it'll change someday.

Song Updates

I revisited some songs tonight and reworked them a little. The more I listened to them the more I found things to tweak on and things to add. They will never be finished, I guess...

Right. I changed a few things about Got It Right by my band Awesome.
I disliked the drums from the very beginning, so I tried getting a little more punch out of them. I'm still not satisfied, not at all, but it sounds a little more the way I want it.
Also I tweaked the volume of some parts here and there, I hope it sounds a bit more fitting overall.
The final thing: I rerecorded the guitar solo (remember: it was a first take to begin with), because there were a few mistakes that stopped the flow of the solo. Now it should sound more thought through, if still a little rough (I actually dig that sound).
There's just one thing I absolutely hate... I just can't get the bass drum to sound through. You might hear a faint bass drum in the distance, but that's it. Meh... I'll work on that later.

The other song I modified is The Grass Is Listening which I just put up recently. While listening to it again I noticed that one major element was missing: The Timpani.
That's right, I actually had a timpani in there to accentuate the timing, and I absolutely love it. When I was composing the song it was one of those things that just flew at me because it sounded so right.
Also I added a single distant guitar that I actually played (no synthesizer here). It adds just about the right amount of depth I wanted.

So what do you guys think? I put both versions of both songs up so if you like the one version better, you may keep it.

Again: Enjoy!

Awesome - Got It Right

Alright, so here's something:

I finally got around to recording one of the newer songs of my band, Awesome (what else?). I had to do everything myself and it pretty much sounds like it, too... see it as a demo, aight? It is FAR from finished. I was just too excited to keep it to myself.

Update August 23rd: New version here! The old version is available in the post. 
CLICK HERE FOR MORE, you rascal!

Something With Numbers

Wow. Coincidences happen at the most inopportune times, I guess.
I've been looking for this song for ages but I just couldn't remember the name of the band or the song. Now I just casually stumbled upon it.

Damn.

A Day at the Studio

So recently I was in a recording studio with one of my bands, Brilliant Thieves. It's a cover band and we basically wanted to have a demo record for anyone who books us, so they know what they're dealing with.
I was seriously more than impressed with the professionality of the studio. I have never been in a studio as big as this one, so naturally I wanted to take pictures. The only thing I had was my mobile phone, so the quality sucks, but you get a nice impression of the rooms and gear. Also, for everyone interested, I put the demos at the end of the post so have a listen if you like.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE, you rascal!

"Time together is just never quite enough"

You might remember my little experiment with my guitar effect board a while ago, where I arranged Delphics Doubt to play on one guitar with help of a looping device. Sure enough I got hooked on the concept and have been experimenting ever since.

Some of you might know Owl City. There's a few songs I like but this is one of his best as far as I know:



It's really simple too - despite having many layers of different instruments it can mostly be played with the intro riff playing throughout. With that in mind I arranged the song for my guitar and looping device, but I also wanted to add some vocals. Since my original choice of a female singer won't be available for a while I simply made an instrumental out of the song.

Hope you enjoy!

Attention all units of the Solar Federation...

WE HAVE ASSUMED CONTROL -

Over Guitar Hero!



*enter air-guitaring rock pose here* Hell yeah!

You might remember one of my older posts, were I got together with a few friends and we had a Guitar Hero night. Afterwards I had Diegos Xbox360 over for a few days and played the hell out of the games' story modes, when I discovered that one had Rush's Yyz in it. I was so extremely flashed that I could've died right then.

Now imagine my excitement upon seeing this trailer for Guitar Hero: Warriors Of Rock. I'm not much into that "warriors" thing (Brütal Legend for that matter wouldn't interest me that much), but this game has me dancing through the room. I'm a giant Rush fan, always have been, and now they're making a game about the story of their album 2112 - which means the developers are actually using every song from 2112 in its entirety.
I'm so turned on right now.

Also, there's this clip:



The setlist seems to be very excellent - this being the first time since the first Guitar Hero that I feel confident to say that about any game of that kind. Money For Nothing by Dire Straits, No Way Back by Foo Fighters, fucking Bohemian Rhapsody!

I don't own any of the modern consoles, and never have I regretted that - until now. Consider me a lunatic, but this is the first game that I would actually consider buying a new console for. I won't do it of course - but who knows, maybe in a few months or years, there'll be a bundle with a console and Warriors Of Rock for a buck or two...

Oh well, one can dream.

So what do you think? Is the setlist alright? Would you ever consider a Guitar Hero/Rockband game worth buying a console for?

Eric Power

While browsing thatguywiththeglasses.com I stumbled, quite by accident, upon Eric Power - gamer, artist, reviewer, Cullen-lookalike (but don't let that one scare you off - keep reading!).
He talked about what things he misses about 90s era gaming, and what made his (already interesting) list that I can totally relate to even more special was his use of paper cutout stopmotion. It's cute and interesting, and not too badly done either.
I did some research and found not only great animation about videogames (yay! can't have enough of them!) but also some amazing music videos Eric did. Be it animations with clay, cut outs, photographs or, of course, drawings; every video supports and strenghtens the lyrics of the song it is set to perfectly and beautifully.

Here are a few examples I can't stop watching and listen to:

The Pandas - Belly Of The Whale


In Cadeo - City Lights


... and my absolute favourite, musically and visually:
Fictionist - Blue Eyed Universe


I love this video in so many ways!

Guys, I beg of you: Check out Erics Tube channel and ericpowerup.com to have a look at all of his fantastic work. You won't regret it.


Related links:
 The Prodigals - Whiskey Asylum: Another amazing song/video. Very deep and touching.
 The Life Of Gamers: A BBC-like mockumentary about... well. You know.
 Mario Meltdown: A nicely done short including everyone's favourite plumber.
 Zelda On Paper: The first of several small Zelda clips in paper cut outs. Check his homepage for more, including Metroid and Resident Evil!

How to ruin an amazing performance

I'm huge fan of Sting and The Police, and I'm also a huge fan of John Mayer. Few musicians have shaped and influenced me as much as they did, so I was psyched to see that they actually had a small performance together.

July 7th, 2007: All over the world Live Earth takes place, a gigantic event where festivals located in a dozen cities are held, with an insane amount of famous performers and an enormous audience. This costly and absolutely eco-unfriendly attempt to raise awareness of global warming was as counterproductive as one might imagine, but it did house some interesting musical acts.

Just the fact that The Police were together on stage - having just started a reunion tour that year - after more than 20 years was a freaking milestone for me. But when I saw who played the famous opening riff of Message In A Bottle, I squeaked with joy: John Mayer was with them on stage, playing along the main riff. I watched in awe and thought to myself that nothing could top this performance of the song.

And then came the 2:15 minute mark.



Urgh. UURRGH.

What the HELL is fuckin Kanye West doing on the same stage that The Police is standing on? Well I can tell you what he does:

He tries to improvise some juicy rap antics (I'm sendin' a message in a BAAWWWTLE, they said that we need a nu TOMAAARRROW ).
He whirls his hands around a lot.
He throws in lots of YEA YEAs and UHN UHNs.
And, probably worst of all, he actually tries to rap along to Sting's singing, backing vocals style, absolutely ruining the melody and key of the song.
All the while he's just grinning so smugly and pleased with himself, like he's saying, Man, I was so good. THANK GOD I offered myself to help those guys out last minute, they would've never gotten any attention without me!

Seriously, seeing him onstage with those guys is like smearing a dog turd onto an absolutely perfect apple pie and vanilla sauce.

Now don't think of this as a fanboy rant over The Police and John Mayer. I'm just saying that Kanye West is a turd.