Macon

I'm in Macon this weekend for the YDG convention, anybody else show? I'm at the Howard Johnson (or as they call it the "ho jo". Just let me know

The Radio Plays a forgotten song...

Ain't nothing quite like driving out in the country late on a spring night with your high beams on jamming out to Golden Earring's "Radar Love". =)

Happy 4/20!

Well its now 4/21 but yea. I was goin to dedicate a post to the day but given the activities one must accomplish on the most holy of days, I was too paralyzd to even try lol.

Wasps suck

I hate wasps. I had a total buzzkill earlier because one got in my van. I don't care though, I had a great day and never really "came down."

<--- need to be extinct, for real.

A little bit of A.D.D. in this post.

I've always longed to have the lifestyle of a rockstar but at the same time have one of like a nomad. I've loved the thought of waking up somewhere different everyday, and just going with it. But like I said the only way you can truly do that is by being a rockstar, but there is so much corruption within it, that it is not even worth it. I mean any deadline on creativity affects how good any sort of work will be. Books, Movies, Music, etc. And that seems to be all the music business as with any business cares about. Meeting deadlines, but you would figure that the people who are within the industry would know enough about music to realize the thought of "quantity over quality" or really the way capitalist society works "quantity with quality within a timeframe" hurts it. Songs take time to write. Some take only a few minutes to write, but others can take ages. The ones that take forever are usually the ones that are the testements to our culture. Of course, if Axl Rose ever releases Chinese Democracy I don't expect too much. I'm starting to think that really his whole point on Chinese Democracy is to wait until that oxymoron becomes a reality. Sorry Axl, you'll probably be dead by the time China stops being communist and stops diplomatically and militarily bullying Taiwan and Tibet. Anyway, I'm way off topic again, back to what I was saying. I love the idea of just being able to let things flow. Just not caring... we always look down upon people who don't care, and don't fit within this capitalistic style of government. Really I think the best form of government would be to mix the both. Allow everybody to do what they want to do, but make sure in some ways people are paid the same. Capitalism and the arts just do not mix. It makes everything generic to what the corporations think the masses want to hear. But really, all it does is tire the masses of hearing the same shit over and over and they look for something new. Why do you think Indie artists have been going up so fast? Why do you think more and more people are listening to World Music? I think some of them probably have the same openness like me where we look to become cultured and enjoy listening to everything to draw into our own creativity, but even then the industry finds ways to mess that up. How? They try to sign the indie artists and give them the deadlines and all the other bullshit and the fans consider them to "sell out".

Maybe they are selling out, I don't like to think of it like that though. I think of it as them trying to make a living, in a society which creativity is looked down upon. The government looks down on it, corporations look down on it, yet the people as humans have a natural urge to have creativity. People in power or having authority always long for conformity so they can ensure security and hope people buy into anything. People living within the domain want their creativity so they can have expression, have some sort of philosophical value in their minds. I always think of me being a famous musician or a philosopher so I can have some sort of true value in this world. To me working in some office space for numerous years so I can feed a family is not doing shit to the world. It helps some company make more money or have something balanced. What difference is that going to make 10 years from now? Shit that company may be long gone by then. Look at literature, paintings, sculptures, architecture, music, etc. it is all still around, and to this day we all still talk about books that were written thousands of years ago, pyramids of giza, Beethoven, Sistine Chapel, Mona Lisa, Sculpture of David, etc. In 50 years no one will remember Enron, because Enron never had true value in our world's future. Development of the mind is the world's future.

Now granted we will always need somebody to make food, somebody to protect our borders, somebody to transport, and somebody to make sure our phones, electricity, water, and cable are up and running. There is no way around that, we'll always need farmers, lumberjacks, and other jobs. The thing is though, as much as we need them, we need the arts as well. Without the arts we lose our creativity. Without the creativity and curiousity we lose the need to advance to make things better. We also lose further enhancing our minds, which I think most have noticed that our world has gotten dumber. Without that everything comes to a complete halt, and problems never go unsolved. Lets just lose creativity and stick to protocol. Ok in order to make a protocol you have to CREATE one. You get what I am saying?

Anyway went off topic again. Pretty much this is a round-about way of saying the following:

I don't want to be a capitalist slave, but at the same time I see the problems with it's counterparts. Everybody wants it all to be black & white, instead of gray, when in all reality the solution is within the gray. As much as I want to be a musician or a songwriter or a journalist, chances are I probably won't because a capitalist society does not embrace such things as much as things that benefit the country temporarily. While I can be whatever I "want" to be because it is the American Dream... that is all it is though, a dream. It only becomes a reality if you are the absolute best at it and in a country of over 300 million people that is quite a feat to achieve seeing that there is a lack of such jobs, and greed as well as laws to promote the best of the capitalist system prevents other companies from being able to start up their own things without having to take all this time and effort to even last... that is if they can. Then there's the whole thing where if you try to stray from the norm, you get looked down upon, and in some cases, bullshit laws in the name of security prevent us from doing some things we truly want to do. I don't mean anything by means of dropping a bomb or murder, or anything of the sort, obviously we need to secure ourselves, but we all go to far because of some asshole wanting their way in a city, state or the whole nation.

There needs to be a change, soon.

this past week and uh, music

What Happened this week:

Monday: Hung out with Chris, ate at Krystal and drove to Stone Mountain. Played a lot of Rock Band and played a game of NHL 07 that if it ever happened in real life people would talk about for years.

Tuesday: Parents left for Virginia. I went to school for the day and left pretty blazed. Got home remained blazed, hung out with Cole and Devere. CD came in the mail, Jack Ingram. Damn good musician, for some reason they consider him to be in the country genre, seems to be genreless to me. It just sounds like music, honestly. Good music at that.

Wednesday: Got blazed again, housekeepers came and cleaned up the house. Andrew came over later, we filmed an artist-to-artist interview on my camera. haven't uploaded it on the computer yet so idk if it worked. The Heroin Diaries book came in the mail, started reading away.

Thursday: Got blazed yet again. Didn't bother going to school, didn't feel like it. Missed a test in Government that I was clueless was even going to happen. Will probably bite me in the ass but for some reason I just don't care. Meatball came over we hung out and made a shitload of food: Brownies, Hot Pockets, and fuck I can't even remember lol.

Friday: Woke up to a very nice wake n' bake. Kept me fucked up all day, for some reason I make better decisions stoned then I do sober. Examples: Started going to church, made that decision stoned (never went stoned though). Actually started trying to accomplish more, stoned. Dating Caitlin: sober. nuff said. Went to the movies later on in the day with Meatball, Jesse and Jessica. Saw Prom Night, it was decent. Then later on saw about 10 other people that I had either never met or just hadn't seen in ages. Got home at 10:30, parents still weren't back. They had left VA at 7am so yea it was rather odd. Ended up getting home at like 1am I think.

Saturday: Woke up early, drove to Duluth and couldn't figure out where the YDG meeting was supposed to be. I ended up just hanging around there til like 2 or 3. Parents noticed an empty can of corn in the fridge and bitched at me about it. I didn't put it there, why would I make corn in the first place, put it in tuna salad and then put the empty can in the fridge? Either way, I was the one in trouble and confronted about it. Knew that would happen anyway, so I don't even care. Probably brought it upon myself in some fucked up way anyway, right? They didn't care so much about it being in there, just more upset that I didn't know why it was in there. Kelley called later on and I talked to her for awhile too. Then I got a myspace message from Whiskey seeing if I wanted to jam out. I was supposed to go and listen to Meatball's band practice, but they were supposed to start at like 1 and it was already 4:30 so idk, I just didn't go. Several other people called, wanting to hang out around here, I just didn't bother answering, 9 times out of 10 if I'm not at home they want to know why and shit and it gets really annoying. Must I really tell people why I'm going where I am? Besides my parents of course, and most of the time I don't even want to tell them. I'm usually not doing anything wrong, I just LOVE my privacy.

Anyway, I went to Whiskey's and stayed the night there. Got to jam with all of the Listprice members that was great, we played 2 of their songs, 2 of mine that lacked bass or drum parts but Joe and Zak did great improv for it, then just jammed out playing some Bush, Foo Fighters, Hendrix, and other stuff. Then we got pretty bored so we drove around Social Circle. After Joe left we ended up driving to Covington to go to a coffee house that always has music. They weren't open so we ended up just coming to my house at like 10 for a hour and getting my laptop and acoustic, talked to my mom for awhile too, I think it got her mind off me lying earlier in the day too so that was good. Watched Saturday Night Live when we got back to Social Circle, had one of the funniest skits I've seen in a long time. They were playing "Amie" by Pure Prairie League and the commentary went something like.

1:You know who this song reminds me of?
2:Amy?
1:No, Susan
3:Oh yea man, did you get up the courage to ask her out?
1:Yea man I did, I got stonewalled though
4:Stonewalled? how?
1:Well she said that she couldn't date me because I was a pedophile. And I was like "Woah, pedophile? That's a big word for a 10 year old!"
*they all sing the chorus to Amie* (Amie, what you wanna do? I think I could stay with you for awhile maybe longer if I do)
1:Then her mom broke up with me.

After that I went to bed turned my laptop on put in the Heroin Diaries soundtrack and went to sleep.

Sunday: Woke up and laid in the bed til like 10:30. Watched a lot of Kessen 2 being played, I'm the master of that game lol. We all ended up going up to Monroe and eating at McDonald's. It's connected to a gas station. I'm almost certain more people go there for the $1 food rather than the $3.50 a gallon gas. We left after a certain someone (not me) pretty much stunk up the entire restaurant, it was hysterical. We also jammed out some as well, mostly playing Goo Goo Dolls, I now know how to play Sympathy so I'm happy :) , talk about a song that can get you laid haha. Came back home, I think this is the first night in a week that the entire family is falling asleep under the same roof, lol. Has it's good and bad things, sometimes really ugly. I'm actually feeling really sick though, its just a really bad headache though.

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Most importantly though, the 5 albums I just haven't stopped listening to this past week.

1. Rise Against - Siren Songs of the Counterculture
2. Theory of a Deadman - Gasoline
3. Eve 6 - It's all in Your Head
4. Sixx AM - Heroin Diaries
5. Jack Ingram - Electric

The Rise Against and Eve 6 albums really portray a lot of what I am feeling right now. Especially Rise Against though: "Paper Wings", "Life Less Frightening", "Swing Life Away", "Give it All", shit the whole album does. Eve 6 I just have a lot of songs I like, "Think Twice" does describe how I used to be, not really that way anymore, learned not to care so much. "At Least We're Breathing" definitely comes to mind when I look at me now. "Arch Drive Goodbye" is another good song as well.

I just love the uniqueness that Rise Against and Eve 6 have. I mean Eve 6 has that kind of college-vibe to them, and they have like this unique style of bridges I have rarely ever heard used by any other band, I can't describe it really, it's like almost raggae with distortion? You'd have to hear it to know what I'm talking about. Oh, Everclear does it too, but it is still nowhere close to how Eve 6 does it, I mean the only real similarities are the repetitiveness, but like I can't see Everclear doing it like Eve 6 does it and vice-versa. It's just like you hear it and you know "Oh, that is Eve 6"

Then Rise Against, at least in Siren Songs from the Counterculture, there's just that absolutely perfect mix of hardcore and punk. It's like a mix between the 2, but listening to it you can't just be like they're hardcore or they're punk. I dunno, if you haven't heard those 2 bands you should definitely check them out. I have yet to find a person who hasn't liked Rise Against.

Ok well I've been rambling for like 5 paragraphs about music, better just end this now before I'm up til 6am writing more views on it haha.

Diary / Blog

Ok, I've been reading Nikki Sixx's Heroin Diaries, back from his junkie days in Motley Crue. It is so far a good book, similar to Kurt Cobain's Journals except, well it makes a lot more sense and instead of just being like one page having a song written then the next being a letter to himself, it is a book where you can see his downfall. Plus having the soundtrack helps too. Anyway, not the point.

You know just look at where we are today. In a world where diaries and books are slowly becoming obsolete, I have to wonder what the future has in store. So many people are hearing of the Heroin Diaries, or the Kurt Cobain Journals, and I'm sure Jim Morrison's is due out soon if it hasn't been already. What about our generation though? Say I become some drugged up rock star who has an immortal legacy: what are they going to do, make a book out of all of my blogs, and find the few pages I have actually written on notebook paper to make a book? I don't know, I have always wanted to be a person who the world can look back and be like "That was one fucked up son of a bitch, but damn didn't he change us." How likely will that be? Well so far the only ones that I can say are truly "immortal" right now in the fact that 1000s of years from now if this world even exists, would be: Beethoven, Mozart, Presley, Hendrix, Lennon and amongst some cliques Marley and Cobain. Dylan, Plant and Page will be added whenever they are truly gone. Sure right now we all remember Morrison, Joplin, Holly, Sixx, etc. but fast forward 20-30 even 100 years will our children or grandchildren even know of them? I mean look at Toto, a band who defined late 70s and early 80s rock, one of the few precursors to the monster ballads we all experenced in the 80s, who the fuck remembered or heard of them before GTA: San Andreas remembered us of one simple song? How about even someone as immortal as Beethoven? He ended the classical era brought forth the Romance era, and that was only in 1825. Romance era happened from 1825-1900 can you name one 'Romance' artist? He wrote at least 8 symphonies, but all we can recall is Symphony No. 5. It is sad that this happens, the fact that one-time equivilants of gods in one generation's eyes can be completely erased 3 generations later. Why? Music shouldn't be this short-term, it should be preserved for the future to hear. It is almost like we're about to hit another dark age and have yet another rebirth where people in some futuristic fucked up nation will decide "hey lets study up on this shit these great Americans, or British, or Japanese, or Saudis (you get the point) did!" Remember though, what is the one thing that was lost by the time the Renaissance happened? Music, except for the music that happened in 1200 by some monks who believed music should only be used for religious purposes to show love to God. Who at that time, seemed like he was on some sort of cruise while the Black Plague, Crusades and other things happened. Not being blasphemous at all. I'm just starting to think, our history runs in a cycle... us humans get so far then we are pushed back. The ideologies, the thoughts, the structures, the sciences always last through this hard phase. But music is the only one that didn't return... except for those Bible Psalms.

So I ask the question again. What will become of our modern day rock stars? Even if they do become immortal, the great cycle will just reset. The thing I keep asking myself though is Blogs or Diaries? Hmph, which will Heath Ledger's be based on?

Epic 2015

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fUHtc37MC8

Has anybody seen this? Its so scary how accurate it is. Like some of the stuff they predicted was gonna happen in 2015 is already upon us, just look at the iPhone whenever you watch this, and you'll already see similarities. Definitely write back and discuss this.

Anyway, today was pretty fun. I woke up and had to go to the dentist for a clean-up, and my teeth have improved compared to the way they had been since birth so I'm relieved. I'm not really materialistic but I do want better teeth lol. Afterwards I hung out with Chris all day, ended up going to Stone Mountain for awhile, ate at Krystal and then went back to his place and played Rockband and NHL 07 the whole day. The craziest hockey games on video games always hapen whenever we hang out. Today he was the Detroit Red Wings and I was the Montreal Canadiens. He was up 3-2 with 0.1 seconds left in the 3rd period and I scored a goal to take it into overtime. From there it went into a shootout, and lasted about 20 minutes until he finally got past my goalie, but I came so close quite a few times. Other than that not much happened, listened to a lot of music... heard this local band from Atlanta I hadn't heard before, they're called the Rise of Science. A little bit emo, but they are still really good, check them out.

http://www.myspace.com/theriseofscience
I reccomend the song "For the Greatest Ones"

Wil's Music Theory 101

Music is expression. Expression makes a culture. Cultures define generations. Generations are made of individuals who make the world what it is. It only takes an individual to create a masterpiece. See where I'm going with it, the concept of globalization (one of it's few positive effects) is that we're open to hear artists no matter where they are or when it was recorded. Now, granted there is more then plenty wrong with globalization, as it destroys ageless cultures and Americanizes the whole globe in a way that should never happen. Now don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with McDonalds being in almost every country, but opening one in the Forbidden City... yea you get it. But this isn't globalization I'm writing this about, this is just thoughts of music.

Music no matter how you want to look at it is still music, and is an important part of our culture. I, like others do have several bands I do not like, and I'll be pretty open to answer on why I don't like them. But, there are some people who just take it too far with the dislike and it pisses me off. It is one thing you know to just not like them, and not listen to their music, but this whole thing where you show no respect for someone who has taken their art and thrown it out in the open is just audacious. Especailly when said critic has not even recorded a song in their life. One should never just limit themselves to just one genre of music, and have the state of mind that if it isn't that particular genre (or in many cases just a subgenre) then it's not music. Furthermore, one must at least show some respect for classics: Classic Rock, Early 20's Country, Romantic, Classical, New Orleans Jazz, Delta/Chicago Blues, Baroque, even Renaissance and the early Medieval movements that consisted of nothing but primitaive Gregorian Chants and Organum based sounds. Even if you do not want to listen to them, which I know several people (including myself I'm not gonna lie as far as things before 1950, lol) are that way, you do need to have the basic common sense to realize one thing: they are the roots that got us to where we are now.

Without composers like Bach, Haydn, Hendal, Mozart, Beethoven, etc. the world would of lacked such important changes in genres for example Neo-Classical Metal. Yea you know, like Symphony X, Dragonforce, Ywinge Malmsteen, etc. Without the early bluegrass and folk music that created country music in the 20s you wouldn't have Bob Dylan, Dave Matthews, much less if you are a huge country fan practically any of the material that exists within the Modern Country domain. Without the post-ww2 breakout of artists like Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Roy Orbison god I could go on all day about who played in this time, Bill Haley and the Comets... well lets just say the Beatles wouldn't of started or if they did would not of been nearly as successful... and from that there goes your: Led Zeppelin, Cream, Doors, as a matter of fact right before the British invasion everybody thought the Big Band Crooner genre was coming back... yea think about that. And don't even get me started on what led up to hip-hop and the other stuff.

You see not only is music a circle, but it also a family tree within the circle that will never stop growing. Like look at it this way, I'll use Breaking Benjamin as an example.

Breaking Benjamin, formed by a local Wilkes-Barre, PA musician. The band was inspired by Godsmack, Tool, and Nirvana. The whole lineup happened when the guitarist and bass player from Lifer (a band strongly influenced by RAtM) quit mid-tour and joined BB. 2-3 years later after the drummer was unjustly kicked out of the band, they used hed p.e.'s drummer for a tour before adding permanently the ex-drummer of Switched a Cleveland-based metal band. Now, I could keep on going with this but it would really take hours for me to complete, but by the time I completed this you would see bands such as: Moody Blues, King Crimson, Korn, Depche Mode, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Smiths, and ok ok you see the point.

Yes there is a connection between King Crimson one of the earliest examples of a progressive band, where the biggest single "Court of the Crimson King" was a 10-minute ballad sounding almost like a medieval minet trio, and Breaking Benjamin who's song "Diary of Jane" is a 3;30 song consisting of an intriguing intro, distorted guitars and pretty hard, heavy vocals. The connect actually comes through Tool, who used complex timings and rhythms similar to their inspirators King Crimson. See what I mean?

So lets recap:
1. music and globalization go together
2. Don't disrepect an artist's material
3. You shouldn't limit yourself to one genre or subgenre
4. Show appreciation for the earlier music
5. Music is like a family tree where in every artist has inspirations, who had inspirations, etc.

Have a good day trying to comprehend this :)


Oh and one more thing: I don't care what anybody else says, "I'm Not There" the movie portraying Bob Dylan as 8 people, is genius! It actually makes you have to look and think deeper, something which most Americans seem to dislike... but if you can see through the story line you will understand how it relates to Dylan.

First Post

Yea so I got tired of always blogging on facebook and myspace, this is so much more appropriate to get my points across. So yea hopefully I'll keep tabs on this more than I ever did with xanga. I swear I think I have an account on every site known to humanity.

Did anybody go see Sounds of Silence in Athens last night? I wanted to but it got really bad out. Sucks, cause it is their last show around here til fall I think.