Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You

Thursday 09 October 2008 at 10:11 pm So here to end this blog on a good note, I am going to be extremely self-centered here and do another Top 5 list of.....the greatest guitar solos I have ever written. Yes, from my songs. Hahaha, hope you guys enjoy. Sorry if the mixes are bad, some of these songs are pretty old and I don't mess with my older stuff.

5: A New Life - 2002

One of my earlier power ballads from Freshman year. The solo is very basic and very Major Key-ish, but damn does it sound uplifting?

http://www.seafroggys.croxis.net/A_New_Life.mp3

4: Blue Winds - 2005

A song that I completed after I graduated from high school. A very progressive song, featuring one of my usual length guitar solos over a bridge. A constant barrage of 16th note wankery, but yeah its pretty sweet!

http://www.seafroggys.croxis.net/Blue_Winds.mp3

3: So Sad to Know - 2007

Undoubtly my best song. With a rare combination of electric rhythm guitar and acoustic LEAD guitar? Also a rare acoustic solo, but its just so damn beautiful.

http://www.seafroggys.croxis.net/so_sad.mp3

2: Your End - 2001

One of my first songs, written way back in middle school. Perfect intervals and major triads and basic songwriting. But holy crap, the second guitar solo in this song has always been one of my favorites. Something about just imagining a real guitar player on a Stratocaster whipping it out....excites me to no end.

http://www.seafroggys.croxis.net/End.mp3

1: Curtains and Walls - 2006

Ah yes, this song has such a sweet riff. I wrote the lyrics down while watching Yvette's college concert band in December 2004, but I didn't write the music until summer of 2006. The middle solo (another rare acoustic solo) is just 8th notes, but the part where it goes high up about 2/3 of the way through is one of my finer songwriting moments. So yeah.

http://www.seafroggys.croxis.net/curtains.mp3

Two of us wearing raincoats

Sunday 05 October 2008 at 8:11 pm I've fallen into a trap.

I've fallen into a bubble that has popped.

I take pride being able to be, to paraphrase Emerson, being able to be an all seeing eye. But I was blind. I was blind for so long. I was blind in my bubble, knowing that things were fantastic and there would come a time when the waiting would cease to be, and I would be where I wanted to.

I can't believe I fucked up.

I was provided with false images. With the image burst, I am bestowed with an altered reality. It is one of those Keanu Reeves "woah" moments.

It is an altered reality not quite like I experienced that Halloween night in 2003. That was just fucked up. That was when I should have ended it all. But I didn't. I knew it then, I should be a selfish prick and end it. But I didn't. I had the hope that bliss would follow.

It did not.

I'm not tying conclusions together here, the differences are noticeable. But now my reality is faced with clay that has dried; to mold it would require much more than just simple shaping. Or a hammer. But I don't want to use a hammer. Not this time.

It will work, but I'm feeling the opposite party subconsciously wants to oppose me.

And the Band Up There Keeps on Getting Better and better

Monday 15 September 2008 at 4:34 pm

1945-2008

Richard Wright, keyboardist, singer, and founding member of Pink Floyd, has passed beyond the shadow realm we live in and has joined the band of rock and roll heaven.

Listening to Comfortably Numb as we speak.

They keep on dying.

Changin' Times

Sunday 14 September 2008 at 10:17 pm 2008 has been the year of the ulcer for me. I seem to suffer them a lot recently. Watching another anti-union propaganda video at work didn't seem to help. Finding out that Cayla is getting fucking married at the dinner table caused a temporary halt to all mental activity. I can't take this shit. Its like Barron all over again. I barely hang out with her after I graduated, she's on her first 'boyfriend' (she had some small flings) and now they're engaged. Some chum from Hawaii or something. I feel like I have to beat him up or something. I wanted to marry her at age 7. This is too whacked out for me. When Larry gets engaged that will be the last straw....might as well prepare the papers to enter me a mental institution now, since once that happens, there won't be very much time.

So Metallica's new CD came out on Friday, I promptly purchased it after hearing some positive hype and hearing some leaked tracks on YouTube. I am very unfamiliar with their last three albums (1997's Load, 1998's Reload, and 2003's St Anger) but I have heard consistently bad things about them. This does harken back to their older days, its like the album after 1988's ...And Justice For All, with some additional pop elements that were apparently apparent in the Load era. Very good songs and songwriting....but the fucking mastering job sucks shit.

Kids, I think Metallica won the Loudness War. I can't listen to it loud, its so fucking overcompressed its not even funny....by far the loudest thing I own. I saw a screenshot of the waveform from the Internet, and its a freaking brick. No dynamics at ALL! I mean, when I first listened to The Black Album back in middle school, I thought that was a pretty loud album. I listened to Enter Sandman after hearing a song from this album and its so pleasant to my ears. Oh Metallica, why must you ruin a brilliant album with poor mastering. The snare drum clips every hit, its so godawful. Y'know, I read someone's hypothesis that the mixes ran through a brickwall limiter before hitting the mastering facility which is why it sounds so bad, and I can place some faith in that statement.

Regardless, there's some really nice gems on there, you just have to turn the volume down to enjoy them (oh and when listening on Headphones you can hear an Autotuner on James' voice, but its not obvious). The Day that Never Comes, Unforgiven III, and Suicide & Redemption are awesome, and despite a negative backlash to its "pop" sound, Cyanide is wicked as well, with one of the catchiest choruses I have heard in a long time.

EDIT: Apparently, the tracks were ran through a brickwall limiter on the master bus prior to being sent to the mastering engineer. The mastering engineer has gone on record saying that he was ashamed to work with mixes like that and he refused to have his name on the album. Go him.

In some hopeful news, simultaneous to the CD release, all the songs were available to download for Guitar Hero 3. They used a separate mix from the album, and there's some youtube videos that despite the crappy youtube sound quality, the sound is much improved. No clipping at all, everything is smooth (its still smashed dynamically but its a vast improvement)....listening to the Day That Never Comes was fucking kickass.

You poor old Sod, you see, its only me!

Wednesday 10 September 2008 at 9:22 pm Behold, my first official single, Spania. From 27 days ago, when I first began composing the song, to writing lyrics, to recording the drums, bass, organ, and vocals, to mixing everything, and then the final master preparations. Here you go....you can stream it from soundclick, or purchase it for 99 cents and download it! And its at a respectable -18 dB RMS level...I did have to compress it a tad after the mixdown, but MUCH quieter than anything put out today.

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=6881767

Gothic Peacekeepers Remark

Monday 01 September 2008 at 12:57 am So nothing interesting in my life right now. I feel the summer was wasted. Still no truck, still nothing done for my album, Steens trip has been cancelled, I barely see Merrie....meh! I've begun working on a solo song (I may have said this last time, I dunno), its me on everything. Drums, bass, keys, and vocals. I can't save my voice. I've tweaked it and run auto tune on it and manually changed the pitch of individual words to be in tune, yet it still sounds bad. Garbage in, garbage out. But how do they make crappy singers sound mediocre? Oh well. The instruments sound great, it is definitly pro quality if I say so myself (I want to commercially release this for kicks and giggles) but not without vocals....and I can't just hire somebody. It'd be like "here have $20" and then I don't even make $20 in royalty payments. And who would do it for $20? Might as well do it for free. McCain's new VP pick is hilarious. She will screw him over. Right now people are like "Oh a strong woman with executive will!" but after a few months she'll be considered trash. Joe Biden will rip her in the debates. After the VP debates, she will truly understand her policy of "No abortion EVEN in case of incest and rape." I mean, I'm sure he was hoping of riding the Hillary bandwagon, but Palin is NOTHING compared to Hillary, which is saying something considering how much I didn't like Clinton. Keeping Eskimos from voting? Shooting bears from choppers? Drilling everywhere? Being hot? Keeping polar bears of the endangered species list (an act started by the most hated conservative, Nixon)? McCain lost his experience card. Shucks.

We Are Here to place President Clark under arrest

Tuesday 19 August 2008 at 12:16 am

Okay, I'm going to go away from my usual personal life rantings and have decided to compile a list of the greatest space battles of all time in cinema and television.  Ever since I was a wee lad, David and I would get way excited whenever we watched a massive space battle; they were the climax of our existence.  They excited us so much.  And they still do!  Who cares about characters and development when you have one badass battle going on screen with dozens of capital ships and hundreds of fighters duking it out!

Now I haven't watched Battlestar Galactica aside from the pilot mini-series, so I'm sure there will be some things omitted from this list that should be on there.

So my Top 5 Favorite Space Battles of all time:

5:  The Wrath of Khan

This isn't a biggie battle, but it is cool on so many levels.  For those knuckleheads who haven't watched this movie, a good chunk of the movie involves two ships, two captains; the experienced Kirk with the more powerful Enterprise, and the intelligent Khan with the Reliant, who managed to get the initial surprise on Kirk.  Its a game of cat and mouse, one trying to outthink the other.  Its not a basic battle where they're flailing photon torpedos at each other, it is very much a thinking man's game.  Utilizing their enviornment, trying to find each other's weaknesses....for the course of the movie.  It is, indeed great.

Plus despite the fact that it was made in 1982 using models, it looks great!  Sure the phaser effects are something to be desired, the ships and their details (not to mention the damage modelling) are superb.

4:  Best of Both Worlds

This is kind of a stretch, but as I haven't seen a lot of sci-fi (and despite watching most of DS9 in its entireity, have no memory of any particular battles since its been a good 10 years since I watched it) so I'm throwing it in here.  Sure, there's a lot of cool battling with the Borg (and saucer seperation) but the best part is the graveyard at Wolf 359.

For those knuckleheads who don't know what I'm talking about, this is the famous Star Trek: Next Generation episode that's in two parts where the Enterprise-D faces the Borg, who capture Picard and transform him into Locutus, their mascot for humanity's doom.  I managed to watch this episode a year ago on Spike, having not seen it in all the years that I've watched this show on and off.  As the Borg cube approaches Earth, StarFleet throws together a massive fleet to fight the cube at Wolf 359.  The Enterprise gets there after the battle is over....and all the ships are derelicts.  I can't remember the count, but the Borg wiped out 100 or so starships with ease.

Even though you don't see the battle itself, the imagination of what went on is surely haunting.  Even 10-12 years ago they could have pulled off a massive battle with the Borg, but it would have lost its emotion (in 1996's First Contact, there is a relatively large battle with a Borg Cube, but its with only a dozen or so ships, not the massive amounts that fought in this battle).

3:  Serenity

I like this because its a recent space battle that's actually cool!  While Revenge of the Sith's Battle of Coruscant was really cool, there were some flaws in there that makes it un-great-worthy (notably the idiocy of the commanding admirals of both sides, plus the fact that fighting is only going on in the foreground, and for the whole ship 'falling' into the atmosphere thing).  Serenity's battle was quite short, and the protagonists weren't even directly involved (instead trying to get to their location and using the battle as a distraction), but there was a lot of ships, lots of cool CGI and explosions, and yeah.  Plus the movie was one of the best science fiction movies ever.  I still prefer First Contact though....nostalgia and all.

2:  Endgame

Ah yes, are you surprised that I have a Babylon 5 entry on a great space battle list?  Of course not.  My favorite episode of my favorite TV show has one of the coolest and most dramatic space battles I have ever seen, because there is so much at stake here.  Out of most the battles on this list, there is so much on the line, that failure means very bad things.  Plus it involves the overthrow of a repressive government, and that's always a plus.

While Babylon 5 was on, David and I really enjoyed the space battle in Into the Fire, which was earlier in Season 4.  It was a much bigger battle, and involved the fate of every sentient being in the known galaxy.  However, this came out in 1997, and on a TV budget as well.  I watch the Into the Fire battle now and it seems....unfulfilling.  Like I don't get to see enough of it.  I'm one who can easily ignore archaic CGI and model work and see the battle for what it truly is, but the composition of this battle just seems to be missing something.  I honestly belief that this battle, made with Battlestar Galactica CGI, would easily top this list.  But until then.....egh, it hasn't aged as well.  Though when the Firstones come in and blow up the Vorlon Planet-Killer to hell and gone is sure win.

I just went off on a wild tangeant.  Anyway, the Endgame battle is much more satisfying, even though it lacks the cool alien ships of the Into the Fire battle.  With Earth as the backdrop, the Planetary Defense Grid firing volleys of hundreds of nuclear warheads at Sheridan's fleet (which is truly a sight to behold)...its way damn spiffy.  Add that on to the fact that the climax of the battle involves the single greatest television moment of all time....gives me shivers everytime I watch it.  So damn cliche, but watching the Agamemnon make it through the fireball is totally epic.

1:  Return of the Jedi

This is contraversial choice even by myself, but when I first watched this at age 8, way back in 1995, I thought this was the coolest damn thing ever.  This was before the Star Wars prequels, the Special Edition versions of the original trilogy, all the major Babylon 5 and Star Trek space battles all came out, I saw this.

The Battle of Endor (the space one, let's forget about the Ewok part for now ;) ) is not only a visual treat, but an engineering feat.  This is one of the largest space battles of all time, and it was done with freaking models!  CGI almost always trumps model usage, though in cases like Wrath of Khan where you have only two slow, lumbering ships, models can work quite well.  Lucas really outdid what anybody thought possible...no one has done this before or since with models, and very few have come close with CGI.  The Rebel Fleet, the Imperial Armada, the freaking Death Star, the Millenium Falcon....oh man.  Even today I think this space battle is cool...imagine what people thought in 1983!

Even though the battle on the ground is something to be desired, intercut with this battle is a really awesome scene with Palpatine, Luke, and Vader.  But even without that....this battle is a sure win.

So yeah, there's my entry....and I see Merrie on Friday!  Yay I'm so excited!

Time Marches On

Saturday 26 July 2008 at 02:05 am

So Barron's wedding happened today.

Oh my god. I still can't get over this. Well, not that marriage has much meaning to me, but the whole time I was thinking "yeah, nice Mormon shindig" but when I was drinking with Larry afterward, I was like "Shit, Nick got married!"

I pick up Larry at the airport at 6:10, we get to the park 25 minutes early, catch the end of a rehearsal. We met Tammy (Nick's mom) on the way in. She was really happy to see us, since we've known Nick and the rest of the family probably longer than any other non-family member that was there. She was telling us how the whole family (and the groomsmen) had to wait OUTSIDE the fucking temple during the actual marriage. What a slap in the face. Nick ditching his own family like that (haha, me going off on family responsibility like that? crazy!). Tammy didn't seem too thrilled. She was also telling us that Nick is the type of person that if she was a Buddhist, he would convert to a Buddhist, if she was a Muslim, he would convert to Islam. I could sense a bit of.....non-joy in her voice and wordings. I'm sure deep down she doesn't really Nick to marry (especially considering his age and....religious conversion).

We talk to Nick for a bit, and as the ceremony begins, Miller and Logan show up. Saw Logan at the bachelor party and also a couple times in the "last summer" (summer after graduation) but haven't seen Miller since graduation. He hasn't changed at all. We sit together, I take a few pictures, the couple kissed, la de dah typical marriage ceremony. To be honest, the wedding seemed lackluster. Like not a lot of effort was put into it. Probably because it was only a "ring ceremony" and not the real "Mormon wedding." Fucking balls that is.

Pretty much Larry and my conversation that whole time (and with Logan and Miller included) was pretty much re-iterating our feelings about this whole ordeal. We also felt kinda sorry for Barron because he's been waiting to have sex for a looooong time, and this being both their first time, AND their wedding night, it would be....er....disappointing. Being a Mormon, she probably wouldn't be very exciting and kinky. Missionary, missionary, missionary. Haha, we were talking about car insurance to Nick and Larry mentioned that now they are married his rates will go down. I made my usual quip "That's the government promoting pro-creation" and of course Nick laughed. Nick's still Nick, to be honest. If he still laughs at my athiestic cynical commentary that he was so accustomed to in high school, he's still real.

We talked to Kim for a bit. Even Kim isn't that excited about the whole ordeal. She was saying that she was surprised that her brother managed to find someone, let alone get married, and the first one to boot. Can't quite remember, but she made a comment about his former athiesm and how he easily ditched that for her. I'm pretty sure Tammy and Kim are both at least agnostic. I know Zack was a born-again during high school, not sure what Lonny thinks. Ah well.

Holy crap, Kim has gotten hot.

Anyway, we talk to Nick for a bit at different times when he was away from his bride, and chilled for a few precious minutes. He had to comment about me being in all black and that was so typical of me ;) We try really hard to keep what we had going in high school. I wish we can still have it. But that bitch Jillian took it all away. :( He will still live at home for a bit, so that's good. AND HE"S COMMUTING TO OSU!? WHAT THE FUCK? What happened to his ecological sense that I (semi-forcibly) instilled on him during high school? Four hours of driving, every day......so he can stay at home with his woman. Argh.

Man, I hope they have something for their honeymoon. I suggested to Larry that we should buy him some lube and condoms, but Larry shrugged off that idea, saying Barron was too smart for it. I'm not sure....he could easily be suckered into having pro-creating sex. He does not need that. Not now. Not ever. Pleasant Valley will fall because of fucking people being born.

Jillian's dad made an announcement that all the married couples were invited to the canopy to have a dance, and that one by one he would announce that anybody who was married for less then X amount of years would leave, leaving the old couples left at the end. In my brilliant sense of timing and wit, right when everybody was completely silent and you could hear the crickets, I said, "C'mon Larry, let's go up there!"

Oh and Barron is such a funnily terrible dancer, and Jillian is a shy terrible dancer.  Not that Larry and I are any good at all.  At least Barron has the balls for that.

After it was all said and done, we hugged Nick, and left. Dropped by Larry's house for a few minutes, talked with his parents, haven't really seen them in a year. He changed air filters on his Ghia, then we drove to the Highland Pub and had a pint each. I had a Terminator. Downed it fairly quickly by my standards. We just talked for a long long time. It was good times.

Here's to Nicholas Allen Barron, and hoping you come to your senses and stand up to your woman, forsake your falsified religious affiliation, and have no kids. And encourage your spouse to go back to school. And fucking hang around us more!

Turn off your mind

Saturday 19 July 2008 at 4:08 pm

Behold, the most ferocious beast the world has ever known.

Mimi Frog will consume all.

I am perfect. Are you?

Wednesday 09 July 2008 at 9:00 pm

So yeah.  About 6-7 weeks my computer has been down.  My power supply blew up, bought a new energy efficeient one, and then the CPU fan doesn't turn on.  So I'm thinking either the fan needs replacing, or the motherboard is broken.  I use my dad's computer for Internet use (since I can't live without it, oh my gosh!) for over a month.  I decide today to actually take a look at my computer.  I follow the power cable from the CPU fan to the....

...unplugged end.

I plug it back in, turn it on, works perfectly.

So I'm a fucking moron.

Total lack of updates....wasn't for the lack of computer, I had one, just didn't feel like saying anything.  Especially after last entry.  Saddest thing I have ever witnessed.  But anyway, I've been looking hardcore into a pickup truck, got a bass and have been learning and recording my epic project (so no more hunting for a damn flake!).

Of course, this means that my next step is to find a GUITARIST!  Who is even more flaky.