Merry Christmas

Hello everybody, I am so sorry for the long wait yet I am now back. I hope everybody had a wonderfully blessed and Merry Christmas because I sure did! I have a wonderful family. They are truly amazing. Anyway, now I did promise you that I would share some of my hipster side haha. So to start off ( I had not yet finished the Alternative genre). Now, some artists that I have found that I do not believe many people have heard of (or maybe they have but have just not listened to them) First off is Gavin Mikhail. This artists does many cover albums and songs. He does however have a few albums of his own. He is an incredibly talented artist and piano player. two of his albums are titled My personal Beauty Needs. I must admit the title threw me off but it is very good album and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The other is Like Normal People Do. This is another great album. I would highly recommend this artist. Another good band is Wolf Gang. They only have one album which is titled Suego Faults. This album has a rather interesting sound that I find rather attractive and their songs are pretty catchy. Still another album that is quite good is Milow by Milow. It has kind of a country tinge but not really. I find it rather great. here are some songs from the aforesaid albums

This is Brave by Gavin Mikhail

Here is King and all of his men by Wolf Gang

And finally, here is Canada by Milow

I hope you enjoy these. On this note, for my birthday I got a new guitar and I am going to be doing some recording with it. I might start posting my stuff as well if you guys want to hear it

Hello out there to all my readers, thank you for being patient with me. Yes, my posts are rather infrequent and spaced and I apologize. I have been trying to post things more frequently. However this coming week is finals week so I am studying my royal butt off for these. So please be patient because soon I will be home for christmas break and I will be posting hopefully quite often so thank you again for being so patient. While you wait for the next post, here is a song by a group I found a while ago called Rags and Ribbons. Enjoy!!

A bit of alternating Alternative

Happy belated thanksgiving everybody! I hope it went well for all of you out there. I did not have my computer with me all that weekend so I was not able to update so I apologize about that. so looking at the genres I have not touched upon yet, I had decided that my next post would either start Pop or Alternative. I have(as you may have gathered by the title ) decided to touch upon the Alternative genre. The reason for this is simply that I find pop a rather difficult genre because what I usually look for in music is slightly harder to find in that genre because I have found that modern Pop usually reflects todays societal position which, more or less, revolves around, relationships, sex and breakups. This is not to say that I have not found good material. It just takes a bit longer to find. However, I will tell about them when I discuss that genre. So, moving on to the Alternative genre... Some rather good bands that I have started looking at are bands such as Panic at the Disco. Yes, you are probably surprised that I have not been listening to them for a while. Admittedly, I sometimes go rather "hipster" in my pursuit of music because I like to explore. However, Panic at the disco is quite a good band I have found. The one thing I do like about alternative is that, as its name suggests, holds quite an amount of diversity. They have a nice unique sound. One song I really like of theirs is Casual Affair. It is quite alluring in its sound and has pretty good lyrics. Another good band, although they only have one album that I am aware of, is AWOLNATION. Their Album is titled Megalithic Symphony. The songs are mostly about adventure of sorts and some "rebel rousers" to put a term to it I suppose. Another one is Radiohead. I didn't care for this band as much for some reason. I found a lot of their sound that they had in their songs was fairly discordant and I found it rather hard to enjoy it. I am short on time so I will leave you with this and next post I will tell you what I have found in my "Hipster" searches. God Bless

Some more of the Great Composers

Alrighty, so, basically I am going to give a list and short analysis of some of the last composers that I wish to mention.

The first is Harry Gregson-Williams, This man composed the scores to films such as Prince of Persia. The film was interesting of itself. However, as an adaptation, It was rather lacking. However we are talking of music.  He also did X Men: Wolverine Origins, Kingdom of Heaven, the Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe and Shrek 1&2. 

The next Composer is Howard Shore. I would imagine that he is most well known for his Composition of the Lord of the Rings Score as well as recently, The Hobbit Score. He did others as well. such as the Twilight Eclipse.

Then there is Joe Hisaishe. This man is actually a composer for animated films. Films such as Spirited Away, Howl's moving castle, Nausicaa Valley of the wind, my neighbor Totoro and Kiki's delivering service. 

The Last one that I would like to mention is Jeremy Soule. Many people may not know this name but you all know the games. He is the composer for the recent Elder Scrolls games starting with Oblivion and  the newest game Skyrim. I love the Skyrim Soundtrack. It is incredible and so descriptive of the landscapes and the atmosphere. It is almost like it draws you into that place. 

Oh! One other that I forgot( my deepest Apologies) Martin O'Donnell. This composer is responsible for the Halo Video Game soundtracks. These as well are some amazing Compositions. If you have not actually heard them. I  recommend them.

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Indiana Jones and the Jurassic Star Wars

Alright lets begin! I apologize for the wait. It has gotten pretty busy here at school but I am making a new post now. This next post is about John Williams. This man is another brilliant composer and director. Most of you, I should hope maybe all of you should know his music from gigantic blockbuster films such as the Star Wars Trilogy, Indiana Jones Trilogy and The Jurassic Park Franchise. I refer to the Indiana Jones film as a trilogy because (this may sound a bit harsh) I am a total, huge and complete fan of the that series that I considered the 4th film to be an utter failure as compared to the former three films. Enough on that though. The music for these franchises I have just named, are simply fantastic. They are of such a powerful stirring nature that one might go from lamenting over his favorite character who has just been killed off, to riding off to some other country to fight opponents who happen to also be seeking out the same artifact that you yourself have decided to find. So, enough said! here is The Man John Williams conducting the Boston Pops orchestra for his Star Wars Theme!

A digression for an exceptional film

Alright, so, this film about which I shall be writing of is the 2004 Phantom of the Opera. As far as accuracy to the book, well, that is a story for another time. I shall for the time, speak of this strictly as a film. The film Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Weber is, to put a word to it, eyecandy. Now do not get me wrong, it is brilliant and mesmerizing. Even the score is fantastic. The film is done, as I saw it, very sensually and even a bit of an erotic persuasion to it. It is quite seductive in its nature, even for a tragic love story. I believe this was done to show the intentions of the Phantom. The Phantom is a disfigured, deformed man who has never been shown what true Love is or how to truly love. From birth he was shunned by society and his own parents. I have heard many opinions that people have had about him. One of the most prominent ones is that they find him creepy because of the figure he keeps of Christine or the way he sings to her. If we go deeper than the creepy side of it in order to find the intentions, the way that I looked at it was that he saw in Christine a model of human perfection and innocence who might be able come to love him for who he was. However, he did not know how to go about showing his affection and thought that she had to be seduced. So he used the power of his incredible vocal gift in order to attract her to him. So he would teach her to sing. However, she did not know who he was. So he then decides to seduce her down to his lair. When he does so, she takes off his mask in an attempt to find out who he is. He then gets angry and thinks she has betrayed him because she was trying to see how hideous he really was. But in reality she did not truly know. In the end, he realizes that the way he was trying to show his love was not right at all and was confused as to what true Love might be. I enjoyed this film quite a bit. I thought Gerard Butler did a fine acting job. all in all I would give it a 9/10 for the fact that I thought the sensuality was a bit overdone. but other than that it was pretty good.

The Orchestral Chair

Alright Folks, it is on to the next genre which shall be...*queue 20th Century Fox Fanfare* Film Scores and Orchestral Music! Now to start this off, I believe the first podium shall be awarded to one of my personal favorites and hopefully a favorite to many of my readers as well, to Hans Zimmer. This man is a very great and legendary composer of this 21st Century. Granted, there are many excellent composers such as John Williams, Harry Gregson Williams, Joe Hisaishi etc. However Hans Zimmer has done many scores from most all of the popular films today. Films such as the Pirates of the Caribbean Series, Inception, Man of Steel, Gladiator, The Batman films with Christian Bale and Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey Jr just to name a few. He has also composed some Video Game scores such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. This man has made for himself quite a name. If you consider what it is to be a conductor and a Composer. Zimmer has quite a gift in music. The man is, as many call, him a genius.

This is Hans Zimmer himself performing "Time" from Inception

Enjoy!

Who's Next..and Who Are You

      Alright, although there are many good bands in the Prog Rock genre, and one might spend forever going into detail discussing each of them, I believe that I will exit this genre with this next band that I am going to discuss. I would like to get through the genres and then  once I do, I shall refrequent each of them in random order with different bands because that way there is more variety and my audience will have already gotten a taste of what each genre consists of. "Aaaaalrighty then" to quote one of my favorite comedians Jim Carrey. This next band goes by the name of The Who. In my opinion this band started out as more of a band looking to go beyond bounds in their music and their trademark of destroying their instruments after their performances. They formed in 1964. Their members were:
Roger Daltrey - Vocalist
Pete Townshend - Guitarist
John Entwistle - Bassist
Keith Moon - Drummer
I would consider Moon to be one of the greatest drummers in the Rock genre. Some of the bands best known albums were Who Are You and Who's Next. One of my favorite singles is Won't Get Fooled Again from Who's Next. The Who also wrote two Rock Operas. The first one was called Tommy. This one was about a child whose life was tragically upset by seeing his true father shot by the man whom his mother was with. He became so intimidated by the threats and pleads of his mother and the man she was with that he deafened himself to the world, forced himself blind to all around him and decided never to speak again. Through his life he is mistreated terribly time and again by all around him untill he finds a pinball machine with which he frequents and is in time known as the pinball wizard because he is able to attain the highest score ever. I would not recommend watching this with children and would advise caution even to adults. I myself did not finish it becuase it was rather disturbing and contained many immoral themes. The second one by the name of Quadrophenia contains also much immorality. It is about a man who has a personality crisis. He develops multiple personalities. I found the music to be quite good but still, the content in some of the songs contains immorality.

Here is the song Won't get fooled Again

A Surprise Emergence

      On August 8th 1976 a very unexpected and unanticipated album came out. It was titled Boston by the band Boston. This album was a great and huge success on the charts. It was the best selling Debut album in the U.S. It sold over 17 million copies. The band won a grammy award for best new artist and was first to make their debut performance in New York at Madison Square Garden. The sound of the album  was very unique in its sound and rather ahead of its time. The members consisted of Guitarists Tom Scholz and Barry Goudreau, Drummer Jim Masdea and vocalist Brad Delp. Scholz, who worked for Polaroid at the time, used his salary to make recording equipment which he used in recording the bands demo tapes. Scholz ran himself nearly broke making demo tapes and sending them in. No one really listened to them and just kinda added them to the pile. However, one company heard their tape and was instantly struck by the rich and powerful sound that the band had. These promoters were Paul Ahern and Charlie Mckenzie. Masdea had left just before the band was found by these two. So before they made a deal with Epic Records they recruited two new members. However, when they professionally recorded their first album they requested Masdea to play drums one final time before he left. He agreed and they produced the album Boston and also agreed to name the band Boston as well. I actually purchased this album a few years back and when I heard it for the first time, I fell in love with the sound and the songs because they were just so well done. My dad also told me that when he found the album, he was in college and it was finals week. He went to the record store and found the album. He brought it back to school and absolutely loved it. He played it all through finals week. I would highly recommend this album. This band came out with several more albums. However I found that these albums were not quite up to par with their first album.

Here is the first song on their first album. It is so well done

Apology and....Rush!

      I apologize for not posting anything over the weekend. I originally intended to post everyday but I got so busy that I didn't have the time. So, again I am sorry for keeping all of my readers waiting. It was kind of disappointing for me because This next band that I am about to discuss is my number one favorite band and legendary pioneers in the Progressive Rock genre. The name is Rush. They are a Canadian Trio formed in 1968. The band consists of Geddy Lee - Bass/lyricist, Neil Peart - Drums/percussion and Alex Lifeson -  Guitarist/backup vocalist.They have toured worldwide in various countries. Their fan base is up in the hundred thousands and, I dare say may well break into the millions. Through the remainder of the 60's and up through the 70's they had the influence of heavy rock that was mostly heavily guitar based featuring such songs as Working Man, What You're Doing and Fly by Night. one of my favorite albums from this period is 2112 which came out in 1976.
However, when they got to the 80's, they began a heavily synthesized period where they had a lot of great hits such as Tom Sawyer and Big Money. Coming into the mid 90's and 2000s, they leaned back again on more guitar based music and put out some great albums such as Counterparts in 1993 and Snakes and Arrows in 2007. Their latest album, Clockwork Angels which came out in 2012, has received Rock album of the Year award for 2012. I found this album quite good upon purchasing and would recommend it to any Rush Fan. This album has also spawned a book based upon the Concept of the Album and I anticipate to buy very soon in the future. The book is also under the same title as the album. It was collaborated on by Neil Peart(Rush's Drummer.) and Kevin J. Anderson. Kevin is an author of various Star Wars books. He has also has written 50 national bestsellers. This band has also been recently received into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

This is the full 2112 title song performed live in 1976

Rory Gallagher: one of the Greatest

     So I actually remembered that I have been wanting to post about one of my all time favorite artists. He is one that not many people (or at least the ones that I have spoken to) have heard of. His name is  Rory Gallagher. He is another British artist that is of a similar style of Eric Clapton. He is Rock/blues but is more of the Rock persuasion. This man is my main inspiration for playing electric guitar or just for playing in general. He plays a Fender Strat as I do. I actually found him fairly recently say in the past year. Sadly, he died at the young age of 47 as a result of liver transplant complications. R.I P.  The structure of his music I found very unique because he used simple chord structures so it is very easy to pick up. Yet, he did these solos and improvs that were simply mindblowing. Also, when you watch him perform, you can tell just how much Rory thoroughly enjoyed playing and performing. I would recommend Rory Gallagher to anyone who plays and is trying to learn Rock guitar

This picture rather captures a sense of his talent and his thorough enjoyment of what he did.

This is one of my favorite songs and again captures his essence as an musician

The First Genre: Progressive Rock

      Out of all the genres, I have decided to start out with Progressive Rock because I feel that Rock is one of the biggest cultures of music (aside from Classical, which we shall get into later hopefully because classical is more or less the base from which all other genres stem).
      I shall start off with The Beatles. This British band formed in 1960 under the lead of John Lennon. They headed the British Invasion of music into the U.S.  Before their debut, they were club players and would perform in local clubs around Liverpool which was their hometown. They also went through several members before they had a final set of members. Their final lineup consisted of John Lennon as vocalist/backup guitar, George Harrison as lead guitarist, Paul McCartney on Bass/Backup Vocals and Ringo Starr as the Drummer.
When they were fairly new, in 1963 they aired a few performances on The Ed Sullivan Show where they played their debut LP "Please, please me." This group also made several films. The likes of which were lighthearted and entertaining. These films featured many of their great hits. The names of them are
1. A hard Days Night
2. Help
3 Magical Mystery Tour
as well as a cartoon by the name of Yellow Submarine
I have seen A Hard Day's Night and Help. If you enjoy The Beatles I would recommend these films. I would say that some of their best albums are their early works such as Rubber Soul, A Hard Day's Night, Help and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band which is actually a later Album

Here is one of their early songs from the 60s

"Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends"

     The show is about to begin, you hear the roar of the crowd down to a dull. Then, right when the first member makes his appearance onstage the crowd rises as one in a deafening roar and you are taken on a journey from which there is no going back.

     My purpose is simple. To give a guide to those people who seek out good music. I have listened through nearly every genre. Granted, there are some that I myself do not particularly care for but have still tested those waters just to see if anything substantial surfaced. However, these recommendations are simply from my personal tastes and some of you may not particularly care. As I said before I listen to nearly every genre. My base that I have spanned out from is Progressive Rock. I hope you all enjoy and I look forward to supplying what ever help I can concerning any questions that may arise.

     The title of this first post is a quote from the british band Emerson, Lake and Palmer(also known as ELP). this phrase became their show opener. it is the beginning a 20 min piece called Karn Evil 9. This band took  Classical and Rock and combined them into a successful career. Each member had intense Classical training. Keith Emerson on keyboards and synth. Greg Lake on bass/guitar and Carl Palmer on Drums and Percussion. The fascinating thing is that instead of having a lead guitarist, they swapped out for a bassline and the keyboard/synth took the place and created a very unique sound. granted there are some songs with acoustic guitar. This band was very successful in the 70s and even somewhat in the 90s. They are just one of the many old Progressive Rock bands that left a successful mark in the music industry.

Here you can see the song that they would open their future shows with. This was also before greg played bass. Even so, notice how the keith takes the solo with his keyboards.