This I Believe

For what may very well be my final post, I am using my This I Believe paper, which is also music oriented. Enjoy...

I Believe in Music

How many people do you know that when you asked them what kind of music they liked, they reply, “I don’t like music.”? My guess is that you haven’t known or even met anyone who would say that. Everyone likes music, some more than others, and everyone has a different taste in what they like. Music is one of the only things that almost everyone in the world has in common.

Through my music, I’ve learned so many things that you wouldn’t normally associate with music. One of the bigger personal problems that I have is that I bottle up all of my emotions, and when I was younger it would explode, sometimes violently. Ever since I first picked up the guitar, I’ve had a place that I feel is safe to let out all of my emotions, both good and bad. While playing the guitar, it would feel so good to let out all of my pent up emotions that I have been very slowly learning to be more open with people.

As lame as it sounds, my guitar has been one of my best and most loyal friends over the years. Since I started playing about 6 years ago, I’ve moved three times, one of the times was to a different country, graduated high school and been in at least a dozen different incarnations of bands. Through all that, I’ve had my guitar, and it’s never let me down.

Music can also take us to a specific time and place. A lot of couples have a specific song that they almost use as a theme, and whenever one hears it, they think of the other. Whenever I hear “Hotel California” by The Eagles, I think of my childhood when my mom would play it to put me to sleep.

There was one time that I have seriously considered giving up the guitar completely. Things like “this is a waste of time” and “you’ll never be that good” were ringing through my head. I was feeling beat because I felt like I wasn’t getting any better, and even if I did, what would it be for? A few days into my contemplations of giving up the guitar, I came across a very old recording on our computer from when I was 14. It was a recording of all the songs that I loved to play when I was 14. I decided to take a listen just out of curiosity. It was awful. I didn’t even finish listening to the whole thing. After that, I felt amazing. I could easily hear how much I had improved. I learned that even though sometimes things feel pointless and you feel like you aren’t getting any better, a lot of the time you are getting better. I also learned something on the other side of the spectrum. When I was fourteen, I really thought that I was “the cat’s pajamas” when it came to the guitar, when in reality, I wasn’t really that awesome. For a fourteen year old, I was decent, but definitely not a child prodigy.

I’ve learned so much through music, and I still feel like I still have so much more to learn from it. To quote Victor Hugo: “Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.”

Kyuss

My never ending quest for new music continues...


One of my favorite bands is Queens of the Stone Age. Recently, I heard that they were an offshoot of a lesser known band from the early 90's called "Kyuss." As I often do with bands, I did plenty of research about them. They have quite a strong cult following and most people who know who they are surprised that they weren't more popular. After hearing a lot of buzz about them, I started to look around for some of their albums at libraries and music stores. I have yet to find a real copy of some of their work, that is how unknown they are. I then returned to the 21st century and just logged on to iTunes and bought their greatest hits album and burned it onto a CD. If you don't already know, I do 90% of all my music listening in the car, and I only have a CD player.

One of the interesting things about their sound is how heavy it is without it being metal. One of the main reasons for that is how the guitarist tunes his guitar. Normally, the top string on a guitar is an E. He tunes it down to a C, and the rest of the string accordingly. First of all, that gives the strings more slack giving it a more loose sound, and it also makes the lowest note he can play 5 steps lower.

I actually heard Kyuss before I thought I had. On a video game that I was playing (Need for speed) one of the in-game tracks intrigued me, I hadn't heard anything quite like that before. It was really heavy sounding, but it definitely wasn't metal. Unfortunately, the name of the song wasn't listed so I just assumed that it was just a really good song that happened to be pre-made for a video game. Later, when I bought Kyuss's greatest hits album, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that song, which is entitled "Hurricane."

Kyuss's focus is more on the musical portion than the lyrical and vocal parts of a song. A good portion of their songs are instrumental, and the vocals are sparse on the tracks that do feature singing. The vocals are almost like another instrument in the mix with Kyuss. I've heard their vocals described as "paint-stripping," much like the rest of their music.

I should also add that I've heard that their greatest hits is actually missing a lot of their better songs, and that you would be better off picking up their albums "Blues for the Red Sun" or "Sky Valley." When I have the extra cash, I will definitely pick one, if not both of these albums.

Overall, If you are looking for something different, I would recommend checking out Kyuss. They aren't the greatest thing I've ever heard, but their definitely a long shot from the worst, and worth checking out.

Tracks to check out:
-Hurricane
-50 million year trip
-Un Sandpiper

The Shackeltons

(Listen here: http://www.myspace.com/theshackeltons)

If you've read some of my earlier posts, you already know that I sometimes go to the library and grab whatever looks even moderately interesting and get it. This has exposed me to a lot of bands and albums that I probably wouldn't have heard otherwise. My most recent find is a lesser-known indie band called "The Shackeltons."

When I listen to these guys, I hear a lot of different bands. I hear a lot of My Chemical Romance, but with hints of Interpol, a little 80's new wave/punk and even a bit of The Doors. This combination of sounds produces something really unique sounding, which is hard to find these days.

I'm not really one to listen to indie music, but I really like these guys. That's why I like going to the library so much, because I have no preconcieved notions of what the band will sound like, I just hear the music and decide whether or not I like it. I would have never heard LCD Soundsystem if it weren't for the library, they are completely outside of my regular listening pool.

Normally, I'm not one to listen to lyrics, but I really enjoy a lot of their lyrics. It's lines like "I'd rather see your soft heart than your soft skin" that really draw me into the song. The way the lead singer sings the songs and writes his lyrics reminds a lot of The Doors. Jim Morrison was actually a poet with no musical background before he joined The Doors, and it really shows in how he performs. The similarities in their style makes me wonder if the lead singer of The Shackeltons has taken a similar approach to writing music.

From what I have read about them, their lead singer (Mark Redding) gets pretty manic on stage, often running into his fellow band-mates. Apparently, after one of their early gigs Mark had a bit of his scalp missing from a run-in with a ceiling fan.

Right now, they are still a new band, and only have the one album out, but it looks as though they will release another soon.

So far, I've really enjoyed listening to these guys and I hope that I'll get some more good stuff out of the pile of CD's I got from the library.