February 12th Show At The Vault

So, what was the biggest musical event this weekend? Right, my set at The Vault on Saturday!

I've been taking voice lessons, and my teacher has a little showacase where all of her students perform. There was a fair range of people there, from third graders to older women.

The Vault though looks like it operated out of some guy's house. There is a documentary about it sitting on my desk right now, but you can check out the website.

Anyways, it was a simple, 2 song set, with "Radio Days Pt. 1":

Which I felt really good about! I kind of like this acoustic version better...

And perennial favorite "Axe Cop":


Which has since been retweeted by the official Axe Cop Twitter!

All I Remember Is, There Was Noise...

And it was all blue.

So anyways, a friend of mine, Steve, played drums with me tonight. He, like me, are both victims of "Side Project Syndrome", where anytime you're part of band, it's always every other member's OTHER band. So while you want to rock, they're going to bail because their altertaive-indie-emo outfit has a gig at this place in the city AND RECORD PRODUCER MIGHT SHOW UP if he feels like it cause his kids has a big little league game. I think the Peter Pan Games Tigers can beat the Whitestone Laundromat Yankees this year!

Anyway, here's the breakdown-

SONG OF THE CENTURY- **
My voice sucks, no studio monitor, I went "Fuck it" halfway through. NEXT!

BRAIN STEW- ***
It went good for a while, but then I forgot the words to the third verse. D'oh! Still we meshed OK considering our limited practice schedule.

STEVEN WELLS (HE WAS THE GREATEST)- ***
That one practice session was maybe 1 hour long. Remember kids, by yourself or in a band, FUCKING PRACTICE. At least I got another guy turned on to Akira The Don. The main problem with that practice session is that you're not sure when to end. Steve can keep a beat and bang out a fill, no doubt. But trying to mouth to him "OK, one more go around," was impossible with all the noise.

KNOWLEDGE- ***
At this point we lost the crowd with our obscure songs, and what didn't help matters was that he wanted to learn this song ON THE WAY THERE.

Case in point, practice makes perfect, kids! Or at least mediocre.

The Riff At Port Jefferson Sucks

Seriously. I go to play a gig with this guy who wants to drum for me. We get there at 8, CLOSED. Why? "Death In The Family". This is the second time the place shafted me. One night, they were like "Yeah, nobody showed up so we closed." At 9 PM.

It sucks because this time I had something that resembled a merch table.

So add The Riff to "Places That Suck To Play At". The other place?

Tabler Cafe Open Mic Night.

I posted about this place before.

Hopefully I'll find another venue that's nearby. When I get famous and they make a Rock Band game out of me, guess who doesn't get to be a level!

I'm in the process of mixing one song finishing the lyrics for another. "Flirtin' With Disaster" is on the backburner for now.

My First Bar Gig

All right, so here's what I learned:
1. NEEDS MOAR CABLES! They had a PA system and speakers, but man, thank God the band playing after me knew what they were doing.
2. NEEDS MOAR MIKES! Yeah, that might be a worth while investment. The club didn't have one and neither did I.
3. GO LATER! Let's see, there were the bar employees, my parents, one of the guys I live with, and the band playing later. So, while it was great I couldn't be "judged", I couldn't be judged.
4. NEEDS MOAR PRACTICE! I tried playing Clash City Rockers that night, and because I forgot how it goes, I fucked up. THAT WAS THE SONG I ENDED MY SETLIST WITH.

Great, now here's the breakdown:
SEVEN NATION ARMY- ***
How could I fuck up Seven Nation Army? When I try to sing and play guitar at the same time. I remembered the words, but singing them WHILE playing? What am I, coordinated?
FORCE-A-NATURE- *****
My originals I'm doing better on. No missed chords, the solo was decent, and I had the proper guitar to do the kill-off with.
HOLIDAY- ****
Another song I'm getting better at. The strumming pattern and the singing pattern don't quite match up, and I kept singing in the wrong key, but I think everyone likes the line "*CSSH* The representative from [Port Jefferson] has the floor"
ARE YOU GONNA BE MY GIRL- *****G
If there is anything to get out of feeling like shit at these shows, it's this: I'm getting better at these songs. The crowd (a.k.a. My parents) clapped along, and I knew what to look out for since last time.
SHE SELLS SANCTUARY- ****
Didn't remember how this song went, but I managed to fake it long enough.
RADIO DAYS PT. 1- *****
The solos I weren't to sure of, but other than that, I think I got it down.
CLASH CITY ROCKERS- FAIL
See above.

The bands I actually saw, Purple Operator and Yellow Birds were what I'd call "soft indie", but I enjoyed them nonetheless.

So, I'm the Rhythm Bastard. I fail so you don't have to.

200th Post Party!

So, OPEN MIC NIGHT LAST NIGHT WOO!!! Good thing it's getting warmer, and even my fellow New Yorkers are beginning to take notice.

"Radio Days Pt. 1"-****
Did a bit better on the solo, but still need to work on those chords.

"Holiday"-****
Looking at the playback, I HATE my voice, but I had a lot of fun. My favorite anecdote of the night is that when I said "ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?", I actually got a "meh".
"That is the most lackluster response to that question I have ever heard."

Meanwhile the guy playing John Mayer gets applause...

OK, more stuff! Uh, 200 posts, wow... Phil, bring me up to speed here...

Phil: Um, so let's see, since the past 100 posts, you've
Learned 29 songs,
Played 4 open mics,
Got a bar gig, and
Produced three songs of your own.
RB: Super!
PFA: You're top three countries are the U.S., the UK, and Austraillia!
RB: I don't want my fans to be convicts or wussies who make me paranoid and fuck up my Heavy kill streaks!
PFA: Make you paranoid?
RB: Jack Thompson was right. Thanks to Team Fortress 2, I'm always on the lookout for snipers.
PFA: That's... not an unreasonable thing...
RB: I also murder Red Sox fans.
PFA:...
RB: What? I'm a Yankee man. AND SPEAKING OF YANKS, I'm making a Rock Band Network Track for Akira The Don! He's like an All-American grain of Sand In The Ocean.
PFA: But Sir, he's Welsh.
RB: I pay you to cheat on my taxes, not to think!
(gunshots)

The Bastard Was A Man

Just finished the first collection of Mike Hammer detective novels. Good reads, but the last line of the last book, Vengence Is Mine!, is a little WTF. It is paraphrased above.

So anyway, I have SO MUCH STUFF here, and not ONE of them a song update! This is why it's called the Rhythm Bastard Experiment and not the Rock Band Experiment.

1.
Finally able to get my hands on Xbox 360 and try out the song in Audition Mode. There were a lot of MIDI errors the first go around.
Most common mistakes:
-Make sure all your lyrics and notes are ALIGNED. Shift+A does the trick.
-NAME ALL THE TRACKS. Just put a little event before hand.
-It can be easy to lose track of where stuff like Overdrive because it is so far removed from the rest of the notes, I got a shitton of "inappropriate note at XXX" errors.
-EVERYTHING IS .WAV. NO EXCEPTIONS.
-Set the SAMPLE FORMAT to 16-bit. The rate is the standard 44.1K, except for the dry vocals, which are 16K.
-TURN UP SAID .WAVS LOUD. Otherwise, you won't get any lipsync, let alone hear the damn thing.

So, this weekend, as well as making another song and doing my lab report, I'll make those improvements and maybe dick around with the event settings.

2. FUCK YEAH GREEN DAY ROCK BAND JUNE 8TH HOLY SHIT FREE EXPORT WITH PREORDER OMG BRAIN STEW!

3. MARCH 10th OPEN MIC NIGHT.
There were only about 5 people there. Three I knew. Now, let me tell you all the stuff that went wrong: First, my tuning peg was fucked. Normally I'd have gone through all the work tuning it at the beginning and then pray it lasts through the night. NOPE. So, thank God my friend had an extra guitar he was able to lend, but I sat there awkwardly with the only 3 people who've yet to leave.
Did I mention that? Yeah, it was pretty dead. Only one other guy managed to show up, so it was those people, two of my friends from the paper, and the guy who lent me the guitar.
The show went on, and well, here's the breakdown...
RADIO DAYS-***
Is it possible to forget the chords to your own song? Yes! I picked it up later, and the solo went on longer than I expected.

FORCE-A-NATURE-***
The chord changes in the chorus of "Force Of Nature" are pretty close together, so I messed that up, as well as the first part of the solo.

DAYMAN- *****G
No video, but at the clapping part, everyone "Woo!"ed in that split second of silence. I think I might hate my friends.

ARE YOU GONNA BE MY GIRL?- ****
In the video I took, I hated my voice, but I had so much fun doing it. I also played the opening riff in the wrong key AND waited too long for one of the verse breaks.
Still, I had fun.

KNOWLEDGE- ****
Forgot where I was toward the beginning because GENIUS ME COULDN'T FIGURE OUT THE VOLUME KNOB ON THE GUITAR, but other than that, I liked it. I based it more off the Green Day cover of the song, which has a lot more relaxed strumming pattern, like blues.

Vids will come up at some point, but I got another Open Mic on Tuesday. HOPEFULLY NOTHING GOES WRONG THIS TIME!!!!

Despite all that, it was like playing for all my friends. I felt a lot more comfortable, and my camera guy, Steve, is super cool, and we will jam in the future.

Hopefully this will actually work, unlike my previous band.

Open Mic Night/What I Use

So I had an Open Mic Wednesday night, it was a clusterfuck, and I'd rather spare my dignity and not write about it. My guitar playing was fine, but I forgot the words, and it took us forever to set up.

Recently I've been making backing tracks to some of the songs I cover that aren't on GuitarBT.

For the drum parts, I use FL Studio. Working on Clash City Rockers right now, and unfortunately there are alot of patterns to work in that are small fills used exactly once.

For bass parts, I plug my guitar into my PC using a USB-guitar cable, and then tone it down 12 semitones in Audacity.

April 15th Open Mic Night

OK, here goes (GOLD- Aced, ***- Barely made through, **-F'ed up)

"Are You Gonna Be My Girl?" by Jet- *****
This one went really well. My opening banter kicked ass, I hit on some girls at the "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?" breakdowns (one even got jealous when I did another table). I only messed up at the end when I forgot how I was supposed to end.

"Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack Of Hearts" by Bob Dylan- **
Tried to do a Punk Cover (all open chords 5ths) but worked out sub-par, and I forgot half the words, and my string broke... It's like I ACTUALLY FAILED THE SONG AS IF I WAS IN ROCK BAND...

"Clash City Rockers" by The Clash- GOLD
So I came back, and played this little number. First song I played was my last song at the Tabler Cafe open mic.

P.S. The Intervarsity Christian Fellowship lied to me there was no Open Mic it was last year. However, I DID find a new location to play at. So more on that later.

Rhythm Bastard Tour April '09

Two Open Mics this week:

Tabler Cafe
Wednesday April 15th
8:00 PM-10:30 PM

SAC Auditorium
Thursday April 16th
7:00 PM-8:30 PM

The nights run on for longer, but since I have other things to attend to, I need to leave early.

Workin' on my set list, with TWO original songs premiering. Wednesday I already have planned out, but Thursday, since it's hosted by the Inter Varstiy Christian Fellowship, I'll make a tweek or two.

I'll start next Monday fresh with a Tier 5 song.

Honky Stole My Bike

I saw that someone actually did a google search for my site. Thank you, Austraillian man.

TEN SPEED (OF GODS BLOOD AND BURIAL)

Best Tab

Finally! Now, my least favorite part of this was, like Mississippi Queen, they switch off between the lead and rhythm guitar parts. Listening to how they mixed it in Rock Band, it's pretty often. Basically, it switches off every 4 measures. This song wasn't that hard. This was what kept tripping me up on the solo:
E---------------12-14----12-|---------------------------------| B-12---------12-------15----|--14-15-12-14----12----------|
G---------14-----------------|---------------14----12-12------|

-----------^-------^
Specifically that part. It's very quick, so you need to sweep pick. Basically, just hold the same shape, but sweep the pick down on the three strings in one stroke. It's like an arpeggio.

This guy knows it better.

SETLIST UPDATED

March 11th Open Mic Night

TL;DR: I liked how I played, but everything else was a clusterfuck.

(GOLD-Nearly perfect, ***- Barely made it)
"Clash City Rockers" by The Clash- GOLD
BUT I SOUNDED LIKE SHIT. I had to go through the PA system they had, and it made me sound weeeak. NO distortion. But I finally got it right.

"She Sells Sanctuary" by The Cult- ***
I started off by making a Scientology joke that kinda went mediocre. Nobody seemed interested in playing, and I was messing up, so I cut it short. I brought a Flange pedal, but couldn't use it, cause the school PA system sucked.

"Desolation Row" by My Chemical Romance- *****
I tried to do a ROrscach impression: "You'll trip over your acoustic guitars, look up and yell "Play Freebird" and I'll look down and whisper "No."" I FUCKED IT UP ROYALLY.
The song however, I couldn't have played better. I forgot the lines at a couple places, but picked it up. My voice didn't sound that awkward considering I was singing in a lower key.

For however many things went wrong, they went right. My performing got better, but I didn't put on a good show. The problem is that I'm playing the wrong kinds of songs on the wrong instrument, but this is what I like. It's what I feel good performing. The most common response I got was "It took balls to go up there." which I guess means "You sucked, but thanks for trying anyway."

While I seem all hip and coherent on this blog, I'm pretty skittish IRL. I don't know if it's nerves, or thinking of everything in terms of life or death, but I always feel like I'm embarassing myself when I put myself out in public.

The reason I don't feel the same way while writing is simply because I have a backspace key and edit button. I can take my time, and sort things out. When I'm nervous, or trying to speak then think, I tend to talk in word salads a little (i.e. one word is replaced for another).

I wasn't as prepared as I'd like to have been this time around, so I'm gonna hold off on these things, and do the NEXT next Open Mic, April 15th if at that. So I'll focus more time on nailing RB songs. If all goes well, I might actually have a semblance of a video for all o y'alls. Also, gonna try to do a bit of songwriting.

Dani California, the song next on my list was actually played by a friend of mine from the Commuter Association (not S'n, but he was there too, and in good form as usual) and forgot the words and said "fuck it" and laughed it off. God I wish I could do that, just laugh things off.

Holy shit, this is the most personal I've ever gotten on this blog. I better be back tomorrow with some inane rambling on how some aspect of Rock Band is related tangentially to some aspect of Team Fortress 2, or something stolen, I mean, posted from another website.

Tonight Is All Right For Rockin'

Hopefully I work up the nerve to play tonight, but this is what my setlist looks like:

"Are You Gonna Be My Girl?" by Jet
"She Sells Sanctuary" by The Cult
"Desolation Row" by My Chemical Romance

Alan Moore On Rampage

I am reporting to you all in a post that certainly isn't filler while I work on my Setlist for Wednesday's Open Mic Night and Dani California, that Alan Moore is on a goddamn rampage. Apparently seeing my post yesterday pissed him off. A LOT. He especially took the Watchmen Babies and Saturday Morning Cartoon entries way too seriously. His e-mail to me:

"YOU RAPED IT! YOU BLOODY RAPED IT! YOU'RE THE F--KING BASTARD!"

In my defense, I never claimed that I wasn't a bastard.

So he rampaged through Scotland and is currently causing damage in London. So far he has destroyed two law firms, a Scientology center, and trampled over Phil from Accounting, who was in the city on vacation. Yeah, he really turned his life around.

So, all in all, nothing of value was lost.

Next Open Mic Night is March 11th.

Dani California is easier than I thought, I just need to get the solo down, and the little hammer on/pull off parts as part of the verses.

Voxtar

ANOTHER day I'll have to postpone the song lesson, but here's a tip I can give when it comes to playing and singing at the same time:
Find a "Hook". This means find a distinctive part where lines change, or a specific syllable.
Example from the chorus "Clash City Rockers":
G------------6-------------------------------------------------
D------------6-x16------------------------9---------------7---
A------------4-----------------------------9-x16----------7-x8
E-------------------------------------------7--------------5---
So don't /complain, about your useless /employment, Jack /it in....

Each chord has it's own line. These kinds of patterns are common in most rock songs.

From the verse:
G----------9-9-------------7-7----------------------------------
D----------9-9-------------7-7-----------------7-7-----------5-5---
A----------7-7-------------5-5------------------7-7-----------5-5---
E-------------------------------------------------5-5-----------3-3----
And I WANNA move to TOWN with the CLASH city ROCKERS

G----------------------------------------------9-9-----
D------9-9----------7-7----------9-9------9-9-----
A------9-9----------7-7----------9-9------7-7-----
E------7-7----------5-5----------7-7---------------
Ya NEED a little JUMP of elECtrical SHOCKerz

Oh shit, I just taught you most of "Clash City Rockers"

FUN FACT: I did the Guitar and Vocals Challenge in Rock Band 2 today...

SETLIST UPDATED

February 25th Open Mic Night

THE SETLIST:
"Clash City Rockers" by The Clash-*****

"I'm Shipping Up To Boston" by Dropkick Murphy's-***

Three words: REALLY FUCKING NERVERACKING.

Despite the fact that I've been practicing these songs nonstop for the past two weeks, I felt like shit going up there, and while playing, I was caught in a trance, or another plane of existence... I'm sure I forgot some parts, messed up words, and so on. But apparently I didn't suck. Hopefully I'll be more aware next time.

What eased my fears was that a fellow commuter who also plays guitar was doing it too. He helped me get setup and everything, so Sean (Shawn? I forget, he S'n now) if you're reading this, thanks a lot, man.

The first guy who went up was this really white guy playing a acoustic covers of rap songs. He sounded really good.

The next guy was someone me and S'n ran into there, and he was also good. Played mostly originals.

S'n was up next, and he was actually really good. I play pool with him in the lounge all the time, and here is playing these songs he wrote. Not that catchy, but I was impressed.

The next guy sucked. Barre chords and cliche lyrics ahoy.

This is the point in time where I mention that I was essentially the polar opposite of every other act. All of the other acts up until me were acoustic acts, playing their own songs, yet there I was, the only person there with an electric, playing punk/rock covers.

At long last, it was my turn, I feverishly introduced myself: "Hey, I'm the Rhythm Bastard, I'm an Engineering student, and I'm here to rock."

So, how did I do?

N.B. (Gold= Perfect, no notes dropped to ***=Barely made it through)

"Clash City Rockers"-*****

Out of S'n's amp, this sounded like the real thing. The chords during the verse and choruses were crisp as a new bill, but I messed up the solo on one note, and fudged up a chord once, I think on the bridge. Without a band backing you, every mistake you make is REALLY noticeable, and can seriously mess you up. Solos sound bad perfect or not, because again, NO BACKUP.

But what made this for me, was when I was just getting into it, I saw a guy in the crowd singing along. Boo-yah! He said I was cool after the show. :)

Yay approval from other people! Certainly that won't mess up my psyche!

I was proud of my performance on this one. The mistakes haunt me, but other than that, I think I did well.

"Shipping Up To Boston" by Dropkick Murphys-***

Oof... What can I say here...
I messed up the first riff (dee-do-dee-do-dee-dee-dee-dee-do-do...) but it went uphill from there. NOBODY sang along, which was discouragin to say the least, and sounded weird with the fingering parts overdriven with an amp.

Overall, glad I went ahead and did, you'll get your precious song lesson tomorrow.
It'll be "Shipping Up To Boston". 'Cause St. Patrick's Day is coming up.

Time? Well...

OK, I'm up at school fore the weekend, figuring I'll get a ton of crap (RB songs, song writing, HW) done without everyone begging me to do crap and the normal distractions of home. How did I spend Saturday? Playing TF2 while sipping on Coke and Jack Daniels...

The updates are going to be scarce for the next couple days vis a vis the setlist songs, since Open Mic Night is this Wednesday, and I need to practice.

All Over Again

So remember that Open Mic Night that fizzled out? Remember how I said I was playing for 1 1/2 years before I started the Rhythm Bastard Experiment and know songs not on Rock Band?
Yeah, February 18th. Whatever song I settle on will be a lesson/DLC suggestion the day after regardless of whether I make it.

Also, 1fort is dead. It's been replaced by it's much more loquacious First Person Shouter.

Next song is Toxicity.

The Revolution May Or May Not Be Televised

From a Konami Press release:

The Rock Revolution contest is for bands, and involves getting your group’s song included as Rock Revolution downloadable content. You enter at Konami’s MySpace page, including your song in aac, aif, iff, m3u, mid, midi, mp3, mpa, mpeg, ra, ram, wav or wma format. The first place winner gets their song included in Rock Revolution, gets to record said song for the game in LA with Dave Jerden and Bryan Carlstrom, gets an Xbox 360 and the Rock Revolution bundle and gets to be in a Rolling Stone Rock Revolution ad. The ten runners up will receive copies of Rock Revolution for the DS, PS3, Wii or Xbox 360. Entries will be accepted until December 10, 2008, and the winning entry will be chosen around December 17, 2008.

I am definitely doing this. Granted, I might have to use some other psuedonym, but hey, I'm going for it.

I will eventually rent Rock Revolution. I'm a sucker for getting a game for only two songs I like regardless of the rest of the game. Past examples:
Aggressive Inline- "Sellout", Reel Big Fish; "Crawling In The Dark", Hoobastank
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1- "Superman", Goldfinger; "Police Truck", Dead Kennedys
Saint's Row 2- "Woman", Wolfmother; "Bat Country", Avenged Sevenfold
Hoping Saints Row 1 makes it to the PS3- "Look At Me! I'm A Winner!", The Aquabats.

Granted, this one has songs from Rock Band 1, 2, and DLC, but one stands out the most:
"The Spirit Of Radio" by Rush
FUCK YEAH!!
OF SALESMEN!!!

That long HOPO bit at the beginning has been neutered though:
How It's Supposed To Go
Actual Guitar Gameplay Video

In other news, regarding that "Open Mic Night" December 3rd, I'll probably do one of the Clash songs. They're simple, and have distinct cues so I can sing and play at the same time. Most likely "I Fought The Law".

I've Been Thinkin'...

Tier 3 DLC poll is up. I might add new features soon. Hopefully new song tomorrow.

I've been thinkin', there's this Cafe place on campus that holds Open Mic Night. Next one is December 3rd, gonna try to perform at that. See the setlist, suggest a song.