I like to be different from everyone else. I am not different just to be different, but I find I get more satisfaction and the right kind of satisfaction differently than everyone else.

Becoming

My latest song that I am working on for Anthro. is called Becoming. Right now it sounds fucking amazing, intense, chaotic, yet at the same time produces a meditative vibe. I am sure many are going to disagree. I can almost play all of it, but I still have a bit of work to do. I can probably play half the song and there are still a few sections which need to be added or re-worked. This song is sounding exactly how I had planned it too. When the second guitar part gets written it will just complete it. Next will be the vocals. I think I want the vocals to be less chaotic than everything else. I want the vocals to be mostly deep the whole time, perhaps some long drawn out growls and stuff. I feel like it will complement the feeling of the song well.

As for Undermind, I will be doing a bunch of recording soon. I played nothing is discreet a little today, and it sounds amazing and I know what I want t do with it. I want to make the song even more entrancing and make it really capture the listener. I have developed a way of playing so that i take my time on everything and really develop each part that is meant to be. The songs will sound nothing like the originals ones I recorded besides the fact that they are the same song. Once I get this initial recording of NID and the other songs for A Rare Moment Of Silence, i will start changing and improvising them like crazy

I simply am. A John Coltrane experience

February 13. It's been a day since I listened to this masterpiece. John Coltrane has a whole new meaning to me. I hate to sound cheesey in this waybecause I rarely believe in these sort of things, but last night has changed me. First, however, let me recall this dark enchanting night, then I will get back on track.

I was hanging with Dom for Miles Davis- death metal night. We were going to play 1 disc from the Cellar Door Sessions and one death metal album until it was complete. Well, we got through disc 1 and From Wisdom to Hate and by then he had downloaded Coltrane's Live in Japan. On this was a 57 minute version of My Favorite Things, which for those that don;'t know, is th eone theme that never seems to leave my head. I feel it is a part of me.It has been many months since I first heard it, and since then I have had it stuck in my head regularly. I do in fact obsess over it. It is powerful. Anyway, We took a 10 minute break and began the journey. It started out with a bass solo to introduce the song. Great Segway. Then Coltrane said hello and worked the theme. Then came the solos. This is when everyone spoke their minds. They communicated and reacted. it was there, everything! Unison, formation, transcendation. I became one with this experience. By this time the lights were turned off. I was happy, I felt like a part of me was being expressed as well. I closed my eyes from time to time. Each closing created a link between us all. Me, Dom, and Coltrane's band, the audience. I was there, inside the "music." I was one with the experience. The experience that was captured on a cd through the self proclaimed group. Once I was linked to this experience, they created, the visions started to flow. I have talked about these visions with friends. I visualize in my mind when interacting with music. these were by far the most vivid visuals I had ever seen. As if it was LSD induced, but it was totally natural. My mind was on a path, looking through the glass (time frame) that separated me from the group. Things were being unlocked in such a basic form. This is expression. This is what I mean when i call myself an artist. This is what I try to project. The music I heard was live in nearly every way. I heard, felt, saw, tasted, and smelled the intricate communicative expression from My Favorite Things. This spawned something new inside of me which will be discussed later.

It is said that Coltrane started to make the sax multiphnoic later on in his life. I could never believe such a thing, not until last night. I truly heard it. The sax was not a sax, it was the essence of being, of Coltrane's being.Coltrane broke through the sax. He projected himself through it causing it to erupt with all matter of his mind. i saw this. In a way, he beat the sax. It's as if all his life is was an enemy, it restricted his mind, but he overcame that and he restricted the saxophone. It was his essence of being. i won't even begin to describe his soloing any further for I fear my words are not grande enough, though this experience has changed me deeply...

I have an aim in life, not a purpose, but an aim. I was slowly coming to this conclusion, but this experience opened the portal within me to see that view. I can see myself. I can know that I want to go to a new level with what I do. That level is knowing myself. I have taken my first step in knowing myself. It has taken me 20 years. I see myself. That is my first stepping stone that has been uncovered. So, how has this changed me? Well, firstly, I have a greater understanding of myself. I also want to reach outside of my body. I want to project myself through my projects. I want to be felt and encapturing when performing. I want to shed my skin for it is just a layer covering what could be a soul (prior to this I never would have mentioned anything about a soul). I want to come alive with no restriction and only be limited by want, unwant, known and unknown. I am becoming one with myself and am realizing what it means to be (illustrated in various forms). From last night, I found out the true meaning of being and that it can be done. it has been done. That is the highest place of being. The ascension and expression. With this newly found knowledge, I am starting to become less and less responsive to the world outside of the relationship of my self knowing. I want to explore myself and my persona. I want to be and experience and absorbed by my self.

Death is a passage....perhaps thats where Coltrane decided to go

I want to fly to the outer edge of the gigantic cliff

and plummet downward.

Once I find what's there I will fly elsewhere and anywhere

my mind desires.

Pick me up to fly

one the backs of birds.

I desire to be.

I will one day learn to carry myself up as those before me did

I will transcend in snake form, slithering through

time

and manipulating my

every move to react, become one with and experience

the energy that cycles through my mind, body and the perception of space.

Space is a perception, symbolizing energy in vast forms

incomprehensible by the brain.

I will wail through the journey, traveling where no road can ever be thought of to go.

I will do more than transcend and realized and learn and express and do.

I will be.

At one within the timeless, concept-less cycle of energy/being, mind and body.

Disrupting no other, uniting with all others.

Like a bird on its way to the sun.

Or a snake on its way to the moon. I am beyond will and experience.

I simply am.

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The Color of Mirrors. That is going to be the name to my second Album. Going back to what I said before about how I can see myself, I feel that's the perfect transition to starting this album. That is what I saw. I saw the color of my mirror. It was a blend of all that I described plus more! This will all be translated very soon as I already have 5 songs for the album

It's interesting...my friends seem to not know me as well as I had hoped or thought they did. No one seems to realize my true work ethic and my constant, strong drive. They do not see the hours of hard work, whether that is training, or practicing, or thinking, or anything else that i put in. I do not believe in giving up. I do not believe in moderation. I believe in extreme conditions. I believe in pushing boundaries within myself as well as others. I bleive in the discipline that will allow me to subjugate my goals and visions. People do not see what goes on behind my "closed doors," they only notice where I am at. They can't look at my journey as much as i would like them too. They only know that i am doing it, but not to what extent. This basically reinforces my next point. For the passed years 1 through 20, what have i done with my life? Simply put, I created a base. Now that that base has been developed, its time to expand and take off. Everything from this point on will be in the direction towards what I vision. Nothing is going to stop me, and people will soon see this. This is the year, the age, that I will start yielding results. I will show others where my journeying has brought me. Don't get me wrong, I am not doing this to prove anything, I do this for myself, because it is what I love to do. I will break through.

Another idea I had, via brainstorming, is about building blocks. The music I have written thus far has not satisfied my visions yet. That is because, back then my technicalities and mind were not strong enough to cultivate what I wanted them too. As people, we evolve, or stagnate or deplete. I am evolving. There is no such thing as instant gratification, if something is so instantly pleasureful, is it truly satisfying? Perhaps, but that is not the case with art, well my art at least. The songs I have written thus far, have been necessary. To get from point A to Z, you need steps B-Y. That's what these songs serve as.

I have been visualizing in my head all sorts of ideas and creative improvisational workings. I have "improvised" in my head, songs of mine that I have written. One way I envision Anthromorphic songs to be played, is by the whole band playing the music, and then one person, (in this case, me) reacts to it. By reacting I mean improvising, as there are one in the same. There will be a lot more that can be done as well which I will talk about at a later time.

Another idea, that isn't mine, but I did like it a lot (props to Dom), is to change production throughout songs. Some sections of songs may sound better with massive reverb, or low fi recording or any other characteristic of production, so why should a whole song always sound the same throughout.

right now here are some of my musical influences

Coltrane, Mingus, Ulcerate, Spawn of possessions, Gorguts, Krallice, Wolves in the Throneroom, and many others.

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On to my last idea for this update. I have thought of a very interesting album cover. It is a picture/painting of this huge dinosaur. Something similar to a teradactyl (sp). It will be a winged beast and perched on top of a mountain. It will look huge in comparison, the dinosaur will over shadow the mountain. The mountain will be made of waves, as in oceanic waves. "Below," or in front of the mountain will be a clear path down the middle of the piece and it will be surrounded by trees. The trees will also not be vertical completely, they will be bent to the sides. The last part of the piece, so far is to have these 2 huge butterflies on either side of the trees flying. The butterflies will look grand and have a vast array of colors and many mixtures of colors. I am still working out the ideas behind this piece....

that is all for now

One juicy update!

Well, on a random note, I will be doing my best to write with the best grammar and spelling that I can. I went to spell "aren't" and I put the apostrophe in the wrong place. That's rather sad in my opinion, and I blame it on not caring about spelling and grammar when typing.

Anyway, back to business.

I chilled with Ricky yesterday. I showed him what I was able to play of the newest Anthro song. He loved it. Its really amazing thus far. It has a wide variety of influences and it is pushing boundaries. Now, I will explain how it pushes boundaries and why that is important to me. First things first, the introduction to the song is slow and somewhat long. Why does that matter? Well, it really doesn't. Anyone can write something slow. In a lot of death metal, however, there is a lot more emphasis on fast speed. The introduction is very developed, and that is why it is long. A lot of bands will write like an 8 measure introduction and leave it at that. I don't want to do it like that. I love the feel this slow passage has to it. It is very haunting and disturbed/warped. That being said, it is somehow influenced by Akira Yamaoka and Ulcerate- Everything is Fire. So talk about disturbed and warped. One of my goals with the music that I write is to give everything the needed space it needs, and let the music unfold as it should. This introduction is a very important and necessary part of the song. Next, we have the structure of the song. It does not follow the typical, traditional riff - chorus formula. Formulas can provide structure and stability rather easily, but so can having a more chaotic structure. Right now the song has five different sections. Sections, not riffs. After the introduction comes Riff 1a-1f. Its a section with about 6 different variations of a riff. Much like theme and variation in classical music. That is how this song is breaking boundaries SO FAR. There will be more to come and more to change the pace of it all.

Now, this song is apparently going to be pushing boundaries, let me explain what I want to do with "death metal." First, I'll have to define what death metal means to me. Death metal, as in the music I am playing (not the genre), is just another means to express myself. Much like Undermind. In fact, death metal is the same exact thing as Undermind, it is just presented differently. Undermind was more focused on calming, lonliness, depressive moods, whereas Anthro. will be the extreme side of that. That being said, just as I try to push myself to the limits in whatever i do, I will be pushing limits in death metal. I look up to the jazz innovators the most. Guys like Coltrane, Mingus, Parker, etc. They were inventors and really made music so much different. Their music came alive. It was very real and imaginative. Thats what I would like to do with death metal. I want to take it to other worlds and places, take it to areas it has never been. I will not be doing that in just one quick jump though. It will be an evolutionary process, but I finally know what I want to do. Death metal is like a balloon. You have so many bands that expanded the genre, but no one as popped it yet. No one has travelled outside of the balloon. That is what I plan to do. I will lead, and take off with it in many directions.

That being said, I have a great goal and direction for my guitar playing. I want to get to the skill level so that I can improvise death metal, within the context of my songs. This will be the ultimate step in my journey I believe. If I can accomplish this, I can accomplish anything. I love the improvisation aspect of jazz, and I suppose that is what influences me to do this. Another thing is that, the music I write reflects my life. While I have structure in my life, everything is always different. In the words of Ulcerate, Everything is Fire. Everything is constantly undergoing a state of change. That is why improvisation is the best means of expression at a given moment. Recordings are great, but they are static. It is always the same. It will be amazing to play the same song 50 times live and have it sound different each time, because it reflects the way I was feeling each time.

Improvisation is great for technical practice. I have always loves improvising and always made that separate for when I practiced. Now I will be joining the two. Improvisation will greatly improve reflexes and force me to think on my feet rather than having everything planned all the time. As much as I love everything planed to a T, I am enjoying being sporadic and improvisational. I will now be incorporating improvisation as a practicing technique.

One more topic to hit, well may be two. Artwork. I want artwork for each individual song. I like to refer to myself as an artist, not just a musician or a "guitar player." Both those terms are very limiting. I am an artist. I create in different mediums. I write text, music, draw, will be starting painting, and most importantly I express myself through my creations. Also, I envision a great deal of material. That is where my true artistry shines. I have many visions of art in my head, much deeper than a painting or a song. The visions I see, transcend dimensions, literally. It is passed 2d and 3d, it goes into time, change, manipulation, and free will. That is what i envision. If I say to someone I am seeing colors, chances are its waaaay deeper than anything I could every exlplain in words. That is why, Only through a combination of mediums will I truely be able to express myself. Even so, it wouldn't be the same as if you actually saw what I was imagining. Regardless, that is why I am drawing, writing, and playing music. I am expressing myself in different ways. I am expressing one idea through different mediums to obtain a final product. I want my music to come alive, I want it to be more than just a song, and it is. It is so much more. This is why I consider myself an artist.

*sigh* Ok on to my next blog!

so im not really that tired anymore. I think its because i fixed up my lifting routine and im taking anti oxidants. This is having a huge effect on my efficiency of practicing sessions

more to come when i get more to talk about

back to practicing, finally!

well, im very happy now. Im finally back in the swing of practicing. For a while i just focused on writing for undermind, and i really didnt want to practice much. Also, my lifting routine was very exhausting, i changed that as well. Now the next goal is keeping my room clean everyday so i dont feel so crowded and what not. Once that piece of the puzzle is in place ill be practicing like its nothing.

The new death metal material im writing is very inspired by ulcerate. One of my favorite bands. I have a lot to say about them but not in this post. I will be breaking boundaries and writing how i wrote with Undermind, i.e. being myself 100%. Then i will just translate the riffs and msic into a death metal context. Death metal is a part of me and one way i love to express myself.