New Ear Candy

I have taken a long break from this blog, but not from music.  I think it is fitting that I should reopen this can(s) of worms (pun there, but you have to keep reading to get it).

I have been a member of a website called Head-Fi.org for some time now (2012).  It is a great forum for hi-fidelity personal audio equipment.  It is mostly headphones and their related equipment, but they do have a few sections on desktop and stereo speakers/equipment.

Prior to joining that community, I did look for headphones that gave quality sound, yet would not look ridiculous on my head.  These were mainly for when I went to college.  I settled on Skullcandy.  Now if you peruse the afore mentioned community of audiophiles, you will most likely see almost nothing about Skullcandy.  That is because their product is not, as most of them [Head-Fiers] would say, really for audiophiles.  They [SKDY] attempt to make a fashionable product and end up skimping on sound quality.  Now I haven't tried their latest gear and it's been a while since I actually got my first pair of Hesh's.  I do know that they felt somewhat cheap and they broke, after what I thought, was a very lightly used existence.  I never once took them snowboarding or any other sports.  Fortunately Skullcandy's warranty is pretty great.  They may have issues with their build quality, sound quality, and site usage (never was very friendly and usually took forever to load), but they had a good warranty and customer service.  I went ahead and used the money from my Hesh return and bought the Icon 2's and a beanie.  I like the Icon 2's for portability, the beanie keeps me warm, and they both look pretty rad.

After my attempt at finding high quality audio I joined Head-Fi and almost swore at the price of the top end audio.  But you get what you pay for and if you want the best quality money can buy, you're going to need a lot of it; money that is.  So I picked up my jaw from the floor and looked at the entry level and beginner audio.  Many of the community really had great reviews about the audio products at the low end of the cost spectrum.  I went for a pair of cans that could be modded, tuned for better listening with an amp, and didn't break the bank.  Enter: Superlux HD668B

To be honest, I wouldn't exactly call myself an audiophile.  At least not yet as I don't really have any equipment to play such high end audio.  Nor have I paid attention to the quality of my recordings.  However I always buy CD's and rip the music from them, so I don't really have to worry about bad quality music.  I have been playing, reading, listening, and living music my entire life.  So I definitely know what I like and what I don't like and what should sound good and what shouldn't.  So I may not quantify myself as an audiophile, but I have a love for quality music.

They are on their way for delivery today and I will post the link to my review on Head-Fi for anyone interested.  I can't wait!!

Holidays

The holidays are a time to share with your family and to eat a lot of candy.  There are also many songs that are only played at Christmas time that you will not hear on the radio any other time.  They are the songs that you have heard ever since your childhood (or the ones that you are learning if you are sitll a child).  Everyone probably has a favorite too.  Then there are some people who just don't like any christmas music whatsoever.  You might know one of these scrooge-like people.  Getting back to my original course, the funny thing about Christmas music is that it has been the same old things for at least a decade.  When was the last time you heard a brand new song that was just released about Christmas that doesn't have another Christmas tune in it such as Jingle Bells or Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer as a part of the tune?  Probably back in the 90's.  Songs such as Christmas Shoes or something like that comes to mind(yes it probably was made in the 2000's I didn't really check to be honest with you).  And then of course all of your favorites were redone by everyone and their brother, so they might get old after a while(no they definitely do there is no might there).  We need a new Christmas song.

Exiting the Mainstream

There is a lot of music out there nowadays.  R&B, Hip-hop, country, rock, pop, and the list goes on and on.  Then there are subdivisions in most if not all of those genres.  I think one genre of music that is almost always overlooked in this modern time is classical.  Yes there is jazz and a lot of people listen to funk and whatnot, but how many people do you know that just listen to Bach or Tchaikovsky (yes I had to look that up)?  Almost no-one.  My parents listened to classical when I was younger.  They still do however my mother has branched out from just classical to some more contemporary styles such as New Age and Spa.  They also listen to more jazz than they used to I think.  One instrument in music that is linked in almost all genres should perhaps have its own place entirely and that instrument is the piano.  What other instrument can play every single note from just one movement?  Except of course for the other instruments in the same family as the piano, namely the harp, harpsichord, and even the hammer dulcimer.  Quick tangent: if you've never heard of a dulcimer go look it up, it's pretty neat.  Anyways back to the piano: apart from being one of my favorite instruments it is able to create so many different styles of music from one instrument.  I think a close second is the guitar, but I think that it takes a lot more skill to play guitar than it does piano.  I think that my favorite style of piano falls into a genre known as New Age.  It is piano music but there are also other instruments added into the mix sometimes including guitar, synthesizer, vocals, and even some brass or other strings.  It is usually a very melodic and even inspirational style of music.  Many times the piano is just playing lilting, sustained notes over top of low, quiet, deep tones.  It is a very moving style of music I think.  There are faster tunes as well, it is not just slow and deep, or ominous music, but is sometimes very bright, bubbly, and racing.  My current favorite song lands in this category.  However another of my favorite songs right now is also in a totally different category of music entirely, but I'll save that for another day.  Here is my current favorite song, followed by a contemporary piano artist:
The Album Leaf, Another Day - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_4sCm3dirs
Goldmund, Malady of Elegance - http://soundcloud.com/_type/sets/goldmund-malady-of-elegance

Music

So I will start talking about my current favorite band and why it's been such a staple in my college career.  I guess to say band is not a great term, more so the band's lead singer: Tom Delonge.  Now I know that you are thinking, why would I say current favorite and not all-time favorite or something along those lines, but I still have very strong roots in my country music.  It really hits home of who I am.  blink-182 and subsequent punk rock, pop-punk, and post hardcore bands really only came into light during college.  It is true that they have probably had the most influence on my music and the way I really think of music now than any other genre, let alone band.  I was never a big fan of blink-182 in high school solely because I did not know of them.  I know that seems hard what with access to anything and everything on the internet nowadays, but it was never anything that came up.  I listened to country music radio stations in my truck and a mixture of classical, from my parents, and country at home.  So I never really listened to punk rock because it wasn't on very many radio stations around me, or I just never knew of them.  When my ex-roommate, ex-bandmate, fraternity brother, and best friend introduced me to blink-182 I guess to say it was more of an enlightenment than anything.  I realized when he had me listen to "All the Small Things" that I had heard of it before.   But then I listened to more of the first album: Cheshire Cat, then Dude Ranch, Enema of the State, and I think you get the picture.  Needless to say I was hooked.  And it wasn't just listening.  That was back in freshman year.  We, my afore mentioned best friend, and my other best friend decided to make a band.  I had an acoustic guitar at the time, but no electric.  I used his extra guitar, just a starter Fender Strat.  He of course had the Tom Delonge, semi-hollow body, Dirty Fingers humbucker, Epiphone.  And we were off.  He wrote a ton of music, I wrote a few songs, a couple which I had already written prior to the band and were more of an accoustic nature than most of the punk the lead guitarist wrote.  I slowly wrote a few more that were of a simliar nature, but I was not writing what I wanted.  After really playing a bunch of the stuff our lead guitarist wrote I still didn't know what I was looking for.  Then my roommates exposed me to Tom Delonge in a different light: Angel's and Airwaves.  It was as if my world slowed down a little bit.  I found what I was looking for.  I wanted to hear that from my music, I wanted to sound like that, and I wanted to be able to write like that.  Of course it didn't really happen like that.  Even now I still don't write like AVA, but I've learned what I really want to do.  Have my own sound.  I haven't really gotten it nailed down yet, but I haven't really had time to perfect it what with school and not having my electric guitar here with me.  Plus I have only one pedal and for all the effects I want I need at least a few more.  And a recording program, and a music writing program.  So I am kind of empty handed.  But I do have ideas.  So that is a little look into my short history with Tom Delonge.

The Beginning

I was thinking about what I wanted to write for my first blog, so I figured I 'd start with something that I am very passionate about.  I thought I would start with music.  I love playing music, I love writing music, and I love listening to music.  The thing is that if I am not listening to music, it ends up playing in my head anyways, so I basically listen to music all the time.  Before high school I pretty much listened to the oldies stations and the classical music that my parents listened to.  At about the age of 13, I remember my older brother introducing me to country music.  Ever since then country has been my anthem.  It really describes my roots and where I am from.  I was also in the jazz band in high school, so I listened to a pretty good amount of jazz.  My parents had a lot of records of everything from Boston to Louis Armstrong, so from high school I had a pretty good background in music due to all the different types: Country, Classical, Soft Rock, Classic Rock, and the pop songs that were played on every other radio station during the early 2000's.  Then I came to college and my best friend, brother, roommate, and band mate introduced me to punk rock.  I know that most people would call blink-182 more pop-punk than punk rock, but they weren't the only ones I was introduced to.  As a side note, I also listened to a little alternative in high school such as Breaking Benjamin and Three Days Grace.  Ever since then I have loved punk rock and all the side roots that has taken me.  From the more electronic sounds of Attack Attack and Breathe Carolina, to the harder post-hardcore sounds of The Devil Wears Prada and Divine Heresy, all of these branches have their own place in my small music library.  I am working on growing my library to as much music as possible.  So I guess we can just go through my adventures in music on this blog.  It is also good to mention the Irish punk that has infiltrated into my head as well: Flogging Molly, Dropkick Murphys, The Pogues, and (thanks to my sister) Shilelagh Law.  So these are the sounds of my life.