Ska

I didn't go looking for it.  I actually don't know what happened.  Late last night after hockey I stumbled on a video.  It's long.  An hour and 24 minutes.  It stirs excitement deep within me.

The video is of a concert that happened earlier this summer.  The Mighty Mighty Bosstones played outdoors in Boston for their lead singer Dicky's 50th birthday.  It is awesome to me.  Let me try to express why....

I knew "about" the Bosstones before I heard them.  I listened to them before I saw them.  And then.....I saw them.  A few friends and I drove into Pittsburgh early my freshman year to see them....and guess who opened up?  Wax and Face to Face.  To see that same concert now I'd give an appendage for.

There was just something about these guys.  Energy.  Stage presence.  Power.  Humor.  A guy who's soul job was to dance on stage.  They were magnetic to me.  I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've seen them over the years.  Quite a few.  And each time I come away smiling.  They opened doors to me musically.

See back in the early 90's grunge was still king.  Ska hadn't hit it's peak yet.  So the Bosstones set in motion something for me that I knew I wanted a piece of.  They (along with some other bands) were the impetus for Planet 612.  The idea of playing dance music that drives and grinds and makes you shake your butt, was super appealing.

As time went by Ska had it's day in the sun.  A few bands like the Bosstones made it to radio and Mtv (remember when videos were actually a thing on MTV?).   Some people said they "sold out".  Those people had never seen them before they made it to radio.  I saw them when they were playing little clubs, and I saw them when they were playing for thousands at a giant festival.....they were the same band.  Sold out, just means getting paid for what you do.

This video reminds of times of my youth, sure.  But it reminds me of times when what I was listening to amped me up.  Have I gotten old?  Has music changed?  Perhaps both.  Perhaps not at all.

So what?  Good question.  I don't know what this means.  However I did have a dream/nightmare that P-612 was doing a reunion show and I got up on stage and forgot all the lyrics and music to my own songs.  What would be the result of that though?  We weren't big when we were big.....who would come see us play if we did a reunion show?  HA.

So I leave you with the video that started this.  Note that it's Not Safe for little ears.




NATE ALBERT plays at the end of their set!!! How cool.

Blog December: New Year

I'm just gonna throw up some music to listen to while you do what you do today.  Happy New Year.  Be safe.

Blog December: My Drumline

For the past 13 Falls, I have had the honor of being the percussion instructor for the Warren Area High School Marching Band.  For the first 11 seasons I got to work with the band director who was my band director which was a true pleasure.  The last two season I've had a new instructor each year.

Through it all though, the students are the fun part.  I love getting to hang out with awesome kids, who work hard to get to the end of the season.  I don't always love the hot rehearsals of August, or the freezing football games of late October, but I love the students. 

Drumline's are a funny beast.  We're a weird pack.  We're part of the bigger band, but we're a family unto ourselves.  We have nicknames (some of them do.....usually created by me), we have traditions that we follow religiously, and we laugh at things that only we find funny.  Basically....we rule.

Every year as part of my responsibilities, I write a new cadence for our drumline.  A cadence is a musical piece just for percussion that we use while we're walking places.  Most area marching bands use the same cadence for years on end.  In a way it makes sense to do that because the returning students just have to help the new students learn what they already know.  The down side is that it gets old quick.  I want to hear something new each year.  I also like to watch my students tackle a big project and work at it together.  It's fun to watch their faces as they realize they've got it.

This year was a little different.  The new director wanted to use a piece of music for parades that was split into 3 parts.  In between each of those parts was a horrible 1950's style drum cadence.  I couldn't have it.  So I wrote our cadence in three sections of 12 bars.  So we could split it up to play between those parts of music OR we could play it all together in one chunk.  It was a challenge.  In the end we only mastered the first two sections.  The third section was hard.  I was a little bummed, but that's the way it goes.

So for the first time ever, I tried recording the cadence.  Our crappy camera didn't pick the sound up amazingly, but you get the idea.  Here's my line performing the first 2 sections of this years cadence entitled "3".







 As I mentioned, we also have traditions.  Some traditions make sense.  Others do not.  One tradition we have is this:  At every home football game I stand up and yell something like "Hey everybody, second home game of the season!"  to which everyone yells "It's a big one".  I don't know why we do it.  But we do it.  We've been doing it forever.

Another tradition is this:  At the end of the year the marching band has a night we call the Stadium Review.  We play all our music on the stage of the auditorium for parents and the community.  When it's all over, the drumline walks down the hall to the boys bathroom.  They all (boys and girls) cram in there and play the cadence in the deafening stone walled room as loud as they can.  I don't encourage this, but I put up with it.  I'm not sure how it started, but they do it ever year.

We then take a group picture.  Here's part of the bathroom cadence, and the picture.  I love my drumlines every year.

MORE Digital Age

The more I hear these guys the more I love them.  Wow.  Good voice blending, great layers of music.  Can't get enough.  Rumors of a fall tour.  AND now they have an EP on iTUNES

CONFESSION:  I've never purchased anything from iTunes.  Ever.  Ever.  I know I know....I can hear Matt Slater screaming at me from Kansas City.  I know.  I might actually buy this.

Here are two new videos to tide you over.

More New....The Digital Age

I want an album and a tour right now.  Awesome.

The Digital Age

I can't remember the last time I was so excited about a new band....even when the new band is really an old band re-made. 

By this point everyone should know that The David Crowder Band is no more.  Their final album (which is really a double album) is out.  I'm pretty sure I even aid I'd do a review on that album....that still might be coming.  Anyway....they are no more.  Crowder's doing his own thing. 

HOWEVER....4 of the guys have started a new band called The Digital Age.  After DCB's final show they went back to Waco and built a studio and they're in rehearsals.  You HAVE to listen and watch these two videos (and probably the 3rd just for fun).  Their music is so thick with layers.  So good in so many ways.  You can tell that these guys aren't new to the rodeo. 

I just can't tell you how excited I am for something recorded by these guys!

SO DANG GOOD!!!!

what numbers sound like

Found "What Pi Sounds like" and then realized he has another video about what Tau sounds like. The Pi video might go down as apparently there is a copyright infringement claim on the melody (even though it's based off a random number).

I could be a nerdy music geek and point out the problems with these videos but I will leave it where it is and enjoy. From a cool music standpoint I like the Tau one better. What do you think?

Then Sings My Soul

My buddy Jim Baker (I'd link his blog but he admitted to me he only blogged twice last year) was in town from Maryland this past week. While chilling he asked what I was listening to, then he shared Ascend the Hill with me. OH MAN! Talk about rock my world.

I got a call Friday from our choir director saying they weren't going to sing Sunday and could I do something. Sure. So I did a song I just downloaded. (see video at end of post)

So it turns out that you can download their Hymns album for free. Don't hesitate. Don't think about it. Don't tell yourself you'll remember to do it later....because we both know you'll forget. Go do it right now. It is really really really good. So go HERE RIGHT NOW and down load their album for FREE.

Crowder

For a long time David Crowder spurned music videos. I was OK with that. Now the creative guru's have pulled out some crazy stops and done this.

Blame It On the Aaron!

ANOTHER STORY!

Every year the area youth pastors have done a weekend retreat at a camp not far from here. It's a lot of fun, and has spawn some amazing ministry opportunities. The last two years as a fun activity we've done a "Talent Night" on Saturday night. Just a way for kids to do goofy stuff or serious stuff or show off a bit. Some of the kids have amazing talents we didn't know about.

So this past February we had our retreat. On Saturday evening at dinner our food coordinator told me that after worship I should send the kids up to the dining hall and she'd have big bowls of pudding laid out for them. So after worship I did what she told me to do. I told everyone there was pudding laid out and they should go eat it. Little did I know that in the mean time there was a change made and there were different snacks laid out for the students.

So we get back and some kids are filing over to me to do some last minute sign ups for the talent show. I'm semi-MCing the event from the back of the room at the sound board. One of those students is one of my kids...Kevin. I don't think anything of it. Kevin is normally pretty quiet...but it seems that when we get to the retreat a switch is flicked in his brain and he becomes incredibly outgoing and vocal.

So I'm letting everyone know who goes where and we finally get to Kevin. He stands up and lets everyone know that he's going to do a free-style rap based one....NO PUDDING. He's angry that I told him there was pudding and there wasn't any...because he really likes pudding.

He then proceeds to bust a rap that is not amazing. If you talk to Kevin today, he'll tell you that it wasn't very good. However it was one of those moments on a teen retreat where everyone got behind it because it was so bad. It became the "cool thing". Everyone kept saying "Blame it on The Aaron. UHHH"

I submit for your viewing pleasure Kevin's Pudding rap in it's entirety. I would like to point out ahead of time that I muted his mic at the very end because he clearly had nothing left. Prepare yourself....it's not really good and might not even make sense to you.



So the retreat is over and every is talking about this Pudding Rap.....for weeks.

At the time we didn't know that one of the girls had videoed the whole thing. So when she posted it on YouTube and linked it for me, we flipped out! The madness continued!

So I told Kev that I was going to try and redeem his Rap a bit. I've been thinking about how to go about doing that.

The first thing I did was ripped the audio from the video. Problem one arose here. I'm now using the audio from a video shot in a really big room with lots of crowd noise. Not a good starting point.

Step two was finding a program to work in. To be honest I haven't worked enough in most modern editing software to be comfortable. So I played for 1/2 hour with a program that really wasn't designed to do what I was asking it to do.....but found that I could make it work.

Then I started cutting up the audio I had into little snippets. This was also hard because any little section with bleed or crowd noise couldn't be used. I had to get just the right little clip. I then started looking for sounds. I didn't know what I was looking for exactly....guitars? orchestra hits? gongs? bass? I just knew I'd find something. Here too was a problem because it needed to be in the right format so the program I was using could edit it easily enough.

Then it was a lot of cutting and pasting...finding loops and using making them fit. Because of the program I was using, and the quality of the audio my hands were tied. But after WAY too much time messing around with this....it's done.

We took teens to Pittsburgh two weeks ago to work for World Vision's Distribution Center there and I put it on the mix for the trip. That was big reveal to students.

So here's what I did with Kev's Pudding Rap.


PUDDING RAP MP3