On Thursday we were talking about the disco demolition night at comiskey park, in Chicago. It blows my mind that so many people participated in the incident. It would of been crazy to be their that night and to be apart of this moment. Music is a very powerful tool and this moment only shows how powerful it is. How did one person persuade thousands of people to just utterly hate disco and want to bring disco down. Not to mention that after the records were all blown up, people started rushing the field and going crazy.

All because of one person trying to take down disco, I think it would of been fun to be their and to be apart of this honestly. Just going crazy, screaming down with disco, watching people get into fights with each other and charging the field. Just amazes me how far we have come.

Phil Spectors was a very talented recording engineer who created what people call the “wall of sound”. what this means is he used 2 to 3 layers of all instruments recorded. which gave the songs a very dynamic sound. He is in jail now, but he started something big. Layering your tracks in a recording environment is standard now in most recording studios, or at least the ones I have gone too. It blows my mind to see how far recording has come since then, honestly though listening through some 100 dollar headphones to a song on your phone sounds so clear that you could practically be next to that artist while they are singing right into your face! It is cool think that technology has advanced enough to let us even hear music at such a precise way. The instrument world in a studio is honestly endless, you sit their for hours and produce hundreds of songs all at the click of a button. I can only imagine if Phil was not such a crazy control freak and was not a murderer, if he would of been able to keep up with the rapid change.

I have a friend who is a pretty talented studio engineer from my hometown in Natrona Heights and he was a hip hop engineer, he has only been recording for 3 years, but he has been dedicating every day to the quality of his recordings and trying find new ways to keep music fresh. My buddy liked Phil Spector and learned a lot from what he has done and who knows, maybe one day my buddy will in his words “kill the game dog”.

The blues was very popular  , it was one of the foundations of Rock n Roll. It originated in the 1900s and it popularized fast. One of the biggest influences I had from blues music was B.B King. He was a incredible guitar player who knew how to distract you from whatever you were doing with his playing. I remember being in 10th grade and i was watching the crossroad guitar festival on you tube and I saw B.B King, Slash, Eric Clapton and so many other great guitar players. The person who stuck out to me the most was of course B.B king. He was just so technical every lift of a finger and slide of his hand was to tell a story through his playing. He showed so much emotion through his playing, he was truly a iconic figure in music history, and the king of the blues. He sadly passed away in may of  2015. I remember the day after he died I filmed a video of me playing a improvised solo to remember him by I tried to use every skill I learned from him, I lost the video on an old phone or I would post it here. B.B King was a great guy and surely a model figure for a lot of blues styled guitar players. I am sure that even to this day being almost 4 years after his death and people still listen to him an learn off of him, and I am sure they will for years to come.

We were on the topic of different ballads the other day. Ballads use to be my favorite, especially rock or metal ones. I use to like them because I thought the musicians in the songs put a lot of emotion and feelings in. I know musicians probably try to put feeling in most of their songs. Unless it is a song about partying or something that is on a complete other spectrum. Ballads are usually sad and slow, and most of the time in a minor key. When I was first learning how to play guitar, I would search up ballad tracks and play along with them. It was always fun improvising, and it taught me a lot as well. I use to use my guitar as therapy, everyday after school before leaving to go to band practice or baseball practice, I would just spend a couple hours playing guitar to just forget about stupid high school drama and the typical problems high school students face. As soon as I started playing I would forget everything, they were just so soothing to play too. They helped my depression a lot, but music in general did that for me. I am sure that is the same for other people. some time past and I met a new friend kid named Doryan Ward, he got me into screamo music and heavy music and now my life consist of playing heaving music all the time from sweet guitar harmonies and hard hitting breakdowns.

We watched a video in class last week, of Greta Van Fleet and afterwards we discussed what we thought about the band. To me Greta Van Fleet are not that amazing. All they did was take a bunch of Led Zepplin songs and re vamped them to sound original. They do not however sound original, they’re has been a lot of talk about this band about their sound, style and quality of music they produce. They are very talented people, I wish I could of been where they are at the age they were, but it feels like no originality has come from them. It is great that they are trying to revive the 7os blues rock scene, but they way they have done it is to just take other peoples ideas and portray them as their own. I really do not hate these guys, I just wish they were paving a way in the music industry that was their own ideas. Their clothes even portray the 70s blues rock band to a T. I digress though, just in December of 2018 Greta Van Fleet was nominated for four Grammy awards including best new artist. So obviously what they are doing is working for them. It does even state that Robert Plant himself has given these guys his best. He does not seem to mind that they are revamping his band into a new era. In conclusion these guys are very talented and even if I have my problems with the originality of their music you still can not put pass them that they are getting big, and who knows maybe they will win a Grammy this year.

ive been reading alot of false articles talking about the return of the original guns n roses, but unfortunatly none of this is true. a long time fued between axl rose and slash prevent this from happening, even though slash has said before that he would love to get back togther with the old bandmates, however it would be impossible due to axls grudge. over the years slash has become a huge success, more so than he ever did in guns n roses. he has a few albums out with guess musicians, and let me tell you they are amazing works. however axl carried on with guns n roses, he is the only original member left. they released a new album back in 2008 the chinese democracy, but i beleive it didnt get good reviews. he has changed the line up completely their are three guitar players now and one ofthem is known as bumblefoot who is actually a world renowned guitar player. axls voice is terrible now and guns n roses is dead. as much as i would love to see a reunion, slash is just doing to good on his own to make that sort of change

Alot of great bands came in the 70s including black sabbath, lynyrd skynyrd, and bad company. All three bands are iconic rock bands. Black sabbath are the reasons we have so many sub genres of metal like black and death metal, lynyrd skynyrd made southern rock a very likable genre and bad company were just great all around. no matter how old their music gets i will always listen to these three bands. and thats the thing regardless of how old their music is people are still buying it to this day including alot of younger kids. especially withe black sabbath. people still rebel with that sort of music and because its almost described as satanic thats makes some people like it more. alot of new bands still use these three bands as influences, even if their not even nowhere near that style of music. just goes to show you that their music gets around.

As much as ld hate to say it, green day has really made punk a big genre, one of the biggest in our time right now. seems like most bands want to sound punky and what not, and hey thats cool, if its what you want to do. green day is a band that i really dont like, but i know that their very talented.  Alot of singers in the bands try to imitate billy. try to get the same sounding guitars and what not. and they accomplish it its not hard to do. punk is very popular in this day and age alot more then when it first originated. it seems like the style has not changed at all though from back when it was created.  most of the riffs that they play tend to be rather simple and very repetitive and thats really what i dont like about it, to easy for me.

in my hometown of Tarentum Pennsylvania, about 15 miles from Pittsburgh, we have a very rich community of musicians in the surrounding areas as well as where I live. there is a festival held every year in a town called new Kensington, a band always comes out who is known a great deal in Pittsburgh called daphunk band with there now ex lead singer dan stockman. these guys were the funk legends of Pittsburgh and I believe still are. they cover songs like shake, shake, shake, purple rain, and lets go crazy. a couple years ago we ran in to their now ex singer dan and he gave an old band of mine a couple tips on how to be successful in the music world, and later came down and did a couple songs with us. the only reason I talked about these guys is because we were talking about dance music and what not and id have to say for being a very un popular genre any more these guys sure make you want to dance!

here is a link to them live a couple years ago.

and here is my old band getting a opportunity to cover war pigs with their ex lead singer!