Guitar Hero 2

Check this guy out! Wait for it to load and see him break the 'guitar' at the end. I thought this was hilarious lol

teenage masquerade

ok i couldn't resist uploading these songs, though they far from being finished

http://download.yousendit.com/5D3AB59666049681
The first is Teenage Masquerade. A song about everyone's individual loneliness in life from time to time.
Anyway what I do like about this song is the unexpected. :) It opens up with an asian instrument, the guzheng, and fades into a Spanish guitar, blending the two styles together. And the guzheng gets the solo later on in the song instead of the standard acoustic guitar. It's a little longish sounding now due to the lack of vocals, but I love the string swelling work and instruments. Pardon the electronic drums and fake keyboards instruments for now. They will be substituted in with real musical instruments in the final product, along with vocals of course :)

and this song is about as un-ronin as i could have gotten haha!

played by Munir on guitars, and strings arranged by Leonard Soosay, Caleb and myself. enjoy pls!

_________

http://download.yousendit.com/1FC56A070A71E604
For now I call this NEw World Lanjiao, the counterpart for new world cheebye.
Neither of which will ACTUALLY be called such but yeah, for now it's lame and ...well..lame :P

Anyway, I LOVE the drum work and guitar work on this. Done by the Syed/Dong combo again. I love the way they made everything sound so vicious and hungry.
Look out for the triplets at the very end of the song

There are a few mistakes in the solo due to it not being finished (The last note into the C Chord), and this version isn't the one with the actual final solo. But I couldn't resist uploading it anyway.

This song is about all the stupid emo kids who cry in their corners, weep about life, cut themselves to prove how cynical and jaded they are about the world, and basically about how self-sympathetic they're being while people in other parts of the world die of, oh, small things like poverty and political wars. If life is so bad, kill yourself already. It's not that hard. heh

"Goodbye my love
Goodbye to you, goodbye to everything beautiful and true
Surrender, surrender my heart
surrender my life for you"

hold on

Wow I finally fixed my computer. The poor bastard has been out of commission for ages. Eeeks!

Anyway, been busy recording songs off the solo album, along with the Ronin album crawling along. I'm really excited (and really blessed) to be working with so many talented individuals from drummers, guitarists, bassists, violinists, keyboardists, engineers and etc.

Here are some of the tracks off the solo stuff. The vocals aren't done, and the songs haven't been mixed or mastered, so they're in their rawest and unrefined form. But I love the energy and gah-rang-ness that the musicians managed to capture. :)

http://download.yousendit.com/76FC3D4F13FAA348
Temporarily called New World Cheebai, thanks to Wayne the producer lol. Anyway, it won't actually be titled that for obvious reasons. It's pretty much an un-ronin song. Check out the bass riffs and the drummer, done by Joel of Leaven Trait and Syed of West Grand Boulevard respectively!

http://download.yousendit.com/03B584823B597155
A song titled Hold On. Check out the sexy violin and string section at the 2.50 mark. It's the first time I've attempted for that big orchestrial sound. I'm hoping to hire a small choir to do the "ohhs" and "ahhs" there too :) And the solo by Dong from Bad Obsession reminds me of a phoenix rising from the ashes to consume the globe with its giant nostrils. lol. Love the violin outtro too. Will be horrendously difficult to sing this song because it reaches up to the high B's. Which is a falsetto for most girls. Which means I have to wear tight pants so my balls can't breathe before I could possibly get that high. I'll manage..er.....hopefully. The wonders of technology will save this wretched soul!

http://download.yousendit.com/9831E81309C1DFC8
A track called Yo Yo girl, with drums done by Wayne Thunder from The Suns. I love the raw energy put into this song. Hopefully the singing will do it justice. Eeeks. Also an un-ronin song. Insane shredding by Dong in the solo bits.


I wrote most of these songs at the void deck of the flat I live in. Many a times the police came around to take down my IC, name, blah blah, for the rackus I was making at 3am in the morning. I Don't really blame the residents there, what with my subpar playing and what could be considered unwanted noise. But I always enjoy the alone time in the morning. The cops probably disagree, bu they're a friendly blue bunch just doing their job. They came along once, and they asked me why I had to play downstairs at 3am. I told them "I Don't want to wake my mum up". and the cops rightfully replied "So you want to wake up the REST of the neighbourhood?" haha, that part kinda slipped my mind.



Been struggling with singing the new songs a little bit because they were intentionally done to challenge everything I've known how to do to things that are new territory for me. But I love challenges because, for beter or worse, they push you to new levels that are both frightening and rewarding. And it isn't just applied to music. I've always believed that human beings, as the frail and emotional creatures we are, have to constantly challenge ourselves in order to postpone that slide into boredom or self-redundancy. Be it writing, studying for an exam, doing your job at the office, writing a (gay) poem, or planning an elaborate murder --> everybody needs something to strive for in order to feel respected, needed, and valid to the world around us. I've never been a fantastic song writer, never really good with time signatures and key changes, but I accept my limitations and work around them, or at least try to improve on them.

Took a few weeks, but I've managed to finish watching every single episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer from Seasons 1 through 7. I had the distinct impression that Buffy was just a teenage rad flick, but was quickly proven wrong after continuously being glued to the tv screen night after night, episode after episode. Probably my favourite tv series of all time! Would never have expected such depth.

That, and my XBOX360, has been the hook to my nights. Helpless game addict.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was a slight disappointment to me. Where the heck is shredder!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How could a turtles movie not have shredder and crang?! Instead there was this immortal hero with the rampant monsters running around (undetected for hundreds of years). 23, starring Jim Carrey, was much better, though not as fantastic as I thought it'd be. And of course, everybody's waiting for Spider-Man 3!

Phantom of the opera this sunday. Can't freaking wait!

lev