Music

Every once in a while there has come a band or a song that has really impacted me for one reason or another.

The first song I can ever remember truly loving was "Princes of the Universe" by Queen, back when I was like, 8 years old. I remember listening to that song on repeat while playing around with swords, pretending I was the Highlander.

My parents have always loved to play music, and as such there are some older artists that I'm more familiar with than I realize, like Dan Fogelberg, Kenny Loggins, Heart, Fleetwood Mac... My mom tried to get me into music and often offered to get me guitar lessons as a kid, but I always turned them down. I eventually ended up picking up the guitar right before my 14th birthday and 7 years later I still love playing.

I remember it was on my 12th birthday that two of my good friends started playing some rap music for me, and I kind of liked it. I had never really been into any specific genre but seeing how much my friends liked it, I tried to get into it. There were a few songs I found that were good, and some that I still enjoy to this day. Particularly "Hard Knock Life" by Jay-Z and "Nas Is Like" by Nas. But that phase only lasted a few months at most. I kept pretending I was a huge rap fanatic and would often look at Rap CDs at the store, but nothing ever seemed worth buying.

It wasn't until I was 13 that I discovered Punk Rock, and that's when my true love for music really began to grow. Blink 182, Green Day, MxPx, and NOFX were being constantly played in my walkman, and I absolutely loved it. Blink 182 may not be the most technically proficient band out there, but I have to thank them for getting me into music; I played the MTV Drumscape arcade machine at SC Boardwalk, the Blink song "What's My Age Again?" and got my first taste of drumming. Loved it. I also clearly remember listening closely to the guitar in one of their songs and thinking "Wow, that sounds really cool, I want to learn how to play that." My brother had taught me to play some basic songs on the bass already, so it was just a matter of figuring out how to make sounds on a 6-stringed instrument instead of a 4-stringed one.

Since then, with every year my music taste has evolved (and in my opinion, matured a bit with each year). When I was 14 I was still really into Punk Rock. I remember walking home from school listening to MxPx almost every day.

When I was 15 I made friends with some guys who were into heavier music, metal/hardcore stuff. My friend Robbie introduced me to a band called Hopesfall. He played the song "Waitress" for me and I thought it was pretty cool, so I ended up tracking down the album, and soon fell in love with the band. I still consider Hopesfall one of my favorite bands of all time. I also started to get into more Post-Hardcore stuff, like Thursday and Finch. A little bit of metal as well.

When I was 16 my friends started to really get me into more extreme metal. I heard Slipknot and thought it was alright, but Fear Factory was the band that really got me into metal music. Disturbed was another favorite, but it was more of a guilty pleasure with my friends because they were a little too "mainstream" for others.

When I was 17 I started to really get into melodic death metal, I had In Flames, Dark Tranquillity, Opeth, At the Gates, etc. on constant repeat.

But at 18 is when I started to diversify my tastes a little. I was listening to as much emo and rap as I did death metal. I think my favorite band at the time was The Mars Volta.

Sometime around December 2006 I started to really fall in love with a lot of death metal bands, as well as Christian bands. My interest in religion was piqued at this point and I turned to a lot of Christian bands to get some insight on that stuff. For about a year I listened to almost nothing but Underoath, As Cities Burn, Beloved, August Burns Red, Dead Poetic... At one point my playlist contained no secular bands at all.

But now I've moved on again. I very rarely listen to metal anymore. My religious beliefs are still present but are not dictating my behavior or playlist anymore. I still enjoy a lot of bands I've grown up with, but it depends what they are.

Nowadays I listen to mostly post-hardcore/emo stuff, I guess you would say. Two bands that have really made an impact on me lately are City Sleeps and Fightstar. I've posted some City Sleeps videos before, but here is a Fightstar song I love;



Love the song and love the video. I remember being a little kid and playing with finger-guns, and dammit, my sound effects were always the best because I played Goldeneye.

Sick of the bullshit

Why does one game control so much of my friends', and my own, life? Of course I'm talking about World of Warcraft, what other game would it be?

Despite my rantings on the game in my post a few weeks ago, and against my wishes, my friends continued to pester me about playing with them again, so I just gave in and logged on once again. We played for a while, and then one of my friends gets bored, so we switch servers and have to start over again. This happened no less than 4 times in 2 weeks, and it was getting more frustrating each time. By the 4th time, I just said screw it and went to play on my own, away from my friends on one of my old characters. The guilt of abandoning them was persistent and never-ceasing.

But then today, they all just up and quit out of seemingly nowhere.

So I should be happy I guess, I can finally maybe quit this game for good. But will I? I've finally made peace with a class that I hated for a long time and am actually having a decent time playing, despite being on a server by myself with no friends. It's sad, but was that the key this whole time? Although, it makes some sense. I've always been a loner, and until less than a year ago, I always chose to stay at home alone rather then going out with friends.

I don't know, it's a little depressing to think that playing by myself in solitude is when I am most happiest. There's only one person I'd really want to play with, but I've had him jump through so many hoops lately, I'm not even sure if he still wants to.

What really pisses me off the most is how much this all affects me. I've been in a pretty crappy mood recently because of my friends' indecisiveness on the game and how serious they take it, and today I just kind of lost it (internally, I didn't explode on anyone.)

So now in such a sport span of time, my friends' attitudes have changed from "Hey let's play some WoW" to "Dude, you should quit WoW, it's a waste of time." It's annoying beyond belief thinking about how much I am going to have to put up with that from now on. It was like that before, when I was the only person playing the game, but then everybody else picked it up and got addicted to it like I once was. That rabid fever you get for the game when it's all new to you.

That passion is long gone for me, and I think I might be playing more because of comfort and familiarity rather than truly enjoying every single second of it.

On top of all this, I have a bad case of writer's block. I'm pretty sure it can attributed to a mix of playing WoW and also just genuinely not knowing what to write next. I hope I can start coming up with things soon...

On the brighter side, I got an email from an old friend today and it's kind of nice to hear from him again. We didn't exactly end things in the best way, so I'm a little hesitant to get fully excited about talking to him, but it's nice either way.



I turned 21 on the 6th, and haven't done a single thing to celebrate/take advantage of my age yet. Although after today, I could sure use a fucking drink.

Anyway, here's another cool song: