Late Nights, Music & Lyrics

I've created a mix cd to somehow capture the influences that I'm collecting from to make this album sound good. And yes, Simon & Garfunkel fit quite well within all this shoegaze and experimental.

1) "Cover Me (Slowly)" - Deerhunter
2) "I Know There's An Answer" - Sonic Youth
3) "Never Stops" - Deerhunter
4) "Simpsons Theme Song" - Sonic Youth
5) "Mrs. Robinson" - Simon & Garfunkel (!)
6) "Superstar" - Sonic Youth
7) "Tech School" - Deerhunter
8) "Men" - The Dodos
9) "O'Rourke's, 1:20 A.M." - The Good Life
10) "Loomer" - My Bloody Valentine
11) "All I Do" - Plus/Minus (+/-)
12) "America" - Simon & Garfunkel
13) "Mary-Christ" - Sonic Youth
14) "Fools" - The Dodos
15) "The Moon Red Handed" - The Good Life
16) "Protection" - Liars
17) "A Dim Entrance" - The Good Life
18) "After O'Rourke's, 2:10 A.M." - The Good Life
19) "Cinderella's Big Score" - Sonic Youth
20) "Drinking with the Girls" - The Good Life
21) "The Only Living Boy in New York" - Simon & Garfunkel
22) "Sailing to Byzantium" - Liars

It's quite a motley crew but I love them all and they will all fit into the big picture that is the album. I can't wait.

Sonic Youth + The Good Life + Deerhunter + The Dodos = My Album

After watching the movie "Amadeus" in music history class, it inspired me to write and compose an album. That day, I wrote 5 or so pages throwing ideas around about what I wanted it to sound like, and since it will be a concept album, I needed to write a story for this. My plans as of today, are to make this album sound like: Sonic Youth + The Good Life + Deerhunter + The Dodos = my album. We'll just see how things go but it's highly experimental right now. I'm going to be trying out weird tunings and time signatures. The primary goal currently is to finish the story. I'm planning for the songs to work out similar to a play, as in the songs will be "Act 1, Scene 1: _____". I'm planning on writing the whole story and dividing up the scenes, then once that's done, I'm going to rewrite the scenes to fit to music.

The story that I've been working with so far is about an old widow who retells the story of the gang war between the Chain Gang and the Puppet Masters, the events leading to the war, and the effect it has on the families of the gang leaders. I'm getting inspiration from various places such as Shakespeare, The Departed, and Gangs of New York. It's going to be fun to write music specifically to fit a mood for a scene.

This will definitely be a musical workout because I've never written an entire album before, let alone a full song without someone providing the lyrics. I relish the chance to flex my musical muscles though. It shall be a wonderful experience.

Lucid dreams at its finest.

After a long day, I settled into my bed still typing away on my phone to Maddie. The room got hazier and my eyes got heavier. I was slowly falling into the rabbit hole in my mind. What was my bedroom slowly morphed into me sitting on my computer reading about the new NASA Node 3 that they are commissioning the public to name. Although, one thing caught my eye: you can already see the Node from Google Earth. I knew I had to see this so I opened up my Google Earth, went to the coordinates and there was the node. Google must have gone through hell trying to get these hi-res pictures of the node AND a 3-D model because you could zoom into the node so far that you could inspect the little bolts holding the node together in picture perfect quality. I noticed something odd located under the launch pad, there was a giant glass orb that seemed to contain something that I could not see immediately from the zoom I was at. I zoomed in further to inspect it, and to my amazement, there were homes in it, with all sorts of plant life. It looked to be a small planet that housed a rural town complete with plant life and homes but strangely, no water sources. And before I knew it, I was there. Google Earth had magically transported me into this town. As I looked around in astonishment, I saw a giant party happening in the horizon so I sprinted towards to what seemed to be a fun party. Once I got there I saw a medium size party, about the size of a backyard barbecue. Everyone was wearing tuxedos or baroque dresses. Out of everyone I saw there, the only notable faces were Matt Parkman, Peter Petrelli, Sylar, and Mohinder Suresh. All characters from the TV show Heroes. You could only imagine my excitement when I saw them. I wandered closer to hear what they were talking about since I was too star struck to talk to them. From what I gathered, it seemed they were all in character. They were all arguing about what they should do to get away from the approaching goverment forces. (You'd have to watch the show) Then it came to me, I'm in a story arc for Heroes right now. This place is actually somewhere located in the Heroes Universe!

While I was quietly contemplating what I should do. An older woman, stood up and announced, "Everyone! It's time." The crowd started cheering and whistling and then suddenly Matt said, "Okay you know what? Just enjoy the show, we'll talk about this later." Just as he finished uttering those words, the node seemed to be taking off. The ground started violently shaking and started to form large cracks in the earth. And within those cracks, a thick black substance was slowly rising. I looked over to see if anyone else was as alarmed as I was and they were. The crowd looked increasingly uncomfortable, it seemed that this wasn't supposed to happen. The only ones who were calm were Sylar and the older woman. Sylar looked over to the older woman and she smiled and nodded. Sylar reached his hand out towards the cracks and lightning shot from his hands and they struck the oily substance. The cracks had managed to reach all the way towards the node so the lightning rode its way towards the node, conducted through the substance in the cracks. As this was happening, the crowd was officially alarmed. They were screaming and running away from the cracks. The lightning had finally reached the node and Sylar stopped shooting the lightning, and all of the sudden, it was as if a nuclear bomb was dropped in the distance. There was a bright light and then a loud BOOM! I looked over to everyone and it was as if everyone had gone silent but everyone was still screaming. I saw Matt with his arms spread and eyes closed as if he were welcoming the explosion. There was a large gust of wind and then it was dark. A large door opened, and everyone was straining their eyes to see what was behind it. Peter yelled out, "I think I see an AT-AT!"

We had somehow been teleported yet again. We were in a giant warehouse, I didn't look to see what was in it, all I could focus on was what lay ahead of me. Taking no time to see what the crowd was doing behind me, I ran outside to a snowy landscape, and there were at least a dozen TIE Fighters in the air, a few cruisers carrying troops, scores of AT-STs, and hundreds of troops on the ground from both the Imperial and the Rebel army. They were all doing battle with one another. And we had all just gotten into the middle of it. I looked to the right and it seemed there were aisles of comics or action figures with a sign at the top that said, "Pick your own power". All I could say was, "No way." And ran as fast as I could towards the aisles. I could pick any power I wanted as long as they were from heroes or villains that were already established in superhero mythology. The day had finally come to pick whose power I wanted. I had discussed this with multiple people before, and I could never pick just one hero I wanted to be but now it was time. As I was perusing the selection, my father had appeared and said that we had to go. I was startled to see him at first, but I didn't question it. I noticed behind him that the battle had disappeared and we were now in a store. I was sorely disappointed to see where we were but I left with him through the automatic doors and then the world faded away into white back into the recesses of my mind. I awoke to see that it was 4:08 AM. I guess I fell asleep while I was texting Maddie.