The full domestic trailer for the next 007 flick, “Skyfall”, is finally here. The film looks really good too. Of course, all James Bond trailers try to make themselves really good. Hopefully “Skyfall” won’t disappoint, and it’ll be better than “Casino Royale”/”Quantum of Solace”. I did love “Casino Royale”, but I hated “Quantum of Solace”. I’m hoping “Skyfall” will be good. I’ll be seeing this one.
Kev
After a little vacation in Jamaica, Snoop Dogg is completely retiring from the hip hop genre and wants to forget his past as a hip hop star. He changed his staged name, image and genre. He’s been inspired to play reggae music. He wants to start a reggae career under the, Snoop Lion, name. He already performed 5 new songs for a small crowd, while in Jamaica.
More on the story, here.
After years of making smash hit hip hop records, he’s turning his back on the hip hop industry and his longtime fans? Sure, looks like it! He can change himself, all he wants to, he will forever be known as, the Dogg.
On top of all this, Snoop, is not Jamaican, even though he think he is now. Snoop is an American and was born in California. Most reggae musicians over the years were actual Jamaicans. Snoop is just living in a fantasy world and being delusional. I understand how he wants to grow out of hip hop, the older he gets though, I’ll give him that respect.
Kev
Well, the Drew Peterson, Kathleen Savio murder trial is starting today as I type this. I think I’m going to follow this trial to see how it will turn out. While this trial has nothing to do with the disappearance of Stacy Peterson, you know she will be brought up a little bit. Maybe they will try to get Drew to confess about Stacy’s disappearance, who knows. After the murder of Kathleen Savio, that just shows that he did something to Stacy too. Possibly murdered Stacy and hid her body somewhere. Of course, Drew will maintain his innocence and he will probably walk this trial, wouldn’t surprise me. The Kathleen Savio trial is just starting today, so not much out of it now. This trial should be interesting, I’ll keep an eye on it.
More on it, here.
Kev
There was a commenter in this blog that said, not all drummers and musicians who play other instruments, will not want to play your songs live in the studio. You know, just go in the studio, plug in your instruments, and record the song in one take, all the way through without stopping. You see, this is where I disagree with this guy.
You can find plenty drummers and other musicians that are willing to play live in one take in the studio. Believe me, there’s plenty of talented musicians out there that can play everything and anything. Those are the kind of musicians that I would prefer to work with ’cause if you listen to my songs, I like to jam out and improvise. I like to wing stuff out as soon as the record button hits, that’s how I always wrote and recorded songs.
There will be musicians willing to play live in a studio instead of tracking separately at a time. You just need to find the right musicians and why you need to audition. There’s going to flubs (as another word for mistakes), yes, but that’s why it’s called, “live”. That acoustic demo I did in 2006, that ten song demo was recorded in one take, all in one day. Yes, there were a few little mistakes and flubs, but that’s okay. That’s the fun part of playing live.
There are plenty of bands that record their albums in the studio live. Just rehearse the songs good enough before recording them in the studio and it can be done very successfully. You don’t need to be a perfectionist in music. Just play and enjoy.
Kev
So we’re talking about how to become a respected musician by the public. You see, begging for respect, if you’re getting a lot of haters & doubters, is not going to cut it. You’ve got to earn the respect yourself carefully and responsibly. Not only that you need to be positive at all times, leave your ego at the door and be professional. There are other ways to earn respect by the public, just by simply working hard on your music and concentrating on that only. If you concentrate on the music only, not getting into any kind of online discussions, rants or other bullshit, and not getting into any drama of any kind, that is one way to earn respect. Other ways to earn respect, is work on your music and improve your talent. The better you become musically, the more respect you will get. Just work hard on your music, and play the gigs, the respect will come to you on it’s own.
If you do get into online discussions with other people, be careful with those too. I know how musicians love to go on rants online but at the same time that can be dangerous for your career, professionally. Words do come across people, if you say wrong things. There’s nothing wrong with a musician being honest about things, but there are better ways of handling it. I still like to be real and honest about things to this day, but I learn to get better at it, by not being so aggressive as I used to be, and learn to leave names out of things.
Yes, there will always be those kind of critics who will always dislike you, no matter how good of a person you are, but you can’t please everyone, right? Pay no mind to those kind of people and just continue to be you. Those critics and haters will always be around, no matter what you do. So don’t reply to anything written about you, and continue to do your thing.
Who knows, maybe the critics will come around and respect you later, once they realize that you are talented and can be something special. Give it time, don’t worry about negative feedback and before you know it, you will become respected on it’s own. Keep working on the music and who knows what may happen. The internet gives people the freedom to be honest, just take all feedback with heart.
Kev
See? Even the famous musicians can have a big problem lashing out at the haters publicly! Mike Portnoy, former drummer of Dream Theater, left D.T. last year. He is still getting a public backlash about leaving D.T. to this day. I believe that this is what he is responding to.
See Mike Portnoy’s official facebook, here…
I’m a longtime Dream Theater fan and I used to respect Mike Portnoy, but after seeing how I see him act on his facebook, I just lost my respect. I unliked his facebook page today.
When I first started out in music, I used to have a problem responding to negative backlashes and I used to lash out at the haters, all the time. Over the years, I learn to ignore everything as much as possible. Even to this day, I try my best to not respond to anything negative about me. Why is it wrong for a musician to lash out at people? Bad karma will come back at you for it later. If you continue to respond to critics in a negative way, you will continue to lose support from people who once supported you and you’ll lose your chances at moving forward in your music career. It’ll make you the badguy instead by responding to everything and defending yourself.
People online are usually pretty honest. If they see musicians misbehaving, make no mistake, people will let you know about it. If you act like an asshole, people will let you know about it. I’ve been there, knowing from my own experience. I’m not right on everything I do online. I’ll admit, I say dumb things sometimes and wish I treated people better in the past…but what’s done is done. Can’t change the past. I still get people disliking me because of my past. I still have people who want nothing to do with me because of my online web presence. Some people claim that my web presence is disturbing, but whatever, ya know? I am who I am, there’s nothing people can do about that.
When you’re a musician and put yourself out there publicly, not everyone is going to like you, period. Just be grateful for the mix opinions, good or bad. I learned to be grateful about mixed reactions and learned to handle things better as I go along.
What are ways for musicians to never get any haters or critics? Simply put, just have a positive & professional attitude, at all times. If you can do that, people will be positive to you in return. That’s good karma. Leave your ego out of things. Don’t explain yourself and don’t defend yourself about things. Don’t say one negative thing at all. I’m trying my best to do just that as you can see. Getting better.
With that being said, making photos or videos flipping the bird at the critics or lashing out at them publicly, that’s a childish thing to do in your part. It makes you look ridiculous. I’ll admit, I’ve been bad at times too. Musicians respond to haters, just to get their fans to show them their support as a way to prove the critics that the musician is respected. That is not a way to show the world that you are respected. You earn the respect by carefully putting yourself out there, professionally. The other guys in Dream Theater must be embarrassed by the way Portnoy is acting on his page.
I’ll have more to say on this topic another time.
Kev
While Sly Stallone is my no. 1 hero in the fitness/movie world, Arnold would have to be right behind him. Happy Birthday to the former, Governator. He will always be an inspiration to me. Arnold just turned 65 today.
Here are my top ten favorite Arnold movies in no particular order:
Kev
Reports are saying that Warner Bros. are quietly moving forward with an idea of doing a prequel to Stanley Kubrick’s movie, “The Shining”, that starred Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall. It would focus on the events before the original story where Jack, Wendy and Danny Torrance stayed at the Overlook Hotel so Jack can write his novel, later Jack was turned into a madman.
Stephen King announced earlier this year, that he is writing a sequel to “The Shining”, where it would focus on the story of Danny Torrance, the son, as a full grown man. Could there be “The Shining” movie trilogy, on the way? Looks it. If Warner Bros. is serious on a prequel, first they need to get written permission from King obviously. They need to buy the rights off him. I’m sure King would want it to happen ’cause it seems that he wants all of his novels to get turned into movies these days.
Maybe King will write the script for the prequel? Who knows. Anything is possible. There is so much more you can tell with “The Shining” story. As long as they get King involved in the prequel film, somehow, I’ll be all for it.
It’ll be interesting to see how the Overlook Hotel turned out to be. How it became haunted and all that stuff. As long as they make it different and original story, and won’t be a rehash of the original, where a different family goes to the Overlook, I’m all for it. There shouldn’t be a Jack Nicholson cameo for the prequel ’cause he’ll be too old for the role, by now, I’m sure the Jack Torrance name could be brought up in the prequel a few times though.
WB’s could make it good if they make it scary, and keep it in the horror genre. I’m looking forward to hearing King’s thoughts on the prequel to, “The Shining”. He’ll probably respond sooner or later. It seems that King responds through Entertainment Weekly, every time a remake is in the works of his films. A Shining trilogy could be interesting.
Kev
At first, I was a little skeptical of the “Taken 2” movie like most people, but now that the trailer here, the film surprisingly looks a lot better than the first. I love Liam Neeson action movies, the guy is definitely a big star in the action genre right now. Liam’s been one of my favorite actors for years. When will Liam ever get casted for the Expendables, maybe for “EXP 3”??
Kev
You see this all the time at local band gigs and acoustic acts. Singers, singing with their eyes closed throughout their entire sets. I could never understand why. When I ask this question, why singers sing with their eyes closed, I can think of a few reasons that could be possible.
1) They have stage fright.
2) Their way of concentrating, trying to remember lyrics and stuff.
3) They feel emotion.
I disagree with closing your eyes while performing. I always thought it was important to have eye contact at the crowd at all times. Watch my live videos in youtube, and you would notice immediately that I never closed my eyes once. It’s called confidence people. If you don’t have the confidence performing, then there’s no need for you to be up there performing to begin with.
Eye contact at the crowd is important. It’ll let your audience know that you’re right there with them and it shows that you’re not afraid of being on stage. It makes you feel more alive. You want to show the audience that you love performing, by keeping your eyes open.
Yes, there are a few exceptions when performing on stage with your eyes closed. Sometimes it’s good to perform with your eyes closed only when you’re performing a powerful song that gives everyone goosebumps. When you’re playing a ripping guitar solo or singing an intense vocal melody with passion, those are a few good reasons to perform with your eyes closed, when you’re performing a mind blowing song.
You don’t want to perform with your eyes closed randomly or for no reason. When you tell people this stuff, they’ll claim it’s for “concentration”, when you know it’s a lie. I think they do it ’cause they are scared performing in front of people still, period. Like I said, it’s okay to sing or perform an instrument with your eyes closed during a mind blowing performance.
Don’t be a coward on stage. Practice at home in front of a mirror with your eyes open, that will help build your confidence up.
Kev
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