While this site is now an official music website, I’ll still blog about the entertainment industry. I just moved the blog to a different section as you can see. Just click over when you reach the intro page. I still have more work to do to make this site more professional looking. I think I’m going to promote myself as a musician, full time. In order to get known as a musician and if I want people to take my music a little more seriously, I needed to improve my web presence. Yep, I want back in on this music thing, and want to make a comeback.

Kev

Instead of going back to the old songs and re-doing them to full band versions in Garageband, I think I’m going to focus on brand new songs from this point on, for a while at least. I want to see if I can still write new songs, rather than looking back at the past. I’m proud of my older songs like, “Evil Fred”, “Mr. Tough Guy”, “Nightmare Has Begun Today”, “The Dark War”, etc. I think it’s time to go for a different change and focus on new material. I only wrote one new original song which I kept, “A Secret Hidden”, but it’s time to write a lot more. Garageband is inspiring me to write more rock n’ roll music. The heavier rock. Garageband is great software to create rock riffs and it’s good practice to improvise over.

As for the drum tracks, I’m still studying timing, and rhythm. I can play along with a metronome just fine. In garageband, I just keep the drum pattern simple 8th notes all the way through for now. In the future, I will record with a live drummer so the drums can sound more human. The songs will be even more tight with a real drummer playing in the background.

I just want to test out my songwriting skills. Find out if I have what it takes to write songs for full band music, and so far, I think I’m doing a good job. Nothing negative said about my few songs I put out there using garageband. Garageband is awesome. So glad I got the Ipad now. It’s actually a pretty handy tool. Love it.

Kev

Since I’ve started making music again, I thought it would be appropriate to start taking it seriously again. So that means, I will be soon changing this website into an “Official Kev Brock” music website, a lot more than an Entertainment blogging website. The domain name, “kbrocking.com” will stay the same though. I want to get known as a musician again, so to do that, I need to promote myself as a musician more than just an entertainment blogger. I’m not giving up the blogging but I will figure out a way to put the blogging in a different section of this site. I just got to figure out how to move things around.

This website will be changed, sometime this summer.

The website title will be changed to, “The Official Kev Brock Music Site” soon and I will do a new photo shoot with a good photographer, so I can have professional enough looking photos on here. Yeah, I want back in on this music thing again. That means gigging more too, more on that later.

Kev

…with all this talk on moving forward in your career and getting success in music, I’ll have to admit that I wish I was at a better place with my music. I wish I could be on a bigger stage performing in front of huge crowds. That would be awesome. I would like success with my music, I’m not shooting that down, just to clear that up. My point is, if these big things don’t happen to me at all, I’m cool with it.

I’ll just continue to do my thing and continue to make music for the few people that continue to support it. I still do have a little bit of a fan following to this day and I’m grateful for that.

Kev

Edit to add: This is a good attitude to have in music, too.

After listening to the full band version of, “Mr. Tough Guy”, it is more like a rockabilly song, than blues rock, in my opinion. The song actually reminds me of Link Wray, a little bit. I do plan on re-recording the song to make it a little better. I will change the guitar solo a little bit, too. I shouldn’t make the same guitar solo repeat twice. There are a few other little things I need to change as well. I will re-record the song again sometime in the future, but I want to focus on other songs right now. “Mr. Tough Guy” was just a song idea. I kept the drum beat simple.

Someday I will have a real bass player and real drummer behind these songs.

If you get the hint with these songs I’m putting out lately, you can betcha, I’m planning on making a full blown in your face rock n’ roll album. That’s my genre and the kind of music that I love.

I will still write mellow, and folky acoustic songs, yes, but that will be a separate demo CD. I plan on making two demo CD’s. One full band, and one acoustic.

Feels great to be making music again, finally. When I get enough songs out there, I’ll do some kind of home live webcam concert. I don’t have youtube partners, so I can’t do the youtube live thing yet, I’ll have to find another site to do the live video thing. I do want to do a live webcam music show sometime. It’ll be like a gig but instead, it’ll be at home in front of a video camera.

People mistakenly saw me as a folk musician, but I never thought so. I always saw myself as rock n’ roll, strictly. In the words of Dee Snider, “I WANNA ROCK!” I’m about to prove my point in these songs.

Kev

The song, “Mr. Tough Guy”, I wrote back in 2006 and it’s a song about being bullied in school, and learning how to defend yourself, so you must be a Tough Guy as well. Since the topic of bullying has been so huge in the news, that’s what inspired me to write this song, as I’ve been bullied in high school myself.

Here’s the full band rock version. It’s heavy rock & blues. It’s still not perfect, I still need to fix it up some, but I love how it came out. Puts a smile on my face and makes me want to head bang through the entire song. It’ll make you want to do the same.

Enjoy.

Kev

MrToughGuy1

A couple of days ago, I started recording another one of my older classics in Garageband. Was curious to hear what the song would sound like in a full band. I’m working on “Mr. Tough Guy”, a song I wrote way back in 2006. I still need to finish the last of the vocals, which I will do tomorrow. I need a break from music recording. Can’t wait to upload it and can’t wait for you to hear it.

Are you ready to hear some badass, heavy blues rock? The song will for sure, melt some faces, and will make you want to hold up devil horn fingers, and bang your head. Just wait until you listen to it. I think it’s a pretty rockin’ song so far, and kicks hella ass.

All this stuff in garageband are just song ideas, and that’s what I use the software for.

Whenever I can afford studio time, I will re-record these songs in a studio with an actual band sometime down the road.

Kev

Ya know, I think the volume levels on the .wav file to that “Nightmare” song is just fine the way it is. Must be my end of the computer. I just listened to the .wav file on my Ipad, to test it out, and the volume levels on the track were loud and good. I’m sure you’re able to hear it loud and good yourself.

I’m proud of how my version of, “Nightmare” came out. I know that punk band, The Jims, covered it in youtube, while I love their take on the song still, that wasn’t my original vision to the song.

My vision was to have a jazzy lounge kind of feeling. Something that you would hear when you walk into a jazz club. In my original vision to “Nightmare”, I can hear horns playing in the background, a full horn ensemble backing the song up. Garageband does not yet, have horns to play for the software, but I’m hoping they’ll add that soon. I plan on bringing back more of my older songs, and when I get done with some of the older songs, I’ll start writing brand new stuff again.

Kev

One thing people love to do with my music is compare my music to other artists. People come up to me all the time either online or in person, they say stuff like, “You remind me of this artist (here)”. So far, the most popular comparisons of my songwriting are: Tom Waits, Leon Redbone, Nick Cave, Tom Petty, etc.

I can understand why. It’s because I don’t have a very strong singing voice. I’ll admit, that I’m not an actual singer, I just do it. Those guys I listed above are not actual singers either. They just sing with their regular speaking voices, not having a strong range. Know what I mean? To be honest, I actually enjoy singers who don’t take themselves too seriously. When you want to sing, you don’t have to be professionally trained. If you want to sing, just do it, period. You don’t have to be a perfect singer.

I do want to sing better and am practicing and learning. I would like to have better range and a stronger voice, but learning to sing real good takes years, just like it takes years to play great guitar. I am considering taking voice coach lessons though. I would like to sing a little better.

I do get flattered when people compare me to other artists like that though. When people do that, it means they really like your stuff.

Kev

I spent the last couple of days working on this song, I wrote a couple of years back. If you can tell by the lyrics, the song is another one of my dark songs, based on horror and true crime kind of stuff. I know I said I was going to write positive/family friendly stuff from this point on, I will write those kind of songs too, but I think I’m going to get back into writing the darker stuff. I seem to be better at writing songs with dark & angry lyrics anyway.

I kept the drum beat simple, nothing too complex. It’s just a demo and I’ll improve the song down the road. This is just a song idea.

Enjoy.

Kev

Edit to add: I know the wav. file volume seems kind of low, but when I record and listen to playback on the computer before exporting it, I can hear it loud and fine. It must have something to do with the settings of the “exporting’. I’ll figure something out. You can still hear it okay, just turn the speakers up or listen to this on headphones.

And I know the vocals are kind of louder than the music, I’ll fix that too. I need a break from the computer. Gonna go out and enjoy the nice hot day.

NightmareHasBegunToday1