Category Archives: music

Report: Sharona Alperin speaks on the death of Doug Fieger…

Sharona Alperin, the woman which Doug Fieger wrote a song about her titled, “My Sharona” for the Knack speaks out on his death. Doug was inspired to write the song for her when he first met her when they were teenagers. He fell in love with her and had a huge crush, which made him write a song about her. The song obviously became a memorable hit and still being played on the radio to this day. I can understand how Doug would fall in love with a woman like that ’cause she’s got quite the rack there with this photo.

http://music-mix.ew.com/2010/02/15/doug-fieger-knack-sharon/

Kev

Report: Jay-Z slams the “We Are the World” remake…

Rapper Jay-Z spoke out his thoughts on the Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, and Quincy Jones remake of “We Are the World 25th”. He says the original is untouchable and should have never been remade. He compares it to Michael Jackson’s other hit, “Thriller”. What he’s saying there is, “We Are the World” is like an anthem for Michael Jackson, kind of like, “Thriller”. Jay-Z also says it would have been better if they wrote an original song for Haiti instead of remaking a Michael Jackson tune.

More on it here:

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/entertainment/post/2010/02/jay-z-we-are-the-world-shouldnt-have-been-updated/1

I’m no fan of Jay-Z’s music but I’ll have to say, he has a point. I agree with him. I was honestly disgusted when they decided to remake it. It was obvious that Lionel wanted to give celebrities and other music stars an opportunity to sing on a Michael Jackson tune. The remake sucks hard and I’ll always stand by it. Even Jay-Z knows it sucks.

Kev

I have been digging the band, Slayer…

I’ve never listened to the iconic metal band, Slayer before. After reading online posts from the metal community and reading a lot of articles about Slayer through Guitar World mag, I was curious to hear their latest album, “World Painted Blood”. I downloaded, “World Painted Blood” album from Itunes. To my surprise I couldn’t stop listening to it all weekend. It’s, indeed, some of the best metal I ever heard. Very good songwriting and good musicianship. The guitar playing on the disc is a powerhouse and the vocals were fun. It makes me want to hear Slayer’s older music.

Some of you may not see it, but yes, I am a metal fan. I like to listen to the genre. You may not see me with long hair, tattoos, pierces, ripped up clothes and wearing old jackets, but I don’t need to look “metal” just listen to it.

I was really impressed with “World Painted Blood”. I have always been a fan of heavy music since I was a kid. I don’t think I’ll ever play this genre myself in a band, but I just listen to metal for fun. It’s inspiring music. Other than Megadeth, Metallica, The Sword, Lamb of God, you can now add Slayer to that list of my favorite metal bands. I’m hoping to see the “American Carnage Tour” concert with Slayer, Megadeth and Testament at the Civic Center in Glens Falls in Aug, plan to order tickets soon.

Kev

Finally saw, “It Might Get Loud”…

So today, I was shopping for music in Itunes, so I decided to rent “It Might Get Loud”. I had to watch it right away tonight since you only get to keep the rented film for 24 hours. I really was blown away with the film and I think it’s definitely one of the best music documentary’s I’ve ever seen. It was really powerful stuff.

I loved seeing the Edge, Jimmy Page and Jack White in a room together, talking about music and playing guitars. It really shows their passion and obsession with music and guitar playing. So many great scenes in the film. One of my favorite scenes was when the Edge took a cheap Tascam 4 track and was listening to his old demos of U2 songs that weren’t even finished back then. I also loved the scene when the Edge was playing the song “Elevation”, he explains that the hit U2 song “Elevation” is actually a simple song to play, it’s the sounds effects on the pedals that’s making the song sound challenging. “Elevation” is just a simple two chord riff in the verses. I also loved the Edge, Jimmy and Jack teaching each other how to plays songs of the bands they play in.

I respect Jack White in so many ways ’cause him and I are very similar. On the documentary, they showed how Jack wrote songs for the White Stripes. They showed footage of Jack sitting alone in a room with a guitar and a cheap tape recorder. He’ll just write the lyrics first, hit record and start playing. Not worrying the sound quality or how high tech the recording equipment is. That’s the way I always wrote and recorded music too. I never cared to get all high tech and get fancy with recording, I just wanted to record songs and just play no matter the sound quality. It can be a shitty sound or whatever. Nothing really have to be profesional when it comes to recording music and Jack White proves that.

Most profesional musicians would use all kinds of fancy and very expensive instruments and recording equipment, that they are all about perfection…but not with these guys. These guys will play with any guitar and record with any equipment, whatever they can get their hands on. They just want to play guitar and make music, that’s all they care about, period. This film gets very deep about playing the electric guitar.

It makes me want to concentrate on playing the electric guitar more than anything else. It makes me want to form myself a band and get myself out there, rockin’ in front of audiences. Just today, I played with my new electric guitar for a little while, and I had the BOSS Super Overdrive pedal on. I felt like I was in a different world and made me feel like home. The Super Overdrive pedal is a great guitar sound, kind of like a distortion pedal but not too heavy. Just a good enough pedal that I needed to get that rock n’ roll sound I want. Most of my acoustic songs that I wrote in the  past were originally intended to be electric guitar rock songs, so when I get a band, I will make them guitar rock versions.

“It Might Get Loud” is a great movie that will make you want to become a musician yourself. Do yourself a favor for all you music lovers out there, see the film and be inspired.

Kev

Not a Cool Video: “We are the World 25th” was the most horrible thing I’ve heard in years, they ruined it!!!

Lionel Richie did a horrible job composing the remake for “We are the World 25th”. If Michael Jackson was still alive, he wouldn’t like it. Michael would have made this his version and would have made this so much better. I’m sure Michael is rolling in his grave. Shame on Lionel Richie and the music industry. This version was horribly done, I’m so disgusted. Why open the video with that Justin Bieber kid? It should have opened with Miley Cyrus instead. Most of the leading vocals were done pretty horribly especially Wyclef Jeans…and toward 5:51 in the video, they added rapping to it. I expected more from this.

Where is all the real talent for the remake? How come Springsteen, Neil Young, Dave Matthews  and others weren’t a part of this? The original “We Are the World” was amazing, this version sucked hard. I didn’t like it at all.

At least KD Lang did an amazing job singing “Hallelujah” at the opening ceremony in Vancouver. That was better than this. KD Lang was phenomenal and fucking incredible up there, she looked beautiful wearing that white suit as well. When KD Lang sang up there, that had to be fucking incredible singing in front of thousands of people in Vancouver, I’m sure she couldn’t sleep all night after that. I was completely blown away. KD Lang is an amazing talent, she can sing. On a side note, how come KD Lang herself wasn’t part of the “We Are the World” remake, she would have made a good addition too.

Kev

Thought: Do you want to be a musician or do you want your web presence to be known?

The internet can be a good tool for your music but if you’re going to promote yourself on your own, you have to be careful on how you do it. I know from experience, learning my own mistakes using the web. If you want to be known as a music artist. John Mayer is going through those same experiences so him and I can relate to this somehow. In the past, when I tried to be well known as a music artist, I used to have my own official site. Promoted my music the best I can, and I used to blog personal things at the same time. If you’re going to blog your personal thoughts for the public to see, you’ll have to be careful what you say. Or you’ll get a big negative backlash which happened to me a few times before. Whether you’re writing on the web or talking to interviews for magazines, radio, newspapers, etc. You have to be careful what you say where ever you go. You say something wrong and offensive, everyone will talk about it.

I know a lot of musicians out there like to blog personal things in their myspace accounts and facebook. In my opinion, it’s a bad idea. If you want to be known as a music artist, you have to concentrate on your music and only that. Nothing else. Only work on getting your music out there and that’s it. It’s the only way to be known as a music artist.

Don’t get yourself caught up in the world of gossip, negativity and drama. If you respond to it all, your music career is heading down the wrong path. John is screwing his music career for this very reason. He’s known as a gossip celebrity and his web presence is more known than his music ’cause he keeps getting caught up in this gossip shit. If you want to be a successful musician or band, you can’t get caught up in this stuff. I know from experience. I’ll admit it.

The Albany craigslist section in the Musicians forum, I’m not naming names, but there are the same several guys trying to defend themselves and defend their talent ’cause they are being bashed on by critics. If your music is being criticized by people, don’t respond to it all. You won’t become successful that way. You’re getting yourself caught up in drama and gossip by doing just that.

Whenever I form a band and start getting serious with music again, I’ll definitely quit my entertainment blogging. I’ll bring my official site back, make a myspace music account and create a facebook music page and will only concentrate on promoting myself as a music artist. If your mission is to get your music heard, you have to concentrate on that only.

You’re a music artist and like to rant about things online. If you create online controversy, you could lose a lot of fans. Something to think about. Some musicians will think, “controversy” is cool, but the reality is, it isn’t. If you’re willing to be honest and open minded about everything and everything online, your web presence will be well known instead of your music. I know from that mistake. Unsigned musicians around the world may want to consider my advice if you dont’ want to end up like John Mayer. John Mayer had the potential to be a successful musician but he’s killing his career fast.

Kev

Sorry, John Mayer but apologies for being a racist homo pig don’t work…

John Mayer may have apologized on twitter for being a flat out disgusting racist gay moron, but it doesn’t change anything.  There is nothing wrong with white men not having a sexual attraction with black women, but if you’re going to be open and honest about it, try not to sound like a racist. It is not you, it is how you say it. It doesn’t make a white man racist for not having sexual attraction with black women however, it does make you racist when you use the “N” word, and when you say offensive things like your dick is a white supremacist.

Then he goes on to talk about Jessica Simpson’s personal life and goes on to rant about his boyfriend, Perez Hilton.

John is no stranger to controversy in the gossip world as he done things like this before, but this time he crosses the line. If John ever comes out of the closet someday which he probably will, that will probably be all over the news for months and months as well. Perez is all over John on his site. I can understand it ’cause John probably went to the club on New Year’s Eve to kiss Perez for publicity, as a ploy to get Perez going on his site. John claims he hates Perez, but I don’t buy it, since he admits he looks at his site and just did a make out session with him.

I was never a fan of John’s music, but I’ll admit that he is a killer guitar player, he’s an excellent guitarist. If John wants to be known as a music artist, he’s going to be known as a gossip celebrity forever if he don’t knock it off.

I mean, when I get back to making music and get myself a band one day, I’m probably gonna quit my entertainment blogging to focus on getting known as a music artist. If you’re a musician or a band, you got to be careful on how you promote yourself. More on that some other time.

Kev

Cool Video: Them Crooked Vultures performs on SNL last night, I’m really diggin’ em a lot!

John Paul Jones proves he can do other things besides Led Zeppelin and I remember people claimed he couldn’t!!! Them Crooked Vultures performed on SNL last night and it was a pretty tight performance. I’m gonna have to get their album from Itunes at some point ’cause I’m really liking this new band. One of the better new rock bands to come around. If TCV’s come to Albany to play a show, I’m so there. They are unique and different.

Kev

Thought: Dr. Conrad Murray visit’s MJ’s tomb…

TMZ posted Dr. Conrad Murray (Michael Jackson’s killer) visiting MJ’s grave…

http://www.tmz.com/2010/02/06/conrad-murray-michael-jackson-tomb-forest-lawn-photos/1#comments

So Dr. Conrad Murray is admitting to killing Michael Jackson and is about ready to surrender himself for it. He’s turning himself in for murdering a legendary pop star. Most would find Murray visiting MJ’s grave hateful and disrespectful to family, but, I think the main reason why he’s visiting MJ’s grave was to get one last look and some final thoughts about MJ before Murray is headed to prison. You can tell by the look on Murray’s face. He’s probably feeling really guilty for what he did. So he probably did went to MJ’s grave for forgiveness, I believe. He’s feeling horrible to what he did to Michael Jackson, so he went there for some time alone.

Most people commenting in TMZ are not very smart as they are making speculations and assuming things on why Dr. Murray went there. Dr. Murray had his own reasons. You can definitely tell he looks guilty as hell and very sad. Looking at his face, he’s thinking to himself that he wished he never killed MJ.

It’s clear Dr. Murray was jealous of MJ’s fame and fortune, he did it in a jealous rage. It was MJ’s responsibility and his decision to take the drugs from Dr. Murray, yes, but knowing that Dr. Murray is a psychiatrist, he probably manipulated MJ to take more drugs, talked him into it.

It’s a shame that MJ is gone. The music industry isn’t the same without him.

Kev

Report: Howard Stern, in talks to replace Simon Cowell on “Idol”???

Rumours hit the internets that Howard Stern is in talks to replace Simon Cowell on “Idol”. Source claims that “Idol” just started searching for a replacement, denying the rumours, but who knows.

If they are serious about Howard, they better be careful with him because Stern is one crazy guy. I don’t see Howard being mean and nasty to bad singers at all. He might make fun of them and crack jokes about them, but he definitely won’t be that mean knowing that Stern is actually a friendly guy…and he has a sense of humor with an NC-17 attitude. Can you see Stern saying a bunch of perverted and sexual things to female singers that are beautiful? Do you want him doing that? He’ll be like, “Oh you look so hot, look at those breasts”, like he says on his radioshow constantly. Do you want Stern asking singers, “How often they get laid”?

Sorry, but Stern is definitely the wrong pick. I’m sure Stern will be ordered by FOX to clean his act up for a family friendly show, but he won’t be able to help himself but crack out dirty jokes by accident. Everyone knows how Stern really is. I can see Stern being nice and friendly to all the beautiful female singers no matter how bad they sing. Plus, who wants to see Howard Stern and Ellen Degeneres making fun of each other all the time? I don’t. Stern belongs on his radioshow which is what he’s best at! He don’t need, “Idol”.

http://news-briefs.ew.com/2010/02/05/american-idol-howard-stern-rumors/

Kev