I just set comments back to where anyone can post a comment, but please keep attacks to a minimum if you want them posted. I just delete any post that attacks or insults me. We can get into friendly debates and discussions. It’s not that hard. Keep it cool please. Thank you.

Kev

My main focus in guitar playing right now is trying to improve my lead guitar chops, which I have been trying to do ever since I first picked up the guitar 18 years ago. I want to become a great lead guitar player, just like my heroes. Really trying the best I can. My goal is to knock people’s socks off and melt some faces with the solos. When I get a band, I want to be both the rhythm guitarist and the lead guitarist. You need to be an all around guitarist by being good at both. Learning lead guitar may seem pretty easy, the theory stuff may seem pretty easy, but the key to getting good at lead guitar is phrasing. I must work on my phrasing more which is getting worked on. Phrasing, is what makes your lead guitar solos sound more musical and tasteful. Making the guitar solos sounds like they’re singing a song. Guitar solos don’t always have to be about fast notes and showing off, they need to be musical and melodic.

I refuse to take lessons with other professional instructors, ’cause I want my own sound and style.

Soon, I’m going to start making my own backing tracks in garageband, just to practice my chops, or even better, I should practice just by jamming with other guitar players. If I’m going to record a full band album in the studio someday, I’m going to want to play my own guitar solos on it. So I’m trying my best, to become a more professional player at lead guitar.

I feel I’m getting much better at rhythm guitar since I play with a metronome a lot more often now, but I still need to improve the lead guitar chops. I do want to become the best lead guitarist I can be, and I’m not rushing it. Don’t want to get too ahead of myself and take my time. Seriously, I’ve been practicing and learning pretty hard. Spending a few hours a day doing this stuff.  I don’t plan to write out guitar solos at all ’cause in my opinion, that’s a cheap way of doing it. Winging it all out and improvising is the way you’re supposed to do it. I’m trying to improve my ear training and improv skills too which is getting easier.

I just want to play like my heroes: Jimmy Page, Satriani, Hendrix, and Neil Young, but I need to have my own style as well, of course.

Someday, you guys are going to be like, “Damn, listen to this guy go…”. That’s my goal, and I will get there.

Kev

I know about Ravi Shankar’s death, I’m planning on writing an obit on him soon. Probably tomorrow. Don’t feel like it tonight. I’m watching the Sandy Relief concert on TV tonight.

Kev

Actually, I think I will go see, “Zero Dark Thirty”, Kathryn Bigelow’s, Bin Laden movie in theater. The film is getting positive reviews everywhere. I haven’t seen anything negative said about the film so far. Early reviews are coming in. The film comes out the week, after “The Hobbit” comes out so I’ll see it then. Only three more films to see left for 2012: “The Hobbit”, “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Django Unchained”. As soon as I see those three films, I’ll get right to work on my “Top 15 Best Films of 2012”.

I think I’m going to hold off on the “Top 10 – Best Music Albums of 2012”, as well, there is still a few other music albums I want to hear.

I’ll have both of these lists up soon. I’m not ready to post ’em yet. What will be the no. 1 choice for both lists? Too soon to say yet, I don’t know. Even I don’t know what my no. 1 choices will be quite yet, although I have a few pretty good ideas. They could change though. The year is not quite over yet. I think I’ll have these lists up the week after Christmas. I think that’s the best time.

Kev

There has been a lot of this. People using the internet to grieve deaths of loved ones in their lives, either their family members, friends, or a hometown person. Especially, on facebook. It happens all over facebook. When a loved one passes away, they’ll put up a post in their walls about it, and their supporters will write back to them saying stuff like, “My condolences”, “If you need anything, let me know”, etc. blah blah blah… you get the deal. I’m sure you’ve seen it all over facebook, too. I understand it’s hard dealing with death of a loved one. Somebody important. So lets ask the question again from the title of this topic, should you really grieve publicly? Is this a good idea?

The answer is no. It is not a good idea…, and here is why for a few big reasons. 1) It should be a private matter 2) It should be off the public out of respect for family and friends 3) This is not what the deceased person you’re grieving for would want.

Believe me, I know what it is like to lose a loved one. I’ve lost a few important people in my life this year, and I try not to make it public. It’s a bad idea for a lot of reasons. A lot of friends and family shouldn’t know about their death ’cause of facebook. It also might anger some people.

My heart goes out to the two Shen kids that were killed in that Northway crash, but should they be getting all this attention in the local media? In my opinion, no they shouldn’t. It should be a private thing for their family & friends. Why does it have to be a huge public thing? Oh that’s right. It helps the news get more ratings and helps people buy more papers. That’s why this story is such a huge media frenzy. My facebook newsfeed is all over this Shen car crash story. I never posted about it in facebook ’cause I don’t know them. No offense to the local people out there, I’m just being real.

The same thing happened to that young girl in Greenwich, that was killed in a truck accident. That story started making the local news.

Again, no disrespect in any of this. It’s sad that these things happen, and it’s terrible. Yes. They shouldn’t be made public. Then of course, with today’s technology, social media and the local news, there’s nothing you can do about it. The local news are pretty cold and evil people. I don’t watch local news anymore. Sad, but true. It’s honestly kind of annoying seeing the Shen kids get all this attention in facebook. I never understood it.

People die everyday. Life moves on. I only grieve for people who I know really well. Grieving for celebrity deaths is okay ’cause they’re public figures, but for people you don’t know, there’s something wrong there. I’m not trying to be an ass, just had to rant, so no offense to anybody out there.

Kev

Edit to add: I was kind of nervous writing this blog post, ’cause it maybe controversial, but hell, maybe I finally made a post that everyone actually agrees with? Who knows?

If you get the hint on why I delete comments or close them in blog posts, it’s because I can’t accept people bashing me, or using this site to ridicule me. The sad part about the internet is that some morons out there would follow me, read my stuff and make me look ridiculous ’cause they find it entertaining and hilarious to them. I want nothing to do with those kind of people. Your comment gets posted if it’s positive, on topic, or adds value to the discussion. You can disagree with me on posts all you want to, but hate talk, I can’t accept. I’m a human being too. Treat me how you want to be treated, and things would be fine. If the hate posts keep coming, I’ll have no choice but to shut down the comments for good. I’ll do it believe me, and I don’t give a fuck if you don’t like it. I think the reason people find bashing me entertaining ’cause they’ve all seen the Legend do it in youtube and else where and they’ve seen other people in the music scene do it, so they wanted to join the bandwagon. Here’s a big FUCK YOU to all of them. If you’re going to post here, talk to me like a real conversation in person. I don’t deal with bullshit. Just cool it, please. It ain’t that hard. I’m serious.

There’s too many immature people out there, and I can’t deal with people like that.

Kev

… I just know that I have supportive people out there who have my back toward my music. My “fanbase” may not be as big as EBJ, but I have supporters out there. I still have fans who supported me from my gigs years back and they stayed loyal to this day. Again, it maybe hard for everyone to see, I can understand why some would think I’m crazy, but I know what I’m talking about. Sometimes supporters just randomly discover me on the internet as well. I’m not being an ego-maniac, here. I know my music gets treated in a negative direction quite often, and sometimes people would write in, saying how much they like my music. It’s letting me know that some still have my back.

I put a rant about negative feedback about my music in facebook the other day, a few replied, and several gave it a thumbs up. A few said, I’m good at what I do musically (they weren’t musicians or family members either). It’s just that the local music scene finds it’s difficult to see that I am a talented artist.

One day, I will get the recognition I deserve with my music. Somehow, I will get there. Just wait and give it time. There’s a lot of musicians around here who think I have potential, and there are plenty of musicians around here who have my back as well.

I know it. I get a lot of “haters”, but I do have my share of supporters. I like the mixed reactions. It doesn’t bother me. I think my next round of songs could potentially give me that respect I deserve. I’m just like every other musician, ya know? I want to be accepted. Liked by as much people as possible, and want a lot of people listening to my songs too.

Btw, in my blog, I don’t mean to delete comments or close ’em, I just want positive replies on here, that’s all. I don’t have time for trolls or haters, I just try to keep my life a good one as possible. I don’t deal with negative people, remember that.

Kev

I haven’t been writing any songs lately ’cause I’m more focused on playing better guitar. Trying to get better at lead guitar and rhythm playing. I want to be great at both. I’m not looking to be the next guitar genius or anything, but I do want to improve so I can be taken seriously as a musician and guitar player. I’ve been focusing on modes, theory stuff, improvisation/ear training, and practicing my rhythm with a metronome a lot more often now. I figure if I want to improve as a songwriter, I need to get better at the instrument.

I’m thinking of getting away from the rock n’ roll thing for a while and start listening to some blues & jazz music. Listening to blues & jazz would help, I think. If I want to be a great rock n’ roll guitarist, I need to listen to more blues and jazz. I have been a little bit, but I need to listen to a lot more. I do want to be a great lead guitarist and just taking my time. Not rushing ’cause there’s so much to learn.

If I want to play in a band, I need to become an actual musician, ’cause I’ll admit, I’m not the greatest guitar player in the world, but I do want to become great though.

I feel I’m an “alright” musician, but could be a lot better and working on it.

Another thing, I don’t even like my singing too much, and even thought about giving it up and just play instrumentals, like Joe Satriani or Jeff Beck. Not sure yet. been thinking about it for a long time now.

Kev

For the Top 10 Best of Music Albums, I can probably do it anytime next month, because there are no other albums out the rest of the year and nothing else good out, right now. So sometime in the middle of December, I’ll post the Best Music of 2012 list. I am pretty much done listening to this year’s albums. I only bought a little over 10 albums this year. Not much at all. Why? Simply the only reason that today’s industry is shit. Hard to find the good stuff, nowadays like I keep saying. I’ll post the music list in the next couple of weeks.

Movies, however, will have to be a late one. The Top 15 Movies of 2012 will get posted sometime in the beginning of Jan. Why? Because, Tarantino’s “Django Unchained” comes out on Christmas Day and I was planning on seeing that one as well since I’m a huge Tarantino fan. I might see that film the week after Christmas. I think I’ll wait for DVD on that “Hitchcock” movie, but I still have plans in seeing “Zero Dark Thirty” and “The Hobbit”. I would like to post the Movies list next month, but I want to see if “Django Unchained” is worthy to be on the list.

I think these two lists are gonna be good and can’t wait to do them. I like doing these lists yearly ’cause I want to give my opinion of the good stuff that came out this year. Everyone’s doing top lists all over the place, at the end of the year, so I thought it would be fun to give my own. They’ll be coming soon.

Kev

Not doing too much today like everyone else. Spent most of the morning doing some reading. Starting to re-read the Dark Tower series all over again. Just started reading Stephen King’s, “Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three”. Had turkey dinner with the family this afternoon and will take it easy, enjoy the rest of the day for myself. Watch some movies on TV or whatever. Right now, I’m watching a Joe Strummer documentary titled, “The Future Is Unwritten” on cable TV, which is interesting stuff. Later I might watch Neil Young’s “Journeys” on DVD or watch more Sons of Anarchy on Netflix, not sure.

What am I thankful for?

I’m thankful for music and how great life is. That’s it really.

Hope all is having a good, Holiday today. Lets all be positive today.

Kev