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Questions on commercialism in work

As spontaneous as it may sound, I wrote my thoughts on what I feel about commercialism & consumerism in less that 10 minutes and this came up;

“I begin to feel a sense of regret; watching 5 movies in the cinema isn’t really a fun thing to be done weekly:

I’m afraid that I might have lost the sense of having the emotive enjoyment act of commercialization in enjoying the movies I look forward to. Besides, walking in guilt of enjoying movies such as Beowulf further complicate the situation.

Am I then, a self-professed individual who is just trying to be enlightened under the lamps of anti-commercialization? I hate almost everything played on HITZ FM. I pick my clothes based on their less-availability most of the time. Perhaps, in due time, I might pick the Backstreet Boys as an inspiration to keep in-touch with more people; instead of enjoy hearing them singing on air waves, just in case we both can make some extra cash in the return.

Talking about design; I rather speak to designers about Armin Vit rather than David Carson. I would prefer to denounce the usage of Geometric shapes, Grey color and Minimalism.

I rather keep silent my ambitions to play like Steve Vai or have hair like Slash. I’m pretty happy to be speaking about Robert Lockwood Jr or John McLaughlin over Jimi Hendrix and BB King. Of course, Anthrax over Nirvana.

In a few days later perhaps, I might change my mind and enjoy listening to remixes of Sean Kingston’s latest hit. Maybe even collecting Manga comics or Levis jeans. Maybe, if I watch Hitman today, I will like. Perhaps on Wednesday, it will suck.

Am I the only person involved in this issue? I wonder.”

(Taken from my blog post on Facebook)

Am I the only one stuck in this pool? I never enjoyed staying static in a certain game, practice, discipline, etc. I rather move on from that zone and do else. Be it an ugly statement or whatever, I just want to keep moving on. As disturbing it might be, you still have got a mission to do besides keep on going:

Applying that to design, I always try to avoid working on something of the same look as a previous project. This is certainly disturbing as I don’t think I’m capable of repeating myself regularly in various projects. As much as I enjoy doing minimalist a while ago, I enjoy filling up white space nowadays. As much as I like to propose a toned down idea those days, I give my later proposals a louder shout and a bigger bang to the face nowadays.

Does making people happy with recycled ideas makes my time and effort worth it then? Does art directing like Roger Black help? Or perhaps, get inspirations from Bill Cahan?

A while ago, I lessen my playing to very basic rhythm lines, appreciating the space between each instrument. I find this extremely challenging and appreciated the importance of details. Last weeks band practice, gave me a 52 bar solo and I filled up the entire song with guitar licks, trading the silence for melody.

By practicing this, is it unhealthy for a designer? Or a musician? Does it spoil or take away professionalism from us? Is this cruel? Is Darth Vader willing going pink for a global cause. Or is this constant innovation? Feeling like Beowulf lost in the city. Is this unwise or just plain human ego? Pardon me, I need some time to meditate:

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DARK FOREST!

I’m very very busy with the Kancil Awards website now. Work for the Kancil Annuals have not started yet.

Just click on the link below to listen to a song that expresses my current feelings:

It’s all guitars.

Edit: I realized I forgot about the bass guitar for the song.

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Latest guitar teacher

Meet Dave Weiner, my guitar tutor for the past few months. Dave has been touring with Steve Vai for the past 8 years upon Steve’s request and has been making wonderful music since.

After realizing that I couldn’t really commit myself to attend lessons, I realize I needed to do something before my hobby goes down the drain. I turned to Dave’s Riff of the Week using ITunes to download these weekly Podcasts. They have been of great help in refreshing on the basics and kerning beats and notes on the fretboard. I don’t really follow every lessons thought directly but they do keep my mind fresh about how things should be approached in music.

Upon getting an old nice and sweet sounding Yamaha F-20 guitar amp last week, for only RM180, I’m recharged after not having an amplifier for the past 4 years.

Last week, Riff of the Week saw it’s 100th episode on-air.

P.s: Other that Riff of the Week, I also subscribe to Typeradio and have discontinued some other subscriptions due to limited space on my Mac.

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Aqualung

Aqualung, Cinderella  (Memory Man)

I’m on a roll, Everything I touch turns into gold…

I caught me hooking on Aqualung

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Guitar World Magazine October Issue

This is probably the coolest issue for this year other than the David Gilmour issue. You can check the preview of the October issue DVD here.

So cool.

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A free song from Junkman!

Before that, here are a few things:

1) My brother, namely Heman Ling, yes, HEMAN is going for a 3 day cruise to Langkawi. Hope he finds inner peace during the cruise.

2) Younger brother Ezra, 6 years old, which has been attending Mental Mathematic classes, finds it hard to cope up. Classes are conducted in Chinese. Sometimes, I feel a little bit guilty for teaching him how to be a boy; Heman’s way and my way.

3) Sharlene shifted into her new room near her old house in Sea Park, with an attached washroom with heater and a superb hilltop view; overseeing Genting Highlands, The Petronas Twin Towers, KL Tower, etc. There’s this signboard screaming out loud: “Lisa De Inn”, at the lower left corner of the view.

4) Me? I did spring cleaning last weekend and need to wash my car.. Oh, I went to the Herman Li guitar clinic last Sunday.

5) And finally for all ye faithful ones who ever bother reading my blog entries, there’s something really special for you:

( I think this will keep a lot of people talking about it.. I actually am thinking twice whether to put this up or not, took me a while to put this up)

Don’t ask me who Mr. Junkman is.

>:)

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My Top 10 Hard Rock Lead Vocalist list

1 Freddie Mercury (Queen) — I definitely have to put him first for his level of musicianship, showmanship, charisma, energy, etc. The music of Queen spans widely from baroque classical up to probably one of the heaviest sounds in the history of rock. Band members of Queen including Brain May, John Deacon and Roger Taylor all have written no. 1 hits and have deep respect for Freddie. He wrote my all time favorite song, Bohemian Rhapsody. Freddie Mercury, like what John Deacon told the press when Robbie Williams was scheduled to record a special version of the classic hit We Are The Champion, “Freddie can never be replaced.”

2 Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin) — Why? Because he is in the world’s best band. Creating an entire generation of head bangers and devoted followers. The voice and tone of Plant definitely cannot be denied.

3 Syd Barret, Roger Waters & David Gilmour (Pink Flyod) — Eventough Pink Floyd doesn’t have much to do with the history of hard rock, they sure do influence bands around town. The madness of Syd, the experiments of Roger Waters and the melodious David adds up to one of the best bands up to today. Comfortably Numb remains a top listed song in my list. I have a photographic image of the guitar solo in my mind.

4 Ian Gillian (Deep Purple) — When you listen closely to Child in Time, you will know why I love his screaming so much.

5 Brain Johnson (AC/DC) — If you can have the dynamics to run up and down the stage during a live stadium concert in front of 20’000 people and still have a stiff upper lip, you must be Johnson. He is not singing on stage, he is actually shouting as if someone’s choking him hard.

6 Ozzy Osbourne (Solo,Black Sabbath) — No need any explanation. I don’t promote darkness but good music.

7 James Hetfield (Metallica) — I’m a fan of Hetfield. How does he play those amazing riffs and brutal chords?! He has probably the most technically in-tune right arm. Fast, bold and precise. Oh, brutal too.

8 Bono (U2) — Being the biggest band in the world, you have to give credit to Bono’s superb vocals and song writing. Not only that, but his interest in humanity and his honesty in the lyrics he writes. U2 is one band I really want to watch live. Everntough you can’t really classify the band as purely hard rock but they introduced another side of rock and prepared the path for many to dig into other other rock genres. Besides from that, a very strong stage presence and also catchy melodious tunes.

9 David Lee Roth (Van Halen, solo) — He worked with two of the worlds greatest guitarists, Eddie Van Halen and Steve Vai. There are rumors spreading around that there will be a Van Halen tour this coming September. Lets just wait and see what happens, but, being loud and hairy, you have the advantage of being bad while stand at the spotlight. I don’t really want to see him live but it will be acceptable to listen to some of his albums, Eat em’ and smile, skyscraper, and the early Van Halen albums from 1975 to 1985.

10 Glen Hughes( Deep Purple, Solo) — He’s got the screaming evil laugh when he sings. Bad. Bad enough for me.

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Sometimes it’s quite emberessing to mention a list of your favourites. When Stairway to Heaven was played across the radio more than a hundred times a day in the early 1970′s, back then, some even didn’t wanted to be known as a Led Zeppelin fan.

I wanted to list down my favourite hard rock lead vocalists. I mistakenly, due to unproper file organizations edited in wrong info for a live website that resulted in two hours plus of reworking on a certain project. Believe me, its really frustrating to know that you could have save some time doing something else.:(

Neutralization of things, or, situations like these, best recommendation would be to listen to some hard rock. I compiled this list for those who are listening to too much of Nu Metal, Pop Rock, Emo Rock and Girl Rock (personified term for Avril). Hard is the way to go.

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