Today is the 30th anniversary of John Lennon's death. I wasn't even a year old at the time. He's without a doubt the most influential person on my life and I get chills watching this. The world would be a very different place if this never happened.
This is my first Christmas song. It's from an album of 7-9 songs that I'm working on right now. This is the only instrumental on the LP and it's also the longest track on the record too.
This is the last new video I'm posting today. This is a completely remixed version of If There Is A Day. The original version is here if you want to compare the two versions. The biggest change is that the new version adds an electric guitar, the first chorus loops a second time and the middle section is completely different.
This is the updated video for Scarecrow. The changes for this might not be as noticeable on computer speakers as the remastered audio from Revelation Dream, but if you get the free download from Bandcamp you'll definitely notice a difference when you play it on a real stereo. The bass is deeper and the kick drums are improved. The vocals are a little louder too, which gives them more clarity and makes them sound 100x better.
Here is the updated lyric video for Revelation Dream. I finally got my head around the mixing process and you can tell when you listen to th new audio.
Rock music is in decline. It doesn't chart, it's overshadowed by pop princesses and overrated corporate packages like Kanye West. There's no doubt about that. Why? Because of shit bands like Arcade Fire and Kings of Leon.
Nobody wants to listen to flat beats with even flatter vocals. It's boring and unimaginative. Modern rock bands have lost the sense of melody and it's killing the genre. The Rock N Roll bands of the late 50s and early 60s were hugely popular because the music had life. It was upbeat, energetic, and it had melody. Something sorely missing in the "flat-line" rock of today.
A few years after Rock N Roll became huge there was the folk-rock period of 65-67 where Paul McCartney wrote some of his most popular melodies. The Byrds played some amazing and influential guitar riffs that felt fully fleshed out. Compare that to Arcade Fire... See what I mean by unimaginative and boring? It's flat by comparison.
After folk-rock (with a little overlap) came the Psychedelic period that's arguably the biggest turning point in rock's history. Here again McCartney wrote some unforgettable melodies, Lennon wrote songs that felt like they came straight out of a dream. Pink Floyd could put you in a trance with songs that managed to be laid back and yet still full of energy. Bands like Arcade Fire and Kings of Leon just put you to sleep and make you dream of a more melodic song.
And I'm not just saying "the 60s were better." There's also the Punk Rock era and the Grunge and Brit-Pop years of the 90s. In fact, I'd say the 90s were almost equal to the 60s in terms of quality, influence and longevity. What's the best mainstream song I've heard in the last several months? Bring The Light by Beady Eye
The Brit-Pop legends of the 90s, Oasis (minus Noel) playing a throwback song that sounds like it came straight out of the late 50s, early 60s. Is it the greatest song in the world? No. Does it advance music? Not according to hipsters, but if you consider the fact that rock is dying of boredom and needs a jolt of energy then yeah, Bring The Light advances rock away from the abyss and back to where it should be.
Rock needs more of that and less Arcade Fire.
'Revelation Dream' is available as a free download on Bandcamp
I finally got a Bandcamp site for my music. And I finally got a band name too! 'The Four Sons'
I know there's only one of me... but the album, like most of my music, is heavily inspired by the 60s sound. And I've always loved all of those old bands with names like The Four Tops and The Four Seasons so I figured I'd go with something like that. Besides, just using my screenname (Shanny Boy seemed a little confusing. It sounds more like a rapper's nickname than a rock band/musician.
Then there's the whole "virtual band" aspect. The Blazing Son album was written as a concept album about a band of fictional characters in a fantasy world, so why not just make them the band?
I'm 51-39 on the year. (Winners in green)
I'm 47-37 on the year. (winners in green)
(Winners in green)
Here's a new slideshow video for my song Scarecrow. The slideshow is made up of a bunch of paintings I did of the Scarecrow character from the virtual band on Blazing Son
I was 7-1 in my college picks yesterday. I'm still a little surprised that Texas lost for a second straight week. I've got a lot of questions about how this will affect the polls, but first my NFL picks. (winners in green)
Look at all those Top 25 match-ups! (winners in green)
Have you ever been listening to a song that starts off with some long drone or a quiet background noise that just carries on and on? It sounds like the song is building up to something really great... but it never happens. You keep waiting for the song to start but it never seems to. It drives you crazy and you change the station or skip to the next song, don't you?
That's because it sucks! It's annoying and people don't generally like it. Some people may approach this discussion from an artistic perspective and try to defend the artists with something like "well people just have a short attention span" or something like that... but that's not really true. It just sucks. Plain and simple. And most people won't sit and listen to something they don't like. Don't make excuses.
So when you write your own songs, don't do it! If you like the mellow, ambient, droning sounds to set the mood for your laid-back, mellow song... hurry up and get it out of the way. Trust me - dragging it out isn't gonna change anything. If it doesn't work within the first few seconds, it's not gonna work in the first minute and a half either.
These games don't look all that exciting. (winners in green)
Had a terrible day with my NFL picks yesterday. 35-29 on the year now. (winner in green)
I went 5-1 in college picks yesterday. I'm 32-24 on the year. (winners in green)
I'm 27-23 on the year. (winners in green)
This is just an acoustic demo and the sound quality isn't studio perfect. It's just me with an acoustic playing the rhythm and singing the lead vocals.
Thursday and Friday's college picks. (winners in green)
I haven't posted any of my recent cover songs on here in a while, so here are a few. The first one is this CCR cover.
The last songwriting post I wrote was about how long a lot of unsigned/indie artists' songs are. One of the less obvious reasons for that is the tempo.
A lot of unsigned artists write songs that move so slow it puts you to sleep. Part of that is because the songs are meant to be slower which just ends up being melancholy and boring, but I'm not gonna talk about that specifically here.
I've listened to several songs by indie artists that should be more energetic than they are because the tempo is just a few beats per minute slower than they sound like they should be.
If you're an indie artist and you're familiar with audacity (which you more than likely are) take a .wav file of one of your favorite band's tracks and put it in audacity. Now go to "change speed" and slow it down about 2 or 3 percent. The difference may not seem that big at first, but if you play the two different speeds back to back a few times you should start to notice that the slower track doesn't sound as good. That's because it's not.
Now go through some of the songs you've written and recorded and re-evaluate the BPM and consider speeding it up. You'll probably want to re-record the song, since just speeding it up in audacity can actually change the key of the song and make your voice sound drastically different.
After reading this, keep in mind that most people prefer upbeat songs to sad songs on an average day.
I'm not sure what my season total is right now. I'm 3-3 with the Notre Dame/Michigan State game in overtime and the Iowa/Arizona game just started, so I can be 5-3 or 3-5.
Here are tomorrow's NFL picks. (winners in green)
If I have another bad week because of my ACC picks I may not pick another game with the ACC in it all year. (winners in green)
*UPDATE* I'm 2-3 so far and it looks like Texas is gonna win, so that'll move me to 3-3, and Michigan State just tied it up so I may get that one too.
I need some wins! (winners in green)
Before I begin I have to get this out of the way: Most music sucks. There's no sense in making it worse, so stop.
I've been listening to my recently created Last.fm radio station and as an unsigned indie artist, most (read all) of the similar artists that get played on my station are the same. *NOTE* I don't choose who the "similar" artists are on Last.fm - they do all of that. So when I listen to the radio station, I'm hearing all of these bands for the first time. And most of them suck.
The first thing I've noticed is that most of the songs are well over five minutes long. I don't have a single song that I've recorded that's five minutes long. Because that's too long. There is a reason why radio stations don't play a lot of long songs, and it's the same reason most big labels don't usually let their artists put out long tracks as their lead singles. That reason is simple: People have a very short attention span.
If you're writing a song that's five or six minutes long you better change things up a lot. I mean Stairway To Heaven a lot, or Paranoid Android a lot. When people sit and listen to the same riff playing over and over it becomes more annoying than anything else - especially if it's not a very good riff (and most indie songs don't feature a lot of great riffs)
The radio stations don't want their listeners to change the station because the same song has been playing for ten minutes. They also don't want to play a single song and then have to go to commercial break because the song took forever.
It doesn't really matter weather you're talking about an FM radio station or an internet radio... people's short patience for songs that drag out doesn't change, so keep it short and simple please.
I could go on forever about this (which would be ironic) but there's a football game on! And besides, if you don't get it by now I can't help you.
My NFL picks has been a lot better than my college picks so far. Let's hope that holds up.
I had a terrible day yesterday. Fuck you, Virginia Tech.
Week 1 of the NFL. (Winners in green)
It's week 2 of the College Football season and we're just a day away from week 1 of the NFL season!
I'm not doing as good as I expected so far, and with all the big match-ups on Saturday I'm gonna have to be on my game to stay above .500. (winners in green)
It's time for some new picks, and time for the big boys now. That's right, the NFL opening game! I'm gonna go ahead and make my picks for Thursday and Friday's college games. (winners in green)
I've got one more cover song to post today. This one is 'Death Of A Clown' by The Kinks. I know the Kinks have seen a kind f resurgence lately, but even with that I think they're one of the most underrated rock bands of all time.
I've always loved this song, even though it's not one of my favorite Kinks songs.
If you listen carefully you can start to hear my voice about to go out half-way through the song. I was really shouting on this one.
'Child Of Nature' was a song that John Lennon wrote during the White Album sessions. The band ultimately decided to scratch it. Lennon eventually re-recorded it with new lyrics and it became 'Jealous Guy'.
This is my cover of the original 'Child Of Nature'. I know it's not as good as Lennon's version, but I still like it.
'Bad To Me' was a song that John Lennon wrote for Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas. Their version is ok, Lennon's is better.
This version is me. I'm playing the composition a little differently. I don't have a camera so I had to make a video of the lyrics instead.
I'm off to my typical good start this season at 7-2.
It's almost time for the big game of the week. I've got a lot to say about this one, but first...
I was 3-1 today. I told you the UNC/LSU game would be close... it doesn't get any closer than that. I still feel like Carolina deserved to win the game. It's pretty impressive with as many players as they had out on suspensions.
I'll have my pick for the big Monday night game up tomorrow afternoon (I'm picking Va Tech)
4-1 in yesterday's picks. Wow, I couldn't have been any more wrong on the Pitt/Utah game.
I'll have tomorrow's picks up in a little while (and this season's sidebar scoreboard too)
It's that time again! It doesn't feel like it's been a year already. (My picks are in green)
Revelation Dream - by Shanny Boy - The best home videos are here
This is the last time I'm gonna re-make this song/video... I promise! I re-recorded the vocals and then completely remixed the music and I think the whole thing sounds better now. The new video is a higher quality and the music is in WAV format so it shouldn't lose as much quality when it uploads to youtube and metacafe. (That's if the fucking youtube video even uploads. I swear I've tried to upload it 3 times now and it fucked up the first two times and is still "processing" now... If you've ever uploaded a video on youtube you probably know what I'm talking about.
Same team, same pitcher, same opponent, same position, same play... the only thing different is the center-fielder's name. I still think the Masato Akamatsu play was a little better though.
The American ballparks really need to shorten their fences...
And here's the Youtube version. I'd prefer you watch it here because YouTube doesn't destroy your audio quality as much as Metacafe (which even that site isn't even close to as bad as Yahoo Videos)
For the best audio quality go to Last.fm and listen to the audio only version. (the youtube video is embedded on the last.fm page, too)
This is possibly the greatest play I've ever seen in professional sports anywhere in the world. First of all, just the ability to jump up on a wall that size (both height and width - it's not exactly a wide platform) is amazing. He did grab a rail to help pull himself up, but that's just as impressive if you ask me.
Then there's the fact that he had his timing down so precise that he made it up there at exactly the right moment to catch the ball. I've never seen anything like it.
There have been some dunks from NBA players that come close - like Vince Carter's famous slam dunk contest...
There have been miraculous hail mary passes - See: Doug Flutie...
I remember Michael Vick's freshman year at Va Tech when he first gained recognition on a national level for doing a running jump-flip over a defender into the end zone...
And similarly, there have been linebackers jump completely over the offensive line at the exact moment of the snap to sack the quarterback...
There have been similar wall climbs in MLB - go watch a highlight reel of Ken Griffey Jr. There are plenty from him, including one where he actually ran up the side of the wall and made the catch that's usually the first thing I think of when I hear the name Griffey Jr...
But even that doesn't compare to this. You may disagree... but you're wrong!
This is officially the Shan Lee Cook blog's winner in the category of Most Amazing Play In Sports History.*
*(sorry, no prizes)
I wrote this song when I was about 15 years old. It didn't sound like this back then though. I used to just play the rhythm on an acoustic guitar and just sit and play 10 minute versions of it.
I found a bunch of old tapes I recorded back then and realize now, while listening to them, that I must have been really really high when I recorded them. If the me that's writing this met the 15 year old me that made those recordings... I'd probably have to beat the shit out of myself.
16 years later and I've added a bass, drums and some string instruments. I re-wrote all new lyrics (with a few lines from the original) and re-recorded it and I honestly believe it's an amazing song now.
The musical composition is nowhere near as complex as the rest of the stuff I've written over the last few months - especially songs like If There Is A Day or Mr. Frost - but I think it's simplicity is part of it's appeal.
Lyrically, I used the violent imagery of mother nature and a falling civilization to describe the musical flow and vice versa. When I say "everything stops and time stands still" the song goes into a break, and when I say "stars fall out of the sky in madness" the strings come in behind the main rhythm.
Interesting side-note (maybe) - The King Is Dead started out as a remix of this song before I decided to make it a follow-up/sequal and (hopefully) put it on the same album.
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