Avenged sevenfold's newest album, Nightmare.. TEN STARS

To be a Heavy Metal Band, you need to have a lot of dedication. Metal core band Avenged Sevenfold had no difficulty delivering head pounding guitar riffs from Zacky Vengeance and Synister Gates, and heart felt vocals and yells from lead singer M. Shadows on the new album entitled NIGHTMARE. Avenged Sevenfold's drummer Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan (Who passed early december of last year) Had the Drum tracks all written just before his death. Mike Portnoy (Of Dream Theater) was asked to record Jimmy's drums on the album and join them on the road for the Nightmare tour. He did an excellent job on executing jimmy's drum tracks.

The opening song off of the new album is entitled Nightmare; it was released digitally on May 18th of this year as a single to promote and raise awareness for the new album. overall, the song was a masterpiece in my eyes. The beginning of the song starts with a piano playing what seemed to be "Horror" like. It's followed by a guitar melody mimicking the piano piece. The Piano fades out and the rest of the song is a brutal beating (I mean that in the best way possible)

The rest of the album's songs are all the same.. opening with melodies and get faster and heavier. If someone tried to "Air Guitar" Synister Gates' Solos on this album, your fingers would cramp up after 30 seconds.

The 10th song on the album called "Fiction" changed the albums pace. The whole song is mostly a piano track followed by occasional guitar chords. It is my personal favorite of the album because Jimmy's vocals can be heard during the chorus of the album. Jimmy also wrote the piano piece on that track.

Overall, this album is a 10/10 stars. The instruments sounded perfect, crisp, and clean.

GO OUT AND BUY THE ALBUM!

Meaning of life, shattered.

The question that will be asked until the end of time; What is the meaning of life?
Well, in my personal experience of living in this world and society, I strongly believe that the meaning of life is to find your own meaning. Now, what would happen if you have your meaning, or a dream etc, and it gets shattered by an event or time of your life, what then?

It's a difficult thing to talk about because nobody wants to talk about there dreams being shattered or crushed. It's not in our nature to talk about that. But lets say you want to be the best guitarist in the world, and you are getting there, you play a few shows around your area and people love you. Your dream is slowly coming true. Then you get a bad car accident and you get major nerve damage in your hand, you can no longer play guitar, at least as good as your used too. All hopes and dreams of becoming a great guitarist are lost. How do you deal with it?

Some people would say you should dream more than one dream, a lot of people may disagree because everybody has a dream that they know that they want to do, they don't want anybody to tell them not too. In my opinion, i think you choose a dream as a category, such as fashion, something with cars, something with music. That way, you have your dream to be a part of something, because there are so many contributions to every lifestyle. Every fashion designer needs a tailor, every car manufacturer needs people to sell their products, and every great band needs a manager/record producer/etc.

I believe that if you have a dream, for one, set a reachable goal; there will ALWAYS be a better guitarist than everybody else one way or another. Second, you should always keep your eyes open. If you keep a goal set on just one dream, something even greater would pass you by and you wouldn't know it.

Keep your eyes open, and believe.

I Think Celebrities Suck

I've decided to make a list of random things that I want to do before I die.

1. Go on a Motorcycle ride in Arizona to see all of the mountains and such.
2. Play a concert for a crowd of 10,000 or more people.
3. Go on a tour with my band all across the U.S
4. Go to Florida... Just because.
5. Go to New York City to see the Statue of Liberty
6. I want to go to California and see the Hollywood Sign
7. Prank call 436 people... Don't ask about the number of people, its a personal goal.
8.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4vW3fsJ8pk9.
10. Win a pie eating contest
11. Live off of crab legs for 3 days... I will probably throw up, but whatever.
12. Meet Ozzy Osbourne.
13. Get PUNK'D by Ashton Kutcher
14. PUNK Ashton Kutcher
15. Learn to Play the organ
16. Master the art of Call of Duty
17. Throw a T.V off the top of a building... making sure nobody is directly under me :D
18. Have a room in my house that has trampolines for walls, floor, and ceiling.
19. Own a 2010 Camaro
20. Make a complete replica of the Iron Man suit.


Wish me luck!

A little Piece of Heaven

Being a musician, I can't help but think about the necessities that every musician and music performer should do when it comes down to Putting on a concert. Think about a concert that you have been to in your life, whether it was last night, last year, or ten years ago. What was the best part about the concert? The music? The lights? The people? Or was it the fact that the band put on a great show?

As a person who plays music and enjoys going to concerts, I love when the musicians putting on the concert know how to move the crowd and get them going. Getting the crowd involved on way or another. For example, I went to see the Band Avenged Sevenfold a few years ago, and during the concert, the lead singer said "Wow, I'm pretty tired, who wants to come up and sing the next song?" The crowd went wild. They got the crowd involved and they picked a random person from the crows to sing the next song. In my opinion, i think that is a great way to put on a show. If they played a concert when they just play the songs, what's the point? I can just sit in my room and listen to the Album.

That is the way to put on an awesome show; Get the crowd INVOLVED!

When I put on concerts, no matter how many people are there, I will always get the crowd involved.

Random Post

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZat5TbRO3A

Higher Ground By the Chili Peppers is a pretty awesome song if you ask me. I respect a lot of music for a lot of different reasons. One of the reasons I love this music video is because it's random and colorful; I think that is an important aspect to a great music video, because it should grab your attention, one way or another, because if you have a dull music video even if the music is good, it's just better when there is a lot of color.

Higher Ground is an amazing song from the beginning with the roaring bass, the group vocal at the chorus, and the awesome guitar.
I suggest this song to anybody who loves jumping around and having fun.
Pretty Awesome.

Power Of Music (The Curse)

Pearl Jam - Alive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGiTPgvKktM

I was thinking about the power of sound and music, and i thought of this song.
Pearl Jam's, Alive was an anthem for every kid who wanted to rebel and stick it to the haters along with the rest of pearl Jam's Debut album called "Ten." I agree completely.

I was watching Vh1 Storytellers on Pearl jam a few years days ago and Eddie Vedder was telling the story about the song "Alive." He remembered this story as "The Curse." Because he wrote the song about the time where he realized that the man that he thought was his father, wasn't his dad, and his real dad died years ago. The reason he considered the song a "Curse" was because he had to learn to accept the fact that his father is dead, and he is still ALIVE.. I can't even imagine how confused i would be.

After the album was released, alive was an overnight hit; with the ever-so popular chorus "I'm still alive," Eddie Vedder wrote that chorus as a curse; as a way of dealing with the unfortunate truths that he discovered not so many years before. Vedder recalls as the audience grew over the years, and seeing everybody respond to the chorus as a celebration, it lifted the curse for him.. And he is now peace of mind with those demons that haunted him for so many years.

That is why i think music is as powerful as an ocean. The wave is your voice, if it hits you just right, it can make you cry. When water seeps into rock, it can make it crumble, If you write a song on guitar with passion and emotion, they can seep under your skin and make you crumble as well. As you can tell from the length of this post, i am very passionate about the music i write and listen too.

Anyways, let me know what you think about this post, if you agree, disagree, or just want to talk about this topic some more.

Yeah...

I love playing guitar. Out of all the things that I have seen in my short time her on earth, Guitar is the only thing that has not betrayed me, or anything. I love Making music, I don't do it to pass the time, i do it because i love it and i feel it is a great way to get out stress. That is the reason i love to go play concerts because we can feed off eachothers energy and the crowd.

Chloe don't no better.

So i was on youtube the other night and i was listening to Pearl Jam. It was a pretty good night.
Before Pearl Jam got together, the drummer and 2 guitarists were in another band by the name of Mother Love Bone.
They broke up because the lead singer, Andy Wood, died of a heroin overdose the night before their major label debut.
Anyway, I was listening to pearl jam, and in the related video's section, they had a song by the name of "Chloe Dance/Crown of Thorns" I thought the name sounded odd, so i clicked on it.

The song was about 8 minutes, but since the song is cut in half, the beginning (Chloe Dancer) is a 2 minute piano piece with Andy singing about a girl. I thought that those 2 minutes were the most heart felt 2 minutes that have been recorded (in my opinion of course.)

Here is the link -----http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lH0gnwtSEGI

Please take a look at the song; at least the first few minutes

July

Right now, it's late June, and it still doesn't feel like summer. haha.
I think once july gets here it will be better because of the carnivals and the fourth of July.
I hope that this summer will be good. I get to see my friends perform at battle of the bands, so that will be fun.
Hopefully next year my band will be at battle of the bands. That would be pretty Bee- Aye.
The band and i are actually writing a demo to record and the recordings should be done sometime in August. I am going to be distributing the CD sometime around then at school and other places as well. I'm going to be making about 200 CDs with the songs on them. about 5 of our best songs that we are proud of and a few covers by our favorite bands.
That another thing i will be doing in July, recording the Demo and writing more material. I'm Probably going to make a new Youtube account for the band and put up videos of recording, practicing and other crazy stuff.
I'll post more information about it in a later post.
Happy Summer.

BAZEEK

Okay. So i saw a movie the other day, and I was pretty impressed. It was happy, sad, intense, and amazing.
The movie: TOY STORY 3.
Iv'e been waiting eleven years to see another toy story movie. I didn't like the second one too much, but the third one, was intense. I don't want to give anything away, but i pretty much cried after the movie. The fact that andy is going to college just gets me, like, really. Is that sad? An animated movie gets me worked up? Haha. Well, i don't care. Pixar movies are the best animated movies ever.

I wanted this to be a longer post, and it's pretty disappointing that this is the best i can do.
Haha
-waffles

EYYY BIG BOIIII

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xJC0Z68Eps&feature=related

^^^^^^^^
Okay, so I think i officially found the funniest prank caller ever!
Watch this video, and i assure you, you Will PIT YOUR SHANTS!
Thank you :]

Manifest Infinity

I bought this book from borders a while ago. I started reading it and i got into it, but i got distracted one day and never found it again, but then I looked under my bed and I found it. So i was pretty happy about that. The book is called "A History of Western Philosophy."
At Hersey, my sophomore year, I had a teacher that always talked about Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and "How do we know what we know?" His name was Mr. Hammerl. Mr Hammerl always spent 40 minutes just talking to us about random stuff, to exercise our brains and to think outside of the box. Everything he said always made me think and i always got drawn in. I always looked forward to that class everyday, and luckily, It was the last class of the day.
I will always remember that class, because that was the only class that I remember being really really interested in.

Meh?

Meh - What does this mean? I honestly don't know, and I think that is the answer.

I think that the word "Meh" itself means nothing. I believe the meaning behind it comes from the way you say the word.
If I say "Meh," that could be me saying "ME." for example, "She stole meh quarter" and "You talkin' to meh?" It is another way to ad some personality to your typing. I think that you need to use your skills with Context Clues in order to understand.

In most cases, in my experience, the word "Meh" mostly has to do with boredom, or the person or people that you ask don't feel like talking,. So when I ask somebody online, Or in person, and ask "Hey, how are you?"
Their response, "Meh" Usually i would ask them "What is wrong?" and go on from there. I use the word "Meh" On occasion, and when i say it, it usually means I am at a loss for words. If i am having a weird day and I am just in a weird mood, i would say it was a "Meh" day.

Well, what i am trying to get at is; If you are confused by the word Meh, That is because it is a weird word with many different random meanings

I found this picture.. Made me laugh.

Them Crooked Vultures

Okay. So I am a big fan of Nirvana and Foo Fighters, and i heard about this new project that Dave Ghrol (Drummer of Nirvana Lead guitar and vocals for Foo Fighters) has been working on with John Paul Jones (Bassist of Led Zeppelin). It is called Them Crooked Vultures.

The have a very original sound that doesn't sound like anything that I have ever heard before. Dave Ghrol is playing drums for them, and that would be the first time that he would play drums on a record since Nirvana, so I think that's a pretty big deal. I don't remember who the other two in this band project were, but the band as a whole sounds very good.

The only question I have is what will happen with Foo Fighters? I love that band. Dave Ghrol's voice is awesome with the band and I don't think he should give up a band that he started from the ground up. I totally support Dave Ghrol and his decisions with music; because if he wasn't smart, he wouldn't have been a part of not one, but TWO great bands that have made a footprint in the rock world. Nirvana and Foo Fighters. Maybe Them Crooked Vultures will be added to that list soon as well!!

Much Love, More Syrup,
Mr. Waffles

You're Famous!

Okay, so i got to school today, and somebody told me that i was on the American idol website. they showed the picture of me and Lee DeWyze, and i thought it was pretty cool, but then they told me that it was on the American Idol Website. I thought that was pretty awesome!

I tried saving the picture, but it wouldn't save because you can't save a picture off the American Idol Website due to copyright and such. But then I remembered that you can take a screenshot on Mac Computers. so i pressed "Shift", "Apple" and "4" and highlighted the picture. It saved to my desktop and I was a happy camper.

The picture is attached to this blog post.

Advise for Pet Owners...

... I don't have a pet, so i don't think i can help you too much.
So... I don't have advise.
Ok, bye.
Love and Syrup,
Mr. Waffles

I can't think of a favorite band

Okay, so for this assignment, i have to think of a favorite band. If any of my teachers know me, I can't think of just one. So i am just going to pick the one i fell in love with at an early age...

So, ever since i was young (About 4) I always loved Van Halen. I heard the song called "Dreams" from the Sammy Hagar era, and i thought that the solo at the end of the song was amazing. Ever since then, i thought they were amazing.

I bought my first Van Halen CD when i was about 8, and it was a "best of" album. I listened to the whole Compilation (2 disks) Every night before i fell asleep. I thought their music was so original. My top favorite songs by them would have to be Dreams, Summer Nights, Love Walks In, Why can't this be Love, Hot For Teacher, Drop Dead Legs, And all of Van Halen II (2nd studio album)

I loved the way Eddie Van Halen Played guitar. I thought it was so original and raw. He had so much talent. I would say that he still does, but he hasn't been working with Van Halen for the past few years. He has been releasing his signature guitar gear and shoes (yes, shoes.) I heard on VH1 about a year or so ago that Van Halen was working on a new studio album with David Lee Roth (The original Van Halen singer.) It would be the first album released by the original Van Halen since 1984. But, along with everything that they say Van Halen will do, Thats all up in the air...

Much Love, More Syrup,

Mr. Waffles

SUMMER PLANS!

Whose ready for summer!?

I know I am. I hope to make this summer the best summer yet, since it will probably be the last summer i will have before i finally get a job. 

I'm very glad that summer is finally almost here because I get depressed during the winter, not to badly, but enough to get pissed. Now that the better weather is coming, i smell more bonfires in my neighborhood, and my mom opens up all the windows in the house and let the yard fill with the sweet songs of our summer playlists on iTunes. Just sitting outside with some friends with music is enough to make my summer great. 

This summer, i hope to go Downtown Chicago a lot more because i haven't gone to the beach for about 3 years. I think it's time to go to the beach this summer!

Then when the sun goes down, i hang with my friends wherever we feel like. That is Definitely the way summer is supposed to be. 

I always look forward to summer, and no, not just because you don't have school, but because the weather is perfect for me.

I can't wait for those hot summer nights!

Woooo!

Much love, More Syrup,

Mr. Waffles

Childhood Hero!!!

When i was younger, i didn't really have a childhood hero, but Batman and Spiderman were pretty influential on me.

The way that spiderman can swing from skyscrapers and climb up buildings, i mean come on! That's amazing! (Hence, the amazing spiderman)

I think it's awesome how batman makes his own gadgets, and he has a butler. I remember i called my Dad "Alfred" for a while just because Bruce Wayne had a butler named Alfred. That's Classy, my friends.

I respect batman and superman because they don't kill the enemies; even though, the enemies will ultimately destroy themselves (in most of the movies) if they are not sent to jail. 

Even though i looked up to the "Super Heroes," i did like a select number of villains, such as the Joker (from batman) and the Green Goblin (Spiderman). In fact, i think that those are the only villains i like out of all the super hero movies. They both seem psychotic, happy, and overall; Creepy.

Well, i think I'm going to go watch spiderman and batman when i get home later!

Much love, More Syrup,

Mr. Waffles  

Chipotle

Today, we watched a video in class about Chipotle and how they raise the animals that they make into food. They are definitely not like any other "Fast Food" restaurant who use medicine to make the animals bigger. 

Chipotle lets their animals live in the woods and are on a strict vegetarian diet. In other fast food restaurants, the animals are kept in horrible conditions, and they barely have any room to move. At Chipotle farms, the pigs are actually outside, in the fresh air, and they are happy.

I completely support Chipotle and everything that they do.

Much love, More Syrup,

Mr. Waffles  

American idol

Okay, so. Lee DeWyze is from this area, and he is in the top 2 for american idol.

It's pretty exiting, because before idol, he was a nobody who liked to play music, who worked at a paint shop. but now, his life has been set up for him, and he has nothing to worry about.

I think it would be pretty cool if he won. Even the judges are leaning towards him winning. 

This was the first season i have watched of american idol. I started watching it because my girlfriend made me. When i saw that a person was from Mt. Prospect (Lee DeWyze), I was like, "Hey, he's from around here." and he ended up being really really good! So i think that it was a good season to start watching American Idol.

I won't watch it next season though. Simon Cowell said that this would be the last season that he would be a judge on the show.

-Much Love, and More Syrup, 

Mr. Waffles

This is Kind of Awkward...

So i was on this Health news website, and i came across an interesting article.

Apparently, according to HealthDay news, The erectile dysfunction Drug Viagra, and other similar drugs may cause long-term hearing loss.

I don't really know why that title stuck out to me, but i thought it was pretty interesting. 

It states in the article, that in 2007, the FDA began to label warning signs on the package for Viagra and other similar products.

Here is the article if you would like to check it out!

>>>>>> http://health.usnews.com/health-news/managing-your-healthcare/articles/2010/05/19/viagra-linked-to-hearing-loss.html

Google Searches

Okay, so I was on google today, and I just started typing random pieces of sentences (What is the...; Why would someone..: etc). I don't know about you, but i can't help but laugh at some of the ones that I found.

The first sentence fragment i typed was "Why Do" and the first search on the drop-down menu was "Why do dogs eat poop?" Now, me, I laughed at that because i have a twisted and immature sense of humor. So if you have that kind of sense of humor, you can join me in a nice chuckle; if you don't have that sense of humor, well, i pity you, fool

Chuck Norris Jokes?

Why are they funny?

I DON'T KNOW!

Apparently, it all started a few years back when Conan O'brien  play spoofs of Chuck Norris on TV, and from that, it expanded fast.

There are various websites that have hundreds of jokes and merchandise that you can buy. All thanks to Conan O'brien.

Personally, Chuck Norris jokes are funny too me, but i really don't know why. I guess that shortens this blog down quite a bit. 

"Behind every successful man, there is a woman. Behind every dead man, there is Chuck Norris"

Why? Why is this funny? Why is he behind EVERY dead man?

That, my good friends, is why it is funny.

Thank you very much.

Ten Thaaaangs

In class today, we were supposed to write a list of ten things that we want to learn. so far i only have five things that i know i want to learn for sure. 

1. I would like to know more about Les Paul, a famous guitar builder for Gibson Guitars back in the mid 1900's. He created the Gibson Les Paul. One of my many music-related passions include Guitar Building, and that's what Les Paul did.

2. I would like to know more about music composition and recording. I like to record music and try to make it sound better.

3. I would like to learn and understand more about the music business so i know the best way to promote myself with music. Eventually, i would like to open up my own record company and studio.

4. I would like to know more about chicago sports teams so i have more to talk about with my friends. 

5. I would like to know more about Guitar building so i can know the difference between the wood that they use and which pickups work with what kind of sound you want. It would be awesome to build my own guitar.

I will post another blog with my next 5 things that i would like to learn.