My Memorable Gigs This Year
December 28, 2009This year has been pretty eventful for me musically. I’ve been going out to gigs more steadily, and playing more of the music I actually wanted.
This is also the first time I will host videos on this simple i.ph site o’ mine.
With that said, here’s a show I played last May. I was the lead guitar for Bulagta here…
…notice the flashy dual guitar tapping thing. We didn’t actually practice it that much, and when we did, it doesn’t come out the way we want. But then at the venue itself - what the heck!
This one was from a June show with ‘my’ band Fluggen. Why Fluggen? You go ask Kevin [dude with the Hamer V] and let’s see. Anyways, this was the first time that I shared played guitar in a band with Johanne. The first time was the quasi-disastrous San Felipe YFC-gig-rakrakan whatever thing about 6 years ago…
Come December, word was going around the office that we needed to think up of a theme for our company’s Christmas party. Each team had a net meeting, then I jokingly threw around the term ‘glam rock’. Everyone took it to heart, albeit with mixed results.
Glam rock. We needed real rock music.
And I needed a new guitar. I accidentally fucked up my Strat in an effort to clean it up. Haha. I was like ‘Oh shit, what am I gonna do!?’.
It was good bye Nina… **ru-ru-ru**
The obvious answer was to get a new guitar. And so, with all the money I had left, I got a new one. Well, new in my hands at least…
The new guitar of course had a new feel to it. And while I wasn’t able to play like Eddie Van Halen because of the different feel…
…I did play more like [omg] Michael Schenker…
…or so I thought.
Forgive me oh guitar gods for name dropping thine divine names!
Then I needed band members. And that was precisely the reason why I called upon my office friends to form a group just to play for the occasion. That group was composed of Vlad, Dennis, Franz, Anye and myself. We didn’t have a name for ourselves but we wanted to play so badly…
…that we didn’t give a second thought to Dennis singing on a Bon Jovi classic.
Then came the real show. This was the first song…
…which was almost done for because some dude turned off the amp. The ROAA guys turned it on already, then just zeroed the master. Somehow, a moron who didn’t know about rockin’ out turned it off. I played with the amp still warming up, hence the weak and wussy sound. I just left it open afterwards…
…and got this nice guitar tone! Sweet song. I’m sorry Slash fans, but I’m really poor with actually covering lead lines. I improvised on all of it. I don’t love everything here, but the part at 02:36 onwards was like ‘Oh my, did I play that?’.
Well that’s just about it. Hopefully, I can play more shows next year!
The Gunslinger And A Word From A Pro
My sister and I didn’t have much to do last Friday night, so we figured that we’d have a little shoot in our garage. This is actually one of my first attempts with strobist stuff using a model.
To make this shot, I placed flash [Starblitz] behind her as backlight, then fired my YN460 from the right side as a kind of fill flight. I got all kinds of comments for this, but most notably, it was Mr. Jo Avila who pointed out that I placed my lights in the wrong places therefore they’re throwing shadows in the wrong places.
I’ve been doing some thinking about enrolling in a formal photography class. I wouldn’t mind starting from the basics. But money is so freakin’ elusive nowadays. Hay, must content myself with reading for now.
Enjoy the shots though!
**18mm, f8.0, 1/320, ISO200**
