That problem that automatically redirects this page to that ad website is fixed. Apparently it was rooted in a realtime counter gadget I was using. I had to manually remove the HTML for it because whoever designed it made it so that it couldn't be removed through the dashboard thing. Ha.

Belmont was awesome. I got a good taste of what their songwriting and music business majors entailed and I'm pretty sure the only other college that has as good of a music program is Berklee. I got a pretty detailed tour of the on-campus recording studios (probably the highlight of the visit for me), during which I got to watch a recording session of this Dylan-esque student who's performance really consisted of only him, a harmonica, and his guitar. I also really loved the atmosphere of the campus; every hundred feet or so was someone sitting in the grass playing an acoustic guitar. The atmosphere of Nashville itself was really something. I will always have a burning hatred for country music, but being able to be in an area that held music of such high esteem is comforting. Every single house I drove by had had the basement converted into a commercial recording studio, publishing company, or record label headquarters.

After the college visit my dad and I took a tour of the Ocean Way Recording studio and the RCA Studio B studio. It was almost surreal, being able to stand in the same room where legends like Elvis and Chet Atkins recorded almost half of their catalogs. I was even let play ("quickly touch" would be a better way of describing it) Elvis' favorite piano. I'm not much of an Elvis fan, but I know well of the extent of influence that piano may have taken part of.

Go

So you think you've found the one

And she knows just how you feel

And you say that she's for real and she's fun

Well, that's all well and good

That's just the way it should be

To understand and be understood is to be free

So I think that you should go

Go on ahead

Take her in your arms and be wed

Go go go go you restless soul, you're going to find it

Go go go go you restless soul, you're going to find it

Yes, life's a bowl of cherries

You can have as many as you can carry

And someone once said that life is like a cow

But I don't know how that applies

But anyhow here we are all on this planet

Taking everything for granted

But I think you've caught on to something

Don't let go

Go go go go you restless soul, you're going to find it

Go go go go you restless soul, you're going to find it

Oh, yes you did, you found it

Oh, yes you did, you found it

Oh, yes you did, you found it

[3/28 edit]

I think that Daniel Johnston wrote this song because it is what he wished someone would tell him; he wished that every verse applied to him despite the reality that it almost certainly didn't.

Tuesday Tuesday, so good to me

Tonight's been one of those nights where, despite my best efforts, any attempt to complete homework has end up with me picking up the guitar or going to Facebook; any assignment that should only take a half hour stretches out to an hour or more. With my weekdays being caffeinated and sleep-deprived blurs, I find the simple idea of focusing on any work at all pretty insane. Luckily, this is the last week until Spring Break, which will start with my dad and me driving up to visit Belmont University and will end up with me confined to the basement recording and playing Xbox by my lack of a social life.

If you happen to have 31 minutes of spare time on your hand, I highly recommend watching I'm Here: A Love Story in an Absolut World. It's a short film about two robots who fall in love, a bizarre but incredibly touching story. It was written and directed by Spike Jonze, who also wrote and directed Where the Wild Things Are, so you know it's a masterpiece.

Also, very few things amount to the excitement of realizing you are on to something when writing a song; that single minuscule instant of inspiration when you can see everything the song has potential to be. The hard part is capturing that instant again once it leaves your mind and fingers.

I cannot stop listening to this song no matter how hard I try.

Study Hall

[Written during study hall]

Right now I should be studying for history or something. Did you know that Oliver Hudson Kelly was the guy who created the Patrons of Husbandry, an educational organization for farmers, more commonly known as Grange? I didn't care either. I instead listen to my new Jeffrey Lewis and Where The Wild Things Are CDs and let my mind drift to more important things: Worried Shoes. The Man With the Golden Arms. What will my guitar teacher teach to me tonight? Nazi Zombies. What notes make up the A Dorian scale? Yesterday I made this awesome beat on my drum machine (it's very similar to Radiohead's There There beat) that would go perfectly with this other riff I've been working on. Maybe tonight, seeing I won't have any homework, I'll try to get some tracks completed. Also, I found some contacts I might send some demos to. Olive Juice Records, a record label, and Steaming Hot Coffee, a proprietorship music managing company, are both very small and independent companies that deal very exclusively with independent artists and mostly the antifolk genre. I won't get my hopes up, seeing that I'm just some starry-eyed seventeen year old kid, but maybe this summer I'll try to get a demo together and send it in. I don't have anything to lose. I'll do it for the lulz. I just need to work on my voice more, something I've been trying to do since summer or so. Why can't we all have great Robert Plant or John Lennon voices? Hell, give me Bob Dylan. I shan't be picky.

Ch-ch-changes

I found Tumblr, another blog hosting service. I'm going to try it out for a little while and compare it to Blogspot. Changes are that I will dedicate blogspot to conspiracy stuff and Tumblr to more personal posts relating to music and art. Or not. We'll see.

http://knoxrox167.tumblr.com/

Somewhere there's a feather

It's nearly midnight on a Thursday night, and to combat my boredom I've decided to post an update for anyone who happens to read this.

For the guitar, I have contacted the guy who designed the SG in my earlier post. He's been surprisingly helpful in telling me what to do and what to buy. From what he's said, he put on about 5 layers of Montana Gold aerosol paint, each layer atop another and a different color. He then put on different colors in random spots. To get the gritty Pollock-ish look he sanded through each layer in different spots to different degrees. I'll be sure to document every step to be put on here to make it a little more easy to understand.

So, after a quick trip to Art Mart (the greatest store in the world) I'll have the Montana Gold colors I need. I just need to motivate myself to be able to dedicate 3-4 hours of my weekend to sanding. I also have the design for the pick guard almost done. Finished photos should be up relatively soon.

The Great Guitar Adventure: Disassembly

Yesterday I posted that I plan to "remake" my Squire into a better and unique guitar of my very own. I have recently taken the first steps: disassembly. I've completely taken it apart. The neck, bridge and pickguard have all been taken off. The wiring has been left in with the intention of removing it once I get some proper materials to desolder all the parts that are holding it all in place. I put all of the screws and small pieces into labeled plastic cups, as shown in the photos. I also made some videos with my phone of me taking specific parts apart so I have a reference of how everything goes together after the body is painted and I attach everything back together. The next step is to completely strip the body of its paint, though how that will happen I'm not completely sure of. I'll either strip it chemically or sand it down. Maybe even both.

Anyway, here are the photos of post-disassembly: