So I just got my hands on some personal live performances that I'd like to upload, and I thought I'd let the masses know here. I'm just posting one video here, but you should check out the blog's YouTube channel for more.
Just the other night (Thursday) I performed at a quaint and chic open mic. I started off with one of my all-time favorite songs: "Left of the Dial" by The Replacements. The song itself is a heartfelt ode to college radio and life on the road. I've grown to have a personal attachment to the tune, as it has played a significant role on various occasions as the backing soundtrack to various life-changing moments in the past few months.
"Left of the Dial (Cover)" by Kelvin
Listen to the original here.
Listen to a 1989 live performance here.
Listen to a 1993 live performance here.
Listen to a 1996 live performance here.
... I must report that I will be taking a hiatus. It's been just a month since the start of my senior year, and I have not found the time in my schedule to keep this blog updated.
It started as a hobby and a source of release, and I had loads of fun doing this. I didn't mind the amount of time dedicated and energy invested (nocturnally) to keep this going. But as of late, it has become a chore, and also sort of a job. Now I have to listen to music and have to discover new topics to discuss, instead of it being just for kicks.
There's still a bunch of ideas for future posts buzzing in my head, but until I find the grace to manage all the rest that life throws at me, I will set these drafts aside for a while. If this bums you out, then I'm sorry for making you feel this way. If you don't really care, then I'm sorry you don't feel otherwise. =P
I thought it'd be fun to continue the theme of era-specific posts and do one on the groovy times that were the 70's. Little did I know how little of 70's music I actually know. It's a poorly represented section of my music library, but I'd still like to share some of my favorite albums from the decade (... a number of which I was introduced to in the past month).
Ah, the 60's... a time when psychedelic drugs, flower power and The Beatles ruled the world. So how do you usher in a new decade in music? Well, you back-track a bit to when blues was the genre of choice, then you read some books and watch the news. Follow up with forming a four-piece band and voila! You have "War Pigs." British rockers Black Sabbath released Paranoid in November 1970 in the U.K. (January 1971 in the U.S.), founding heavy metal in the process. Despite their name, most of the band's songs deal with themes of the psychological and social nature, as their staples "Paranoid" and "Iron Man" make evident. And although the only thing Ozzy Osbourne has learned since the 70's is how become more of a pansy, deep down he's still that pivotal frontman whose name we can't escape.
So, I got into the music scene a little later than most folks. I remember one day in my high school freshman Engineering period a fellow classmate asked me what type of music I was into. At that point, I wasn't into anything except the adult contemporary my parents played on the car radio (and that was passive listening). So I just blurted out something random: techno. Needless to say, said fellow classmate never spoke to me again...
In any case, that summer (2005), I visited Nicaragua with my aunt and cousin for two weeks. Around the second day, I met my cousin's cousins (my second cousins?) whom were teens like us. When I entered their room, I saw "Be Yourself" playing on the TV. I ended up spending the majority of the trip making up for lost time alongside MTV Latin America.
Not too long afterwards, I saved up the earnings of my 15th birthday and went to Best Buy to purchase a cheap Durabrand CD player, From Under the Cork Tree, American Idiot and Demon Days. And now, almost 6 years later, I'm here updating a blog about my not-so-secret passion.
Because it's so close to when I first began engrossing myself in music, I have to say that my favorite year in music is 2006. When I started out, I watched music videos like it was nobody's business. But after a few months of that, I got tired of just singles and delved into the albums of my favorite artists, discovering the gems no one cared to search for. Below are a few of my top picks...
A young, lonely, pop-punk listening Hispanic teenage boy was eventually going to come across this CD. It was one random day at my other cousin's house that I saw the video for "Narcisita Por Excelencia" on MTV Tr3s. I was instantly hooked by the sound and energy, and I also had an ear catered to "emotional" music. When I picked up Amantes Sunt Amantes, I became a fan overnight. What I liked most about the album (and still do) was the unconventionality of the composition, characteristic of post-hardcore. I wouldn't know it until later, but their previous release, Para Ti Con Desprecio, was the product of heavy plagerism. Panda writes some pretty catchy tunes, but sadly these are songs to slit your wrists to (and unfortunately the band doesn't make that a subtle point =///).
So I've created a YouTube account associated with this blog. I had one before, but I wanted to change the username and thus had to create a new account (the videos from the old account are now gone with the wind...).
I don't have much on there now, but I will be uploading more vids as the future becomes the present.
Link to the account page "NocturnalInvestment"
[http://www.youtube.com/user/NocturnalInvestment]
