Good Riddance to the semester..

Hey guys, this is the 12^th post I am making for the blog. This marks the final post that I have to make to meet the requirements for the course I am taking. Regarding the future of the blog, I have yet to decide if I will be making more posts. Definitely I will be taking a break for the coming weeks due to exams and they are going to require my full concentration. There is a very good chance I will continue, perhaps not to write up a blog post, but for sure to record some more guitar covers as I love playing guitar and why not record a cover once in a while just for fun.

I have chosen to finish off my posts for the semester with a somewhat cheesy song for the last post. This band is probably one that needs no introduction as I am pretty sure all of you have heard at least one of their many singles, if not this one in particular. Green Day is one of the bands that have been credited with pioneering the pop-punk genre. They come from Berkeley, California and have been a band since 1987. Their breakthrough moment came in 1994 with the signing to a major record label, Reprise, and the release of their monumental album, Dookie. Over the years their sound has been evolving from a raw pop-punk sound to a more polished pop-punk sound. With every album they have put out, more and more of the songs from them have been featured on the radio.

The song I have covered by them is their ever popular single, Good Riddance (Time of your Life). This song has been covered by so many people on YouTube, has been the band’s encore song for so many of the shows they have performed and was even featured in an episode of Seinfeld and two episodes of ER. The song is a straight forward acoustic ballad with some violins in the bridge part of the song. For the guitar, the song is made up of a couple commonly used chord patterns; perhaps they are common because of how popular this song has gotten. The song is one of those songs that a person would begin learning the guitar simply to know how to play this song.

The first portion of the song is played by plucking out single notes out of the open chords. The intro and first portion of the verse follows a G, C and D chord progression. The second part of the verse and the bridge of the song follow an Em, D, C and G chord pattern. The chorus of the song is simply a repeat of Em and G 3 times but on the 3^rd time it ends with a D instead of G. Those are all the parts to the song and my listening to it you will be able to fit it all into place.

For this cover video I chose not to play along to the song and just played by myself. There are a few slip ups here and there but hey, I’m just a sloppy guitarist. I hope you all have enjoyed reading these posts on what I have to say and have enjoyed my covers. I hope you all will still follow along with what I post on my various social media sites and I will be sure to let you all know if I plan on posting any new blogs or covers. Thank you all for helping me out this semester by checking out all the things I’ve posted and please share it with your friends if you think they’ll enjoy it too!

Pendulum vs. Knife Party

Hey guys, hope you all have had a great weekend thus far. I’ve realized that I am a blog post behind for my course requirements so I’ve had to squeeze this one in before the one I put up this coming Tuesday. The post I put up next Tuesday will be the last one for the course and I have still yet to decide if I’m going to continue with the blog after the course. The band I’m featuring this week goes by the name of Pendulum. Pendulum is not only a live band but also a production duo and a DJ act too. It would have been more accurate to say they were a live band and production duo. The band has disbanded due to the production side of Pendulum wanted to pursue a new project called Knife Party and they have achieved success all around the world. Pendulum will not be putting out any more tracks or playing any more live shows with the entire band. Their DJ, El Hornet, still travels around the world playing DJ sets to sold out crowds under the name Pendulum.

Pendulum focused their production primarily towards Drum and Bass. They have also released a couple of tracks that included elements of House and Dubstep. They formed in 2003 in Perth, Australia. Pendulum had always mixed criticism when it came to the impact they’ve had on the drum and bass scene. Some people only got into drum and bass because of Pendulum. Their style of production was very clean and many of their tracks have caught the attention of listeners that never even know what drum and bass was. They in a way helped bring drum and bass to the mainstream which was further pushed when they began doing live band sets at large festivals all over the world showcasing their style of drum and bass. The other portion of the listeners claimed Pendulum nearly killed drum and bass as it was meant to be an underground scene and they were putting out poppy drum and bass tracks.  As I said earlier, the band no longer exists as Rob and Gareth went on to create Knife Party but they have hinted that Pendulum might come back to create a new album in 2014.

The song I’ve picked by Pendulum is called Propane Nightmares. The song is very far from your typical drum and bass song as it feels more of a rock song until the beat drops but then it still sounds like a rock song. It has everything a rock song would; intro, verse, chorus, breakdown, etc… I play the song using a capo barring the 3^rd fret. The entire breakdown I give of the song will be relevant to the capo, so for instance a Gm will be referred to as an Em. The intro follows a progression of Em, B, C, G, B. It then goes into a somewhat of a chorus. I tend to believe this song has 2 ‘choruses’ as I wouldn’t know what else to call this part. The progression for this part is C, G, B, Em, C, G and B. From then it goes into the main hook of the song which is a riff starting from an E (really a G). I do not think my verses are right at all but I follow a Em, G, Em, G, Em, G, C, D pattern. The next part is the other chorus I was talking about and the progression is Em, C, D, Am. The rest of the song is pretty much a repeat of the parts I’ve already mentioned.

As always there’s a cover video I put together below. Please subscribe to the YouTube channel and my Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest pages if you guve have not already! Oh, in the video there’s a slight buzzing at one point because someone sent me a text so I apologize for that. Check back the coming Tuesday for the next post and share the pages with your friends!

Rise Against sending out a prayer for the refugee

Hey guys, it’s Tuesday so I’m back with another cover. My apologies with the lack of postings on both my Facebook and Twitter pages but I’ve been caught up with so many other assignments for my other various classes. To top it all off, within five minutes of turning my guitar amp on this morning, I believe it blew through another fuse so I will not be posting an electric guitar cover today as I was meaning to. I’ve also changed up the song I will be covering as the one I had planned does not come through that cleanly on the acoustic unless I do some more tinkering around but I am going to be doing one by the same band either way.

The band I will be covering this week is none other than the explosive power house known as Rise Against. I have been following this band from very early on in their career and it has been quite something to hear them put out consistent great material. From very early on in their career they have found their signature sound and stuck with it. This sound is a common feature found in many punk bands but I do not believe any band executes it as well as Rise Against. In their early days they had more of a straight-up up beat punk rock sound. The appealing factor, for me at least, was the use of octave melodies and harmonies. They are found everywhere throughout their songs earning them a classification as a melodic punk rock band in my books. They have influenced my style of guitar playing immensely because every time I try to put together a song of my own I am always thinking ahead to the part of what octave melodies can I throw into it just so it can have that extra catchy hook.

Rise Against has gone through a handful of guitarists throughout their career. They are currently on their fourth guitarist. Every guitarist has in a way respected the band’s signature sound that they have come to be known for and contributed to the writing process by embracing that sound. The band’s lyrical content has always revolved around political topics and individual hardships. They are not afraid to criticize wrongdoings and always stand up for what they believe in. Every member of the band is a vegetarian and they have supported PETA’s mission in bringing awareness to the disgustingly unjust treatment of animals before they are made into our meals. They have opened up my eyes to it and is one of the main reasons I have been a vegetarian for the past seven years.

The song I have chosen to cover this week rather than the planned one is Prayer of the Refugee. In a nutshell, the meaning behind the song is a message against the practices America partakes in to fuel their capitalist society. The song has soft verses following a repeated guitar riff and explodes into aggressive choruses. The band plays the song in an E flat tuning but I play it in a drop D tuning since it is less work to tune just one string down rather than tuning all of them down. Refer to my blog covering the Billy Talent song if you would want to know how to tune down to drop D. The riff throughout the intro and verse simply involves playing a D# on the G string along with an F# on the B and switching the F# to an F. Listen to the song to figure out the rhythm but it’s fairly straight forward. The backing chord progression for the verses is D#, B, C#, G#, D#, B, F#, back to D# and then repeat. The chorus follows a similar progression involving D#, F#, C# and B but I am playing what I believe to be the lead octaves also in the key of D#. The bridge of the song involves repeating G# and F# three times and then going down to E and D#. Those are pretty much all the parts of the song for the rhythm section but in my cover I am playing mainly the leads, or what I think the leads sound like.

I’ll try to find time to purchase some new fuses for my amp as I would really want to do the next cover on the electric as I think it will come through better on it. Until then I hope you guys have an amazing week and keep checking my other pages! Share with your friends! 

Canadian bands know what's up!

Hey everyone, how’s your week been? It’s gotten awfully cold lately, at least here in Toronto. Winter hasn't even begun and for your readers outside of Canada, some of you probably would never want to experience a Canadian winter. Just trying to set the spotlight on Canada for a bit before I introduce this week’s (yet again) Canadian band, blog post and guitar cover to go along with it…  Metric is one of Canada’s best known modern bands and have caught the attention of many fans from all over the world. I first heard of this band years ago when they put out their song ‘Monster Hospital’ back in 2005. I was not too fond of the band from hearing the one song but I decided to give them a chance and had a listen to a few of their other ones and followed their progression here and there throughout the years. Once I discovered their song ‘Combat Rock’, which happened to be an older song of theirs actually, I began to get hooked to their sound. I think I've just got some luck of discovering a song that I am not a fan of as the first one by every band.

Metric can be best described as an alternative band where electronica plays a very large role in their sound. It is not the type of electronica that people might associate with the present happenings of the electronic dance music scene but instead very limited synths that are just enough to give their music that extra kick. Their music is simple in nature, at least on their albums. I have seen them play in concert a couple of times and they tend to add more to their live show. The drums in most of their songs tend to follow a very steady beat with not too many fillings; it really serves its primary purpose of keeping their songs on track and not to be too distracting. In many of their songs, the guitar serves the purpose of maintaining the rhythm while the synths take the role of providing the melodies. The bass stands out in their songs because the guitar focuses more on the higher register to compliment the synth. This gives their songs a very groovy feel that tends to make you want to move more to the bass lines rather than anything else. Finally, Emily Haines is a phenomenal vocalist. She is criticized for her live performance since she alters the way she projects the song but in my opinion that just adds more to the uniqueness of the band. Listening to an identical replication of the studio version of a song might be remarkable but at the same time can be boring.

The song I have chosen to cover by them is their single ‘Gold Guns Girls’ off of their Fantasies album put out in 2009. This song stands out to me because it has more of an edgier feel than their other songs. The tone of the guitar has a bit of a vintage sound that really appeals to me. The bass really drives the song throughout the verses and into the chorus. The main guitar riff of the song that starts it off and is played in the backing of the chorus is simply an open A note played out followed by an octave up. The verses and bridge of the song follow a F, G and Am chord progression while the choruses follow a Am, F and G progression. That’s pretty much the entire song stripped down to a simple format.

I might start putting up more covers without writing up a blog for them on my YouTube channel so keep a look out there for more of them. I will put out a notice on both the Facebook and Twitter pages if I do though. I will still keep on doing the usual blog post/cover combo every Tuesday. Check back next week and share my other pages as well as the blog with your friends please! Enjoy the rest of your week!

Days go by for The Offspring

Tuesday, Tuesday, almost halfway to the weekend... This post will probably be the least substantial post out of the series since I am currently swamped with so many assignments and papers that I cannot afford to spend much time to talk about bands and songs that I like. I’m a huge procrastinator and it just seems the days go by; before you know it there’s another assignment and a due date just around the corner. As a forewarning, the guitar cover for this week is pretty sloppy; my apologies. I figured the song out in five minutes and I highly doubt it’s precise but it sounds fairly close. Enough with excuses though, let me introduce the band for this week: The Offspring. The Offspring have been around for as long as I can remember and they have always been putting out some of the catchiest material. One of the most impressive elements of the band in my opinion is how Dexter is able to hit those high notes singing all these years. Sure, the last couple years it has become shakier but that’s expected with age. However, he’s always been able to sing in such a high range and that is fairly uncommon for a punk rock band. The band is from Huntington Beach, California. Lead singer, Dexter and bassist, Greg K came to the decision to form a band after they were denied entry to a Social Distortion concert.

“Days go by” is the name of the first single off the Offspring’s latest album that also goes by the same name. The song is one of those sing-along songs with lyrics that are very easy to remember. The guitar riffs give it a very surf-punk feel. The song starts off with an intro riff that is played in the key of E followed by another variation of that riff which becomes the main riff in the song. The chord progression for the backing of the main riff is E, D, A, E and the verse follows the same progression. The progression for the chorus is D, A, E, B with every second repeat of the progression dropping out the B and letting the E play out longer. As I said before, I did not spend that much time on this song so there more than likely will be mistakes scattered through the cover and I left out parts because of the song being a 2-guitar song. I will post the next blog and guitar cover up next Tuesday so check back then!


PS. For those of you who do not know the different guitar chords, here is a great site where you can find out the various ways of playing different chords!

Homegrown Talent Pt. 2!

Hey guys, it’s Tuesday which means here’s the next featured song review along with a video cover. This week I will continue to stick with the theme ‘homegrown talent’ by looking at actually another band hailing from Mississauga, Ontario. This band goes by the name of Billy Talent and they have achieved tremendous amounts of international acclaim. These guys, to those that have been following their career from somewhat early on, might seem that they have really exploded onto the international circuit in a very short period of time. In 2003, Billy Talent released the album that first drew the attention of the masses. Personally, I did not think much of the band when I first heard their song ‘Cut the Curtains’. In fact, I actually thought the song was pretty annoying. After being encouraged by many of my friends to give many of their other songs a listen, I was pretty blown away by the range of styles that appeared on the album. There are songs such as ‘The Ex’ and ‘This Is How It Goes’, which is actually the song I have covered. These songs have such aggression driven by the rawness of the guitars along with Ben’s powerful vocals. I have never been a fan of ‘screamo’ type music and angered a friend so much when I first referred to Billy Talent as a screamo band. Then there are songs such as ‘Try Honesty’ and ‘Nothing to Lose’ where they still stick to their aggressive assault but incorporate somewhat of a ballad feel that makes the songs appealing to a wider range of listeners as well as their main fan base. The way Ben and Ian blended their vocal harmonies together at first kind of bugged me but I believe it just took somewhat of a while to appreciate. Ian has a bit of a ‘whiney’ feel to his singing, and I hate describing it like that but it is the way it sounds to me. Nevertheless, the way they harmonize is amazing; definitely one of my favourite singer combos. The band has since then gone to produce a second and third album that have too succeeded internationally while keeping true to their sound.

‘This Is How It Goes’ is the first song I have covered in this series that is in a different tuning other than standard. Billy Talent writes all their songs in a ‘Drop D Tuning’. Drop D means that the low E string is tuned one step lower to a ‘D’ note. This can be done by tuning the E string with your finger placed on the seventh fret along with the open A string until they match. The song starts off with what will be used as the verse in the coming sections of the song as well. It is all single notes played on the A string following a progression of D, C#, E and F. The chorus I am not completely sure on but the way I play it is to start off ringing the open D chord and then barring the G, B and high E strings along the tenth fret. The next part of the progression is an A# chord followed by the same barring. Then an F with the barring now along the fifth fret and then the progression ends with a short riff stemming from an A note. The only other different part to the song is the bridge. Since I don’t know the names of the chords being used here I will break them down in a ‘fret(string)’ format, for example 5(b) means fifth fret on the b string. The chords for the progression are 7(g)6(b)5(e), 4(g)3(b)5(e), 3(g)3(b)5(e) and 2(g)1(b)3(e). This is by far probably the worst breakdown I have given of one of the songs in writing form so I am hoping the video might clear up some confusion and yes, I am aware I slipped up a couple times. Well that’s that for this week so check back for next week’s review! 


PS. I forgot to include that if you have been checking my 'Planned Covers' page, you would have noticed I was supposed to do 'Viking Death March' by Billy Talent instead. I liked this song more so I changed my mind, enjoy!

Homegrown Talent!

Blog Time! This week, yet again, I bring you another song and a new cover. Well, this cover is not exactly new but I’ll get to that in a bit. Let me first introduce the featured band this week, illScarlett. illScarlett are born and raised right here in Mississauga, Canada. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing this band perform countless number of times and they are one of the best live bands I have seen. They can play in a small room such as The Edge Studios to large capacity venues such as the Sound Academy to outdoor festivals such as the Freedom Festival. They just kill it every time; it’s incredible. They’ve even played at my school, Humber College, back in 2009. Unfortunately, I did not yet attend Humber at this time but to those that did see the performance, I’m sure it was a treat. I’ve found a video recap of that performance on YouTube, it can be viewed here if you want to check it out. illScarlett is a band that fuses elements of ska, punk and reggae into a package that is sure to please any listener’s ear. Their songs range from up-beat mosh-able punk songs to slowed down off-beat reggae songs that you would just want to kick back to. The song that I’ve picked by them is of course their anthem ‘Nothing Special’.

The song starts off with the intro backed by the typical ‘ska’ rhythm guitar the follows a D#m, A#, B, F# and A# pattern. This chord progression is used for the other three times the chorus is played throughout the song, as well as when the lead guitar plays the main ‘wah’ riff. There is a short octave fill between every transition of chorus to verse. The verses throughout the song are palm-muted with slight breaks in the chugging here and there. They follow a B, D#m, F# and C# chord progression. The transition back to the chorus is simply a B chord being rung out. The bridge or breakdown of this song follows a B, F#, A#, D#m, C#, B, F# and A# progression. This song was actually covered by the band I was part of in high school. Ever since everyone in the band figured out their part, we were playing this song at every show we played at because the crowd would always know and enjoy it. The video below is a cover played by my fellow guitarist band mate and I. I was almost certain my video would not have been anywhere close in quality and if I’m allowed to say so, I think we both sort of nailed our respective parts. Really good job on the cover and video work by one of my oldest friends and former band mate! (I’m not sure if he wants his name disclosed so that’s why I haven’t mentioned it lol.) Be sure to check out his other covers on his channel too! That’s all for this week, be sure to keep on checking back!