Matt's Blog

Rock Music Sucks in 2012

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 22:00:36 GMT

I saw a tweet from @FuseTv today.

Ahhhhh! KISS and Motley Crue call Rihanna "fake bulls**t" and "a karaoke singer": on.fuse.tv/GEKpZR
— Fuse TV (@fusetv) March 21, 2012

I thought to myself... O rly?

Before I go in on this topic let me first say my all time favorite bands are AC/DC, Guns 'n Roses, and Aerosmith. Not all time favorites but also bands I love; Motley Crue, KISS, Def Leppard, Skid Row, and the list goes on.

Rock music sucks in 2012 because no rock bands have written anything NEW, exciting, fresh and generally.. dope.. in 20+ years. There are amazing bands like Kings of Leon, Muse and some others but they're not doing true blue "rock 'n roll."

Maybe pure rock 'n roll has just run it's course.

I like some new "rock" bands like Airbourne and Endeverafter, but is what they're doing really all that new? I like them but I have to say absolutely not. If there are any bands/artists out there doing something new, original, unique and truly great with rock 'n roll I think we would have heard about them by now. Trainwrecks and the truly great find their way to the surface via the interwebz. Remember that "Friday" song? And the great like The Weeknd, A$AP Rocky and other artists who are blowing up because what they do is truly great.

Bands like Motley Crue, KISS, and other old "heritage acts" keep touring on the hits they wrote 20-30 years ago. And that is perfectly fine. Go DO that. But just know that nobody wants to hear the new, uninspired rehashed shit leftover from sessions in the 80's. Van Halen has put out a new album that muscially is f*cking awesome. It's just more of what they do best, which is great, but lyrically.. Really? A rock band singing about tattoos and whiskey? Imagine Kanye putting out an album in 15-20 years that sounds like leftover tracks from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and rapping about nothing but cars, chains, and girls.

................

"Both Motley and KISS are united in one crusade: We are sick and tired of girls getting up there with dancers and karaoke tapes."

LOL.. "Karaoke tapes." It's 2012, Gene. First of all.. WTF is a tape? Second, It's Britney Spears who is completely miming her performance (sorry, Britney.. still LOVE the music but live show is beyond wack). I've seen Rihanna and a few other pop artists live and the show IS live. Including a full live band.

Be sick and tired all you want. Put your money where your mouth is and write something dope. Once upon a time rock did rule the world and it wasn't from sitting back in mansions complaining about the current popular music. Rock was once thee pop(ular) music. Stop whining and do something about it.

U mad, bro?

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 02:55:00 GMT

Kim Kardashian and LMFAO have something in common and the joke is on everyone.

So many people talk mountains of shit about the Kardashians and pop music, especially that of the Party Rockin' variety. Have you seen any LMFAO videos? These dudes are having the time of their lives writing songs about… partying. Most describe it as lowest common denominator garbage. SOMEBODY... (lots of somebodies) are buying it (probably even you, whether you like to admit it or not)! I bet you’ve been hammered at a bar, dancing and singing Party Rock (ironically of course).

The Kardashians are viewed in a similar light. Kim Kardashian isn't the first person to get divorced. No one in your family ever got divorced, right?

That's what I thought.

Now you say she is ruining the institution of marriage because it was so short and allegedly a giant farce for a big pay day. Kim is already rich as fuck. Even if she did make millions off this wedding, seems like she’s one upped most of the general population and made a boatload of cash from getting married and quickly divorced, whereas the general public would go through all kinds of bullshit to get through that mess and end up quite a bit further in the hole than they were before. Wouldn't you want your mom, dad, aunt, uncle, whoever it happens to be going through a messy divorce to come out with a few million.. just because they can.. to make things a little easier for them? Of course you would!

U mad, bro?

Kim wins.

Somehow gay marriage has been brought into this. What Kim’s wedding has to do with it is beyond me. So she had an over the top TV wedding. It’s fucking retarded that a madly in love gay couple can’t get married. Whether Kim got married or not, on TV or not, it doesn’t matter. I’m sure there are WAY messier divorces and bullshit marriages going on in the world that are leaps and bounds more insulting to the gay community and the marriage issue than Kim’s wedding.

Lots of kids, mostly girls I’m sure, but boys too, look up to Kim and maybe even Kris Humphries. The wedding was glamorous as fuck. Sooooo what. Again I ask, anyone ever gotten a divorce in your family? Something tells me it was probably a bit messier than Kim’s as far as family issues, money, etc. You really think Kim’s wedding is damaging their little minds for good? I think you’ve got bigger problems if you think Kim Kardashian is warping your child’s mind. Kick rocks.

Kim and especially her mother, Kris Jenner, are just savvy businesswomen, savvier than most if you ask me. Kim boned a R&B singer/rapper. Was she the first to have a sex tape? Nope. And who gives a fuck. It happened. I’m willing to bet she’s learned her (profitable) lesson on that.

The Kardashians have literally made an empire on good looks alone. Think of all the different TV shows they have, the products, the spinoff shows, the list goes on and on.
Can you do that? On looks alone? Think about it. If you had no real skill set to offer other than YOU, just being you. I doubt it. Even if you were stupidly rich, I bet you couldn’t pull it off like they have.

I’ve come to the conclusion that Kim K haters are either mad jelly of her riches/looks/lifestyle, or, if you’re a dude that hates on Kim, you have to be at least a little bi or you’re into busted chicks. #JustSayin (whether you think Kim is hot or not is a matter of opinion... wait, no its not. She's fucking perfection. lolz) If you say you’re neither of those, you must just be genuinely uninterested and there is nothing wrong with that (although if you’re a dude.. still a good chance you’re at least a little bi.. #justsayin, again).

Why don’t you just do you, booboo??? Do you. Don’t worry about Kim K unless you think she fuckin rules like I do.

She’s rich, we get it. Cry about it. You know you still want all that Louis Vuitton, red bottoms and the glamorous lifestyle regardless of whether or not Kim did it first on TV. Don't blame the Kardashians for all the greed in America. Just stop it. Like that "Leave Britney alone" kid…

LEAVE KIM ALONE.

Especially if you’re an athlete. Besides going after me, of course, she should try a hockey player (I used to be one... an adorable one, Kim).

Not likely to be a black guy but I think her chances of scoring someone that isn’t a total D-bag would be higher.

Stop.
Hatin' is bad.

Rihanna

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 23:07:12 GMT

I went to see Rihanna at the Staples Center a few weeks back and she was SO good. I was very impressed and it was way beyond what I had expected. I went in almost hoping that she would lip synch because I’ve seen her fudge up on live TV a few times, pretty badly.

Not the case here.

She sang live the whole time, dancing and running all over the huge stage. I have a new found respect for anyone that can sing AND dance at the same time. I mean choreographed, stylized, real DANCE. Not just jumping around free form like an idiot. Now that I’ve been a part of the work that goes into a pop show, I can see why some pop artists go with lip synching for whatever the reason. I don’t think NOT being able to sing is typically the number one reason for doing it. I would like to see you run on the treadmill and belt out your favorite tune, in key and with real emotion. Probably pretty tough to do and that’s just while running. Switching a treadmill out for rigorous movement that needs to be on point with a group of other people is a completely different story.

Beyonce does not have an easy job.

Check out Rihanna performing “Skin.” My video looks like it’s from a million miles away, not sure why video does that… it really didn’t look like we were THAT far from the stage when we were there. So here is a better one from someone else at the same show.

TweetBig

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 04:31:13 GMT

I've been using twitter for quite a while have learned what I like most about it, what I dislike and the ways to get the most value out of it, at least for myself. I currently follow 119 people and have 384 followers. I've tried to keep the number of people I follow to not much more than 100 because much more than that just becomes too difficult to keep up with. I think it’s safe to say following 200+ means that you're ok with missing several tweets throughout the day. To each their own, but when you're into the 500+, or are following thousands, you're really just missing the whole point of Twitter. It’s hard enough to keep up with the ongoing "conversation" that you can have following <200.

I ran a little experiment using TweetBig.com over the last week using my publishing company's twitter account, @OffThatMusic, as a guinea pig. Tweetbig is basically a service that you use to target potential followers who will be interested in you, your business, or brand based on twitter accounts similar to yours and keywords you enter. Great! What they don't tell you is that this method completely relies on the "courtesy followback." This is the assumption that many people will simply follow you back because you followed them and showed interest in them. That's great until you get into larger numbers when it becomes completely unmanageable and impossible to try and have a twitter conversation with someone.

So, in a week, @OffThatMusic went from 0 to 562 followers. Sounds great, right? No. In order to get that many followers tweetbig followed up to 1200 people at one time. I also had set a “Twitter Timbomb” that would show me all of the accounts that had not followed me back in a specified period of time (I set it for 2 days). My timeline for @OffThatMusic was basically useless. Every few seconds there would be hundreds of new tweets. So while I did generate a decent number of new followers, they were all there because of the "courtesy followback." Chances are I'm not the only account they have "followed back." They're doing the same thing, following many, in order to have many followers. This is the same as having a million Myspace friends in 2011 or buying followers or youtube plays, anything to artificially inflate your “numbers.” People can see right through it. If you, or what you’re pandering were actually great (or a complete train wreck **Rebecca Black), the numbers would have gotten there on their own.

I’m followed by two big twitter accounts:

http://twitter.com/IslandRecords
and
http://twitter.com/ONLY1DARKCHILD

One would think that would make me quite special being followed by a big record label and A-list producer (for one of these accounts, it really truly does). Island Records has over 108,000 followers. They also follow over 105,000. So I am 1 / 105,000.#NotThatSpecial. The chance of @IslandRecords ever seeing one of my tweets is slim to none. I’m willing to bet the @IslandRecords timeline is not something the account user even looks at. That account is simply to blast out info regarding Island Records artist. This would still be a great account to follow if you are interested in these artists but if you follow thousands of twitter accounts, how will you ever notice news about these artists.

You won’t.

Then you look at @ONLY1DARKCHILD, aka veteran producer, Rodney Jerkins. He has nearly 60,000 followers but only follows about 300. I am 1 / 300. Now THAT makes me feel pretty special and that I’m actually on his radar as far as being a recording/mixing engineer. 300 is still a fairly high number but not 1,000, 10,000 or 100,000. He could still check twitter a few times a day and there is a really good chance he’ll be seeing what I’m up to. That is pretty awesome and the real value in twitter.

Since this tweetbig experiment, I have gone and unfollowed about 1100 accounts that tweetbig followed for me to bring the number down to a manageable 62 for @OffThatMusic. Along with doing that, my followers are dropping like flies. The users that I got a courtesy followback from are now doing the same; courteously unfollowing me. @OffThatMusic now only has 539 followers, out of which a miniscule percentage actually care what the account has to tweet about because:

1. The account is so new and I haven't tweeted from it much.
and
2. They're following people like mad too and could careless what shows up in their timeline.

Not only that, the ROI is no where even close to being worth the time it takes to follow and unfollow hundreds of twitter accounts, even using a tool like Tweetbig.

The real value in twitter is in the meaningful conversations you have and the connections you make from them. Organic growth is the way to go. As long as you have something meaningful/interesting/funny/etc. to share every so often and you don’t spam your followers with self-promotions, your followers will grow*. It might be slow going but the number will go up, not down.

Christmas Music

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 19:07:55 GMT

Does it drive anyone else crazy when you come across new music, or old music, that completely has a Christmas'y or winter vibe to it and you feel like you can't listen to it right now and have to wait until its closer to Christmas? I know in most other parts of the country its still all kinds of wintery out (pretty sure "wintery" is not a word) but in southern California it was in the 80's all last week. Even being in the 50's and 60's right now, it feels like summer is on the way.

I downloaded the Glassjaw - El Mark EP last night and the track "The Number No Good Things Can Come Of" totally feels like a snowed in track. Great song but totally threw me off as to what time of year it is.

I have the same problem with the latest Defones album, Diamond Eyes. I can't get the same thing out of it if I listen to it when its hot out. The Veils - Nux Vomica. I was an assistant engineer on that one and finished that up right before I had left to go home to visit family for Christmas. They had Christmas lights all over the studio while they were finishing up the record. That one is forever a Christmas album to me.

Prove it.

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 04:45:00 GMT

So you know that band you just discovered? The one you've been obsessed with for the last few days, weeks, maybe even months. You post a link on Facebook and Twitter and inevitably a friend responds and says something like “They’re awesome! I’ve been listening to them since their first album in 2003.” Kind of puts a damper on your excitement doesn’t it? You’re all kinds of excited and then you’re basically told your new discovery is old news. Or, scenario 2. You went out for some live music and saw a band opening for the band you originally went to see. They absolutely blew you away. Best live show you’ve seen in a long time. Maybe you update Facebook from the show to tell your friends how awesome they are. Again, your friend pipes up and says “I saw them back in 1999 at [insert obscure venue]!” Again, a total Debbie downer on your new discovery. And then there is scenario 3. You've been a super fan fo your favorite band for 10 years. You eventually run into someone else who claims to be the biggest fan of [insert artist]. Doesn't it piss you off a little inside that they have the nerve to think that they are a more dedicated fan than you? Wouldn’t be cool if you could ask your friend to prove it? Would you like to have a record of the shows you’ve seen, the music you listen to, the artists you’ve discovered, maybe even the frequency that you listen to their music or watch their videos. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to prove that you are your favorite band’s biggest fan? Or, just that you saw your favorite band on their very first tour? Maybe you can earn points for listening to or purchasing music, going to shows and watching music videos and your favorite band will send you free stuff for being their biggest fan. I think it sounds pretty cool. Let me know your thoughts. Give me any feedback you like on this subject by leaving a comment.

2010 Grammy Awards

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 23:58:05 GMT

I haven't even finished watching the whole show yet. I set the DVR to record the last hour because I had to get to sleep… gotta have my sleep so I can get up at 5am for the gym! The first two hours though were pretty phenomenal. Lady Gaga is truly talented. I don’t care what you think about her crazy outfits or whether or not you think she’s a tranny. That is TRUE talent. Maybe her duet with Elton John will help legitimize her as a true musician and not a passing fad. She seemed to be a little awestruck sitting across from Elton while she was playing. She seemed to have that look in her eye like, “holy shit.. is this really happening right now??? I’m playing with Elton John! He’s playing MY song!” That was cool to see that and see her be real and a fan of music in general for a moment.

I had no idea Green Day had a musical on Broadway. Good for them! Cha-ching! $$$

Dude.. dude.. DUDE! Beyonce!!! I’m smitten. Just mind-bottling. Yes, like your mind is trapped in a bottle. She is UH-MAZING ALL THE TIME! Did you see her gyrating across the stage on her knees?!? ZOMG **DIES TO DEATH** If Jay-Z goes missing and Beyonce is rumored to have been locked up in a basement somewhere.. I had nothing to do with it.. just sayin.’

I’m not going to comment on every performance, I’m really too lazy for that. I do want to say the Zac Brown band was awesome. I think if anyone decided to throw any auto-tune on them that it was likely someone would get their ass kicked. Speaking of auto-tune, Taylor Swift needs to embrace this technology. She sounded pretty awful. For those that are unaware, auto-tune does NOT always equal T-Pain. It can be used subtly to just give a singer’s voice a gentle push in the correct direction and if done well is nearly undetectable. I’m willing to bet a lot of money that there are many cd’s/mp3’s in your collection where you would swear there is no way in hell auto-tune touched a track but is actually on all vocal tracks and maybe even a bass guitar or other monophonic instruments. Auto-tune is not ALL bad believe it or not.

Lady Antebellum was boring as hell. Not my style and that dude looks like a young Kenny Loggins. I would have much rather heard “Danger Zone.”

The “Earth Song” tribute to Michael Jackson was very well done. It was pretty cool in 3-D at home even. As long as you weren’t expecting IMAX Avatar style 3-D in your house then it was cool I suppose. I also thought that this was proof that American Idol does do some good for music. Two of the five singers performing in this tribute were discovered via American Idol. Jennifer Hudson and Carrie Underwood are insanely talented singers. Who knows where they would be without Idol. They are LEGIT.

Full Sail had 37 grads work on Grammy winning projects in 24 different categories. Hopefully next year there are even more and I’m included. I really want a Grammy, even if it’s a technical award that isn’t televised. I want one.

I'm looking forward to watching the rest of the show tonight.

Making some progress...

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:25:00 GMT

I feel like I'm FINALLY starting to make some noticeable gains with my fitness routine. More so in my actual performance, but I am finally seeing small changes in the mirror. I've been keeping track of a few things for a while now to check my progress. Check it out...

These are my supposed "One Rep Max" graphs (with the exception of the weight graph obviously). I think my actual one rep max may be a little higher. I do 3x5's. When I enter something in, I enter the weight I did for one set of 5. I've consistently entered it that way to actually be able to see real progress whether the number is EXACTLY correct or not.

I'm going to do my best not to go and ruin all of my hardwork over the holidays. Hopefully after the new year I'll be seeing enough change in the mirror that I'll be brave enough to show before and after photos. I'll get there! No stopping me now!

Fitness

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:12:36 GMT

This is a bit off topic and unrelated to music but it's something that is very important to me and a huge part of my life. I decided to get serious with working out back in April 09 and haven't looked back since. In about 4 months I've put on about 10 lbs of muscle, lost an inch in my waist and gained an inch in my arms. I've been mostly concentrating on high amounts of cardio.. trying to reduce something I have which has been named "Squidge" by girlfriend, Jen. I'm going to continue cutting through the end of September. Then, October 1st, I'm going to switch to a bulking phase. Increasing my caloric intake by about 700-1000 calories and increasing the weight lifting and cutting the cardio down to 15 minutes a day with maybe a "rest" day with 45-60 minutes of cardio only. Right now I'm eating about 2500 calories a day. When it comes time to really bulk up I'm going to up it to about 3200-3500 calories/day. Basically eating everything in site and lifting weights like a mad man. Once spring rolls around I'll start a hardcore cutting phase again. By THEN, I fucking better be in damn good shape. It's been a slow process. I don't think I'm one of those people genetically inclined to get ripped to shit within a few months or even 6 months time. Give me me until next April and I think the difference will be quite noticeable. I've got progress pictures so you can all see how far I will have come. This really is all about health first. Looking good and feeling confident about my body comes second and is something I find to be important. You have to take care of yourself. Without your health you have absolutely nothing. I'm addicted to it. I'm up working all night right now and can't wait to get to the gym tomorrow.

Rock 'n Roll A Go-Go

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 23:45:00 GMT

Our friend, America Olivo, was hosting a party at Cinespace last night so we went and checked that out and saw The Darling Stilettos w/Matt Sorum. I've seen them before at The Roxy and the show was less than impressive. This time though, they were pretty damn awesome. I don't even think they sang at The Roxy show, they were just on stage dancing. This time, they sang, they had Matt Sorum playing live drums with them, and a guitar player and really cool video being projected behind them. They don't seem to have voices that were trained at Juilliard or anything but they put on a great show.. you can't really go wrong with rock 'n roll and 4 scantily clad girls dancing. Good times last night though. Made some great connections as well. ..Until next time.

No Doubt!

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 06:15:00 GMT

Jen and I went to see No Doubt, Paramore and The Sounds last night in Irvine. It was a pretty amazing show all around. We missed most of The Sounds' set while waiting in line but from what I heard, they sounded good. Paramore put on a pretty awesome live show. That was my first time seeing Paramore but every live video of them Hayley has always sounded REALLY good and this show was no exception. Some of their songs start to sound similar to me but they do have some stand outs. No Doubt blew every one away though. This was the first big concert I had been to in a few years. It was pretty amazing to see 16,000+ people in the palm of one person's hand. Everyone was singing along, clapping or jumping in unison at Gwen's beckon call. Pretty awesome! No Doubt sounded and looked amazing.. including Gwen's abs, tummy tuck or not.. she worked her ass for those.. AMAZING.

Tired as all hell.

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:06:24 GMT

I'm staying up all night trying to get this site up and running. Should be working on a couple new songs tomorrow. The shit is turning out a lot better than I ever expected. I'm a happy camper.