Jonny Sniper

A few days ago I came across mine and my friends acoustic version of this song and thought to myself why the hell don't I listen to them anymore. So here I am, hooked (again!):

Admittedly when I first heard Enter Shikari I was like "whats all this screamy shouty shit" but now if done well, like they do, I love it. The bass line in the verse sounds really intricate but it is so simple and fun to play and fits so well into the song. When I first tried to learn this on guitar I thought it was going to be easy but the tapping in the verse got me. I have to give it to Rory Clewlow, and because tapping is not my forte I went the long way around learning it and re-tabbed it in a different tuning, just so I could pick it. Im glad I did so me and my band could cover it and after recently being told by a friend about the meaning behind the lyrics to all of their songs I have new found respect for them (not that I didn't love them before).



Chase

Sounds Of The CIty

I love The Dykeenies, they are a really cool band but I found out the other day, that earlier this year they had spilt up. This news made me a little upset and made me listen to this song. This was on their last album (which I still haven't got):

This song is just a really nice song. It is really laid back with some beautiful strings (even if they do sound slightly fake at times) throughout. I heard this on the radio a few years back and I was just like "Wow! I need to get this song". Loved it from the very first listen and I still love listening to it now. Near the end, where they put in a guitar solo underneath everything gives the song a nice little power boost that builds up until it drops out for the last line of the song, along with the strings, to calmly leave the song. The album I do have of theirs though, "Nothing Is Everything" is amazing and if i had known they were playing their last gig very soon I would of tried to get tickets to see them. I will have to get the last album soon because if the rest of it is anything like this song it's going to be a good album.



Chase

Scott Farcas Take It On The Chin

As much as I love strings in a song, I also love a good brass section! Less Than Jake never fail to put me in a good mood. They have provided me with one of the best weeks of my life (more on that after the song!):

This is my favourite song by them its so upbeat and happy. Whenever it comes on, whilst my itunes is shuffling, I have to start dancing along (no matter what mood I'm in). Just like many of their basslines it is pretty funky and stretches your hand like a beast but is so much fun to play. The bass breakdown in the middle is where you hear it at its most awesomeness. The brass in this song is just intense as well, just perfect. It sounds so good as the lead part in the intro and underneath the vocals in the verse making the song just that much more fun. The reason they gave me one of the best weeks ever is because I went to see their "6 albums 6 Shows 6 Nights" gigs in London with 3 of my good friends and it just got better and better night after night!



Chase

Wishing Well

Blink 182 have been one of my favourite bands forever and if it weren't for them like most people I wouldnt love the awesome music that I do now.

This songs chorus lyrics are just breathtaking. On first listen to this song I was instantly grabbed they just put a huge vivid image in my mind and it made me look at lyric writing in whole new light. The way he sings about all these things that should bring luck and they just don't work out as planned "I reached for a shooting star, it burnt a hole through my hand". The music is just classic Blink; relatively simple guitar and bass and then some slightly more intricate drumming from Mr. Barker. The whole of Blinks back catalogue is another like Motion City Soundtracks that I could spend each day writing about but im going to spread it out. I'm going to see them live again in the summer and I just cant wait. I've only seen them once before and that was at Leeds 2 years ago. Being a big fan I really should had seem them a lot more (before they broke up)!

And who doesn't love Mark Hoppus?!

Chase

Rough Landing, Holly

Yellowcard (in my eyes) the best band on the planet. (Biased as they are my favourite band)

As I said in my last post I love me some strings in songs and Yellowcard provide that with an amazing violin player as part of the band. Sean Mackin is the man behind the violin and he plays it so well but onto the song. This song is just everything Yellowcard stand for:

Rough Landing, Holly has it all; a powerful heavy guitar intro that just gets you going from the start, strong vocals with a nice melody, some amazing drum fills (Longineu Parsons III is a drum god! and I shook his hand once!), an awesome violin riff over the chorus and the guitar break down that is so easy but so good especially when they bring in the harmony guitar, which Yellowcard do so well. I've seen them live 3 times (which is not enough!) and the first time they didn't play this. I was a bit upset but when i saw them again and they did play it my god was I blown away. The drumming was just intense and the whole crowd just singing along, heaven. The only song that was better though was of course Ocean Avenue but that song is hard to beat live.

I wish my camera was better!

Chase

Sons Of Liberty

As tempting as it was to just go through Motion City Soundtracks entire back catalogue for the next few weeks I thought it would be nice to change things up a bit!

So one of the best musicians to have ever graced this planet Frank Turner is up today. I've him seen live 3 times so far and for a 4th later this year and obviously this song is the song i cant wait to hear. When played live he just seems to make it even more epic and awesome:

I love strings in songs and the violin solo in this song is just insanely good. The first 2 times I saw him live he played the violin solo on the guitar and i was just blown away at his mad guitar skills. The third time one of his support bands (sorry I cant remember the name of them) played the violin solo on a violin and it just made my year seeing the song how it was meant to be played. My favourite line of the song has to be "and I'd rather stand up naked against the elements alone" it provokes a powerful image in mind. The strong lyrics along with his passionate and powerful singing is just what makes Mr Turner so good.



Chase

Point Of Extinction

Well to start things off I'm going to one of my favourite bands!

Motion City Soundtrack are just amazing! Every song is just incredibly catchy and well written! This past week I saw them live twice as they were playing all 4 of their albums in full over 2 nights and each night was awesome! My favourite song over the 2 nights had to be this one:

The whole song is just beautifully sung with some amazing lyrics. Being a Transformers fan the line "to restore us like energon cubes" has to be my favourite. Listening live the chorus was just so loud and epic and just in your face! It was so much fun to sing along too especially the middle section with the whole crowd singing "yeah yeah yeah, give it up, give it up"! Blew my mind! To top off the seeing them live at the end of both evenings they played their new song "True Romance" now on first listen I actually didn't think much of it. I thought it was a bit average but after hearing it live it totally changed my mind it is yet another incredible song from an incredible band!

Chase

This Is Me!

Well I've decided to start my own blog...

After being bored out of my face when by myself (mostly procrastinating from uni work) I thought there must be something I could do?! So here it is!

Being incredibly interested in music, most of this blog will be short entries about songs/bands I am obsessing over at that moment in time. But I guess I better start with myself with little details on what I do and what I have been up to in my musical career and then I will move on too the music.

I have been studying music technology for about 4 years now and it's incredible entertaining but like everything has its fair share of downers. From studying this subject I have become quite good at recording and mixing (well I think I have). I have tried to start up my own little recording business for local Leicester acoustic musicians so that they can have decent recorded songs that they can use for any purpose they want. You can check these out on either my Soundcloud:

http://soundcloud.com/chaserecordings

or my Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/Chase.Recording

I also play myself, mainly guitar these days but i do dabble in other instruments. I started 6 years ago when I bought my first bass guitar (named Alice) Took me a while to get to grips with it but eventually managed to teach myself how to play, the first song i managed to play in its entirety either being "Whats's My Age Again?" by Blink or "Seven Nation Army" by The White Stripes (cant quite remember it was so long ago!) both good songs and fun to play! After teaching myself that for a few months I was asked to join my friends band but as a rhythm guitarist! Now this was daunting because I was used to 4 strings, I was thinking that 6 was too much for me to handle. But i managed to learn "I'm Not Okay" by My Chemical Romance on my first guitar (named Ashley) and from there a musical partnership was formed with my one of my best friends Mr James Barlow. 

Trying to play "Jonny Sniper" on one guitar! (it didn't go too well)

We have been playing music ever since then now going six years strong. We have basically been in a band ever since just changing the name every time we get new members. But I think we have finally found something that works and is something we're enjoying doing. We have Mr Jimmy Turril on drums and Mr Sam Bruce playing bass in our latest plot to take over the world Strike Up The Colours!

Which, if you haven't yet and of course if you want too, you can check out here:

http://www.facebook.com/StrikeUpTheColours

Well that's it, that's where i am! A struggling musician/(I don't want to sat producer but)producer on a university course that is interesting but ultimately wont help in the long run! Heres to the future and if you've read down this far thank you, I hope I haven't bored you with this little insight into my life. My next post I will start to talk about songs I like.

TO THE MUSIC...

This post was written whilst listening to the album Motion City Soundtrack - Even If It Kills Me. Check it out it's amazing!!

Chase