Category: Diary

How coincidental this can be? My default movie going partner is now in Japan for his business trip. My wife is now in Bangkok in her business trip. And most of my friends were not available this night. Well, such a rare occasion that a foreign film was shown, I have to catch it regardlessly.

On the way to the Arts House, I kept humming the 12-bar blue. And lyrics came into my mind. Potential song title – Devil Won’t Forget. Spooky!

Back at home, I started doing the recording for the Midnight Mix of the song Blood On My Boots. Jason is right, vocal track should be recorded last. Compared to the last time I recorded just with Jeremy’s accoustic guitar, this time round I was really into the song as Jason has enhanced the song much with his clean guitar sound. Hopefully the song is good enough to make it to the bonus track of our Internet Album.

Seems to me that nowadays I have combo blog entries.

I want a classical guitar with electric pickup. I want it so badly that it is just not rational anymore. I just want to own one.

But why?

My old classical guitar is falling apart. I write music using a classical guitar. I want to record my music using just the classical guitar for my upcoming website.

Lunch time, I walked from Dhouby Ghout MRT station all the way back to the office stopping at the guitar shops at Paradis Center area and Peninsula Plaza area. Yes, it is a bloody long walk. Too bad, I did not have my car key with me.

Believe it or not, I have tried the $2,650 Taylar classical guitar and I just can’t appreciate it. I tried the Takamine again and it still touches my heart. The Taylar guitar I tried is made with spruce top while the Takamine one is made with cedar. To be honest, I have no idea how different these two kinds of wood will sound.

I messaged my friend Jonathon for help and he told me (via sms of course) that spruce top is for clarity and provides good tremble while cedar top is for the volume. Fair deal. No wonder!

The fact that I strum the classical guitar (and he asked me why I strum a classical guitar, not supposed to!) probably explain why it did not sound that impressive. If I was to play the classical guitar in a proper manner, most likely I would fall in love with the Taylor.

I am pretty much decided on the brand. Just that the pretty shop assistance still has not get back to me what I can get within my budget. Driving me insane.

Question: what would a songwriter who has lost the inspiration do? Yes, digging up the ghost. I dug up one song that I have half finished more than a month ago. That song was written when I woke up early for warm-up prior to one of our jamming sessions.

I managed to figure out how the song sounded like (I did not record then and I should have, instead I wrote down the notes) and it clocked at 2.30 mins. Today, I picked up the song again and instead of continue writing the song, I just repeated the majority of the song with a twist. There you go! I have the song!

So, why didn’t I continue to write somemore? It is because very few audience can appreciate the songwriting style of mine (one piece with verses of different melody going freeform, i.e. no defined structure, and seldom repeat). So, the key is to identify the “hook” and keep repeating it. It seems to be a winning formula of all the rock and pop songs. How original?! I mean, why do anyone want to keep listenning the same segment of the song again and again – in the same song?? All they need to do is just to repeat the song and there you go! Again, cannot understand how we human being appreciate music.

It has been such an extraordinary weekend to me. My weekend began with the Motor Show that was packed with cool concept cars and decent looking models. Then it was Jason who invited me to watch a Spanish movie with him at the Art House – Torremolinos 73, a black comedy. And it ended with a wonderful jamming session with Jason and listenning to the Blue.

Torremolinos is a movie about a door-to-door encyclopaedia salesman who turned into an educational adult film maker with his wife as the star. While the adult films were banned in Spain, they were hot in the Scandinavian market. His wife wanted a baby so much while the husband, hardly able to sustain a family of two, insisted on using a condom every time they made love. The irony later on as the story unfold was that for the last six years they have been making love with condoms, it was the same six years that the husband has zero sperm count.

The main twist of the story came when the main character has become so good at filming that he has written a new script called Torremolinos 73 – a title inspired by one of the sexy poster he saw while he was making sample for the sperm test. It was a show about a widow who met someone who looked exactly like her late husband in one of the honeymoon resort.

Soon he became the director of his new movie and he got his wife as the main actress. Towards the end of the filming, the producer made an unexpected change in script asking the sex symbol – his wife – to mate with one of the actor – her supposed late husband in the show. The irony was that she actually wanted it because she wanted a baby so much. The most painful scene was that the director – her husband – has to see through the entire act. Well, in the end, he got a movie while she got a baby. Happy ending? Perhaps.

Sunday, it was all about blue. Jason and I had a jamming session and we have covered quite a number of songs as well as some of the songs that could be in the pipeline. We jammed metal music as well as a remix on Sweet Dream (Are Made Of This). After dinner, Jason and I were both into blue music – Eric Clapton, Aerosmith’s latest blue album, Steve Ray Vaughan, Neil Young, and Jimi Hendrix. I am so inspired to write a blue album. We shall see.