Do What Makes You Happy.

I'm working on a Polyvore post on this, so I thought I'd do a full-length blog post about it.

This topic was inspired by a YouTube video I watched called Smile by one of my favorite YouTubers, Cherry Wallis. I'll put the video below.

Personally I think this video is really inspiring. I mean, there are a lot of other videos like this. It's just something we all kind of go "yeah, I know." and forget about, when really, this is more important than we might think.

Not to be morbid, but you could die anytime. Would you be happy with your life if you died today? Have you been doing the most you can to be happy?

So many of us spend so much time worrying about what others think of us that we stop worrying about what we think of ourselves. And this doesn't just apply to teenagers. I've learned that this doesn't stop when you become an adult; the contest to have the most impressive life continues. I think that that's really sad, man.
There is always, always going to be people who judge you in this world. It's what people do. Your friends will judge you, your family will judge, your neighbors, classmates.. whatever. It doesn't mean you need to shape yourself into who they want you to be. The only person you should be trying to be is yourself.

So whether it's coming out that you're gay, making the decision not to go to college, telling a person that you like them more than a friend or just being afraid to pursue an ambition, try not to worry so much about how everyone around you is going to react to it. If it's what you think is best for you, go for it.

Rock on!

February Favorites

Heya, back again for my list of top 10 February faves!

I don't know about you, but I've had a pretty serious case of winter blues. I don't really care for winter, and after Christmas I'm done and ready for spring. It didn't help that we had a freakin' butt-load of snow storms!
So when winter's a drag and I need a pick-me-up, I turn to my favorite summery tunes. It might be just me, but I have sort of seasonal bands. That doesn't mean I don't listen to them year-round, I just generally listen to them most in one particular season/time of year. For instance, I mostly just listen to Megadeth in fall. So this list will mainly consist of my favorite bands/songs to listen to in the warmer months.

Alright, let's get to it, shall we?

10. Mercenary - Panic! At the Disco

This isn't one of my summer jams, it's just a song I listened to a lot this past month. As you may know, Panic! is one of my all-time favorite bands, so it's no shocker that one of their songs would be on this list, haha.

9. China Cat Sunflower - Grateful Dead

This song.. oh man. It brings back memories. Summer memories. This is probably the most summery song I know, and I listen to hippie jam bands. I'm not really sure this one counts for Feb faves because I started listening to it at the beginning of March, but whatever, I'll make an exception. Anyhow, this song is so chill and fun. It was one of the first GD songs I heard, and I fell in love with it pretty much instantly. Ah, I love the Grateful Dead so much.

8. Casino Queen - Wilco

There is so much energy in this song, it's actually my new favorite Wilco song. I've known of Wilco for a while, but I never really listened to a ton of their songs until I went to the School of Rock Wilco show when I remembered how much I love them. I love their piano and vocals the most. Such an amazing band!

7. Santeria - Sublime

Santeria is one of the songs in the SoCal show I'm in at School of Rock. Normally I don't count any of the songs in shows because obviously I have to listen to them all a bunch to learn them, but I've been listening to Santeria aside from during practice. Sublime is slowly growing on me, and this one has a really fun bass line. My friend Sophia and I are both on this song, and we have so much fun with it. We also crack up at the lyrics, they're so ridiculous. XD

6. Carry on Wayward Son - Kansas

So I was watching Supernatural, and it got to the season 5 finale. The episode opens with Carry on Wayward Son and a montage of "the road so far" and at that moment I'm pretty sure I busted out crying. I've known and loved this song pretty much all my life, but I hadn't heard it in years. It's perfect. This. Song. Is. Perfect. If you have not heard this song then you need to click that link and listen to it. Now.

5. Phish - It's Ice

Was this in one of my other lists? I feel like it was. Oh well. Here it is again. xD
That just proves how awesome this song is, because it really it awesome. I mean, if you're not into this kind of stuff you're probably not going to appreciate it as much as I do, but if you are: jackpot, baby. The amount of genius in this song is actually unbelievable. The bass, the guitar, oh and the lyrics man. "I'm tied to him or him to me, depending who you ask." That is fucking genius.

4. Panic Switch - Silversun Pickups

Wow, another one from SoCal. I didn't do that on purpose, I swear. It never actually even crossed my mind that this one and Santeria are both from SoCal, because I listen to them like the rest of the songs on my iPod.
So yeah, Panic Switch is pretty badass. At first I thought it was kind of annoying because of his voice, but it really grew on me, and it's one of my favorite songs in SoCal now. It reminds me of the Smashing Pumpkins actually.
Plus, I get to play bass and sing backup vocals on it, so that's pretty great.

3. Maxwell's Silver Hammer - The Beatles

3 WEEKS STRAIGHT THIS STUPID SONG WAS STUCK IN MY HEAD
BANG BANG MAXWELL'S SILVER HAMMER CAME DOWWWN
AHHHHHHHGHDSJDKFADKL
Okay yeah, it's annoyingly catchy, but I love it. I love The Beatles, I love Paul's vocals (Paul's my favorite Beatle btw) I love everything about this song. EXCEPT THAT IT GETS STUCK IN MY HEAD FOR THREE DAMN WEEKS

2. All I Need - Radiohead

Spacey, trippy and beautiful. That's how I'd describe All I Need. In Rainbows is one of my most underlistened Radiohead albums, which is a shame because it's perfection. I get that if you're not into mellow, slower stuff like this then you might find In Rainbows boring though. It's an acquired taste I suppose; I wasn't always into stuff like this.

1. Ramblin' Man - The Allman Brothers Band

AW YISS
YOU WANT SUMMER
I'LL GIVE YOU SUMMER
HERE
HAVE SOME SUMMER
THIS IS ACTUALLY SUMMER IN A SONG
YOU'RE WELCOME

So that's it! Hope you got some new jams out of it, or at least you won't be bored listening to my large variety of favorite genres, haha. Alright, that's all for today!

Rock on!

I Finally Recorded Something!

Happy Friday, peeps!
I'm gonna make this quick, but as you can tell by reading the title, I have a little something to share!
A few weeks back I was screwing around on my keyboard and I noticed that a LOT of my favorite songs to play are in the same keys. So I decided to see how many I could mash together and well.. this happened.
Don't get me wrong, it was a lot of work to put this together. I mean, I spent all day on it and played until my hands were shaking, and there are still a lot of mistakes. But I'm mostly happy with it, except towards the end you can tell I was really worn out and I started slipping keys more.

So enjoy this piano medley I composed!

 

Songs:
1. Nobody Home - Pink Floyd
2. The Thin Ice - Pink Floyd
3. Let it Be - The Beatles
4. Hey Jude - The Beatles
5. Restless Heart Syndrome - Green Day
6. Yellow Submarine - The Beatles
7. Here Comes Your Man - The Pixies
8. She Had the World - Panic! At the Disco

[Side note: All of the songs were kept in their original keys (except Yellow Submarine which is on a quarter tone)]

Rock on!

So It's Been Awhile

Indeed it has.
I'll be honest, I can only keep up a steady blogging schedule for so long. The same goes for writing in general, which is probably why I could never keep up with a diary.
But hey, here I am now.
OH and I've discovered a new favorite Radiohead song (No Surprises is still my #1 favorite, but I have a lot of other close seconds). Well, more like Zach found it and showed it to me. I confess that I've only listened to In Rainbows like once or twice, so I'm currently in the process of re-listening to the whole album again.
Anyhow, the song I was talking about is All I Need, from the record In Rainbows, as you might've guessed. You should definitely give it a listen. Click here to do so.

Also, it's been almost a year since I got my nose pierced. Wow. It doesn't seem like it, really. I feel like it was just a few months ago or something. Then again, I guess I never noticed when it stopped hurting to change the jewelry and it didn't close up quickly after I took the ring out.
I've been wanting to do a blog post on that whole experience. Maybe I'll do that on April 19th (the one year mark). Who knows?

Speaking of April and approaching milestones, I'm gonna be sixteen soon. Holy shit man. I'm excited and scared and I don't know what else but it's crazy.
I plan to go for my learner's permit as soon as I can. My aunt's gonna teach me to drive, plus my friend Evan (he's 19 and been driving for a while) gave me some good advice.

What else has happened..
I started a mural sort of painting project on my wall. Well, more like several smaller projects. My mom was surprisingly cool with it when she found out. I even got my best friend Sophia to contribute! She painted the Dark Side of the Moon rainbow prism. I love it so much.

I've been watching Supernatural and American Horror Story.
God.. I just.. Supernatural is so amazing, but it's breaking my heart. Castiel is my favorite character. <3
And um... don't watch AHS. Just don't. Please.

I had my first Taco Bell experience =P We had some extra time after SoCal rehearsal so Evan drove Zach and I and we grabbed some Taco Bell. I got the nacho Doritos Locos Tacos and GOD THEY ARE GOOD. I shouldn't get used to them though they're so bad lol.

The School of Rock Best of Show competition happened in NYC at the Highline Ballroom. It was kind of ridiculously long, though. I mean four hours.. it kinda sucked how little time each school got, too. There were 7 schools: Farmingdale, Roslyn, Chathem, Easton, Allentown, Madison and Tenafly.
I didn't actually get to perform, which really pissed me off when I first found out. So each school got a half-hour of stage time. Easton SoR has 3 shows per season, so that means 10 minutes per show, right? Right. I was in Dance Rock. And of course they had to pick the 11-minute long song that I wasn't on. Whatever, I got over it I guess. The songs that went from Easton were:
Wilco: Casino Queen and Impossible Germany
Alice in Chains: I Stay Away and Them Bones
Dance Rock: Rebubula (by Moe.)
And guess what school won??
Easton, baby! I mean I didn't have any part of the win, but I'm still proud my school won!!

Woww okay I've been typing a lot and probably boring whoever's reading this so I'm gonna go now and maybe do my school work idk. So yeah laters!

Rock on~