Accomplishments of Yet
It has been a little over three months since my last post. In that time I’ve grown in bounds.
Here are a few things I’ve accomplished:
I started a shoe brand, and have begun developing a clothing line to complement it! While it hasn’t skyrocketed yet, I have goals, and begun the process of growing them. The shoe brand and clothing line are two separate entities and I will grow them as such, but I hope to have a website to speak on soon.
I will be premiering my Youtube either this week or the next, and have many videos lined up with a variety of topics to come. Even though I’m starting with very few subscribers, I find it motivates me a lot, and realize I’m quite the optimist! Definitely not letting anything intimidate me.
Finally, I have been honing my musical craft with the help of an amazing producer! Writing is difficult, but not impossible I have discovered. Thank goodness for a large vocabulary lol.
Everything I touch sparkles right now, but this sparkle will become full blown sunbeams as time passes. I’m honing my crafts, and it will be a long journey, but I’m happy to say the journey has begun.
To anyone who reads this, I love you, and hope to inspire you as much as I’ve inspired myself.
Peace.
3 notes
·
View notes
This is another amazing practice for you to improve your creative writing!
With the words that you found on the video, try to create a song, it should be no longer than 4 paragraphs (four lines each) and consider the following tips:
1° Don’t rhyme too much, it is better to use rhyming in a subtle way so that it does not detract from the main message of the song.
2° The lyrics of the song should tell a kind of story, you will have to develop a coherent plot (try to answer yourself what you want your listeners to feel after listening to the song).
3° Write in a special way to warm up your listeners and demonstrate your own style; otherwise, you may lose your audience or not stand out from the others.
4° Last but not least, a “Hook” is also important when writing a song, it should be at the beginning to catch your listeners’ attention (30 seconds or so).
*On future sessions you will have the chance to create a video about your song, you will be given some useful resources to record it (background music, audio editing software, among others)*
0 notes
My Breakdown of “Pure,” The Beginning of America Part Two
The first time I saw America Part Two was at Ocean Township’s own, 20-year-old, Mark Embrey’s Syrian refugee benefit show, Light in the Attic, at The Inkwell. The band not only played their first show as a band, but opened the night with an acoustic set.
In front of band member, Freddie Koechlin, I sat on the ground next to one of my old and good friends, swaying back and forth singing the words to “California.”
This June 9, at the Asbury Park Music Foundation, the band will hold their EP Release for their debut release of Pure. Eight dollars at the door, the night will encompass sets by the beloved Have a Good Season, Corrina, Corrina, Kinder Than Wolves, and Paulie and The Bluechips.
I, however, want to tell you a little bit about the new EP and let you know what I think and what you can expect to hear from the trio of Mayflower Collective founders, longtime musicians, bandmates, and best friends, Freddie Koechlin, Alex Fabio, and Jake Newcomb:
Pure is a collection of four songs titled: “America Pt. II,” “Hoedown (What Do You Know?),” “Ocean Groove,” and “California”. Having experiences with the band, it is kind of beautiful to have a glimpse of where the pit of these songs might come from and who they might be about.
Let’s start with “America Pt. II,” a stripped down acoustic road of harmonic passion and love, this song is the anthem to what their America means to the band, or maybe, what they feel America it should mean. The track, in fact, reminds me of Koechlin leaving for tour last summer of 2016. I envision him traveling the nation, sitting by the Grand Canyon whistling the sounds of the ocean, the laughter of his friends, Hailey, their cat, music and home—all with a smile.
Then there is the thought of Newcomb: He is a history professor, and he is touring with a successful band, America Part Two, and he knows what it is he wants—he knows what and who it is that he loves and he doesn’t let it go.
The band indefinitely wants to express what’s in their hearts, and although, it is not on the EP, Jake Newcomb has a heartbreaking song that makes you think about how you might speak, act, love, and live with the someone you love to put before anyone else. Words hold so much weight in love, but actions always hold more. I haven’t heard the song since the Light in the Attic show, but that song in particular encourages me to feel that these three don’t want to make a sound to appeal to everyone, but create one that echoes their love for the art of music. With that, I hope to see that as a track on the record release. Additionally, “America Pt. II” also breeds this conception of purity in the music and makes someone like me feel happy to call the Jersey Shore and the local music scene home.
“Hoedown (What Do You Know?)” tears out the full band, introducing the drums to the EP, who of which are played by Matt Lambert, another lovely counterpart to the music scene of the Jersey Shore. I remember the last time I saw Lambert was approximately, three or four years ago—we were having a cigarette on the steps of The Asbury Lanes after Toy Cars played a set. Anyhow, this song brings me back to the vibe of Alex and Freddie’s past band, On Your Marks—particularly the record Ripped Out By The Roots—but has some of that melodic sound Alex and Jake, the Fox and Lion, put into their self-titled EP, which holds “California” as track three. Just the opening lyrics: “I wear this hoodie of a college I’ll never go to; I’m brewin’ coffee in the morning, it’s only half past two.” Those words resonate with many people, particularly, in our generation. This song is a middle finger to what society in America deems a prioritized life for your average twenty-something-year-old. The sound is pop punk, and a pair of shrugged shoulders with an eye roll at the eye doctor.
I quite adore track three: “Ocean Groove”. This past year has been a rampage of moving, life changes, rent, issues, love, a terrible election season and heartbreak upon the houses of our friends, so, for me personally, this song, as well as “California,” brings it to the front door of some of those memories within those houses and apartments.
I think of last summer once again here. Last summer was a better time for the two houses on the royal land of Fairfield—condensed with more love, more continuity, before things changed—however that love is still there, just more spread out. For Fabio, I think this song, lyrically, as I think the tracks on his and Jake’s Fox and Lion EP, are poetically loving and heartwarming, and with it so, I think of who Fabio loves, as well as, Ruby the dog.
Nevertheless, the guitarist and vocalist that is Fabio has a lot of love to give and as a result, I think of what he’d see when he would enter into that one in particular “Ocean Groove” apartment: “Just decide what you want to change into; Ravaged threads always cover the floor of your room; Your hair is everywhere; Your hair is everywhere; Your hair is everywhere; Your hair is everywhere”. I never did get to visit that apartment... then again, I was also advised against it.
Track four, “California,” re-recorded from the original, is my absolute favorite track on this EP. I just think of a gypsy, curly, brown haired human, with the most beautiful bright eyes and warmest smile on this side of the Jersey Shore. I think of California and the journey of a love I do not know, or a love that has me in a knot, not knowing what move is the right one, but making those moves anyway: “…Every time you come around she takes another step to the West… Pin yourself up on the map; Wherever you go, I will not go; Just choose a home and I’ll choose the road”.
The opening to “California,” grips you. The minute and 20 seconds of melodic guitar builds you up into the sand of the beach where you rise up to the horizon of the water, meeting the setting sun. Your sight moves to the direction of the West, but your body doesn’t because you’re sitting on a couch in that apartment, and you meet her half way.
The guitar and bass part tell this story as well. Conveying the motion, Koechlin’s bass echoes the bouncy groove of the song’s season as though a soundtrack to the movie this song builds in the listener’s mind. The bass part holding hands with the guitar part—at which summarizes the flow of emotions, sewing chimes into the sunlight that slaps Fabio—that burns his retinas—rocks the reality of the track with Alex’s intensifying vocals. The rise and fall of the chorus says it all: “Slap my face with the sun; Let the rays burn my retinas; Cigarettes though your lungs; We’ll never go to California”.
621 Lake Ave Unit 1C, Asbury Park, New Jersey 07712 - I will see you there.
FYI: The way I interpret the songs Alex, Freddie, and Jake, wrote as America Part Two is my own interpretation and what they make me feel and remind me of, but I love the thoughts of what could be—if they could be.
1 note
·
View note