My Temperamental Car

Here is my car:

Sometimes I think my car is lonely.  Occasionally it just decides "I'm bored.  I want to go to the shop, it's time for something to break."  Do I not give it enough attention?  Maybe it found out that I was going to start running and took offense.  I even park it next to the other Malibu that I'm pretty sure it likes:

(Speaking of - Malibu [can I call you Mal?], you know that little scratch on your front bumper?  Chicks dig scars.  Trust me on this one)

But it gets moody sometimes.  First it was the anti-theft system (caused the car to randomly not start when I turned the key).  Then it was the windshield (still haven't fixed it).  Now the fuel gauge doesn't seem to be displaying anything under 1/4 tank.  And then there's that darn front tire that always seems to be low on air.  I think that's the car's way of always keeping my attention on it.  If I could hear the air seeping out of the tire, it would sound like whining.  What an attention-whore.

But now...it decided to up the ante.  This is what a car spring is supposed to look like:

See how the spring sits nicely on the plate? That's a finely tuned mechanical device.  A work of art.  Unfortunately, this is what mine looked like a couple of weeks ago:

You know what I see when I look at that picture?  A hole in my wallet with all of my money falling out of it.

Listen, Mal.  I like you.  We've had some good times.  But you're so high-maintenance.  I'd like to be friends, so please try and scale it back a little.

-Your friend, Aaron

The Highest of Hats - Part 2

In a previous post, I talked about the hi-hat cymbals and how they can be difficult to play if you mix in both "open" and "closed" notes.  I decided to make a few videos explaining this concept further - I expect this to end up being a 3-part series in total.  You may see videos from me more often - I found out the video recorder on my camera doesn't completely suck (although the sound isn't very impressive) so I've had some fun making videos lately.  Below you will see a video I made describing the various ways to use a hi-hat pedal, artfully narrated by Windows Movie Maker:

Don't ask me why my drum throne squeaks so much.  I don't even notice it when I'm playing but it seems dreadfully loud in the video.  

Pedal Technique

Next I have a short video I made of various pedal techniques - heel up, heel down, and heel-toe.  It's the first video I narrated in real-time!  Notice my failure to pronounce the word "frequently" on the first try and my success in using the word "umm" as every third word:

For the record, I am embarassed that my short double pedal sample quickly devolved into "mashing pedals with no real rhythm".  I am better than that, I swear.  I would re-record this video but I am way too lazy for that.  I thought you guys should see my first real attempt at narrating an instructional video and see how horrible it is.

If you want a way better video than mine, click here (seriously, Derrick Pope is the man.  Watch that video).  Now I know what you're saying - why link a video that's way better than yours if it's going to make yours look bad?  Well because a) I want people to actually know what a real heel-toe method looks like, and b) I like making videos (so I can't just link his and be done with it).

So there you have it - the hi-hat and various pedal techniques.  For the record, I mostly play heel-up on both the bass pedals and the hi-hat pedal.  I think most people play heel-down on the hi-hat pedal for more control, but I am not one of those people.

Shocking update

I am apparently not a superhero yet.  This is disappointing.  Stay tuned for details.

Bang Camaro - the party on stage

Another picture post today!  I went to see Bang Camaro on Thursday.  I first learned about Bang Camaro when I played Rock Band - one of their guitar players and one of their singers works for Harmonix (HMX), the creators of RB.  So when I heard they were playing in East Lansing, I had to go see them.  Here is my awesome RB shirt that I wore to the show:

I left shortly after work on Thursday, and I had to drive fairly fast to get there on time.  I guess the other people on the road were in an even bigger hurry!  Here you see me going 80 and STILL BEING PASSED BY EVERYONE:
I stopped in Fowlerville to get some food.  Fowlerville is exit 129 on I-96.  I have stopped there many times driving to and fro my parents' house, especially when I was in college:

This is the sky.  There are clouds and it looked cool.  I took a picture of it while I was driving.  That's probably not very safe.

This is a Lotus Elise that I was driving behind in East Lansing.  A Lotus Elise is a very sporty, expensive car that you don't see very often in the US.  It looks awesome.

This is my cousin JT.  He goes to MSU (eww).  He went to the show with me.  He is a pretty cool guy when he is not rooting for State.

The show started around 9.  The opening band was like Alco or Alpaca or something.  They were pretty good.  They had a lot of instrumental stuff that sounded really cool.  They also had a keyboard player who sat down instead of standing up (minus points in my book).  After they got done, Bang Camaro got on the stage.  Bang Camaro has a very unique setup - they have two lead guitar players, a bass player, a drummer, and a "choir" of singers (4 at this show, but more sometimes).  There are so many people dancing around and drinking and having fun - it's like a party on stage.  You can see (from left to right) one singer, Bryn (the HMX guitar player), a second singer (I think his name was Morgan, he was the other HMX guy), a third singer, and the bass player:

I got some individual photos too.  This is Bryn.  He is a lead guitar player and he works for Harmonix.  He plays a Gibson guitar:

This is Alex.  He is the other lead guitar player.  He plays a Fender.  He is wearing an awesome Rock Band guitar shirt:

This is the bass player.  I didn't catch his name, but he seemed pretty cool too:

Here is Bang Camaro playing their song Pleasure (Pleasure).  This song is featured in Rock Band 1 and is probably my favorite song of theirs.  The sound quality kind sucks and my camera work is shaky (since I was only using one hand to keep it above the people in the crowd), but here it is:

Here is the fourth singer headbanging with some random person in the crowd (yes, he was right on the edge of the stage, and yes, I was really that close):

The person that was headbanging with singer #4 got pulled up onto stage and sang the last song as singer #5 with the rest of the band.  This is just another reason Bang Camaro is so cool - pulling someone up on stage and letting them sing the last song with the rest of the choir:

At this point something awesome happened.  The person that I call Morgan jumped off the stage and told everyone nearby to gather around.  I and about 7 other people crowded around him and sang the next song with him...it was amazing.  Seriously.  It was unbelievable.  I was singing into the mic with one of the singers of the band.  Crowd interaction - yet another reason why Bang Camaro puts on a great show.

After their set ended, I walked over and talked with Bryn and (Morgan?) about how awesome RB was.  Morgan talked about another game that they worked on (Titan's Quest), and Bryn said he thought it was awesome that RB convinced me to start playing the drums.  I bought one of their CDs.  Lately I like to buy CDs from bands that haven't made it big yet - try to help them out.

After that, there was another band that was going to play, but it was 11:30 so John and I left.  We both had to work the next morning and I don't work very well on 5 hours of sleep.  I finally got home - it was kinda late but wasn't too bad:

Overall it was a great show.  I would recommend seeing them if you get a chance.