[shadowgenesis]

Alright. This is going to be lengthy and very likely uninteresting to a number of people. But a wise person once told me "If you put your intentions out there, good things will come to you." So I've decided I would share with this highly respectable community.


My name's Dan. I'm 19, live in Pennsylvania, play guitar, love to sing, and I want to become a performing and recording artist - preferably a member of a band. As of right now though, I have no real experience in playing with a band or performing, as I have not been amongst other musicians much in the last year and a half. I'm in the preparatory stages for going to school in Manhattan to study music engineering and production, so I'm hoping that will get me into the kind of environment I'm looking for.


Essentially, I would like to be part of a group that is very open creatively. I enjoy far too many types of music to ever be in a "metal band" or an "alt rock band." I look at the music scene today and see that genres and borders are become entirely too blurred to waste time trying to fit in somewhere. I love me some dark, brooding, heavy music, and i love upbeat, happy, energized music - it doesn't make sense to me to only show one side of myself to the world. I look at what the Beatles did for rock music. And then what Led Zeppelin did for hard rock. Those two bands, although not musically my absolute favorites to listen to, are the ones I look up to most in what they did over the course of their careers. The Beatles were four separate creative minds working together to do more than any band has done since. And being a hard rock child, I see Led Zeppelin as being much the same in how they covered so much ground while still retaining their sense of identity. I think it's great when you can ask 10 fans of the same band which album is their favorite, and each of them gives you a different answer.


I can't really put my finger on what it is about some music that I like and other music that I don't. I've learned that it's got nothing to do with genres. I used to be just a hard rock/metal guy and then one day I started listening to Dave Matthews and it all went haywire from there. I'm still more of a hard rock guy at heart, but I've branched out so far from my roots.
Some of my favorite bands include System of a Down, Modest Mouse, the Dave Matthews Band, the Mars Volta, Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Limp Bizkit, Rage Against the Machine, Korn, Billy Talent,... erm. Those are the ones i listen to heavily. Like i said, heavy music is at the heart of me. But i listen to my fair share of pop, lighter alt rock, emo, punk rock, electronica, hip-hop, post-rock and well. a lot of other things i guess. There are other kinds of music that I'm not really well-versed in because i lack exposure, such as jazz, classical, techno, and country, but I'm sure there's stuff out there i'd dig. I want to be able to take elements from anything and everything that I like and, if it's appropriate for the music, use it in my writing.


Despite my rather broad palette of musical taste, my playing ability on the guitar is far less well-versed, but I'm working on it. My obvious playing influences include Tom Morello, Daron Malakian, John Petrucci, Isaac Brock, Wes Borland, and a smattering of other guys. I tend to be more of a riff/groove oriented player when it comes to writing stuff, though I think i'm finally getting somewhere tasteful with lead playing and trying not to get stuck in a certain niche. I like the guitar conventionally, but I like to try more unconventional approaches, because I like to create a wide array of sounds.
I sing constantly... But i've recently done some scratch vocal tracks and decided I still pretty much hate my voice. Alas, I like singing way too much to ever stop, so I would always be interested in contributing vocally to the music to some degree. I've also noodled around on the piano a bit and my music theory knowledge gives me ample headroom to just play around with. Technical proficiency is way less important to me than simply being able to create something that sounds good. I like some of the simple things I've done on a piano, and that's cool with me.


I struggle with staying self-motivated, though as time goes by and i get older, I've gotten much better about it. I've realized that I can no longer wait for something to fall in my lap and I have to take initiative to get myself moving in some sense. Over the next few months (or the year i'm at school), I intend to hone my home-recording skills and develop myself more independently as a musician (write more than just guitar parts by themselves.) Then I think the likely next move, if I've got no band to speak of, would be to move to L.A. and start making moves there - as it is practically the center of the industry. I am too passionate about this to settle down for a normal job and forget about my dreams.


So this is me putting myself out there, letting everybody know what i'm all about. I'm hoping that by posting this that maybe I can make a connection with like-minded people and musicians. Maybe just to see if I'm the only one who feels the way i do, or if I'm just one in a million. And if anybody else has got a story of their own to share, I encourage you to talk about it, because i think this is the heart of my passion for breathing.


-dAN (the ranty one)

lately i just can't fall asleep at night