NOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

Shit!!!!!!

My Modified Squier Telecaster w/Seymour Duncan single coils is ROSAK!!!!!

I left it next to the piano and my brother moved my guitar when he wanted to play. The cable was still jacked inside and when my brother moved it, the wires connecting to the plug-in point broke off.


(A vid with my Tele)

I got back my Ibanez from Hanif.

Although the distorted sound is nicer, the clean sound doesn't come close.

And on top of that, the second-hand-ness of the Ibanez makes the sound funny at higher frets and it doesn't feel as nice to play solos.

At least my pinch harmonics sound more bad-ass now.

Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness

Agh!!!! Just can't find much to blog about. I'm sure I'll blog more after SPM is over.


This post is about the 2005 album from the band Coheed and Cambria. Their style is like prog-rock with emo mixed in. The first song I heard from them was 'Welcome Home', a hard rock-ish sort of song. The opening riff was totally bad-ass and the solo to end the song was awesome.

Then, I heard 'A Favor House Atlantic' which surprised me as this was an emo-pop-punk song in the vein of bands like Taking Back Sunday and then there was 'The Suffering' (Which I will describe as a progressive pop-punk song).


Once I did my research on the band, I realize that the lyrics of all the band's songs from all their albums are part of this epic sci-fi story that vocalist Claudio Sanchez wrote called the Amory Wars. The band is named after the parents of the main character (who btw is also named Claudio).

Claudio Sanchez

The Amory Wars takes place in Heaven's Fence, a collection of 78 planets held in place by interconnecting beams of energy, known as the Keywork. The story revolves around the messianic Claudio Kilgannon, son of Coheed Kilgannon and Cambria Kilgannon. Over the course of the story, Claudio assumes the mantle of The Crowing, foretold savior of the Heaven's Fence universe. In the end, he must face the "Supreme Tri-mage" Wilhelm Ryan, absolute ruler of Heaven's Fence and the one ultimately responsible for the deaths of Claudio's family.

Anyway, I downloaded the album Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness and its pretty damn good. I always found albums that tell stories really cool.



This post is mainly introducing the band to those who don't know them and the story of this album.



This is taken from Wikipedia:



The cover of the graphic novel based on the album



The story of Good Apollo takes a step outside the science fiction narrative of the first three chapters and examines the life of the Writer, a character who is crafting the lives of the protagonist Claudio and his companions in the form of a fictional story. The graphic novel alternates between the two different worlds of Claudio the Writer and Claudio the Character, which can be confusing for one unacquainted with the concept as the Writer and Character are similar in appearance.

The novel opens with a dream taking place in the mind of Claudio the Character, in which he sits in priest's garb in the Writer's study looking upon the phrase "God Only Knows" scrawled in front of him in blood. He is approached by several skeletal figures begging for Claudio to save them. As their protests become more emphatic and they begin to overwhelm Claudio, he realizes he is dreaming and forces himself to awaken by stabbing his hand with a screwdriver.

Aboard his uncle Jesse's ship, the Grail Arbor, he explains the dreams to Jesse and his daughter Chase as the enslaved souls of the Keywork pleading for liberation. Jesse and Chase (who appears to have some prophetic power) believe the only way to free them is by destroying Heaven's Fence and that Claudio is a messiah-like figure called the Crowing who has the power to do this. Claudio, however, is having trouble accepting this daunting role.

The novel's focus now shifts to the Writer, who resides in Rockland County, New York. He is haunted by memories of a former lover, Erica Court, who had been unfaithful. The Writer suffers a series of delusions involving the death of Erica at his hands. These visions make up the song Welcome Home on the Good Apollo album. Suddenly, the Writer's window is broken and the someone apparently steals his ten-speed bicycle.

As the Writer walks off to investigate, the novel re-enters the story with an exchange between the story's villains, the Mage Wilhelm Ryan and his General, Mayo Deftinwolf, in which they vaguley speak of Claudio's role as the Crowing and their plans to crush him and the rebellion his uncle Jesse has been leading against the Mages of Heaven's Fence. Back aboard the Grail Arbor, Claudio is awakened from a nightmare about his lost family by the Prise Ambellina. They discuss a plan formulated by Jesse to penetrate the defenses of Apity Prime of the Omega star system by landing in the city of Kalline, which is adjacent to Wilhem's lair, the House Atlantic.

Claudio needs to get there to fulfill his destiny as the Crowing, however he points out that the opening in the defenses is likely a trap and argues further with Chase and Ambellina about his role, which he still doubts. Jesse explains the plan to the pilot of the Grail Arbor, who also expresses doubts, and the group prepares for the final assault on the forces of Wilhelm Ryan. In the Writer's world, he has wandered off into deeper hallucinations, arriving at the house of Newo Ikkin, a fictional character from his story and his character's former love interest, and witnessing Claudio the character speak to Newo's dog Apollo, as he had written in his story before (Claudio utters the phrase "Good Apollo, where shall I begin?" At the end of the first track on In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3, The Ring In Return, one can hear a voice quietly saying "Hello Apollo. Where shall I begin?" It's believed the slight differentiation was accidental).

In Newo's place is Erica Court, and the Writer's bicycle has taken on a demonic persona, Ten Speed of God's Blood and Burial, and begins speaking with him. The Writer is seeking a way to end the story, which Ten Speed claims he can provide if he kills Erica Court. Exact quotes of their bickering can be heard during part of the song, Ten Speed (Of God's Blood and Burial), from the Good Apollo album. The exchange ends with Claudio saying "You say a lot of things. And how's that work? You're a bicycle." Meanwhile, a rebel strike team in Kalline has disabled the generator in Kalline allowing the Grail Arbor to land. Mayo springs his trap destroying the strike force by unleashing one of the beastly Priests upon them.

As the Arbor prepares to land, more of the Writer's delusions are portrayed, including Erica's murder at the hands of the Writer using the same poison Mayo gave to Coheed to kill his children in the Second Stage Turbine Blade. This delusion makes up the song Once Upon Your Dead Body on the Good Apollo album. While Mayo prepares for the rebel's ground assault, Ten Speed explains that he doesn't actually want the Writer to murder Erica, but rather to exact his vengeance metaphorically by killing Ambellina who represents Erica in the story, which will in turn cause Claudio to accept his destiny as the Crowing and destroy the Keywork; an ending for the story.

Mayo's trap comes to full fruition as a planetary defense cannon called a Jackhammer is fired into the Grail Arbor when it tries to land, damaging it. The Arbor retreats while Claudio, Jesse, Ambellina, Chase, and Jesse's other IRO-bot children abandon ship and land on the surface of Omega. Ambellina and Claudio split off from the group while Jesse and his children stay behind to confront Mayo. As Ten Speed and the Writer further argue about the fate of Ambellina, Jesse delivers a final goodbye to his children who proceed to mutate into monstrous forms and attack Mayo's forces. Jesse confronts Mayo and is killed by him in hand-to-hand combat when Mayo rips Jesse's heart out of his body.

Claudio and Ambellina have arrived at a mirror (the Willing Well), in which they can see the Writer's argument with Ten Speed occurring. Pursued by a Priest, Claudio and Ambellina fight it in front of the mirror resulting in Ambellina being injured by the Priest, while the Writer is swept further into his delusion by the skeletal figures the Character dreamt earlier, who, apparently at the behest of a hallucinated Erica Court, take him to a large guillotine and have him beheaded.

Erica's words, "This is no beginning. This is the final cut," are repeated as the chorus of the song Willing Well IV: The Final Cut on the Good Apollo album. The Writer awakens from this delusion once again at the house of Newo Ikkin and decides to take Ten Speed's advice. Going through the mirror into the story, the Writer sees Claudio has stepped into his powerful role as the Crowing after witnessing Ambellina's injury at the hands of the Priest. While he orders the character to stop, Claudio kills the Priest anyway and proceeds to confront the Writer. The Writer explains he must kill Ambellina for his own peace of mind.

The Crowing furiously declares, "My God is a coward!" The Writer kills Ambellina, easily overwhelming Claudio's resistance despite his new found power as the Crowing. As Ambellina dies in Claudio's arms professing that she would have loved Claudio had she been able, the Writer walks off into the distance with his bicycle, leaving Claudio with the cryptic message "You're Burning Star IV" and tells him to listen to the vishual (which is Chase) and that "all worlds from here must burn," it is the Crowing's duty to destroy the Keywork. The exchanges between The Writer and The Crowing and their strange relationship relate to the songs Apollo I: The Writing Writer and Willing Well III: Apollo II: The Telling Truth on the Good Apollo album.

This is part of the whole Amory Wars story so newbies might be confused. Go check out the story of the albums on Wikipedia if you're all interested.

Here are some of the band's songs if anyone is interested:

The Suffering






Couldn't get the real vid but here's 'Welcome Home'.



A Favor House Atlantic LIVE

Life Up Till Now

Been a while since my last post, eh?

What has happened since then?

1. Exams
Don't get me started. I think I did the impossible. I'm going to fail BM (I hope not). Gah!!!!!!!!! Too much 1 LITRE OF TEARS (Erika Sawajiri and Riko Narumi FTW). I mean come on, it must be good if I wrote an almost 400-word essay and a song about it.

Hold on this is starting to be too much about the drama and not enough about exams. Okay fine, everything else was okay (sarcastic 'Riiiight'). Sejarah was easy........until the essay. Physics, Add Maths, Chem? Pass is possible but the chances are not looking good.

2. Performance at Amanda's BDay
Pretty good. I'm really thankful that her mom spent so much money on a good sound system. STEAM!!!! But......Peter's voice strained too much and we couldn't do our final few songs. POTONG STEAM!!!!!!!! My drum solo.......cut..........guitar solo........cut........The only song I played guitar in........cut. SUPER POTONG STEAM!!!!!!!!! Food was good (Not a vege-fest like Aiman's birthday)

3. 7 Habits for Highly Effective Teens programme
Quite fun actually. I'm not too sure what I learned from the 7 habits (They were either things I already use in life or they contradict was my parents teach me) but hey, I made a bunch of new friends, improved my social and leadership skills. Food was pretty good on top of that.

4. Recording
Fun. The experience was fun. We could've done a little better but we haven't heard the mixed version yet so we'll see how things go. It better be worth the RM60 we're paying.

Well, life goes on. Time to chill while I still have the chance.

RADWIMPS!!!!!!!!

OK, so pretty much everyone I know knows that I love Japanese music. And a lot of them knew that I went to Japan last year (Best days of my life. I can never stop reminding my friends and family. More on that another time)

I wanted to buy a concert DVD so my host took me to this CD shop which doubled as a music instrument shop (Strike!!!!!!!).

I saw that this band called RADWIMPS was being really advertised, CDs and a live DVD. So I decided to check em out by buying their latest album.

After listening to the album and a few other songs, I can say that I really like this band. They're really talented and pretty versatile.

Here are some of my favourite songs from em.

Kanashi



Order Made


Otogi


Futarigoto

Class SEMANGAT!!!!!!!!!!

Walau man, our class really semangat, at least for a couple of hours.

School had this competition to collect old newspapers and stuff. We didn't do shit about it until like 2 hours before the deadline.

Vivek finally did something useful for the class and got his dad to send 1 tonne of old newspaper from his recycling factory.

We got a prize too!!!!!!!! A pack of Choki Choki (I forgot how to spell that) for everyone!!!!

However, we still lost to our arch enemies, 5 Sc1!!!!!!!!!! We must defeat them one day!!!!!!!

Community Service

Went to old folks' home somewhere in Ampang as community service for Interact Club.

Not quite as bad as I thought it would be. Actually, it was probably better because us Non-Chinese speakers (Me, Nick, Steven, Billy etc.) were in the kitchen making tong yun (Okaylah, I'm not sure how to spell that).

Making those little flour balls really reminded us of playing Play-Doh as kids. This made us all start talking about the stuff we used to do and watch as kids.

Sonia was bitching about the Indon maid that was working there half the time in the kitchen.

All in all, quite fun to hang out with the friends I don't normally hang out with.

NEW SONGS!!!!!!!! (Also posted on Childhood Dreamers Blog)

Car Crash Hearts

Peter Verse:

We are the car crashed hearts,
Living on the side of the road,
Hanging out at bus stops
Where the hell did we go?

I take a look back
At the old photo book
Memories of summer
I shuddered and I shook

Pre-Chorus

And now I’m singing

Chorus
Gomen ne, gomen ne
Before I forget I’d like to say,
Gomen ne, gomen ne,
Kono sekai de anata dake,

Michael Rap Verse

Not enough money to make it to Warped Tour
Saw Pop Shuvit at Rock the World
One Buck Short and Disagree,
Jumped till we finally felt free

Yeah, finally felt free

Pre-Chorus

Chorus

Bridge

Chorus

Extra Chorus
Gomen ne, gomen ne
Been singing this song since yesterday
Gomen ne, gomen ne,
Suki na hito ima anata dake

Here's another one but it's only halfway done. Its working title is 'Forget Yesterday'

Verse 1
I watch these lights as they fade to black,
Walk away from this life and never look back
Now that your friends have all gone away
What reason do you have left to stay

Chorus
Now the magic of that beautiful summer will die,
And I just want you to know
These fairy tales will never fade to grey
So please don't remember me.

Pretty gloomy, eh?