ChasingLilly.net

It’s been a slow everything day. Slow news. Slow movement. Slowly burning to a crisp.

RealFeel = 131. Yeah. It’s been that kind of day.

So I thought I’d share with you all a bit of cool fan work from a little while back that some of you may not have heard of. It’s a project entitled “The Hunger Games Music Project” done by composers Edward Underhill and Matt Bukaty. You can go check it out here. What is it? It’s a wonderfully produced unofficial soundtrack for the series. I’ve gotta say: it’s really well done, highly professional work that really channels a lot of the emotion of the series straight to your ears. They haven’t released a hard copy or offcial digital download version of the soundtrack yet (they’re apparently still looking into that), so as of now we can only enjoy it from their “Music” tab or else on their YouTube. Still, it’s worth giving the whole thing a listen! Seriously, I wouldn’t advise something I wouldn’t do myself. As such, I read through part of the book with the music in background. I give this project the Official Sam Jack Seal of Approval. *seal given*

They’ve gained quite a bit of fame within the Hunger Games fan community as of late. They were interviewed on Down With the Capitol’s Airtime Assault, on the Fireside Chat, and even featured on the Official Hunger Games Movie Facebook Page! So how’d they come to this project? Well on the site, they state:

“Both of us were extremely intrigued by the books and, as composers, sort of naturally jumped to wondering what the musical universe of such a story might sound like…. something like this was just too good to pass up. It gave us a chance to find a new medium through which to tell the story and have some fun doing so!…. the books have a very human, earthy, and folky quality to them that seemed to point us toward American folk and simple folk-like melodies, as well as instruments that had a vaguely folky disposition.”

So check out the promo below!

May the favor be ever in your odds and… wait… no, that’s not it,
Sam.

PS – I’m working on a lot of blog related things. Stay tuned~!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1303773/plotsummary

Ohhhh man the long-awaited film based on the long awaited band is HERE! Can’t wait to see how well they portrayed us, the constant in-band-fighting, Jimmy’s feminine wiles, and The Great Guitar Loudness Battle of 2010. All epic scenes, I’m SURE!



Happy Trails,
Sam.

Bandcamp.com. It’s the new rage. All the music peoples are doing it. I recently changed the rather boring/lame/stagnant violentblue.net band website to redirect to our Violent Blue bandcamp site. Bandcamp is pretty cool. It’s free (for 200 downloads), has a really clean layout, and is really easy to get setup. You can see the homepage below.

Violent Blue homepage

So bandcamp sets up your account by album and then by song. You can set prices (all ours are free), setup creative commons rights, lyrics, artwork, etc. Will and Billy also recently got their bandcamps setup. Will was able to put up his wonder-making albumian intro into album-world, In Flight. Billy put up some old stuff and a new single, Almost Reversed (which is awesome).

I’ll be working on a different main violentblue.net site, likely just a hub where you can choose between our bandcamp, blogs, and various forms of communication. But for now bandcamp is where it b at!

Go check out our stuff at violentblue.bandcamp.com or just violentblue.net, either way! We only put three songs up at the moment, but all our stuff is free, and we love feedback!

Don't Fall Asleep download

Happy Trails,
Samwise.

My fourth inspirational text comes from the Walt Disney classic “The Jungle Book”. To be honest I haven’t seen this movie since I was a little kid, however this song has always stuck with me. There’s a reason the music in the old Disney movies is so beloved and won so many awards. It has a spirit all of it’s own, is deep and well done, is catchy to no end, and somehow also manages to fit perfectly into the situations and advance the story. I realize that’s the entire point of music in any musical, however the classic Disney music just has life all it’s own.

Few songs show this better than the great smile-inducing antics of “The Monkey Song” from the Jungle Book. The song below actually starts at 1:25 of the video, but the rest of it is still great. I never thought I’d love a song so much where half of the “lyrics” are incomprehensible grunting and beat-boxing.

An interesting tidbit that makes me laugh can be noticed at 1:11 of the video below when King Louie states “Have two bananas!” at which point he hold up three fingers before shooting the two bananas as Mowgli’s face. I don’t know if this is a blooper (I doubt it with a movie this well-animated and intensively hand-drawn), but it’s funny.

My reaction to this song is the same as Baloo’s at 3:30: “Mmmmmm… well man what a beat”

Happy Trails,
Sam.

The third in my everlasting series of “inspirational texts” is also one of my favorite songs ever. It comes from a small (sarcasm) band by the name Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros. The sarcasm is because the band has 10 members in it. It’s an awesome group of people and their first record, “Up From Below” (or simply self-titled, as Amazon lists it), is a awesomely catchy piece of sound. Their songs “Home”, “40 Day Dream”, and “Janglin” have all been featured in films and commercials. As such, you may have heard their songs somewhere, at least in part. By far my favorite of their songs, though, is “Home”.

Below you can see I chose the live version of “Home” which they performed on David Letterman. I find this version particularly inspiring. First, because it’s an amazingly catchy, sweet, unashamedly innocent love song. Second, because it’s an amazing performance of it. After a few listens you’ll agree it’s rather incredible in it’s “simplicity”. That’s because despite it’s simple, folksy-infused basis, there are so many layers to this piece that I’m still picking new stuff out every time I listen to it! And it all adds up to one sinfully-catchy tune.

Do this: Turn it up all the way. It makes you want to stomp your feet from the first whistle. And once the chorus comes in you can’t help but get up and dance around with them. And best of all it makes you smile the whole time! If you haven’t heard the original version, or want to, check it out here. And that’s why this inspires me!

Happy Trails,
Sam.

This week’s inspiring bit of video/sound is actually one of my favorite songs ever written. It’s “Easy/Lucky/Free” by Bright Eyes. The video itself is fine, but it’s really the music I’m interested in here. Bright Eyes is a great indie/folkish band headed by Conor Oberst. I don’t like everything Bright Eyes’ discography has to offer, but what Conor gets right, he does so amazingly. He’s been writing music since he was 13, and it really shows. What makes his music so great isn’t the guitars or background sound, but the lyrics. They’re full of passion, originality, poetic imagery, and are just in general beautiful to listen to. They make you think. They’re great brainfood! There’s a deep sense of poetic originality to his songs I often try (and fail) to imitate with my own works. This song in particular.

In fact, as I’ve said, this is one of my favorite songs ever written. I feel the thoughts and words in it are beautiful, and the poetry just perfectly ambiguous enough for one to take away many different interpretations. Is he talking about death? Grief? War? Love? All of the above? I’d also like to say my favorite lyric in the song is:

Sometimes I worry that I’ve lost the plot, my twitching muscles tease my flippant thoughts. I never really dreamed of heaven much until we put him in the ground.

I really think that’s a beautiful lyric. As are the rest! In fact it’s the sort of line one would expect in Shakespeare, or some other great work of literature, not in mainstream music. That’s why this inspires me. Enjoy!

Happy Trails,
Sam.

I love film. I love music. These two things probably inspire me more than anything. I’m in a band and also produce videos with my friends and love to write scripts. So what if there could be some sort of crazy mixture of these two amazing mediums into one??
Well that, my friends, is what is called a “music video”.

Whenever I write music or work on some video project, I need some inspiration. So I’ve decided to start posting videos or songs every week. Just something that I find at the time is really inspiring me, and probably a little description as to why. This week it’s one of these fusions of music and video.

Now onto the video and reason I love it:

This first video is a music video for “Doorways” by Radical Face. If you’ve never heard of Radical Face, go listen to his stuff! His name is Ben Cooper, he’s also a member of Electric President if you’ve heard of them. Radical Face is his solo gig, and by far my favorite. “Ghost” is an amazing album. The entire thing is made with real noises, and according to his site some of the tracks (Welcome Home in particular) have over 100 layers of sound on them. It all adds up to an incredibly catchy, bombastic, acoustic sound that is just great. It’s also a refreshing departure from the synth-induced noise of Ke$ha, Black Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga, Bieber, and whatever other “noise” the radio is generating these days. This song, “Doorways” is off his newest EP. It’s not his most impressive or full-sounding song, but it’s a great track nonetheless.

Ben’s big not only into music but also art and photography, so this video was made by Ben, himself, and his good friend Mark Hubbard. The kids in it are his own children and those of friends and family. The video coupled with the song I think takes a really great look at childhood and what innocence is, how you look at the world as a child. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but that’s what I read when I watch the video. And that’s why it’s inspiring to me. Enjoy!

Happy Trails,
Sam.

Violent Blue had our first REAL show last Sunday at the Rock N Roll Hotel in Washington, DC. We’ve had smaller shows at peoples houses and parties of friends, but this was our first real one we’ve had together. It was awesome! We played at 6:20, which is a great time to play for a downtown club. The place was pretty packed, too, with what looked like around some 200 people there. Thanks everyone who came out and supported us! It was also just a thrill.

In fact, there were only two bad things about the whole ordeal. The first is that it was and ordeal. We had to arrive and check in and sound check at 9 AM that morning, which makes absolutely no sense because we performed at 6:20 that night. “Sound check” simply involved us watching them making sure their own equipment actually works. To make matters worse, it’s located in a pretty bad part of town. As one friend put it: “Words cannot describe the awesomeness! Even though Northeast DC was mad sketch lol.” So we went to Union Station and hung out at the Post Office Museum (boooooooringggg) for a while, where I split open my ring finger (thankfully I didn’t pluck with it).

The other bad part of it was the sound guys at the Rock N Roll Hotel, who sucked. All our mics were down too low (mine was nearly off), Billy’s guitar was wayy too quiet compared to mine and Will’s, and they completely messed up the drum setup during the “sound check” that morning. Marty had to spend a few minutes before we played fixing the snare drum.

Other than that, the show was awesome. We played great, and everyone liked us. The end. Oh, until Jimmy forgot where he parked and we almost died walking around the sketchiness that is northeast DC late at night [ugh... >.<].

Will and I are playing a duet acoustic show at the Shoes Cup & Cork coffee shop in Leesburg on Friday, January 7, probably around 7 PM or such. Everyone should come out, grab a nice, hot caramel macchiato and enjoy our smooth tunes!

Happy Trails,
Sam.



P.S. – Billy’s playing a solo show that some newspaper woman is apparently covering on December 21, so come check him out, too!

Hey boys and girls! Our band, Violent Blue, is playing the 9:30 Club this December 12 (Sunday after this), and the entire world is hereby invited to come! Go RSVP for your ticket over at: http://on.fb.me/vb-930

Come enjoy/freak-out-over/support us at the 9:30 Club! Time can’t be finalized until Thursday before, so pay no attention to the time currently posted.

Tickets are $15, contact someone in the band to get one. We need the money for the tickets BEFORE next Thursday (Dec. 9). Invite your friends, invite your roommates! In fact, invite your family, random people on the street, and even your dog! It’ll be a lot of fun, hope to see everyone there

So head on over to the Facebook event page, comment here, email me, do whatever you need if you want to come. It’d be great to see you there! Now enjoy a picture of Marty, playing on something called a “drum set”

Happy Trails,
Sam.

It’s that time of the week once again! And now here’s this week’s super-cool, retro music video, “SMS [Shine]” by David Crowder*Band:

Beyond that, it’s also a really nice, touching song. Pro viewers will also notice how the salt and pepper-looking things are dancing the whole video next to the Lite-Brite and also how the piano in the background is actually playing the notes. Cool stuff.

Happy Trails,
Sam.