Pyro's Life

NP- A Writer's Reference

by Halifax

 

Well, it's been a little bit since I last blogged, so I figure why not blog. It's almost midnight anyways, so figured I'd make a quick post.

 

This week has been interesting, cool in some ways, dumb in others. Dave's been coming over with his new Epiphone Les Paul Custom (a guitar for those of you who don’t know) and we've been having little jam sessions. They've been turning out quite nicely and it's always fun to be able to play with another guitarist.

 

I'll have to finish the rest up later though, cause im wasted. So later

 

-Shane

NP-Holiday From Real (still)

by Jack's Mannequin

 

Alright, this is one of my abstract thinking rants on nothing.

 

I can't get enough of Jack's Mannequin, I'm itching for their new CD to come out and for them to go on tour. There has seriously never been a more inspirational band for me ever. These guys have totally influenced my style of creating music and writing for the better. Bands like this I hope totally take off and do extremely well.

 

There's a ton of inspiration that I've drawn from tons of places. Jack's Mannequin and Something Corporate influencing both my writing and playing very dramatically. Other bands who have influenced my writing and playing have been Counting Crows, Brand New, The Trademark (my dropped D hero's), Motion City Soundtrack, and Weezer. There's others of course, but those are some off the top of my head.

 

Also a lot of people have been really influential and/or supportive. First off, my Grandfather who gave me my first guitar that was worth more money then most of the items I own, Dan Lisee for being an awesome teacher and totally 100% being behind me and always encouraging me to be a better guitarist. First person to encourage me to sing as well (still encourages me to sing). He's also entirely to blame for introducing me to some older music (thank you for classic Ozzy :P). And most importantly, always willing to help me with absolutely anything. My family is also a big part of my music, always supportive of me and everything I do. I know they'd totally support me on any direction guitar takes me (unless its drugs, sex, and prison :P). Also, thanks to anyone who's taken me through hell and back, broken my heart, saved me, loved me, been my friend, given me someone to hate, ect. You people give me something to write about :P

 

I've been in a writers block recently. It's pretty bad too, I can't write the way I want to at all and its really ticking me off. I swear I will never finish Williams Lullaby. Everything that was originally with it I've totally scrapped cause I decided it either didn’t fit, or was total crap. I'll be prewriting my ass off for a while trying to get it all to fit right and by the time I'm finished with that poor little piece of paper, it will probably be black and gray all over and have holes in it from writing and erasing so much :P. I need to try the 'play the music and sing along to generate lyrics' method, cause I had something half decent last time I tried that, yet didn’t write anything down...

 

Recording gear should be purchased in a little over a week hopefully. From there, I'll get my microphones for recording my acoustic/vocals and play around with some stuff. Should be fun!

 

-Shane

NP-Holiday For Real

by Jack's Mannequin

 

Just FYI, this song came out today (finally). I've been waiting for new Jack's Mannequin material for a very long time. Can't wait for them to start touring. If I had a car and the time, I'd drive to Texas to see their first show.

 

Saturday we all went up and basically said hi to the whole family supporting each other and stuff. After we got home, Jordan and I went to a local concert to kinda perk ourselves up. We met Trish, Mariah, Mikelle, Bethany, Kassie, and Mitch to go see The Trademark with a bunch of other bands. It was a really cool show and I probably spent way too much money. I got a bunch of autographs and got to talk to the guys from The Trademark, Allred, and Return To Sender. It was surprising to see how down to earth they were, which was cool.

 

Sunday we had a sacrament meeting with the family at Grandma's house. It was really a neat thing to me and a great way to remember Grandpa and stuff. The viewing was also that night, but I really do not like viewings at all, regardless of who it is. It essentially just gets me upset and doesn't give me any kind of closure. So I waited out in the car with my little sister (who was asleep) and just listened to the radio the whole time.

 

Monday was the funeral. Not much to say about it. I really don't like funerals. To me it focuses too much on the death of an individual (even though the focus is supposedly on the life). After the funeral, Steve and I went to go get some guitar strings down at Guitar Center because I needed them for a competition I had in two days. So we got the strings and went back to grandma's and stuff. Hung out there for a little while and was just kinda lazy. Then we said goodbye to everyone and left for home.

 

Tuesday was a really long day. Still sick and stuff, who knows how late I slept in. Later in the evening I went to a percussion concert with Trish, which even though the concert wasn't that interesting, it was nice to get out of the house and see her.

 

Wednesday I had my competition. We did pretty well (though the solo's were terrible). By the end of the day I was extremely worn out so I slept from like 6-10.

 

Thursday I woke up extremely late again and we went to the mall. I sat out in the car with my little sister and listened to X96 some more. Then we went in and grabbed some food. I made it back later in the evening and kinda just hung out and stuff till about seven. Then went over to Trish's for her surprise party.

 

Today was another lazy day. I woke up yet again, extremely late, and kinda hung out all day long doing random nothingness. Today really was a huge waste of a day, all I did productive was to clean the kitchen. I got kinda frustrated with guitar tonight, I'm really in a mood to start recording and stuff finally...

 

Tonight sucked. I was just kinda depressed and stuck at home and frustrated with my writing/playing abilities... damn creative people have to be so inspiring when I can't do or write jackshit...*sigh*

 

I'm getting to bed before I do something stupid.

 

-Shane

NP- American Pie

by Don McLean

 

This has definitely been a very very long, hard week...

 

Tuesday I got into big trouble and being unhappy carried onto Wednesday. Had my last guitar lesson before Dan leaves for Idaho and broke two D strings before the lesson even began, meaning that I couldn't use my SG to play, so we played an 'unplugged' performance and just kinda played an acoustic set which was kinda cool.

 

Thursday I was feeling a little under the weather and so I stayed home from school. Fortunate that I was there because my dad had to leave suddenly because my Grandpa (Will) had a stroke. Later that evening, still not feeling well, I went to go take pictures for the production of Once On This Island. That was kinda fun, but I kinda had trouble finding a ride home, so I was the absolute last person who was there.

 

Driving home, I found out that my grandpa was going to die...

 

They had essentially done everything they could for him. All his kids were called and so they could see him one last time before he died. He passed away at six o clock the following morning.

 

Before Grandpa had died, he was headed to the temple. He popped in a copy of his favorite Don McLean tape, set to the tune of American Pie and headed to the temple. Kind of ironic that the last song he heard contained the lyrics of 'This will be the day that I die'.

 

He had his stroke inside the temple. When they found him, he had his temple recommend tightly clenched in one hand, and his favorite candy 'Red Hots' in the other.  I really can't think of a better way to go then headed to the temple, I'm sure that definitely gave him major kudos points in heaven :).

 

Friday I wasn't feeling too well at all and was sick for the majority of the day. Later during the evening, I felt a whole lot better though, which was definitely a good thing. We didn't end up going to Salt Lake to see my Grandma (Marie) because they were in the process of planning the funeral and stuff, so we planned on heading up Saturday instead. I'd called Trish to see what was up with her and stuff and we talked for about an hour. Then Dan stopped by with Monica on his way back to Idaho to check up on us and see how we were holding up. It was really cool that he stopped by. We talked for a while about a ton of different stuff. Gall, I can't tell you how much I'm going to miss seeing that guy every week.

 

Jordan and Olivia came home with my Dad a little later in the evening and spent the night at our house. I called Trish back and we stayed up till about midnight just talking about everything and being kinda random. Both of us were totally wasted so I don't know how much of the conversation made sense ;). So after talking for about four hours, we finally got off (I thought I heard my mom coming down the stairs, so we had to cut the conversation off in fear of me getting into trouble for being on the phone too late :P. ) Jord and I watched a movie then headed to bed around 1:30 or so.

 

I'm kinda tired... so I'm calling this rant a 'to be continued' rant :P.

 

-Shane

NP-Cavanaugh Park

by Something Corporate

 

Today was one of my 'better' Mondays.

 

Went to school and fought to stay awake during seminary. Then went through Biology and just talked with Chelsey like usual. Got 100% on my Math Quiz today (miracle) and got the majority of my homework finished already. Then at lunch I was standing in line with Dave and some girl randomly jumps on me. At first I didn't realize who it was, but then I could tell it was Mariah. Her and Trish had left school early because of the High School Basketball Game and decided to come up. So we hung out during lunch and a bit into last period, which was a blast. Thanks you guys, you made my day.

 

Went over to my grandparents and helped them out, then worked a little on homework and played guitar for the rest of the evening. Then I was sick of the way my computer looked, so I changed a buncha stuff so it looks like an Apple now (I'll get a screen up when I'm unlazy). Then, settled down to watch the rest of Runaway Jury.

 

Wrote a tad bit a little earlier today, it's half decent and I might be able to use a bit of it, who knows.

 

Getting a little bit of sleep before tomorrow.

 

-Shane