Music Project

I'm starting off the new year with a brand new project that will be on-going for quite a long time. For months, I've been thinking of doing a music project. Music has always been very important to me, and I feel like I've sort of gotten away from it a little in the past couple years. Well, lately I've been finding new music and rediscovering a lot of old stuff. Music is my biggest inspiration. Among the People Lost wouldn't have happened (at least not as soon or the same way) if I hadn't heard Five Finger Death Punch's "Bad Company" cover. Point is, I friggin love music.

My project is simple - make art for every song I love.

That sounds like a lot, and that's why this thing is so big. I don't really plan on stopping or calling it complete at any point. I'm making a new Music Project folder at the bottom of my DeviantART gallery, copying the song-inspired art I already have there, and will be adding to it as I make stuff. I'll still sort things into their respective Fractal, Jewelry, Photography, etc folders, but now there will be that nice thing at the bottom to view all my music-inspired art at once.

Also, I'm so behind on everything art related. I need to do some hardcore organization and work recovery so I can get back to doing things.

Meaning

A lot of people seem to think their lives have no meaning. For me, art has always been my meaning. Music, whether I'm listening to it, playing it, writing it, or it's just a part of the background, has always been very uplifting, motivating, and inspirational. Drawing has become more prominent as of late. It's really nice making art for someone's tattoo idea or whatever and seeing them really pleased with your work. Fractals, jewelry, photography, writing...they're all really rewarding. It's great doing stuff that other people enjoy, especially when it's really fun to do in the first place.

Working 42 hours a week has really changed that. Suddenly, I'm lucky to write 20 words a day or listen to 5 songs other than the ones playing on the ride to and from work. I went out yesterday (it feels like a month ago already) to a flea market, and that was a nice change of pace. Then I worked until 1:40 AM, stayed up until 6 AM, and slept until 4. I'll be going to bed after only 5 hours of being awake just so I can be up for my early morning shifts this week.

Point is, I've hit this horrid cycle of trying and failing to sleep, being exhausted when I have to get up and go to work, then getting off and being too sore from work to get anything done. Today is my day off; that's the only reason I'm finding time for this blog post.

I have a Christmas ornament to mail out. I have a large batch of barbecue sauce to make and mail. I have a half-completed medical assistance form that needs to be finished and mailed back. I lost a tattoo commission because I was days late. It's all just very frustrating, disheartening, and generally depressing.

I'd love to just take two days off and get stuff done, but I know that, in all likelihood, I'd spend the first day just recovering from working. People just seem to get ruder and more unpleasant as Christmas grows closer. Working register at Target the past week, I've gained so much stress just from dealing with people. I'd much rather be out on the sales floor helping people find things than standing at a register bagging items and arguing that the $30 DVD someone is holding is not the $20 one that's on sale for $14. I usually give up, mostly to keep my own sanity relatively intact.

I've taken in mostly chocolate, sweets, and caffeine over the past week. I baked myself an entire cake just to have cake. It was what I did while I should have been making my second test batch of sauce. Point is, I'm sort of miserable.

I think the worst part is that I can handle this job. I'm fast, efficient, and don't call off unless I'm sick. I'm there on time and leave when they want me to leave. It's just not bad enough for me to need to quit. It's even improving my health in some ways. I'm regaining a lot of muscle that I lost from inactivity, and I'm getting used to being active again.

I'm only a seasonal hire. I have 90 days of employment, and maybe they'll decide to keep me, but I don't plan on staying. I'm just really unwilling to quit a job that I only have for 3 months. I'd rather be able to say I finished my seasonal time without issue.

The whole thing is pretty awful. I know I can do it, and that doesn't make it any better. I don't want to do it, but I want to quit even less. It's just a big pile of obligations and priorities that I don't want to deal with. 

Things That Keep Me Sane

Heavy Metal

For a lot of people, it's noise. For others, it gets them all riled up and angry. For me, it's an outlet for all the anger I'd hold inside otherwise. Channeling my emotions through the music I'm listening to keeps me sane and relieves headaches. It can calm me down almost instantly. It's a learned thing, and I'm sure a rare one, too. 

Caffeine

That's likely an addiction talking, but whatever. It makes me feel better when super stressed.

Advil

For the days when headaches are a little too much for my high pain tolerance to handle.

Cats

Hug a cat and see if it doesn't make your day 20% better. Unless you're allergic. Then you should hug a toy cat.

Sylvester is worth 5 hugs.

Crafts

There's something about the way I do crafts that makes the tedious, meticulous, monotonous work very relaxing. It sort of lets my mind drift while still staying stimulated. I can work on things for hours before I need a break.

Pillows

When I have my own place and stuff, I might make a panic room filled with pillows. That would probably be fantastic. Sinking onto my pillows is the best part of going to bed.

Photographs

My bedroom walls are covered in photos and posters. I stare at my photos a lot when I need to think about things. Seeing friends can help clear your mind really well, even if it is only a photograph.

Video Games

Sometimes, there's nothing like getting lost in Tamriel for a few hours and beating the hell out of some mud crabs. 

My Top 5 Most Attractive Rock Stars

This post seems sort of incongruous with the rest of my blog...but here! I'm doing it anyway! I'm low on ideas for posts at the moment because I'm really busy with Halloween contests, costumes, other events. Also, I clearly only pay attention to vocalists. This list was supposed to be a top 10, but I could only scrounge up 5. I'm bad at this. XD

5. Matthew Bellamy

I don't listen to a lot of MUSE, but as I was browsing through my music to dig up some hot men, I remembered that their lead singer is pretty cute.

4. Sebastian Bach

Probably the most effeminate guy I've ever found attractive. Maybe. I don't know. My taste in men is questionable at best sometimes. 

  

3. Alexi Laiho

Finland produces some sexy people. In fact, I could probably do a list of sexy Finnish guys that would be longer than this one...and now that I'm thinking about it, I could probably add at least two other Finnish guys to this list, but "top 7" is awkward, and they'd definitely be numbers 6 and 7, so let's just make this concise and keep it to a top 5, shall we? Okay. Good. 

2. Adam Gontier

Specifically, this younger and fluffier Adam Gontier. Newer, short-haired Adam Gontier isn't sexy at all. About 99% of his sexiness is contained in his hair, and facial hair is worth about negative 70% sexiness. Those are my numbers and I'm sticking to them. Don't doubt me.

1. Ville Valo

Like I said, Finland is where it's at. This image is also a weird size where one size setting bigger makes it too big for my blog, so it's the smallest. It's annoying me slightly.

  

My Top 25 Songs

It was absolutely impossible to make this list only 10 songs, which was my original intent. I like a lot of music. I just kept adding songs, then when I was pretty sure I had covered all my favorites, I prioritized them, which was really hard, since some of them are really difficult to compare. Interestingly enough, my favorite band Nightwish doesn't have a single song on this list. No matter which one I think of (and I love most of them), I can't bring myself to place it above any of these. Even after I started numbering these, I added a few more. I'm bad at this. XD

Apparently there was some copyright issue with putting links here (I guess), so I removed them. I'm not entirely sure if that's what the issue was and I don't see how they infringe on any rights whatsoever, but there. Hopefully Blogger is happy with this post now.

So a late edit: somehow "The Islander" by Nightwish kept slipping under my radar as I looked through things. That should go somewhere around...14-19? I guess? I don't really feel like giving it an exact placement since I'm not putting it in the list. XD

25. Juke Box Hero - Foreigner

24. Alsa tu Cerveza - Mago de Oz 

Also called "La Posada de los Muertos"

23. Bird and the Worm - The Used 

22. Ain't No Sunshine - Bill Withers

21. The Unforgiven III - Metallica 

20. Zzyzx Road - Stone Sour

Specifically this version, which was played on the radio. There's a different version that has a different ending, and I don't like it so much. I had to host it myself just because it's so hard to find.

19. Every Time I Die - Children of Bodom

18. Fairy Tale - Shaman 

17. Headstones - Lake of Tears 

16. Sounds of Silence - Simon and Garfunkel

15. Paperthin Hymn - Anberlin

14. New Divide - Linkin Park

13. Sieze the Day - Avenged Sevenfold

12. What a Shame - Shinedown 

11. Sky Is Over - Serj Tankian

10. Endlessly, She Said - AFI

9. Wooden Pints - Korpiklaani

It's so freaking dancable.

8. Gone Forever - Three Days Grace

7. Billy in Despair - Maximum the Hormone

This is used as an ending theme for Death Note. I sort of fell in love with it. 

6. Rip Out the Wings of a Butterfly - HIM

5. I Don't Care - Apocalyptica

Featuring Adam Gontier of Three Days Grace for the vocals.

4. Bad Company - Bad Company

This song motivated me to write my book, and also influenced it. I remember liking this from the first time I heard it, which was when I was a kid. It's one of the only songs that's held up over the years.

3.Cybernetic Queen - Iron Savior

2. Life is Beautiful - Sixx AM

1. Gone Away - The Offspring
I couldn't tell you why this is my favorite, but it is.

Daily Art - "Glam Rock"

What I Want to Be When I Grow Up

A bunch of my friends and I all agree that life would be at least 20% cooler if we could just forget about specializing and learn everything. School means you need to pick what you want to do for life, or otherwise spend ridiculous amounts of money to be in school your whole life learning everything, which you wouldn't be able to do without taking some stuff you learned to get a really well-paying career anyway. Here are some of the things I want to do, some of which I've seriously considered.

Writer

This was really the first serious career consideration of my life, I think. I wrote a story, which is absolutely terrible now that I look back on it, and everyone gave me tons of praise for it. It was a school project, so I read part of it to the class. It was way better than all the other kids', so it got shared by my teacher in the other classes, too. It was great. I felt like some sort of fantasy writing god. I really wanted to further that and go to school for writing courses. Now, I realize that most writing courses are totally superfluous if you already know tons about grammar, spelling, and story development. I've got a published book under my belt already, and I'm proud to be among the ranks of the other published authors out there, even if it is a self publication over Kindle. Writing is something I hope to be doing all my life, and though I'll likely never make a career out of it, at least I didn't have to go to school for annoying courses to figure that out.

Latin Teacher

This was my career choice up until quite recently. I love Latin. I think there's so much to learn from it. I also would love to be put in charge of a bunch of teenagers for an hour a day. In school, there are always the really bad teachers, and then there are the ones who actually make a difference in your life, and you'll remember them forever. I've seen far too many people go through hard times, and too often, teachers don't notice. I had a biology teacher who happened to be alone with me once when I had to make up a test. She had noticed that over the course of the year I had gotten a lot quieter and been looking more tired. I explained how stressful my home life was, and that it was really  getting to me and stressing me out. Out of my whole school career, she was the only one to ever notice that something was wrong, even beyond any guidance counselor I've ever dealt with. I'd like to think I would be that teacher for someone else. I also want to teach simply because I know I'd do a way better job than a lot of teachers I had. Too many teachers limit the way students learn and practice material. For every bad paper I've had to write, I thought up fun projects and such that would be by far more entertaining and engaging. I've learned more from all the posters I've made than the papers I skimped on because I didn't care.

Social Studies Teacher

I don't want to teach "Church Latin," a form that varies slightly from Classical Latin, the language spoken in ancient Rome. Church Latin changes the pronunciations, adds a bunch of Biblical words, and disregards old word order, instead using modern English word order. It's required in a lot of Catholic schools. I just really don't want to teach Latin to kids who don't care; I'd rather teach the kids that take the class because they're interested. My high school offered it, but they cancelled the Latin program. No other schools in my area offer it that I know of, and I like my area. Furthermore, dropping out cut a year and a half of Latin out of my life that should have been there, so making that up would have been difficult to begin with. I decided to go to school for social studies instead, but then art came up. 

Artist

This is my current attempt at a life. I got a digital drawing tablet for Christmas. It's my best friend (sorry, you people I use for board games, but I can't draw with you). It really got me back into drawing, which is a skill I'd sort of dropped a long time ago when other things took priority. I've improved a lot in the months I've been using it, and I really would like to get better. So far, I'm entirely self-taught, and that's really cool, but I think college will give me a little more discipline and direction in the areas I'm a little messy and lost.

Make Video Games

I've joined a few different video game teams working on things, mostly as a concept artist. I wrote some stuff for one of them, which was cool, but I wasn't in charge of the lore, so it was a little tough to do. Anyway, I think it's a lot of fun to contribute my skills to a team of people working to make something fun and exciting. I might do it more in the future. Right now, I've got lots of other stuff to do, and video game teams are demanding.

Make Music

I was really good at trumpet, but I haven't touched mine in a few years. I'm not great on keyboard, but I can do some stuff. I'd like to be better at guitar, but now that I've developed severe arthritis in my left index finger (I broke it a few years ago), that seems out of the question. I love my guitar, too, so I'm sad about it. I can sing pretty well, even though I don't like my voice, so that's the main thing I go for if friends want to start a band. I'd make it a full time career in an instant if I could. Sadly, it's not really something you go to school for and BOOM CAREER.

Run a Business

This was my goal somewhere between writer and teacher. I love making jewelry and stuff, and I think it would be really cool to have a store and everything. I've decided that it's a little too much responsibility, though, and not nearly enough free time to do the other stuff I want to do. 

Psychologist

I love psychology. I think it's fascinating, and the subject material just comes really easily to me. I understand it really well. The main reason I don't want to do it for a career is the long schooling needed to get started. I'd be learning too many things I don't care about.

Freelance ANYTHING

I would love everything forever if one of my random projects would take off and bring in enough income to live comfortably. That would be the best. I could do what I love and still have tons of time to dedicate to other things. 

Assassin

If only real life were D&D or something. T_T 

My Top Ten Albums

I like owning music rather than downloading tons of stuff. My bedroom walls are covered in CD booklets and a few inserts from albums, including a signed Lacuna Coil picture. Point is, CDs are stuff, and God, do I love having stuff. Sometimes I buy a CD for a single song. Half of those were horrible purchases, and the others were the best things I could have bought. Here are my ten favorite albums.

A Night at the Opera by Blind Guardian
I bought this because I heard about 30 seconds of "The Soulforged" and decided I needed it. It actually had to grow on me a little, but there are no songs on it that I flat-out dislike. "Age of False Innocence" is my favorite. I used it for a Morrowind tribute video a few years back. That reminds me that I need to list off my favorite games at some point.


Megatropolis by Iron Savior
I heard their song "Cybernetic Queen" on Pandora one night, and it's one of my favorite songs. It makes my ears do happy dances.


Dark Light by HIM
This was my first HIM album. I bought it for "Rip Out the Wings of a Butterfly," which is also one of my favorite songs. FYI, when I do my favorite songs list, it will make the least sense out of any list ever, and you're going to wonder why I like songs that are so hugely different. Anyway, I used that song in my last list, so here's a different song from that album.


Decemberunderground by AFI
I love this album. It's essentially all I've heard from AFI. I bought it for "Miss Murder," loved it for pretty much everything else.


Fallen by Evanescence
My first CD, more or less. The first I owned that I still listen to. It was an Easter gift, along with Avril Lavign's "Let Go," which I recently decided to totally remove from my playlist. Anyway, this CD is pretty fantastic, except for "My Immortal." I hate that song. The rest of it is stuff I still listen to every day, which is pretty impressive. A lot of my older music has been pushed off to the dusty sections of the hard drive.


Liberation Transmission by Lostprophets
I love every song on this album. Sure, it's not the most moving or imspiring music, but it's fantastic.


Elect the Dead by Serj Tankian
A song from this album is playing as I type this. I think it's great. It's got a whole bunch of songs that I really, really love.


The Heroine Diaries Soundtrack by Sixx AM
For some reason, this CD is important to me. I love all the music, and I guess it's just really inspiring to hear Nikki Sixx's story of overcoming a crippling addiction. His whole perspective on life is sort of fascinating.


One-X by Three Days Grace
If they ever release a Best Of album, it might as well be One-X with 2 songs switched out. Overall, it's a great album. I'm not super fond of "On My Own," and I never really liked "Never Too Late," but other than that, I could probably listen to it a hundred times without getting sick of it.


Century Child by Nightwish
My favorite band's best CD, as far as I'm concerned. I love it. I don't know what it is about it. There's just thiss nice feel to it. I even put it in my Morrowind system folder and listened to it in-game for a while. It's pretty cool running around Vardenfell listening to "Phantom of the Opera."

My Top Ten Vocalists

Music has always been really important to me. It's influenced the vast majority of ny projects and endeavors. I've done a couple of little list things recently, and I think they're fun and informative, so here now is a list of my favorite vocalists. This may give you an idea of how ecclectic my music collection is, but probably not nearly as much as the list of favorite songs I plan on writing up soon.

10. Corey Taylor
If you don't know him from Slipknot, you might know him from Stone Sour. I like both bands, even though they're sorta dissimilar. Among other artists, he also did a song with Apocalyptica.


9. Mathias Blad
He's the lead singer of an under-appreciated Swedish band called Falconer.


8. Ian Watkins
He sings for Lostprophets. I loved their album Liberation Transmission, but haven't liked much else they've put out. Still, I like their vocalist.


7. Chester Bennington
Everyone knows Linkin Park.


6. Tarja Turunen
Former Nightwish frontwoman has a bunch of solo albums now, some of which are pretty decent. I think I prefer the stuff she did with Nightwish, though.


5. Brent Smith
He's the lead singer of Shinedown. As much as I like Shinedown, they have a lot of stuff I'm just never in the mood to listen to. It's sad.


4. James Michael
By far the most generic name on the list. He's the vocalist of Sixx AM.


3. Serj Tankian
He used to sing for System of a Down, and now he's doing the solo thing. I loved his first solo album.


2. Adam Gontier
I love Three Days Grace, largely because of his voice. If only Life Starts Now hadn't been such a dull album. He also did a song with Apocalyptica.


1. Ville Valo
He's the lead singer of HIM, and his voice and impressive range put him in my first place.



Honorable Mentions:
Adam Levine (Maroon 5)
Alexi Laiho (Children of Bodom)
Billy Idol
Chad Kroeger (Nickelback)
Davey Havok (AFI)
Hansi Kursch (Blind Guardian)
Ivan Moody (Five Finger Death Punch)
M. Shadows (Avenged Sevenfold)
Marco Hietala (Nightwish)
Ozzy Osbourne

Music Monday - Into Asylum

Yeah, I missed last week. Monday was a super busy day. XP

we have a really short post this time. This week, a friend has just released a single called "Mistaken." Go listen to it!

http://www.reverbnation.com/intoasylum

Music Monday - "Every Time I Die" by Children of Bodom

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtPDm2kaj1c

Embedding disabled, so you gotta follow the link to YouTube. :P

Anyway, I love this song. It's the first song I ever heard by Finnish metal band Children of Bodom, and it remains one of my favorites. At some point I also got interested in the grim reaper because I wrote a story about him/it/whatever, and this song (and others on the same album) really provided a lot of inspiration.

And Alexi Laiho is hot.

Music Monday - Bad Company

When I write a story, there's constantly music on in the background. Sometimes there are those songs I hear that fit flawlessly with what I'm writing, and sometimes they inspire entire stories on their own. The story I'm working on now (unnamed as of yet) is a post-apocalyptic type story set in 2026. In 2023, a major illness wiped out most of the world's population. The synthetic drug made to combat the illness made things worse, for it was found to be more addictive than heroine. My main character Dante is in a world where the immune people are constantly in danger, forced to hunt and kill the violent drug-addicted gangs to survive. So now that you have an idea of how my story is, let's get to the point of this blog post.

My story was inspired by a dream, and I'd been thinking about writing it for a while. I was just starting to mentally prepare the first chapter when I heard Five Finger Death Punch's cover of Bad Company. I've always loved the original song. When I heard it, my main character Dante instantly came to mind. The song mentions a 6-gun, or a revolver, and that just happened to be the weapon I had chosen for Dante to wield. Dante is also one of the best fighters on the streets fighting back the gangs. He's out at night fighting, and the gangs know and fear his name. That's where that second verse comes into play.

Just hearing the song may have been what prompted me to actually sit down and write the story in the first place. It's now about 150 pages in, it's fantastic,a nd I'm having lots of fun writing it. My (now ex) boyfriend and I even dyed our hair black and did some photography that will help promote it once I upload the chapters to deviantART. :)

Tim as Dante

Music Monday Coming Soon!

So I've been thinking that maybe just artwork every day is a little dull. I need something that forces me to write more. From now on, every Monday, I'll be writing about a song/album/artist that has really made an impact on my life. There's a lot in my life that music has influenced, from minor things to major decisions. There will still be daily art. Don't worry about that. :)

Artemis 19 Official Site - Music

I started making techno music. This is my site for it. :)
Artemis 19 Official Site - Music

Death Panda

I'm watching a documentary on metal right now and I saw this little Death Panda thing. Here it is for all of you to enjoy. :D