Myself

ALEX REVIEWS MUSIC (ARM): TOM DELONGE – TO THE STARS… DEMOS, ODDS & ENDS | 2015-04-22

Welcome back to another ARM blogpost. Again, the picking choice was hard on this one, having just witnessed the global celebration of Record Store Day and being forced to set aside other recent releases such as Alabama Shakes‘s Sound & Color or even waiting just for another bit before the highly anticipated The Desired Effect by Brandon Flowers and My Morning Jacket‘s The Waterfall would have been published. Yet, partly because of my past (and present) blink-182 and Angels & Airwaves (AVA) fandom and party because of the recent publicly aired band drama causing quite an uproar, I felt like I had to give Tom DeLonge’s first ever solo album To the Stars… Demos, Odds and Ends a try.

Freshly released in Europe’s mainland a day ago (21st April), the half-EP half-LP is allegedly containing blink-182 demos “along with a few extra tracks”, summing up to a total tracklist of 8 units (-1, considering instrumental filler “Landscapes” as a non-song). The album had already been sort of previewed by the anticipated release of singles (?) “New World” (to which a very angst-filled music video has been dedicated), acoustic ballad “The Invisible Parade” as well as skateboarders’ new anthem “Circle-Jerk-Pit” (which, not surprisingly, soundtracks a video made of skating pools, beers and pretty girls). With the exception made of the latter, which is almost too messy to be properly understood, the two songs Tom decided to release before the actual full-album publication are, sadly, in fact the only remarkable compositions present on the effort. Fluctuating between AVA nostalgia (“Suburban Kings” could’ve easily been born out of “Rite of Spring”‘s ribs) and quite embarrassing blink-182-success formulas (“Golden Showers in the Golden State”: “First Date” and “The Rock Show” anyone?), the album doesn’t appear to be able to take a shape on its own, even after repeated listens. I’m actually saying this with genuine disappointment, being a long-time DeLonge fan myself and having always appreciated his ability to reunite big melodies with compactness and effective lyrics.

To be fair, the record itself got in fact promoted as a kind of B-sides bucket of his, possibly intended as a concrete and material response to blink-182’s intentions to continue as a band even without him (Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba has so far replaced Tom on guitar and vocals in the line-up). Still, this isn’t probably the best self-esteeming reply Tom could have given to both his previous bandmates and the public/fans at large. Why not waiting a little bit more and instead releasing another solid AVA album like last The Dream Walker, maybe with a little help of his (new) friends (Ilan Rubin)? Directionless, at times dull and repetitive, “To the Stars” doesn’t really deserve to get associated with his songwriting abilities (maybe with the exceptions made for the aforementioned “New World” and “The Invisible Parade”), not least because even initially-promising “An Endless Summer” and “Animals” turn out, unfortunately, to be truly dislikable with time. Ok, “Suburban Kings” and “Golden Showers in the Golden State” aren’t bad songs at all, but they nonetheless sound desperately over-heard and too familiar to past successful attempts of his.

This one seems to be an extremely busy year for Tom, according to his own statements to the press (announcing the release of 4 albums and 15 co-written novels all this year, come on…), and while he’s always been someone who doesn’t necessarily like to take breaks between musical, cinematic, and entrepreneurial projects, his explicit plans appear to be too ambitious even for a persona like his. Probably, hadn’t he released this very album, he could’ve managed and allocated his resources more wisely into a more thoughtful product, ideally released later this year or even during the next one. Yet, sometimes the urge to respond to unclarity and defeats can be stronger than anything else, pushing its way through light and converting into forced pieces of art. The result in this case? Tom still De…longing for blink-182.

I’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and I hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV

TOM DELONGE

“TO THE STARS… DEMOS, ODDS AND ENDS”

2015, TO THE STARS…

http://www.tomdelonge.me

TDL_TTS

VELO REC IS SPINNING ITS WHEEL | 2015-04-12

I’ve decided I’ll use this one as a small space for some shameless self-promotion. Actually, to be fair, I’d say it’s a healthy mix of well-deserved publicity, personal involvement, and genuine interest, not least because I’m talking about music, once more with love. Therefore, if you allow me, it’s not even the case that I’m diverging that much from the usual editorial strategy I’ve been adopting for this page, if there ever was such thing. Anyways, enough said for the introduction: this time I’m devoting this blogpost to the London-based house record label VELo REC (check out their logo attached below).

One of the reasons I’m writing about VELo REC, founded in early 2014 by two Swiss guys in Shoreditch, is that a couple of weeks ago I started helping them out a bit with their social media accounts, which, by the way, I highly encourage you go check out and support (they’re present on Facebook, Twitter, Ello, Instagram, and obviously, since they’re producing house music, on SoundCloud and MixCloud). So far it’s been real fun for me, I’m learning a lot from their insights from that wild beasty jungle called ‘music industry’ and I’m truly enjoying working with and around their music products. In this regard, VELo REC usually releases a one-artist-focused Single/EP each month, with their April’s release “Low House, Vol. 1” featuring Paris-based DJ and producer Parsifal about to come out on 13th April on Beatport, initially. Then, after a two-week exclusive availability on the online music store specialised in electronic music, the Single/EP normally hits (literally) all other digital stores around for the general sale.

But a classic musical release is not the only quality thing VELo REC puts out periodically. In fact, they’re also hosting two very cool monthly podcasts called “VELo Radio Show” and “VELo Session” (which are all listenable and downloadable on their SoundCloud page). The first one consists of a radio-format episode in which usually the monthly artist gets widely introduced and hosts a special mix with favourite/notable electronic gems surrounding their release. The VELo Session instead is a one-hour guest-mixed podcast which highlights and shares some of VELo REC’s favourite new tunes around. As mentioned earlier, the genre they’re producing is generally house-related, with a slightly heavier focus on the tech- and deep- sub dimensions (so far they’ve counted on collaborations with artists such as Stefano Ritteri, Megan Faye, Tom Alemanno and Divalvi), so expect all of their publications to revolve around that musical cluster.

On top of all that, VELo REC is currently planning various additional projects involving, amongst others, a huge 1st-year-of-label birthday party at the end of May, a brand new blog, and some very cool merchandising. On a more hurried note, in addition to all the released material and podcasts, you can definitely go check out a short snippet from Parsifal’s “Low House, Vol. 1” (out tomorrow) on their SoundCloud profile. If you happen to like it, too, nothing is stopping you from supporting them by buying the thing as well.

All in all, the label is absolutely worth a in-depth check out for anyone interested in house and electronic music in general, the guys are talented and creative: their artistic wheel is definitely spinning at higher rates!

I’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and I hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV

VeloRec_Logo

HI HIS NAME IS MARK | 2015-03-18

I’m sure you’re all more or less familiar with the popular Californian pop-punk band blink-182. I’m less sure on whether you’re aware of the fact that its bass player is called Mark Hoppus, is aged 43, and besides making seats vibrate he’s also a singer – sometimes producer – as well as a quite successful entrepreneur. Yes, because a part of his musical activity Mark is also the founder and owner of – surprise, surprise! – Hi My Name Is Mark (HMNIM), a company established in 2012 and self-described as: “a group of like-minded friends who are equally passionate about making great clothes, awesome art, cool objects, and unique pieces. We set out to make great things together and work with people and brands who share our aesthetic and sense of humor”.

While the label HMNIM itself was already buzzing around even before 2012 – for instance, I remember a series of iTunes podcasts with that name revolving around the music industry and various scenes hosted by Mark himself around 2006-2007 – it wasn’t until the last couple of years that the brand really established itself and definitely took off. In fact, something that’s really cool about the company is that they do not limit themselves to the selling of fine clothing pieces (some of which I’ve already purchased, they’re rad), but they’re also always coming up with great collaborations offering, amongst others, watches, visual prints, playing cards and thermos bottles. To have an idea of what it is exactly I’m referring to, just take a look at this.

The brand’s official logo, which I kindly reported for you below, is a weirdly comfortable and darky octopus kinda looking scarily at you, and since everyone – myself included – has been wondering from the beginning what it should be representing, Mark took the time to explain it on the website:

“What’s up with the octopus?  I’ve been using the octopus logo over the past few years, and throughout, people have asked, ‘What’s up with the octopus?’ It’s an easy answer. Music. Friends. Art. Travel. Adventure. Quotes from your favorite movies. The ocean. Punk rock clubs. Video games. Websites that make you laugh. Literature. Photos of good memories. London, Los Angeles, New York, and everywhere in between”.

Well, I personally think that not only this is a pretty clear explanation, but also that Mark is doing something quite unique and I gotta say I like and endorse it a lot. To have such a great amount of different artistic sources of inspiration reunited onto a single website is certainly something I haven’t find so often on the Interweb. Clearly, Mark’s been able to exploit his halfway celebrity-status to count on a decent fanbase from the beginning, but nonetheless you can really tell he believes in what he’s putting forward and this, after all, remains the main positive factor driving this project.

Probably my favourite part of the brand is its blog, which includes regular visual updates, audio files, and a re-launched HMNIM podcasts series, that so far has hosted guest appearances who go by the names of Alex Gaskarth and Jack Barakat of All Time Low and Tom DeLonge’s new replacement in blink-182 Matt Skiba (by the way, I suggest you take a listen to that specific episode if you need some calm after the storm of their recent line-up controversy). It’s precisely the podcasts that make me really happy, mainly because I think Mark is extremely brilliant at hosting guests from the art world in general (incidentally, he also had his own TV talk show on Fuse called “Hoppus on Music” from 2010 to 2012, just to show people he’s also good at doing it in front of a camera, certainly not to be taken for granted for a punk-rock bassist), but also because the topics handled during them are really interesting. And he’s got an irresistible laugh: everytime he laughs I just go along, I can’t avoid doing it, and it’s pretty fun, you should check it out.

Yet, HMNIM is not only Mark Hoppus, there are a number of additional great personalities involved in the project, of whom you can all find out more directly on each artist’s personal bio on their website. So, don’t get fooled or somehow deceived by the company’s name: his name is certainly Mark, but he’s just one brick in a wall of inspiring artistic content made available to everyone thanks to great dedication, exciting collaborations, and fine production amongst a group of friends. What more could we allow ourselves asking for?

I’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and I hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV

HMNIM

ALEX REVIEWS MUSIC (ARM): COLD WAR KIDS – HOLD MY HOME | 2015-03-14

It’s time for another ARM blogpost. I felt the need during the past few days, and although I wasn’t really sure what exactly I was gonna examine, I knew it’d have happened quite soon. Well, after some deep back and forth reflections taking into consideration various possibilities (including the new Angels & Airwaves‘s The Dream Walker and Marmozets‘s The Weird and Wonderful), my decision has fallen on the new record of the Californian indie-rock outfit Cold War Kids, called Hold My Home and released last 21st October 2014 under Downtown Records. Now, I realise that this must not sound like the newest of records that have come out recently, but to be fair there’s some kind of a back story to be told with regard to the release date, at least as far as the European mainland is concerned. In fact, before digging into the proper musical part of this ARM, there’s  something of a background anecdote that shouldn’t remain unnamed, hopefully so to shine some light onto what I consider a very badly coordinated publication promotion on the part of Cold War Kids’s management.

While the initial release date for Hold My Home was set to be the aforementioned 21st October 2014, outside of the USA and Australia the album hadn’t come out until the beginning of March 2015. So, except from lead single “All This Could Be Yours” – originally released on 15th July 2014 (!) – and following stand alone tracks “First” and “Hot Coals” (incidentally the first three songs in the album’s tracklist), the vast majority of good old folks in the world had to patiently wait until the first days of this month to enjoy Hold My Home in its full length. You may now ask yourselves “Ok, right, all good and interesting: but how did this come about?”. Well, believe me I’ve asked myself that question a million time and I haven’t managed to find a proper answer yet. I’m not kidding, as far as I’m concerned – and I indeed did some research on this over the course of the last months – there’s still no official explanation for this delay of almost five months between the release in the USA/Australia and the rest of the world, neither from the band itself (I’ve asked them various time on Twitter, no answer gotten), nor from the label or the management side. So, as you may deduce, Hold My Home wasn’t necessarily welcomed to the market with the best of the conditions a band could potentially wish for.

However, despite (or maybe precisely because of) this legal/promotional/marketing long-lasting burden that accompanied Cold War Kids’s latest effort, its definitive release triggered a big sense of relief, at least in me. The album, although not being their best one, presents some very fresh sounds that echo unlike anything else around at the moment. Drawn by the initial triple combo of singles, Hold My Home delivers a genuine representation of a honest, direct, and believable indie-pop-rock with loads of piano/keyboards and some retro-vintage ambient feelings. There are some immediate no-gos as well, though: tracks like “Nights & Weekends”, “Flower Drum Song”, and “Harold Bloom” can’t really take off even after repeated listens, and all this appears as something quite unfortunate. Those three tunes definitely not worth the presence in an album otherwise way above average compared to the material out currently, also bearing in mind Cold War Kids’s relatively notorious status in the mainstream music industry. By contrast, the aforementioned opening trio composed by “All This Could Be Yours”, a rather fast-driving crafter indie anthem of modern times, “First”, probably the most poppy and ear-wormy tune on the album (it’s actually quite irresistible), and “Hot Coals”, a more raw and uncomfortable but pleasant reminiscence of early 00’s indie sound-alike, truly give the record a notable twist. These three songs, in addition to the electro-synth dominated “Drive Desperate” and personal favourite (as well as upcoming single, judging by the recently released official video on YouTube) “Hotel Anywhere”, mark a pretty clear quality distinction in the album making the first half absolutely rad and letting the thread lose its way as tracks go on, with the exception made of closing treat “Hear My Baby Call”.

Thus, overall a very decent album that builds up (possibly too) great expectation after listening to its first half and that loses itself along the way from track 6 to 10 (even the title-track isn’t really able to impose itself after time…). Nonetheless, a much appreciable musical statement made by one of the pioneers of modern indie-rock that, as usual, don’t miss one opportunity to experiment and surprise its fans with the album’s artwork too, in my opinion once again amazing (cf. image below). Welcome back Cold War Kids, for this time we’re ready to forgive your delay, but if this is the musical direction you’re intended to undertake, remember not to play with fire for too long.

I’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and I hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV

COLD WAR KIDS

“HOLD MY HOME”

2014/2015, DOWNTOWN RECORDS

http://www.coldwarkids.com

CWK_Hold My Home

ALEX REVIEWS MUSIC (ARM): RYAN ADAMS IN CONCERT AT HAMMERSMITH APOLLO | 2015-03-01

I haven’t stated anywhere that the ARM column would have been limited only to actually recorded music or album releases in general. Therefore, I’m now totally exploiting the opportunity to share some lasting emotions and perennial thoughts I’m currently experiencing derived from the show I attended last Friday night, namely Ryan Adams’s Londoner stop at a sold out Hammersmith Apollo supported by the lovely and extremely talented Natalie Prass. Not only was the venue itself fabulous and breath-taking, but also the overall experience provoked by the magic force of the US alt-country rocker was truly one of a kind. I won’t forget it anytime soon for sure.

I gotta say, this was the first time seeing him live for me. It’s also fair to say that it’s only recently, let’s say the past two or three years, that I’ve really gotten into him and his repertoire. Also, I’ve been literally obsessed with his last self-titled album having it on repeat since last December. It just encapsulates everything modern rock music should be about: from the widest range of transmitted emotions to a large variety of incredible and good-sounding melodies, harmonisation, and songwriting. With that said, I was obviously extremely delighted to notice how Ryan played a good six songs off of such newest effort, including amongst them Grammy-nominated rocky intro “Gimme Something Good”, personal favourite and emotionally intense “Stay With Me”, as well as the delicate and fragile ballad “My Wrecking Ball”, which all appear to me as very good examples of how stunning this last album really is. But there was a lot more to it than a wonderful set-listed focus on his most recent self-titled output, which I undoubtedly took as a personal gift arranged relying on the fact that I was in the audience. Jokes aside, with over two hours of live performance and an overall amount of 23 songs played (see setlist below), Ryan had the chance to navigate through his immense and highly-prolific catalogue spanning over more than 15 years and ranging from intimate tunes such as “Dear Chicago”, “My Winding Wheel”, and “Oh My Sweet Carolina” (performed as a wonderful duet with opening act Natalie Prass), going through more well-known tracks like “New York, New York” and “When the Stars Go Blue”, all the way until the more recent “Kim” (probably one of the greatest songs of 2014) and the Springsteenian “I Just Might”.

Another element that made Friday night unforgettable was the spectacular choreography that was set up as background to Ryan and his backing band The Shining (by the way, very convincing), showing a rather minimal design composed of many fragmented light bulbs attached across the whole surface that worked just perfectly. Moreover, yet another highlight of the evening occurred as the North Carolina-native successfully improvised a brand new song out of a random line shouted at him by a member of the audience (“I Ate Something Off The Street”), which not only received massive praise from the whole public and was in fact as pretty great as it was hilarious, but it also warmed up well Ryan and his guitar before jumping into the aforementioned “Kim”.

Yet, I must say the best moments for me were both the absolutely touching “This House Is Not For ‘Fucking’ Sale” (as introduced by Mr Adams himself), to which for a fair amount of reasons I can relate so much, and the last two songs of the evening, the forte-piano-driven “I See Monsters”, which took whole new forms and dimensions  performed live, and the classic folky tune as well as fans-favourite “Come Pick Me Up” (also accompanied by a lovely vocal dialogue with Prass). The closing track is probably his most famous recorded one, and for that matter it really didn’t disappoint live either, as much as the overall show in general. Moreover, acting as a sort of almost surreal glue keeping the gig together, there was a deep sensation of emotional involvement experiencing on the part of all of the audience members, without any kind of social compromising camouflage. That is, before last night I’d never had the sensation of being among a crowd of over 8000 people all keeping unbelievably quiet and standing literally still for Adams’s most delicate solo performances in order to enjoy them as intensively as possible. You really almost couldn’t hear any kind of noise coming from the audience, and still if you’d looked around, there’d have been an overwhelming wave of other companions coming from all directions simply looking at The Man and sipping from bottles of beer or cheap glasses of wine. In fact, it was something unique, rare, intimate, and shared among many fellow-attendees at the same time. It showcased a beautifully inspired Ryan, who didn’t step back when it was time to joke around with the mic and interacting with the audience, but who also took care of taming the stage with just his emotional voice and the help of six strings on an acoustic guitar. Everything worked out so perfectly well. Everything from the music, through the choreography, to the fans’ reaction. Unsurprisingly, after all, since it’s Ryan Adams.

This is the rad setlist he performed:

Gimme Something Good

Let It Ride

Stay With Me

Dear Chicago

This House Is Not For Sale

Everybody Knows

My Winding Wheel (acoustic solo)

Dirty Rain

Magnolia Mountain

New York, New York

I Ate Something Off The Street (improvisation)

Kim

Two

My Wrecking Ball

I Just Might

I Love You But I Don’t Know What To Say

Your Fool (Natalie Prass cover)

Oh My Sweet Carolina (w/ Natalie Prass)

La Cienega Just Smiled

Trouble

When the Stars Go Blue

I See Monsters

Come Pick Me Up (w/ Natalie Prass)

I’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and I hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV

Source: Gigwise

Source: Gigwise

ALEX REVIEWS MUSIC (ARM): TAKING BACK SUNDAY – HAPPINESS IS: THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS | 2015-02-21

I used to write reviews of new records and music I bumped into on Facebook a while back (like 6-7 years ago), and since now I’m trying this new thing out I thought it would be a good idea to keep that tradition going and to kick off with something similar. You can think of this as some kind of 2.0 music review revival. I’d call this section, column, feature or whatever “Alex Reviews Music” – and I’ll probably shorten it to ARM – because it’s literally what I’ll be doing in it, no magic, persuasion, or tricks involved.

Obviously, as I don’t like to do things the standard way, I’m starting with a review of a very non-conventional record. In fact, Taking Back Sunday’s “Happiness Is: The Complete Recordings” it’s a so-called “deluxe version” of their sixth studio album released at the beginning of 2014, called “Happiness Is”. This new version contains the entire fruits of their recording process, i.e. including the outtakes that didn’t make the final cut of the album itself plus three additional acoustic renditions of album tracks, and comes in various formats ranging from simple digital to a limited edition 7″ box set with signed cover card as well as individual art for each song. Also, before we go any further, I assume it’s right to say that, because of a deep personal involvement with this band’s repertoire, I won’t be able to objectively assess the intrinsic musical value of this art piece without tending to a overwhelmingly positive judgement. Nonetheless, I’ll do my best to stay true to my apparently distant position I’m supposed to incorporate while writing for ARM.

While it’s worth acknowledging that the record itself has yet to be released (it’ll on 24th February), I thought I’d take the opportunity to write about both the standard 11-track sequence entailed in “Happiness Is” and the extra song that’s already been disclosed, namely “How I Met Your Mother” (by the way also the B-side of the main single “Flicker, Fade”: this is why folks were already able to listen to it last year).

Precisely the main hit single and de facto album opener “Flicker, Fade” makes the effort of quickly delivering a statement of where the album positions itself within the band’s catalogue. Playing with swinging moods of heavy punches in ya face (best heard immediately in the intro) and sweet harmonic but still melancholic verse/bridge takes, it best kicks off Taking Back Sunday’s latest album without any kinds of compromises. The following track, “Stood A Chance”, also a single and host of an extremely funny video, takes care of poppy-upbeat feelings in the listener juxtaposing them with rather darky connotations in the lyrics. Also, this song has probably the best bridge/breakdown the band has ever made, which in a way is very reminiscent of the one in “What’s It Feel Like to Be a Ghost?” off of Louder Now (2006), which was leading this special chart until “Stood A Chance” came along (one can’t really miss the similar ambience). The next pair of tracks, “All The Way” and “Beat Up Car”, simply summarises the finest moments of this album and demonstrate an incredible maturity on the part of the five-pieces outfit from Long Island. They’re both able to reach much depth both lyrically and melodically and show increased songwriting and performative ability by all of the five members, with special mentions for lead singer A. Lazzara and drummer M. O’Connell.

Further highpoints in the album are the punky and probably guitarist E. Reyes’s influenced “They Don’t Have Any Friends”, especially where the singing melody of the pre-chorus is simply irresistible, the very much direct and personal “Better Homes and Garden” – already a candidate to become a fan all-time favourite – and album closer “Nothing At All”, which showcases Taking Back Sunday at its most calm and introspective ever. Instead, not really convincing are the opening “Preface” (why not rather include “How I Met Your Mother” in the record replacing it with such a noisy and superficial introduction?, cf. below), the ballad-like “It Takes More”, a solid track but honestly nothing more than it and probably more at home in their fifth self-titled album (2011), as well as the rather dry “Like You Do” and “We Were Younger Then”, although these last two show increasing potential with augmented amounts of listening.

As promised, a last mention is well-owed to “How I Met Your Mother”, main tune “Flicker, Fade”‘s B-side and first of the bonus tracks entailed in the deluxe version. The song is unlike anything else the band’s released so far, in the sense that it really never leaves high-tension moods across the whole duration playing with a continuous climax and can be considered one of their heaviest efforts alongside with “El Paso” (off their self-titled). With once again drummer M. O’Connell at his top, retrospectively this track, if included in the standard album, could’ve covered the only minor omission of it: namely a real outrage of hard walls of distorted sound which goes hand in hand with fine melody as well as great harmonisations (the tunes in the album that get closest to reach this are probably “Beat Up Car” and “They Don’t Have Any Friends”). Needless to say, if the other two extra tracks included in the complete recordings version (“This Is Happening” and “Can You Feel That [Here I Am])” are on the same level of this one quality-wise, there is so much to be excited about them being released to the public. At that point, if these promises are to be maintained, the band’s sixth effort can literally be considered artistically complete.

I’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and I hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV

TAKING BACK SUNDAY

“HAPPINESS IS: THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS”

2015, HOPELESS RECORDS, INC.

www.takingbacksunday.com

TBS_Complete Recordings

WELL, COME! | 2015-02-20

There is nothing like getting excited about something you’ve always dismissed as pointless and as a waste of your time. I’m not gonna lie right now, I’ve always found the idea of having a blog problematic to say the least. Mainly because of a distant perception that sooner or later, or maybe let’s just go with sooner, one simply runs out of excitement in relation to this form of (creative) expression. It seems to me that it doesn’t leave much room for variation or experimentation. In fact, the blogs I tend to follow regularly are absolutely countable on the fingers of one human hand. Needless to say, everytime someone mentioned blogging as a fruitful way to find one’s self and to explore tastes, passions, and emotions steering our lives and shaping the outside reality I wasn’t really tempted to reply affirmatively.

However, I feel the time has come for me to land away from the elitist-heaven of non-bloggers and to embrace this new commitment with high enthusiasm. The reasons for this are numerous, but all in all they could be summarised in a refreshing need to express myself in ways I hadn’t tried out before. So far, I’ve normally been using music in its various manifestations in order to do so, and while I’m sure no form is going to replace other forms, this whole thing I’m embarking on right now will lead me to exciting new channels of shaped self-expression.

I’m not really sure about content, frequency, and specific writing-style with regard to the essence of this page – by the way very kindly hosted by WordPress – although judging by first, rather primitive instincts of sourced interest I can already announce that music-related musings won’t be lacking. Yet, given the fact I also do a bunch of other stuff in my everyday life and I don’t just listen to rad music on the iPod, it won’t be a surprise to me to retrospectively stumble upon entries about journalism, society, and all forms of artistic endeavours, either in direct/conscious or indirect/unconscious form. Also, I don’t rule out the fact that, at least initially, I’ll rely much on the things I post, comment and abundantly retweet on another social networking website called Twitter, which also very kindly takes care of my yet-to-be-verified profile named after my name.

Speaking of names, I’ve provisionally called this page Everything Must Swing. If you don’t really get the meaning at a first glance or if it doesn’t sound familiar at all, that’s normal. It represents an old obsession of mine, namely the establishment of the perfect rock and roll outfit that could allow me and my fellow bandmates to rock the goddamn hell out of every performance. As you can probably already tell, the name wasn’t an issue anymore. Matter of fact, the name is the combination of the titles of two very important tunes for me, “Everything Must Go” and “Swing”, composed, recorded, and officially performed by this band from Long Island, NY. I’d like to think that Everything Must Swing not only denotes a personal legacy to my character, but that, linguistically speaking, it also means that there is a continuous flow of energetic connection that encompasses the entire structuring of our realities, and it is constantly swinging and changing sources of action amongst us. Hopefully, fragments from its incredible force will find their way into this ephemeral page.

I’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and I hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV