2018 was a wild year for everyone involved. At the beginning of the year, I decided to listen to 300 albums that I never listened to before, both new and old. Within the list of 300 albums are quite a few albums from 2018. Because I set out in the beginning of the year to listen to a variety of music, I wasn’t sure how it’d affect my 2018 list and what I sought out. Interestingly enough, there’s some surprising variety. Continue reading Top 10 Albums of 2018
After seeing the EP posted on reddit, and being downright addicted to a genre of music that I hadn’t visited in years, I decided to reach out to Andrew from No Alarms to talk to him about how the band came to be, some of his inspiration, songwriting approach, and more. He’s an absolute gentleman and I want to take this time to thank him for getting back to me. Continue reading Interview with No Alarms
Hearing Dance with the Dead for the first time was like a breath of fresh air. I had been submerging myself in the synthwave genre and listened to artists like Carpenter Brut, Perturbator, Gost, Wavshaper and Com Truise. But, as a musician that loves metal , I always wanted some heavier guitars featuring some of that electronic music goodness. Hearing B Sides Volume 1 was glorious, and once the band announced teasers for the new album, I knew I was going to fall in love. August 14th, the album dropped, and it’s been in heavy rotation ever since. Continue reading Dance With The Dead – Loved To Death
It’s odd to say that I didn’t have music around my whole life. I had only really started listening to music around the age of 13 when I picked up my guitar. My friend Jason, of the same age, started showing me all the bands he loved and grew up with. He showed me Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Black Sabbath, Maroon 5, and this band call the Foo Fighters. The band name intrigued me. What on earth was a “Foo Fighter”? Then Jason shows me this video of a long-haired Jesus man walking up to a mic and singing the opening lines to a song that would change it all for me “Keep you in the dark , you know they all pretend…” More than a decade from that day, 3 albums, 1 EP later, and I got to see what a “Foo Fighter” really was.
Continue reading Foo Fighters Concert Review – MSG July 17, 2018
Vinyl’s comeback has been huge. A new generation of people are falling in love with the crackle, ritual and physical experience of holding and reading a record while listening to music. Out of that entire culture is a very niche, but every growing subculture, of people that enjoy video game music on vinyl. According to Blip Blop, a website dedicated to Video Game Vinyl (VGM vinyl), 2016 had around 90 releases on vinyl, while 2017 has nearly 130. Not only is that a huge jump from the previous year, but that’s essentially one VGM Vinyl release every 3 days. So what’s the big deal? Why do people care? Let’s take a look at the various reasons why people buy VGM Vinyl, and vinyl as a whole. Continue reading Why Video Game Vinyl?
The WhatsItTech team was fortunate enough to go to PAX East 2018 this year. During our trip, I was able to lock down a few interviews with some brilliant people. One of them was Darren Korb, composer of the Supergiant Games Bastion, Transistor, and Pyre. Below you will find the written transcription of our interview. Continue reading Darren Korb PAX East Interview
If anyone hasn’t done so already, check out the review of the ‘ debut album In The Arms of the Sun by Vox Vocis. That album completely blew me away and made me jealous because if I could somehow go back in time, that would be the album I made. When I caught wind of the news that the band was recording their second album, I was extremely excited. I am happy to say that the band did not disappoint. This will be a breakdown of the entire album track by track . Continue reading Vox Vocis – Star Meissa Album Review
I recently was given the amazing opportunity to interview the guys over at Jammy Guitar. Jammy Guitar is a company that’s currently making a portable guitar unlike any other. They’ve gone through many iterations in their prototype stages, but are closing in on a final potential model in the upcoming months. Continue reading Interview: Jammy Guitar
As with many guitar players, I was inspired by the album cover from Steve Vai’s pivotal album Passion and Warfare. The swirled guitar with colors everywhere was captivating to me as a teen. What also held my attention was some of the low end Vai was getting out of his guitar, especially the riff in “The Audience Is Listening”. This build is a result of that inspiration. Continue reading My 7 String Build!
Tunechi F Baby, and the F is for finally back. Lil Wayne has been a seminal MC to the hip hop game. From really pushing the idea of the mixtape forward in the mid to late 2000’s to his birthing a generation of new wave rappers, Wayne is no slouch. Continue reading Lil Wayne – Is it Weezy Season?
Few albums have blown me away first listen the same way this album has. Aside from being the album that put Steve Vai on the map as a fantastic guitar player, it pushed the musical boundaries of instrumental guitar music. There weren’t many seven string players during this time, and with some of his tunes using a 7, Passion and Warfare was on it’s way to be a classic. Continue reading Album Of The Week- Steve Vai – Passion And Warfare
I The Mighty has always been an extremely interesting band to me. In the eight years that they have been a band, they have changed their sound multiple times, but it always sounded like I The Mighty. In their third album, they switched up their sound and vocalist Brent Walsh got incredibly introspective lyrically. They didn’t drop their post-hardcore sound that they had introduced in their label debut album Satori and honed in Connector, but some of the songs are stripped down musically. Continue reading I The Mighty – Where the Mind Wants to Go / Where You Let it Go Album Review