Roadtrip: What's playhing in my iPod?

This post was recorded onto my PDA when I was in Korea about 2 weeks ago. It was written on the day we travelled from Seoul to Gwangju which was a 3 hours drive.

On the road now travelling to a mountais region east of Korea. Popped in my iPod. The journey will be about 5 hours long. Was listening to loads of Mortification and Mychildren Mybride then I felt that my ears needed some rest so I softened down with Newsboys' selection from "Take Me To Your Leader". This album was as good as the album before that "Going Public" and theirlater album "Thrive". These were albums where Steve Taylor were involved in either producing or co-songwriter. I could here their lyrical influence from Taylor (I have his last CD "Squint" in my iPod). I was trying to distinguish James' voice from Furler. I think I finally heard the finally heard the difference. The sounded like each othe yet they have their distinct styles.

Up next was my demo of "Mask". I dunno how come the song will skip to the next track at the 1:00 mark. So I had to scroll the bar to 1:02 everytime I listen to it. I might as well do it even if it doesn't skip because my guitar playing was way off, but I found the rhythm at the first chorus. The rest of the song was fine. I'm pretty impressed by my effort. Now I just have to re-write some of the lyrics to complete the song. I tried to figure out a drum part for the song but all I could come up with was a rock groove which doesn't fit the song at all. I needed a reference and I found it in Tracy Chapman's "Subcity" from her 2nd album "Crossroad". Playing "Mask" always remind me of that song. The drum groove was surprisingly simple. The verse was a half-time groove and the chorus was a nomal rock groove. What made the groove diffrent from mine was 1) the hi-hats were playing quarter notes and thus letting the guitar strumming rhythm fill in the 16th and in-betweens; 2) the snare parts we all side-sticking! 3) A tambourine accompanied the side-sticking at every chorus. Inspite of that, the song still managed to build up smoothly to a climax thru clever instrumentation. I dunno why but I suddenly thought of Samant Halim because I knew I needed a keyboard player if I ever jam as TOSoG. When O when?

Just had a breakfast stop. We're now back on the road. There is another 3 hours to go before we arrive at hour destination for lunch. This will also be our last locationin Korea before flying to Japan to begin filming the episode about Japanese food. We'll be filming a farmer who plays the cello to her crop of beans to help them grow into better crops. Ah! If I could only find someone who knows how to play the cello back home. I definitely have parts for them in a song or two I wrote.

A couple of nights ago I downlooaded (legally) 4 albums of Metal with Christianity as it's central theme. These were bands that are not covered much in HM and 4 of the five bands are not from US except Feast Eternal (what a name these bands have!). A.W.A.S is from Germany. Admonish is from Sweden. And the last two bands, one is Holy Blood but i forgot the name hard-to-pronounce band. Guess where these last two bands are from? Ukraine! I was so happy to know Christian Metal is thriving in Europe. Holy Blood plays a sub-genre of metal which is new to me. They call it Folk Metal.To further describe their sound, it's known as Folk/ Melodic metal. They are currently the most successful band in this European Christian metal label (according to their website). What's interesting is all these bands do not just sing in one language. Most of the German, Norwegian and Swedish bands do sing (or growl/ squeel/ scream/ shout), but hthe eastern European does theirs, in Holy Blood's case, Ukrainian! It's really refreshing. However I still can't bring myself to listen to it while I'm on the road filled with fatigue. My ears are not ready to take the punishment by hard music (notice I didn't say "loud? Cos I trasure my hearing and I rely on a good pair of ears in my work).

We drove past some valleys where you see the change of colours in the leaves of the trees. This is the first time I see bright red trees. It only mid autumn now. It's a matter of time before the whole mountain turns firey red and yellow. All I could only say is "My Lord, How Great Thou Art" (coz that's what spinningin my iPod right now)!

Two hours more...