We Tried, and We're out

Haha! Recently, me and a group of friends tried out for battle of the bands. We are just a couple of buddies who like the same kind of music and jam it out in our basements. We play music anywhere, in the park, or around a fire on the acoustic, or in each others basements.
But anyways, the night before battle of the bands, we decided to try out. The effort was definitely unrefined, premature, etc. but we were set on doing it (for the most part).
So the next day at school, I signed us up last minute, and with some extra effort, an audition spot was made available. But problems are like good fortune, and they are bound to occur sometime in your life.
After much scrambling, before I knew it, my mothers minivan was loaded with a drumset, and two large fender amplifiers, and we were good to go.
So, we showed up at the tryouts to many peoples surprise. And well, our performance was very raw, and we just showed up, and put it all out on the table.
We covered Franklin's Tower and Fire on the Mountain, both great songs by the Grateful Dead. The performance was nerveracking, but not so bad. The time flew and with few difficulties we had performed our first "gig" or live show at least.
So then we packed up and enjoyed listening to the other bands. The rest of the day was wonderful and we had accomplished something very substantial for us as a band. And we were all glad that we had the opportunity to play and compete.
But as Jerry Garcia said once, "Music is not a competition, the best music is cooperative, its not competitive."
oh how true. I look forward to BotB 2009. see ya there.

I Should Really Start

Blogging again,
Will consider.
You shouldn't have read this post haha!
It's just that I was thinking about blogging about blogging actually not being dead, but.
I could use more sleep.

New Experience (Paintball)

Just got back from paintballing with my Christian youth group tonight.

It was a really intense experience. I don't really feel like going into detail at the moment because I'm so tired.

But there's a part of me that wants to keep this blog from dying off.

I'll conclude with my red badges of courage:
One shot to the forehead
One shot to the back of my head
One shot to my mask
Then just some splatter on my hands

It was pretty exciting, and now I'm considering it as an occasional hobby.

Thanks for reading,
-Benmanship

I'm not wearing socks

And you know this to be true.

A Challenge

I challenge all of you to create a YouTube account. After you create an account, proceed to go to every single beatles video, or at least hit the major ones. Then comment something like "These guys are almost as good as the Jonas Brothers."
Hah, I was just watching some Beatles on YouTube, and noticed that some musically hindered members were comparing the Jonas Brothers to the Beatles. The Jonas Brothers have some sort of look that inspires varied shrieks from young teenage girls, but they lack talent. I just think its funny how people say that. And someone I quote their comment said "almost as good as the jonas brothers."
I got a kick out of it because you can tell the Jonas Brothers emulate the Beatles and are definitely trying to surpass them in some way. Just because you have fans, doesn't mean you're good.

Some People Learn it in the Schools

Every year since the sixth grade has been the same. My grades start out somewhat poor, then decrease as the year goes on. I wish grades didn't exist, they are supremely indescriptive of any individual. Grades represent how well your robot mind has been programmed to submit to the squeemish authority of our society.
I do not like homework, it is consuming and not very worthwhile. I'd rather just study what I want to sudy, like Theology and Music and Writing. Learning would be much more successful if we could just choose what we want to study and focus in on it.
I guess that would be college. Although, highschool is supremely lame, how am I going to make it to college? I blame it all on homework. A cancer of the creative mind. The task that rots away my day with apprehension. I don't want to do it at all, but I know that I must to "succeed." So the result is a very poor grade average. For several weeks I may focus very finely on schoolwork, then I get very fed up and let a couple assignments go by. The result is a blemished letter stamped onto my report card. Although I am capable of doing quality work, the same mind crusing gear grinding day by day assignments that consume any and all free time is quite a terrible thing.
If I were to do every homework assignment to get good grades, I feel that I would be missing out on more important things and my life would be supremely stressful. It would just be school, homework, my job, and poor sleep. I would become a robot soon to meltdown under the pressure brought on by the fat rats at the head of our society.
I do not like homework, I do not like grades. Neither represent or enhance my individual mind.

Music Theory

Not everything that's good has to be fun right? I am really interested and greatly intrigued by the depth of music theory. It seems like such a puzzling, yet useful skill. Hopefully it will sometime prove rewarding as a musician. So far I am just brushing up on music theory using some recommended websites from my friend and guitar teacher. It's definitely something I think will keep me busy for the rest of my life as long as I'm willing to learn.