Jody Whitesides

Author: Jody Whitesides

Life Of The Party By Shawn Mendes

A couple of weeks ago I was tooling around in my car running an errand when over the iTunes Radio comes this tune called Life of the Party. I immediately thought to myself, dang this guy nailed it. Not from a lyric standpoint but from a musical standpoint. Then comes a little more research to find out that it was co-written. I still haven’t gone far enough to figure out who actually recorded, produced and mixed it. But said producer did a masterful job at making this guy Shawn Mendes whom I think is about 15 years old, sound like a long time pro. That’s not an easy task.

The real trick is the production on the track. It’s laden with tons of sounds that flow one to another and work extremely well. Shawn’s vocal over the top of it sounds like a great set of takes edited together with the right amount of emotion. The verses are little bit on the lax side, but the chorus kicks it so hard that the verses don’t matter.

Hopefully this kid will get more practice in on his writing and really make an awesome career in music.

Life of the Party

I love it when you just don’t care
I love it when you dance like there’s nobody there
So when it gets hard, don’t be afraid
We don’t care what them people say
I love it when you don’t take no
I love it when you do what you want cause you just said so
Let them all go home, we out late
We don’t care what them people say

We don’t have to be ordinary
Make your best mistakes
‘Cause we don’t have the time to be sorry
So baby be the life of the party
I’m telling you to take your shot it might be scary
Hearts are gonna break
‘Cause we don’t have the time to be sorry
So baby be the life of the party

Together we can just let go
Pretend like there’s no one else here that we know
Slow dance fall in love as the club track plays
We don’t care what them people say

We don’t have to be ordinary
Make your best mistakes
‘Cause we don’t have the time to be sorry
So baby be the life of the party
I’m telling you to take your shot it might be scary
Hearts are gonna break
‘Cause we don’t have the time to be sorry
So baby be the life of the party

Come out tonight, come out tonight
There’s no one standing in your way
Come out tonight, come out tonight
We don’t care what them people say
We don’t care what them people say

We don’t have to be ordinary
Make your best mistakes
‘Cause we don’t have the time to be sorry
So baby be the life of the party
I’m telling you to take your shot it might be scary
Hearts are gonna break
‘Cause we don’t have the time to be sorry
So baby be the life of the party

Yeah, yeah, yeah
Life of the party
So don’t let them keep you down
Oh you know you can’t give up
‘Cause we don’t have the time to be sorry
So baby be the life of the party

2014-08-07
Capos And Recording

Not long ago I came across a new form of capos. In galaxy very close by. Actually it was this galaxy. More specifically it was in a town known as Anaheim. The Anaheim that sits in the California region of the planet earth. Capos are a funny business. Lots of musicians use the cheapest products they can find without thinking about how they affect the sound. I always look for the thing that will get the great sound. Oddly enough capos and the kind you use can make a difference. Which is why on such a faithful day where I found out about a company called G7th and their capos, I instantly made the switch. Why? Because they’re awesome. Actually it had a couple of better reasons. First their weight. They have a good solid weight to them. Second, their ease of use. They work on some kind of engineering magic where you can set the tension as simply as closing your fingers. That way it doesn’t clamp down too hard on the strings and push them out of tune. It’s a love thing.

Today I’d taking you into the studio for a little clip about my upcoming song “Till We Meet Again” wherein you see me making use of the G7th’s awesomeness. Click on that video and realize I too use capos to get the proper key and sound for a guitar and my voice.

So if you’re looking for badass capos, especially the one I use – then you need a G7th. You won’t regret it!

Capos And Recording

http://youtu.be/N0tsHT0g0oU

Yeehaw baby.

I think we’re ready. Let me double check my tuning real quick.

technically with the panning you don’t need to pan the microphones in my headphones

as we’re recording. That’s what I’m saying you can turn them back to center.

Alright. Let’s see if we’re

all set to go. That sounds beautiful my
head.

There’s a little drum pattern that starts at what? Bar 3? You can set the record button to

the song position line to start there

‘Cause that’s a two bar count in for me and I start at 5. Do what? A one bar pre-roll? That’s fine. As long as I know it’s two bars.

We were in love…

and it was magic.

happy

2014-08-05
Word Crimes By Weird Al

We’ve all committed them, word crimes. The odd thing is, texting and the internet has increased how prevalent they are. Leave it to the master of the comedic reinterpretation of popular songs to come up with a brilliant new version of Blurred Lines. Sorry Robin Thicke, you have been bested by the man, the myth, the legend – Weird Al. Not since he’s done something like Eat It to Michael Jackson’s Beat It has there been something so funny.

Word Crimes is amazing in it’s ability to be funny. It’s like a cool version of a School House Rock song. Actually School House Rock stuff from it’s early days is brilliant, but it’s the video that goes with Word Crimes that really makes it awesome. The graphics are stunning. Plus the word play that goes on with the images is one of the most creative things I’ve seen in a long time.

Word Crimes

Everybody shut up, WOO!
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey

If you can’t write in the proper way
If you don’t know how to conjugate
Maybe you flunked that class
And maybe now you find
That people mock you online

Okay, now here’s the deal
I’ll try to educate ya
Gonna familiarize
You with the nomenclature
You’ll learn the definitions
Of nouns and prepositions
Literacy’s your mission
And that’s why I think it’s a

Good time
To learn some grammar
Now, did I stammer
Work on that grammar
You should know when
It’s “less” or it’s “fewer”
Like people who were
Never raised in a sewer

I hate these word crimes
Like I could care less
That means you do care
At least a little
Don’t be a moron
You better slow down
And use the right pronoun
Show the world you’re a no-clown

(Everybody wise up)

Say you got an “I-T”
Followed by apostrophe “s”
Now what does that mean?
You would not use this in this case
As a possessive
It’s a contraction
What’s a contraction?
Well, it’s the shortening of a word, or a group of words
By the emission of a sound or letter

Okay, now here are some notes
Syntax you’re always dangling
No X in “Espresso”
Your participle’s danglin’
But I don’t want your drama
If you really wanna
Leave out that Oxford comma
Just keep in mind
That we see

Are you
Are words not letters?
Get it together
Use your spellchecker
You should never
Write words using numbers
Unless you’re seven
Or your name is Prince

I hate these word crimes
You really need a
Full time proofreader
You dumb mouthbreather
Well, you should hire
Some cunning linguist
To help you distinguish
What is proper English

(Everybody wise up)

One thing I ask of you
Time to learn your homophones is past due
Learn to diagram a sentence too
Always say to whom
Don’t ever say to who
Yeah, listen up when I tell you this
I hope you never use quotation marks for emphasis
If you finished second grade
I hope you can tell
If you’re doing good or doing well
Figure out the difference
Irony is not coincidence
And, I thought that you’d gotten it through your skull
What’s figurative and what’s literal
Oh but, just now, you said
You literally couldn’t get out of bed
That really makes me want to literally
Smack a crowbar upside your stupid head

I read your e-mail
It’s quite apparent
You’re grammar’s errant
You’re incoherent
Saw your blog post
It’s really fantastic
That was sarcastic (Oh, psych!)
Cause you write like a spastic

I hate these Word Crimes
(Everybody wise up)
Your pose is dopey
Think you should only
Write in emoji
Oh, you’re a lost cause
Go back to preschool
Get out of the gene pool
Try your best to not drool

Never mind I give up
Really now I give up
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey
Go Away!

Woo hoo! Now go out and stop committing these common word crimes!

2014-07-31

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