Jody Whitesides

Author: Jody Whitesides

White Men Discussing Rap

What could be more out of wack than three white men discussing rap music? That’s right. Jesse Stern starts us off with an off the cuff remark about rap music and George Leger III takes over discussing the state of modern rap in Southern California. Don’t get me wrong. There’s a lot of rap I like for it’s originality, it’s beat, it’s wild-blue-yonder approach. Yet listening to George talk about the artists he’s hearing about from the youth group he works with, is definitely an eye opening and mind expanding situation for myself and Mr. Jesse Stern.

Find out my expression and how I react to a group that I’ve never heard of. Actually all the groups that George mentions are groups I hadn’t heard of until he mentioned them. Jesse takes it all in stride. What ended up happening afterwards is that I’m now more aware of some of the new modern rap coming out of Southern California. Not necessarily a bad thing.

What say you? Who is rapping stuff so awesome that you can’t believe they’re not uber famous yet? Give me some names so I can flesh out my measly commercial rap collection.

White Men Discussing Rap

There’s a lot of really cool rap out.

Productionwise it’s so minimalistic.

Uh Hmmm.

That I… it’s like driving on ice.

Do you do a lot of rap?

I do where I work ’cause the kids, that’s what they want to do.

That’s what the kids are doing these days…

They’re not producing music. They don’t even know what music is. Well, that’s not true. I can’t really say that, ’cause… You know. They. It’s been really intriguing with them to try and turn them on to other kinds of music.

Uh Hmmm.

And other stuff because they’re so into this ridged little clique of music. ASAP Rocky, fuckin’ ah, SPM, South Park Mexicans. Yeah.

Is that a band or a style.

That’s a band.

Ok.

I was about to say if that’s a style, it’s way off my radar.

There’s a band down in Orange called FUNK.

They’re just called FUNK?

They’re just called FUNK. And like all the gangsta kids love ’em. They’re all like, I want FUNK man. I hear it. Like who the fuck is FUNK? FUNK is the they’re a band man.

Funk is that guy right there. He got the funk.

Well, they’re, you know. Eh, South Park Mexicans, SPM, there’s like four or five guys, that’s all they talk about when they talk. ASAP Rocky is one of them.

–

Give me some more rap to check out in the comments.

Enjoy your day!

– Jody

2014-04-08
Life's Been Good By Joe Walsh

Last night I pulled up a copy of Life’s Been Good by Joe Walsh to test out a copy of an app called CAPO. The idea behind the app is that it can “listen” to a song and transcribe it for you. Showing you the chords, and give the ability to tab it out for guitar players. My initial reaction is – hey that would be really cool to learn songs faster. That’s how they approach selling it and it’s ability. I downloaded it, installed it and fired it up. Then I started traipsing through my iTunes library to find a song that I’ve never learned and wanted to know. That’s where I picked Life’s Been Good by Joe Walsh. I had CAPO “listen” to the song and up popped it’s interpretation of the song. To put it mildly, I wasn’t impressed with it’s chordal rendition of the song. While it was in the right key, however it didn’t get things accurate by any stretch. After which I tried another method in the app to see how good it was for dealing with the tab. Unfortunately even at version 3 with this software it’s not great for something like a Joe Walsh song. I’ll try it out on a more modern song in another day or two, but so far, my ear is 1000x faster and more accurate than the software was on Life’s Been Good.

As for Joe and this song, it’s got such a cool vibe that I when I hear it, I wish I was born in the era when what is no called Classic Rock, was king. I think I would have had a completely different life being a writer and guitar player back then.

Life’s Been Good

I have a mansion forget the price
Ain’t never been there they tell me it’s nice
I live in hotels tear out the walls
I have accountants pay for it all

They say I’m crazy but I have a good time
I’m just looking for clues at the scene of the crime
Life’s been good to me so far

My Maserati does 185
I lost my license now I don’t drive
I have a limo ride in the back
I lock the doors in case I’m attacked

I’m making records my fans they can’t wait
They write me letters tell me I’m great
So I got me an office gold records on the wall
Just leave a message maybe I’ll call

Lucky I’m sane after all I’ve been through
Everybody says I’m cool (He’s cool)
I can’t complain but sometimes I still do
Life’s been good to me so far

I go to parties sometimes until four
It’s hard to leave when you can’t find the door
It’s tough to handle this fortune and fame
Everybody’s so different I haven’t changed

They say I’m lazy but it takes all my time
Everybody says Oh yeah (Oh yeah)
I keep on going guess I’ll never know why
Life’s been good to me so far

Enjoy your day! I know I am – I’m out skiing for a few hours before I have to hunker down and work on the mix for my next single.

2014-04-03
Not A Bad Thing Video Cover

Sit down with me and take a little ride as I knock out a cover of Justin Timberlake’s “Not A Bad Thing” with my Taylor Guitar. Like many people I found out about the song last week when it popped up at #10 on the iTunes chart – when I looked at the chart. It’s actually the first time I had glanced at the chart in a while and I was surprised to see some of the songs in the list. Because of this surprise, I’ve decided that I need to check out the chart each Tuesday so I can stay on top of the changing landscape of the music world. Seeing Justin’s name pop up made me think “Hey, I need to hear that.” I took an instant liking to it. So much so that I grabbed my guitar and started working out the chords.

Later that night I video chatted with my buddy Chris Hellstrom to provide a little sounding board as to how I should approach arranging the song (which is a complex pop arrangement with lots of little parts mind you). Chris made the suggestion that I ought to work it out in an alternate tuning. Thus if your wondering why I don’t look like I’m playing the changes of Gmaj, Emin, Dmaj/F# you now know why. The tuning is an open G tuning (D G D G B D) which actually allows for playing the right inversion voicing of the song’s chords and gives the guitar riff a neat, easy way to play it in the bass register.

I recorded the vocals with a Telefunken C12 and ran the Taylor Guitar 615ce direct into Logic X. I used the Izotope Nectar 2 plugin on the vocal to give it a nice shine. Then blended the direct guitar in with the sound of the acoustic as it leaked into the vocal mic.

If you’d like the Tabs of what I’m playing. Contact me on twitter and I’ll tell ya how you can get it.

Not A Bad Thing

Justin Timberlake

Said all I want from you
Is to see you tomorrow
And every tomorrow
Maybe you’ll let me borrow, your heart
And is it too much to ask for every Sunday?
An while we’re at it throw in every other day to start

I know people make promises all the time
Then they turn right around and break them
When someone cuts your heart open with a knife and you’re bleeding
But I could be that guy to heal it over time
And I won’t stop until you believe it
‘Cause baby you’re worth it

So don’t act like it’s a bad thing to fall in love with me
Cause you might fuck around and find your dreams come true with me
Spend all your time and your money just to find out that my love was free
So don’t act like it’s a bad thing to fall in love with me, me
It’s not a bad thing to fall in love with me, me

Now how about I be the last voice you hear tonight?
And every other night for the rest of the nights that there are
And every morning I just wanna see you staring back at me
‘Cause I know that’s a good place to start

I know people make promises all the time
Then they turn right around and break them
Then someone cuts your heart open with a knife
Now you’re bleeding
Don’t you know that I could be that guy to heal it over time
And I won’t stop until you believe it
Cause baby you’re worth it

So don’t act like it’s a bad thing to fall in love with me
Cause you might fuck around and find your dreams come true with me
Spend all your time and your money just find out my love was free
So don’t act like it’s a bad thing to fall in love with me, me
It’s not a bad thing to fall in love with me, me
Not such a bad thing to fall in love with me

No I won’t fill your mind with broken promises
And wasted time
And if you fall
You’ll always land right in these arms
These arms of mine

Don’t act like it’s a bad thing to fall in love with me
Cause you might fuck around and find your dreams come true with me
Spend all your time and your money just to find out that my love was free
So don’t act like it’s a bad thing to fall in love with me, me
It’s not a bad thing to fall in love with me, me
Not such a bad thing to fall in love with me

Enjoy and please share it around!

2014-04-01

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