The Who really did a great job last night at halftime of Super Bowl 44. If you don’t agree… well… then something is seriously WRONG with you. I watched their performance last night and loved everything about it. The song choices, lights, stage, the custom Who cymbals…Maybe it’s just that I love good, classic, rock and roll. I noticed many people’s dissatisfaction with the halftime show and thought, ok that’s fine but why? What could have made it better for SuperBowl 44? Then I heard it driving back from my internship today…The final straw in my frustration.

The Black Eyed Peas… WHAT! While listening to Ryan Seacrest complain about the halftime show some lady called in and said, “I don’t understand why The Who, why didn’t they have someone like the Black Eyed Peas come in and get everyone excited?” From what I heard lady, the people at the game were singing loud and The Who was very entertaining. The thing Ryan Seacrest said was that they aren’t from my generation, a lot of people didn’t get it. If that is the truth than I am very saddened for today’s music industry. Pete Townshend was my favorite part of the performance, his signature guitar windmill is classic…CLASSIC. Then I hear Ryan Seacrest say, “That old guy up there stiff arming his guitar…”

This is the first time I’ve been so outspoken on something like this, but I just know the current state of the music industry STINKS. The Super Bowl is about man and man things, how manly are The Black Eyed Peas? Now I also understand there are other worthy acts, and they NFL may be playing it safe since their Janet Jackson debacle. Just why all of the uproar? Please help me understand and let me know what you thought of the halftime performance, and if you were in charge how your show would have went. Before that check out a comparison between The Who and The Black Eyed Peas… Thanks for reading.

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I know it’s been a few days since 2009 ended, but I still wanted to compile a list of my favorite stuff from 2009. For my life, and from my perspective, it was a great year. Somehow I continue to be blessed by good health, great friends, and awesome opportunities to do what I love.  2009 didn’t always go the way I wanted. My girlfriend for the most part is always about 386 miles away from me. My family situation is always frustrating, I got a few bad grades, etc… But those negative things of the year didn’t keep me down, and they sure didn’t outweigh the positive. I turned 22, a wise old age… got to travel quite a bit with John Tibbs and company, made our own cd, t-shirts, etc…  He’s got a lot going for him. I continued to be able to film and take pictures, exploring more and getting to push my creativity to new ends. You can see that soon in my porfolio that’s being built at the moment. Met new people from all over the country and am glad I can call them friends.  Growth is happening continually for me, and I’m glad I haven’t become stuck in a rut physically, spiritually, mentally, etc… I thirst for all of these things. So what encapsulated me in 2009? Read on to see.

I wanted to sum up the year in music, film, photos, events, trends, etc… I’ll post all of my favorite things of the year 2009, and I expect for you to comment and agree or disagree with me on these topics. Here’s my best of 2009

The Best of 2009

Album : Fun – Aim and Ignite

Easily album of the year for me because it really is all around fun. I’ve been following The Format and their lead man Nate Ruess for a long time. I was saddened at their end, but excited for what could come from new beginnings. The Format was my favorite band, now of course Fun is. Their bright and light pop sound and fantastic melodies sealed the deal for me. In fact I’m going to listen to this album right now. Thanks guys for getting their songs stuck in my head again! Be sure to check out their music video HERE.

Song : Arcade Fire – Wake Up

This song by Arcade Fire is permanently burned in my head, no thanks to the Where The Wild Things Are trailers I listened to this song ALL YEAR. It never ceased to perk up my mood if I was down or increase my good mood if I was already in one. It’s raw and I like it. Watch their video HERE.

Movie : 3 Way Tie (Avatar : Inglourious Basterds : Where The Wild Things Are)

Why did I end in a 3 way tie? Obviously all 3 of these movies are great, at least in my humble opinion. I feel they also cover almost all styles that anyone could like. A Sci-Fi thriller, a Wacky WWII, and a great childrens story. I chose these three as my best movies of 2009 because I’ll be watching them again and again long into 2010. They are addicting, visually awesome, and fun to watch. I recommend you watch them all!

Photo : Foreclosure and Eviction

This pretty well summed up America this year to me. Financial problems everywhere, especially in the housing market. This is a police officer making sure the house is vacant. It’s often they find after evicting people that homeless people or drug dealers get into the houses, hence his gun is drawn. 2010 will hopefully turn this financial crisis around. It’s at least taught people to be more aware of their money. That’s never a bad thing.

Event : Iran Elections

This is the event of the year for me as it was and still is an ongoing issue. The worlds relations with Iran are all on thin ice, Iran’s people’s relationship with their government is on even thinner ice. That green color will always be burned in my mind during the summer of 2009. I don’t know how to help but I hope it all turns out for the good. Click on the picture to see more pictures from the riots. WARNING the few at the end are graphic.

Internet Trend : FML, People of Walmart, MLIA

These types of sites were probably my favorite thing happening on the internet this year. These sites aren’t complex, nothing fancy about them, but they provide hours and hours of entertainment. Also it’s a plus if they have an iPhone app to compliment their site. I love to waste time reading FML’s and looking at People of Walmart. Click HERE and HERE to check out those websites, as a bonus check out Awkward Family Photos HERE

App of the Year : 2Do

This app wins for me because it is the mother of all my life. It keeps my todo’s, schedules, events, alarms, notes, shopping lists,  and more all together! Even better yet it syncs with iCal on my iMac. It’s beautiful but not free, well worth it’s weight in gold though. Whatever that means! It’s got a slick interface, and is password protected to boot. If you want to learn more about the app then here is the iTunes LINK.

That wraps up my 2009, great music, great films, issues relevant to me, etc… Let me know what you think of my choices, and also leave some of your choices. Different album, favorite movie, picture? Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Spring Break 2009 My Pictures
2. Get A Free iTunes LP Full of Christmas
3. 3 Great Ways To Find New Music On The Web

I know a certain SOMEONE will love to hear that I bought a new drum set, and I think it’s funny that it’ll be a “surprise” through my website. But I did indeed buy a new drum set. For those who care it is an OCDP kit. Orange County Drum & Percussion, they’ve been my dream drum set since I’ve started playing. It’s weird to finally own one because at the time I was in Junior High watching people like Travis Barker, and Adrian Young play on their OCDP kits. I loved their sounds, especially snares, so I was excited about their drums until I noticed their price tags… OUCH. Now that I’ve gained employment and have been playing a lot of drums for John Tibbs, I thought it time to upgrade my kit. I haven’t told any of my band members that it’s here, so SURPRISE to you as well.

The kit was on sale, I splurged, it’s arrived and it looks fantastic! There are a few pictures of the rack tom below. The sizes are in order; 10×8 rack,16×14 floor tom, 22×20 kick. I listed the size of the heads first then depth of the drum, I’m not sure if that’s the correct way but now you know. I can’t wait to get some different heads on it and start getting the kit broke in. I need to also get a second snare stand and hi hat stand for the kit to be complete. Now I’m off to put my old kit together and sell her off! Check out the pictures below and let me know what you think.

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Just when you thought all you were getting for Christmas were some free iPhone/iPod Touch games. I’m back to bring you more free stuff. This time it’s in the form of music from iTunes. It’s actually in their new LP format and is some of the newest and best Christmas song covers out there. Make sure to definitely add this to your classics. I’ve got a pretty sweet smart playlist going on that is managing all of my Christmas music, in fact…

DOWNLOAD THAT PLAYLIST HERE.

GET THE LP HERE

A little addition to the free Christmas music from me! Hah, be sure to grab this now and enjoy. I’m about halfway through checking the LP out. Let me know what you think, or just what your favorite Christmas song is.

Related posts:

1. Free iPhone Games For Christmas
2. 3 Great Ways To Find New Music On The Web

Secondly more importantly than studying music, I listen to A LOT of music. It’s more important to me to just listen to music, and not get in the mindset of analyzing music instead of enjoying it. I think a lot of my friends and just anyone who has been around me can testify to that. I often don’t like to talk on a car ride, but would rather take in music just for example. With that said, I wanted to bring to you today my top 3 ways to find new music on the web.

I haven’t looked far and wide, but I’m sure there are a ton of lists out there that just overwhelm you with a ton of cruddy websites and ones that just are no good. (Lists similar to THIS one here are great) This makes it hard for you to pull out the good ones from the bad. Hence why I’m keeping it at 3, these are my 3 ways that I discover new music on the web and I hope you trust me enough to believe what I say. Let’s get into it.

#1 – TheSixtyOne.com

The sixty one has been my favorite way of checking out new music. It’s a relatively new site, but they are moving fast and working hard. Just today I discovered new features they added to the site, such as a sweet visualizer, and a smoother interface. The site is also great in other ways. They have a cool thing called quests. These quests include things like listen to a song 5 times on repeat, listen to 7 songs in a row from the upcoming section, etc… The site is similar to digg.com if you’ve ever been there. You can save and heart songs, the most popular ones are on the front page which drastically boost their stats and exposure. One of my other favorite things is the mood selections in the left sidebar. You can pick from different moods like happy, mellow, sad, etc… I can’t tell you how much I love this site, just please go check it out!

#2 – Pandora Radio

Pandora came along before The Sixty One, but isn’t as feature rich. That’s ok though for Pandora, they do one thing and do it well in my eyes. Once you have created an account you can start making different radio stations. The great thing about these stations is that they are based off of a song or artist you already love. So type in for instance, The Format, for a radio station and you’ll get a lot of music that is similar. Such an awesome way to discover new music. You can give what they suggest either a thumbs up or a thumbs down, depending on if you like it or not. This will further Pandora’s suggestion where they  eventually only suggest good stuff that you like. Pandora is another favorite of mine, especially if you are looking for something a little simpler than the sixty one.

#3 – The Hype Machine

I’ve just started using The Hype Machine, and have been really getting into it. Basically what this website does is aggregate all of the music blogs in the world. You can read the blog posts from the site, listen to the song, heart it, buy it and just love the music. There’s no fluff, just check out this site and easily discover new music from the webs music blogs. Genius idea and very glad to be a member of that site.

There you have it, from one music lover to another. Check out these three amazing tools to find new music on the web. Find a new song and let it inspire your life. Let me know the sites you use by leaving a comment, or just let me know what you think about this short list. Thanks a ton.

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Well this post marks the end of the six week tour I was lucky enough to be a part of. There was so much good music and good times,  I already  miss it. Hopefully come next summer we will be doing the same thing. It’s an awesome blessing to travel with great guys, meet great people, and play music. If Todd and I weren’t fixing things we’d just often sit around and talk about music. Reminisce of days gone by. It was so good.

We’ve got a lot more stuff lined up for the fall too, it’s pretty exciting to think about what’s going on in the near future. Writing music, traveling, playing, etc… I’m addicted to it already. Hopefully if I’ve already met you from this summer it was a good experience, and perhaps we’ll see you again at one of the SYCs in the fall. I love to meet people. Instead of pictures like the last post, I’ve got a lot of video to show. Surprisingly and sadly I didn’t take many pictures from the last few weeks. Mostly ones on my iPhone, and you can check out my FLICKR to see those. But we got a lot of footage from the weeks, I’ll embed a few of my favorites. Click through to see the rest on our YouTube page.

Before I post those videos though make sure to check out our stuff online now.

Myspace
YouTube
Twitter

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1. Part One Of Tour
2. Summer Pt.1

If you weren’t aware by my absence from blogging, I’ve been out on the first leg of our tour with John Tibbs. We’ve been to PA Youth Camp, Dubois for worship, Punxsy for the groundhog and more worship, then finally back at Madison Park for the end of NAC. I also just spent a week at Camp Sharon in Gravois Mill, MO. So FINALLY I am back home for 4 days before heading out and hitting part two of this camp tour this summer.

It’s been fantastic traveling with 3 great guys, lot’s of good conversations and lots of good music is taking place. The man in charge of all this, John Tibbs, is working his butt off to be a worship artist and I hope to help him succeed in that. We’ve started up his web presence in the last two weeks, website, email, twitter, youtube, and myspace. It’s been cool learning to how to leverage those technologies to help promote the cause. I’ll keep you informed on that, plenty of stuff for you to check out soon. I’ll be heading back out Thursday for more traveling and drum banging, but first I wanted to mainly update my blog and show you the pictures I’ve taken in the last 3 weeks. It hasn’t been much, but I always love sharing. Let me know which is your favorite by leaving a comment. I’ll keep you posted on some future news.

Related posts:

1. Summer Pt.1
2. Part Two Of Tour

So far I’ve had a lot of fun using the x-hats, I used them this morning in church and have been practicing with them for the last two nights. I’ll give you my two favorite reasons for having a pair of x-hats.

Number 1; A new position for your hats. The standard hat position is alright but it crosses your arm over and away from a lot of your set. This requires some quick movements to get to the whole right side of your set. You could get x-hats with the same set of hats just to have an easier reach to the rest of your set. I’ve even thought that I could do without having my standard hats to my left and place something new there, what would I place there though? I don’t know, you guys give me some ideas on that.

Number 2; A different sounding hat. If you’ve ever wanted some beefy hats for a playing during a rocking chorus, then a more crisp hat for verses then this would work great. If you are like me and want to go for a little more experimental sound with your x-hats, then that’s a great reason to have them as well. Below you can now see all the pedals at the disposal of my left foot. My right still has the single bass pedal.

If there are other drummers out there speak up and tell me about your setup. Do you use an x-hat? and if so how do you use yours? What kind of pedals do you have at your feet? Thanks for reading and leave a comment! Here’s Benny’s video.

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1. My New Drum Set