Eat a Ghost Pepper

This blog isn't going to be about music. Oh no. This is something dangerous. Something terrifying and painful. Something that burns with such ferocity even Dante would have trouble describing it. The Bhut Jolokia. We in the U.S. call it "The Ghost Pepper".



For several months now I have been dying to get my hands on one. After seeing countless Youtube videos of people being rendered useless for several hours after only a small bite I knew I had to try it. My grandfather and uncle got me hooked on hot stuff during our annual visits to Bethany Beach where they would douse some wings in an assortment of different incendiary sauces. My first taste of something real hot was "Da Bomb" which tops out at about 50,000 Scoville Units. Scoville units are the units of water it would take to completely dilute the taste of one unit of the heat being measured. So 50,000 S.U. = 50,000 parts water per 1 part hot sauce before the flavor couldn't be detected. Which means really hot.

Jalepenos are about 5,000. A complete joke when compared to the mighty habenero which peaks at about 90,000 - 130,000. Habeneros are still just "really hot stuff 101", however. I have had many habeneros in my lifetime and although they are by no means mild, they are still a manageable pepper for my palette. The ghost pepper, however, is a different story.

It goes like this.

My friends Sean, Brook, Rusty and I meet up at a local Indian place called "Bollywood" which is gaining reputation for its absurdly spicy entrees, many of which the owner wont even allow you to order until you have tried all of the prerequisite dishes which he uses to gauge your ability to handle heat. We are greeted by a distinguished middle aged Indian man with a great sense of humor. I order the "Bollywood Special" (a really hot dish) and some Naan filled with chicken. He says "Get either-or, if you eat the Bolly Special, you will not enjoy anything else." I ask him to make it as hot as possible; the kind of hot where you pass out.

A few minutes later he emerges from the kitchen with a spoon. He says "try". I try. It is a very flavorful, thick curry-like soup with a little heat to it, called "Madras". He carefully watched my face. No grimace or pain. He takes the spoon and disappears back into the kitchen. A few minutes pass and he come out again, with, at first glance, the same thing, but after looking a little harder, this is a much darker red color. I try. He sees a little grimace on my face. This stuff is way hotter. About 2/3 the heat of a habenero. He spices up the dish accordingly and brings it out accompanied by a small sample of what he put into the dish to make it hot. We eat our dinner, and yes it is definitely hot, but I still want something to knock me out.

As we are leaving I ask him if he has anythying special from india to knock me off of my feet. He says "hold on" and goes into the back for a minute. He emerges with a small red pepper. He says "this is called hand-grenade, do not eat inside of here". Awesome.




Sprinting outside with my friends and telling them to get the phones ready for pictures, I pop the whole thing in my mouth, chew as fast as possible and swallow the first half. The grimace on my face grows, as I feel the waves of heat crashing into my mouth , nose and skull, this mother is going to be exactly what I wanted.
My smile soon fades as the waves of heat keep increasing. Soon, it is too much. I literally drop to the ground in pain. My friends, who were laughing, stop, but still continue to record the spectacle. Im laying on sidewalk, families timidly walking by, as I rock back and forth in a pile of mulch, drool cascading out of my mouth and unable to talk. I can hardly see from my eyes tearing up so much. I need to get back to my house where I can recuperate before the gig I have in about an hour. I muster up enough strength to stand and doubled over in pain, slowly walk to seans car. We get in, Rusty wishes me luck has a good laugh and heads home, smiling and shaking his head and Sea and Brooke and I are speeding back to my house. Half of my body is literally hanging out of the car window, drool and snot pouring out of my head. Two state troopers pull up to us at a stop -light, with my head hanging out and facing the ground, very concerned as to what the hell could possibly be wrong with me. I signal for them to roll down the window. They oblige as I explain my dilemma wasn't caused by alcohol, but a ghost pepper. They both start laughing, im guessing they know what they are. One of them goes "I love ghost peppers". Ha, yeah right.

This story will end with me curled up into the fetal position in the back of Seans car, violently puking out of the window like a dragon spewing fire at two lanes of traffic, cars swerving to avoid the fiery puke, horns honking and everyone looking. Not an ounce of embarassment. When you are in pain like that, there is no other feeling. My face was white as a ghost, eyes bloodshot, nose running, stomach in knots. And yes, I will probably do it again.

If someone dares you to do this, Im not going to say don't do it, but consider this blog post, it won't be an enjoyable experience, except maybe those watching. (Unless of course, they have to clean your puke off of their car. Sorry Sean.)

Do a cover song of Jessie J's "Price Tag"

November has already crept in again, but this time I really don't mind. I think the conditioned hatred I used to have of fall has finally left. For it used to mean summer was over, and so were the warm days of non-stop running about the neighborhood, going to the beach, having no homework or cares and enjoying the family vacations to the beach. Soon to come were mornings that started at 6:00 a.m., the never ending stream of worksheets and book reports, the constant struggle to stay awake all day. Don't get me wrong I did have my share of fun at school too, but it paled i comparison with the freedom of summer. But now the school days are long gone and fall now just means when I walk down the street, the trees will look like impressionistic brushstrokes, which I don't really mind at all. I finally have made myself sit down and crank out a cover with a video like I've always planned on doing, so without further delay, here it is. Jessie J's "Price Tag".



Let me know what you think!

Explain my Top 5 favorite Cd's at this moment

So I noticed something on my old college's web site that certain students were spotlighted for their musical achievements and given interviews. I remember one thing I really enjoyed was hearing about the student's top 5 favorite CD's. Since you pretty much have to started playing in the womb and be a total badass to even be considered getting this interview, I was not fortunate enough to get it. So Im doing it myself on my blog. Although I can't really decide on 5 CD's being my all time favorites, I have 5 that I highly recommend and all are completely unique and at some point life changing in my taste and enjoyment of music, so here we go.



5 - Suzanne Vega's "99.9 Fahrenheit Degrees". Somber vocals, really effective songwriting, ambient guitar layers, and industrial laced grooves that are built with an even blend of electronic sounds and and real instruments. These sometimes haunting songs pull influence everywhere from light bossa nova to introspective folk to something reminiscent of the Nine Inch Nails.



4 - Imogen Heap's "Speak for Yourself". This is a production masterpiece to say the least. Absolutely lush, vibrant songs that are as finely crafted and original as a human fingerprint. The highlight of this CD is "Hide and Seek" a jaw dropping tapestry of electronically altered vocal harmonies, like an alien acapella group. This is not to be confused with "Mmmm Whatcha Say?" and in my opinion is infinitely superior to the somehow more popular song that sampled this one.


3 - John Mayer's "Room for Squares". This CD pretty much did it for me. When this came out I must have listened to it five hundred times. Definitely a more heavily produced effort from this never-ceasing-to-amaze writer, but still outstanding, nonetheless. John Mayer has a way of writing a song about things you swore you were the only one going through. From the nostalgia-inducing "1983" to the humorous foot-in-the-mouth anti-hero of "My Stupid Mouth" to the ephemeral happiness by a fire in "St. Patricks Day" this collection of stories is the perfect road trip companion.




2 - Dave Brubeck's "Time Out". Dave took swing and bebop, melted it down like a crazed alchemist and pretty much single-handedly invented cool jazz. This CD was a groundbreaking showcase of experimental jazz forms full of altered time signatures, tempo changing sections and dual tempos. It sounds like a sunday walk through a park of abstract sculptures. This was one of the first CD's I ever really listened to over and over, one of the many great ones in my dads collection.




1 - Thomas Newman's "America Beauty Score". This is it. To me, this is arguably some of the most beautiful music that has ever been created. His anti-orchestra method of creating music yields unique soundscapes that vividly induce certain moods. I once listened to the theme "American Beauty" (I think its track number 6) for more than 5 hours straight on repeat. These tracks are perfect for getting lost in a painting or a good book. You have to hear this one.

Dirty Loops

No this is not a blog entry about what happens if your little brother takes a dump in your box of fruit loops. I want to bring to attention a growing trend. At a seeming increasing rate the pages of Youtube are being filled with an all too similar cover artist prototype. The world absolutely does not need one more cute, 15-25 year old stylishly dressed with an acoustic guitar playing the same 30 or so covers that the entire rest of the world covers. It's beginning to become redundant. Yet you see their videos quite frequently sporting hundreds of thousands of views. Why is this so? Well, you can't deny that almost all of them are talented, at least with regards to singing, and the sound of a well trained human voice is a beautiful thing. But why such the lack of originality? Why does almost every one sound strikingly similar to something you've heard before? Because there is hardly any, if at all, musical interpretation. Just throw a little cute R & B run, maintain eye contact with the camera and POOF, instantly, another star is born. There are too many stars and the sky is so full you can no longer distinguish one from the other.

Yet every now and then someone rises above to completely reinvent a sound and push the envelope of musicality with a seemingly impossible level of skill, talent, taste and chops. That band is called "Dirty Loops". They can take the most trite songs and make them fusion masterpieces. I invite you to enjoy this cover of Britney Spears' "Circus". It's damn good and to me should send every little acoustic guitar holding clone (even myself included) back to the practice room to start making some more original arrangements .




From a person educated in music of many styles, I can say these guys, quite simply put, take dumps on anyone else that covers pop tunes these days (or at least out of the ones I have seen). Hide your cereal boxes.

Rockout at Ruddy

Well. Where do I begin?

What happens when four guys, unrehearsed, who have never played a full show together decide to book a gig at a local place in front of an audience of a couple hundred folks? Well, I would imagine it could very easily be a shit-show of a night that is chock full of microphone feedback, out of time songs, forgotten words and missed chords, possibly some accidental pants-shitting as well. Fortunately, by a miracle, we did not have to skip town after our show and hide from an angry pitchfork wielding mob. We didn't have to sign up for witness protection. We actually had arguably the best night any of us have ever had playing music.

The feeling was just right. There was a hum of energy right from the sound check. Every song just kind of fell together. From Justin's tap dance solos (which immediately turned the heads of anyone who wasn't already listening) to Rusty's Tazmanian devil like hands smashing the cow skin congas until they whimpered to Danny's Ella Fitzgerald-like jazz scat solos dripping with melody, I would say our night was almost a miracle. A couple of us were pretty damn nervous, and thats not a thing that typically happens much when you do this full time. I think we realized about thirty seconds into the first song we were doing really well, everyone was listening, and now is one of those times when you really cant screw up.

Here is a video (Courtesy of the wonderful Laura Isaac) of us rocking out Jill Scotts "Its Love"



If every audience was this great, I think almost everyone would play music for a living.

. From Stevie Wonder's "I Wish" to Jill Scotts "It's Love" to Trains "Meet Virginia" injected with jazz scatting, rock fusion playing, latin vamping, tap dancing, four-trading, stomping, swinging, funktastic-goodness. It was such a fun night and more than anyone we have the crowd to thank. So if you came out, thank you thank you thank you! Luckily we snagged a couple videos out of the night too.



And here is the more well known Sublime hit "Badfish"



To all of you guys who came out and stayed and danced and cheered and sang, you rock! We are really fortunate all of you came out to rock with us, let's do it again soon! Thank you Carlos and Michael for having us all play, we're looking forward to next time!

Dylan

"The Young Professionals" New Video

Hey, so I mentioned in the last post I am a part of a duo called "The Young Professionals". We have a little bit of funk influence, a little pop, a little R & B and a little Reggae. We will be working almost around the clock to build up a solid repertoire with enough variety for any crowd. We are really looking forward to getting a following in Annapolis and playing for my hometown friends to Here is one of our many covers.

So here is a little sample of us doing a Maroon 5 cover:



Feel free to leave a comment below, let me know what you think of the cover and also let me know what covers you would want to hear us play! We do have a lot more videos to make before we start taking requests but, if there are enough suggestions for a certain song, we will add it to the repertoire.

Rockfest and "The Young Professionals"

Hey guys, like always its been a while, a little too long. A lots happened in the past few months. A list of highlights include playing lead guitar for Justin Myles at Southern MD's Rockfest.

Our seven piece band rocked the heavens that day, which was no easy task, considering we were playing right after Sam Grow Band (the best band in Southern MD - they blend southern rock and pop with soulful vocals and screaming guitar solos). Everyone in Sam's band is just a monster. As I was getting out of my car when we first arrived, I could hear Mike Stacey just destroying a guitar solo....after soiling myself, I regrouped and headed to seek shade.....and some wet wipes. Joe Barrick was on the drums beating them to smitherines with his human metronome-like arms. Gene was ripping up the bass and Sam was belting out pure beauty. It was a little intimidating to know we were following.

Adding more of a challenge was the fact that our band was made of 7 members who had never played together before, some had never even met and we had 3 rehearsals to get everything airtight. Let's not forget it was about 110 degrees out. I actually saw a cloud get heat stroke and fall to the ground. Two people caught on fire. A seagull melted.

But in all seriousness the bass player for Sara and Chelsea (a duo of beautiful girls with beautiful voices backed by seasoned rockers) actually had passed out from the heat. It could have been just because he was on stage with Sara. The world may never know. They still all went on to rock out and sound amazing (and look amazing).

This was by far the biggest challenge of my musical career thus far. But I think we pulled it off very well, and everyone before and after sounded fantastic. And thank you to everyone who showed up, James and Amanda Lepore from Baynet Radio especially!

Band lineup:

Justin Myles - Acoustic Guitar, Vocals
Joe Pipitone - Drums (NY based drummer that grooves solid and strong, sounds Carter Buford meets Neil Pert)
Anthony Damron - Bass (bass player for "The Piranhas" , and hired gun for about every band in the SOMD music scene)
Shiloh Kestel - Sax (Kenny G, kill yourself........Shiloh will ruin your career with one note)
Danny Jauregui - Keyboards, Vocals (Jazz vocal major from Towson University, can scat like ella and croon like sinatra)
Dylan Galvin - Electric Guitar, Vocals (I playa the guitar......)
Russel Williams - Percussion (big name player here! Played w/ Lloyd Dobler Effect and Jill Scott, he has a furious, show stopping style and his hands are lethal weapons.....no seriously)

Justin has a laundry list of accomplishments, including touring with STOMP!, having a degree in dance, playing several instruments, recording, performing and producing his own CD and being a bad-ass tapdancer. Click on his name to hear his stuff, its got loads of groove, tight bass playing, complex DMB-esque guitar riffs with a heavy dose of R & B and funky soulful pop vocals. Not to be overlooked.

And in other news... I'm now in a duo with singer/keyboardist Danny Jauregui. We call ourselves "The Young Professionals". Fitting, right? Were doing covers right now, but in about a year, when we are solid and probably getting really sick of those covers, were going to start writing original music. Whoop. I'll moving back up to Annapolis again and doing music in the duo full time. Look for us in downtown Annapolis, Northern Va, Southern MD and also DC and Baltimore...hopefully we'll tack on a few more states over the next year, also. Im looking forward to seeing some of your beautiful faces out in the audience!

Dylan

Write poetry in the middle of the night

I was a little restless last night, so I decided I would bide my time by taking a stab at some poetry. Not meant to be good or bad, just poetry. Here it is:

"Writhing Thoughts"

My thoughts twist and writhe
a wet worm out of the ground
eternally squirming
slipping out of the hands or sleep
that try so desperately to grip
but fail in vain
again and again

"Muse of the Dreamworld"

oh, muse of the dreamworld
please croon an ancient lullabye
of somber intoxication
the feather soft fluttering of sleep
slip into my mind and seep into the cracks
leave no part untouched
wash over the grey matter
flood my thoughts,
drown my anxieties
short out the lights
and bring the crystal clarity of deep dark rest

Hope you enjoy it. Feel free to post some of your own.

Slappa' da Bass

The goofy Verizon song rings on my phone. The robotic female voice monotonously repeats "Call from Sean Postanowicz". I pick up.
"Hey whats up man?" he says.
"Nothing, I'm just doing some practicing"
"Playing guitar?"
"Actually bass"
"Hey what would you think about teaching bass"
"What, like...teach it to someone?
"Yeah"
"Um, I mean yeah I guess, I have only played it for like a couple weeks"
"Okay well I have this dilemma I was supposed to teach at this place......but..then I accidentally got another job somewhere else. Do you think you could write a pretty good bass lesson?"
"What kind of bass lesson, this is for a beginner, right?"
"Yeah, of course, cool, write it up, you have to give a bass lesson to one of the head instructors at this music school at 4"
"WHAT!?"
"I'll text you the address and meet you at 4, see ya"
"But wait, I.."
click.

And this is how began my career as a bass instructor. Believe it or not, this intro lesson actually went pretty well. I actually have one more introductory lesson to give and then I'm official. I love the unpredictability of music life, but I'm rushing to learn like mad because in as short as time possible, I need to go from this:



To this:




Since the moment this phone call ended, I have been in a Rocky montage but instead of punching meat I've been slappin' da bass (or at least trying to). Im trying to learn how to slap, walk, groove, shimmy, etc....so if any of you blokes out there play a mean bass, I would love for any tips, tricks, shortcuts to help speed the process of becoming a bass badass.

"Looking Up" - Video

Hey remember that time when I was going up post a recording of "Looking Up", that original song I wrote? I know it's been so long everyone has probably almost lost interest. I went through a while of going back and forth between what lyrics I wanted so I just said screw it and put something up last night, I hope you like it. Let me know what you think.

How are the Resolutions?

So, like many Americans, I have made a few resolutions this year. One is to run a half marathon (I might to for a full one, but it just seems a little boring to run for about 4 hours). Another is to finally get my rock/blues/funk/fusion chops together and apply all that stuff I learned at Berklee and never used (for my music friends; using Mmaj7th arpeggios in solos, harmonic minor runs, melodic minor chord scales, etc.). I would like to start trying to really learn Japanese as my next language. I messed around with it in Community College, but only remember random phrases like "I am the Pokemon Master". I realize Spanish is much more practical and probably easier, but I've wanted to learn it for a while. Oh yes, and how could I forget the last and not least of the resolutions: One year, no beer (and all other alcohol included). I am attempting to stay clear from all alcohol for a year. This may be very challenging, especially on St. Patrick's day and the weddings coming up, but I figure if you can't enjoy the fun parts of life without a buzz, thats a problem. So please, respond to this with your New Year's resolutions and tell me how they're holding out so far. Hopefully still going strong, as we haven;t even rounded the first month yet! Lets make this year one to proud of.

Dylan