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.
Showing posts with label new group. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new group. Show all posts
Friday, September 16, 2011
Thursday, July 28, 2011
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
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
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