Rocafuerte Recording Outtakes, part 1

While recording some solos, I decided to chronicle how "easy" it is to get a perfect (YMMV) track done. First up to the plate is the ending solo to Inyectame which is really a 7-8 second finger tapping run. Being that I finalized the solo say... that morning, I wasn't exactly a pro on doing it when it came time to do the deed. Enjoy the video below, and look forward to the new version of Inyectame (that's for all those Xavier fans who have heard it before) coming soon!

Recording the new Rocafuerte Album, Day 3

It's time to bang out the solos! I must admit it was a bit tougher than I expected (as was everything else, lol) but I managed to knock out a majority of the work. I also spent a good amount of time doing all the guitars for our ballad "Dame Otra Oportunidad." Some of the more involved solos include the ones for Inyectame and Para Todo Hay Remedio. The songs are really gonna come out great, and I can't wait for the album to be released so the music can be shared with everyone! More pictures are below. I also have some video of myself completely fudging up solos, but they will take some time to be edited. I'll post them for your outtake enjoyment when they're done.

Recording the new Rocafuerte Album, Day 2

March 13, 2010 - braving one of the "worst" rainstorms in history, I hit the studio to record more of my guitar parts for the album. More rhythms are laid down; 7 of the 9 songs are pretty much done with rhythm guitars. I am finding it much easier than ever, thanks to our excellent recording engineer, Gerardo. I feel very comfortable and able to truly rock out with very few mistakes. Some of the tougher parts took a bit of time, but thankfully there weren't so many of those. I started out with the harder edge songs since they needed fewer guitars recorded; I ended with Inyectame, which involved a whopping 12 guitar parts! A lot of progress has been made, and I will be returning this coming Saturday to do our ballad, Dame Otra Oportunidad, clean up some of the lesser desired parts and begin THE UNDERTAKING -- solos! Enjoy the pics!

Recording the new Rocafuerte Album, Day 1

February 27, 2010 - Day 1 of tracking guitar for the new Rocafuerte album. During my session I laid down some awesome rhythm tracks for Pensando en Ti, Terminara and our instrumental entitled Para Todo Hay Remedio. Need some help with the spanish titles? Run it through a translator! Anyhow, I worked on some solos as well but wasn't completely satisfied with them. I will certainly be preparing to tear those thangs up for a future session. Please enjoy a few choice pics taken by my fearless band leader, Xavier! More to come later.

Happy New Year!

It's 2010... a new year, of course. I got some new guitar equipment and some recent repairs to make them feel all new as well. I hope to master some new techniques or at least be good enough at them to sound fantastic this year. Finally, Rocafuerte will be giving it all we've got to make it a VERY successful 2010! Look for a debut album and some new material. Everyone, be well and make the most out of the time ahead!

What's new?!

I've been busy with work, being a husband and trying to relax through it all. I have been playing games and have certainly been playing some guitar. As a matter of fact, I picked up (no pun intended) some new guitar pickups for my ESP M-207! The ones I got installed in my 7-string guitar are the John Petrucci series from DiMarzio called the CrunchLab 7 and LiquiFire 7. These produce some really great tones ranging from metal/thrash chunk (on the crunchlab pickup especially) to warm, melodic, sustaining flows. I took a little time to poorly improvise in the studio to show off these pickups, the results of which you can find below. Enjoy!



I have also been trying to learn and perfect the rhythms (so far) of one of my favorite Dream Theater songs - The Dark Eternal Night. Here's a short video of how "well" I can play the introduction. It is actually pretty good, but in a few weeks I should have a much better performance!

Dream Theater pix + 1 video 8/9/09

Went to see Dream Theater at the Beacon Theatre August 9th. They headlined the tour with Zappa Plays Zappa and it was a phenomenal performance. I was absolutely blown away. I wish I could have captured more video, but the security was tight down there. Enjoy!

Dream Theater 08-09-09

Rocafuerte!

Yes, it's been a few months. A quick update of my life since the end of May:

* I got married on 7/18 (yes!)
* I turned 29 years old on 7/20
* Rocafuerte had two shows on the streets of Queens and Brooklyn on 6/21

Speaking of that last bullet point, here's a video from one of the shows. This is one of our harder edge songs, entitled "El Gran Escape." I like the groove of it and it's standard but non-standard structure: it has "no" chorus! Technically it does but there are no vocals, just a guitar melody of sorts.

It also started raining as we did this song, visually telling the story and making it feel even more epic!