The sound of the ocean!

I don't know why people like spreading BS so much. As a kid I was told that if I put a seashell to my ear I could hear the sound of the ocean. And when I did it, I didn't really hear it. To me it sounded more like that annoying noise that your windows make when you leave them open and it's windy outside. But all the other kids apparently "heard" it because the first thing they did when they discovered this was immediately run to tell everyone they knew about it.

If you want to listen to the annoying sound of window wind, then be my guest. However if you really want to hear the sound of the ocean, then please... follow these steps:

1) Get a soda. It can be any kind but it has to be fizzy. Orangina won't work, for example because it's only slightly carbonated.

2) Pour enough soda to fill maybe 2/3 of your mouth then hold it.

3) Now pretend that you're rinsing your teeth with moutwash and just shake up the liquid a little but don't spit it out. This is to get the bubbles going.

4) Be very very quiet and listen. You should hear the sound of a wave washing up on shore.

Today's gayness brought to you by Mo. Enjoy the rest of your day friends.

Mo out (not out gay, just out, as in "farewell I'm leaving now").

Peace.

Update from the studio - drum tracking underway!

Hey everyone. Just wanted to shoot you a quick update over from Hachness studios.

I have just finished tracking drums for the first song on the upcoming EP. This one is actually a song that I've already recorded so it came pretty naturally. Most of the time I spent today was actually on tweaking the drum sound and finessing the recording equipment to make everything sound just right. Rather than trying to get a nice full drum sound, as I did with previous recordings, I did that thing you hear a lot on commercial recordings where the bass and snare drums are really prominent and the cymbals just create "background texture" instead of actually being a part of the kit. I think that's actually a good approach for my type of music because it places emphasis on the beats and because I'm not really capable of any fancy cymbal work yet.

Things are definitely easier the second time around. I'm also a much better drummer now than I was the first time I recorded the song, so I was able to spice it up a little bit by adding a couple of more interesting (and in-time) drum fills. This time i paid very careful attention to the metronome and actually looped each drum part to make sure that it was in time (if it loops seamlessly then all the beats are in time). I had to re-record the first verse part a few times since it's got a little off-beat thing going on, but in the end it came out perfect so I'm very excited. If you've heard my songs before and thought they sounded legit but obviously not professional... this is much much better.

Hopefully tracking the rest of the drums continues to be this easy, although as I've already pointed out, a certain track named "Bonfire" will present a major roadblock. That's why I'm leaving it for last!

I'm actually trying to take a professional approach to recording this EP, so I'm going to track all the drums first, to get a nice and consistent sound by minimizing setup / tear-down of my recording stuff. Once the drums are done I'll move on to recording main guitar parts, guitar solos, other pick scratchings/miscellaneous effects, and finally, bass.

And once that's all done, it will be time for vocals. Unlike my previous attempts at recording vocals, this one should come out semi decently.. I'm armed with some good recording knowledge acquired through the years, but more importantly... Pro Tools M-Audio, which has some pretty essential plugins such as a compressor, reverb, and a de-esser (tool that you use to make S sounds stick out less in recordings).

It's coming, boys and girls... BE EXCITED!

Mo out.

This.

This.

Read it.

Mo out.

An update from your favorite blogger (unless you also follow Keith, then I would be your second favorite because his blog actually serves a purpose)

For anyone who doesn't know Keith he's actually the American Passing Time, or APT, and he keeps a sports blog called Lightning in a Bottle. Check it out here (don't need to thank me for the free plug, Keith). So his blog actually serves a purpose unlike mine which is usually used as a vehicle for expressing discontent and letting everyone know about my discontent.

So, not to part with tradition:

1) Good morning everyone. Monday sucks.

2) So I was watching V for Vendetta while also tracking drums for my new song yesterday (although the kit faces away from the TV so now you'll know why if the track is a little off beat...) and I remembered the best quote ever: "A revolution without dancing is a revolution not worth having!" And on this note I would like to inform you of a top secret project involving both revolutionary ideas and dancing that I and a third unnamed party will be working on as soon as my first unnamed band with the second unnamed party are done recording our yet unnamed album.

3) I am very into secrecy.

4) [number four contains material non-public information and has been censored from view by anyone not belonging to the Secret Club of Awesomeness]

5) There is a Secret Club of Awesomeness of which I am the only member.

6) The Club is no longer a secret

7) Also, fictitious!

8) Holy crap... this post needs some sort of focus. I promise I am not on drugs. RESET:

1) So as I said I'm about 65% done (calculated completely arbitrarily) with tracking drums/guitar on my new song. I put in a couple of hours of practice/and Pro Tools time last night, and should be able to finish the song either today or tomorrow. Rejoice!

2) Played some pickup soccer on the turf fields in Chinatown and I've got to say I've never felt more out of shape in my life. Not only am I out of shape, but me playing midfield-ish combined with the hard turf ground has managed to make every single muscle in my body sore. In a few minutes I will be Al Gore walking to get breakfast.

3) Also soccer related, I've discovered that the best way to win pickup soccer games against Latinos is through the use of a wonderful thing called passing the ball. See the way they play, they try to dribble up the whole field, get around 5-6 guys by themselves, and then score. When they miss they put their hands on their head, look up at the sky, and scream a combination of curse words and religious things. That strategy typically doesn't work unless you're Messi, and simply being from South America and having a mullet doesn't make you Messi. Wearing a Messi shirt is also not a proper Messifying technique. When you pass the ball to another player, Latinos are so instantly confused that they stop playing defense against you, and you are free to run further up the field. Once open you may shoot the ball and score goals... then watch them all complain about how something must have been against the rules since there were goals scored and no dribbling was involved.

4) The Meatpacking sucks except for one place called Son Cubanos which is ridiculous. It's full of Latin people dancing reggaeton. Come on.... even Cedric the Entertainer admits that "That Latino music" is great because it makes everyone think they can dance.

5) Lastly, RIP Ronnie James Dio, who died of stomach cancer yesterday. He will be remembered as one of the titans of metal, the icon of a generation, and as the most awesome poster the world has ever known. In his honor I promise to watch The Pick of Destiny at least once, and to play Neon Knights and Mob Rules very loudly several times.

Rock on in the afterlife.

Fannie and Freddie, the $140 billion gorillas in the room

Are you guys ready for an angry rant that I practiced at a bar last night? Yes? Okay here we go!

With all the shit that our wonderful nation's most Fabulous bankers are being given lately, I figuerd today would be a good idea to call our government out on some of their own shit (which honestly, is a lot more fun than it should be).

Today's shit talk will center around the two "gorillas in the room," Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Really, gorillas in the room is a bit of an understatement. Picture the room being the back of a minivan and the gorillas as a pair of King Kongs. Now imagine that they are repeatedly bashing your skull in with some sort of primitive tools made out of rocks the size of entire football stadiums. You get what I'm trying to say... Fannie and Freddie are HUGE problems that nobody has even dared trying to take on because (1) it would be a huge fucking disaster to even try to come up with a plan to plan something to fix them, and (2) it would require so much hypocrisy on the part of the Obama administration that as soon as our fearless leader announced his bold plan, he would just spontaneously combust, or be stoned to death by an angry mob of winged angels that flew down from the heavens as the clouds parted. Or something else really ridiculous...

We've all heard the story...the American tax payer will not be held hostage by banks who take risk using FDIC insured money ("taxpayer money".. i say this in quotations because I've already explained in a previous post that FDIC money is NOT taxpayer money, but we'll just go with it for now... longest parentheses ever!), pocket the gains, and ask for bailouts to cover the losses. Fine. Well hold on there... let's analyze exactly what Freddie and Fannie have been doing:

When times were good, they made a FUCKTON of money. If you took the cumulative compensation of the guys that ran these two companies and converted them to dollar bills, you would LITERALLY need several trucks to move it. That's how much money we're talking about here (okay maybe not literally... I have no idea just how much volume the cash would take up.. but you get the point).

They took on more and more and more and MOAR risk because even though they were not government backed entities explicitly, there was a common belief among investors (which turned out to be true) that the US government would never allow Fannie and Freddie to default and would bail them out if anything happened. The government also went out of its way to make it clear that although they did not directly guarantee the debts of Fannie and Freddie, they pretty much did anyway. The purpose of FNM and FRE was to make mortgages more affordable and increase the homeownership rate - because their cause was a "noble" one, they benefited both directly and indirectly from government (taxpayer money), which in the end they used to enrich themselves... as they were "private companies." Let me repeat: PRIVATE companies with a government guarantee on their debt. How could this possibly go wrong? Let's continue.

What happened when shit hit the fan? Well, Fannie and Freddie lost a lot of money.... too bad "lost a lot of money" doesn't even begin to describe the ginormous amounts we're talking about here. In fact they lost so much money that they needed to be... rolls eyes... BAILED OUT by the US government. Who'da thunk it?

But unlike "the banks" that were bailed out... banks that received a fixed amount of money with terms and interest that they had to pay on it.... and that ultimately have or are going to pay it back.. Fannie and Freddie simply go to the government every fucking quarter, and ask for more money. They're just being handed money. Just HANDED money. Like, are you even serious???

This is how it goes. "This quarter we lost $1 billion. US government, please give us $2 billion." Then next quarter "This quarter, we lost $4 billion. US government, please give us $8 billion." Then the next quarter... This past quarter, the total amount of money that Fannie and Freddie have received almost reached $140 billion. THAT'S 140 BILLION DOLLARS. Stalin once said that when a couple of people die, it's s tragedy, but when millions die, it's a statistic. Well are we so fucking numb to losing money that $140 billion can just sneak past us like that? To put it in perspective, these two companies got bailed out as much as the entire COUNTRY OF GREECE.

So to put it shortly... Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac took 100% of the profits from the excessive risk taking during the housing boom while operating as "private companies" and as soon as shit went sour, they were bailed out by the government and taxpayers had to foot the seemingly endless bill.... Hmm...they made billions of dollars in profits by gambling with taxpayer money and now need to be bailed out... hmmm.. where have I heard that one before....

Even MOAR ridiculous is the fact that last Christmas eve, the Obama administration repealed a law that capped government aid to Fannie and Freddie at $400 billion and promised to cover UNLIMITED losses through 2012. They're basically saying, "don't even try to pay us back, we got this one..." and sliding the money under the table on fucking Christmas eve so nobody would notice.

Now I'm not saying that it's wrong to try and put out a fire by throwing combustible money at it... or that it's wrong to take taxpayer dollars and literally throw them into a black hole. What I am saying, is that next time I hear Obama say anything, and I mean anything about anyone taking risk with taxpayer money before addressing the humongous fucking disaster that the government sponsored agencies were, I'm going to stick out both middle fingers at him, say the words "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," and then slap him across the face. And then perhaps he will spontaneously combust, which would be fucking epic.

Mo out.

Chris Cornell will NOT be singing on the EP

Dear Hachness fans,

Recently, rumors have been circulating on the internet that Chris Cornell, of Soundgarden and Audioslave fame, will be the singer on the previously announced and upcoming EP. These rumors are completely unbased and have no truth to them whatsoever. If you hear anyone spreading this misinformation, please correct them - they will likely thank you for it.

Sincerely,

Management

[Band name pending] EP COMING THIS JULY!!! HOLY CRAP YOU'RE ALL SO EXCITED YOU CAN HARDLY CONTAIN IT - THIS IS DIFFERENT FROM THE LAST 12 TIMES I SAID IT WAS COMING SOON!

You know how Facebook has become the true test of whether or not you're dating someone (sadly enough you have to be in a relationship on Facebook otherwise it doesn't count)? All this social media bullshit has a way of making things authentic, or more credible. For example... prior to Myspace and Facebook, I told people all the time that my music would be out "soon." And what did that mean? Absolute Jack Schitt. But now that everything I post here immediately goes to everyone's gmail, buzz, rss feeds, whatever... there's a sense of commitment. If it's on Facebook it must be true right?

So on that note, I am making an official announcement that at some point, in July, there WILL be an EP released containing 2 previously released songs and at least 2 new ones. Until now my attitude has been very Blizzard-like: "WHEN IT'S READY!" But recently I've been starting to get worried that at that pace, it would never get done... so hard deadline is set, and you WILL receive music.

Well that's fine, Mo, but other than listen to your songs once and tell you they're cool just to make you happy, what good are a bunch of instrumentals to us?

Well I've thought of that too, the cunning individual that I am. There is a catch!

What's the catch Mo??? The catch is when these songs are released... they will for the first time (3/4 at least) have VOCALS! That's right, His Hachness is in collaboration with a presently unnamed vocalist who will lend his singing abilities to the tracks on the EP.

One of them is very catchy, and we are super excited to bring it to you. It's our "Crawling in the Dark," if you will. Yes I know that's a pretty high bar I'm setting. But this just happens to be a limbo competition!

There! Now that it's official, you can all set your countdown timers.

Mo out.

Other than a passion for my own Ray-Bans and a penchant for carrying unnecessary digital telephony equipment, I have nothing in common with this man at all!

People like this are bad for me for several reasons. The first is that they try to blow up places where I live / may be present (it's easy to understand why that's bad). The second, and less obviously unfortunate, is that they also ruin MY reputation as a good American citizens because of the association that people will instantly make between me and this guy.

This blog post will serve as a reminder of how me Faisal here are quite different:

1) I am obviously much better looking than he is. What the hell was he going for? The 1337 crew terrorist look from Counter-Strike?? I'm not even kidding if that guy dressed up like this for Halloween I would have given him a high five and said "awesome costume man, awesome costume!"

2) Everyone knows that I LOOOVE Times Square and for no reason would EVER want to do anything bad to it. I love Times Square way more than I should for someone who lives in this city, I know, and it's a bit weird. I think it's the combination of bright lights, abundance of pizza stores, and the fact that there is a Sam Ash music store AND a Toys R Us.

3) He is from Pakistan. I am of EGYPTIAN descent. Egypt != Pakistan. In fact, Egypt is not even REMOTELY close to Pakistan. In fact... Egypt is as close to Pakistan as Italy is to Nigeria or as Portugal is to Poland.

For the Americans in the room: it's about the distance from New York City to Vegas.

4) I am smart. I work at a big bank and do important things. He is obviously an imbecile incapable of even setting off a car bomb (which in this case proved to be a very good thing...).

Honestly, Faisal, man... There are enough weird bearded fuckers who do shit so fucked up that immigration officers always do a double take on my passport. The last thing we need is a new wave of suave looking terrorists who blow up trendy things like Times Square. If this shit starts happening more often I wouldn't be surprised if next time I try to fly anywhere I end up in Guantanamo for the rest of my life, writing blog posts about how I love America. And going for an occasional "swim."

Mo out.

Have you heard? It was my understanding that everyone had heard...

So it seems that we (and by we I mean "I") am growing in popularity. In fact, this blog has brought me such fame that a store here in Manhattan has already named itself after my blog, in an attempt to piggy back off of my success.

As seen on 32nd, between 5th and 6th (courtesy of a friend of the blog who made the sighting). I will see you in court, E-Mo KIM BAB!

Me and the cap'n, we make it happen. Yeah that's right .

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, and you shut the fuck up. Lemons aren't so bad, and lemonade is pretty good. And like Ron White said (God what the fuck am I doing quoting Ron White) "You find someone who's life has given them vodka..." and you can still have a pretty awesome party.

I just screamed my fucking lungs out at a "The Gossip" concert. What the hell I was doing there, I dont fucking know. I didn't even have a ticket and I didnt plan on going until I was dragged along by some enthusiastic  co-workers (who in the end turned out not to be as enthusiastic as me about the band) - but I rather like the Gossip they were fun as shit and they put on a hell of a show. Its not every day you're crammed into a tiny little NYC venue where everyone is screaming their fucking ass off and cheering a 300 pound lesbian woman and her band like they're the hottest shit that's ever been heard anywhere. Go go fucking Gossip!

Now I'm at home and while I've still go t the energy to correct my spelling and make sure that I'm not typing total absurdities, I'm not at the point where I can actually filter anything I say. In that sense, this is as raw of a Mo experience as you're ever gonna get, so enjoy this shit. It doesn't come any more pure or from the source than this. This is the shit that everyone feared the eMo blog would be when I first created it  - me listening to "in the wake of determination" and writing about my weekends out at clubs meeting strangers, drinking too much whiskey, and failing to achieve any of my goals for the evening, including the recording of my own songs.

As a side note I told someone that I thought the Gossip reminded me a little bit of a girl-led block party and that bitch looked at me like I had 3 heads or something. Honestly I didn't think it was that much of a stretch but I guess I'm just not cool enough to know better.

Fucking lemonade... good night kids. More tomorrow, when things are a little bit more normal.

Mo passing the fuck out.