#i didn’t even know mr blue sky had an official music video until today

[kingnewt]

🫶 MrBlueSky x MrNight

[jacobthespaceguy]

This Is My Story

Well, after a year and a half in the making, my collection of 8 songs titled “Late Night Apartment Lights” EP is finally done and going up everywhere in a couple weeks. Remember that blog post from well over a year ago that I titled “Late Night Apartment Lights?” Well, that’s when I knew that it was the perfect name for the EP I was working on and stuck with it. That’s funny, Dreaming From Scratch came from a world in Minecraft I created and now Late Night Apartment Lights came from a blog post title that talked about girl problems.

This EP really is a big deal to me and I want to take a second to tell you why. One and foremost, being able to sit down and be a genuine musician excites me. As a kid, I wanted to be a singer. (As in wanted to be a singer, I mean I told my mom once I wanted to be one, kind of like when a kid says they want to be a firefighter or an astronaut). I forgot about it the next day but when I got older and started getting into music, I got into an animated band on YouTube called YourFavoriteMartian. You see, YourFavoriteMartain made comedy songs about balls, stereotypes and beer puns. However, they also made a handful of serious songs and quite a few love songs. As a 12-year old boy, this sparked my interest and from there I wanted to make music. At the time, it was just an idea and nothing I ever thought I would pursue. I really only wanted to be “YourFavoriteMartian.” I wanted to make funny songs and be famous on YouTube. Who doesn’t? I eventually forgot about being in an animated band and focused on YouTube.

About a year or so later, my one of my all-time favorite games came out, Grand Theft Auto 5. With that game's release, came a band I discovered from the trailer song for the game called “The Chain Gang Of 1974.” Keep in mind, at the time, I was not yet into Owl City. I was familiar with who he was from Fireflies and another song of his called Alligator Sky. I quickly became a huge fan of The Chain Gang of 1974 and this is when I again became interested in making music. I eventually got a version of Sony Acid 7 and attempted to make a cover of his song Sleepwalking. My gear at the time was an old weak MSI laptop and a Blue Snowball USB microphone. This obviously went poorly as I couldn’t sing, nor did I know what I was doing so I never finished working on that cover. I did record the vocals, however, and I wish I still had a copy of it somewhere to show you but I, unfortunately, don’t. (Is it unfortunate?) I eventually did some research on how music is made these days and learned about DAW’s and how everything is made on them. I did a little more research and decided to pick up FL Studio 11. I opened it and I didn’t understand a single thing. Like at all. I quickly learned that I couldn’t even figure out how to make a single sound. Nothing made sense. I exited to program and never looked back.

I once again got over wanting to music and I decided to go on with my life.

Fast forward another year or so later. 2015. March. I was a freshman in high school. I was thinking to myself in the shower about not having much music to listen to anymore since YourFavoriteMartian had to quit making music (long story, legal issues) and The Chain Gang of 1974 only had 2 albums. I was thinking about how I love space and listening to songs that sound like “space” and singing about space. (Light bulb) “Wait, Owl City makes music about space and stuff. Fireflies is very dreamy and Alligator Sky is literally about space.” So I got out of the shower and got my HTC M8 and went on my music player. At the time, I always had a collection of random songs I enjoyed listening to and remember earlier when I said I’ve always liked Fireflies and Alligator Sky by Owl City? Well anyway, I listened to him and was reminded that Owl City songs are the exact type of music I’ve been looking for. Without further ado, I googled Owl City and was looking at a big list of Owl City songs. I would search up any of them that had a cool sounding name and listen to it. This was an explosion for me. This whole time, this artist has been in the background creating all these wonderful songs that I’m enjoying and I had no idea. All I had to do was search up his freaking name and I never did. I remember staying up so late that night with my old apple earbuds in my ears, just listening to these dreamy songs. I quickly started loving songs such as Shooting Star and Vanilla Twilight. Vanilla Twilight would almost instantly become my favorite song and it is to this day my favorite Owl City song.

This is when I once again, sat down and said “This guy looks so cool with his keyboards and is a talented musician... I want to make music. I want to be this guy. I wish I could be as talented as this guy. I want to make music and everyone to be impressed with me.”

This is when I decided to open up FL Studio 11 again and decided I wanted to learn how to make music. For real this time. I started looking up basics on YouTube and I started getting into it. I even went as far as spending time when we weren’t doing anything in my freshman seminar class (which was a pointless class that we were required to take. However, shout out to Mr. Earley, he was a cool guy) and I would just watch FL Studio tutorials on my phone. I was getting the idea and I started making music. The school year ended and summer break was here. I spent the entire summer making YouTube videos and making really crappy beats in FL Studio. I don’t have a lot of memory of this time anymore because nothing too significant happened, but after a certain point, I got Reason 5 because I learned that Owl City used to make his music and made hit songs such as Fireflies and Vanilla Twilight in Reason 4. So I got Reason 5 and didn’t use it much at first but eventually got really into it and stopped using FL Studio all together. 

Here’s where the story starts getting good if it wasn’t already.

As I started getting a little more comfortable with music production and more of a fan of Owl City, I finally produced and written my first official song that would end up on my debut album Dreaming From Scratch. Santa Fe. Granted, it sounded like garbage, but it was my first and I was proud. At first, this song was produced in Reason 5 and since Reason was not yet an official DAW yet and couldn’t do direct recording, I recorded my vocals in FL Studio 11 and attempted to pitch correct my vocals using Melodyne. Just like Owl City. It wasn’t much. I would go on to get Reason 9 via 30-day free trials and I would have to create a new email and completely redownload and install Reason every 30 days. However, it was worth it because I was a big Reason fan at this point and continued to use it to create Dreaming From Scratch. I kept making music and that was that. I still struggled a lot at the time.

Come summer of 2017. I met a great guy who is now one of my best friends. Austin. He goes by IronyAmI on YouTube and World Famous Secret as his artist name. After a tweet I made asking for someone to master my music (It was kind of as a joke), he offered to do so and that’s when we officially got to work. You see, I’ve always been the main producer, the only writer and main mixer on my music. However, Austin and helped a ton and is practically a co-producer on my music. He helped 100x more in regards to production on Dreaming From Scratch than Late Night Apartment Lights. We got to work on an album and I kept making music and figuring it out on the way. I also upgraded to Reason 10 doing the same 30-day trial technique during this time. We eventually had a collection of 12 songs and I titled it Dreaming From Scratch and released it January 5th, 2018.

I’d say about 2 weeks later, I was already hard to work on a new song and that song is now “Mystery,” which you’ll be able to hear on August 23rd. Since I released Dreaming From Scratch, I graduated high school, became an adult, got my first car and my first job, then got let go, got a new job and now leaving this job to start my career in facility engineering. A lot of growing has happened since DFS and now I have this series of 8 songs to prove it. I’ve gotten so much better at my craft and I’ve become a lot more passionate about it. I left a lot of details out about spending countless nights sitting there in the dark in a new Reason project trying to make a song. I’d ultimately wind up looking for kick and snare samples for 15 minutes, get bored, tired and frustrated and quit the project without saving. It was a huge struggle. It took time and patience and a little help from a friend who knows what they're doing to get to where I am today. I am in no means an expert at this. You’ll learn just how truly in-depth this craft gets and how many ins and outs are required to make a genuinely crispy polished song. My music is nowhere near the level I want it to be, but it’s a lot closer than it was a year ago. That’s my story. My story on how I became a musician. I also forgot to mention that around 2016-2017, I got into Blink-182 and picked up an electric guitar. I already had an acoustic from being into Owl City on a Christmas. During the making of Late Night Apartment Lights, I got a bass guitar at a pawn shop and I love it. I actually recorded bass in my song Clocks On The Wall that’s coming on the EP August 23rd. Look out for it! I also officially bought Reason 10 last December when I was working at Target since I had money and was impulsive. Best investment I ever made!

With that said, that’s the end of my very long story. I probably left some details out, but it should be mostly there. I hope you enjoyed! Thank you, everyone, who has supported me in any capacity over the years. It really does mean a lot to me. 

Until next time, 

Jacob

[exfrenchdorsl4p0a1]

The Truth Isn't Trending Well With Democrats These Days: What Every Democrat Needs To Hear

I write this on the eve of the electoral college vote, which is tomorrow; I already know the results. I have known the results since November 9th at 2am. There will be no Hail Mary moment. Red states will not go blue. Your phone calls, letters, mass emails, and pleas have done nothing more than annoy the electors. All of that energy, the money spent on a recount, the false hope fed to us by our "progressive leadership", all it did was succeed in us taking our eye off of what really matters: fights that could actually still be won. The truth is: Donald Trump is our president. Please, my dear liberal friends: take a deep breath...and sit with that. Let it sink in. Cry your last tear, throw something, scream, and then save it for another day. We have four years of screaming and fights ahead...we need you to get back up and on your feet...now. I am officially turning the lights on and the music off at your pity party. Time to come home and organize. We as democrats have managed to point fingers at everyone but ourselves. The people closest to the campaign being the most arrogant. THIS is what scares me more than Trump. If we as a party, can not realistically understand that we lost, and look hard at where we lost this, then we are sure to just double down on the same failed strategy and lose again. Same old people, playing out of the same old dog eared playbook that Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, Bush, all used..and you know what that sounded like? The same words that the people have been hearing for the last fifty years. "apple pie" "freedom" "bald eagle" "hope" "a new tomorrow" same tired strategy, optics and words. Do you know how that registered in the minds of voters? They weren't quite sure where they had heard those same old phrases before, but they had, and they felt lied to, because we have been lied to so many times before by every politician. Everything Hillary did and said, felt "inauthentic" sounded like a "lie" even when it wasn't; because it was all out of the tired old playbook we had been manipulated with before. Trump threw the playbook out the window. He could have said "unicorns are crapping donuts out of the sky and it is the fault of Isis and the Muslims" and people would think, what the hell is this guy saying? I don't know, but he "sounds like a straight shooter to me". This guy "calls it like he sees it, whether I agree or not". AND THAT my friends, is how this election was won and lost. Messaging. We have pointed fingers everywhere: The FBI, the Russians, hackers, misogyny, racism, ignorance, the media, the electoral college, voter fraud, and today...we get a teeny bit closer to the truth: the scapegoat who is poor Huma Abadein, Hillary's closest advisor gets the blame du jour. Well, at least were getting warmer. The truth isn't trending well with Democrats these days, but here it is. We lost the election for two reasons: Hillary Clinton ran a terrible campaign.  People didn't vote. Period. Misogyny didn't win. The FBI didn't win. The Russians didn't lose us the election. Racism didn't win. Voter fraud didn't win.  Hubris lost.  We were so sure of ourselves, high fiving each other because Trump was such a "moron", meanwhile her communications team was a complete disaster. I had voiced my opinion to many people working on her campaign, and they were blindly out of touch. They simply did not care to hear anyone's opinion, any fresh ideas, and they did it their way, sticking to the old playbook that had been handed down for the last hundred years. Never daring stray from the script. I'll give you just a couple of examples of where we epically dropped the ball on a gold mine. Before I start, this is NOT an "I told you so"..it is simply a way to see, and learn from our mistakes, which we MUST do--once you read this, I think you'll get it. When Hillary fainted on 9/11 at the memorial because she had pneumonia. The Trump campaign ran with that. They immediately attacked her health, said she didn't have stamina, that she was not well enough to be president, and that she lied to the American people by not disclosing her "mystery illness". Clinton's camp sat quietly, and then they sent out the big guns. Bill Clinton came on tv and I thought, well thank goodness...Bill's got this. Do you remember what his response to her fainting was? "Hillary has been working like a demon...she gets dehydrated" I almost screamed at the tv. Why not tell the truth, and turn this moment into pure gold? A lovely alternative might have sounded something like this: "Hillary has pneumonia. I had pneumonia when I was 6. It's like an intense flu. Not cancer. She will get well soon. We didn't feel the need to announce every headache or cold she gets to the media. It is not life threatening. Mrs. Clinton would not have missed standing with those families on such an important day for anything in the world. So, with a hundred and three degree fever, she got up, and got dressed; to show up for the American people, to show up for those families, and to go to work. And while we're on the topic, how about we discuss how she, like millions of other Americans do the same thing Hillary did--everyday. They get up sick, they get dressed, and they go to work. Because we don't have paid family leave, or sick days; and you know, we probably should." The end. Now, was that hard? It wasn't. The mistresses? Again, Trump paraded them, blamed her, I saw women on social media saying that she was "so nasty" to the women her husband had cheated on her with. They spun it so it was somehow Hillary's fault that she was cheated on! Genius. Why on earth, did this woman not stand up, especially during the debates, and say "You know what? Thank you for bringing that up. I've been married to Bill for over forty years. Not all of them were easy. Many women in this audience, and men have experienced tough times in marriages and some have experienced infidelity. It is painful. It is usually private. I chose to forgive my husband to keep my marriage and family together. While I respect women who leave, I chose to stay. I chose to honor my vows said before God and family, and do what was the most difficult thing I had ever done, forgive and rebuild. I stayed when things got rough because I made that commitment. And as your president, I promise to do the same for you. I will stay and fight to make us stronger when things get rough. And you know what? I'm glad that I did, because now my marriage is stronger than ever and my daughter is doing great and I am happy." Good Lord, she would have sent it over the fences. Instead, when the mistresses were brought up, she would give a smug smile, and lean into the podium, half perched on her seat, and not address it. It was inauthentic. It was smug. It didn't read well. And whoever came up with that zippy slogan "Love Trumps Hate" clearly didn't understand optics. When I turned on the DNC Convention, and saw an ocean of people holding signs with the name Trump on them...I thought, this guy must be home laughing right now. Why on earth did we shake signs in the air with this man's name on them? He couldn't pray for better press...all hand delivered by...us. An auditorium of Democrats, enthusiastically shaking Trump's name. Sure, the word "hate" was on there, but so was "love". Bad messaging. Terrible optics. These are just a few very simple ways that she could have done better. From pant suit flash mob videos that looked like Gap ads, to completely uninspiring television spots (with the exception of the Gold Star Khan family, which was the only powerful piece of media I had seen the campaign run) to mosaic mashups of celebrities all montaging the same tired old message. It all just flopped. Add to that an ineffective speaker, whose speeches were canned, rehearsed and stiff, and she was an easy target. If you think that they don't "sell us our presidents the same way they sell us our clothes and our cars", you are mistaken. Hillary should have been as exciting as Obama in 2008. Our first female president, and even I, a devoted liberal had to rev up my own engine to muster any level of enthusiasm for her. I knocked on doors in Pennsylvania. I made a short video urging people to vote for her. I helped raise money. I wrote favorable pieces about her. The saddest part is that I have met her in person...she is not only graceful and kind, she is affable and lovely, brilliant, generous, and open. That is what upsets me most. She has it in her, and she would have been a terrific president. It just didn't read and she was surrounded by weak people advising her. I sincerely hope that they no longer work in politics. The polls were not "off" the people taking them were. Leaving out a percentage of folks who weren't racists or misogynists, they just didn't want to vote for Hillary, and kept their mouths shut, because they didn't want to be ostracized or called names. All of it, was a disaster, and I have lost more liberal friends than conservative, because the one thing liberals can't do right now, is hear that they failed. We failed. But ultimately the buck stops at Hillary. She didn't even come out on the night of the election to address the people who had worked so hard for her at the Javitz Center. They were given false hope and sent home crying, then given the news by Donald Trump who said that she had called him. Need I say more? We were still "With Her"...but she was no longer with us. My views have made me terribly unpopular. But I'm not going to lie to you. You have been lied to enough lately. Democrats right now want to hear what a jerk and scumbag Trump is, how we got robbed, and how there's still a chance. They don't want to hear the truth. But until we make peace with the truth and channel that anger towards fighting the real fights ahead, they are going to finish us off. Ohio and North Carolina are showing us that already. We were so busy talking about who really won and by how many and how we actually weren't to blame; while they have been hard at work stealing more from us. Please focus, everyone. We have lost so much, but we ain't seen nothing yet. So, I urge you, after the electoral vote count is in...pull yourselves off the ground, clean yourself up, and start fighting like hell. Fight the real fights we have in front of us. The victim look isn't a good look on any of us, and I, for one, am not going to be any part of that. I will be the one fighting rough, going as low as they go, and punching harder...because I am not going to die, and I won't let you or this country die either.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2jsGdYT

[repwinpril9y0a1]

The Truth Isn't Trending Well With Democrats These Days: What Every Democrat Needs To Hear

I write this on the eve of the electoral college vote, which is tomorrow; I already know the results. I have known the results since November 9th at 2am. There will be no Hail Mary moment. Red states will not go blue. Your phone calls, letters, mass emails, and pleas have done nothing more than annoy the electors. All of that energy, the money spent on a recount, the false hope fed to us by our "progressive leadership", all it did was succeed in us taking our eye off of what really matters: fights that could actually still be won. The truth is: Donald Trump is our president. Please, my dear liberal friends: take a deep breath...and sit with that. Let it sink in. Cry your last tear, throw something, scream, and then save it for another day. We have four years of screaming and fights ahead...we need you to get back up and on your feet...now. I am officially turning the lights on and the music off at your pity party. Time to come home and organize. We as democrats have managed to point fingers at everyone but ourselves. The people closest to the campaign being the most arrogant. THIS is what scares me more than Trump. If we as a party, can not realistically understand that we lost, and look hard at where we lost this, then we are sure to just double down on the same failed strategy and lose again. Same old people, playing out of the same old dog eared playbook that Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, Bush, all used..and you know what that sounded like? The same words that the people have been hearing for the last fifty years. "apple pie" "freedom" "bald eagle" "hope" "a new tomorrow" same tired strategy, optics and words. Do you know how that registered in the minds of voters? They weren't quite sure where they had heard those same old phrases before, but they had, and they felt lied to, because we have been lied to so many times before by every politician. Everything Hillary did and said, felt "inauthentic" sounded like a "lie" even when it wasn't; because it was all out of the tired old playbook we had been manipulated with before. Trump threw the playbook out the window. He could have said "unicorns are crapping donuts out of the sky and it is the fault of Isis and the Muslims" and people would think, what the hell is this guy saying? I don't know, but he "sounds like a straight shooter to me". This guy "calls it like he sees it, whether I agree or not". AND THAT my friends, is how this election was won and lost. Messaging. We have pointed fingers everywhere: The FBI, the Russians, hackers, misogyny, racism, ignorance, the media, the electoral college, voter fraud, and today...we get a teeny bit closer to the truth: the scapegoat who is poor Huma Abadein, Hillary's closest advisor gets the blame du jour. Well, at least were getting warmer. The truth isn't trending well with Democrats these days, but here it is. We lost the election for two reasons: Hillary Clinton ran a terrible campaign.  People didn't vote. Period. Misogyny didn't win. The FBI didn't win. The Russians didn't lose us the election. Racism didn't win. Voter fraud didn't win.  Hubris lost.  We were so sure of ourselves, high fiving each other because Trump was such a "moron", meanwhile her communications team was a complete disaster. I had voiced my opinion to many people working on her campaign, and they were blindly out of touch. They simply did not care to hear anyone's opinion, any fresh ideas, and they did it their way, sticking to the old playbook that had been handed down for the last hundred years. Never daring stray from the script. I'll give you just a couple of examples of where we epically dropped the ball on a gold mine. Before I start, this is NOT an "I told you so"..it is simply a way to see, and learn from our mistakes, which we MUST do--once you read this, I think you'll get it. When Hillary fainted on 9/11 at the memorial because she had pneumonia. The Trump campaign ran with that. They immediately attacked her health, said she didn't have stamina, that she was not well enough to be president, and that she lied to the American people by not disclosing her "mystery illness". Clinton's camp sat quietly, and then they sent out the big guns. Bill Clinton came on tv and I thought, well thank goodness...Bill's got this. Do you remember what his response to her fainting was? "Hillary has been working like a demon...she gets dehydrated" I almost screamed at the tv. Why not tell the truth, and turn this moment into pure gold? A lovely alternative might have sounded something like this: "Hillary has pneumonia. I had pneumonia when I was 6. It's like an intense flu. Not cancer. She will get well soon. We didn't feel the need to announce every headache or cold she gets to the media. It is not life threatening. Mrs. Clinton would not have missed standing with those families on such an important day for anything in the world. So, with a hundred and three degree fever, she got up, and got dressed; to show up for the American people, to show up for those families, and to go to work. And while we're on the topic, how about we discuss how she, like millions of other Americans do the same thing Hillary did--everyday. They get up sick, they get dressed, and they go to work. Because we don't have paid family leave, or sick days; and you know, we probably should." The end. Now, was that hard? It wasn't. The mistresses? Again, Trump paraded them, blamed her, I saw women on social media saying that she was "so nasty" to the women her husband had cheated on her with. They spun it so it was somehow Hillary's fault that she was cheated on! Genius. Why on earth, did this woman not stand up, especially during the debates, and say "You know what? Thank you for bringing that up. I've been married to Bill for over forty years. Not all of them were easy. Many women in this audience, and men have experienced tough times in marriages and some have experienced infidelity. It is painful. It is usually private. I chose to forgive my husband to keep my marriage and family together. While I respect women who leave, I chose to stay. I chose to honor my vows said before God and family, and do what was the most difficult thing I had ever done, forgive and rebuild. I stayed when things got rough because I made that commitment. And as your president, I promise to do the same for you. I will stay and fight to make us stronger when things get rough. And you know what? I'm glad that I did, because now my marriage is stronger than ever and my daughter is doing great and I am happy." Good Lord, she would have sent it over the fences. Instead, when the mistresses were brought up, she would give a smug smile, and lean into the podium, half perched on her seat, and not address it. It was inauthentic. It was smug. It didn't read well. And whoever came up with that zippy slogan "Love Trumps Hate" clearly didn't understand optics. When I turned on the DNC Convention, and saw an ocean of people holding signs with the name Trump on them...I thought, this guy must be home laughing right now. Why on earth did we shake signs in the air with this man's name on them? He couldn't pray for better press...all hand delivered by...us. An auditorium of Democrats, enthusiastically shaking Trump's name. Sure, the word "hate" was on there, but so was "love". Bad messaging. Terrible optics. These are just a few very simple ways that she could have done better. From pant suit flash mob videos that looked like Gap ads, to completely uninspiring television spots (with the exception of the Gold Star Khan family, which was the only powerful piece of media I had seen the campaign run) to mosaic mashups of celebrities all montaging the same tired old message. It all just flopped. Add to that an ineffective speaker, whose speeches were canned, rehearsed and stiff, and she was an easy target. If you think that they don't "sell us our presidents the same way they sell us our clothes and our cars", you are mistaken. Hillary should have been as exciting as Obama in 2008. Our first female president, and even I, a devoted liberal had to rev up my own engine to muster any level of enthusiasm for her. I knocked on doors in Pennsylvania. I made a short video urging people to vote for her. I helped raise money. I wrote favorable pieces about her. The saddest part is that I have met her in person...she is not only graceful and kind, she is affable and lovely, brilliant, generous, and open. That is what upsets me most. She has it in her, and she would have been a terrific president. It just didn't read and she was surrounded by weak people advising her. I sincerely hope that they no longer work in politics. The polls were not "off" the people taking them were. Leaving out a percentage of folks who weren't racists or misogynists, they just didn't want to vote for Hillary, and kept their mouths shut, because they didn't want to be ostracized or called names. All of it, was a disaster, and I have lost more liberal friends than conservative, because the one thing liberals can't do right now, is hear that they failed. We failed. But ultimately the buck stops at Hillary. She didn't even come out on the night of the election to address the people who had worked so hard for her at the Javitz Center. They were given false hope and sent home crying, then given the news by Donald Trump who said that she had called him. Need I say more? We were still "With Her"...but she was no longer with us. My views have made me terribly unpopular. But I'm not going to lie to you. You have been lied to enough lately. Democrats right now want to hear what a jerk and scumbag Trump is, how we got robbed, and how there's still a chance. They don't want to hear the truth. But until we make peace with the truth and channel that anger towards fighting the real fights ahead, they are going to finish us off. Ohio and North Carolina are showing us that already. We were so busy talking about who really won and by how many and how we actually weren't to blame; while they have been hard at work stealing more from us. Please focus, everyone. We have lost so much, but we ain't seen nothing yet. So, I urge you, after the electoral vote count is in...pull yourselves off the ground, clean yourself up, and start fighting like hell. Fight the real fights we have in front of us. The victim look isn't a good look on any of us, and I, for one, am not going to be any part of that. I will be the one fighting rough, going as low as they go, and punching harder...because I am not going to die, and I won't let you or this country die either.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2jsGdYT