I’ve been having fun playing Rock Band, and that’s all good and yankee-doodle-dandy, but it takes away time from learning and playing songs on real guitar. Lately I’ve also been playing only chunks of songs and I never remember full songs whenever people come over and say, “oh play this…”. So here I’ll compile a list of songs to play and sing well in order to motivate myself to spend constructive time playing guitar. These are songs I should be able to break out at any point, so they need to be internalized. The list is short for now, but I’ll be adding more as I think of them.

The links go to YouTube videos of the songs.

• Local H – Eddie Vedder
• Spot – Moon June Spoon
• John Mayer – Daughters
• John Mayer – Why did you mess with forever?
• RHCP – Breaking the Girl
• Snow Patrol – Chasing Cars
• All American Rejects – Dirty Little Secret
• The Killers – Mr Brightside
• Lilly Allen – Womanizer (Cover) (seriously, it’s good)
• Marty Casey – Baby One More Time (Cover) (again… good)
• Oasis – Wonderwall
• Radiohead – High and Dry
• John Frusciante – How Deep is Your Love (Bee Gees Cover)

The artist that I have been listening to the most lately is Shinichi Osawa. He’s performed previously under Mondo Grosso, but lately he’s been releasing music under his own name. He’s also produced tracks for many Japanese artists, including Eri Nobuchika. I’m listening a lot to the Prayers and Radio remixes. Prayers took me a while to get used to, but I can’t stop listening to it now.

Clazziquai Project – Prayers (Shinichi Osawa remix)

Felix da Housecat – Radio (Shinichi Osawa remix)

Digitalism – Pogo (Shinichi Osawa remix)

Anna Tsuchiya – Ah Ah (Shinichi Osawa remix)

Shinichi Osawa – Maximum Joy

Eri Nobuchika  – Lights (Produced by Shinichi Osawa)

Eri Nobuchika – Sing a Song (Produced by Shinichi Osawa)

Mondo Grosso – Hikari

Mondo Grosso – Shinin’

About 2 years ago I made some mixed CDs for my friends. I called them “Intro Packets” and they were meant as introductions to non-mainstream music. Some of the songs eventually became mainstream, such as Hide and Seek by Imogene Heap. I made 6 intro packets, and I’ll be posting the playlists every once in a while.

1. Air – All I Need
2. Asian Kung Fu Generation – Re Re (live version here)
3. Autour de Lucie – Les promesses (Not available on YouTube)
4. Badly Drawn Boy – Once Around the Block
5. Basement Jaxx – Stop 4 Love (Not available on YouTube)
6. Grand National – Drink to Moving on
7. Hooverphonic – Blue wonder Power Milk (Not available on YouTube)
8. Hooverphonic – Renaissance Affair (Not available on YouTube)
9. Imogen Heap – Hide and Seek
10. John Legend – Ordinary People
11. Phoenix – Too Young
12. Pleasant Stitch –Something Real
13. Telepopmusik – Breathe (Extended)
14. The Streets – Has It Come To This
15. Vast – Touched
16. Zero 7 – Give it Away

I started looking through my old recordings and I decided to post this one. This is a sample I made in FL Studio back in 2005. Man, I haven’t written any new music since then. I need to get back in the game.

Download song5.mp3