Originality

Originality.

Are you original? Are you unique? Are you one of the sheeps in the herd? How do you cut through the noise and rise above the rest?

I had Daniel Vrangsinn in the latest episode of my talk show. According to Wikipedia, Vrangsinn is a Poet, Musician and Video/Graphic Artist. Believe me, he is way more than that. Above all, I am proud to call him a friend of mine.

In this episode, we talked a little about his origins, his latest projects including being an “Orange Ambassador” by Orange Amplifiers, an English Amplifier Manufacturer.

As a prolific and successful record producer, Vrangsinn offered these words of encouragement at the end of the show: “Musicians / bands who made it and who are signed by record labels are the ones with their own sound, their originality. Quit trying to be someone else, and start be original.” It’s a cliche, but there’s a lot of truth in it for everyday life.

For more of Vrangsinn, please visit https://www.vrangsinn.no/

#talkshow #podcast #publicspeaking #broadcast #inspiringpeople #inspiringthroughwords #citymusicsingapore #encouragingothers #professionalhost #makingfriends #meaningfulcontacts #dontjudge #objective #findgoodinpeople #encourage #inspire #inthistogether

Here's the episode of the chat; thanks for watching and listening. 

ESP’s first all instrumental album: Blood Tangerine Sky

The journey of making music can be lonely at times. You can ask any Musician or Song Writer. There will be a time when you are left to your own devices, and there is no one else to be depend on except yourself, basically (Try so hard to do a Dave Hill impersonation.) 

I faced this loneliness in 2005, when my bandmates and I went our separate ways. A little like Bryan Adams lyrics “Jimmy quit and Jody got Married, I shoulda known we never get far.” Thank goodness I found my other band mate, and he/she/it is called Apple Garage Band Licensed Drum loops. 

Cover Art work for "Blood Tangerine Sky", originally known as "7 Electro Jelly Fishes".

With the basic knowledge of cut and paste and my very mediocre guitar and bass playing skills, I managed 5 instrumental tracks complied as ESP’s latest offering “Blood Tangerine Sky”. The album is now available on Bandcamp and soon on all major streaming platform. The instruments used were my trusty Yamaha Pacifica 112XJ, Yamaha RBX 270, a huge 2 x 12 Line 6 Amp (I don’t remember the amp model), Sennheiser e-835 to mic up the amplifier. 

It’s not Rex “The Sex” Viperon or Kohld “Laang” Haveneson one-man-band quality, I admit that. However, most of the guests in my talk show have similar words of encouragement “Just Do It”. I am brave enough to produce something, I should be brave and proud enough to show it. 

There you have it, I give you “Blood Tangerine Sky”. How would you classify my style of playing? Leave me a comment and I would love to hear your thoughts.

Conversation with the Legends: Messiah & Manheim

In the last episode of "In Conversation with ESP Season 2", we had Manheim and Messiah 50% of Black Metal Band Order. Their first full length album Lex Amentiae released in 2017 has 8 unique tracks, when the sound is undeniably True Norwegian Black Metal. I personally enjoyed each of the 8 tracks tremendously. 

For folks who don't know who Order is, they are a sonic-nuclear assault team of Norway's metal veterans, made up of 2 Members of The True Mayhem (Manheim and Messiah) and 2 members from Cadaver, another veteran black metal band from Norway. 

In this episode, Manheim and Messiah shared the their journey of how they met, how they were in the  beginnings with Euronymous and Necrobutcher, how they parted ways. and finally how they reconvened to form Order. Manheim in particularly was especially passionate about their up coming 2nd full length album "Gospel". 

It's truly an honor to have the both of them as guests for "In Conversation with ESP Season 2". For full episode, please click on following link or listen as podcast in all major streaming platform in the very hear future. 

Post show trivial: We only managed to locate Manheim 15minute before we went live. Messiah gave me a brief of what Manheim is like as a person in less than 5 minutes. I barely scrapped it through by asking him half-way intelligent questions, and I was a little concern in the beginning. 

Manheim shared an encouragement "There is no stupid questions, only stupid answers." I am grateful to the both of them for being such forgiving guests, but I think I offered enough justice and have certainly done my very best. 

I can't wait to have them back on the show again. Thank you Messiah. Thank you Manheim. 

Here's Order's the first album Lex Amentiae on YouTube:

Kohld Haveneson of Laang featured in Guitar Battle Solo in ESP’s Fall of the Giant.

Kohld is a new found friend in 2020, and he is definitely one of the highlights in the memorable year of 2020. 

We have never met in person, but he transcends kindness through 2 different continents (he lived in both Liverpool and Knoxville in the same year), by being a big part of ESP, through various collaborations in several songs. 

He is hardworking and creative musician with a lot of grit and, on top of that, his chemistry with ESP is close to impeccable. Kohld is also a regular guest in my talk show “In Conversation with ESP”. He is very eloquent and an excellent conversationalist; it’s always a joy to have him on. 

Rex and I have a lot of respect and admiration for Kohld, and we look forward to having him on board in future ESP projects. 

I will write about Kohld ever so often because I love him like “a brother from a different mother”. Stay tuned! 

Meanwhile, here’s Kohld wearing an official ESP Black and White Raglan, ripping some sweet solos of the song “Fall of the Giant”. 3 different angle, 16 bars of sweet guitar tone and amazing techniques, one song, featuring the one and only Kohld Haveneson. 

Review for Zombiepura by Metal Noise September 2020

2020 had been a very kind year to me personally despite of the Pandemic. 

Rex and I manage to produce 12 new songs, 2 compilation albums, various international collaborations with amazing & talented artistes, and above all, all the people that I love and care about are all healthy and well.

It’s also the year where ESP had a chance to collaborate with Witch Taint’s Lance the King of Black Metal in “Zombiepura” and the song is being reviewed by Metal Noise. 

We don’t know Metal Noise personally yet, but they sure have some kind words for the song. What I enjoyed about the review is that the reviewer DJ Vapour got all the nooks and crannies of the punts (of the song). DJ Vapour even reviewed the Hip-Hop-Drum-&-Bass demo. Thank you Metal Noise, I appreciate your review and I hope we get to connect in person sooner than later. 

For the full review, please click on link below: 

https://metalnoise.net/2020/09/review-zombiepura-by-evil-singing-pandas 

Zombiepura, available for streaming and download at Bandcamp.

Witch Taint’s first single “Sons of Satan”. Lance the King of Black Metal and Matthias Backwards got me at BMX-Corpse Paint combo. 

Footage of ESP Live in Bangkok, 8th of December 1998.

A footage of ESP live in the Beast of Beer Festival in Bangkok on the 8th of December 2018, Thailand. The band was doing the song “I cooked the Omelette (Spanish Style)”.

I did not warm up properly and I was literally down by -66% by time the band reached this song. Not sure if you can tell, but I am absolutely running out of breath. Our session drummer, Jil Kaosis, has a habit of going faster and faster like a rollercoaster during live sets. I literally almost died by the end of the set. 

Almost dying was a worth it I guess, something for the archive. Something to show my children that Daddy was a Rolling Stone. 

ESP and our very first Pop-Punk release “海边“

 

Our first release this year in 2021 is a song called “海边” or “Seaside” translated in English.

With the help of our friend, Kohld Havenson of one-man-black-metal-band Laang,  (https://laang.bandcamp.com/),giving him free play for arrangement, “海边” 2021 is born. The arrangement by Kohld is in the vibes of Modern Pop-Punk and it’s agreeable to most listeners. Find out what Kohld has to say about “海边” in the YouTube link below. 

This song was originally composed in 2002/1 as a bossanova-ish mandarin pop love ballad. Kohld did a fantastic job be reinventing the song into something modern, heart pumping, punkisg and catchy an easy on the ears all the same time. The guitar solo outro is simple but very melodic and memorable. To pay tribute to Mandarin Pop Diva A-Mei, I sneaked in a part of the chorus of the hit song “听海” right at the beginning. It’s a cheeky thrill for me because we pulled this one off.

I have always admired artistes and musicians that evolved with times and choose to be more relevant as they mature and progress. After taking the path of evolving, some would have received harsh criticisms and backlashes, which I personally feel it’s unfair to them.  Metallica effort in the 3 albums “Load”, “Unload”, and “St. Anger” is a classroom example of how their fans were disappointed with them after they tried something new. 

Unbeknownst to some of my friends and fans,  the genre of music that I enjoy is not restricted only to metal, but also they other extreme ends of folk, pop, unplugged, jazz, blues, children’s music and more. So by releasing “海边” was one of the gambles for ESP, because it’s not a not a metal song. 

We certainly hope you enjoy “海边” as much as I have enjoyed the process of producing the song with Kohld (on all instruments*, arrangements and engineering” and Rex (*on bass) for this song. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think. Thanks.