All That’s Left

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2024 was a year of learning. While exploring how to improve recording and bedroom music production, I came across many YouTube videos and Reddit threads full of advice. It’s amazing how helpful random people are on the internet.

Over the past year, I’ve learned about singing techniques, guitar chords, production tips, plugins, the importance of Dynamics Processing, amps, pedals, amp sims, and so much more. I didn’t even have to ask the questions – every question you can think of has probably already been asked by someone else on the internet. It’s just how the world works now.

Because of that, I’ve been able to record higher-quality music through constant practice and knowledge absorption. 

Let’s come back to the point of this post: I’ve got a new demo out.

This is dedicated to Miki, Vanessa’s dog, who passed away earlier this year. He’s one of the goodest boys. I’ve been playing the song at recent live shows and a friend asked me to record it so he could listen to it without coming to watch me (hah!). I put it off – until last night.

Feeling inspired, I set aside some time to record a demo of Miki before I played some nightly Dota. What I intended to be a two-hour session turned into four despite it being a simple, short song. I kept redoing parts until it got too late to yell (without waking up neighbors), so I settled with acceptable takes for vocals. Then I had to figure out how to stop tracks from clipping without being too soft, equalizing, compressing, and the whole shebang.

The result is a demo I’m mostly happy with. I can improve the vocals and drums significantly, but that will take another day. Here’s something that I believe is good enough to listen to. Maybe get a real bass for the bass guitar parts (but who listens to the bass anyway 😂).

Either way, my goal was to have the song recorded and out there for people to listen to – mission accomplished. I have a few more songs in the cooker but I’m unsure if I’ll be able to complete them before 2024 ends. Regardless, one recorded song this year is better than none.

Happy holidays everybody. Take care.

Miki
dry nose
I see you lying with your
eyes closed
staring at an endless
sunset
the sun won't rise again
even if you believe it

dry nose
shallow breathing with your
eyes closed
what you see is in your mind
it never used to be this way
but now it happens all the time

respond to me, respond to me
miki show me you're still breathing
call out to me, call out to me
miki let me know you're healing
come back to me, come back to me
miki I will be here with my arms wide open saying
I love you

I know
you're better off without this
pain I'd
like to believe you're in
peace all
dogs go to heaven,
at least that's what they say

I hope
it's more pleasant there, and
you're happy
someday I'll see you again
I'll make
sure to bring you a treat
you bet it'll be something sweet

I miss your tongue hanging out
the soft footsteps that you made
as you struggled up the stairs
but you never gave up hope
how you curled up when you slept
and scratched at the door to
go out to see the morning light
how you yelped when I hugged you tight
now all that remains are ashes of you

I’ve also uploaded it to YouTube and TikTok because Instagram no longer accepts posts or reels over 3 minutes (such a dumb dumb move).

@goodnewsgeorg3

since ig no longer lets me post 3min+ videos, I guess I have a reason to start posting videos here. some of you may have heard me perform this song in the past, I finally got around to demoing it. this one goes out to the goodest boi, Miki. rip ❤️🐩#music #poppunk

♬ original sound – George Wong – George Wong

Gig #145: Twenty Eight Music Bar

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Writing open mic announcements on my blog is more for posterity than anything else. It’s a way for me to look back and see—oh, hey, I’ve played X shows so far!

It’s been a while since my last one, so I’m playing a show this Monday at Twenty Eight, Telawi. Drop by and spend your evening with some cool tunes and cool beers, I hope to see you guys there!

Google Maps | Instagram | 9 December | 8.30 PM

Five Star Giver

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I’m a high-level Google Maps user. I know most of you don’t know or care, but that’s my secret flex. I’ve submitted many reviews to Google Maps—two hundred and forty-one to be exact. That’s probably more than any of you reading this have done.

For some reason, this thought crossed my mind this evening. And I felt compelled to write about it. It doesn’t affect your life, or mine. In fact, it doesn’t even matter if I’m a high-level Google Maps reviewer. Well, it used to – I remember many years ago, they used to give rewards for being a top contributor.

I’m not sure if they still do – I haven’t gotten any rewards in recent years, but those rewards did inspire me to continue leaving reviews. The first reward was an RM40 Zalora voucher, which I spent on a wallet. The second one was a redBus voucher which I never claimed (I had nowhere I wanted to travel to by bus that year).

I bet most of you didn’t even know they gave rewards

After that, the rewards stopped coming. Maybe I fell off. Washed.

I realized there’s a flaw in my reviewing—not the content of the review itself, but the fact that I tend to leave positive reviews. Most of the time, I leave reviews because I enjoyed myself and not to complain about the venue.

I grew up with the mentality of “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.” Especially in public for everyone to see. A quick Google search shows that this saying is most commonly associated with Thumper from Bambi. I must have watched the film too many times as a child.

See, you learned something new today

Perhaps I learned something new today about myself. Maybe that’s where all my positivity stems from. This one quote I unconsciously absorbed and turned into my personality.

I believe that if you have the energy to complain, you have the energy to fix a problem. If you don’t want to fix it, you enjoy complaining more than solving the problem.

But leaving negative reviews is doing something about it – I would be saving other people (who believe me) a trip from a bad experience. So maybe that’s why I do leave negative reviews – sometimes. However, they are far and few in between.

I leave negative reviews for places that absolutely deserve them. If they left a really bad impression, I will call it out.

Once in a while, I submit a middling review for a place, which I feel makes no difference—it doesn’t move the scales. It doesn’t generate impact. So I tend to avoid doing those. If I don’t review a place, it’s because I didn’t like (or dislike) it enough.

I leave good reviews because I want more people to patron a place and the owners to succeed. Fortunately, I’m not a huge influencer so my words don’t drive flocks of people to restaurants and cause them to overcrowd (another problem I’d like to write about one day – the negative influence of foodies).

My food pictures suck, but that’s okay, I don’t think people care that much as long as you show them the food. I recall one of my most popular photos of a friend at a restaurant (LOL).

So what I usually talk about? The taste of the food, the service, the value for money, the crowd (if it’s a noticeable thing – i tend not to enjoy places that get too crowded), booking requirements (if necessary), and sometimes parking issues if it’s an issue. I would say I’m pretty fair.

11(3)34 again, I’m not even trying

I don’t believe there’s a point to this article other than being able to flex my Google Maps level and to let any restaurant owners who stumble upon this blog post know: if you’re looking for a high-level Google Maps user to review your restaurant, reach out to me and kick start my journey of turning into a person I despise food critic.

Who knows, this could be the start of something amazing. Heck yea.