Something has really been bothering me about Nene Royal’s rise to stardom. I’ve gone back and I’ve watched hours of her live performances at the Naka Night Market in Phuket going back years and almost all the people who stopped to actually listen to her, the only people who would so much as give Nene Royal the time of day, were foreigners. Then, as soon as she starts gaining some real international recognition with her televised performances on America’s Got Talent, her audiences suddenly became packed with Thai people, though none of them looked like they recognized any of the songs except the ones she performed on television. It was pretty evident that her Thai audience wasn’t there because they suddenly appreciate rock music, they were there just to see somebody famous or, more precisely, somebody in the process of becoming famous.
After she won America’s Got Talent using songs that would have been awful choices if her real ambition was to actually showcase her talent and not to win the competition, everyone in Thailand wanted to claim her as their own, including, apparently, the governor of Phuket. Among all these people, it seems doubtful that even a handful could tell you who Black Sabbath is. It’s not about the music to them, it’s about their pathetic national pride and their celebrity obsession. It disgusts me.
I only hope Nene Royal remembers who her true fans were from the start. Night after night, it was an assortment of mostly Westerners from dozens of countries who clapped and cheered for her, though it would be a crime not to acknowledge the fact that she also has the most supportive, most loving father. Her father aside, there were countless foreigners who mentored her along the way and got her to where she is now. Even the now iconic Ibanez she used across all her America’s Got Talent performances was gifted to her by a Danish fan.
Outside of all the fake fans who didn’t know what a guitar was two months ago, one of the real tragedies of her much-deserved rise to stardom is that we will never see those intimate performances at the Naka Night Market again. I will always be looking back nostalgically at incredible performances like My Sharona from two years ago:
Seeing her with all the makeup and the expensive-looking outfits, I look at that video of My Sharona and yearn for its raw authenticity. Her performances of Master of Puppets are viral and they certainly ought to be, but I don’t think you’ll find a less diluted, more pure incarnation of Nene Royal than fucking My Sharona from 21 January 2024. If she ever stops having fun like that, it’s all over.
I worry about her. I worry not just about what the industry will do to her, but I worry even more about the music she is working on. She has the guitar skills, the vocals, the stage presence, and the charisma, but, to truly become one of the greats, she will need to write her own music. While I enjoyed the one song of her own she has released, Real Verse, it’s ultimately a shred-fest that reminds me of the sort of masturbatory solo albums John 5 (currently of Mötley Crüe and formerly of Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie) has released. That kind of music isn’t music for people, it’s music for guitarists. I’m not saying I want her to write pop music, but what I want least of all is for her to release a total shred-fest without any hooks that regular people won’t want to listen to more than once. The fact is Real Verse was composed for a guitar competition, so I can only hope it’s not actually a sign of things to come. At the same time, I just saw a video of her practicing Inferno (Unleash the Fire) by Symphony X and that has me worried all over again because some music is just complicated for the sake of being complicated. Maybe I have nothing to be worried about though. After all, she did play Seven Nation Army as her finals performance at America’s Got Talent and that song is literally the easiest-to-play rock song ever written, though she did spice it up a lot.
Well, I did it. I bought a PRS SE CE24 Standard Stoptail Satin in charcoal. Yeah, the name sucks and I am probably just going to shorten it to CE24 or “the PRS” going forward, but let’s not linger on the name. I’m pretty excited, but I also feel guilty buying my guitar before my son gets his. He insists on waiting for the red one though and I respect that; besides, he’s not going to touch it until Christmas.
In the end, I had actually narrowed it down to the PRS and the Schecter Omen Extreme-6 in black cherry (I always go for the most evil-looking finish), but the CE24 felt like the more versatile instrument. Though the guitar will probably never leave my house, I still didn’t like the idea of being confused with one of those metal guys who only care about whether the guitar “chugs.” Since most of what I listen to consists of various sub-genres of rock, it can be easy to think I don’t have very diverse taste in music, but rock as a genre is incredibly vast and one sub-genre can sound like it’s from another planet next to another. The PRS also seemed the more beginner-friendly instrument. I certainly didn’t want anything too budget, though I also recognize from my experience in the world of audiophilia that price oftentimes has very little correlation with quality beyond a certain point. While it’s possible the guitar may eventually find itself collecting dust like my last guitar, I don’t want to feel like I have to upgrade later if I actually stick with it this time around, I want something that will potentially last me for years. In my son’s case, he is getting a significantly cheaper guitar mostly because he is going to physically outgrow it at some point, whether he is still playing by then or not.
I also bought the Orange Crush 20RT. I wanted a no-bullshit, all analogue (except for its reverb) practice amp that wouldn’t leave me or my son paralyzed by thousands of options, I just wanted something that would allow us to focus on actually playing and practicing. No apps, no Bluetooth, no “smart” features, no digital modeling, no batteries, no wall warts, and no fixed power cables. Springing for the RT model to get the digital reverb and the built-in tuner is about as much complexity as I was willing to add. Everything else is just a distraction. I went with the orange color because it’s iconic. I mean, the brand is called Orange. I may have to get a second amplifier down the road so my son and I can play together, but I’ll need to spend a bit of time with the 20RT to determine whether I should just get a second one or something else altogether. Beyond that, I picked up a basic Ernie Ball Polypro strap; some Fender strap blocks; a Fender universal A-frame stand; some Jim Dunlop picks; a pair of Gator Cableworks Composer Series cables; a clip-on tuner; and an all-in-one string winder, cutter, and bridge pin puller tool. At this point, the only things remaining are my son’s guitar, a kids strap, and some replacement strings, though I have not yet decided what strings we’ll be putting on either guitar. My research, based on my genre preferences, is pointing me in the direction of skinny top heavy bottom (10-52) strings for me. For my son, we’ll probably keep him on some regular slinky (10-46) strings. In either case, we’re going to play the factory strings until they fall off because, while I have restrung guitars before, it has been a couple of decades and I hate having to relearn it.
For the record, the guitar I had as a young lad was the Ibanez AX125. I also had some random Squier acoustic. I am not a believer in learning by playing Old MacDonald Had a Farm. I have already put together a playlist of songs to practice, which will serve as our curriculum. Here’s the playlist:
Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple T.N.T. by AC/DC Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap by AC/DC Highway to Hell by AC/DC Iron Man by Black Sabbath Sweet Leaf by Black Sabbath Hurt by Nine Inch Nails Lullaby by The Cure Don’t Pray for Me by SKOLD City Noise by Scarling For Whom the Bell Tolls by Metallica Back in Black by AC/DC The Hand That Feeds by Nine Inch Nails Eiszeit by Eisbrecher Head Like a Hole by Nine Inch Nails Sober by Tool N.I.B. by Black Sabbath
Realistically, this playlist represents countless months of practice. Unlike when I was a kid back in the early 2000s, I understand that the most important thing is muscle memory, so we’ll be repeating the same riffs until our fingers bleed and obviously skipping all the complicated solos. I’ve been working with my son on reading and writing evening after evening these past few weeks and out efforts are finally beginning to bear fruit. I was ripping my hair out a couple of weeks ago and now I mostly just sit back and listen to Green Eggs and Ham. I am hoping guitar practice will eventually bear fruit in the same way. If I can teach him how to read, I can teach him how to teach himself to play guitar. His mother keeps scoffing about the whole thing, shaking her head like it’s some idiotic idea for our child to learn to play an instrument. Have I mentioned what an awful mother and person she is? Surely I have mentioned how jealous she gets of all the affection my son shows me because I actually spend meaningful time with him. No matter what happens with the guitar thing, the fact remains that I am investing in my relationship with my son while she is rarely to be seen in the same room.
I find I have so many hobbies, passions, and obsessions that I cannot feasibly devote my attentions to more than one or two at any given time. Something is always on the back burner. I’ve mostly been focused on music of late. In my previous post, I had only just discovered Nene Royal and, as highly as I praised her, I think I still somehow managed to underrate her. She is a generational talent. Now, I realize she has since won America’s Got Talent and, while that may mean a lot to her, I couldn’t possibly care less because at no point did that show (yes, I watched the performances) actually demonstrate the true depths of her skill. They only just scraped the surface. In my experience, rockstars are not born from idiotic American talent shows and she was better than anyone on that show since she was twelve years old.
I am still keeping a close eye on her, but my attention was more recently grabbed by one Chelsea Wolfe; in fact, I am pretty obsessed right now with the whole gothic doom metal dark folk scene, from Chelsea Wolfe to Darkher and Trees of Eternity. Chelsea Wolfe, though, is one of those artists I discover and marvel at the fact that I spent the past decade completely ignorant of her existence. I’ve been digging through her entire discography and her 2017 (the year I started this blog) album Hiss Spun has, in a matter of weeks, become one of my all-time favorite albums. It’s certainly my favorite Chelsea Wolfe album, though her latest album, The Dark, is right on its heels. It was actually after feeding an AI chatbot a detailed accounting of all my favorite genres, sub-genres, artists, albums, songs, and instruments that it spat out Chelsea Wolfe as its number one recommendation for me. I can knock AI for so many things, but it has proven an incredible resource for discovering music and other media.
I don’t know what it is about addiction, but it seems to generate some of my favorite music ever made. It is when an artist is driven to self-destruction, the the very breaking point, that they seem to be at their creative peak. Pornography (1984) is my favorite Cure album, The Fragile (1999) is my favorite Nine Inch Nails album, and now Hiss Spun is my favorite Chelsea Wolfe album. All of these were forged in the deepest, darkest, drug- and alcohol-fueled personal abysses and they sound the part. Speaking of abysses, the chatbot got one thing wrong: It suggested I check out Chelsea Wolfe’s Abyss album first, which I fortunately did not do. The song After the Fall is an absolute highlight from her entire discography and it calls that album home, but, overall, it didn’t really do it for me. Naturally, given my taste for industrial music (while everyone else in the ’90s was on the grunge bandwagon, I was a mere child listening to industrial rock and industrial metal in my bedroom), Hiss Spun hit the spot for me. Don’t ask me what the album title means. I haven’t the the faintest idea, I just know it rocks. 16 Psyche is probably my favorite Chelsea Wolfe song.
With that said, I think Hiss Spun and definitely Abyss would have benefited from more of the crystal clear vocal delivery we get with The Dark. The Dark is definitely Chelsea Wolfe’s most accessible album, but, to those people online who describe is as Chelsea Wolfe’s pop album, let me just say I have actually heard pop music and that is not what pop sounds like. My understanding is that Chelsea Wolfe, in addition to getting sober, began working with a vocal coach some time ago and even the people who aren’t particularly keen on The Dark don’t deny that it features her strongest vocal performance to date. You see, I don’t do death metal. I don’t do growls or barks. I like my music heavy and I like the vocal delivery clean. Chelsea Wolfe just happens to possess what I consider my ideal female voice.
Darkher and Trees of Eternity are a couple of steps down on my tier list, but they caught my ear as well as I dipped into “similar” artists. It struck me though that every one of these artists I have been discovering these past few weeks are of the female persuasion or at least have females involved at some level. Swedish metal band Trees of Eternity was an otherwise all male band, but it only released a single album, Hour of the Nightingale (2016), because its female vocalist, Aleah Stanbridge, died of cancer in post-production.
In fact, I also started listening to The Warning a bit recently. I had tried The Warning in the recent past and couldn’t really get into their music, but I really enjoyed their most recent album, Everything’s Falling, which surprises even me because it is easily their most produced work and the vocals, while so much cleaner than ever before, have a definite K-pop influence on them. The band, if you don’t know, consists of three sisters from Monterrey, Mexico and the bassist happens to be kind of hot. The song Why Do You Like It When I Cry? is my favorite from them, despite being well outside of my musical comfort zone.
Then I look at my top five albums of the year thus far, which consists of Chelsea Wolfe’s The Dark, a tie for second between Puscifer’s Normal Isn’t and Marilyn Manson’s One Assassination Under God – Chapter 2, The Warning’s Everything’s Falling in fourth place, and probably Nine Inch Nails’ Nine Inch Noize live album in fifth. All but Marilyn Manson’s album involve women and, given the recent accusations against Marilyn Manson, that makes sense. Yes, even the Nine Inch Nails album feature’s Trent Reznor’s wife, Mariqueen Maandig, on vocals and, if you haven’t seen their performance from this year’s Coachella, you need to get on that.
The earliest stuff in my music library comes from 1968 with a bit of Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin and things really kick off with the 1970s. Going all the way back to the ’70s, my entire music library is dominated by male musicians. Not a female in sight. It was a complete sausage-fest, but then I move forward into the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and all the way up to today only to realize there aren’t just more females in my music library, female musicians are beginning to dominate my music library. As the kids say, I’m here for it.
My recent musical obsession extends to more than just listening to music, however. My son still worships the ground I walk on and he loves rock. He at least has enough individuality to select AC/DC as his favorite band, whereas I have traditionally identified Nine Inch Nails as mine. Now he wants to learn to play the guitar. Excluding the various pets he has asked for or the brother he has asked for, he wants two things this Christmas: a telescope and a guitar. The fact that he is into science and music warms my heart, but I don’t know shit about telescopes except that good ones are expensive and that we don’t live in the ideal place for observing the firmament.
Either option would give me an excellent opportunity to bond with my son, something completely alien to his mother who just has no connection with her son and who just lets him gorge himself on YouTube videos on the computer my son and I built together. I worry about what all the YouTube is doing to his brain, so finding a skill he can work on, such as learning to play the guitar, has become a priority for me and I won’t deny hearing how Nene Royal started playing guitar at age seven, the same age my son will be but days away from this Christmas, had something to do with it. I don’t expect him to become the next Nene Royal. In all likelihood, he’ll get bored of it and move on to something else altogether, but I have to let him try new things because what if he does become a professional musician some day or even just gets really good and finds playing the guitar in private a rewarding hobby?
Trang doesn’t want me to get him the guitar, but that’s exactly why he will never love her the way he loves me. Not only will I get him the guitar, the amplifier, and all the necessary accessories, I will try to learn with him. I briefly attempted to learn to play the guitar as a teen, but I think I lacked proper guidance and I didn’t have all the online resources we have today. My teacher wasn’t very good either and I just lost interest over time, but, looking back, I think giving up on the guitar was one of my biggest mistakes. At the very least, it gave me the knowledge I need to get my son started and, worst case, he gives up and I get a new toy.
I already have the cable and stand. I am planning on getting him an Ibanez miKro GRGM21M in candy apple because (1) it’s a ¾ size guitar and (2) he really wants a red guitar. That one in candy apple with the maple neck is a Guitar Center exclusive and it’s on backorder, so I am holding off for now. I kind of prefer the blue burst or even the metallic purple, but the man wants red. I also intend to get him an Orange Crush 20RT amplifier to go with it. Sure, I could play a bit on his Ibanez, but I am getting so into the idea that I am even considering picking up a guitar for myself and, with severely tempered expectations, learning to play again. I was considering getting a PRS SE CE24 Standard Stoptail Satin in charcoal. It could be an ideal bonding experience to race to see who can learn the rhythm sections of T.N.T. better. Or Smoke on the Water. Or Iron Man. Chances are it’ll be me at first, but my hope is that he will quickly surpass me; after all, there is no better time to learn a new skill than his age and there has never been a better time to be self taught than today.
