kcjonez.com

Welcome to my world!

I'm a 55+ year old product of the 80's. Lived the dream at one time in my life, but am just getting far too old far too too quick, and the body is falling apart. I still play a little here and there, but for the most part, my dreams of becoming a rock star are long gone.

To be quite honest, I never truly wanted to be a rock star. Of course it had been on my mind for quite some time when I was young and learning. No, my deepest desires proved to be playing for the enjoyment of playing guitar and creating music. I tried the band thing here and there, but I soon found out that I'm too much of a prick to work with. I have all of these ideas inside my head, and if you can't reproduce them, I'll do it myself! I just didn't play well with others. I did many collaborations with other guitarists, and I enjoyed the hell out of that! But playing with drummers, bassists, keys, and singers did nothing but irritate me. So, I wound up learning all of the other instruments and did it all on my own. THAT'S where I was happiest!

Why don't we go back to the beginning so you're not sitting here reading all day! lol

I started out around 1980 pulling my father's '57 Fender Esquire out from underneath the bed when he was at work and messing around with it. Usually trying to tune it and breaking strings quickly putting it back under the bed and denying any involvement!

Not long after, a friend got me a beat up old guitar and amp for my 12th birthday and showed me the basic chords. I was off and running from that point on! Playing upwards of 16 hours a day learning Joan Jett and Ted Nugent songs (not very well at the time due to not knowing what I was doing).

Then in 1985, Iron Maiden released their double LP: Live After Death. Probably the greatest album I had ever heard to date and my buddy (Steve Anocibar) and I learned it cover to cover! That was the first learning boost I had and really sent me off running and my previous addiction became an obsession!

I later became corrupted by the thrash world when I bought Slayer's Hell Awaits [tape] and started learning that! Music couldn't get fast enough or heavy enough for me at that point! Anthrax, (early) Metallica, Exodus, Megadeth, Suicidal Tendancies, Venom, Cryptic Slaughter, Death Angel, Fates Warning, etc. were some of the bands that did it for me! This time period would define my playing for the rest of my life!

I joined the Army in 1990 and was sent to Germany where I met a great musician; Brett MacLean. This guy was GOOD! To this point, I really didn't know what a scale was and would just throw my fingers around hoping for the best. He got so annoyed listening to me one day that he pulled me aside and started showing me scales! My playing improved 100-fold! HE also introduced me to multitrack recording and I was off writing like a madman!!

Some years later I found Dream Theater and my playing improved even more! Unfortunately, I forgot what 4/4 was and joined the progressive world of music!

By the year 2000 I got my first real multitrack recorder (Korg D8), an Ibanez RG7420, and some other recording devices. I couldn't stop writing and recording!

All these events have defined my playing and after being introduced to the Varney Clan, I was heavily into writing instrumantal music and never got off on vocal tunes.

So here I am today! I had many opportunities to do something with my music, but all of them either slipped through my fingers or I was just too into what I was doing to care. It has always been a passion for me and I have always played for myself. Music was so therapeutic for me and I would get so wrapped up in it that the thought of having to conform to other influences or direction just annoyed me, I tried the band thing many times and it just didn't do it for me. I was a pain in the ass to work with! I had to have everything done a certain way and was very demanding!

So what we have left are a bunch of songs (missing hundreds of recordings from over the years) compiled and displayed on this website for you to listen to and hopefully enjoy! A lot of it is very sloppy, but keep in mind that I am always learning and my learning curve was to write material that was too difficult for me to play (I always wrote down my songs in tab and notation before recording it). Then learning it eventually becoming better at playing the weird stuff rolling around in my head!

So check out the music, enjoy, and take it for what it is: fun experimental songs written by a mad man!

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