I want to start at the beginning.
I can’t remember when I first wanted to play guitar but, I remember getting my first one when I was 13 right before i moved to Louisiana. We bought a white and cream squire strat and then went to Stewart’s as my dad sang Brian Adams( “Got my first real six-string….bought it at the five and dime”). I had absolutely no idea what i was doing and didn’t get lessons (also living in La for my first year and completely alone i learned practically nothing and almost warped the neck after tuning it way to high.), I just bought guitar magazines and learned from tab. Even though I loved Nirvana more than anything, I still never learned about even the most basic power chords for years, but in the meantime I found Sonic Youth and fell in love with the Avant-garde dissonant style of the early records, that along with their crazy tunings and noise and I found something for me, alone. After being in a highschool Nirvana cover band, I started a band with people who had never played before and wrote songs using whatever I wanted. No rules or even experience. It was amazing. Well, while it felt amazing it sounded terrible. I think I reached a real good direction by the time I moved back to NJ, but since I had just discovered “Punk Rock”(nothing progressive, just cliche stuff like Ramones, NOFX and all the fat wreck chords bands). I forgot all about arty, creative stuff and focused primarily on loud and fast as priority. I got into really cheesy pop-punk stuff(with the exception of Get up Kids and Lifetime though). I didn’t know anything about theory or scales or anything really, so I used power chords and basic Major chords. I played alot of bass over the next few years until Site 3 broke up and I started writing acoustic solo songs then that were simple pop songs (you can hear them on http://www.bandcamp.com/johnasaccone under Pre-dino days). I played out a little bumming shows off friends’ bands but I still looked for a band. I wanted something different, I was so lucky to find Dino Velvet. Not only were they all such amazing musicians and the songs unlike anything I had ever heard, but they introduced me to some of the music that has made my life so much better over the years. Music that I will listen to for the rest of my life, music that has inspired me more than I ever thought possible and does every day. In that band I found the freedom that I had before I learned anything but with the focus of experience and education that I had never had. I tried to experiment with different time signatures and slightly dissonant stuff with my acoustic outings after Dino split, but I was too depressed and instead gave up on music for my other passion, Visual art. I didn’t write or play for years after that. Then a few years ago I got the itch something bad and I knew I needed to make music again, but this time I was gonna do it right. I thought that since I had done everything: the acoustic thing, the full band thing, the background band member, punk band, pop band, metalcore band, grunge band, I would get a pedal board together (having never used anything more than a distortion pedal and a tuner) and learn how to use it so that I could make some music that encompasses all that I know how to do with all that I can do. I just want to learn to make music that I have never heard before. I hope that I can do something that I can be proud of, but I willing to wait. I hope you guys all are too. Thanks for coming to the site.
http://www.johnasaccone.bandcamp.com
new recordings will be up soon. I’m gonna do some live home recordings to replace the “Moleskine Musings” recordings that are up.
thanks to Bobby Bates @ http://bobbybatesphotography.pixieset.com for the awesome shoot!
John A. Saccone 