Saturday, November 21, 2009

Time Of My Life

What beautilful day..gettin' ready to see the sun rise in the town in which I grew up in a long, long time. It's funny, I have appreciated the sunrise and set all over Americe, but I haven't done so here in a long while. I have a long day, I work in gthe morning through nitetime and I have never been happier. I made some friends last night from Australia and had a really great time. I busted my ass yesterday, coulda got gouchy , but I just pushed. Now it's today and I am supremely graqteful that I am here. Nothing like sitting on a brick wall and feeling it shake like rubber. That's the kind of thing that happened 2 me in L.A. that made me realise how elastic life can be. It's the little things, the simple things that keep me moving. Just like the cigars from NOLA..."KEEP MOVING". I feel lucky....I cant type...I have work....
1love
tillorilly

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

A Dear Friends Loss

This week a very good friend of mine and mentor lost her only 7 year old daughter after a 2 1/2 year battle with cancer. My heart goes out to her and her family and I am and have been humbled by my friends selflessness and strength through this very difficult time. We never know why life throws what it throws at us and while I have tried to be the best friend that I can throughout this circumstance, I honestly have felt that it was not my place to advise through this. I mean, I have never experienced any kind of battle like this with a child of my own, so who am I? Frequently I have been dicouraged by my own problems in life and I have been reminded in the perseverence of my good friend and her daughter that one must pick up the pieces and tread forward enjoying the time that we have with the people who we care about, because we may not have tomorrow with them. Throughout all of this my friend has struggled to stay positive, but she was. Through one of the single most difficult things that I have seen a person endure, both her and her daughter maintained their grace and smiles, when I know that it was not the easiest thing to do. As we move forward in our lives I want to encourage everyone to be grateful for the people who love them and from whom they are loved. Try your best and enjoy the moments, even when they if difficult, for life is not something that is guarenteed, but it is a gift that we never know how long we may keep. My heart goes out to Theresa and her family. I don't know if she realizes how admired she is by myself and so many people who's lives have been touched by her and her daughter. My thoughts and prayers are with you and I must make it known that it is and will always be a privilege to have you in my life!

THANK YOU

~Greg

Sunday, November 15, 2009

"The Ether" Patience and Bula




Last winter I when I was in Rhode Island I had a breakup with the girl I was seeing, the economy was horrible, as was the weather and thanks to the help of great friends, I hopped on an airplane and flew to San Francisco where I would have one of the most interesting adventures of my life.

I got off of the plane and headed to the Santa Cruz mountains where I stayed in an apartment attached to my friends house under the giant Redwood trees of Northern California. Once in Santa Cruz, I quickly met up with a good great musician and better friend from New Orleans, Patience. Patience had just gotten finished playing bass in his band THE OMEGA PROJECT and after leaving his HIPHOP crew JEALOUS MONK in New Orleans, he was hungry for more hip hop so he had decided he was going to make a solo album, but wasn't sure how. He had been working in bars in Santa Cruz, just him, his acoustic guitar and his rhymes aggressively searching for beats when he met another good friend of mine Brandon AKA Bula.

Brandon was also on a search for self fulfilment in Santa Cruz and was making Hip Hop beats, EXACTLY what Patience needed, so they put some money together with the goal of creating and entire HIP HOP album from scratch. They slowly but surely built their own homemade studio right in their home on the East Side of Santa Cruz, by the beach.

I also was on a self discovery journey, after a minor falling out with some friends, I ended up staying at Patience and Brandons house where we spent our days hustling and many long philosophical nights talking about life and goals and manifesting our dream, accepting nothing less than what we knew what we were put here on earth to do. I was impressed with Brandons dedication, every night after working long hours and independently working in Real Estate Brandon would sit at his computer and create beats, constantly building the building blocks for what would one day be an entire album.

Patience was stoked, he had his beat man and soon he would plug in his guitar, making unique sounds that only he makes and then Brandon would mix em and match 'em laying the foundation for what would be some great music. We were all going through struggles at this time last year, the economy was bad and we were learning how to be independent men and our long philosophical talks soon turned into writing sessions where we would skate around on the skate board in the garage as Patience came up with ideas, soon our ideas turned into words and our words turned into songs and before we knew it we were in the homemade sound booth laughing it up and making music.

It was so fun and such a relief from the stresses of every day life, funny things would happen, I remember one night I was just nervously throwing magnets together in my hand, Brandon heard the sound and the next thing you know my magnet noise was a key piece of one of his beats. That's how it all happened, it just happened. Soon my life would take me in a different direction, there was some things that I needed to do in my own life and we would part ways. There was a fear that the album would not get completed, we all have our problems and life's stresses and struggles were weighing on on my good buddy Patience pretty hard. After a stay in the hospital and escaping a few of life's snares, Patience picked himself up and decided it was time to hammer out the rest of the album. I am so glad that he did.

I made many phone calls to Santa Cruz after I left, encouraging my good friends to keep it up and complete what they had set out to do, assuring them that I would share what was created with all of the energy in me if it could just be completed and Patience did what he set out to do, he picked up the pen and then the microphone and fueled them with all of the energy that was giving him pain and grief and turned them into his masterpiece "THE ETHER"

Great memories I have with those cats, smoking Cali green and making up our own EVERYTHING. We use our own slang and have our own words like "Hef" and "Biggu" and "Chuci" If you are in our circle, you know all about "HEF" which is our word for being in THE ZONE and MANIFESTING DREAMS. Its a fun word that my brother and I created while in Georgia that just stuck with our crew. "Biggu" is HEF personified and also a greeting...sorta like Buddha in a way and "Chuci's" are chicks...and sometimes "Chuci" is a derogatory word used to insult a friend, sorta they way people use "bitch". We had fun and soon everyone in our crew was talking this new language and it was carried to the other coast and now, put on wax.

Patience is now in Hawaii, he finally got home to the place where he feels complete. Brandon just got his real estate license and he is aggressively making beats and music which are available for sale or lease if anyone is interested, catch him on the way up cuz he is good and they are selling. I am in Florida, where I am putting together some pieces of my life that were left broken for so long. The 10 track album has just been mastered and the Davinci has been completed and when I listened to it yesterday it drew a picture in my life of all of the memories that we created this past year in Santa Cruz, good and bad. I feel privileged to have played a small part in the creation of "The Ether" while some people have photos of their experiences, for the rest of my life I have an album of song that will always bring me back to those times and hopefully one day be heard blaring through the radio on a oldies station, it will definitely be a staple in my IPOD.

Myspace pages and websites are being updated and things are being prepped for the album to be delivered to the higher ups in the music industry, but while it is for us, it is also for you. A skilled fusion of many different genres of music there is a song on "The Ether" for just about anyone,. Take a glimpse into our lives this past year and sit back, roll one up and let the music take your problems away. You can hear some of the master tracks on my myspace page . www.myspace.com/tillyactor and you can hear some of the original edits and soon the album @ www.myspace.com/ahonui777 Also, I have set u a page for downloading a few of the master tracks on myspace //www.myspace.com/508763350 Please add my this page as a friend and download the music and share it, this is a Tilly's friend only page and it's for my friends so that hopefully you will spread the word!

~1 love
~tilly

ALOHA OMEGA!!