march 25, 2025. 10:49 PM

an adventure in (making) tub ring (sheet music).

summary: it’s hard as hell, they aren’t really a transcribable-to-sheet-music kind of band. also, this entry went kind of off-topic. sorry to everyone who genuinely wanted read just sheet music stuff.

for context, my only “proper” musical training was when i was getting accordion classes back in 2019, so it’s been a hot minute, I also only restarted actively reading sheet music last summer. And I may be a bass player but I still cannot figure out a bass clef for the life of me.
 Now you’re wondering, why Tub Ring specifically? To which I can give two answers, the short one: why not, the longer one: why not but with a backstory.

If that wasn’t clear already, I love this band, been listening to them for ages etc. etc. The good part is that, since 2020, the community around the band has been growing a bit, so it’s much easier to find info and other fans and all that. I’m currently in the discord, even if i don’t talk, because i’m awkward as hell, and i don’t wanna leave (because i Lurk) Again like I did a few years back when it had, like, 10 members at most.
This is relevant, i swear, it’s context to my backstory.

I’m kind of an outcast to the general tub ring community and please read that as “i don’t get the info at the same time others do” (i know i’m emo but not That emo). this is sadly going to be Very relevant in a minute. I’m also Not a Facebook user, so I don’t really check their page unless I’m looking for pictures or videos.

(More context) It took me until October 2023 to get back into bands in general, also. As from late 2021 up until the date i just said, I was listening almost exclusively to musicals. And even then my band fixations were less on my big 3 (Tub Ring, Stolen Babies, Self) but more on Fall Out Boy, Hawthorne Heights, and They Might Be Giants. Yes I know the transition is wild but it’s My music, I’ll listen to what I want.
 I feel like it’s also relevant to add that I kind of convinced myself Tub Ring was over for good. How, you ask? Well, uh, since the last song on Catastrophes is called “Leaving”, I just kind of assumed it would be their last record ever.

Anyway, we’re now in late September 2024 and Tub Ring’s dropping new singles, much to my joy. For whatever reason, I decided to check the discord to find information… I found nothing except Rob saying he and Kevin got drunk with Patrick Stump once, oh, and guy saying there was more info on their Facebook. I didn’t even know Rob was on the server!? But to the Facebook I went.
 It was fun, you know! To see that one of my favorite bands started putting out new stuff and planned a new record for the first time in years. They were actually the first ones to do so in years! Last time a band from my big 3/4/5/whatever put out an album or a single was in 2020. So I scrolled and pieced together the album cover, and I scrolled more. Beaming with joy and all that, you get it...
Until I read the post about Jason’s passing.

It was... very unexpected. And it's not that it's the first time I learn someone from a band I love passed away, I do actually tend to "joke" a little (this is how i cope) about how i have some sort of curse over me making it so that, with every band I discover, i'll find out about someone's death, but this is the first time it happens and it's, like, recent? If that makes sense? For all other bands I know, it happened 15-20+ years ago. It was... difficult to process then and honestly still is now.
 I was also a little upset at the fact that I spent the months before that making an Hawthorne Heights archive, seeing posts of people being crushed by learning about Casey’s passing months after it happened, both because he meant a lot to them but also because they felt bad about not knowing sooner… and The Exact Situation was happening with me and Jason right now.
Shit, dude. He’s literally the reason why I play on a 5-strings bass. but, uh, yeah. That... happened.

If you look at my most played TR song from that period, it’s Numbers, to which you say “Isn’t that just your ultimate favorite TR song”, to which i say, I know, but for whatever reason something about it always made me very emotional, has been for a few years now.
It wasn’t until the end of the months that I got the idea for a sort of beta version of what was supposed to be this entry’s topic: I was going to learn the Numbers’ bassline and post my bass cover of the song on Jason’s birthday in memory of him.

If you check my YouTube channel, you’ll see I never posted any bass cover… for two main reasons. The first one being that, at some point, I just decided that picking up the bassline for that song wasn’t hard enough and I would transcribe the entire song to sheet music, the second one being that, as I just said, the bassline’s hard. Thankfully, my dad (professional bass player) was there to help me, especially for the slapped part during the bridge/breakdown of the song, except he wrote that part on a piece of paper that i lost and only found again at the beginning of the month.
 Jason was born in February... i’ll let you do the math but I think the date’s passed.

So, with my newly re-acquired notes, I just kept making the sheet music. The bassline is completed now (I mean, mostly complete, but I know how every part goes) and I’m only missing every single other instrument 🥳
To explain in percentages how it’s going:

Vocals -> 90%, missing the breakdown. Screaming is hard to transcribe because it’s not really specific notes, is it
Synth -> 20%
Piano -> 50%, thankfully very repetitive. I did figure out those opening chords in the end, all good.
Guitar -> 10%, I may have one but I’m not skilled enough to tell the notes/chords yet. also i think they’re double tracked.
Bass -> 95%, only missing the finale variation
Drums -> 15%, I’m not a drummer. I’ve never touched a drumkit. I don’t know how I’m doing this but I’m doing it

In short, this is gonna take a while.
But I can just focus on the bassline for now and maybe put something out for Drake Equation’s 24th anniversary? We’ll see. I’m so fixated on this song I have about 300 ideas about things I could do with it per day, and I’m only skilled enough to do about 2 of those.

Last night, I decided to take a little break cause, even if i Never get tired of the songs I listen to on loop (writing this at 4:30PM and have been listening to Psychology is BS for about an hour by now), i did kind of want to transcribe something other than Numbers. It does get pretty unsatisfying to not be able to figure out the parts to a song.
And that break was actually transcribing ANOTHER Tub Ring song, my other favorite from DE: She’s The Pro. Which I recently learned is the song Kevin and Rob hates the most ??? But anyway. I just thought the part where they both sing would be kind of fun to put down.
SPOILER: NO ITS NOT. ITS NOT. SCREAMING IS NOT FUN TO TRANSCRIBE. But, you know what, I’ll give it a try again when I get home and we’ll see how it goes. (9:30pm edit: i did not do it)

 Back to Numbers, since this is what I was supposed to talk about. The song has one main advantage and it’s that it’s super repetitive, whether it’s in the song structure, or the instruments, with very little to no variation in vocals, they only change in the finale. the bass also stay relatively the same, mostly playing a same line more or less smoothly, except during the bridge/breakdown where it just gets really crazy. the piano/synth play the same thing throughout, same thing goe for guitar, and i… assume the drums too? i gotta admit i never took the time to fully listen to the isolated drums, be right back. edit: they change during the bridge/breakdown and have two different parts during either, actually, pretty cool, and obviously they change during the finale.

Also, for anyone wondering, here’s how I split up the song parts:

 Little fun fact about the bassline, uh, you know how I said my dad helped me figure it out? Yeah, well, the guy’s been playing bass for 45 years and was still like “Damn, that’s a hard part”.
Fun fact 2! In the TR 2020 live streams, Rob says that he plays in major while Jason plays in minor… this is true! Rob plays in C Major and Jason in C minor :] That’s it, that’s the end of the fun fa

To be honest, I think Numbers is one of the few songs from their “early” (yes, early is in quotes because I consider what the band sees as demos as full fledged albums) stuff that is easily transcribable. Like, obviously, all their music can be transcribed (sort of. Stares at In The Future), but some songs just work better than others, until The Great Filter at least, then I’d say all songs are super easy to transcribe since they get a lot less insane.

I don’t really know how to wrap up this entry, I kind of strayed away from the main topic. But this is my blog, so who cares. I guess i’ll just stop here for today, thanks for reading!

march 16, 2025. 5:40 AM

thursdaysteindaobloom: AN INSANE EVENING.

I’ve been listening to post-hardcore/emo bands for, what? 4 years now? Something like that, more or less. and with listening to these genre often comes the fact that i’ll simply never be able to see any of the bands i like live, mostly reasons such as they disbanded 20 years ago, they don’t play shows, they do play shows but never near me, or when they do it’s way too expensive, they’re on hiatus, or the band members sucks, and i could honestly go on.

In october last night, i was minding my business, watching some instagram stories before bed as I usually do, and i proceed to do something i usually Never do: I watch an ad. CRAZY I KNOW. Mind you, it was a Silverstein ad, and I love these guys.

i thought of an album at first but NO, it’s even better, it’s a Europe tour! FINALLY! I think to myself, “there’s no way they’ll play in paris”, but LO AND BEHOLD, THEY DO HAVE A PARIS DATE! Now I think, “cool, ok ok, let’s stay calm, who’s opening for them?”

...
...
...

See, that same summer, I was watching TV with my dad and, for whatever reason, he decided to look at the Hellfest reruns Arte had in stock. I was like “shit, man, I don’t really know or like any of these” until the name ‘Thursday’ caught my eye, “there’s no way it’s them”, I thought, it was.

Cue me being honestly kind of upset that one of my top favorite bands played in my country for the FIRST TIME IN 20 YEARS, MIND YOU, and I missed them. And not only did I miss them but I had no idea they even played there in the first place. (Now, realistically speaking, even if i did know, i wouldn’t have been able to see them since I was seeing IDKHOW in Paris the day before… Paris being about 8 hours away from wherever the hell the Hellfest happens, it would have been highly unlikely for me to be able to fit both in my calendar.)

I got tickets as soon as the sale opened and I was hyped. So hyped I tried building my second semester timetable around that specific evening… it failed. it failed because this one practice class I dreamed of fell on wednesdays, and I really wanted that class you know? So I just decided to handle both.

To explain the name of the entry, I found that saying “the thursday and silverstein show” too long to say, so I just. Shortened it. to Thursdaystein. the “daobloom” comes from ‘The Callous Daoboys’ and “Bloom”, who are the other two opening bands from the Europe leg of the tour.

And soon enough came the long awaited Thursdaystein wednesday… going queuing at 1PM-2PM because I’m crazy just like that, and French people usually tend not to queue too early, or at least that was the case for Underoath, nobody else was there until 1 hour - 30 minutes before doors opened.

For the people who rarely go to shows and don’t understand why I’d go so early if the doors only opened at 6, just know I really wanted a barricade spot ‘cause it’s not everyday i get to see two of my favorite bands on stage. i NEEDED to be in front of that damn stage.

I met up with a friend of a friend there, they were super cool and I’m very happy we got to properly meet :D and I got to meet more people in the queue, which was awesome. Honestly, everyone was super cool, I didn’t know Thursday/Silverstein fans were so chill, what the hell. if you guys are reading this, YOU ROCK!!!! and also let’s talk more, ok? thank you

When we got in, I DID manage to get a barricade spot LETS REJOICE!!!! And I got super hyped by the preshow playlist LMAO
I was just chatting with my Newly Acquired Friends when I realized a Motion City Soundtrack song was playing (it was Everything Is Alright, which I love, but I could say that about pretty much all of their songs) which basically turned me into the “:O !!!!!!!!!” emote. A few minutes later, as I was going to the merch stand and realizing I’d only brought enough money for a hoodie and missing another 5 bucks for a t-shirt, a… familiar guitar line started playing. We aren’t here for the preshow playlist so i’ll keep it short, but to describe my emotions in the moment: HOLY SHIT THEY’RE PLAYING OHIO IS FOR FUCKING LOVERS.

The show started and, let’s talk about the opening bands a little because they ROCKED! I was literally blown away by both of them. And now, I listened to TCD a little bit before the show and I absolutely loved their stuff, but, man, live they’re even BETTER. The bass player was awesome, what the hell. Discovering Bloom live was really nice too! One small issue: it was my 1st time wearing my fancy concert earplugs and I put too strong of a filter in them so I couldn’t hear the music very well :( !! I fixed it for the other bands, but MAN. There’s always something about me and the 1st opening band and something happening so I can’t be 100% focusing on the show, it’s kind of insane. I’m still thinking about how I genuinely thought me and the singer would hit our head together when I was headbanging, hE LOOKED SO CLOSE.

After TCD’s set, it was time for Thursday :D !!!! I was so excited.
I’m honestly still so happy about seeing them live I keep having trouble to fully express how amazing it was but basically: the entire set was insane. I got to snap some cool pics of Geoff with my Powershot! Which I’m super happy about :D
So many songs I never thought I’d see played live are being played in front of my eyes and I’m losing my mind. I know I said something similar in this SOTW but getting to see Steve play some of my favorite guitar lines was genuinely crazy and I’m so happy i got my own guitar after all this time so I can play them too !!! !!! And I sang so hard during Understanding I genuinely thought I was gonna choke but ALL GOOD, ALL BUENO. And I got to hear Paris In Flames while in Paris, dude, how cool is that.

Ah, also, since I have green hair, blue lights make me Glow. and boy was i Glowing. I wonder if that’s why Stuart (on bass) was smiling at me. Cause there’s just some weird kid glowing in the middle of the crowd.
Those who know know: Geox, le chanteur qui respire.

Silverstein had my most-favoritest MCS song (The Future Freaks Me Out) on their preshow playlist!
Then I proceeded to realize that I only knew a small fraction of their discography… whoops. I mainly listen to their early stuff but listened to their new album, Antibloom, a few days before the show (amount of time small enough that I wasn’t able to memorize any lyrics), so I couldn’t really sing along until about halfway through their set. AND I STILL DIDN’T KNOW ALL THE LYRICS TO MY HEROINE OR OTHER SONGS FROM DTW, I AM A FRAUD. I’VE HAD THIS ALBUM ON MY PHONE SINCE SUMMER 2021.

But MAN, (you’re never gonna guess what i’m gonna say) THEY WERE AWESOME. It’s always wild to see artists play songs on stage that I’ve listened to for ages, it was just crazy, they were so good.

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS!!! (still insane about this) Picture me this, the pit is going wild, everyone’s kind of getting pushed around. I’m trying to keep my balance so I’m resting my hand on the speaker in front of me. Suddenly I feel A Hand over mine, which is weird. Ok so, basically that is Paul (on lead guitar) giving me a pick Directly In My Hand. WHAT !!!!!! Everyone say thank you Paul Marc wtf

The end of the show was really fun too, people i met in the queue went on stage and danced with the band… a casual epic finale, y’know!!

Thank you to everyone who gave me setlists & stuff, that was genuinely so nice of you !!! <3 I will ramble about that show until I’m not able to speak anymore… or type in this case, i think!