Conquer

This started as an aggressive set of chords with good energy. I hammered out the core song, then Alec and I worked on the vibe and developed - Conquer

Blue Ocean

A song about striking out to new ground, the challenges therein, and having your dreams smashed. You end up picking up the broken pieces of your struggle and you build something new.

Around By The Creek

Never forget the exuberance of young love

We Go Astray

I’m kicking hay bales, Sad eyes cried today

Tears, Clear the view

But that’s What it do, like the young kids say

We go astray

The things you can’t see, invented the dark

All you’ve got, is that song in your heart

The Moon, glitters on black water, and we wallow, Seas apart . . .

Sad eyes cried today, and I’m kicking hay bales

That’s What it do, like the young kids say

We go astray . . .

Making Time

I recorded this melody with my cell phone in 2019. It started as a wholesome acoustic guitar finger picking session. Then it got inspired by the embellishments of story telling.

Shawn Sinohui on guitar & vocals with Alec Allard on drums

honeybee

One of those regular nights out at the bar turned special.

Shawn Sinohui on harmonica, guitar, and vocals with Alec Allard on drums

It's Not Easy - Acoustic in Spanish

Limited Edition

Indie Beach Tune

I call it Indie Beach because it feels free and independent, like walking on the beach with the one that you know is going to change your life. Once in a while you identify a certainty. Oddly enough these notes fell together in this way, because I let go.

Bombing Down Sunset Boulevard

Bombing Down Sunset is a glimpse into my early memories growing up in Los Angeles, CA. These include the stories my Mom would tell from her upbringing, and the lessons my Dad taught me.

An important thing to know about my mother is that she was severely burned in a house fire as a toddler. She was not supposed to be able to have children.

Well, she had three, and we stand everyday, grateful to be alive.

Drums by Brian Mikulich

Bass guitar by Mark Corradetti

more jams

Dark Alley Ways

Sliding down dark alley ways

That cruciferous mind of yours

Neon lights, bounce off, puddles of thought

Someone you don’t know, just splashed your gasoline rainbow

Neuro magnetic, electro sonic, waves in your brain

Sending your mind, right thru time

Neuro sonic, electro magnetic, waves in your brain

What are they sayin’ ?

Sliding down dark alley ways

That cruciferous mind of yours

Someone you don’t know, just splashed your gasoline rainbow

Neon lights, bounce off, puddles of thought.

Striking Out

I wrote this song in 2009 during a rough period of unemployment, lost love, and an empty wallet. I felt alone, depressed, and like I had struck out at life. But I knew I wasn't a hopeless cause. I just wanted to strike-out and get far away from my surroundings; leave everything behind, hop in my old black Cadillac Eldo and hit the Hwy; see where it would take me.

In 2020 I re-recorded these vocals here at my home studio. A lot has happened since I wrote this song, but I can still re-live the sentiment any time I want, and recall that the term 'Striking Out' has two meanings

Prototypes of Songs

Batang!

Oregon is beautiful, we spent a month on Mt Hood, and visited Multnomah Falls. I arranged some pictures from our trip to a song I wrote on guitar while there. I was exploring some fun chords and working on a slide, then I played them to a 3/4 time signature. When I got home I added some cow bell and recordings of birds singing in my backyard. Pretty fun, check it out!
Arizona birds singing to pictures of Oregon!

Tupac - Nothing to Lose

I've always felt a powerful energy from this song, like a karate kick. I'm struck by the struggle portrayed in it, and the strength found among conditions of desperation. Here, Alec is on drums and I play electric guitar.

Alone that Knight

In memory of Colonel Roy Knight and all the Skyraiders, warriors, and battle men of the Vietnam war who did not return.

"We found a fallen eagle on the hill where he landed, stranded. Time's encroached and covered up the crash. Lest we forget where we come from, our link to the past. Retrieve our man from the hill where he gave us all that he had. Blaze a trail right through the treetops! How soon is now? Because that's when it stops!"

(more lyrics to come, this is the next one I plan to take to completion)

Bay Beh - prototype for a song

Bay-beh, Bay-beh, when you coming to the flow, getting so behind, I never knew you would be mine.

Bay-beh, Bay-beh, how’d you leave my side, supposed to be in my life

Bay-beh, Bay-beh, when I seen you leave, I said it stole my heart and left my storm

I said, Bay-beh, Bay-beh, I can’t find you, in my house no more

Bay-beh, Bay-beh, I was looking around and looking at my soul, my soul is empty and I gave it all out.

Bay-beh, when you come back, meet with me in places, It’s a sign of life that I could be with you

Bay-beh, Bay-beh, Try to make things right, try to come down tonight

Bay-beh, Oh bay-beh, won’t ya give me one chance to try to make a chance, get us where we used to be, Romance!

Bay-beh, Oh bay-beh, you know I love the truth, and I never talk to anybody else, but, I would be with you!

Bay-beh, Oh my bay-beh, I see your life’s disguise, I see your face in the night sky

Bay-beh, Bay-beh, don’t leave me alone, walking the stones

Bay-beh, Bay-beh, ohh I can’t be alone, it walks like the stones, living inside, and that’s like being alone

Bay-beh, Bay-beh, as I see you next, when the time comes.

Bay-beh, Bay-beh, come back around, see me sometime, everybody knows your name in this town

Bay-beh, Bay-beh, when we gonna face up to life? spend another Sunday and kick out the strife!

Bay-beh, I said bay-beh, you can’t leave me alone, you can’t leave me as cold as bones

Bay-beh, Oh bay-beh, won’t you come back to see where we were being, the things we were moving, the things we were building

Oh bay-beh, Oh, my bay-beh, you gotta come back someday, you gotta come back, finish the business that we had

Bay-beh, Bay-beh . . .

The General Flare of Things

Rustic Rock Music Studio

This is my home music studio; equipped with guitars, keyboard, midi drums, mics, speakers, sound-proofing, and a computer running Pro Tools.

I record vocals, guitar tracks, and percussion here. However, for mixing in the sweet drum tracks, guitar leads, and bass lines, I go to a recording house in downtown Phoenix, Arizona.

Instruments & Equipment

KRK monitors are raised on stands and flank the MIDI drum set which is tucked into the closet; sliding doors removed!

In the foreground is a MIDI keyboard, and to the right of that is a 10 channel mixing board: the Mackie Pro Fx, which acts as my audio interface and feeds ProTools audio engineering software all of the killer sounds that we make.

Audio Engineering

Pro Tools Studio is running on the right screen for multi-track recording, applying effects, mixing and editing. The screen is on a floating arm so I can see it from anywhere in the studio as I record. WavePad is on the laptop screen for playing back bounced files and generating MP3s.

Ibanez Safari Wood Guitar

This guy gets a workout most days in the studio. It's an electro acoustic guitar with XLR and 1/4" outputs, it has an EQ, chorus, and phase matching. It also has a unique sound given the Safari wood it is made from. It's a great 6 string, but I've got my eyes on an amazing 12 string that will make my sound huge and wide open

Singer

In all of this creativity, storytelling, music making, and recording, the one thing I've struggled with most is singing. Singing on key, in pitch, in tune, and so on.
I tried hiring singers, but that's even harder to find the sound and sentiment you want compared to, say, a hired drummer. The voice is intimate and personal.

After 2 years of learning how the human vocal system works and much practice, I've developed my baritone voice that was there all along. I won't be winning any awards for my singing, but I'm able to seat the feeling of the song and drive the story home

I recorded this in the bathtub shower, for the reverb. Experimental sound check. This is part of a song that's about lost love and traipsing along those old streets.

Stay in touch

Learn about my designs on thought, dreams, machinations, and mind experiments.

Shawn
Sinohui