This is my website dedicated to playing guitar.

Name: Shawn Keeney

Age: 32

Location: Monmouth County, NJ

Musical bio:

I started playing guitar when I was 13, inspired by the bands that I saw on MTV. I took lessons for a couple of years with an instructor named Randy Rhoades (different spelling!), who taught me to read music and music theory. I learned different styles beyond rock and metal, including classical, blues, and jazz. My main influence at that time was Metallica, and I learned most of their songs from Master of Puppets and Ride the Lightning, spending hours in my room jamming along to those tapes. Back then, I lived in York County, PA, and there wasn’t much to do, except go out in the garage and crank up the amplifier. Sometimes, I would go over to my one neighbor’s house who played drums, and we would work on writing some songs, but things never really materialized.

In 1992 when I was 16, I went abroad to Spain for a summer and was exposed to a whole new set of influences. I ended up joining a band over there and we played a show in front of 50-60 people. We played a mix of American, British, and Spanish rock songs. I returned to Spain the next winter for two more weeks, and played with the same band again for one more show.

While I was in high school I also played guitar in the jazz band for three years, which was actually a fun experience. We would go and play in competitions against other schools, and usually did pretty well.

After high school, I went to college at Bucknell University to study engineering. This was back in the earlier nineties and everyone was into grunge and alternative. I also started getting into some of the more psychedelic bands during this time. During my first two years of college I played with a couple of bands at frat parties. I was forced to take a year off from school and had to start working full time. I then went back and finished up college while working, so for the next two years, guitar playing took a back seat. Because I was broke, I regretfully ended up selling my electric guitars and amplifier, but I still held on to my acoustic.

After graduating college in 1999, I found a job in New Jersey and wound up living in Brick for a year, then moved to Brielle. I decided to start getting back into playing again, so I went out and bought a cheap Epiphone Les Paul and a practice amp and started looking for a band to play with.

It took over a year, but in early 2003 I found a group in the Tom’s River area that eventually called itself Litany. However, that only lasted for about 4 or 5 months because the other dudes in the band just weren’t dedicated enough. After that, I found another band called No Such Thing. I joined them and learned all their songs in about a week and played a show with them at the Saint on Labor Day weekend in 2003. Unfortunately, the bassist and singer got in to a fight over a chick and the band broke up temporarily.

In 2004 I found a singer named Vinnie Jamele and a bassist named Charlie Rodriguez and we ended up forming a band called Break the Hold. This was an effort lasted for about two years as we struggled to find a permanent drummer for the line-up. We played a total of five shows during this time. We focused most of our effort on original material that was a mix of metal, punk, and rock. We also threw in a couple of covers by Alice in Chains, Fuel, and Seether.

As of today, I’m still looking to continue playing music, but it has been difficult to find people who share the same goals and interests that I do. Obviously I have dreams of rock and roll grandeur, but realistically I know that the odds are against me. The ideal situation would be to find a group of intelligent, creative people with whom to explore new sonic landscapes without worrying about any kind of self-imposed musical boundaries.

Here is a list of most of the covers songs that I know how to play: songlist

Update: 6-19-2008

Things have been going pretty slow on the musical front. I’ve jammed a few times with Vinnie and Jake in the past couple of months, but it’s been hard to get time set aside to get together. I tried out for a cover band called Eleectric Revelation back in early April, but didn’t make the cut. I was then going to try out for another cover band called Soap Box Radio, but I couldn’t get time to go audition during the week because they only rehearse on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So, in the meantime to keep my chops up, I’ve been making recordings of myself playing covers and posting them up on YouTube. Every once in a while I get a burst of inspiration and manage to invent a new riff or song idea. I guess I can’t complain, since I chose to have a normal job so that I can support a family instead of being a starving musician.

Here are some sample demo tracks that I recorded with Break the Hold. They’re not perfect, but I think they give a good impression of the sound we were trying to achieve.

(right click, save as, to download songs)

Update: 12-30-2007

I’ve been playing with a singer named Alexandra since March and a drummer named Andrew since July. We’ve managed to get several original songs written and recorded. Here are the latest demo recordings that we’ve made.

in the meantime

My YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/locoberzerker

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/locoberzerker

To send me an e-mail click here:

locoberzerker@comcast.net

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