The Warning - Escape The Mind EP day 1 of 5 - Take Me Down

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Day 1 of my 5 day dive into the songs from The Warning's debut EP Escape The Mind, performed live from various concerts.

[@reactionsaccount3955]

I am really enjoying your journey through The Warning's catalog. Wish I could discover them all over again, but as this is not possible, I am doing vicariously through you. 😀

[@don-music]

Thank you! I'm happy to be your alternate universe self through this journey!

[@KansaSCaymanS]

Thanks for breaking down the little details for us non-musicians. I was always impressed by their earliest song-writing, but appreciate how you point out the little details that make them so impressive. Looking forward to the rest of this series! 😎👍

[@don-music]

Thank you!! Yes they appear to have never sluffed off in their details of either writing the parts or performing those details live. Amazing group

[@jemezangler908]

Nice analysis Don! Thanks!

[@don-music]

Thank you Jemez!!

[@professorg9424]

Hey Don! Great first video in a series, I look forward to 46 more.

[@don-music]

hey! 46.... I suppose so! Actually by the time I've done 46 I'll hopefully have intertwined reactions to their news songs released along the way as well as their still to be released live concert videos.... so I have a feeling I will be a busy bunny exploring this maze underground

[@Captain_Kirk116]

Hey Don, I love that you're going through and doing an in depth breakdown of this EP. I love the groove in this song and it still baffles my mind to think of 9 year old Ale writing this song, amazing! The way Pau especially talks about this EP now is hilarious to me cuz she describes it as a bunch of little experiments but it's still very impressive. Great review and analysis as always🤘!

[@don-music]

Hey kirk… yea Pau and i think ale can be a bit dismissive of their past music, but that have very high standards and also, for them, it was a lifetime ago. For us, specially for newer fans like myself, this material of just part of their excellent catalog, and is worthy of the same praise as their most legendary songs.

[@mt4design2]

Don, great idea to go through these early songs and give perspective on the depth of composition. I think Ale is a prodigy. First, she began playing classical piano after her sisters and they say she is the best on the keys. Second, Pablo had her playing jazz scales and improvising very, very young. He himself is an amazing and innovative bassist. Third, Ale wrote this in her second language and the lyrics and concept behind them are very mature for a 9 year old. All around fearless and impressive. Looking forward to the next.

[@don-music]

Thank you! Agreed on all counts about Ale! Good point about her piano playing skills… another demonstration of how she learned so quickly and mastered things convincingly… prodigy does seem like an appropriate term. And fearless to this day, the support person for her sisters who wear their emotions more outwardly.

[@d4anzig]

I have watched this dakota bar set dozens and dozens of times in the last few years it never fails to put a permanent smile on my face thanx for giving your insights to this masterpiece! long live the villareal sisters!! ⚡⚡⚡

[@don-music]

Thank you! Ya Dakota bar is their first really well recorded and excellent performed show. It also seems to be one of the later ones where Ale played short scale bass before moving to the Spector, and I have to say that her tone and accuracy in this performance are second to none

[@pablosartor6715]

Great analysis Don! These siters are overwhelmingly talented!! How a 9 yo girl can write a song like this?. Amazing! Ala is a bass playing machine human style and also she has perfect pitch! Viva The Warning!! ⚡⚡⚡

[@don-music]

It's astounding how much talent there is with these three! ROCK ON!

[@TeemarkConvair]

first time hearing this,, and it is right there with ANY of their songs,,this is GREAT!

[@don-music]

Isn’t it awesome!!!? It could be on their current tour and album… love it!

[@DadQuixote7]

Don you are so right!!! This song is really great! I would love to hear Pau sing Escape The Mind with her mature voice. That would be awesome. Love this format. I would watch you break down ALL of their songs!

[@don-music]

DadQuixote thank you so much! Yes i too would love to hear them sing these songs now, but i suspect the effort taken to relearn them with everything else they are doing would make it a pretty slim chance…. But they really would go over well to both old fans and as fresh material for new listeners

[@DadQuixote7]

@Don-Music agreed. I mean have you seen their last 5 shows? They just keep getting better. The energy is through the roof. I'm constantly impressed by how perfectly they play while jumping around so much. The new song keeps sounding better too. Can't wait to see them on stage in the UK opening for Muse.

[@don-music]

Totally! I’ve been watching Rudy’s live streams of the concerts

[@jluisg622]

Cuando naces con el talento ,trabajas duro y lo desarrollas en forma honesta el resultado final es que resultas ser el mejor trio de rock del 2023 si es The Warning

[@don-music]

totally! ROCK AND ROLL!

[@TimberWolf762]

My favorite from their earlier stuff.

[@don-music]

Hi TW! Thanks - yea it is one of my favorites also!

[@marcsangiuliano4273]

I’m a huge fan of the Warning and I didn’t know any of this information about the EP. I also didn’t know much about you and all the instruments you play. REALLY enjoyed this video and can’t wait for the next video from the EP. The details about the song writing, the instruments, skills and performance is exactly what I want to know and you deliver that better than anyone!

[@don-music]

Hi Marc, wow, thank you so much for your kind words! I adore this EP and I'm really happy that I've found performances of the songs that showcase the skills of The Warning both as songwriters and performers. It's making me realize how the current success of The Warning was inevitable with such an astounding debut, regardless of their ages at the time of writing these songs. I'm thinking that I record do a video of a song where I'm playing various instruments, maybe a cover of something by The Warning. I did a bass cover of animosity, but the reason I don't sing The Warning stuff is that I can't sing as high as they do... but it sure would be fun!

[@spaceknave]

Pretty damn good for a first song. I became aware of them only a couple months after Mayday was released and began slowly working my way back in time, afraid I’d hit that point where it started sounding clearly amateurish simply due to their age. I never found that point. Of course they sounded a lot younger, but those songs. Holy shit.

[@don-music]

Holy @#$% indeed! I 100% agree. Really, aside from the physical voices being younger, which is obviously unavoidable, there was nothing at all lacking in any way from this performance, and it is somewhat better than most of the songs on many of the albums by major bands that I've loved through my life.

[@dariosatira8170]

Great Program Don

[@don-music]

Thank you Dario!

[@andgar923]

Hello my friend, great vid as always. I think your detailed analysis of their technique and talent will be more essential as their popularity grows. A group of naysayers will hate on them and claim they don’t deserve their success, that they suck and can’t play (a small minority already exists). Your vids will instrumental at educating the newer fans and critics. Even we learn or appreciate new aspects thanks to your insights. Anyone can do ‘reaction’ vids, but few can do analytical/technical breakdowns such as yourself. Great insight and specially at differentiating the difference between a technical prodigy and a prodigy that makes highly listenable artist that is also sacrificing their technical individual prowess for the sake of the song.

[@andgar923]

Forgive my bad grammar and sentence structure😂

[@don-music]

wow, thank you andgar! That is truly kind of you. I appreciate your response and feedback always. ROCK ON!

[@don-music]

@@andgar923 hahaha all good dude

[@franciscodiaz183]

Thank you, Don-Music. As you know, I'm not a musician, but as Clint Eastwood said in his role as Dirty Harry, "Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one" (www.youtube.com/watch?v= D2_AiQLCb3U). Of course, I am not the exception. Regarding Ale, as Pau said in his masterclass (kzbin.info/www/bejne/fX6lqmeviJ1phbs min: 42:55), "Ale, my sister, she's a machine. It scares me, I don 't understand how she can be so on time all the time, she won't get of time, ever". As Pau later adds and Dany has also said, Ale stares at them every time they make a mistake. Pau and Dany have also told Ale, "sometimes you're scary". For my part, I confess that not infrequently I prefer to see and listen to these early works (XXI CENTURY BLOOD and QODMS albums) by The Warning, whose creativity and execution seduces me more than some more polished songs from the Error album. Greetings from México.

[@don-music]

Thank YOU Francisco.... and being a musician is not important.... it is just a set of tools that allows some people to create music directly, as a method of finding their own way to enjoy music. For those lucky few musicians who create music well enough to bring joy to other people, it is an empowering experience to be doing what you love and have at least one other person find joy from listening to it and/or watching it. The Warning are so fortunate to do what they love and what they clearly have ridiculous raw talent at, while others love what they do. Thank you so much for the link you included and reference quotes from DPA themselves about Ale. That is the sort of material that I find fascinating! Hello from "just outside Vancouver", Canada :-)

[@AchimE]

Can you believe Alejandra wrote this groovy song at 9 years old? Same age like Mozart writing his first symphony… what a talent, they all three are so talented! 👍⚡️🤘

[@don-music]

that's pretty amazing! And heck.. Mozart was pretty damn good too for his age! LoL she's in good company!

[@JohnLnyc]

Please…..”Mozart”?

[@AchimE]

@@JohnLnyc Just saying same age… relax and enjoy the music! 😉

[@JohnLnyc]

@@AchimE I am having fun with the analogy which is a parody of many Warning fans who tend to go wildly overboard with these accolades.

[@AchimE]

@@JohnLnyc Why analogy? No sense of humor? The reactor got it and answered in a funny way. There’s no comparison, who would ever compare these two… just a funny similarity, same age at the first composition… well, Mozart started even earlier, with 9 it was his first symphony… but anyway, enjoy your fun about others, if this is your humor…👍👏

[@rexwave4624]

Don, your mic level is much lower than other videos. Also, more low end than expected. Nice analysis. I love Ale's playing here.

[@don-music]

yea, it was too late to fix the mic level in that video, but I'm taking care of it in these newer ones. Thx though for the positive feedback about the analysis. Cheers

[@Dave_Marks]

Ale was 9 when they wrote Escape the Mind songs. Pau was 12 and Dany 14. Dany’s guitar is a Rick Toone Spearfish Mahogany. Ale’s is a Spector bass.

[@dariosatira8170]

Ale's bass in this video was not yet a Spector , by the looks of it, it's a white Fender mustang bass , I'm sure of it because I used to own 1"fender mustang"

[@don-music]

Hey Dave, thanks for the details! I’m running off memory for this stuff and I appreciate the data!

[@don-music]

Dario yea it’s a Mustang, a truly excellent short scale bass.

[@eddietorres1000]

The Villarreal sisters started out Playing Classical Piano Dany started Taking Lessons at Age 6, Pau at Age 4 and Alejandra at Age 5

[@don-music]

Excellent info thank you!

[@dlblakey62]

😊!

[@don-music]

I'm happy if you're happy! :-D

[@larryfox4915]

I have had the thought, that eventually they will compose something in the Stairway to Heaven, Bohemian Rhapsody fashion.

[@andgar923]

Odd you mention this, I literally had a day dream that they’ll release an old school classic epic song like that. An almost instrumental song that has Dany performing her most gut wrenching soulful performance a la Maggot Brain by the Parliament. A song that slowly builds up and ends in an emotional outburst of pure awesomeness that indeed rivals those you mentioned.

[@don-music]

Larry yes i hope that they one day decide to to that…. A true masterpiece of creative brilliance, pushing themselves to their limits… It would be wonderful to hear. andgar that is a great daydream! I wouldn’t be surprised to hear something like that one day!

[@NoSmokingDogs]

@@don-music I'm going to take a contrarian position here and point out, in my opinion, what makes them special. It's that fourth instrument, their vocals. It is rare to find any TW song that has any sort of extended instrumental beyond a brief guitar solo and as much as I'd love for them to evolve into the next Tool, I just don't see that happening. One or more of them are always singing or vocalizing something practically all of the time and they prefer to make their point or get their message across quickly and efficiently. Survive and Black Holes are the only songs to crack 5 minutes and those barely do. The rest of the catalog is less than 4.5 minutes, most under 4. And when you think about it, that's not a bad thing, either play it again or move on to another one to enjoy. Lately I've just had their entire discography on a continuous loop while running, mowing the yard, driving, whatever. Never gets old. Now to watch part 2 of this series, Fade Away is one my favorites.

[@don-music]

I love that point about the vocals! Yes, I have been experimenting with shuffle play of their entire discography... it has ways of levelling the playing field between albums, and is one of the reasons why I wanted to do this series on the ETM EP, because that became more interesting to me when it would randomly be played after dull knives or money

[@NoSmokingDogs]

@@don-music You would think that the transition from Dull Knives to Take Me Down would be harsh but it's really not. Maybe QOTMS to Eternal Love, LOL.

[@phsjockstrap]

I have seen where people say she was 9 or 10 when she wrote this I was in a live chat a couple months ago and asked her which it was. She said neither, I was 8.

[@don-music]

Dude, that is AWESOME info thank you Brian.

[@monicamansour3525]

Hi Don! I like your reactions/ analysis, very good! Just the volume issue... THE SONG. I love this song so much, it's very special for me. It has everything good, first i liked the groove, it's so cool! Then the melody...and the changes between the different parts are sooo so goood, i think those changes really stand out as something only good bands do so well...incredible... And from their very first song they (she, Ale) put in many different parts, two parts for the verse, two for the chorus (or a pre-) and a bridge, everything so well done! Later, when i focused on the lyrics (and i don't care if this was her first time experimenting with songwriting)...man oh maaan!... It just happend to trigger very painful feelings from childhood: When things are going your way and you start feelling stronger but you know That's the cue for siblings to just stump on you, start bullying and take you down... ...Nature... children ...intentionally or not, maybe just fighting for the "biggest chunk of the cake"... THE EP ESCAPE THE MIND. Hey... it's very good, I agree...many of us rant about how come it's so underrated and not considered part of their discography. Feels weird to try to defend it from DPA...lol...oh well. This is my fav track but I like all of them. (At first i didn't like Free Falling but now i do, there's a lot to it and imho it sets the style for TW along with this track ...TMD) THE VOLUME. Im sorry but it's still very low, in some videos a little better, in one (maybe Money) it was terrible. In part it's me and my equipment crisis as everything just broke here, speakers, earphones and computer spkrs but i'm having trouble with my crappy spare phones and worse w my crappy phone...also i think you'd get a lot more views. Idk maybe you could turn it way up, change settings, keep mic very very close and/or just speak louder...if you want of course, i respect whatever. THANKS for your excellent reactions!!! ...i still have to catch up with some...

[@don-music]

Thank you monica for the excellent feedback! I think I've been finding solutions to the volume issues... one day I'll get into my bad habits as an audio engineer which are what lead to this problem, but my solution appears to be working quite a bit with the later songs in the Escape The Mind series. Sadly that first one is very low, yes, my apologies. It's me, not your audio system... I just finished posting the 4th video in the series and it'll be live within a half hour probably. I am endeavoring to improve my content continually from depth of analysis to audio quality.

[@monicamansour3525]

@@don-music Thx Don, i appreciate that. I'll watch the other vids. Your "bad habits" ...lol...

[@don-music]

yea LoL.... it's like, I know enough about routing and mixing and digital audio to know that I can totally sluff off when tracking a band, if I'm in a studio... and still cover my tracks and adjust things in the mix so it sounds awesome. So I'm lazy (bad habits!) about setting proper recording levels. And unfortunately, how I record this stuff for youtube using OBS, it doesn't work like a recording studio (funnily enough ;-) ), so what I record is what I'm stuck with. Ah well... excuses excuses :-)

[@monicamansour3525]

@@don-music Haha...yea, indeed funny and paradoxical how your own knowledge on audio engeneering and stuff can get on your way to sound good here...LoL. But I can imagine it works different than in a studio and that you like to do things in a certain way or do something fancy... it's not the same after all. Or it could be about the mysterious glitches associated with The Warning...😯haha..idk...

[@monicamansour3525]

@@don-music I'm not good at sound tech stuff. I like it...and I'm a musician but (funnily enough...again lol) unlike some of my friends, somewhat low tech, LoL... See you on the other videos!

[@charlielightfoot7006]

I want to enjoy your analysis, Don, but I can never hear what you're saying.

[@don-music]

Darnit! Thank you for letting me know. Kk I’m going to make adjustments to the recording levels in obs and will try my best to solve that problem permanently. Thank you for your patience and please let me know how the next instalment sounds.

[@robertkrawitz8237]

As you're a violinst, I don't know whether you've stumbled across either of these: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nZmvlKZ7j7hjors and kzbin.info/www/bejne/aqa8qKx_mJl2m6M (and yes, I've also seen a viola cover of it, which is of no small interest to me).

[@don-music]

DUDE! I have NOT! And I started watching the first link and have just stopped, because I need to do a frickin reaction to this stuff! THANK YOU! That guy has double stops and Ricochet MASTERED.... not to mention jumping up to 7th position on the G string and nailing it! I need to watch the whole thing but will wait until I can do it on camera. THANK YOU!

[@robertkrawitz8237]

@@don-music Miguel Epardo has done a number of covers of The Warning, although not in this style. I rather suspect that Paganini would have loved metal and the electric guitar (he apparently considered himself to be a better guitarist than violinist). For that matter, he might well have embraced the Viper; the 7-string model is locura (a low B♭ string all the way to the E). The second link is all strings (plus a bass and drums, but it's almost all electric violins and cellos with an acoustic quartet including Rachel Barton Pine, and a great female singer who honestly sounds more natural in that register than Bruce Dickinson. That Viper violin looks like it's a lot less stressful to play than the violin or viola, with the chest mount taking all the load off the neck, shoulders, and chin. A couple of viola covers: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rqrbn3Zta52ioMk (she also did a cover of Enter Sandman; I suggested that TW's version might be interesting) and kzbin.info/www/bejne/f2qlanirfcmJb8U.

[@don-music]

thank you so much for this info! Vipers are super well engineered, but I've never had the chance yet to actually play one. I have a 5 string electric violin I 3d printed as an experiment... b

[@garyblair3033]

Have you ever seen this. The thing that most astounded me was when this instument was created. Kinda like a master auto harp. (Hurdy-gurdy). kzbin.info/www/bejne/gqKrloKZftmGobM. Imagine if played this way back then???