#also??? while I’m on the topic of albums I hate that they put the CDs in an envelope like it is so fragile

[jonnnysuh]

y’all ever unbox your albums again just to feel something

#I put my inclusions back in the albums when I’m done 😭😭😭 #idk how normal that is but I’m not really the type to hang the inclusions around in my room #but I will display the albums on my shelf hehe #bruh my friend had to give me a photo card book #bc I was just shoving them back in LMAO #also??? while I’m on the topic of albums I hate that they put the CDs in an envelope like it is so fragile #one day I will either 1. buy a small cd player for my room 2. buy a cd case so I can at least play them in the car #but for now they sit there unused #about me I guess

[infinitetab]

Musings on BTS & Mixtapes

I remember briefly going through twt and seeing some fans fight about supporting/gushing about a single member’s mixtape vs all members getting a mixtape (some posts got ugly and I left to go peruse other tags, so if someone would like to expand on the discourse/I got it wrong, I’m all ears). And then I read romanticdrift’s post and wanted to expand on my personal thoughts about mixtapes being made by the members.

Mixtapes are a personal, intimate project that’s chosen as the form some BTS members (and other artists in general) express and sort out feelings, emotions, and memories.

(To be honest, before BTS I thought of mixtapes as a “CD/tape that someone puts together (sometimes for themselves, sometimes for others) to convey a single emotion or feeling”. While we’re on the topic, if you want a vmin fanfic rec, please read nonheather’s mudlands & yellow acacia -- the imagery is so very pretty and soft, the plot heartwarming and introspective)

Mixtapes (specifically for BTS) are absolutely a personal project. The members are already working around the clock and have an insane schedule -- to go out of your way and make time to work on something? And it being multiple “something”s (songs) that you’re working on spanning months, maybe even years? The motivation and sheer want to put it all down is awe-inspiring in itself. And no member (or artist) should be shamed when they express their wanting to craft one/wanting to release one, and the widespread recognition after the release is deserving.

What is incredibly personal about mixtapes is the content they hold. The songs within are the result of the artist trying to put into words and beats these emotions and feelings they have. Memories they want to make permanent, strings of thoughts being turned into carefully picked out words. You’re throwing your heart out there and then using your mind to choose how to best express the intangible feelings you have. And then for the members to actually willingly share it with us, to let us listen and be privy to a glimpse of what they’re thinking and feeling? I tear up sometimes.

Also another thing -- mixtapes take a lot of effort and work. Writing/producing/composing a song from an idea you have? One of those things alone can take months. And then doing not just 1 but all? For a plethora of songs you’re putting on a mixtape? AND doing it around a busy schedule that you have to find personal time to work on it? ...sometimes (all the times) I’m blown away by it all. Again, it’s a personal project -- I’m sure they get burned out. Maybe some days they don’t even want to think about it. It doesn’t mean they aren’t serious about it anymore -- they just need to take some time away from something that was supposed to be cathartic before they start hating it or it causing them stress when it was supposed to be the opposite.

Which is why I’m personally fine whenever these mixtapes come out. Again, the members are choosing to share them with us -- it’s cruel to start badgering them about, “when is ___ going to come out??” because not only are they not obligated to make and then share them with us, but also because it’s piling more stress on them. It’s different from a studio album -- this is their inner thoughts going out for the world to see and judge (the latter unwarranted because who are you to judge something so personal)(I have feelings about how things like art and songs are graded and judged but that’s a different rant).

(Also, keep in mind the confirmation that BE had at least 2 songs on there that were originally supposed to be on their personal mixtapes (JK-Stay, TH-Blue&Grey). Also that “Your Eyes Tell” was also supposed to be on JK’s mixtape. There are holes now that maybe they have to re-think. Personally if I was JK I’d space out and wonder, “Hum...do I need to make something else now?”)

But, and here’s the thing, mixtapes are only one form, one outlet for the personal things the members are going through.

Out of the group, NJ and YG are the two members to have released more than one mixtape (and if someone would like to gush with me just the evolution? or difference/similarities from RM-->Mono and Agust D-->D-2? Please, I have so many feelings), so I think it’s safe to say that song-writing/producing/composing is a method they find helps them the most in working out their inner thoughts (they’re also the ones who’ve expressed and pursued this the longest).

But that’s only one way to work it out. Maybe people work out their thoughts by having a private conversation with a close friend/confidant. Maybe people work it out by writing in a journal, a blog. Maybe people work it out by researching and trying to find answers, meeting similar-minded people along the way. Maybe they pour it out into their responsibilities at the time, having it be fuel but also sit on the back burner. The point is that there are multiple ways one works out their thoughts, and some (if not most) are very private methods that don’t go beyond people they trust. That should be respected.

That isn’t to say the method one chooses to express themselves can’t change.

I’d argue that out of the members, SJ, HS, and JM are the most private. All the members are private and have personal moments they don’t share (which is okay and valid and they owe us nothing), but the three above are very close-lipped to us as fans (I personally think they have “professional/work/what I show to the public” vs “casual/off-camera/what I show to close friends and family” distinctions very clear in their minds compared to the others). Their method of sorting through things probably reflects this.

We are seeing them try out other methods though to sort things out, specifically song-writing (the last months of 2020 alone with “Abyss” and “Christmas Love”). Maybe they’ll find this a cathartic method and will pursue again. Maybe they saw it as helpful to work out something specific but don’t see them doing it again. Either way, I think we should be happy that they’ve found ways that helped them get their thoughts out instead of bottling them inside.

This probably got convoluted and scatter-brained along the way and I don’t know if I got everything I wanted to say out, but basically: people have different ways they sort out their inner thinking. If BTS members choose to do this via mixtape, that’s okay. If BTS members choose to do this another way, that’s okay too. 

Would I be happy and excited that HS drops another solo mixtape or that SJ and JM choose to release one? Absolutely. Oh man, what if I was able to have “Tonight” and “Abyss” on spotify I think I’d cry. Would I be fine if they didn’t release any mixtapes in the near future? Of course. Do I think we need to tone down our happiness for TH and JK’s mixtapes? Absolutely not (though we have to be careful about being happy for them vs causing pressure and stress). Will I support whatever the members choose to share with us? Undoubtedly and with my whole heart.

#bts #and although it's not really about them but I was inspired by analyses on them #vmin #musings #is there a solo song you found yourself relating to the most or just really really love? #please gush about bts songs with me I have the feelings

[orbit-intl]

210130 KStyle Vol. 2 ― ORβIT, a strong wish for 2021. “We’d like to see fans at a live event… we have so many things we want to do (laughs)”

Vol. 2 ― ORβIT, a strong wish for 2021. “We’d like to see fans at a live event… we have so many things we want to do (laughs)”

ORβIT is a Japanese-Korean group composed of 7 unique members. They released their long-awaited debut album in November last year, to which many fans responded with enthusiastic support. 

It has almost been a year since ORβIT was formed and announced on February 9, 2020. We asked them about the steps that led to the decision of forming the group and questions about the reason for their career choices as an artist. 

ENG TRANSLATION BY ORBIT_INTL   Source: KStyle News DO NOT RE-USE, REUPLOAD OR RE-TRANSLATE WITHOUT PERMISSION

― How have you been spending this time since the announcement on February 9th last year?

HEECHO: Now that I think of it, it went by so quickly, but a big part of 2020 was the fact that we couldn’t see each other. We could communicate via phone calls or video calls, but I’m sure it was hard for the members and the staff were also worried for the members. We did receive the songs to practice at home and think of the choreography, but there wasn’t much I could do on my own. I just kept thinking “if only I could be with them (the members)”. And Shunya was always crying. 

SHUNYA: I wasn’t always crying (laughs)! But, not being able to see each other was hard. With the ongoing pandemic, there was nobody you could blame for the hardships we went through, so I’d sometimes get annoyed on my own. That’s when the other members would talk to me and that was very helpful. I think we got even closer because we had the chance to speak so much more in this situation. 

JUNE: Yes, because we were able to talk a lot when things were hard. We’d discuss what we should do from now on when things were getting hard, have heart-to-heart conversations at the dorm, and spend time together. I think that’s why we’re so close now. 

SHUNYA: The video calls helped so much. Even though we were separated in Japan and Korea, we were able to speak while seeing each other’s faces, so it was good.

TOMO: Yeah. There are some of us who’d like some words of encouragement when things get hard or some of us who’d rather be left alone for a while, so we respect that and we spend time together, it was great.

JUNE: At the end, we were all like “there’s no use to overthink everything, so let’s just do what we can do!” and that’s how we got here. 

SHUNYA: Even for our music work, we’ve been helped a lot by the internet. We weren’t able to meet the people who bought our CDs to thank them, so we kept thinking what we could do instead. We were able to hold an online signing event, so I hope we were able to convey some of the feelings of gratitude we have.

HEECHO: But because the date of release got pushed back, we were able to spend more time on the production process of the album. There are some parts that we were able to be more particular about, especially because of the current situation.

The 7 of them with each their own different turning points in life

― You started off as an artist with the album “00”, but what were the turning points in your artist life?

HEECHO: I like dancing and I wanted to be a dancer, but my mother wouldn’t agree with it and she suggested that I become a singer instead. But I’m not good at singing, I can’t rap either, so I continued although I wasn’t sure of where I was headed to. When I was in highschool, I got sick and the doctor told me “you might not be able to dance and sing anymore” and I was very shocked. I realized that I must really like the job if I was that shocked. Then, I started taking it more seriously from there on.

JUNE: It was popular at the time and I would listen to Eminem at first because I happened to buy a CD, but I wasn’t planning on starting rapping at the time. Later on, K-POP came in from Korea and I felt a different charm from Japanese music that I had been listening to until then. I like music that mixes up different genres and rap and I found different groups from there. My impression on idols changed and it broadened my horizons. My brother joined a performing arts school and I joined as well. I think that was a turning point as well.

SHUNYA: I’ve always liked dancing ever since I was small, but I disliked singing and I wasn’t great at it. When I saw K-Pop artists in university, I thought I wanted to become someone who would be looked up to as well, so I got very interested in dance and music. Still, I was looking for a regular job like everyone else too. When I went to an interview for a promotion company for artists, I was told “When I hear about your experience and what you like and want to do, it seems like you are more suited to become someone who expresses themselves through art.” It made me realize again that I wanted to become an artist in the music industry.

YUGO: I liked K-Pop artists, so I’d copy them dancing. I usually get very easily bored out of things, but the one thing I’ve been able to continue is dancing. When I became a university student and started considering career paths, I decided to challenge what I want to do. Actually, I couldn’t get into any of my ideal universities and I went to the one where I can get in by recommendation. But if I had been accepted to the one of the universities I wanted to go initially, I would’ve continued studying and I wouldn’t have gone into the entertainment university. That’s why I think that failing entrance exams was a hard experience, but it was a turning point now that I look back to it.

YOUNGHOON: I got into university and I wanted to be part of a band as a keyboardist, but I was asked “do you want to become a vocalist?”. Then, I told them “Huh? Vocalist? I can’t.” and I gave up. After that, I tried getting into the tennis club but the seniors looked scary, and so I gave up (laughs). Then, I found a dancer I liked… Wait, where am I at in the story? Anyways, to summarize, I got into university and I wanted to be part of a band… (He keeps circling around the same story.)

Everyone except YOUNGHOON: It’s ok!!! We get it!! (Laughter)

YOUNGHOON: The seniors at the dance school were all very nice. I didn’t really have hobbies before, but I started having bigger dreams after starting to dance.

YOONDONG: Until I was 20, I never thought I would do a job where I had to appear in public, but my feelings of admiration grew gradually. My parents told me I couldn’t become a singer if I didn’t go to university, so I chose to study acting in university. After that, I attended for 2 months, but I realized I wanted to be a singer after all so I went ahead and got into the industry. That’s my turning point.

TOMO: Me too, just like Shunya, I never liked singing and I hated going to karaoke, but I became very passionate about it after I got into high school. I started to think that I’d be very happy if I could do a job where I could sing, so I attended many auditions after graduating high school, but never made it. Every time I’d go to an audition, I kept telling myself “If I don’t make it for this one, it’s going to be the last one”. After that. I decided I’d start working on myself and started a ship job to save up money for two years. Even then, I knew I still wanted to be an artist, but I couldn’t say it to my parents. I didn’t want to worry them about the tuition fees or the instability of the job. Still, I couldn’t give up in the end and I gave up my job completely to go back to doing auditions. My grandparents both came from musician families, so I was hoping I had some of their DNA flowing in me too.

HEECHO: Tomo definitely has some of it! (the DNA)

TOMO: It’d be great if I really did.

The 7 are now together as ORβIT - “We’d like to meet fans at a live event in 2021.”

― You came together as a group and you are now ORβIT, but could you please tell us about how and why you got together?

HEECHO: I had been listening to everyone’s concerns for a while, but “what we should do from now on” became a topic one day. That’s why I suggested we all work together with these members and that I’d take responsibility for it. Then, I started talking to people, looking for people who could help, and it became like this,

YUGO: When we became a group, I was mostly very happy to be able to do this with the people I like and I was hoping we can do what we want to do.

TOMO: When the talk about doing something with the 7 of us came up, all the other options I had previously were gone for me. Heecheon-san took the lead to do things like setting up an agency, but we try not to put all the weight on the leader. We each have our responsibilities which we established altogether.

― You started your activities in 2020 and 2021 will definitely be an even busier year for you. I’m sure EαRTHs are excited as well.

HEECHO: First and foremost, I hope everyone in the world can have a healthy year this year. As ORβIT, we have the general outline of the year set, so it would be great if we can follow those plans.

SHUNYA: I hope we can spend more time altogether compared to 2020. The time we are spending together right now makes me so happy, I keep wishing everyday that if only this time could continue forever.

JUNE: When we look back at 2020, the fact that we are together right now feels like a dream.

YOUNGHOON: I hope the virus will be gone in 2021.

TOMO: Yes, and I really want to do live events too.

― You haven’t been able to hold live events yet. I bet your feelings of wanting to be on stage must be blowing up?

Everyone: Yes, that’s true.

SHUNYA: We definitely have a lot of ideas (laughs).

HEECHO: It’s part of a singer’s job to sing at live events, so I’d like to work soon. It’s really just that.

TOMO: We haven’t been able to perform in front of EαRTHs yet, so it’d be great if we could soon.

― Is there anything you want to do at a live event?

SHUNYA: I want to throw signed balls! (Throwing pose)

YOUNGHOON: I want to jump into the audience! (Everyone: No you can’t do that~!)

JUNE: I want to throw water to the audience! Like in summer festivals! It’d be great to do our own event, or to be part of an outdoor event too, I hope we can be part of one.

YOUNGHOON: I want to do an outdoor concert during daytime.

YOONDONG: I want to do a night time concert outdoors. The lights will be very pretty. I can’t wait to be able to do concerts.

(Younghoon and Yoondong discuss whether day time or night time is better, while the other members laugh.)

Everyone: So it’s 24 hours! We want to do it all the time (laughs)!!

― We’re very excited for you to hold a live event as well! We also heard you are preparing for a mini album in April. Can you tell us about the theme and the songs?

HEECHO: I think there are many songs with mature themes. The release date is in spring, so there might be many sad songs. I hope we can show a mature side with the performance, including dance. “00” was a very complete album, so there is a little bit of pressure that pushes us to make something even better. Outside of that, considering what we want to express, we’d like to show a mature side as we are getting older. 

JUNE: Even as we are preparing the songs, we do feel like we all matured.

SHUNYA: There are also plants because it’s April… It isn’t set in stone yet, but I’ll keep the hint hanging (laughs).

TOMO: It’s still in preparation, but we’d like to practice a lot and bring up the overall quality since we have the chance to see each other like this.

ENG TRANSLATION BY ORBIT_INTL Source: KStyle News DO NOT RE-USE, REUPLOAD OR RE-TRANSLATE WITHOUT PERMISSION

#ORβIT #EαRTH #ORβIT International #OOオーツー #Enchant #translation #interview #HEECHO #YOUNGHOON #YOONDONG #JUNE #SHUNYA #TOMO #YUGO

[lifeisbooksandcats]

Since posting on tumblr feels like just screaming into the void; where maybe someone might throw a glance your way to see if maybe you’re both screaming about the same thing, but at the end of the day, no one is really paying attention to you..and I feel like that’s what makes me feel like I can post this. Because it’s not something I can say out loud, not really, not yet. Except to my fiancée because it’s something we’ve talking about for a while. This is going to be long, I’m certain of it, and it’s going to be rambley because I’ve been trying to put my thoughts into words and those words into coherent...anythings...and it just isn’t going to be in any sort of order. I’m not expecting anyone to read it and I’m hoping the read more button actually works on mobile. If not, then I’m sorry, you’ll be scrolling for a while.

I don’t know how valid people feel self-diagnosis is, but I honestly feel like I fall somewhere on the autism spectrum. And that’s something I’ve thought about myself since my first year of college. Someone in a communications class I was taking did a presentation on autism, and throughout the entire thing all I could think was how much everything resonated with me. So that’s, since the fall semester of 2009, this has been something I’ve quietly thought about myself and wondered and honestly just been pretty sure of. That’s 12 years this fall, and I still can’t bring myself to say it?? And I think it’s a good bit because I’ve been asked so many times throughout my life if I’m autistic - by family members, by friends, by a college roommate, by people living on the same floor as me at college - and it’s ALWAYS been (or at least felt like to me) in some sort of negative way. And I don’t want to apologize for being myself, but fuck it’s just hard sometimes???

When I walk into a room, especially one I’m not familiar with, my first instinct is to look for the exits and figure out how I can get out of there if it gets too loud/too hectic/too EVERYTHING and I start to panic. And if I’m in a situation where I can’t leave, I have this little clear stone that I play with in my hand, just something to focus on to help keep me just a little bit calmer. When that doesn’t work, it’s like my mind just...goes. I don’t know how to explain it; physically I’m still there, but mentally...even if I wanted to pay attention to something, I literally could not. It happens the most when there’s too many sounds/voices/conversations happening at once, they all blend together, I can’t understand anything and after a second it feel like it’s all just muffled and I’m not there anymore, I feel so disconnected from my body, like there’s someone else controlling my brain and I’m just there watching. It happened at the zoo just recently, when we went into one of the restaurants for lunch. I was already panicked because of the number of people inside without masks on. From the second we walked in, everything from the number of people inside, to the volume, to the lights being too bright (but looking back, I feel like they were probably an appropriate brightness? It just felt too bright with everything else going on), to the lack of masks, everything was too much. My fiancée and I stood in line with one of our friends, waiting to order our food, and I stood there rocking slightly on my ankles and fidgeting with that little stone, just trying so desperately to calm my internal panic and to not “check out” mentally and to just appear “normal”. I stood there waiting for our food, rocking on my ankles, running my thumb along my fingertips, listening to the conversations all around me merging into one unintelligible mess and on the inside, full on panicking while hoping that from the outside, no one could tell. I got our food, set it on the table, and stepped into the bathroom to wash my hands, the quiet welcoming me like nothing else. I closed my eyes and just stood there, breathing, letting the warm water run over my hands like some kind of magic balm bringing me back down. I opened my eyes again, a woman with a toddler smiled at me like she knew - which made me worry again because it’s not something I want people to know because I don’t want to be different, I don’t want anyone to look at me differently. But at the same time, I do. I want to be able to stand up for myself and say “I literally physically cannot go into this loud, crowded restaurant because I’m autistic and it is so auditorily overwhelming in there.” And maybe that wasn’t even what her smile meant. Because I literally never know how people are feeling and I try to figure it out but honestly 90% of the time it’s just guesswork.

But it’s not just that. It’s not just the panic that sets in when it’s too crowded and the sounds are too much. It’s the fact that as a kid, I was never “just” a fan of something I liked. I either didn’t care, or it was an all-consuming obsession that basically became a personality trait. I was a fan of Aaron Carter, but god forbid anyone ask me a question about his music or anything — because whether or not you were interested (and unless you flat out told me you were uninterested, I literally could not tell), I was going to info-dump everything onto you. I could tell you what time he was born, how many minutes were between him and his twin sister, which concerts his sister Leslie sang at (because she also had a small music career), at what point in his career he actually started singing live instead of lip syncing most of the time...

And speaking of info-dumping. If I couldn’t info dump to someone, I would write it. As a child - second, third, fourth grade...- I wrote essays upon essays on things I was interested in just because I could. Just everything I knew on the topic, thrown out into words either handwritten as a younger kid or typed as I got older. When I was in about fifth or sixth grade, when Harry Potter was HUGE and all my friends were also into Harry Potter, I couldn’t tell everything I knew to my friends because they already knew a lot of it...and so as a kid, maybe a fifth grader, I wrote a six (maybe seven?) page essay - single spaced - with everything I knew about the series/the author/everything. Before the last book came out, I filled an entire spiral bound notebook with my theories for how the series would end and WHY I thought what I thought.

My first NOW That’s What I Call Music CD was Now 14. I was in 7th grade and I could tell you exactly what order the songs were in. That was something I did to calm myself down back then; listing the songs on that album over and over and over again, always in the right order.

From about 7th grade until high school graduation, I brought and ate the exact same thing for lunch every single day. I said it was because I liked it, but I really didn’t. I didn’t like the Oscar Mayer precooked bacon that I would put on my BLT. I didn’t like the texture, half the time I couldn’t bring myself to eat it and picked it off my sandwich. But the thought of changing it??? That wasn’t even something I would have considered because somehow in my mind, changing it was worse than eating it. Make that one make sense.

I love routines and schedules and things staying the same, and get annoyingly stressed out when things/my schedule changes. One little change or one little thing out of the ordinary and it’s like I forget how to function for the day. Everything seems off. And I hate it. Because I KNOW that it shouldn’t matter, but it does. Half days and two hour delays at school growing up?? Those stressed the FUCK out of me because the order of the day would be different. I loved school and loved learning, but those days I felt physically ill over the thought of going to school. Field trip days were okay though because I knew they were coming and I had plenty of time to mentally prepare myself. I remember as a child asking my teachers (on multiple occasions) for the itinerary for a field trip so I could memorize it and know exactly what to expect and when for the day.

There are times that my fiancée will turn on the tv for “background noise” while she watches videos on her phone, and I wish I could describe what I mean when I tell her that there’s “too many sounds”. Because between the tv, her phone, the hum of the refrigerator in the other room, the neighbors, cars driving by, the cats playing, the ceiling fan...I don’t know how else to describe it other than exactly that — too many sounds. And it gets to be too much. So I have to put headphones in and listen to music to drown it all out and refocus.

I’ve only just recently been able to put a word to what I now know is poor executive function. As much as I loved school, I could NOT do assignments until the day they were due. I could start on something days before it was due, but I couldn’t work on it. I couldn’t focus on it. I couldn’t get myself to work on it. But the morning it was due??? I could whip up a paper that I knew would earn an A just hours before needing to turn it in. I prided myself on that ability, but looking back it was most definitely poor executive function. If I couldn’t finish something that morning, which was a rare occurrence, I would lie - I’d look “everywhere” for my assignment and “panic” because I “couldn’t find it” and because I was a good student, I got away with it. Every. Single. Time. Even with the hard-ass teachers who no one could get away with things on. And magically by the end of the day, I would swing back by that teacher’s classroom to give them my assignment that I had finally “found”.

I remember sitting on the kitchen floor of our apartment as a kid and tracing my fingers along the lines on the floor where the tiles met. I remember the pattern was brown/white/brown/white, but there was one spot on the floor that made me so irrationally frustrated because two tiles were swapped; instead of the same pattern as the rest of the floor, this one spot was brown/white/white/brown/brown/white. I remember pointing it out and my mom asking me why I had even paid any attention to that. I didn’t know why, I just did. I remember her telling me that it was stupid to let it bother me and to just let it go, but I couldn’t. I stopped mentioning it, but right up until we moved out of that apartment, I couldn’t even look at that spot on the floor without getting frustrated by it. There’s more than that. But that was one of the first things I thought of.

I’ve been watching a lot of Yo Samdy Sam’s videos on YouTube, and especially her videos “Autism symptoms in GIRLS” and “Could YOU be autistic? (and not know)” and I just... I feel that. Everything she says, I feel that. I watch them just thinking “that’s me. That’s me.” the entire time. She mentions sucking on her hair as a kid, and I did that CONSTANTLY. My hair was forever in my mouth. And now that I’m an adult, I don’t suck on my hair, but my sweatshirt strings are always in my mouth. Obviously there’s more than that, but that was one that hit me hard because I didn’t realize that wasn’t just something everyone did as a kid. I didn’t realize not everyone couldn’t stand still and always had to be fidgeting or moving slightly, whether it was rocking on my ankles, running my thumb over my other fingers, crossing and uncrossing my toes inside my shoes. I didn’t realize not everyone had the same shitty executive functioning skills as me.

And it’s like... I’m so sure that’s me. I’m so sure that I am autistic. I know it. But it’s like...is getting a diagnosis at this point in my life going to change anything? I mean no, probably not, other than giving me that validation that I crave. I would feel valid when the world is too much/too big/too loud. I would have a reason for feeling the way I do and doing the things I do. So much of my life would make sense. But. I don’t know. I’m afraid I’ll try to get a diagnosis and have someone, some doctor or therapist or psychologist or someone tell me that I’m not. And then what? Then what is everything I’ve felt throughout my life? That’s what I’m afraid of, really. Because if I’m so sure of this and then some professional says “no that’s not it”, then what?

#personal #just venting I guess #not venting that’s not the right word #just throwing my thoughts on here and trying to make sense of them because it’s my blog and I can #autism #autism in adults #actually autistic

[sharpdressedbman]

A Tribute to Chester: Life, Death, Rebirth, and How He Lives on in Memory

How do you properly memorialize one of your childhood idols? Are you supposed to scream, cry, and gnash your teeth? Or do you put on noise-canceling headphones and block out the ambient noise of the outside world for a while? All of these are difficult questions to answer. I guess that’s why they’re rhetorical. It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost two years since Chester Bennington passed. So in a way, this simple little essay is how I can honor him. It feels nice to write something that isn’t fiction or related to a blog for a change[1]. Let’s see how it goes.

Part Zero: Notes from the Underground

I must confess that I was never a member of the official fan club, the LP Underground. I suppose in retrospect that’s how I could have proven I was a legit fan despite never seeing them live in concert except via live stream. But even then, that was a rare occasion. I do remember a t-shirt I got from Hot Topic when I was 12 or so – it had the faces of all of the guys gathered around the classic script font of the band’s logo.

I don’t remember what happened to it. The last time I remember wearing it was in August 2014. I supposed by then I had outgrown it. But still, buying whatever merch I could and getting all of the CDs and eagerly anticipating the next music video all had to count for something.  I knew the names of all the guys, even Mark Wakefield, who was never an official member, and Phoenix Orion (Dave Farrell?), who left before Hybrid Theory but was back in time for Reanimation – more on that later.  

But I digress. Let’s get on with the real meat of why we’re here. In terms of structure, I thought it would make the most sense to go album by album, discuss some memories I have associated with each, and attempt to unpack why they remain so important to me even as time has marched on since then. Growing up with the band, as I’m sure many of you did, you might feel a similar connection that you never fully grasped until the night of the tribute show in December 2017.

Part One: Hybrid Theory

#Forfeit the game/Before somebody else/takes you out of the frame and puts your name to shame/Cover up your face, you can’t run the race/the pace is too fast, you just won’t last. [HT Track 4: “Points of Authority”]

Although Hybrid Theory came out in October 2000, I think the first time I heard it was for another month or two after it came out. It’s still one of the most vivid memories I can still recall, the first time “Papercut” blared out of a cd player. I was sitting in the basement at my buddy Andre’s house and we were playing Perfect Dark with our mutual friend Alberto. It was honestly the perfect soundtrack for the game. Here’s what I said back then: “Dude, who is this? This is awesome!”

               “It’s Linkin Park.”

Even then I thought the name was cool, the way that they intentional misspelled Lincoln – the rule of cool and all that. Elementary school hadn’t even ended yet, but it was still part of my formative years, musically speaking. Before then, I had never discovered any music on my own – my friends had always shown me. My parents didn’t raise me to enjoy music – I hated classical and most of the “standards” went over my head. My parents were still throwing karaoke parties. My old neighbor John showed me James Brown. That’s how I latched onto my first favorite song of all time “I Feel Good”. Then came Third Eye Blind, another early love of mine. But that’s a story for another time, as is my recollections of Limp Bizkit. This tale is about LP.

I wouldn’t realize it at the time, but Hybrid Theory would continue to be one of the most important albums to be me as I left elementary school and hit middle school. The days of Perfect Dark and WCW/nWo Revenge began to fade[2] as Diablo II and Starcraft emerged. The sound of Chester’s howls and Mike’s swagger along with the rest of the bands driving instrumentals provided a backdrop like you wouldn’t believe.  “In the End” stood out in particular, although as middle school came to an end, it became clear that those reasons weren’t ones I wish to discuss here, now. Ask me again another time. It was at the end of middle school (hell, even before) that I confronted the notion of how deeply uncool I was, and probably tangled with imposter syndrome, anxiety, and depression long before I knew what any of those terms meant.

I already knew I was an introvert who was much more inclined to stay inside playing video games, reading, or writing instead of going outside to play street hockey or anything like that. That shouldn’t have meant that I was an easy target for bullying, but hey, it was the 90s and then the early 2000s, so what could you do? LP helped me cope, even if I couldn’t always express my anger in responsible ways.

I think here is a good place to stop and point something out: mental illness has been something that has been immensely important to me – it affects me and I know it damn sure affects my wife and mother in law. I went through a very dark time in my life roughly five years ago that LP also helped me pull out of – but I’ll get to explaining that more in-depth later on. Right now we’re still in the HT era; I just wanted to talk a little bit more about my motivations for writing this piece.[3]

Part Two: Reanimation

#Keep that in mind/ I designed this rhyme/ when I was obsessed with time. [RA Track 3: “Enth E Nd]

Full disclosure: when I first heard Reanimation, I thought it had its moments. But it wasn’t something I could listen to end-to-end and love every single song. Heck, even HT wasn’t like that, since some of the songs had to grow on me. The video with the robots and aliens having a war while the disembodied robot heads of the band sing the remixed version of “Points of Authority” by Jay Gordon of Orgy was definitely awesome, but I don’t know, I had mixed feelings about the album that took years for it to resolve into me think of it as one of the LP’s early era classics that would culminate with Meteora and Live in Texas.

I have a very distinct memory of popping this cd into the car’s stereo while we were out in…Houston? Taiwan? The details are blurry now because it’s been too long. Seventeen years was a long time ago, and 2002 me was simpler, less refined, and yes, much dumber and naïve. On an emotional level, “p5hng me Aw*y” stood out, and even though it wasn’t actually a true Linkin Park song, “It’s Goin’ Down” stood out from this time period too.

Part Three: Meteora

#I’ll never fight again, and this is how it ends…I don’t know what’s worth fighting, or why I have to scream, but now I have some clarity to show you what I mean… [MA Track 9: “Breaking the Habit”]

Meteora is one of those albums I more clearly associate with Diablo II and Starcraft more than any other games. Just something about the overall darkness and broodiness of the album really fit both of those games. Also, this essay project is making me want to go back in time. Not really from a nostalgia standpoint – okay yeah I guess from a nostalgia standpoint. But it was during this era that I really started to enjoy their music videos. Believe it or not, for the longest time, not all of the songs on the album were rated five stars. I used to be stingier with that rating that I am now. It took a while for some of the songs to grow on me, but “Somewhere I Belong”, “Faint”, “Easier to Run”, “Breaking the Habit”. “Nobody’s Listening”, and “Numb” were instant standouts. I’m still not sure what happened to my original copy of this album. The last I checked, I had a burned copy, but not the real deal.

Part Four: Live in Texas

#When I look into your eyes there’s nothing there to see/nothing but my own mistakes staring back at me# [LIT Track 8: P5hng Me A*wy – Live]

Man, I remember this too. It must have come out six months or so after Meteora did, and grabbing it from Kmart was one of my best days. I think it was also the first LP album to have the dreaded Parental Advisory sticker on it, and this is probably the album I blame most for me disliking the edited versions of songs. Sometimes edits can be clever, but when they’re just bleeps or certain naughty words are blanked out, then it gets annoying. Then again, I probably wasn’t a stranger to this concept thanks to early exposure to Third Eye Blind and Limp Bizkit, as I mentioned before. Was this the first time I heard “live” performances of LP? I think it was, and it probably stoked my eagerness to see them live in concert. Alas, it was never to be.

Part Five: Collision Course

#Yeah/Thank you, thank you, thank you, you’re far too kind#  [CC Track 4: “Numb / Encore”]

It’s fitting that as I pick this up on (7/21/19) it’s the day after the 2 year anniversary. I meant to have this finished by the 20th, but it just didn’t happen. Plus “Numb/Encore” was one of the first songs that started up on this go-through of the playlist. If you’re interested in listening to it, I can direct you to my Spotify profile! Numb is one of those songs that have taken on new meaning since his death, but out of all the collaborations on this mashup album, I think it’s the one that works the best sonically and thematically, especially with the juxtaposition between angst and bravado[4].

Part Six: Fort Minor & The Rising Tied

#So sick, if he’s gonna think/That the good lord would come take him/I’m shaking him, “Wake up, you son of a bitch!”#  [TRT Track 14: “Red to Black”]

It was four years between the era of Meteora and Minutes to Midnight. In between that time, there was a sea change. First there was the mashup with Jay-Z, and then this came along in November 2005. I remember being more stoked for it than probably any other music that I discovered that year – and this was when Fall Out Boy, 50 Cent, and Coheed and Cambria dawned on me, among others. For those who don’t know, Fort Minor is/was Mike’s side project. He’s since done other solo stuff under his own name but between then and now he would bust out verses from The Rising Tied and incorporate them into existing songs. I always thought that Red to Black was the most LP-sounding song on the entire album and that for the longest time I thought Chester used Jonah Matranga as an alias and it wasn’t a separate person.  

Part Seven: Minutes to Midnight

#In this farewell/There’s no blood, there’s no alibi/Cause I’ve drawn regret/From the truth of a thousand lies/So let mercy come and wash away# [M2M Track 6: “What I’ve Done”]

In the interest of time, these entries are probably going to get shorter and shorter. At this point, I just want to get the damn thing over with. “What I’ve Done”, the lead single was the one that struck me the most at first; I remember LP making a big deal about how they wanted to start a new sound after leaving their classic era behind. The music video was awesome, and I think LP was one of the best choices for the Transformers movies. I always thought that “What I’ve Done” would make a great wrestling song. Not necessarily as an entrance theme, but as a hype video for a PPV or a feud or something like that. EWR back in the day helped reinforce that belief though I can’t exactly remember what I associated it with – anyway, that’s neither here nor there. The day that I got this album was the same day the shooting at Virginia Tech happened. Finding out that the shooter was a mentally ill Asian dude spooked me. In today’s parlance, I was shook.[5] That’s something that has always stuck out even though it’s something I’ve not been fond of discussing, for obvious reasons. Still, for our purposes here, it is for once, actually relevant.

Part Eight: Dead by Sunrise and Out of Ashes

#Don’t want to lose my innocence/Don’t want the world second-guessing my heart/Won’t let your lies take a piece of my soul/Don’t want to take your medicine# [OOA Track 2: “Crawl Back In”]

The melodies that emerged on Minutes to Midnight, especially when it was Chester’s turn to take the mic, evolved. They turned into another platform for his music: the side-project Dead by Sunrise and their only album, so far as I know: Out of Ashes. I lump this album in with Welcome to the Masquerade by Thousand Foot Krutch and Dear Agony by Breaking Benjamin. All three emerged during my sophomore year of college[6], which was another difficult year for me. I think that is when I had the most trouble sleeping, either by choice or for other reasons.  Out of everything LP-related, I think I have given this the least amount of attention. It’s probably time for that to change, ten years later.

Part Nine: A Thousand Suns

#Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds/I suppose we all thought that, one another# [ATA Track 2: “The Radiance”]

If Minutes to Midnight was an attempt to step out of the shadow of Hybrid Theory, then A Thousand Suns represented an aural breakaway. It was vastly different, integrating more spoken word and turning up their signature sound to 12. I can’t remember exactly if it was in 2009 or 2010 that I was meant to go see LP as they rolled into DC. Ultimately, I couldn’t go because of a lack of transport. It all ended up moot anyway because that was the show that got canceled because of Chester being sick. Trying to dig up that post on Facebook is probably beyond me now because it’s a day late. Maybe someday I’ll be able to find it again because those days were golden (at least my pathetic little eulogy for him that I wrote two years ago.)

Part Ten: Living Things

#Fly me up on a silver wing/Past the black where the sirens sing/Warm me up in a nova’s glow/And drop me down to the dream below#  [LT Track 6: “Castle of Glass”]

So if LP had been striving to break away from the sound that made them famous, it was at this point where they were “Nah bro” and went full bore back around into an ouroboros[7] of awesome. While the vast majority of A Thousand Suns[8] had to grow on me over the intervening years, Living Things grabbed me by the throat and never let go. It followed the Hybrid Theory blueprint to a T. After all this time, “Castle of Glass” still stands out as my favorite from the album, but as is often the case, it’s hard to pick favorites.

Part Eleven: Recharged

#When I was young, they told me, they said/Make your bed, you lie in that bed/A king can only reign ‘til instead/There comes that day it’s off with his head# [RC Track 1: “A Light That Never Comes”]

The less said about this, the better. It had its moments, especially “A Light That Never Comes” which showed me the potential of Steve Aoki. But the memory that stands out most clearly about the day I got this album was getting a case of Hell or High Watermelon beer. I think since I got it from Record and Tape Traders, it was the day I found the TARDIS socks for Ally and sent them to her later that week. As you probably gathered from the cluster of footnotes, this was deemed my least favorite “official” LP album, and that ranking has held up in the last six years. It does to Living Things what Reanimation did to Hybrid Theory, but for whatever reason, I can’t bring myself to enjoy it more.  

Part Twelve: The Hunting Party

#Cause you don’t know what you’ve got/it’s your battle to be fought/until it’s gone# [THP Track 7: “Until It’s Gone]

Ah, here we go. LP seems to follow patterns in the creation of their albums. Cause roughly a year after Recharged, there came The Hunting Party. After A Thousand Suns came and went, it seemed like LP was on a creative lull. But then we got LT, Recharged, and THP in three straight years. This came out in 2014, and it’s hard to believe that five years have passed already. To this day, I still think that my favorite part was all of the guest appearances on their album, especially from collaborators they hadn’t featured before then, like Daron Malakian and Tom Morello.

Part Thirteen: Welcome

#First time I did it, yeah I’ll admit it/I kinda hit it and quit it and left y’all hanging# [“Welcome”]

In all honesty, this should be a footnote for The Rising Tied. It came out 10 years later, as a way for Mike to tip a wink and a nod at all his fans that were still waiting for a full-fledged sequel. Fate had other plans, though. I can still remember helping to clean Tidewater while this song blared through my headphones.  This probably became one of my most played songs of 2015.

Part Fourteen:  One More Light

#Who cares if one more light goes out? Well I do# [OML Track 9: “One More Light”]

We’re almost to the finish line. I was super excited for One More Light because it broke a drought of no new music until 2017[9]. The song One More Light became more poignant after his passing. I hope it still makes him proud.

Part Fifteen: Afterword

So where do we go from here?  Honestly, not even the remaining members of the band know. They’re not actively looking to replace Chester, and as a group, they’re still officially on hiatus. I didn’t even touch on any of the DVD or special edition releases that I’ve barely heard. I guess in a sense they’re honorable mentions, but without having listened to them, I can’t form any honest opinions or associations for them.[10]

[/mrhahn]

     [1] It seems fitting that I mention that shirt I got as a twelve-year-old because that’s when I started picking up on writing as a hobby. It was a way to release my imagination and translate what I had in mind into a story, even if those early stories were embarrassingly bad. These footnotes will serve to flesh out those asides since they’ll more than likely distract from the main narrative I’m trying to spin here.

         [2] Although Revenge remains iconic! Even to this day, I still long for an N64 and another copy.

[3] Chester struggled with MI too, even though hardly anyone knew it. It’s what ultimately got the best of him.

[4] My fascination with Genius Lyrics is really helping me to analyze and better understand the meanings of the words.

[5] It didn’t help that he bore an uncanny resemblance to me…

[6] 2009, how time flies!

[7] Not sure how to spell this dang word.

[8] I regarded it as my least favorite LP album until Recharged came out. More on that later.

[9] It wasn’t until that I built the playlist that inspired this essay that I learned that there were some other singles issued between The Hunting Party and One More Light. These tracks include “We Made It” with Busta Rhymes, which actually fell between Meteora and Minutes to Midnight; “Not Alone”, which was between A Thousand Suns and Living Things; and “Darker Than Blood” with Steve Aoki that was between The Hunting Party and One More Light.  

[10] One was called “Frat Party at the Pankake Festival” and the other one was “Road to Revolution”, I think?

#chester bennington #Linkin Park #mental health #mental illness #make chester proud

[royz-yade]

「Royz THE BEST2009-2019」 「TRACKS」

Subaru’s LINE entry 2019/4/30 01:52

We’ve finished all 8 concerts of our best album tour “TRACKS” without any incidence. Thanks to everyone who got in touch with us during the tour.

And well, since the tour has ended I thought of talking a bit about our best album “Royz THE BEST2009-2019“

About one year ago (it’s unsure though) we’ve started working on this constantly. We’ve waited for the right timing and on 4/3 we could finally let it out into this world. You’ve already listened to it, haven’t you?

The compilation consists of the rerecorded version of our lead tracks from when we were still five members, of the lead tracks of the time after we became four members, of bonus tracks and the songs No Fate and Anniversary that weren’t featured on any CD before. Also, a rerecorded and rearranged version of kuroageha, marble palette and toumei na yuki.

To be honest, when in a meeting the topic of releasing a best album came up I was absolutely for releasing it but I was against rerecording the songs.

You wonder why? Because in the past I didn’t love the rerecordings of the artists I like 笑 Of course I thought that they are good but... the bad sound quality, the insufficient skills, the fact that it was still in the process of being properly formed​ ... I think it’s good that way. Rather than wanting it to be better I appreciate the memories that come up when listening to these songs.

Sure, I thought [the new versions] were good but it’s also hard. We became adults... That’s what I also think [with a sad feeling]. I relive those memories and they take me back to that place, to the one of that smell or how I was looking up at the sky from that window while listening to that song. They made me think: “Let’s try giving my best again!” That was good. That time.

That’s why it’s not good or bad. “That” became my companion. That’s why I hate the feeling of exchanging “that” with “this”. “That” is hard to explain. But I’d like you to understand. This isn’t the first time we rerecorded songs. I just thought it’s different when it’s for a best album.

But it’s also a practical thing. Around the time we released CORE Kazuki left and Kuina became the only guitarist. Desperately and with pain in his hands he said “I can do it!”. I think he played a lot of the guitar without us even realizing. I barely tell him he goes against the flow but that’s one great point of him. I also think that it was difficult for Koudai to become the only person on the left side of the stage, also in a negative way. I don’t think we could do anything about it but when we went on stage the people in front of us were almost all crying. There were a lot of painful concerts. And during all that we could work out who we really are. Like... I could come to say that this is my place. Nobody can end this here.

I think Tomoya had to bear a lot of weight as leader. His character is lively and positive, so usually he always seems to be fine but I really don’t think that this is always the case. There are many people who always seem fine but cry in secret. Please keep an eye on the people around you!

Our manager was desperate, too. Worrying about Royz.

We are clumsy, so there were also times when we talked past each other. But Royz was still loved. But you all know that, don’t you?

Rey who joined as support member also saved us a lot. I think it would have been impossible without him.

But for Kuina the hurdle​ was too high and we became a band with four members. The label owner, the label and label mates... if I start talking about it there is no end, so I will stop here. I don’t really like talking about the past and this moving story and already got lost in writing about it but this is an obvious fact. The longer we’re active the more people are there who don’t know about all this.

“But somehow the four-member Royz is cool, isn’t it?” We could gather new power for this. This prologue got so long... But that’s why in general our songs are for five people. It’s not true for all though. We’ve also synchronizing more of the songs. I started to understand more about putting things in order and the timing. On our CDs as well as when we perform our songs live. That’s what you do when you decide on keep on going.

That’s why while accepting [to rerecord new versions] I thought that when we do it you will understand it. The start that I was thinking about it and getting prepared for it was that I wondered with which feeling I would sing these songs if we rerecord them.

I think what I wrote until here was quite long-winded but when I listened to our first rerecordings of eve:r and ACROSS WORLD I thought “no no, the rerecordings are so good!” ( 笑）

Yeah~ these 10 years were more serious than I thought. Or not? We held concerts step by step and even though I thought I got used to listen to our songs they sounded completely different after rerecording them. We became adults, didn’t we? That’s what I think. The songs in the past were cute, so I like them so much. Especially songs like haru no yoru no yume. It was something we could only do back then the way we did it. Back then we gave our very very best together. 

But in the end, the new one is good. It’s not wrong to say that even though I didn’t like to say it. I thought that we’ve changed without changing. That’s what I realized before creating this new version.

And also, we thought if it’s possible to release “Anniversary” on the best album then we should do it. That’s what we decided the first time we performed it (was it 4 or 5 years ago? It’s unsure).

I also came to like No Fate a lot. In the end the lyrics are very formal （笑） There are songs for which we used downtuning, we created the songs in a way that it fits for one guitar since we became four members. We have grown up, so I think we express that image now with more adult-like clothes.  But on the contrary there are also songs that were sung in a fresh way. If I start talking about details now then here as well there is no end, so please just listen to them a lot! I know you do though! Please try to feel it. It would be nice if you can enjoy it double as much as before. And please tell me whatever you think about it in fanletters, fanmails, replies or letters. In the end I’m the happiest when you’re happy.

So, we released that album and went on our TRACKS tour to Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka and Nagoya like weekend heros. It was fun to see you all having fun, you who haven’t seen us in these clothes live, who know us only from music videos on youtube or from photos. And everyone who did see us back then probably felt nostalgic. This was also an opportunity to meet old friends again. Speaking of that, this timing for releasing our best album... there might also be a lot of people who came to like us just recently. You probably have all different thoughts about it. In the end, we wanted to grab everyone and everything and make it a rehearsal for our 10th anniversary live that we’re aiming at. With that in mind we decided on this title “TRACKS” [like “cart track”]. During this TRACKS tour more than in anyone else there was something big inside of me that started to bloom. Right afterwards I was asked for an Rock&Read interview and we talked about many things. I could make many dreams come true.

No, this is still a talk of a dream that is lying ahead. Way before. I wonder how it will be in the end. That’s why even though I talk so much about it I don’t know what strength we will have. Whatever it is it feels like you always lose to the things you said before, so I will talk about it again when time comes. But for me the things we could accomplish were really huge. It’s painful to just keep on running without knowing where you go. I think if you do that your heart will shatter for sure. Even at times when I didn’t know where I was running, it was a huge help to know my goal.  In that story about the dream that is lying ahead there are Kuina and Koudai and Tomoya. Also our manager and the staff. That’s why they have to be there. More than anything, I want them to be happy. Starting with the members, I want to become a person that can shoulder also the lives of people around me. A person that other people want to have around and about whom they are happy to have spend their live together with. That’s what I want to become. I want people to think about me: “I’m happy I picked him.”

When I think back of this tour it makes me remember how they are with me for already more than 9 years and that we’ve appreciated all that together. That’s what this talk is all about. This isn’t amazing and I don’t want to talk about it in a self-satisfied way. But it is cool. Just, for me this is something big. Because I’m a vocalist.

It feels like until now I’ve only lived for myself. But now, for the first time, I’ve hoped for the happiness of other people from the bottom of my heart. I realized that this has become my greatest joy. Maybe thoughts are smaller now. Maybe it’s because so many big things have happened around me. And that’s why, in the end, I want to become a person that can pull them with me [=motivate them] in an extraordinary way.

There are people who think “I can’t do this.” or “This live is shit.” But only by continuing this band there were times, when, rather as bandman but as person the way of seeing life has changed. I’m sure the other members have experienced it as well. That’s the nature of words. This happens if you choose tomorrow. If you believe in Royz. That’s the way I am.

That’s the sproud that started blooming thanks to this tour. And I’m also really happy that we could become a band that can release a best album. The atmosphere of the tour was awesome and great and it was an awesome month. It was SO much fun! Thank you so much.

Well well, IGNITE was released on May 1st, the day when heisei turned to reiwa. We uploaded the IGNITE MV before but it would be great if you looked forward to the coupling songs. We can grow even more. If we were satisfied and stopped here we wouldn’t be able to show all the hope to the people who come to like us from here on. We became a band like that.

This is an unorganized long entry, as always, but thank you for reading until here. It seems like it will be a good 10th year. Well then, talk to you in the next era! (so cool)

#royz #subaru #blog

[the-punforgiven]

ALL OF THEM, 1 TO 150

…

Aight, let’s go I guess

I’mma put it under a readmore since it’s pretty long lmao

1. Who was the last person you held hands with?My cat lmao

2. Are you outgoing or shy?Shy

3. Who are you looking forward to seeing?@cardiac-ossification​, someday

4. Are you easy to get along with?I mean once you get used to the fact that I barely speak and that one-word responses do not mean I don’t want to talk to you, I guess maybe?

5. If you were drunk would the person you like take care of you?Most likely

6. What kind of people are you attracted to?Pretty much anyone who could kick my ass lmao

7. Do you think you’ll be in a relationship two months from now?I sure hope so

8. Who from the opposite gender is on your mind?@cardiac-ossification​

9. Does talking about sex make you uncomfortable?Depends on who I’m talking about it with honestly, like for the most part yeah, but like if I’m really close with someone then that changes things somewhat lmao

10. Who was the last person you had a deep conversation with?….. Also @cardiac-ossification​

11. What does the most recent text that you sent say?Rad

12. What are your 5 favorite songs right now?

A Sound of Thunder - Hello Nurse

Whispered - Strike

Children of Bodom - All Twisted

Ye Banished Privateers - Lamentation of a Marooned Sailor

Arsis - Unwelcome (but like the whole album lmao)

13. Do you like it when people play with your hair?Yes

14. Do you believe in luck and miracles?Yeah

15. What good thing happened this summer?Bold of you to assume I remember when anything has happened

16. Would you kiss the last person you kissed again?No

17. Do you think there is life on other planets?Oh absolutely, whether that’s just like, microbes or something I dunno but thinking of the entire vastness of space I find it really hard to believe that this planet’s the only one with life

18. Do you still talk to your first crush?No

19. Do you like bubble baths?I guess? To be honest I haven’t had one since I was a kid Probably since I don’t actually even fit into the tub anymore lmao

20. Do you like your neighbors?I don’t think I’ve actually met them lmao, I’ve talked to them like twice when they asked me to help find their dog but they seem alright lmao

21. What are you bad habits?Procrastinating and just fucking forgetting literally fucking everything

22. Where would you like to travel?Norway and Wisconsin are my two big ones

23. Do you have trust issues?Yeah? I feel like I tend to trust people too easily lmao

24. Favorite part of your daily routine?Sending cute good morning messages to my girlfriend lmao

25. What part of your body are you most uncomfortable with?Probably either my stomach or my body hair honestly

26. What do you do when you wake up?Open my eyes Roll around a bit and immediately grab my phone lmao

27. Do you wish your skin was lighter or darker?Not really, I honestly don’t care, it’s gonna be gone soon enough anyway

28. Who are you most comfortable around?Fun game take a shot everytime I tag @cardiac-ossification​

29. Have any of your ex’s told you they regret breaking up?No

30. Do you ever want to get married?Maybe

31. If your hair long enough for a pony tail?Yeah.

32. Which celebrities would you have a threesome with?¯\_(ツ)_/¯

33. Spell your name with your chin.Today I have learned that I can’t actually lean that far down

34. Do you play sports? What sports?No? I mean I spar a bit and would love to try out the Armored Combat League, if that counts?

35. Would you rather live without TV or music?TV, I’d honestly probably die without music lmao

36. Have you ever liked someone and never told them?Yeah

37. What do you say during awkward silences?bold of you to assume I can talk at all

38. Describe your dream girl/guy?Literally just @cardiac-ossification​ lmao

39. What are your favorite stores to shop in?Can’t say I really have any that spring to mind, honestly, like if they sell guitars, cd’s, or swords then I’m gonna be good but I don’t have an actual favourite place lmao

40. What do you want to do after high school?Visit my girlfriend, join a band, achieve omnipotence

41. Do you believe everyone deserves a second chance?I prefer to think of that sort of thing on a more case-to-case basis, but for the most part, Yes? 

42. If your being extremely quiet what does it mean?Extremely quiet’s just my natural state of being lmao Silent however usually just denotes that I’m in a horrible mood

43. Do you smile at strangers?I mean, I try to but I’ve also been told I’m like hella intimidating and I know I’ve got a pretty bad case of supervillain grin so I dunno it that’s actually the best idea lmao 

44. Trip to outer space or bottom of the ocean?If you’re offering I’d go with Space, since unlike the ocean I can’t just walk there

45. What makes you get out of bed in the morning?Need for caffine and whatever the fuck you call those pills that stop heartburn I forget the name

46. What are you paranoid about?Everything. Though talking in my sleep’s a big one for some reason

47. Have you ever been high?No

48. Have you ever been drunk?Barely

49. Have you done anything recently that you hope nobody finds out about?Yeah, though I mean someone already knows about it I’m just embarassed about that whole topic in general lmao

50. What was the colour of the last hoodie you wore?I don’t actually remember since I like never wear hoodies anymore but probably Black

51. Ever wished you were someone else?Occasionally in a sort of brief non-serious way, but like intensely? No

52. One thing you wish you could change about yourself?that’s really tough honestly, I’d probably want either more muscles or a fucking functioning brain

53. Favourite makeup brand?I don’t wear makeup lmao

54. Favourite store?Wasn’t this already asked?

55. Favourite blog?I’ve got a lot lmao, I can’t narrow it down to one, sorry…

56. Favourite colour?Black, if that counts, if not probably that one shade of purple

57. Favourite food? Spaghetti

58. Last thing you ate?Shepherd’s Pie

59. First thing you ate this morning?Bold of you to assume I’ve eaten today

60. Ever won a competition? For what?I honestly don’t think I have lmao, and if I did I don’t remember lmao

61. Been suspended/expelled? For what?I was suspended for like half my fuckin time in middle school because I’d just fuckin fight everyone if memory serves

62. Been arrested? For what?I haven’t lmao

63. Ever been in love? I am right now

64. Tell us the story of your first kiss?Uhhh, watching Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny with my first girlfriend and I just kinda asked if she’d be down. She said yeah and… there we go. Fuckin… Great mood movie

65. Are you hungry right now?Yeah

66. Do you like your tumblr friends more than your real friends?A lot of my real friends follow me on here so I’m not sure I can answer this lmao

67. Facebook or Twitter?I’m not terribly fond of either to be honest

68. Twitter or Tumblr?Tumblr, I guess

69. Are you watching tv right now?No

70. Names of your bestfriends? Thanks for pluralizing but I dunno if they’re comfortable with me giving out their names on the internet so I’mma err on the side of caution here lmao

71. Craving something? What?Uhhh meat lmao, I need the protien

72. What colour are your towels?We’ve got a lot of varying colours lmao

72. How many pillows do you sleep with?I mean there are two on my bed but I don’t actually use them they’re just kinda there lmao

73. Do you sleep with stuffed animals?… Yes?

74. How many stuffed animals do you think you have?Three? I’ve got a stuffed bear that I’ve had since I was a baby that’s just kinda rotting away in my closet, a stuffed hyena that I got from my wonderful girlfriend, and a plushie undead warlock that I got at a con lmao

75. Favourite animal?The Snow Tiger. Not only are they cute cats, but also majestic and aesthetic

76. What colour is your underwear?My what now Black

77. Chocolate or Vanilla?Chocolate

78. Favourite ice cream flavour?Cookie Dough I guess?

79. What colour shirt are you wearing?Black

80. What colour pants?Also black

81. Favourite tv show?¯\_(ツ)_/¯

82. Favourite movie?Kung Fury? I dunno I don’t remember like half the movies I watch

83. Mean Girls or Mean Girls 2?I haven’t actually seen either of them lmao

84. Mean Girls or 21 Jump Street?.. Haven’t seen 21 Jump Street either lmao

85. Favourite character from Mean Girls?Why are there so many Mean Girls questions

86. Favourite character from Finding Nemo?¯\_(ツ)_/¯

87. First person you talked to today?My sister, who dutifully wakes me up every afternoon by destroying my fucking door jesus christ child calm down I’ve had to fix the thing like twice already

88. Last person you talked to today?I dunno, discord buddies

89. Name a person you hate?No one really springs to mind honestly, I don’t know if I’ve got anyone I really hate, y’know?

90. Name a person you love?@cardiac-ossification​

91. Is there anyone you want to punch in the face right now?Me

92. In a fight with someone?Also Me Not really lmao

93. How many sweatpants do you have?Exactly one that I made myself a few years ago. They’re falling the fuck apart and they’re pretty ugly since the only fabric I had available was that really gross camo green so I honestly don’t care lmao

94. How many sweaters/hoodies do you have?Like three? I think? I’ve kinda unofficially given them away to my brother and sister, but they’re still here so I dunno lmao

95. Last movie you watched?I don’t remember, I mean I was present in the room the other night while my roommate was watching the Hateful Eight but it’s a stretch to say I was actually watching it lmao

96. Favourite actress?¯\_(ツ)_/¯

97. Favourite actor?¯\_(ツ)_/¯

98. Do you tan a lot?No, I am disgustingly ginger so I don’t tan at all I just go straight to burning

99. Have any pets?I do! I have a cat, her name’s Groucho, and she’s the sweetest little thing! I live with another cat, two dogs, and a couple of birds but they’re not technically mine lmao

100. How are you feeling?Horrible, thank you for asking! I’m getting sick physically and I’m constantly reminded that I’m a defective fucking human being!

101. Do you type fast?Not really, like I type fast-ish in short bursts, but the space between them is regrettably long lmao

102. Do you regret anything from your past?Anything and everything! It’s only in the last couple of years have I really started to realize what an insufferable pile of shit I’ve been for my entire life and knowing that nobody’s ever gonna forget that really keeps me up at night!

103. Can you spell well?No

104. Do you miss anyone from your past?Not particularly.

105. Ever been to a bonfire party?I think so yeah

106. Ever broken someone’s heart?not that I know of?

107. Have you ever been on a horse?no

108. What should you be doing?Not being the most useless creature in the universe, contributing to society in literally any way, actually caring about my health, pursuing any hobbies, the list is endless!

109. Is something irritating you right now?Yeah!

110. Have you ever liked someone so much it hurt?Also yeah lmao

111. Do you have trust issues?Yes, but I feel as if it’s more so in the sense that I trust people too quickly/easily rather than too little and- Wait wasn’t this also already asked?

112. Who was the last person you cried in front of?……. Also @cardiac-ossification​, kinda?

113. What was your childhood nickname?Uhhh, there were a lot and all of them were gross and insulting, so I’d rather not say lmao

114. Have you ever been out of your province/state?Yeah

115. Do you play the Wii?Back when we had one, yeah. I was a fucking god at Wii Boxing, and at one point had mastered getting that perfect angle to always hit strikes in Wii bowling. Fucking wish I could do that with actual bowling lmao

116. Are you listening to music right now?I am, currently checking something out that was in my recommended list, but I’m not sure if I’m really into it yet though

117. Do you like chicken noodle soup?Yeah

118. Do you like Chinese food?Yes! I especially love chow mein and ginger beef, the place in town that makes it is just the fuckin best. 

119. Favourite book?Overlord I guess? I dunno I barely ever read anymore

120. Are you afraid of the dark?Not unless I’ve been given a reason to be.

121. Are you mean?I… Try not to be…

122. Is cheating ever okay?No

123. Can you keep white shoes clean?no

124. Do you believe in love at first sight?Not really. I believe in attraction at first sight, but love’s something that I find needs to be built up over time? I guess?

125. Do you believe in true love?I think so, yeah?

126. Are you currently bored?Yeah

127. What makes you happy?@cardiac-ossification, music, art, and For Honor trailers lmao

128. Would you change your name?Maybe? I don’t really care about it enough to want to change it lmao

129. What your zodiac sign?Virgo

130. Do you like subway?Yeah! It gives me massive heartburn but it’s pretty great

131. Your bestfriend of the opposite sex likes you, what do you do?Calmly explain to them that I’m in a committed relationship already

132. Who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with?Say it with me now, @cardiac-ossification

133. Favourite lyrics right now?Not sure, I mean everything Gloryhammer’s ever written are great for a giggle but like on a serious tone, I’ve got nothin lmao

134. Can you count to one million?There is no way in hell I’d have the patience to lmao

135. Dumbest lie you ever told?There are way to many to choose, I am a fucking terrible liar lmao

136. Do you sleep with your doors open or closed?Closed

137. How tall are you?6′2

138. Curly or Straight hair?Is this question in terms of which I prefer or which I have? in which case I don’t really have a preference and mine is straight

139. Brunette or Blonde?Honestly I’m not sure? Like, my two favourite hair colours are like, jet black and blinding white lmao, all the rest of them I’m pretty neutral on lmao

140. Summer or Winter?Winter, on the sheer basis that I can be outside without having to sacrifice a good chunk of my flesh to the sun gods

141. Night or Day?Night

142. Favourite month?October, for obvious reasons

143. Are you a vegetarian?No

144. Dark, milk or white chocolate?Dark Chocolate, 100%. Milk Chocolate is a pretty good second place, but white chocolate just makes me sick

145. Tea or Coffee?Coffee

146. Was today a good day?meh, it had it’s highs and lows, so overall it’s about average I’d say

147. Mars or Snickers?Snickers, I guess

148. What’s your favourite quote?nothing springs to mind, aside from the super pretentious “Just because perfection is unattainable, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive for it” or however the fuck it went

149. Do you believe in ghosts?Yeah

150. Get the closest book next to you, open it to page 42, what’s the first line on that page? “For this rough bunch who valued an adventurer’s strength above all, what he was saying made sense”

Thanks for the asks!

#thanks! #asks #anon

[theparadorinn]

Reggae Faves, Database Nightmare, Courtyard, RJ’s thank you

Hi,

One of my new favorite Reggae artists is Stick Figure. Scott Woodruff made so many great ballads like this All for You, he is an eerie. sounding man.  He's written most all of the songs they perform.  He plays all the instruments and does the vocals himself.  When he went on tour several years ago he realized he needed other musicians to be able to perform on stages and started picking up other musicians.  He's been on tour with Collie Buddz (another of my faves.  This listing on Collie doesn't include a song I heard years ago and still my favorite of his Sensimillia, incase you don't know sinsemilla it is a high THC form of weed pot, etc.  Two more of my faves are Rebelution and The Green.  I think I told you about my guest Alex turning me on to Midnite.  We were talking about Reggae and Alex said you know Midnite?  I said no, he pulled it up on his phone.  I asked which was his favorite album of theirs and he said Unpolished.  So I started looking for it, you can hear it on YouTube, but trying to buy the CD the only place I could find it was on Amazon for $976-seriously for a CD?  I was bitching to another guest about this, he found it while having breakfast and liked it also.   This nameless person sent me a copy he had made.  Yes I'm a criminal for accepting pirated copies.  But in my defense, I tried to buy it.

Here's a picture of my latest MASSIVE project.  One of the shortcomings of my reservation system is you cannot go from one guest to the next.  To check the entire list I had to download the list into Excel and then print it and work from those sheets.  I have just over 7,000 guests in my data base so that 350 pages more or less.  A past housekeeper I had would bring her son to work. When he got older, I started letting him help me in the kitchen, a high school kid on his first job, I paid him minimum wage (there were many things I wouldn’t let him do because of his youth). When he demanded $10 an hour, we parted ways.  He was old enough he could be at home without a babysitter.  He liked computers and was with me when I switched from the old system to my current system.  The old data couldn’t be directly imported into the new system so I tasked him with copying and pasting the old data into the new system.  His cut and pasting technique ended up with over a thousand guests with two first names.  It was like May & John & John.  It really drove me crazy when I would do my holiday cards, other times I didn’t see it. That was the biggest problem with my data base.  I’ve been meaning to print the pages and clean it up from there and finally did it this year.  There was other things in there bothered Mr. OCD (me).  I like uniformity not Pa instead of PA, or Pennsylvania instead of PA  So I went through all 7,000 past guests.  Hours and hours and it’s finally completed.

A funny story, speaking of the data base, if you’ve stayed here RJ sends a cute thank you:

“As Senior VP of Hospitality, one of my jobs is to thank recently departed new friends for their visit. I have a rough job, barking to keep us safe, letting people pet me, running up to people each time I see them to greet them and now training the JR VP of Hospitality. But, someone has to do it. Anyway, thanx so much for visiting with us and we look forward to seeing you again in the future.”

A guest received this and sent me an email saying neither of them had died from my use recently departed.  Try and be nice and sometimes I just can’t win.  😊

I’ve been interviewed by WTAE twice so far this year.  The first one was in January and the topic was how the pandemic effected bed and breakfast.  And the second one was just last week on my opinion of the stimulus package.

With this nice weather, I’ve been able to get the courtyard really cleaned up.  Jeff my friend that owns The Inn on the Mexican War Streets and I go to the gym on a regular basis.  It’s nice, I’m pretty much a novice at it and he knows the machines and I just follow his lead.  And we get stuck in his or my car for the 20 minute drive to the gym and talk.  I was complaining about this huge stack of debris I had cleared out of the gardens and hate putting it in a landfill.  He suggested I do the same thing I do with the elephant ears and banana leaves, chopping them up with my lawn mower and put it down and spread my mulch over it.  It will rot and send it’s nutrients to my plants’ roots.  Good idea Jeff, thanx.

[theliterateape]

Is the Cancel Culture Racist or a Response to Bigotry?

by Don Hall

Morgan Wallen is a country singer who was recently caught on camera using the word that cannot be uttered by a white person, let alone a white guy who sings country music. 

On one side, he was canceled. Suspended record deals, dropped from radio stations, streaming services taking down his music, and an automatic disqualification from this year’s Academy of Country Music awards. On the other side, Wallen’s latest album Dangerous became the the longest running number one album for a male artist since 2016, largely out of protest for his being canceled.

Aside from the fact that I wouldn’t likely buy his album in the first place as my musical tastes were frozen in the 1980’s, I can’t say that I disagree with the canceling. In this day and age, uttering the n-word while white is always with intent. It isn’t an accidental utterance. The intent most assumed is that dude is a fucking racist and leave it at that. Those who then purchase his music in record numbers must also be racists. Five years from now, if someone notices a copy of Dangerous on your record or CD stack, you’re going to have to issue an apology for owning the work of a racist.

In our current cultural civil war the lines are clearly drawn but the motivations for being one side or the other are less clear, less evident. Like the term ‘fake news’ the GOP loves to take that issue taken with their practice (originally utilized to describe Trump’s routine bag of horseshit trotted out daily) and turn it around on the rest of us (it was quickly re-branded as the enemy of Trump). ‘Cancel culture’ has undergone the same transformation.

There is a problem—in accountability, in due process, in general fairness—with the practice of mobs not merely boycotting individuals for what is deemed egregious behavior and language but harassing people into joining the boycott on moral grounds. These problems are not quite the same as what is meant by ‘cancel culture’ when uttered by Ted Cruz.

The new esoteric social media thing is called Clubhouse. Essentially an audio Zoom call for hundreds of people to have ‘rooms’ designed for conversations about agreed upon topics, one must be invited to join and then either listen in or join the discussion. You can even hit the “Leave Quietly” button if all you’re doing is listening in. You can ‘raise your hand’ to let the moderator know you want to pipe up as well.

As much as I despise social media, Himmel sent me an invite, so I joined just to see what this might be.

A few weeks ago, Michael Tracey started a room entitled “Is Clubhouse Obsessed with Wokeism?” He hosted the conversation as moderator with a few other moderators until around two hours in he allowed a woman whose handle was “Brooklyn” (IRL Amanda ‘Brooklyn’ Toussaint) to co-moderate. She immediately exiled him and took over the room.

Toussaint is the founder of PROVX, or Progressive Reform Overrides Violence. Her agenda was simple: take over the conversation because she felt it was white people talking around the issue. She made comments early on that the term "woke" should not be used by white people because it is inherently black vernacular and began "stacking" a list of people allowed to speak in the room. The ensuing discussion took an additional three hours.

A few selected quotes after listening to almost the entire thing:

“I just turned off the hand raising. White people put your fucking hands down…”

“As a queer black polyamorous woman I have been checked by trans people because of my internalized transphobia. Violence is not just physical. Your whiteness is violence.”

“By having rooms like this you commit violence to black bodies, violence on marginalized bodies.”

“Why would ya’ll let white people on any stage to talk about anything…?”

“My n****s, you don’t gotta be kind. Let these white motherfuckers choke on it.”

“It’s black history month. Fuck you. Fuck you. Pay me to listen to us, internalize our truth. On Venmo. Right now.”

“White people don’t think of themselves as being white. That’s supremacy.”

“Science was built on transphobia and anti-blackness.”

“How can you say that something is not racist when people are literally telling you it is?”

“I do want white people to reject whiteness. I want them to be anti-white.”

“I value the lives of animals over the lives of white people.”

If you switch out “white” for “black” it is obvious how completely bigoted this nonsense is. “I value the lives of animals over the lives of black people.” WTF? “I just turned off the hand raising. Black people put your fucking hands down…” If it looks like bigotry and smells like bigotry, it’s bigotry. I don’t blame them for being bigots but it’s still bigotry, no matter how you justify it.

Now, the likelihood that most Americans in the rural parts of the country give two shits for Clubhouse, it is not realistic to assume they hear this sort of hateful rhetoric on the regular. They do, however, read The Atlantic. They do read Newsweek. Many of them have some sort of social media and certainly most are in tune with the Trumpish perspective, the FOX News take, on social justice.

You wanna know what social justice looks like to them?

No. This is not what the preponderance of social justice seeks to accomplish yet it is what some might suggest it should. For the exact same reason one would shy away from a white nationalist promoting faux identitarianism, books on black racism, or the cancelling of the beloved writings of, say, August Wilson, we should openly refute this nonsense as well.

Most (as in the vast majority) of the country’s population recognize that anti-black racism is and has been a major issue we need to address. Most (as in the vast majority) are decidedly not bigots. The loudest of both the extreme right and left, however, are really fucking loud and incredibly bigoted.

We know what white supremicist rhetoric and iconography looks like and we should. We should also recognize the same dogma in different skin.

During the summer of unrest last year, as campus activists were tearing down statues of Confederate generals, I saw Ken Burns on some channel talking about the collegiate cleansing.

His perspective was that, of course, in the pursuit of justice there will be over correction. How else to explain the damning of Abraham Lincoln with Robert E. Lee? Over correction is an expected result when attempting a huge fix societally. So is a backlash in response.

Perhaps I simply cannot damn 75 million Americans as racist dipshits for voting for Trump over Biden. Perhaps I believe there are a lot of issues at play and race is only one of many. Hard to say but I do not believe that bigotry—which is present in every human in every country in every century—is the moral evil those seeking power using it as a bludgeon against the Others want us to believe.

I don’t buy Wallen’s music because I’m not a country fan. I don’t buy anything by Ted Nugent anymore despite my love of “Cat Scratch Fever” because he’s a rightwing loon. Road Dahl was a Nazi-sympathizer but I still watch Gene Wilder as Willis Wonka every time I see that it’s on somewhere and I love me some Thomas Jefferson while still recognizing he owned slaves.

Some in America are lashing back from the extreme rhetoric of activists like ‘Brooklyn’ Toussaint. This is an expected result. 

The more history I read, the more I am hit in the jaw with a simple fact: there is nothing new about this. In 1918 there were anti-maskers and protests about government babysitting us. In the fifties, people who were even adjacent to Communists in almost any form were “held accountable” and lost careers over it. And for the entirety of time, there have been asshats who use race to divide us into camps, pitted against each other like teams in a campground battle, like high school jocks versus nerds versus that one badass kid who made a bong in shop class.

We tend to buy this hook every time. Why? Because, like the center of a Tootsie Pop, it only takes the owl three licks to get to our judgmental, self-interested, terrified centers. It is the very core of the Republican (and now Progressive) strategy of population management: tap into that completely normal if not wholly insulated fear of one another and milk the bovine teats of rage spawned from the recipe of terror and impotence.

Perhaps it is due to my ascendence in the (problematic) 1980’s—pre-smartphone, pre-internet, pre-social media, pre-surveillance state—that allows me to fully decide to listen to the race grifters on both sides of the rabid canines of ideology and take no moral offense. Perhaps it is my very GenXness that chooses to engage but on my solid color-blind, MLK inspired path.

Or maybe, like the cancelling of a country music guy, the coup over a social media discussion, or the attack upon Dr. Seuss, I realize that these issues only really matter to people with plenty of food and places to sleep. As in academia, the drama is so high because the stakes are so low.

#cancel culture

[igutranslations]

exist†trace : With honest feelings (FOOL’S MATE, December 2009)

Interview: Yuki Sugie

exist†trace has just released their latest work, “Ambivalent Symphony”, about half a year after their previous album “VANGUARD -of the muses-”. The strength to give people a push forward, the conflicts within yourself, and the expression of affection through music — while facing new challenges like these, they created this latest 7-track album, with a concept of “freedom and restriction”, on which they sing about themselves with the honesty of rethinking their original intentions. Additionally, with the announcement of their 2nd oneman live at Meguro Rockmaykan “Ambivalent Symphony ~piece of the answer~ on November 22nd, I was able to hear commentary on all of the tracks on their new album along with enthusiasm for the oneman.

- I heard that your current mini album, “Ambivalent Symphony”, was written with a motif of contradictions, in accordance with the title.

miko: I thought of stillness and motion, light and dark, life and death, and such, but there are a lot of conflicting things in the world. In this album, we show the “Ambivalent” world in several songs. And, from one part of that basis, we arrived at the theme “freedom and restriction”.

Mally: Before we started making the album, we were all chatting in the car and somehow the topic spread out into something related to our current album’s concept. Even during the beginning stages of the songs we realized quickly that each one became clearer when we took it in another direction. So after that I just put all my energy into playing the way the songs demanded.

- What was the instrument section paying the most attention to with your play style?

Mally: There were songs like the first track, “RESONANCE”, that had an “I’m gonna beat the crap out of it!” feeling, but since there were also very quiet songs where painting the scene was necessary like “Umi no Shizuku”, having a playing style that varied a lot from song to song was more important than it was before now.

Naoto: When we recorded this time, I wanted to use what I’d learned last time effectively, so on parts where I wondered, “did I end up using a phrase I always use?” I made myself think about it from the point of view of what would be best for the song.

Omi: While thinking about organizing and arranging with everyone, we constantly ended up talking about how we wanted to develop it a little bit differently than before.

- Did you perhaps reconstruct exist†trace’s method of playing into twin guitars on this current album?

miko: Of course up until now Omi has played the guitar solos in our recordings, but this is a first for exist†trace. From the beginning I stood at the right side of the stage and Omi stood at the left, and until now I hadn’t thought about it that much, like, Omi will absolutely play this part like a lead guitarist (laugh) for us.

 Omi: There were also parts of those solos that we didn’t have until now, but we did more phrases with intertwining twin guitar and all of that, so it became more important on this album.

- Because your sound evolved to that extent, didn’t the level that Jyou has to express also increase even more as well?

Jyou: It really did increase. The more we progressed in recording, the more I saw how much everyone’s level had gone up, so at the beginning I had this really enthusiastic feeling of “I’m not gonna lose either!” But I also understood that putting too much force into it would not be good either, so this time I relaxed as much as possible to face the recording.

- The result of that is shown freely within the first track, “RESONANCE”.

Jyou: It’s in the content of the lyrics as well, but this song really represents the symbolism of “freedom and restriction” the most.

miko: The things I wanted to express with this song were extremely clear to me before I even started writing it. Therefore the feeling that I wanted to proceed with this song as the axis of the album was really strong. And it’s a song where the intentions of our current selves are easily understood the most openly with the PV as well. So that’s how “RESONANCE” came to be.

- An attitude that, “although there’s nothing perfect in this world, I want to dare to search for perfection nevertheless”, peeks through the sound and lyrics.

Jyou: Yes. I sing this song with a feeling that, the conflicts and regrets of being unable to be satisfied by the way things are, are the reason that I want to face forward and keep moving ahead.

Omi: With the meaning that comes from the lyrics and sound working together, I included sound to try to make you feel the light of hope into the guitar at the end of the song.

- By the way, you put references to this into the PV for this song (contained on the included DVD) as well, so the video is a must-see.

Mally: Aah, and also because there’s a pretty stimulating scene in it. (laugh)

Naoto: We may have ended up “overdoing” it, in various senses of the word. (bitter smile)

- Anyway. You recorded the song “Umi no Shizuku (A Droplet of the Sea)”, which was mentioned a little while ago, for this album as well. It’s a really impressive song composed with a calm and clear image to the sound, the exact opposite of your usual violent band sound.

Jyou: When I first heard it, I thought, this song is very Omi.

- What was the basis of your concept when writing this song?

Omi: The protagonist is a girl who meets a sad fate time and time again. I wrote the music and lyrics to tell a story of how she is never able to break from that cycle, until an end where she no longer even understands the meaning of her own tears. Along with the title “Umi no Shizuku”, I chose to call her Rosemary, because rosemary represents memories and recollections in the language of flowers.

- Fleeting, heartbreaking, and delicate. It’s a song with a gentle atmosphere that only female artists could make.

Jyou: Not only the song itself, but I’ve never used a gentle, feminine falsetto to this extent before, so I feel like I was able to cultivate a new side of myself with this song.

- Another aspect of strong storytelling is “Wrath”, in which a world unique to exist†trace is born from the creation of its deep lyrics and atmospheric sound.

miko: You could say this is a continuation of the song “Hana Sakanai Machi (The Town Where Flowers Don’t Bloom)” from our previous album “VANGUARD -of the muses-”, because something like the subject matter of this song occurred before the story of that song.

Jyou: Singing this song was hard on me. When I sing while completely empathizing with the characters, it’s really sad (bitter smile). To that extent, it became a song with deep subject matter.

- Now, as for the song which seems connected to the album title, “Ambivalence”. What kind of motifs were used to make it?

miko: As one type of contradictory things, I tried to write this song to express the kind of love and hate of when you love someone too much and end up hurting them. Along with that, I was looking for eroticism in the lyrics and sound as well. Even for the guitar, Omi and I were doing completely different things, and yet it honestly intertwines together perfectly. I completed the song with that feeling.

Jyou: And at the same time, we had been talking about how this song doesn’t only apply to romantic relationships, but doesn’t it also surprisingly apply to the connection between fans and a band?  Especially in the last two lines, there are parts where I sang the words directly to the listener.

miko: And for us, this song also includes the feeling that we don’t want to forget our original intentions. The title of the very first CD exist†trace released is also “Ambivalence”. And so I used that word again, because I wanted to re-examine my feelings from back then again.

- That kind of proactive, positive attitude also comes across strongly in “forward”.

Omi: This is the first time we’ve done a song this fast, so for me it was a challenge (laugh).

Naoto: Our band uses synthesizers in a similar proportion to other bands of our time, but for this song we thought we would restrict ourselves to “wanting to make a song that can swell in excitement when unedited live”, so I think the parts where you can hear how we bravely simplified our band sound are a major feature.

- It ended up being a powerful track.

Jyou: It became a track that could give everyone a forceful push ahead when they listen to it. I’ve also had a time, a while back, when I was saying “I want to become free” but just passively waiting for something to happen. But your story can’t advance like that. Because this is also within freedom and restriction, we put into this song the message that, if you stand yourself up and continue forward then definitely you’ll see something.

- Does that message also have a sense of looking inward at yourself?

Jyou: That’s exactly right (laugh). There are a lot of parts about facing yourself and telling yourself to do something.

- Now then. The song called “ “Owari no nai Sekai” (“A World without End”)” brings in the ending of this album. What kind of mission did you place upon this song?

miko: To begin with, I was aiming for a song with bright jar chords that broke free from surface perfection. I wanted to put one tear in exist†trace’s shell here.

Naoto: We’ve never done a song like this before, so as you would expect we would lose our bearings at the beginning, but as we continued we gradually became capable of making a feel-good song, thankfully (laugh).  

- However, the contents of the lyrics aren’t just fun and bright.

miko: That’s most likely because there are contradictory parts within myself. But the option of staying cheerful at the end isn’t something I have in me. Truthfully, the title also contains a sarcastic nuance.

- The fact that “ “Owari no nai Sekai” “ is written in quotation marks also hints at that.

miko: I think that something like “A world without end” probably doesn’t exist anywhere. But, if I could just hold onto the hope of wanting to see a world like that…… It’s a song where we sing of that wish.

- I hope you’ll construct “a world like that” for us at your upcoming oneman live “Ambivalent Symphony ~piece of the answer~” on November 22nd at Meguro Rockmaykan.

Mally: Of course we’ll attack with that attitude, because I want to make it even more sweltering than last time.

Naoto: While basing it upon all of our experiences up until now, I want to make use of all the things about us that have grown from making this album at the live.

Omi: I want to create a place where, together with all of you, we can feel in our bodies the even deeper worldview we were able to complete on this album.

miko: I hope that I can make a place where both us and all of you can be our most authentic selves.

Jyou: Now that we’ve passed the last oneman, and recording, I’ve got a strong prediction that this live will be our best live yet, for certain. At this oneman, while facing “freedom and restriction” together with you, I want to search for an answer, if only a little. Or maybe I should say, come look for the answer with us!

#exist†trace #interview #ambivalent symphony

[fallenloverecords]

Interview: Pickle Darling

Hi lovers! Here at Fallen Love headquarters we periodically interview people that we adore in order to shine a spotlight on our wonderful pop planet. We post all those interviews right here for your education and enjoyment.

Pickle Darling is the bedroom pop of Lukas Mayo from Christchurch, New Zealand. Fallen Love head Harley interviewed Lukas through a 16-hour time zone warp on a Sunday/Monday. Fallen Love Records: Who is Lukas Mayo? How did Pickle Darling come to be? Lukas: Lukas Mayo is some insecure loser from Christchurch, New Zealand. Pickle Darling is me taking my innermost insecurities and making dumb redemptive pop songs out of them. It feels more "me" than Lukas Mayo does. I'd been in a few bands and collaborations growing up which were all fruitful but ultimately incredibly hard. I think I was way too self-indulgent at those times and I was terrible at compromise. I would rather have had something suck but be true to me than be "good" and not be a great representation of myself. Since then I've grown as a person and I think I'd be a much better collaborator now. FLR: This past April you released your first EP of original songs, Spring Onion Pancakes. How did the track listing come about? L: I've been writing songs for as long as I can remember and those were kind of just the six most recent! I was also in a five-year relationship which had just suddenly ended and the EP kept me out of wallowing in self-pity. It's upbeat and colourful because I wanted to make sure that all my songs were full of love and humour and kindness and friendship. It's still a sad EP to me but I'm super glad that people don't think of my music as sad music. Most of it was written when I was in class though which is probably why all the lyrics are basically "I suck and I'm a loser" 'cause that's how I generally felt at Polytech. lol FLR: What are spring onion pancakes like? My research says it's a traditional Chinese dish. L: Oh yeah, I've only actually had them once. The bus station in town has a place that makes them. I was with my friends Heather, Isaac, and Nico and we had just watched a movie and then got spring onion pancakes together. My hands were all greasy on the bus ride home, though. (Sorry, Christchurch Metro Bus services.) My EP is so hard to search for on Google 'cause you have to wade through three pages of recipes. FLR: Does anyone make spring onion pancakes with pickles? That would be a search engine nightmare. L: There's some weird stuff when you google Pickle Darling. There's another Facebook page which is just a cat called Pickle Darling. I'm hoping if I get a Pitchfork feature one day, they accidentally get in touch with whoever runs that page and they do an interview on my behalf. It would probably be more interesting than me, to be honest. FLR: I'm actually interviewing the other Pickle Darling tomorrow. It's part of a dueling interview series I'm doing. Like when I interviewed Kevin Shields and the director of the slasher movie My Bloody Valentine. L: lmao I avoided My Bloody Valentine for years thinking they were Bullet For My Valentine. FLR: On the topic of your hometown, what is the music scene like in Christchurch? I can't say I really hear any Dunedin sound in your music. L: I don't feel hugely involved in the Christchurch music scene. I haven't done many gigs and kinda bypassed it and went straight to the internet. That sounds kind of douchey of me. I have mad love for a lot of Christchurch artists. There are heaps of super talented people here who make amazing music and people have reached out to me and shown me so much kindness but I spend most nights by myself just going for walks around Opawa or watching films or reading. I'm not a super regular gig attendee. I go to maybe one a month and I'm always the least cool person there. It's cool, though, I enjoy it when I do go. And I'm slowly feeling more and more involved in the Christchurch music scene as people become a bit more aware of what I do. I feel like locals will see me on the internet and be like "Hey, that's that dweeb I see walking around town all the time. Weird." FLR: You only played live for the first time this year, right? How has that side of things been? L: I feel like such a fraud 'cause I've had such great opportunities handed to me right off the bat. My first gig was in a library for NZ Music Month and we were playing with my friend Luke's band EgoValve. That was fun and super low-key and about five people were there and they were all under the age of nine. Richard from Glass Vaults (great guy and great band) heard my Radio NZ interview and got in touch with me and our second gig was opening for Glass Vaults. My third gig was opening for Kane Strang, who I have so much love for. During sound check I was just like "Oh my god, are you Kane Strang? Is your real name actually Kane Strang? I love you, Kane Strang. Your album is great, Kane Strang. Oh my god, you are really Kane Strang. Hi, I'm Lukas. Oh my god, you are Kane Strang." Those two shows were sold out and I had my friends Isaac, Nico, Marcus, and Cameron in my band and they were just fun, positive nights. My fourth gig is going to be at Nostalgia Festival, which also has Connan Mockasin and The Chills. I'm so incredibly blessed with all this stuff.

FLR: For the EP you did a run of cassettes through Slovakian label Z Tapes and a limited run of lathe cut seven-inches on your own. Is having a physical product important to you? Some artists are content to just toss their songs online for streaming and downloading and call it a day. L: I want to be the most working class bedroom pop star out. I love the idea of just sitting in my room making stuff myself and packaging stuff myself and getting my fingerprints on everything and having a merch table with things I've made on it. I just want to make things. Z Tapes did all the tapes, though, which was such a relief and such an honour. Filip is really a hero of Bandcamp. He believed in me from the very start and now they're doing a second run of my EP on tape and it's great. The lathe cuts look cool. I'm super proud of them. My friends Heather Reid Van Gerwen and Noah Mead handled the art side of things, which is why they look so beautiful. I'm always going to want to make a physical thing. I mean all physical media is outdated now so if you're going to do physicals, do something fun and creative with it. Also I'm doing a Christmas tape with Heather and she's painting little pictures to go with them. FLR: What's the most exciting location you've received an order from so far? L: I get a lot of orders from Japan, which is so cool, as well as heaps from the States. It's exciting that the majority of the orders are from outside of New Zealand. It's not just my friends buying my stuff out of pity. There are actual people out there that are listening to my stuff and willing to spend money on it. I'm super grateful for them. I really want to be able to play in those places one day. FLR: I feel you. My label almost never gets any orders from within Canada but I've got a handful of regular customers in Germany and Spain. Each of those orders keeps me going and makes me feel like this is all worth it. L: Definitely! It makes it feel so real, right? FLR: Switching topics: what's your favorite film that hasn't had a Criterion DVD release but totally deserves one? L: Ooh I love this question. Hmm... Oddly enough one of my goals (actually my only goal 'cause I hate goals) is to be successful enough to get invited into the Criterion closet. But hmmm... These are probably pleb picks but I'd love: Happy Together (1997) or just more Wong Kar-Wai in general; Synecdoche, New York (2008); Quiet City (2007); Careful (1992); and Funny Ha Ha (2002) in the collection. Also some Barry Jenkins! These are probably pleb picks, though. Also, shout out to my friends Martin (who directed my video) and Julia who give me good film recommendations. Joe Swanberg is a big influence on my work ethic. He made, like, 30 films in seven years or something. If anyone reads this interview, please send me film recommendations on Twitter! FLR: My top rec is Marty (1955) starring Ernest Borgnine. He's a lonely 34 year-old butcher who lives with his mother and is afraid he'll never fall in love. It's basically the film equivalent of a bedroom pop song. L: Dude, I'm totally going to check that one out! I haven't heard of that one! I reckon my film equivalent of a bedroom pop song is Hannah Takes The Stairs. I sampled that on my EP. My friend Julia recommended that one to me actually. I put that movie on all the time just to listen to. I don't even watch it now. I just put it on while I'm doing housework to listen to Greta Gerwig's dialogue. I love how that film sounds. I love their voices. FLR: What's one question you've never been asked in an interview that you would love to be asked someday? L: An interview question I'd love to be asked is "Hi, I'm Evan from Pinegrove. Do you want to open for my band?" and the answer would be "Yes, Evan from Pinegrove." Actually I'd love to be asked what I'm listening to at the moment. FLR: And finally, what does 2018 look like for Pickle Darling? I hear your first album is nearly finished. L: 2018 will be big for me personally but small for my fans. What I mean by that is I'm going to be working on a lot of stuff but probably not releasing a huge amount until it's all done. I'm doing an album. It's ten tracks and it's going to be awesome. There's a song called "Nicolas Cage" and I think it's my best song. My friend Josiah has a feature on it. Matt Gunn is helping out with the production and I think he is a literal angel from heaven. I'm going to do a bunch of music videos too. I want to tour. I want to do bigger physicals like vinyl and CD's and stuff like that. I just want to make more stuff. Pickle Darling on Facebook Pickle Darling on Twitter

#interviews #Pickle Darling #scouting report #bedroom pop #Christchurch #New Zealand

[t-aratrans]

170626 T-ara’s ‘drunk talk’ interview for ilgansports

Will there be another group with so much ups and downs like T-ARA. If we examine the team’s life graph over the past 9 years, they’ve experienced going from peak to bottom. They debuted as a public-friendly trend-setter girl group and reached the peak but then fell to bottom after the ‘bullying’ scandal started. The team underwent several reformations as well. At that time they gained a negative image with the public. Although the truth about the “bullying scandal” 5 years ago was revealed recently, it still wasn’t easy for T-ARA’s image to change. Before their June comeback, the group revamped to a 4-member group after Boram and Soyeon’s departure. After having a drink, T-ARA confessed that they feel ‘scared’ about any ‘team changes’. Because the reason they cried after winning for the first time in 5 years was because they had a flashback of all the ups and downs they experienced.  “We tried not to cry but we couldn’t control it. We want to show a ‘smiling T-ara’ from now on.” T-ARA was more persistent than any other group out there. It feels like they got stronger after undergoing a series of bad incidents. They invested their youth entirely on T-ARA. It’s no different than saying they spent half of their life as T-ARA. When comparing being a “celebrity” to being an “office worker, they said “For every job, you’ll experience the same amount of stress,” which showed their maturity.   T-ARA extended their contract until December this year. T-ARA’s fate in the future is up to the 4 members. What choice will T-ARA make?

Q.This is a fixed question. What is your alcohol drinking capacity?  Eunjung: up until 1 bottle of soju. Jiyeon: I think 3 cups of Soju. 

Qri: 2 cups of wine. This is my resting mode. Actually, it changes according to my condition. (laughs)  Hyomin: For soju, 1.5 bottle. For wine, up to 1 bottle. 

- You had a drunk talk 3 years ago, your drinking capacity hasn’t increased since then.  Eunjung: During the past 3 years, it increased up to 1~2 cups. I think my ability to pretend I’m not drunk when I am has improved.  Q.At that time, Eunjung exposed Jiyeon’s bad drinking habits. You said she shows lots of aegyo, does she still do that?  Eunjung: She still has lots of aegyo. It depends on how you see it, but she’s totally cute (for me). 

Q.You look very nervous this comeback. 

Eunjung: We’re supposedly on our 9th year as a girl group but we still get so nervous. We showed our solo stages during the showcase in attempt to show a new side to us, but it wasn’t something we prepared long enough for. We’re doing things we haven’t done before so we’re even more nervous, excited, and also tense, we’re having mixed feelings.

Jiyeon: Before going up on stage, all four of us were like “Is it only me who’s nervous?” We were even more nervous than during our debut. Q.How do you think of people’s reaction for ’What’s My Name?” do you like it? Hyomin: First of all, even while we were preparing the album we already decided not to get too attached to chart results. We weren’t anxious about it. We just got mentally relaxed.

Q.Why were you relaxed? 

Hyomin: We had lots of worries about whether we’ll be able to show what we prepared for well, will we make mistakes, will our showcase go well. But fortunately everything went well.

Eunjung: Even having a comeback by itself was hard for us. This comeback wasn’t easy like before, but we overcame that thanks to our fans’ big support for us.  Q.You underwent a sudden team reformation before the comeback

Eunjung: We re-recorded the song and did lots of position changes. We made lots of efforts in order not to make the two members’ absence obvious. But above all, having a comeback by itself felt happy.

Jiyeon: We felt sorry we couldn’t wrap up T-ARA as full 6 members. We’re sorry to our fans. The two members’ absence was big due to that.

Q.Are you the type to accept team changes.  Eunjung: Most of the changes T-ARA has underwent weren’t good. They created many rumors. That’s why we hated changes. We wanted to let things flow as they are without caring much about popularity.

Q.You received hard questions during the showcase.  Qri: We went up on stage expecting such questions but hearing the questions in reality we got emotional. That’s why we were even more nervous.  Eunjung: But we dont’ hate such questions. Because we know it’s only natural that (the journalists) get curious about it.  Q.Did your bond grow stronger after the two members’ leave?  Eunjung: We underwent many tough situations so I think we have a strong bond regardless of the no. of members. We feel more energy just by hearing the name “T-ARA.” Some people ask us ‘people don’t even know you released an album so why do you keep releasing albums, you’re only making things harder and receving more hate’. That’s not important to us. We like communicating with our fans, showing them our performances, and being happier with them more. 

Hyomin: I think we have a strong desire to maintain T-ARA’s name.  Q.You teared up during the showcase.  Eunjung: We didn’t want to cry because we didn’t want to hear people say “They’re crying? again?”. Standing in front of the public is our job. We know that the reason we’re crying will not sound 100% genuine to the public. Unless we’re asking for perfect understanding from people, then I believe it’s better to keep it appropriate. We always end up thinking about it rationally. 

Hyomin: We don’t want to show our tears in front of people. But I guess it was hard to hide our feelings that’s why we started tearing up nonstop. We want to show our smiling side instead of crying side. We want to remain as a ‘smiling T-ARA’.

Q.Your initial sales for this album reached 30K copies.  Hyomin: Really? The printed copies got all sold out so they did tell us that we no longer have CDs to use for fansigns. It’s surprising. 

[T/N: in yesterday’s fansign the members said that it might be their last fansign, I guess it’s because they ran out of copies to sell.] Q.Thanks to that you achieved 1st place in a music program for the first time in 5 years. You cried to the point where you couldn’t give an award speech.  Hyomin: We really didn’t expect winning 1st place. We had zero expectations so we were so shocked when they called our name. It was an unexpected win so we couldn’t control our tears. I remember our last win was in Music Bank for Lovey Dovey. We were thankful because we won it during our Japanese promotions, but I think this win will be more memorable. I think it’s impossible to win 1st place again. (laughs)

Q.Your resolution to not tear up again got all ruined. Hyomin: I think we can’t hold in our tears anymore. We cried during the showcase too so I made a promise with the members to not cry again but..(laughs)  Q.We heard you even got a cake from the fans.  Hyomin: Our fans were really happy about it. We cried a lot inside so we came out late but they were waiting for us outside with a cake all that while. We teared up as soon as we saw the fans but we held it in until the end. We’re sorry for making our fans cry. In the future we’ll work hard to make you proud of being a T-ara fan.

Q.You appeared on ‘SNL’ as well. Hyomin: We started filming the recording just a day after winning 1st place so our eyes were swollen from crying, we tried cooling them down using ice bags. We were resolute into making it a laughing day instead of a crying day.

Q.How did it feel going live on 'SNL’. You even had to act on live broadcast. Hyomin: we were more tense and nervous than any other broadcast before. SNL cast members took care of us and lead us well so we were able to wrap up the broadcast well. It was a special and fun experience.  

Q. We saw that you right up confronted the controversy on SNL.  Jiyeon: Rather than saying that we intended it beforehand, we just thought that “since we’re appearing on the program, let’s do our best while at it!” As you know, SNL’s speciality is delivering a message or satire through skits. If we were to be scared of that idea then we wouldn’t have appeared at all.

Q.You had bold transformations through skits like Hyomin’s “Woman with fast progress” and Eunjung’s “Holiday,” didn’t you feel fearful at all?  Hyomin: Rather than saying “fearful”, we actually had fun filming. It’s a program we really wanted to appear on so we were looking so much forward to it, it was also our first time trying live skits so we had fun while working.

Q.Did you personally come up with ideas for the program too?  Jiyeon: We had lots of discussions with the production crew during the meeting. We prepared a lot in order to deliver a legend episode. We told them in advance that we were okay with showing embarrassing acting.

Q.I think you almost teared up again at the end.    Eunjung: We didn’t tear up (laughs). We just felt relieved that the live finished smoothly. 

Q.During the showcase, you said “no one believed our explanation during the bullying scandal 5 years ago.” But some people reacted to that saying “when did you even explain about it.

Eunjung: I wonder why. I think it’s because we always only apologised and never really explained the situation bit by bit, but we can’t just focus on our personal feelings alone so we had no choice but to be cautious about it. During the time we were staying cautious, many people started having different thoughts. All people have different thinking. It was difficult to explain according to every person’s thoughts. 

Q.Anyway, the controversy settled down after 5 years.  Eunjung: Amongst ourselves we thought “What is this again. Why do suddenly…”  Hyomin: We hated being the noisy kids [T/N: as in a loud issue] but we became a noisy topic again so it made us sad. We wanted to stay quiet. Regardless of the consequences, that time by itself was tough. We didn’t want to be the talk of people so we always acted very cautiously. We were really staying put but then that controversy came to light again so we thought “Are we really fine”.

Q.Living as an idol for 9 years, were there any hard things about it?  Hyomin: There are many hard things, it’s hard to pick the hardest thing amongst that. I believe every job has its difficulty. People’s attention, interests, misunderstandings are all a given when it comes to living as a celebrity. It’s the job we chose and it’s something that we have to cope with. It’s similar to the stress an office worker receives from their boss every time they go to work.

Eunjung: As a career, there were actually much more benefits about it.  Q.During the past 9 years, have you ever had a deviation from routine? Hyomin: Not yet. Our company naturally let us free later. Ah right! If I’m to pick one, we once had our mobile phones confiscated so I temporarily got a rental phone. And we once secretly left the dorms when we weren’t allowed to. We made a human-shape on the bed (using pillows) and then placed a wig on top, then we made up tactics and sneaked away from the dorm. But we didn’t have any place to go at that time so we just stayed at a coffee shop in Gangnam and chatted for some time then went back to the dorm.

Q.Do you have any breakaway you want to do in the future?  Eunjung: I never thought of doing a breakaway before. I didn’t feel the need too. I think I grew more responsible. 

Jiyeon: The longest (official) holiday we got was a 3-day holiday during our 3rd or 4th year. One day we spent with our parents and another day we rested at our dorm, that was all. Eunjung: That’s why our managers were like “You don’t know how to hang out even when we give you free time?”. But then we replied “You should give us more time” while laughing. Just having a meal at the neighbourhood feels like hanging out. Once I was just walking on the crosswalk but it felt so nice so I just stopped right there. We always transport by car (for schedules) so we never get the chance to walk on the crosswalk. I feel happiness through trivial things (laughs). Hyomin: I want to travel with the members. During our time off I’m busy sleeping at home. Receiving an (official) holiday from your job and resting for a bit while working are two different things. When I’m resting I don’t even think of hanging out. Q.Is there any place you want to travel with the members?  Eunjung: Anywhere is good. There isn’t anything specific we want to do or have. We do have greed when it comes to working but beside that, we have no other greed. I think we’d be happy wherever you take us to. I never thought of it proactively.

Hyomin: There are many places we want to go to but I start to give up when thinking of it realistically. If we go overseas it will take us lots of time travelling back and forth and there aren’t many places to go to. That’s why we don’t have much fancies about it. Q.Leave being realistic on a side, where do you want to go? Hyomin: Europe or Hawaii. We once went to Italy, France, and Swiss for a pictorial shooting. Back then, we didn’t know how to enjoy our time while working. Our schedules were tight and our transportation alone took 7~8 hours by bus so all we could do is quick sightseeing. We missed so many things back then so we want to go again.

Eunjung: It would be meaningful if we go that route again. Hawaii has lots of Japanese tourists. Our members speak Japanese better than English. I think we’ll be able to communication there so it’s even better (laugh).  Q.You’re workaholic. Hyomin: our job doesn’t have a regular pattern. If we suddenly get work to do overseas then we have to go there immediately. Back in the days, we might have grown tired of it but after undergoing several incidents we realised how much of a valuable thing that was. We now know how to be grateful.

Qri: We don’t want to ditch our work in order to play and hang out. Work comes first first and T-ara work comes first. Q.You’re on your 9th year, but it feels like it’s been more than that.  Eunjung: On our 2nd year of debut we heard we look like a group on their 5th year. During our first 3 years, we released an album every month. That’s why. We also went on many variety shows and acted on movies and dramas. We has so many exposures and showed so many diverse sides to us that’s why we have such (veteran) image. It’s something we’re thankful for.

Q.You must have earned your pay quickly too.  Eunjung: That’s true. But we didn’t work for the money, it was more meaningful to us that ‘we debuted and went up on stage’.

Q.How did you ‘9th year’ look like in your imagination when you debuted?  Eunjung: We didn’t have time to think of our future. Excelling the job that’s at our hand came first.

Hyomin: During our 2~3rd year, I by myself wrote a future plan in my dairies, but I gave up midway. Because I thought I’ll get stressed if things don’t go as planned, especially due to the nature of our job. I was aware of the fact that it doesn’t usually go as planned, and it was also really hard to draw my future. We couldn’t do anything but do our best at the job we have at our hand at the moment. The word doesn’t go as one likes.

Eunjung: Since before, I always had the mindset that “let’s just live with flow” Q.That sounds mature.

Eunjung: We’re not young either (laughs). I think it’s because we started working early. Sometimes I feel like I need a recharge but it’s not as easy as it sounds.

Q.Do you reveal your worries to your members? .   All: of course.  Eunjung: Even if we reveal our worries to our friends, they don’t always understand. Our members are first priority. Q.With whom do you share your life talks with?  Eunjung: I don’t have many friends. There are many friends I know by connections. But for the friends I can share my life talks with, there is one friend I met in middle school and two friends I met in university. And that of course includes our members. I don’t know many people who’ve experienced many ups and downs. But for our members, they know how I feel even without me talking it about it. We understand on each other quickly and we know each others’ personalities well. I don’t think I have anything my friends know but my members don’t. We were together since our early 20s, and mid-10s for Jiyeon. We had lots of changes and underwent lots of emotions and our personalities matured as well. We’ve spent the past 10 years like sisters.

Jiyeon: Beside our members, it’s difficult for other people to understand our job. Hyomin: Even financially, we’re are all the same. We understand each other even without explaining so it’s comfortable.

Q.You weren’t closed since the begining, you became a team out of business. So you must have had some troubles during your early years.  Hyomin: We’re like sisters so it’s only natural to get upset with each other sometimes. But even then we just used to speak out to each other and it all passes.

Eunjung: I can’t talk ill (to people). I think it’s more appropriate to express it as “understanding each other” than “holding it in.” I just speak it out when I have something to say instead of making things more complicated. We’re all like that. Because they’re all people I like and not people I hate.

Q.Do you like meat? How do you take care of your body.   Eunjung: I really like meat. Today is an eating day. “ Qri: I take care of my body from time to time according to my outfits. If I feel like my outfits don’t fit me then I’ll hold myself from eating on that day.

Hyomin: I can’t starve myself all the time, never. Q.How far have you tried dieting?  Eunjung: Two members sharing one bibimbap with only vegetables. Excluding red-pepper paste. We had it with vegetable flavour.

Hyomin: It was during Bo Peep Bo Peep preparation. I took a staff’s leftover Gimbap, put it in my pocket, then called the members at the bathroom and ate it all together. Also during “Invincible Youth” days, Kim Taewoo oppa was promoting at the same time and he asked me if I had eaten and I told him no so he gave me snacks. But I couldn’t take that with me to the dorm so I took turns with the members and ate it at the bathroom. But now we can’t do that at all. Q.Do you live in your separate houses? Eunjung: Yes. But it was way more fun when we used to live in a dorm. We felt more freedom at the dorm. It felt like a share-house.

Jiyeon: We asked our company if they can provide us a dorm just during our promotions at least but they rejected us. (laugh). Hyomin: In the past, we gathered money and lived in dorms for 1~2 years. But we evacuated later after our parents told us to come back home because (renting a dorm) is very costly. (laughs). That was before we started overseas promotions. Q.Don’t you earn lots of money? Eunjung: Not as much as the rumor goes. Because not all the money goes to us. (Laugh)

Q.You have expressed your secret to popularity in China as “Old-fashioned music. (On SectionTV) Hyomin: Actually I couldn’t say ‘뽕끼’(slang for retro/trot feel music) on TV that’s why I expressed it as “old-fashioned”. T-ARA’s music has trot feel to it. I think that has contributed to our popularity in China.

Eunjung: Even overseas, people like our trot-feel songs like BPBP, No.9, Like The First Time, and WAYBLT. We have so many good songs. People always say “But at least, T-ara has good music.”

Q.Why did you add “at least” in your statement. Eunjung: There are still many people who think negatively of us. That’s why I assume. It can’t be helped.

Q.Your juniors from the same company has debuted. Do you have anything you want to say to them?  Hyomin: Few days ago I had a conversation with DIA’s Chaeyeon. They’re experiencing the same things we experienced during our debut. I though it was “cute” because all of that we have been through before. Even if it’s tough, they’re all things they’ll end up doing anyway, so I hope they don’t get too stressed about it and do well.

Eunjung: I want to tell them that feelings are unnecessary.  Q.You spent your youth in T-ARA. Do you feel regret?  Eunjung: I don’t regret it at all. Hyomin: I’ve never regretted becoming an idol. I rather think it’s an honour. We promoted during the time K-POP received the most attention and love, I’m grateful.

Q.Have you ever envied your non-celebrity friends? Hyomin: We envy them when they travel.  Q.You must have friends who are already married. Hyomin: My closest friend is getting married on September. It feels weird to think that my friend is becoming a mother. I think we’re definitely living less maturely than our same-age friends. It applies on both our appearance and life pattern. Sometimes when I see my friends I wonder “am I really living well?”

Q.All of you have tried dating, right?  Qri: It wouldn’t make sense if we say that we haven’t dated until now.

Eunjung: I’ve dated a lot secretly. I become more cautious when thinking of marriage. Q.What kind of person do you want to get married with?  Eunjung: Someone who’s well-mannered, responsible, and manly. Actually that’s what my unnies told me. In the past, I used to think “What’s important about that. I just prefer someone who looks good in trench coat.” but now I wonder what’s the point in all of this. (laughs). My unnies told me that if I try to find a man who’s 100% perfect then I won’t find anyone. They told me to love him if he’s 70~80% fine. I think they’re right. (laughs).

Hyomin: I wish it would be someone who’s fun and I can have endless conversation with. For outer appearance, I’d prefer if it’s simple. Rather than a person who’s pretentious and cares too much about his looks, I prefer someone who’s natural. Qri: My ideal type is someone with slanted eyes, it hasn’t changed. However, I think it’d be more comfortable if he has a similar pattern and is in the same work field as me. Since my job has an irregular pattern, I think someone from the same work field would understand me better than an office worker. I think it’d fit better if we can guarantee win-win for each other.  Q.What’s the longest time you’ve dated?    Eunjung: my first time dating I dated a non-celebrity for 3 years. I���ve never had a public relationship but I always get caught by my friends.

Q.Will you get married?  Eunjung: Of course I should. There aren’t any restrictions regarding marriage in our contract. Actually, I should make our company be the first to give me wedding congratulatory money. (Laughs)

Q.Your contract ends on December. What will happen to T-ARA in the future. All: We don’t know. Hyomin: if we don’t have a solution we should find another solution Jiyeon: I guess we’ll only know then  Eunjung: There are many complicated things so we want to accomplish what’s at hand first. I haven’t thought of the next step yet.

Q.Do you want to maintain T-ARA?  Jiyeon: All of our members want to maintain T-ARA all the same  Hyomin: It’s not like a hobby which we do because we want to do it. We have aged enough and have to think about it realistically. It’s also our one and only job. In the future we’ll discuss it amongst ourselves and then decide which direction to take.

Q.You don’t have any solo plans?  Jiyeon: We have solo songs in this album. We also performed our solo stages at music programs. I think being able to do this, by itself, it something we should be thankful for.

Q.You’re a presistant team.

Hyomin: That’s how it ended it up like. So many meanings are included in this phrase. (laughs).

Q.What is T-ARA to T-ARA?

Eunjung: I spent all of my 20s. in T-ARA. I spent my youth in T-ARA. It’s my everything.

Hyomin: This will be the only day we tell sad stories. Tomorrow we’ll forget about it again. It’s like living just for a day. I believe that’s how we keep maintaining a bright side to us.

Q.At last, anything you want to say?  

Qri: I’m thankful to our fans. Our fans can’t proudly say they’re T-ara fans. I want to make them become proud of being a T-ara fan.

Eunjung-Jiyeon: Thanks for always staying by our side and supporting us. Hyomin: Our fans had it as tough as we did, and maybe ever tougher than we did.

source: 

http://isplus.live.joins.com/news/article/article.asp?total_id=21699125&cloc=

http://isplus.live.joins.com/news/article/article.asp?total_id=21699126&cloc=

http://isplus.live.joins.com/news/article/article.asp?total_id=21699127&cloc=

#t ara #qri #eunjung #hyomin #jiyeon #interview

[russiancircles]

The Thin Air // Interview with Russian Circles

By Will Murphy

Ahead of shows at Dublin’s Whelan’s on Wednesday, March 22 and Belfast’s Empire Music Hall the following night, Will Murphy speaks to Brian Cook, bassist with Chicago instrumental masters Russian Circles about touring, politics, their latest album, the ideal audience, the craft of songwriting and more.

Hi, Brian. How’s the road been treating you? The next few months look pretty exciting in terms of venues and nations, is there anywhere that you’re all particularly looking forward to? What will you be listening to stave off the monotony of touring?

Touring has been good. We took care of our headlining U.S. dates last fall, and we divided Europe into two tours this time around just because there were so many cities we wanted to hit. We did Scandinavia and Eastern Europe back in October and November, which was pretty exhausting, but overall a great experience. Sometimes you get so accustomed to hitting the same places over and over again that it becomes easy to take things for granted, then you wind up playing a few shows in Romania and it serves as a reminder that we’re very fortunate to be able to do what we do. Now we’re out doing Western Europe and the UK, which is very familiar territory for us. Not as much of an adventure, but rewarding to be back in cities where we have friends and know the lay of the land. In terms of music, I’ve sort of reverted back to the old school touring listening habits. It used to be that you’d go on tour with a half dozen cassettes or a small book of CDs, then the iPod made it so that you toured with your entire music library and you’d never listen to the same album twice on a six-week tour. Now I’m back to traveling with just a few albums on my phone. I’ve been listening to a lot of Sun City Girls, Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk, Michael Rother, and Lungfish on my headphones. There has also been more than a few spins of the new Power Trip, Oranssi Pazuzu, and Rotting Christ albums in the van.

I remember seeing you when you were last in Dublin. What struck me was how unwilling you were to rush anything. Everything took exactly as long as it was going to take. It was a really ballsy move, and I’m wondering has it ever backfired horribly?

The bigger problem is not allowing enough time. Mike and I have so many changes and adjustments we have to do between songs—different tunings, different guitars, different pedal settings, different Taurus settings—and we do it all while bridging the songs with interludes. Plus, there’s the whole thing of trying to squeeze in a swig of beer and a toweling down of the face between all of that. We used to tour with these auxiliary delay pedals at the end of our chain that served zero purpose other than to silently notifying the rest of the band that we were ready to go into the next song. If the red light on Mike’s delay pedal was on, we knew he was ready. Same for me. The only problem is that sometimes one of us would forget to turn it on, and we’d stand there waiting for nothing until the guilty party remembered to stomp on the pedal.

Is there ever a frustration performing to an audience, given that so much intricate detail is lost when you port the songs to a live context? With that in mind, do you prefer to spend your time in studio constructing these mini epics or letting them loose on the audience night after night?

I’m not sure what the ideal audience would be. I remember Fugazi talking about how their anti-moshing stance grew to such mythical proportions that it seemed like people were afraid to dance at their concerts. I can empathize with that—I hate seeing violent dancing, but it also feels like a lot more work to play when people are totally stoic. The happy medium is when people are physically moving to the music but also respecting their neighbors. At this point, I try to look out into the audience as little as possible, because that happy medium is so difficult to achieve. As far as writing versus performing, they are both gratifying. I don’t think I’d be happy doing just one or the other. I love performing music live. Most of my love of other peoples’ music comes from watching it—or envisioning it—unfolding in real time. So the process of making a song happen in the present, in a very specific environment and with a select audience, is really magical. But if you don’t love the composition side of music, you should just stick to being in a tribute band.

You recorded a trio of albums with Brandon Curtis, each of which was absolutely stellar. Yet for last year’s Guidance, you opted to go with Kurt Ballou. What inspired this change? Was there ever a concern that Ballou might not bring out the same level of performance that Curtis helped to unleash? How hands-on was he during the recording?

Working with Brandon was amazing. We were really drawn to his ability to capture space and dimension with this work with Secret Machines. He’s also just an incredibly knowledgeable musician. He was good set of ears and a really good sounding board for those three records. We opted to go with Kurt Ballou on Guidance simply because we wanted to try something new, and we knew Kurt would share a lot of our musical reference points. Whenever you hire someone to produce a record there’s always that concern over their level of involvement, particularly if you come from a punk background. You don’t want some outside party compromising your vision and trying to make your songs appeal to a broader audience. But our songs tend to be so malleable and go through so many permutations that we have come to value having that set of fresh ears that can hear the different variations and have an unbiased opinion on what works and what doesn’t. In that respect, both Kurt and Brandon were amazing. I think Kurt tended to be a bit more focused on shaping tones while Brandon tended to have more ideas in terms of composition, but they both definitely made their mark on our albums. I can’t speak highly enough of either of them.

A number of groups who’ve recorded with Ballou have talked about Salem being a deeply unsettling town, given the commercialisation of its brutal history. Did any sense of this permeate the songwriting?

Salem is a strange place. It shuts down early. We would stop recording around 8pm just because dinner options after 9pm were virtually non-existence, which was an adjustments considering that we’re from Chicago and New York, where you can eat whatever you want at pretty much any hour of the night. But the witch trials weren’t really something that loomed in the back of our minds during our time there. The juxtaposition of the tourism trade and the public inebriate population was far more jarring.

Your songs feel so meticulously planned and crafted. How long do spend with a single song? How do you know when it is ready or, if it’s the kind that’ll never be perfect, when, if ever, do you throw your hands up and say “fuck it, it’s good enough”?

Some songs come together really quickly. Some songs are labored over for months and months, right up to and through the recording process. The album is bookended by two compositions that were crafted by individual members of the band and transformed into full-band songs with a minimal amount of effort. Then there are songs like Vorel that are transforming even as we play them over the course of this tour. We have to set deadlines for recording otherwise we’d tinker with songs forever. There’s an old lesson I learned in a painting class: every twenty minutes, step away from your work to reassess where you’re at. Inevitably, you’ll step away at some point and realize it’s done and any additional brush strokes are just detracting from the immediacy of the work. It’s a similar thing with songs in the studio sometimes. Every once and awhile you’ll hear a playback and realize that any additional changes or embellishments are just going to diminish the impact of the song.

Tracks like Afrika and Lisboa suggested a focus on geopolitics and a wider cultural sphere. What made you choose these subjects? What was it about the Portuguese capital that inspired you?

I was definitely drawn to political bands when I was younger. I liked topical punk bands. I liked ‘60s protest music. Basically, I just liked bands that obviously gave a shit about the world and expressed some capacity for empathy. I hated love songs. I hated songs about dancing, or partying, or money. Of course, being too topical can make your music a bit dated. I love punk music from the early ‘80s, but it’s a little distracting to hear bands ranting against Reagan and Thatcher. We’re not an overtly political band; there isn’t really a way for us to do that as an instrumental group, but I do like infusing our records with imagery that has some sort of historical or political context, just because it harkens back to a lot of the music I was obsessed with during my formative years. As far as specific song titles, they have very specific meaning to us personally, but we prefer to keep those meanings unclear to the general public. That said, we’ve already mentioned this before in other interviews so I guess I can say it again here, Lisboa was given its title simply because Mike began putting the song together during some downtime on tour in Portugal.

Memorial featured some spellbinding vocals, whereas with Guidance you opted for a purely instrumental approach. What was the reasoning behind this? Are there any plans to bring in vocals for the next release?

We dabbled with vocals on Memorial and Praise Be Man because they seemed like interesting experiments. We have no plans of making vocals a recurring part of our method, but that isn’t to say we won’t feel compelled to explore the option in the future. I enjoy the fact that we can draw heavily from the world of underground metal, but I don’t think borrowing from the vocal styles of those bands would do anything to enhance our music. If anything, I think it would be a distraction. I think being an instrumental band has allowed us a lot more stylistic fluidity, and that is far more important to us than having a lyrical component to our music.

There’s a lot of darkness in the world currently. Trump and Muslim ban, Aleppo, the continued success of Nickelback. How, if at all, does the current state of affairs affect your songwriting?

Well, Guidance is ultimately a reference to our collective uncertainty. For the three of us in the band, it literally referred to a lot of uncertainty in our personal lives, but we tried to extrapolate that to a general sense of apprehension towards the future for the sake of the album. In that sense, “guidance” can refer to the mistaken notion that there is some sort of benevolent leadership out there that has the public’s best interests in mind, or it can refer more generally to the allure of some overarching answer to all our problems. It’s all a carrot on a stick. So it goes.

Finally, given the foreboding and gloom that your work is shrouded in, where and how do you find the inspiration for the more delicate elements of the tracks?

Being that we don’t all live in the same city, we spend a lot of time writing independently. And while we all write with the idea of crafting songs that lend themselves to the darker and louder end of our spectrum, we don’t shut out any ideas that may come up. When you’re playing your instrument alone in your room, a lot of times the quieter and mellower stuff winds up sounding a lot more satisfying than the paired-down versions of the heavier stuff. For example, Asa was not meant to be a Russian Circles song, but those notes sounded good together and it turned into a little song, and I forwarded it along to the other guys in the band just because we have a pretty open sharing policy with our music. And it wound up being something that resonated with Mike and Dave. Overboard was actually two separate songs that were written completely independently by Mike and I and they just happened to fit together. So while we never deliberately set out to write those kinds of songs, sometimes they just happen.

Photos by Ryan Russell and Tomas Mladek 

(via The Thin Air)

#Sargent House #Russian Circles #The Thin Air #Brian Cook

[westbranchmobil-blog]

I'm tagged lmao

So i was tagged by @http-yxsmine and I can’t believe people actually think about me and that I exist to other people that’s so wild tho

So the rules are that I’m gonna have to tag 5 other people I’d like to get to know better.

How old are you?

16 or 4 whichever you want both are probably legitimate in the eyes of the law cuz of my birthday

Current Job/Dream Job?

I don’t have a job rn and I really need to get one but I don’t have time. Idk about my dream job anymore, I want to be a psychiatrist but I also don’t want to feel like I’m starting life too late, cuz I wouldn’t be well established until my mid 30s but the plus side is that the demand for psychiatrists is so unbelievably high that you could almost slack in med school and still set up a practice and be booked overnight and be making HUGE paper. I still don’t know tho..

What are you talented at?

I hope admitting that I’m talented at all doesn’t come off as too arrogant, but yknow I’m pretty narcissistic anyways so I guess I’ll have to say art (I’m the only printmaker that I know of in my school too) and music, excluding guitar lmao. I’ve picked up piano pretty easily and I’m one of my band directors go-to clarinet players but I just couldn’t get guitar down. I’ll take a wild guess and say it’s cuz you have to make such unnatural and hard-to-hold shapes with your hands while piano and clarinet fingerings allow your hands to curl and be positioned naturally but idk guitar is an overwhelming instrument but I’d love to pick it up again.

What is a big goal you are working towards (or have already achieved)

I’m really trying for a 4.0 throughout junior year (which is why I should really be studying for my whap test instead of doing this lmao oops) but ultimately I really want to graduate with honors. Idk tho I hope I have what it takes.

What is your aesthetic

making fun of aesthetics

Do you collect anything

Yes in fact I collect CDs! My first CD I remember I got in 2011 for Christmas and it was Evanescence’s latest album. Lmao they were my fav band as a child. It really started up tho when I was 12 and got (and I cringe now) a sleeping with sirens CD, and I just started spending all my money on CDs after that. I have 83 rn, including the entire discography of framing Hanley (my fav band when I was 13) and every studio album from the beatles. I want to be able to play some of them for my kids when (or even if) I have them and like idk if that’s subconsciously the ultimate goal but it probably is.

What is a topic you’re always up to talk about

well I really like talking about music and music theory, as well as art and critiques (as long as they aren’t super harsh and generally positive I guess) and I like diagnosing people, so I guess mental illness should be included too.

What’s a pet peeve of yours

I think a lot about how people walk, and one of my pet peeves is what I call the douchebag walk. Like when big chested burly guys pretend that their balls are so big that it physically impedes walking and so instead they basically just waddle and they do it so slowly and drawn out as if they’re just the biggest fucking people in the room and ugh I fucking hate it.

Good Advice to Give?

So I guess that a lot of times, things will seem pretty bad if you shut out the good things and focus on the bad things. A lot of your attitude has to do with perspective. If you have a negative perspective of everything, you’re gonna feel more hopeless about life in general. If you try to count your blessings and make the most of your situation, chances are, you’ll feel more empowered to step up and make a change for yourself for the better if it’s possible. But I would also say that you can’t wait around for the world to change for you, it’s just gonna leave you behind. You have to step up and take initiative in your life and take advantage opportunities as they are presented to you. Putting things off isn’t going to help you one bit.

Recommend three songs?

“Scared” - John lennon

“Terrapin” - Syd Barrett

“Manic Depression” - Jimi Hendrix

So now I have to tag 5 people and this is gonna be a lot tougher than I thought I hope I don’t come off as creepy @helpineedsomebooty @lennonism @theoldpaulband @sgtpepperino @pasta-paul

[uclaradio]

UCLA Radio Show of the Quarter, Fall 2018: Crate Digging

Anna Kondratyeva interviews Jess from Crate Digging

First of all, what IS crate digging?

Crate digging is basically going to record stores and you’re just like...digging through these milk crates and just trying to find records, either ones that seem obscure or ones that you’re just trying to use for sampling, making beats, or just albums or tracks that you’re looking to put in a DJ mix. For the hip-hop genre, it was a lot more focused on creating beats, so like breaks and loops and actually producing music, while for DJs it was more like “okay, I need to find something to play tonight so I’m going to go to a record store and look through some crates, and the vinyl that I find are gonna be what I play tonight.”

So what started your fascination with sampling? I feel like as far as radio show ideas go, this is pretty niche.

I was always interested in electronic music in general, and so when I found out that the producers I really liked, like Daft Punk, were playing music that wasn’t originally theirs, and that most of their tracks were just samples from songs that came out in like the 70s, it was really surprising to me. I wanted to find out how many artists I loved did that--- how are they able to use this track and barely alter it at all. The cool thing about sampling is that a genre like rock can turn into hip-hop which can then be sampled and turned into electronic music, and through that process, you’re just adding more layers to it. You can basically trace the history of three different genres just by looking closely at a song that uses sampling, and to me, that’s really fascinating.

Do you think there are any ethical issues with sampling? I just heard recently that Kanye was sued for his use of other artists’ songs in his music.

I think sampling becomes a problem once you’re not giving recognition to the original song, and you’re doing it in kind of a sly way, where you just want to take someone else’s music and not give credit. But also, people say about artists like Kanye “oh, he doesn’t play any musical instruments, he can’t be all that talented, can he?” But in my opinion, you have to really have a good ear to know how to layer different genres of music, and the skill of having that musical knowledge to pull from is just as “full of talent “as actually playing an instrument.

That’s really interesting! I was really conflicted about this issue before we spoke, but when you explain it, it really does make sense. Continuing on, how do you find the music that you feature on your show?

Okay, well I have two segments of the show. One of them is “Guess that Sample,” where I play an original song until the audience can have that moment of “oh! I’ve heard this before,” and guess the contemporary song that sampled it. The second portion of the show is the crate digging portion, where I play songs from stuff I’ve found at record stores, or that a friend showed me, or even from Discover Weekly on Spotify, just in general any songs that I’ve found that I thought were hidden gems. These are songs that I feel like I would sample if I was a DJ or a producer---all these obscure tracks that I love.

Maybe you should be a DJ!

I actually bought a controller a few months ago to learn how to DJ and I’m okay at it, I’m not bad, but I still have a long ways to go in terms of actually learning how to make sound.

Okay, so tune in in a couple months to hear Jess become a DJ.

Yeah!

You’ve haven’t had your show for that long, but how do you feel like it’s evolved since you first started it-- when it was just an idea?

Yeah, I’ve always been interested in sampling and finding eclectic sources of music, but recently my episodes have just been about focusing on a single genre. For example, two weeks ago my show was just on hip-hop, and I just focused on how artists have taken genres like jazz and funk and repurposed them into hip-hop beats. I don’t know, maybe next quarter I just want to do crate digging on a single genre of music. I want to be able to really get into musical history and look at the sources and really trace the lineage of a single style, or a single sub-genre, or a single practice. Like I could focus on like turntable-ism, and how DJs were sampling and playing all these different vinyl at once because they were scratching and mixing them together. So sometimes I feel like getting more niche I guess, and more narrow, but then at the same time just having a general show just called “Crate Digging” gives me the freedom to play whatever I want to play.

You don’t want to feel limited.

Yeah, I’ve been constantly toying with the idea of whether to go more narrow or more broad, but for now I decided that that Crate Digging should really mirror being in a record store---you can go to one section and browse that, or you can just bounce around and try to crate dig anywhere.

I feel like people don’t really do that anymore! I mean, going to record stores and just browsing for tracks is pretty rare nowadays.

I’ve been trying to really stop myself from relying solely on music streaming services to find new music because I feel like it really stops me from listening to an entire album from start to finish. When I go to record stores and I see an album that I recognize as something that I want to get, I know that I will listen to the entire thing, I will read the liner notes, I will look at the artwork, I’ll hold it. And I won’t forget about it, because it’s there, it’s physically there! So I feel like I’ve been trying to resort to those practices.

That’s something we really lose out on now, I think.

When I was a kid I had so many CDs! I had vinyl, cassettes, everything. I knew those albums like the back of my hand. So I hate that I now have more musical knowledge but at the same time, it’s also more shallow because I only listen to a few tracks from a bunch of artists. Now, when finding music it’s usually like “well, these are the artist’s top 5 songs so I guess I’ll just listen to these.” In a way, that really takes away from the artists’ creative concept for an album, because you’re just plucking one track from the story they’re trying to tell. You’re not thinking about the artist who made the artwork or about the other extra little details in an album. Crate digging forces me to do all of that, to look for music in an organic way.

In a way, artists also realize that’s been devalued, so in a sense, it almost seems like why bother making a full-length album, why bother telling a story if people aren’t going to listen to all of it.

Yeah, exactly! What’s up with that trend with artists releasing albums that are like, 20 minutes long? I miss the time when you could get a full hour and 15 minutes of an album, and it was this long-awaited thing---like, I will wait if it means quality music! But if listeners don’t really care about that stuff, then there’s no incentive for artists or producers to really care either, which kind of puts a consumerist spin on the whole thing.

You mentioned hip-hop and electronic music, but do you think there are any other genres that crate digging could potentially apply to?

Okay, honestly I feel like crate digging should apply to every genre, but I think the practice of crate digging is what develops your taste, because by looking for music and seeing what you like, and trying out different albums and pulling from them, obscure sources and whatnot, instead of just blindly accepting music, is what every artists and musician should do to create their own unique taste. That’s one of the most important things that any artist can have. Historically, hip-hop and electronic music have been at the forefront of using technology, taking songs apart, cutting and pasting tracks,

That’s interesting because you can argue that that’s where music is going, that all genres are going to be extremely influenced by technology in the future.

I even think that because of how much technology we have, it makes genres themselves seem so arbitrary because musicians now are not limited to the instruments they play and can take use material from any genre and place it into what they are creating. All these genre lines become so blurred.

To wrap things up, do you have any advice for people that are trying to start their own show?

Start it from a place of passion! Don’t start a show unless it’s from a theme or topic that you’re really deeply caring about. Because having listeners and having support is great, it’s really really nice, but that comes from you just starting from a place of passion for your show. School gets stressful and life gets crazy, but if you love the music you’re playing and you want to share it with other people, it’s never a burden. So yeah! Pick music that you really love.

Lastly, if you were a cactus, what kind of cactus would you be?

I’m thinking of like the big round ones that are like big pillow looking things...

I’m looking at cacti images right now, and I believe you’re thinking of a golden barrel cactus.

That’s me! Is it low to the ground? I don’t like heights, and I’m very grounded with earth, so definitely not a person who likes being up high.

That wraps up our interview! Tune in to Uclaradio.com at 11am every Thursday if you want to hear Jess talk more about sampling, cool record store finds, and the history of songs you never knew had a history.

#crate digging #show of the month #music #sampling #vinyl #ucla radio #college radio #interview #cacti

[joshuazev]

On the state: part 2

In a continuation of yesterday’s segment, I will push forward with my review of the current state of things in various areas of life.

The state of music:  Technology has certainly changed the landscape of everything it has touched.  Music is no different.  Nowadays, it seems like everyone is making music and with the success of streaming subscription services like Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal there is more access than ever before.  Access has transcended more than just the ability to listen to music, but the ability to make music too.  I don’t know if the term was coined in 2017, but titles such as “soundcloud rappers” started to get pushed to the forefront.  A “soundcloud rapper” is obviously more than just a name.  To me, it refers to the facility at which anyone can record music, upload it, and get millions of plays almost overnight.  Some would say this is great.  The more the merrier.  Competition is good.  I guess I have an old soul perspective on the matter.  Something out anyone and everyone putting out music doesn’t go over well with me.  It removes some of the sanctity that I associate with a real artist, who has to go through a struggle to put out a record.  This could be just my problem—a bitter one at that, but I don’t think I’m alone.  In addition, it seems like people’s real voices have gone to the dumpsters—and again, I’m speaking mainly of the rap, rap/singer genre.  Autotune and voice alteration is at a all time high.  I’m a purist when it comes to listening to a singer’s voice, however raw, unpracticed, or divine it might be.  I think the flaws of the newer generation (even as narrowed down to people in the past couple years) are very much exposed when they try to do live performances.  Their voices don’t hold up.  Now, all the hate, bitterness, and negative feeling aside from seeing everybody on stage and everyone on the internet getting millions of views…the presence of Spotify, Apple Music, and yes, Soundcloud, has provided access to a sickening amount of really really tremendous artists, too.  I suppose you would expect that, the good and the bad.  In literally every genre there are thousands upon thousands of new artists and a lot of them are really good.  And more exposure to international artists!  (Yes, on the whole, some are bad but lets focus on the good).  Lets say, for example, that you wanted to listen to people like Erykah Badu or some other neo soul artist.  A platform like Spotify will give you countless other artists that sound like her.  Now, again, that does lead to some issues.  While there might be a bunch of artists similar to her, that becomes the problem; an overabundance and over saturation of similar sounding artists, which, in turn, can take away from the original artist and the original sound.  I liken the new emergence of artists to the numbers game.  The “10s” are few and far between.  Currently, we are getting flooded with “6s” and “7s.”  The record stores of the world are all but extinct, which is truly a drag.  Strands bookstore’s equivalent from a record store standpoint is something like Amoeba.  I think this year or in the upcoming year the Amoeba in Los Angeles will be gone.  Seems sacrilegious that such a place can be gone, although I do think that a few remain in the Bay Area.  Music, music, music.  

I think a lot of people would say music is thriving.  The attitude in New York would definitely make me think so.  We are seeing more and more cities follow New York’s lead, especially with respect to the younger generations, because now up and coming artists are playing to sold out shows all over the country, and the really big ones are doing international tours.  Could the new access be the one to thank?  Festivals are experiencing the same popularity.  Does anyone know how “Desert Trip” (dubbed the Coachella for the older generation) did?  I wouldn’t be surprised if it was met with tremendous success.  When I was growing up people paid more attention to release dates for albums because you would go to the store to get them?  Now we can afford to be more lazy.  We can download it legally or illegally.  In all seriousness, I think 2017 was more of the same on the music front.  Some good.  Some bad.  Award shows still suck.  What could possibly be different in 2018?  To be honest, I really don’t know.  I have zero expectations for music anymore.  I don’t anticipate it or get excited in the way I used to.  That kind of makes me sound like an old head wishing we were all still back in the good old days, but fuck it.  Personally, I’ll try to go to more concerts in 2018.  Broaden my horizons.  I started a music of the world document that I want to build on because that might be the best thing about all the new access and exposure of these streaming services.  It’s affected the artists, too!  Take someone like Drake who, on each of his last few albums, has had a different international inspiration of sound.  That could be directly attributed to knowing about more music and I think several artists did the same.  Let’s see what you got for us 2018.

The state of books, articles, and literature:  Sadly, I would know more about this subject if I was reading more.  This year there were various stages of reading a lot and many months where I read nothing at all.  Articles are leaps and bounds the easiest thing to get your hands on in this day and age.  When I wake up in the morning, if my phone is right next to me, I’m going on the internet first thing (this is actually a habit I’m working to change).  I’m reading the newest, latest on what happened in the sporting world.  There are several journalists I follow or, at the very least, enjoy reading.  When I lived in Washington Heights I was reading a free subscription of the New Yorker.  In my eyes, that’s still high quality work.  Book wise, I might be naive in wanting there to be another Harry Potter on the horizon.  Luckily, we all still have Harry Potter.  Blogs are still thriving.  I don’t follow that many others, but there are blogs about literally everything.  I finished a book today “the Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck” and that basically spawned from the popularity the author received from doing a blog.  Kindles and iPads are still doing their part to eliminate physical books from being in our hands, but its easy to forget that that’s going on when you live in New York and you see the city known as Strands.  I’m coming from Seattle where my memory of pubic transportation is a Kindle in the hands of every other person, but in New York…you got books in hand.  Biographies.  Novels.  Non-fiction.  Anthologies.  Plays.  Those forms of literature are still alive and well.  Yet, 2017 was also a piggy back year with regards to books on tape.  Very trendy.  Podcasts (not exactly related to the topic), but also very popular.  In the way that kindles and iPads took away from books in Seattle, the forms of media available in earplug mode continued to surge.  Facebook also continues to be a contributing factor in sharing articles.  People live two places in this day and age.  They live at home and they live on Facebook, but if there is one thing that keeps Facebook solid it’s that you’re bound to see articles, op-eds, editorials, and publications that match your circle of friends.  The access is real.  Personally, I know I didn’t read enough in 2017.  Like just now, I had a sentence that I was going to write that centered around a concept, but in the seconds of thinking how I was going to frame the sentence on paper, I forgot the central word.  I’m telling you that that only happens when you go from reading to not reading or not reading enough, plain and simple.  

Reading remains one of the only activities that I believe slows down time, and for the better.  I have anxiety about reading because there will be times when I think, “what is happening right now in the world!?”  I’ve needed to confront this idea head on because I worry about time and especially time running out.  Reading, in damn near every situation, is peace.  Granted, sometimes what you’re reading isn’t very peaceful, but the action itself is.  I can’t tell you how many people I know that don’t read at all.  Some that don’t touch a book or some like me that take the step of getting the book or checking it out from the library and then let it gather dust.  The book takes on the role of a show piece.  I digress, but maybe not so much.  Bookstores are in the same boat as record stores.  Who buys CDs?  The same people that probably buy books.  And nowadays there are too many streaming services and devices that make it “easier” to do both of those things.  One day, in the era of Trump, maybe all of the servers will crash and burn and the Internet will be gone and so will all the information we thought we could get at the drop of a hat.  And maybe, just maybe, there will be this crazy exodus of people going to record stores and bookstores all across the world, trying to get their hands on the things they once valued so much before everything was so easy.  I digress again.  Is it just as easy for one to make music and have thousands of people listen as it is for someone to write a book or a novel or start a blog?  A soundcloud rapper and a blogger are damn near the same thing, but that brings back the question of purity and whether or not a “real artist” can be either of those two things (in the same way that someone who is YouTube famous or Instagram famous might not be considered in the same light as a movie star.  Just like the preceding years before, the definition of an author is being stretched and RE-defined.  I wouldn’t be surprised and, to be honest, I’d probably expect that line of what an author is to be stretched even further.  Maybe it’s because I didn’t read as much this year, but the pool of legitimate authors didn’t seem as big.  I still found there to be a lot of quality pieces being written.  Maybe next year, when I expose myself to as much literature as I do to music, I’ll find the same results as I did this year with artists.  Who knows.  With respect to the two above mediums it’s easy to get lost in space.

I’m tired.  Three more days.  And resolutions to come.