Archive for April, 2013

« Older Entries

I AM PREDICTING A HEADACHE

Tuesday, April 30th, 2013

SPOILER I’M DRUNK

Let’s talk about things that suck.

These are some of the things that I think suck the most

  • Imagine Dragons
  • “Men’s Rights” Advocates
  • Whatever the fuck Amanda Bynes is doing to herself
  • APRIL
  • The random painful red bump on my face that showed up out of nowhere yesterday
  • Mean parents
  • Assholes
  • APRIL
  • Geo-political situations keeping you from people you love
  • People who don’t like kittens
  • The inability to prove yourself as a writer
  • Hardees’
  • APRIL
  • Dropping food in the dark
  • Scott Miller dying
  • No one caring about shit you care about
  • Ohio
  • APRIL
  • The Inevitable Heat Death Of The Universe
  • Throwing your back out
  • The fact that Eve 6 still exists and making music
  • Chris Brown
  • The fact that no one has murdered Chris Brown
  • Seriously, fuck Chris Brown
  • Amanda Palmer
  • The death of “longform” writing

So much shit that sucks! It’s everywhere. The world sucks all around you! How do you combat it?

You combat it by focusing on shit that doesn’t suck! What doesn’t suck?

  • Whiskey
  • People who love you
  • Pizza
  • Whiskey
  • Records
  • Movies about ninjas
  • That Crosby Stills and Nash song with all the doots
  • Playing “This Corrosion” by Sisters Of Mercy alone in your room and rocking out like a monkey on mescaline
  • Pictures of kittens in shoes
  • Movies about breakdancing
  • Adorable nephews
  • Monkeys
  • Hypothetical movies about breakdancing ninjas. Okay, real talk for a second. How come no one has made a movie about a breakdancing ninja I would watch the shit out of that shit.
  • Awesome people who pick fights with misogynists, sexists and racists because its fun to fuck with them
  • Walter Hill movies from 1977 to 1984
  • Months that aren’t April, because fuck April
  • Whiskey

Seriously, you gotta focus on the positive and non-suckage of life (and/or drink lots) or it’s all gonna bring you down. And fuck that shit for bringing you down. You’re better than that bullshit! Be awesome! You’re awesome aren’t you? Well then fuck that shit! Go be awesome! I am so awesome. Holy shit. It’s like, woah, how awesome I am.

Yo! Here’s some awesome music to help you be awesome and crush  the evil powers of suck. Rock this shit like He-Man rocked the power of Greyskull.

Frankie Goes To Hollywood
Born To Run (Live)
Are you ready for some indisputable facts? Cuz you’re gonna get some.

FACT:  Frankie Goes To Hollywood is awesome.
FACT: Born to Run is awesome
DOUBLEFACT: Frankie Goes To Hollywood covering Born To Run is mega-awesome awesome.

Underworld
Underneath The Radar (12″ Remix)
More bold  facts for you. Underworld was an  awesome synthpop band before they were an awesome electronic band.  I posted this eons ago but that rip was less than awesome. I re-recorded it today. Now it has awesome.

Yukihiro Takahashi
Kid-Nap, The Dreamer
I-Kasu!
Japan is the most awesomest place on Earth and this is a fact. Yukihiro Takahashi (which I spell right despite being HAMMERED so I’m proud of myself) is in Yellow Magic Orchestra, a synthpop band from Japan. Since synthpop is awesome and Japan is mega-awesome then YMO is like, so fucking awesome that there aren’t even words.

Takahashi’s solo work, while not as awesome as YMO, is still pretty damn awesome. This is a crazy track, cuz it’s like synth-ska. Hard to explain, but it sounds like a Specials song put through a moog.

(Kid-Nap and I Kasu! are two tracks, but really one long song, so I call them one song because that’s just easier)

BIG AUDIO DYNAMITE II
RUSH (12″ mix)
THE MOST AWESOME

Posted in Big Audio Dynamite, drunkblogging, Underworld, Yellow Magic Orchestra | 4 Comments »

Mixtape Madness

Monday, April 29th, 2013

Check it, Drum and bass on cassette was a thing. Who knew?

009

Ed Rush – Live In ’98
Side 1
Side 2
This tape suffers a bit from wear and tear, and from the sounds of things the original source recording wasn’t the greatest either. The opening dips out a bit, and the MC’s vocals can get muddled up at times. Thankfully the audio quality gets better as it goes on. I know there are a few Ed Rush sets from this era that have made it onto music-sharing sites like Soundcloud and such, but I don’t think this one has. At least, I couldn’t find it. If someone does have a better recording of this set please let me know. I’d love a high-quality copy.

Nicky Blackmarket & Ed Rush – Live At The Edge
Side 1
Side 2
Nicky Blackmarket is another early drum and bass DJ, going all the way back to the 1980s. I assume his set is on side one, and it’s pretty good. It starts and stops suddenly a few times early on, probably because of technical difficulties. The second side is the Ed Rush set, and it sounds much more like the Ed Rush I know and love than the stuff on the first tape. It’s still high-energy and intense, but it also has that menacing neurofunk vibe that I fell in with when I first heard Wormhole and had my mind properly blown.

The quality of this tape is a little bit better than the first, but remember that a high-quality tape is still going to sound worse than a low-quality CD. So go in with a bit of lowered expectations. And once more, if anyone out there has better quality rips of either of these sets let me know and I’ll replace the links with those.

Posted in Ed Rush, live | 4 Comments »

Teenage Fanclub Scares the Living Shit Out Of Me

Thursday, April 25th, 2013

Yeah, that title is a My Chemical Romance reference. Deal with it.

Some quick updates for Mostly-Retro, that other site I have.

Did a quick review for the Record Store Day edition of The Flaming Lips’ Zaireeka. Spoiler: it’s dumb (the release, not my review…I think).

Also put up a ton of pictures from The Joy Formidable concert that I went to last night. That shit was dope.

Frank Black & Teenage Fanclub – The Peel Sessions
Handyman
The Man Who Was Too Loud
The Jacques Tati
Sister Isabel
Frank Black and Teenage Fanclub, now there’s a paring that screams “mid-90s'” if there ever was one.

I don’t really mean that as a slight, but it’s funny to think about just how quickly artists can vanish from the public eye, especially in America. If you’re under the age of 20 (or even 30) then you probably have no idea as to who the hell Teenage Fanclub are, but they were nearly hot shit here in the states for…about 25 minutes.  In 1992 Spin famously chose their album Bandwagonesque over Nirvana’s Nevermind for Album Of The Year, and that made quite the hubbub  Hell, that sentence alone should tell you something about the era I’m talking about; this happened at a time when Spin’s album of the year choice was important to people outside of the Spin offices (sigh, I miss Spin magazine).

This EP came out in 1994, and at that time it was probably safe to say that Teenage Fanclub were a bigger deal than Frank Black in the States, and certainly so in the UK. As a solo act, Frank Black’s popularity has rarely gone above “strong cult act.” I mean, compare him to fellow Pixies member Kim Deal and her  band The Breeders. Sure, they may have only had one hit with “Cannonball,” off of their album Last Splash, but I bet that album has sold more copies than every one of Frank Black’s solo albums combined. As a solo artist, Frank Black just doesn’t really “matter” that much. It’s true now and it was even more true then.

The same can pretty much be said for every Teenage Fanclub release since Bandwagonesque (at least in America). They’re completely forgotten here save for the occasional play of “The Concept” during an alt-rock station’s “flashback” hour. They were going to be “the next big thing” for a while. Now they’re not even a thing.

My point? I don’t know if I have one. I just found this release as an exceptional example of how quickly tastes, legacies and popularity can change. Pop is fickle yo, if you make it, enjoy it while you can.

As far as the music on this EP goes, it’s pretty good, if entirely random and oddball. “Handyman” is a cover. It was originally performed by 1960s R&B/pop singer Jimmy Jones, and was written by Otis Blackwell, a songwriter from the era who wrote “Great Balls of Fire,” “Love Me Tender” and a billion other classic oldies. Frank Black first performed the track on a tribute album for Blackwell.

“The Man Who Was Too Loud” is the only track on this EP that has appeared on another Frank Black release. It showed up, four years later, on the self-titled Frank Black And The Catholics debut LP.

I have no idea what “The Jacques Tati” is. It doesn’t appear on any Frank Black or Teenage Fanclub release from what I can tell. It sounds a lot like Frank Black cuts from the era though, so it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s a song Frank wrote around that time and never got around the properly recording or releasing. I was a film student at one point in my life, so I especially like the line “now we must all try to understand the films of Jacques Tati.” That’s accurate, trust me.

Finally, there’s “Sister Isobel,” a misspelled cover of a Del Shannon tune (“Sister Isabelle”). Nice to hear a Shannon tune that isn’t “Runaway.”

I hate “Runaway.”

 

Posted in Frank Black, Teenage Fanclub | No Comments »

Covers by Toyah and Cyndi

Monday, April 22nd, 2013

Some  new stuff over at Mostly-Retro!

In case you missed it, I did a small post on this crazy poster that came with the first edition of Kraftwerk’s Ralf Und Florian album. I don’t think that thing has ever been scanned and shared on the Internet before, so if you know any Kraftwerk fans make sure to send them that article!

Next up, and on a much more serious note, there’s this post on Game Theory’s Scott Miller, who left us all too suddenly last week. He meant a lot to me and I hope that someday he’ll be recognized as the songwriting genius he was. You can find all of Game Theory’s music at his official site now, and I wrote up a quick thing about him.

Finally, and on another sad note, Storm Thorgerson died last week too (man, last week was SHIT.) While  he was most well-known for his Pink Floyd covers, he did a lot of other great work too. I put together a quick little gallery featuring some of my favorites.

Mostly-Retro is going along better than I thought it would, and I hope you all enjoy it and share it with your friends. I have some cool stuff planned for that site in the coming weeks and I hope it all comes together.

Got cool stuff planned here too! So don’t worry about that. Check it! Cool stuff! Right here!

It’s really cool.

Toyah
Echo Beach (Surf Mix)
Echo Beach (7″ MIx)
Plenty
This is a cover. The original was by a Canadian new wave band called Martha and the Muffins. There were actually two Marthas in that band at one point, so they really should have been called Marthas and the Muffins, but I guess that doesn’t really roll off the tongue. What are the odds of having two Marthas in a band anyways? Is that like some crazy common name in Canada or something?

I’m getting off topic. This version is by perennial UK oddball Toyah, and I prefer it to the original. It has less horns and more synthesizers. If you ask  me, just about any song can be improved using that formula, except maybe “Careless Whisper.” And possibly “Baker Street.” Although, I don’t know, that melody in “Baker Street” is so great that I think it could work on anything. You could play that shit on a marimba and it would sound great.

Cyndi Lauper
What’s Going On (Club Version)
What’s Going On (Instrumental)
What’s Going On (Long Version)
Okay, so maybe you all can help me out here. If you go to Cyndi Lauper’s official VEVO channel on YouTube to watch this video (which is awesome by the way), it says “ft. Chuck D” after the song title. But, yo, where the hell is Chuck? He is not in this video, he is not rapping, and I highly doubt that’s him playing the bongos. Pardon the obvious joke, but what’s going on with that?

That being said, I really think that a Cyndi Lauper/Chuck D collaboration would be dope and they should really get on that already.

These mixes are by Shep Pettibone, because he remixed everyone in the 80s.

Posted in B-sides, covers, Cyndi Lauper, remixes, Toyah | 2 Comments »

R.I.P. Scott Miller

Thursday, April 18th, 2013

Just too soon.

Dammit.

Head over to Scott’s official website for downloads to Game Theory’s albums.

And I did a write-up on Mostly-Retro on Scott as well.

Posted in Game Theory | 4 Comments »

Gay Acid

Tuesday, April 16th, 2013

In case you missed my last post, I finally launched that new site of mine. It’s called Mostly-Retro and it’s going to be a clearinghouse of reviews, essays and other stuff I’ve always wanted to write but couldn’t find the venue for. I plan on updating it two to three times a week if all works out. Don’t worry, I don’t plan on shutting down Lost Turntable anytime soon, but until I get things going at a steady pace over at Mostly-Retro, I might slow down to a post a week here for a month or so. Of course, now that I’ve said that I’m probably going to end up being more productive than ever and post shit nonstop. That’s always how that works.

Anyways, check out the new site! Tell me what you think! Keep it mind it’s still a work in progress, so be nice if you think it looks like butt.

Psychic TV
Joy (credited to DJ Doktor Megatrip with Luv Bass)
Thee Politics Ov Ecstasy (credited to Psychic TV & Jack The Tab)
These are from a 12″ single. I bought it because I thought it was some crazy weird bootleg acid house single. I had no idea that both tracks were actually by Psychic TV and that in the late 80s they released two full albums of acid house under the guise of them being compilation albums, complete with fake artist names for each track. That’s weird. But from what little I know of Psychic TV, weird is par for the course so I’m not even going to try and analyze it.

Seriously, I know next to nothing about Psychic TV aside from the fact that they’ve released, like, a billion albums and that they’re really weird. I don’t know how this stuff compares to the rest of their discography or if they’ve released better acid house music. I just like acid house. And as acid house goes, this is pretty damn great. And really fucking trippy.

Patrick Cowley
Menergy (12″ Remix)
I Wanna Take You Home
Tommy Williams’ Megamedley
I’ve posted some Patrick Cowley before. For those who missed those posts and might not know who he is; Cowley was a legend of late-era disco, and one of the first producers who followed in Moroder’s footsteps, taking disco into the realm of electronica. While Moroder was the original innovator of electronic disco, Cowley took it a whole other level during his brief career (he passed away in 1982), and pretty much laid the foundation for HI-NRG dance music and synthpop along the way. If you like the Pet Shop boys and New Order’s dancier stuff, then you should really dig Cowley.

I posted a mix of “Menergy” a few months ago, but this version is longer, clocking in at about eight and a half minutes, making it even gayer than the original. The b-side “I Wanna Take You Home,” while not as fabulous as “Menergy” is still an excellent example of the type of music that Cowley created. I don’t know who is singing on it though, the 12″ gave no credit. If you have any idea let me know.

Finally, there’s the “Tommy Williams’ Megamedley,” which starts with “Menergy” before going into a mostly instrumental mix of Cowley’s greatest tracks. It’s amazing. This shit is better than 99% of the “EDM” you hear on the radio these days, of course that’s really not saying that much is it?

Posted in B-sides, Patrick Cowley, Psychic TV, remixes | 2 Comments »

Go check out my new site.

Tuesday, April 16th, 2013

So I’m launching that new site….now.

Go check it out, it’s called Mostly Retro.

So what is it?

Well, that’s been one of the reasons why it’s taken me so long to launch it (aside from technical issues). Figuring out exactly what I wanted out of this secondary site was a bit challenging. I knew I didn’t want it to be just another MP3 blog. I already got one of those, obviously, and to be honest, I wanted to create something where I might be able to make some sort of money without worrying about the legal ramifications of selling ads and whatnot on a site that illegally hosts music. That’s not to say I’ll never post MP3s on the new site, but when I do they’ll be so obscure or random that I can’t imagine anyone associated with them would have any problem with me sharing them.

As the site name suggests, most of what I’ll be covering on it will be “retro” in nature. Older games, movies, music and such. However, not everything will be strictly nostalgic in nature. As you’ll see from going there, the first article is a guide to buying record sin Japan. As far as specifics, I’m still trying to work that out, to be honest. I’m shooting for something that’s fun and silly at times, but not afraid to have more serious or introspective content as well. Something between Dinosaur Dracula and Unwinnable is the tone I’m shooting for.

I already got some cool stuff lined up, at least I’d like to think so. Later this week you can expect a cool post on Kraftwerk and the first post in what I hope will be a recurring feature. Upcoming articles will include a multi-part post on Red Book audio in video games, a possible interview with an early synthesizer pioneer, and a marathon series of posts where I review every Tangerine Dream album from 1970 to 1990. Seriously.

I got a lot of stuff planned with this site, and I hope you all (and more) enjoy it. If you do, please share it with your friends. Tweet it, Facebook it, Google+ it. Whatever. Get the word out. The more people who read it, the more I’ll feel compelled to create content.

And finally, and this is the only time I will ever mention this, I have put up a “donate” button at the new site. People have asked me in the past about doing that here, and I’ve always been against it due to the nature of this site. But since Mostly-Retro is a different beast, I thought it would be more appropriate there. So if you like what I do and want to help me out…I won’t protest. But if you’re thinking “Pay? For articles I read for free? Fuck that!” hey, then that’s your prerogative and I’m not going to slight you for it.

Also, you might want to consider a career as a website editor.

One more thing, Mostly-Retro is still very much a huge work in progress. There are kinks I need to work out and some design issues I want to change. I know it’s not perfect. But I wanted to launch the damn thing already and I was going crazy trying to make it just right.

Anyways, I hope you like the new site. I’ll have a new post here tonight as well.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Eyepatches for 2013

Thursday, April 11th, 2013

So tonight I spent three hours working on tracking down the keyboardist to an obscure 70s funk band.

I have weird hobbies.

Garbage
Milk (D Mix)
Milk (Trance Mix)
One of the reasons why I’ve kept this blog going for seven years (holy shit!) is that it’s just as educational and informative for me as it is my readers. For example, I had no idea that there were so many damn mixes of this song! I only had the Massive Attack mix that was on the 2CD edition of their greatest hits album Absolute Garbage. I had no idea that there were these two additional mixes by Massive Attack, two mixes by Goldie, three mixes by Rabbit In The Moon, and one with Tricky. Damn. That’s a lot of “Milk.” How come none of these other mixes have been released in any sort of complication? Chalk Garbage up as another band in the long list of acts who need and deserve a proper multi-disc remix compilation.

Dead Or Alive
You Spin Me Round (Like  a Record)
Mighty Mix 2
So when I was in Tokyo I found these.

IMG_1453

Yeah, those were must buys for the covers alone. Nevermind that I already had the tracks on one of the singles both on vinyl and on a Dead or Alive compilation CD. I mean, it would be idiotic to have bought one of those 12″ singles and not the other. They’re obviously a matching set. I need to get these motherfucker matted, framed and hung up over my dinner table. So when people come in my house, they know I”m serious about my…um…80s synthpop acts that featured androgynous lead singers with eye-patches…I guess.

Yeah, that’s it. I’m going to stand by that.

In case anyone is wondering, the two songs that I did already have that I’m not featuring here tonight are the Murder Mix of “You Spin Me Round” and the extended mix of “Misty Circles.” There are about a billion places where you can get the Murder Mix, and if you want the extended mix of “Misty Circles,” you can find it on the expanded edition of Sophisticated Boom Boom, where it is billed as the “Dance Mix.”

On a related note: Sophisticated Boom Boom might be the best worst name for an album in history.

Posted in Dead Or Alive, Garbage | 4 Comments »

Rage Against Bonnie Tyler (No, don’t really, she’s really awesome)

Monday, April 8th, 2013

The new site is still on schedule to launch next week. I was hoping to open it with a pretty cool interview, but that fell through twice now, so instead I’m just going to go ahead and get it up and running with some smaller, more humorous bits. Stay tuned for more info. Now for some rap-rock and pop-disco!

Rage Against The Machine
Bullet In The Head (Sir Jinx Remix)
I used to love Rage. Then I hated them. Now I’m pretty much indifferent. I still love most of their music and the messages behind a lot of it, but damn, if they aren’t a bunch of idiotic hypocrites; with hypocrite number one being guitarist Tom Morello.

As many other writes have pointed out over the years, Morello loves to attack the American government for its human rights violations (of which there are many and I am not defending) but he also idolizes people like Lenin and Chairman Mao, evil pricks who are both no strangers to massive violations of basic human rights. I understand that there are always contradictions in a person’s political viewpoints, but that’s a bit much even for me. I’ve never been able to look past that blatant conflict.

More recently, I’ve been hating on the band for all the blatant cash grab bullshit they’ve been doing. I’m not calling them out for being rich socialists, you can be a socialist and be rich. I’m calling them out for being sell out, greedy, capitalism-loving socialists. That reunion tour they did a few years back? That was a nostalgia-driven money grab. No new music. No new messages. Just a group yelling “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” to audiences of suburban white kids who didn’t give a fuck about the band’s “message.” (You think Paul Ryan is a fluke among Rage fans? He’s the rule, not the exception.)

More recently, I balked at the band’s decision to re-release their self-titled debut as a massive super deluxe edition. Not because I have something against super deluxe editions, but because, much like their recent tours, it was nothing more than a cheap cash grab designed to make as much money as possible, all while exerting as little effort as needed (while still asking fans to pay for a premium for it). That set cost $100. What did that get you? Some live B-sides, a bonus CD with their demo tape, and a DVD with some live footage. Big whoop. How about some actual b-sides? This remix isn’t in that set. What about including the now out-of-print and insanely hard-to-find Live And Rare CD as a gift? One hundred bucks for a bad remaster, a demo tape and some live cuts. Whoop. De. Shit.

Do other bands do this? Yeah! All the time. But hey, Depeche Mode didn’t make a career out of hyping the destruction of capitalism and the power of the working class, so when they put out a shitty overpriced box set it’s not as offensive now is it? Now, if they put out, oh I don’t know, a guide to making it in music while avoiding heroin, then they’d be hypocrites.

Anyways, I still like RATM’s music, I just find it hard to listen to in light of all that stuff. This remix is from a 12″ single, and like I said before, it was not included on $100 super deluxe edition of the album from which the song originally came.

Oh, and one more thing. Thich Quang Duc burned himself alive to bring attention to religious persecution, not to fucking sell records.

Bonnie Tyler
Band of Gold (Extended Version)
Band of Gold (Dub)
The latest in my ongoing quest to pair the least likely artists together as possible.

Another day, another “Band of Gold” cover. For those keeping track at home (and you really should be if you’re not already), this is the fourth version of “Band of Gold” I’ve featured on this site, with the previous versions being renditions by Modern Romance, Belinda Carlisle and Sylvester. Which is the best? Oh boy, that’s a tough call.

Well it’s not that tough. It’s definitely not the Modern Romance version, their cover feels more like a goof than a serious attempt at the song. Belinda’s can go too. I love me some Belinda, but she really can’t hold a candle to the two finalists here. Sylvester is the greatest disco diva of all-time, and Bonnie Tyler probably had one of the most powerful voices of the 80s.

Shit! I can’t choose! They’re both amazing! Sylvester’s is the most fabulous. Bonnie’s is the most fierce. Let’s just leave it at that.

Posted in Bonnie Tyler, Rage Against The Machine, remixes | 8 Comments »

Boom Boom Satellites and Tokyo Bliss

Friday, April 5th, 2013

I was glad to see that my last post on Boom Boom Satellites exposed the group to people who may not have heard of them otherwise. Like I said in that post, if you really like the group, I suggest you seek out their records. Some of their albums are available on iTunes and Amazon, and there’s even a US-targeted Greatest Hits called Over and Over that you can pick up too.

In case that last post didn’t sell you on the group, I’m going to try one more time. Like I said in my previous post about the group, I’m not comfortable sharing any of their complete albums even if they aren’t available in the states. I believe that they’re going to be released here someday, and I don’t want to cannibalize those sales. So instead I’m going to share five choice cuts, five great songs by Boom Boom Satellites that you can’t get in America. If these awesome tunes can’t convince you that Boom Boom Satellites aren’t a band worth getting into, then I’m done with you.

Boom Boom Satellites
Rise And Fall
This is from Full of Elevating Pleasures, the band’s 2005 album, and the last that had any kind of experimental or abstract feeling to it. I bet the fans who love their early work saw this as the album where things fell apart, I feel it as the album where things really came together. They were still experimenting with their sound, but they were taking those ideas and concepts and plugging them into a more conventional pop structure. “Rise And Fall” showcases this the  most. While most of BBS’ work more mainstream work is heavily rooted in guitars, this song is built almost entirely on drums and it creates and explosive and manic feeling that is unique and powerful. I love it.

9 Doors Empire
Loaded
Both of these songs are from On, their 2005 follow-up to Full of Elevating Pleasures. This is when BBS stopped being an experimental electronic band with rock influences and became a full-on electronic/rock band. These are ready-made stadium anthems, designed to get audiences’ blood pumping and feet moving. These songs are proof that a band can change their sound to appeal to more mainstream audiences and not lose what makes them unique in the process. Does this stuff sound like early BBS? Not really, but it has that essence of their earlier work. And it really rocks.

Undertaker
Caught In The Sun
These are both from To The Loveless, their 2010 record, and their last album that isn’t available in America. I feel that these two tracks best foretold the sound the band would move forward to with their latest record Embrace, much more layered and diverse. On is almost nothing but fast-paced rock, excellent but somewhat exhausting. These songs show the band’s ability to let their music breathe, embracing the quiet moments more so that when they explode into a frenzy of drums and feedback it sounds even more amazing.

Damn I love this band…

…allow me to indulge for a bit…

I spent much of my time in Tokyo walking the streets of the city with my headphones on. Walking around the streets and alleyways late at night, listening to Embrace, it made the city come alive.

Near the end of my trip I would make it a nightly ritual to get on a train near midnight, right before most lines shut down, and travel as far away from my hotel as  I was comfortable with. Then I would put on my headphones, crank some Boom Boom Satellites and start the walk back. Sometimes it would take hours. I didn’t care. Between the beautiful sights of that magnificent city and the music that was pulsing through my ears, I didn’t care. To me, the Boom Boom Satellites are a soundtrack to those nights, the best nights of my trip, some of the most peaceful and perfect nights of my life.

When I close my eyes now and listen to their music, it’s almost like I’m transported back there. Back to the bright lights of Shibuya, the parks of Ueno, and the amazing skyscrapers of Shinjuku. It’s a bittersweet feeling in many ways because it just makes me long to return to that city. But that’s impossible for now, and since my memories and these songs are the closest thing I got, they’ll have to do.

So yeah, for me Boom Boom Satellites represent a very specific time and place, a time and place where I was more happy and relaxed than I’ve ever been. So I guess I’m a bit biased when I say they’re one of the greatest bands on earth.

 

Posted in Boom Boom Satellites | 4 Comments »

« Older Entries