The Musical Baton

Right. so Manny over at Sugar Disaster has sent us the musical baton, which is a space time/cross section of what we as friends, lovers, strangers, humans are doing with our musical spare time.

Here we go:

1. Total volume of music files on my compter
Ri~ght. well after sustaining the Great Harddrive Crash of 2005 (GHC '05) I have lost my entire music library. And without access to piracy sites, all I have is what I've ripped off CDs I've rented... that being -

114 songs, 7.9 hours, 437.2 MB

2. Last CD I bought

The soundtrack to 凶気の桜　(kyouki no sakura). A wicked awesome Japanese Right-Wing, Anti-American, Clockwork Orange meets Yakuza in Shibuya, music video style Japanese piece of fun brilliance. I am dangerously hooked on this movie and soundtrack these days.

3. Song Playing Right Now

ペンギン　(Penguin) Yamazaki Masayoshi

4. Five songs/albums I listen to a lot or that mean a lot to me.

I've decided to list this as a chronical of transitional phases in my life...

◎Duran Duran - Arena
This was my first non-kid album, and I listened to it like crazy on my little silver Sony (early connection to Japan, no?) casette radio. Till that point the only casettes I owned were Disney. I had Rocky on vinyl, but casettes were the wave of the future.

◎Led Zeppelin - what is commonly referred to as Zeppelin IV, though it was untitled.
I found this old casette of my dad's in the basement and fell in love with it, though I had no idea who they were or what the songs meant in the ultimate history of Rock. This album ended my Li'l Rapper phase.

◎Nirvana - Nevermind
Again, I had no idea who they were, what the song titles were, or what they would mean. I got the tape from a buddy that was all "check this out". This ended, or at least lessened, my Classic Rock phase.

◎Ego Wrappin - Night Food
Wow, heard くちばしにチェリ　(kuchibashi ni cherry) on the radio at a burger joint my first year in Japan, asked who it was, and went and bought the album. This moved me into Japanese Blue/Jazz/Fusion music, which has lead to Love Psychedelico, Orange Pekoe, Blue Hearts, Yamazaki et al.

◎凶気の桜　(kyouki no sakura) - Soundtrack
Though I have been into M-Flo for sometime, this comp hip-hop album threw me into the underground Nationalism of youth. The music is def, the lyrics are power, and the scene of a 6 foot tall white dude driving his suped up Subaru Impreza through Japanese streets with the window down and the "Fuck CocaColonization" music blastin is a film... a film where the white dude eventually gets his ass kicked, but...

5. Three people to whom I'm passin the baton
Murphy over at Unhappening (a private blog. sorry folks)
Richard-san at ... well his blog is kinda un-named but...
Kirk, cause today's his birthday, and ya gotta admire anyone lucky enough to have a birthday on Canada Day...

★This was the original baton, but Manny felt that the last one is not really a question, so he added

"If you could eat any meal of the day with any 3 artists (alive or dead), what meal, what kind of food and which artists?"

Well I would argue that none of the above are questions. The are all statements that one could infer as questions. ie. "Last CD I bought" is infered as the question "What was the last CD you bought." Hense →　"Three people to whom I'm passing the baton" would read as "Who are three people to whom you are passing the baton".

Furthermore, the Baton does not claim to be "5 questions about your musical tastes", so no one should feel duped that the final statement is a passing of the torch.

For these reasons I refuse to answer Manny's question. Do as you will.