A great American died today. A man of talent and a man who roused a generation and defined a culture. Adam Yauch, better known as “MCA”, the lead vocalist of hip hop band Beastie Boys died on Friday the 4th of May 2012, ending a very successful career and bringing to a close one of the most formative American hip-hop bands in history.
The Beastie Boys were a law unto their own. Mixing metal, scratching, and rap with lots of samples thrown in in a weird combination of hard rock, punk and hip-hop, they were a type of music unlike most others, yet still well within the bounds of the hip-hop genre. Inspiring later groups such as Outkast with their melodic tunes which could appeal to the most hardcore b-boy and yet still be accessible enough that regular listeners could find something to love about them. Hell, my 60 year old father has The Beastie Boys in his collection. They spanned at least three generations of fans.
I loved their early songs as great party songs but I never considered myself a real “fan” until their last album, the 2004 epic “To The 5 Boroughs”, a tribute album to the city they loved, NYC. The album was heavily themed to their love of New York City, as the title indicates and a tribute to the strength of the people who lived there, featuring some anthemic post-9/11 songs full of NYC pride such as “Right Right Now Now”, “Time to Build” and the awesome “An Open Letter to NYC” which I consider one of the greatest songs ever. The whole album features the same lyrical themes as their music videos, concentrating on things like public transport and urban society, making millions of listeners dream about the gritty New York life where people would “come together” on the subway. I listened to the album on repeat a couple of times a week when I was doing community service in the local Japanese Gardens where I would spend all day raking attractive patterns into the pathways and slipping into the bamboo to smoke a joint before rocking out to ’5 Boroughs on my iPod, unsure whether I was in Australia, Japan, or deep in New York City.
Adam Yauch was diagnosed with cancer of salivary gland in 2009 and given only a short time to live, but true to his party-hard, punk nature, he hung on for three years before sadly missing out on the Beastie’s induction into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame just last month, and passing away this last Friday.
I’m glad to see that their discography was well and truly seeded by hundreds of people online today and my download absolutely screamed. I think when someone like MCA dies, the record company should declare a one month amnesty on downloads of their album and let everyone share it around for free so that he can be truly honoured.
MCA leaves behind a loving wife and a daughter, pictured below.
I think there’s only one thing left to say.
“You gotta FIGHT, for your RIGHT, to PARTY !!!!”
Let’s hope Adam never stops partying, wherever he is now, though being heavily Buddhist, it’d be nice to believe that his party will go on forever.
Adam Yauch and daughter Tenzin Losel
UPDATE: I’ve been wandering around the net looking at other people’s blogs to see what they’ve had to say about MCA. Sadly most have just posted one or two sentences rather than proper, thoughtful articles, some only a single word link to the news report. But the comments sections have been well used on most blogs. I looked on Twitter and I found this video.
It’s Coldplay covering “Fight For Your Right To Party”, and yes, at first I almost facepalmed too. Until I listened to it. It’s amazing. It just goes to show how many groups’ hearts they touched. And as one of the commenter says, at 3:22 it’s virtually impossible not to have tears in your eyes.
Before you think that this article is going be in favour of some sort of “copy anything you want for a fixed monthly fee” style piracy tax, let me say, it’s not. It’s a much more revolutionary idea entirely. I’m going to talk primarily about music here, but the argument holds some validity for movies and such as well. See what you think.
Now, one of the biggest problems that has plagued me with the idea of digital music is that I don’t get anything physical to put on my shelf. Some people say they don’t WANT anything physical, but I do, and let me explain why with a brief anecdote.
I was living in a share house, and we had lots of people visit from time to time to see various members of the house. One time this one guy came over to see the bloke in the next room from me, and he paused in the loungeroom and said “Wow. Whose anime ?” I glanced out from my room and said “It’s mine. I have quite a lot”. It’s no big deal for the average person to be into anime, but I wandered out anyway to see what he was looking at. To my surprise he picked a fairly obscure and not well known series off my shelf and said “Oh my god, you like Kino’s Journey ?” and I said “Yeah. I do. I’m amazed you’ve heard of it. I’ve never met anyone who knows that anime” and he said “Hell yeah, this is a great anime”. Suddenly we were talking excitedly about our favourite anime and he became a good friend and would come over regularly to watch anime and even Jpop videos with me. Just by having that physical media sitting on my shelf, it caused us to strike up a conversation that we otherwise would not have had, and I gained a valuable friend out of it.
Likewise, when you are dating a girl for the first time, and you are at her house and you are wondering what common interests you have to talk about, what’s the easiest way to strike up a conversation ? You look at her CD collection and see what favourite artists you have in common. Maybe you borrow a CD or lend her one. It’s not just about sharing the music, it’s about sharing your INTERESTS. It really is true to say that in many ways, we are a product of the culture that we consume. What we like is what makes us who we are. You might be a Metallica-fan.. You might be a Nirvana addict. Why do we wear band t-shirts ? Because we’re proud of what we love and we want to share it with others. It’s a way of saying “Look. I’m really into this group. Are you ?” and inviting conversation and the sharing of interests.
So when the physical CD has disappeared and we are purchasing everything digitally, how do we show it off for others to flick through ? Coverflow certainly isn’t the answer. As someone sarcastically mentioned to me, Coverflow isn’t a way to see your music, it’s a way to flick past it as quickly as possible. The iTunes screensaver is sort of cool and I think maybe if we all had our media centres setup so that when we played an album, it could show the artwork on our nice bigscreen TV and also maybe cycled through some of our other favourite art. But how does that help us monetize and legitimise digital music and make it worth buying ?
It pains me to hear how many younger people these days freely admit to having never bought an album, either digital or physical, because they just don’t see what the point is. Now I discussed in an earlier article about Metallica, that the sharing of music has always been of massive importance to the spreading of new music AND driving legitimate sales, especially the less mainstream bands. Unless you are lucky enough to live in a huge city that has dedicated stations for different genres, how are you going to realise that you really love Danzig, without someone copying it for you and going “Hey, check this out, I think you’ll like it” ? Music sharing has always been an integral part of the music scene, especially for younger people. I mean, who hasn’t made a mix-tape for a girl at some point, or copied some album of a friend’s ?
So we need a way to make the music still able to be shared, but make people WANT to pay for it. We need to give them something that makes the purchase worthwhile to do them. And I have two concepts for this. The first is very simple, but could be either poorly or wonderfully implemented depending on whether the industry embraces it or abuses it. That’s the concept of added value. When you buy the album, you might get a small discount voucher to get a band t-shirt more cheaply, or a slight discount on their next concert. You might even get some extra demo or remix tracks which are not available in the normal download. This last one is a slippery slope because you have both the problem of it being abused by studios to water down the content they are already providing and make some things “extras”, and also because we know that anyone could just go and copy these extra tracks and release them online anyway.
Which is why I propose that we have some sort of protection against this. Oh yes. I am going to say that evil word, Digital Rights Management. But I don’t want it to bring up the negative and evil connotations that it has had in the past. I don’t mean something that cripples your purchase and makes it impossible to play on certain computer platforms or hardware. I just mean something that allows you to prove that you bought it, so that you can get access to something “extra”. Which leads me to my next, and most important concept.
Certification of ownership. Many of the anime DVD’s I buy, I have never opened. I watch the fansubs that I download because I think they’re superior, and normally of a much higher resolution than the shitty DVD’s that are available to purchase locally, since they are typically ripped from 1080p satellite TV. So why do I buy them ? Well, yes it’s to display them. But why do I want to display them ? Because I’m PROUD to say that I own them. I want people to know that I care about a particular movie or series enough to lay down a huge chunk of cash and own it, so that I can say that I respect the creators enough to make sure that they got paid for their hard work.
So what can certification of ownership provide ? It could be as simple as a little gold star in the corner of your album art, but that hardly equals massive bragging rights, does it ? So let me just jump back to the point I made at the beginning about the importance of artwork to help share your beloved interests with others and introduce you to an idea I came up with the other day. Now, I already discussed band t-shirts… but that’s mostly a young teen thing. But what about posters ? Come on… how many middle aged guys do you know with a Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd poster on their walls ? Heaps of them, right ?
So, I thought… how could we extend that into the future, and also make it tie in with the concept of certified releases ? Well, here’s my proposal. We have E-ink posters that are wirelessly connected to our home networks and the internet. Think about it. You put a nice big 5 foot tall E-ink poster on your wall, and depending on how you want to configure it, it can either just display your current favourite artist’s picture, or it could cycle through all your most favourite artists, or a combination of the above. It could be linked into what you are playing and show your favourite piece of album art from the currently playing album.
But mostly, it would be a sign of authenticity. These posters could be watermarked or adorned in some way as to prove they are real and represent the purchase of a real album. They would be a sign of your pride, not just a piece of artwork. They would be locked down with Certified Ownership Certificates (note I am deliberately not using the acronym DRM to avoid its negative connotations due to its abuse in the past) so that you couldn’t just steal them. Sure, some people would hack their E-ink displays to show whatever they wanted. You can never fully stamp out piracy and some people are always going to steal, but the point is in making it a point of pride to have purchased something. So that when you have a friend over and they see a particular piece of artwork come up on your E-ink poster they could say “Wow, you bought that album ? You must really like it” and you can then rave on about it and tell them how into it you are. It’s a conversation starter, a way to share your interests, and a point of pride.
So my idea is that music should be freely shareable. But we should develop a culture of PRIDE in the purchasing of the things we love the most. Let’s face it, we all have big music collections these days, but most of us only choose to purchase a small percentage of it. So let’s use that point of differentiation to make people WANT to buy the album. When someone sees a poster on your wall that they adore, you can say “If you love that band so much, won’t you just buy the album ?”
So, basically, the music itself is unshackled and we are free to copy it to whoever we want without restriction, but when you buy an album digitally, you get maybe a discount credit on a band t-shirt or other merchandise (these could maybe even be cumulative and you could build them up), you might get access to some special demo or remix version of the title song, maybe special pre-release access to the artist’s next single (though piracy quickly makes this redundant, but even for that first day when you have something that noone else has, it’s pretty special, right ? And imagine the extra pride you have when all of your friends who are certified owners get to sit around and proudly talk about the latest song that noone else has yet), and most of all, you get a certificate of authenticity in the form of being able to proudly show off the album art on a beautiful big electronic poster.
And for the oldies who don’t want huge posters on their walls, they could have more elegant, framed pictures. If they are into classical music, why wouldn’t they want a nice, framed picture of Mozart on their wall ? If they’re a teenager they might prefer a huge big wall-sized poster of the Foo Fighters or someone. I mean, teenagers are some of the biggest consumers of music in the world, despite often having less expendable cash, but they wear their favourite bands like a badge of honour, and how many teenagers do you know that DON’T have their room plastered in posters ? It’s time that we took advantage of the always-connected world we live in and merged the concepts of musical appreciation and visual appreciation and artwork display in a way that could not only provide a fantastic new way to show off he music that you love the most, but could also provide a whole new means of legitimising the sharing of music and STILL let artists get paid. Share the music… but BUY the right to show off how much you love it.
That’s my 2 cents. I hope the music studios like this idea and see the potential that it has. Stop making money by fear and reduced availability. When it costs nothing to distribute music anymore and anyone can bypass copyright measures and share it anyway if they want to, the price has to come down and we have to accept that the best way to make money from music is not from the music itself, which should be a public asset that is to be treasured by all like a painting in an art gallery, but from the good feeling that people get in their heart by having legitimately bought an album, knowing they have done the right thing, that the artist is getting paid, and that they can wear that as a symbol of their love for the music. And when we are paying for the right to authenticity, we need not have these absurd prices that music has currently. When an album costs $20… you think twice before buying it. But if it cost $5 you would be much more likely to legitimately buy music. It’s the culture of scarcity and high prices that drove people to piracy in the first place, but digital distribution makes the concept of scarcity meaningless. So drop the prices and I think you’ll be surprised how much more music people are willing to purchase.
Make money through pride and added value, not fear, scarcity and draconian laws. That’s what I’m saying. Now, who’s going to make me some gorgeous 6 foot tall, wifi-connected E-ink posters ? Coz believe me, I will be FIRST in like to buy that shit !
Footnote:
As many of you know, I’ve been involved in the MP3 scene since way back. I’m also an amateur musician and a technology enthusiast, so this idea is a culmination of all those three interests. I know some other people who are very passionate about the MP3 scene and how ragged bands of kids formed together to popularise a format that was originally intended just to be used by radio stations in such a way that MP3 has become one of the most commonly known technology concepts in today’s world.
I literally know people in their 80′s who have never so much as touched a computer in their entire life, but who purchase their music as MP3′s on SD cards and listen to them on physical MP3 players. Companies like Apple owe a massive debt of gratitude to the people in the MP3 release scene (I refuse to use the word piracy), and I think those people who flaunted the law to make music public property that everyone could share without waiting for studios to distribute physical media around the world as they pleased deserve a lot of respect.
It’s the MP3 release scene that made the current digital music business viable. Without that influx of “free” MP3′s back in the early days, noone would have ever been willing to accept the concept of buying music online without getting anything to show for it. It was the availability of free music made people go out and buy iPods, not the iTunes music store. Now, the technology has exploded to the point where you can barely buy a floor fan without it having an MP3 player integrated into it. MP3 players have become one of the most widespread and iconic pieces of computer technology in existence and we have the great groups like RNS, APC, ATM, DAC and the many others who put their arses on the line to help distribute and promote new music to thank for making the whole digital music industry exist today, when it might have otherwise taken decades longer to reach the point it has reached now in just a few short years.
So, if you are also interested in this great scene and the people who cared enough to make it all happen, I suggest that you wander along to http://mp3scene.info and enjoy many of the fascinating and historical documents available there on the old groups who kickstarted this great industry and new concept in musical distribution. The site is run by a guy I know called Dalton, and he’s about to launch a whole new revision of the site which is greatly enhanced and which I think is a valuable historical resource. So props to both Dalton for documenting it and everyone who was involved in this scene. Hats off to you guys, you changed the world, even if the average Joe on the street barely knows who you are beyond a little 3 letter tag at the end of their MP3 files.
Note, I don’t mean that as an insult to homosexual people. It’s just an insult, nothing more. I don’t think the word “faggot” has referred to homosexuals in quite a while.
For some reason, on IRC we were talking about blood and semen and I made the comment “Like the cover of Metallica’s Load album ?” but the person wasn’t familiar with that album, so I went to Google Images to find a picture and explain the reference. Google if you want to know the story behind the album cover, I’m not here to explain it.
Afterward I hit the close button on the image, and Google showed me the blog that it came from. I hrmmed and read the page. It was a review of the album saying how Metallica weren’t total sell-outs and they had just decided to reinvent themselves in a new decade, cut off all of their hair, and write poncy fucking pop songs that had about as much metal in them as a pair safety scissors for kindergarteners.
At the end was this amusing video made as a parody of how young metalheads reacted to the album. Watch it now before I explain further.
Ok, it’s funny right ? But honestly, it’s true. Now here’s a little story about how I discovered Metallica.
I was in high school, and I’d really only been exposed to my Dad’s music previously because I had never been to school before and traded music with other kids. But I had a friend named Josh who brought over this cassette he’d copied from somewhere. It was Master of Puppets. We played it and I headbanged my way through Battery, then air guitared my way through Master of Puppets as my mate screamed along to the lyrics. By the end of the album I was dripping with sweat and I said “THAT WAS FUCKING INCREDIBLE !!! WHO IS THAT ?!!?” … “Metallica” he said. “You’ve never heard them ?” “No”, I replied, “But I sure want to hear more now !”. He had a copy of Ride The Lighting with him as well and we listened to that too.
“I need to check out more of this. Do they have any other albums ?” I asked. “Yeah. They have an earlier one called Kill Em All which I’m told is really heavy, and a later one called And Justice For All which is supposed to be really different and epic, but I don’t know where to get them”. “Hmmmm. We should buy them. I would like to own that shit” I said. Josh said “Sure, me too, but I don’t have any money. How about you ?” “Nah me either. Maybe we could get jobs on the weekend ?” “Doing what ?” asked Josh. “What about washing cars ? That would be easy. We could just ask people in the area if they wanted their cars washed and charge them $5 a car”. “Yeah”, said Josh. “I’d do that. But maybe we could get Andy or Ray to come along to make it more fun”. “Sure”, I said. “But we’ll have to split the money more ways then”. “Good point”, agreed Josh. “How about we take Andy on Saturday and Ray on Sunday ?” “Yeah, good call” I said.
So, both Saturday and Sunday, Josh and I and Andy and Ray (on one day each) went out and knocked on every door in the neighbourhood and looked as sweet as we could and said we were trying to earn some money and would anyone like to have their car washed for $5. Some people were real hard-arses. I remember this one guy who came out and picked on everything we’d done and made us re-wash his car in front of him, making sure we got in all the wheel arches and the front grill. He even tried to suggest the job wasn’t worth $5 and that he might only pay us $3. He paid us in small change and we stormed off, bitching about him and calling him an arsehole once we were out of earshot.
On Sunday we got an even worse job. We encountered a couple of young women who were clearly lesbians, and they said “We don’t have a car, but there is something you can do if you want. Our bulldog tore apart some pillows in the backyard and we need someone to pick up all the stuffing. We’ll give you $5 for that”. We agreed and entered their back yard only to find pillow fluff covering every corner of their (very large) yard. Upon picking it up we discovered that it was all covered in dog slobber and smelt disgusting. I nearly vomited and I had to look away as I picked the stuff up. It was a dirty job, and we got less than $2 each for what must have taken a full hour, but it was our final job for the weekend. We each had just over $27 (apart from Andy because he’d only been with us for one day) each.
Josh and I got his mum to drive us to the record store in town, and we walked out with shiny new copies of Kill Em All and And Justice For All and Josh’ mum asked if I’d like to sleep over at their house that night. Naturally I did, because Josh had his own room in a granny flat down the back which was perfect for cranking music in. We turned up to his place and I reverently slipped Metallica’s Kill Em All into the CD player and Josh insisted we go outside to shoot hoops. I hated basketball, but I agreed anyway, and I mostly just took random shots without caring so that I could concentrate on headbanging. The album was awesome. Mind blowing. Sheer, in your face, grinding, pumping metal. With a huge grin my face I said to Josh “That was totally worth working all weekend in the sun for, right ?” and he nodded and said “Yeah, it sucked. But now I own a Metallica CD”.
I became right into Metallica. I bought many of their T-shirts at insane prices, and purchased their entire back catalogue to date, mostly from second hand stores. I was a devoted fan for years. The Black album seemed a little mainstream for me, but I had to admit it had some good songs on it and even my Dad enjoyed it and used to copy the video clips off Rage (ABC’s after-midnight music video show) on VHS and play them. I’d come home and he’d have “Wherever I may roam” cranking out and I’d laugh that I’d somehow managed to get my 40 year old father into Metallica.
Some years later, Load came out and shit all fell apart. I actually was in one of the first mp3 groups at the time as I was a very early internet adopter, but I didn’t wait for the mp3 to come out. It was Metallica. I treasured Metallica and putting their CD on my shelf and showing it off proudly, and reverently inserting it into my CD player to listen to in my poster-covered bedroom (I had a HUGE poster on my ceiling of them all on the steps of a temple in Thailand) was like a ritual to me. So downloading it was just not an option. I wanted to OWN it.
I pushbiked all the way up to David’s Ultrasound, purchased the CD, and rode home again and closed my door and slipped it into my second hand Teac CD player, plugged into an ancient but massively powerful Yamaha amplifier and some awesome big speakers that I’d salvaged from a charity auction. It was a Load alright. A load of complete shit as far as I was concerned. I threw the CD back into the case very un-reverently and put it back on the shelf, never to be played again. Suddenly Metallica were being played on the local country music station. I just pretended to myself that they’d all died in a plane crash like Holly, Valens and The Big Bopper. I went back to Master of Puppets and found my sanctuary, but by that time I was getting increasingly into Pink Floyd, who had never let me down and even their less accessible albums were still interesting and didn’t disgust me, so I began spending my cash on Floyd instead and one by one the Metallica posters tore and came down from the wall to be replaced with new bands.
I laughed through Metallica’s Napster rage and facepalmed at the same time. Seriously guys, you are millionaires, and you are bitching about people downloading your music ? Come on. Are you trying to say you didn’t copy tapes when you were kids ? How the fuck were people supposed to find out about new non-mainstream-radio bands without copying music from their friends ? It’s not like we heard Henry Rollins and Danzig on our local radio stations… we HAD to pirate that shit. That’s how you discover new music. But when you find something you like… well, some of us at least respected the artists enough to go and buy their CD’s. Sure, I know some people who have never bought a CD in their life and just pirate all their music, but they would still buy t-shirts and other merchandise and attend concerts.
For Metallica to turn and bite the hand that feeds it by going on a one-band mission to destroy Napster just seemed so hypocritical. Yeah nice work guys, alienate your fans so that you can buy a new Mercedes. Fuckwits.
But today, after the discussion today about Metallica and watching that video, I had this craving to listen to Master of Puppets. I grabbed the most well-seeded Metallica discography torrent off a site and selected just the first song off the Puppets album. Ten minutes later I wondered why I had not heard a “ding” to tell me the file was done. I looked at the torrent ant it was only 50% done, despite screaming at 200k/s. Huh ? That doesn’t make sense. I brought up the torrent and watched it climb to 97%, then suddenly drop back to 70% then 50%, then start climbing again and then repeat the whole thing. I laughed. Someone was poisoning the torrent with bad packets on purpose.
I imagined Lars Ulrich sitting in his luxurious mansion, with multiple fibre connections going into his house, sitting back in some huge leather chair cackling with laughter at all the people wasting their bandwidth downloading his fake packets and shrieking “You’ll never pirate my albums ! Never I tell you. NEVER !!!!”
I facepalmed, sighed, considered the fact that I already own the original CD of the album I was trying to download, realised the hypocricy of what they were doing, and suddenly lost any interest in listening to Metallica… a band that was supposed to be all about rebellion and anti-establishmentism.
It’s sad when metalheads get old and turn into douches. James Hetfield, I thought you were cool once. Cliff would be rolling in his grave at the music you’re putting out now and he would be haunting Lars in his sleep over what he’s doing. Honestly, if your mission was to make all your old fans ashamed to wear a Metallica shirt in public, you achieved your goal. I wore my Ride the Lightning shirt until it was full of holes, and then kept it in my cupboard for special occasions. Recently I threw it away. Sorry guys, but you just aren’t the band you once were. And I don’t mean just musically. I mean you are a bunch of douches now. It’s hard to even enjoy your old music without being reminded of what you’ve become.
To the old Metallica I loved as a child, REST IN PEACE.
Why has this article been so long coming ? Well, I was busy and on a high and having fun and I kept putting off writing it. Also then I had laptop problems and I ended up losing my linux partition which had the story I’d written offline on it. Arrrgh. I should know better than to write things offline as they always get buried and eventually lost !
So here’s the brief version of how the Kpop Festival went, before I forget all the details.
When I heard about it, I had just gotten into work and unpacked and connected and a friend on IRC mentioned he was seeing SNSD “tomorrow night” and I said “Wow awesome. Where are you ?”, thinking he must be in Seoul or something, and he goes “Sydney” and I said “What ? SNSD are coming to Sydney ? Tomorrow ?!?!” and he confirmed and linked me to the event’s website, which showed that as well as SNSD, Kara, Sistar, 4 Minute, Miss A, Secret, and Shinee, TVXQ, MBlaq, CNBlue, 2AM and B2ST were also coming. Now I actually know almost all of those groups. I hadn’t heard MBlaq, TVXQ, CNBlue and I wasn’t real familiar with Miss A or Secret, but I knew the others intimately as some of my favourite Kpop groups. I was THERE. I bought my ticket without thinking. I looked at the $85 regular seating tickets and then at the $300 front-of-stage standing room moshpit tickets and asked my friend what he was doing. “Front of stage of course” he said. I quickly purchased my $300 front stage ticket before even working out how I was going to get to Sydney.
People started talking about whether they could take photos and someone said that as long as it wasn’t a professional camera you were allowed to take photos in the audience. I hrmmmed and thought “I wonder if I could get special permission as a journalist to take photos ?”, so I looked up the company hosting the event, JP Entertainment, and I rang the number on their website. It was disconnected. Not discouraged, I looked them up in the Sydney White Pages and found a listing in residential Sydney. I rang the number and an Asian woman answered. I knew the owner of the company was James Xian, so I asked “Hi I was wondering if I can talk to James or someone about getting press access to take photos at the Kpop concert tomorrow ?”
The woman said “You’ve rung his home number. I can give you another number for him, but he’s probably at the venue preparing, who is this again ?” and I told her and said that I write an “Asian music review site on the internet”. What ? I do, right ? She said “I’ll give you his mobile number”. I rang the number and James answered and I repeated what I wanted and who I was and he said “Well, it’s a little bit late. Are you into Kpop ?” and I said “Oh hell yeah. When I heard SNSD was performing in Sydney I had to be there no questions asked, and I wanted to know if I could take some photos for my site”. “I’ll ring my marketing people and give them your number,” he said. “You should hear from them within a couple of hours”.
I waited, but by 4pm hadn’t heard anything, so I rang James back and he said “Look just turn up at the venue at midday and come and find me or someone at the JP Entertainment marquee and they’ll sort you out”. Woohoo ! I thought. But that meant I had to leave Hervey Bay really early and I knew that booking an early plane on a Saturday morning from Hervey Bay to Sydney at the last minute was gonna be really expensive. It was. $500 if I wanted to get in by midday, and the only plane getting in earlier was already booked out. I quickly paid before the price went up further or tickets ran out. I wasn’t going to arrive late and miss the chance to maybe get some sort of press access to photograph SNSD. I booked it.
I headed off to the airport at 5 in the morning with no luggage but lots of laptop and camera bags slung over my shoulders, much to Qantas’ dismay with their “one carry on bag” rule, which I questioned since I only had very small bags, and fortunately they let it slide. I was amused to find I still had mobile reception from time to time on the flight down to Brisbane because it was just a little low flying small-medium aircraft. When I got to Brisbane I switched to a bigger plane and headed on to Sydney, where I rented a car and drove around feeling very cool and elite to be in Sydney on holiday in an expensive new car.
Sydney traffic was scary as hell, and people like to use their horn so much down there I almost felt like I was back in Saigon. I got to Olympic stadium a bit late, well after 1pm and I was paranoid that I would be too late to arrange my access. When I arrived I walked up to the JK Entertainment tent and introduced myself and said “James told me to come see you” and some girl said “James who ?” and I said “James Xiang of course” and she said “Oh you know James ? Cool, talk to Nikki there. He will arrange that for you”. I didn’t contradict her and I went and spoke to Nikki who said he would sort something out and to come back later at 4:30.
I wandered around, enjoying myself watching all the excited fans. My mum had said to me “You know it’s going to be packed with Koreans right ?” and I had said “No it’s not. Other people like Kpop too”. She was right. It was 95% Koreans, of which 90% were teenage girls. Ok, I’m not complaining, but it made me feel a little awkward. Fortunately there was the odd rabid white fan dressed up in band t-shirts or cosplay and carrying posters. I had dressed conservatively since I wanted to look like I was press rather than a crazy fan, and I was conscious of the fact that I didn’t look like I was there to enjoy the concert.
Eventually I spotted the first white guys. Three young guys in matching t-shirts that said “GEE GEE GEE GEE” on the front and “BABY BABY” on the back walked past and I chuckled and gave them a thumbs up. As the day wore on more non-Koreans turned up and I felt more relaxed. Not that I felt that out of place. I don’t care. I know I’m a minority among a minority when it comes to my tastes in weird things.
There were various tents there setup from early in the morning. SBS’s Asian program were there hyping up the crowd and the various sponsors, from Korean cup noodle companies to Hyundai and LG had stalls showing off their latest stuff. The tent which had the biggest line-up was for people to stand beside a cardboard cut-out of their favourite group to have their picture taken. Wooh. Cool. Yay. I’m hoping to see them up close for real.
Come 4pm though Nikki was nowhere to be seen. I rang James and expressed my concern and he said “No worries, there’s still time. Nikki will turn up”. I hung around the JK Ent tent and sure enough Nikki came out of nowhere and said “David, I have you all sorted. Go around to Gate L around the back and ask for Wendy. She’ll show you in”. I thanked him and headed off around to the back of the stadium.
When I approached the gate, a woman (not Wendy) saw my camera around and press lanyard around my neck and said “Press ? This way” and ushered me in and a guide took me up to the third floor where the press conference was. I reached the big wooden doors that looked like they could protect a dwarven fortress and two smiling people stood outside and ask who I was and where I was from. I stuttered and said “I’m not sure if I’m on the list. I was only just added” but I gave them my name and they looked down their list and said “Oh, sure sir. You’re on here. Here’s your media access card and here’s your ticket to the Legends Room for afterwards”.
I looked at the ticket I had been handed and wondered what it was. It appeared to be an entry ticket for the concert, albeit a special one. I slipped it in my pocket and walked in, forgetting about it immediately because in front of me, all lined up, were all my favourite Kpop stars, including SNSD right down the front. I quickly shuffled in and found a spot by the side where I could get decent photos without getting right in and taking one of the few remaining seats.
I quickly SMS’ed my friends and said “I’m in the press conference only about 8 feet from SNSD !” and they were like “OMG If you’re fucking with us that’s not funny”. I assured them it was real and they were intensely jealous. I focused on taking my photos. Yuri was gorgeous… well, they all were. But Yuri was who I was really excited about seeing in the flesh, and she took some interesting questions. Her and Jessica were MC’ing the whole concert it seemed. Various pre-prepared and boring questions were asked and all the performers talked about how great it was to be in Australia and how happy they were to be representing the “new Korean wave”.
Afterwards we had a brief photo shoot and photographers were invited to approach closer if necessary, but I had my big lens on and I was more than close enough to catch every imperfection on the idols’ skin, if indeed they had any. They didn’t really pose much, though SNSD were polite and all waved and smiled and one or two did a little pose with their hands, but nothing over the top.
After that it was over and I finally let out the breath I’d been holding in throughout the conference. The idols all filed out with a final wave and one of the hosts said “Ok, anyone who wants to attend the Legends Room to see the concert from a private suite on level 5, please stand over there and we’ll take you up there”.
I looked at the ticket again. Shit. So we get to see the concert from a private box at the back of the stadium ? Epic. Not only have I never seen a Kpop festival or seen SNSD in concert, or been to Olympic Stadium but now I was going to do all of these things from a private suite at the top of the stadium ? My head swum with the overwhelming feeling of “Could this day POSSIBLY get any better ?”
Most of the press crowd went home and only a small number of us went up to the private box, where waiters came and served us plates of both Korean and Australian snacks. We got meat pies and sushi hahaha. The alcohol wasn’t free sadly, but at least there was no line-up for the bar or toilet since there was lucky to be a dozen of us there by that point. I took my scotch and dry and a piece of sushi out to the seating area outdoors and sat at the back of the stadium and watched smugly as the regular plebs filed in. I told my friends and shelf said “Hey, Kirretov only has a regular silver class seat. You should give him your gold class standing seat”.
I said “But I have that insured. I can get my $300 back if I don’t use it”. “Aww come on. You got lucky. Pass it on down to someone who couldn’t afford something as good”. I quickly realised he was right. Even though I’d paid $300 for my ticket, the three of us were all at the event in different areas due to the class-based society we lived in. Kirretov stuck at the back in the silver seating, shelf down the front in the gold class, and me up the back in the suite. I messaged Kirretov and arranged to meet him outside and give him my gold class ticket so that he could go in with shelf and they could meet up and hang out together. I felt like I’d done my good deed for the day and shared my good fortune around. Everyone was happy.
The camera panned around the stadium showing off people in the crowd on the jumbo screens. Every time it landed on someone they would be looking around for a moment and then see themselves on the screen and go nuts with excitement. One girl saw herself and quickly hid behind her banner and the whole stadium erupted in laughter. It felt like a very warm, together group of people. We were all there for something we loved.
As the lights went down, a countdown was started on the big screen behind the stage and they played brief clips of the artists who would be performing and the crowd went even wilder as they saw their favourite performers. When it reached zero, the crowd screamed and Shinee burst onto the stage to perform Lucifer.
Now I could go on for hours about the performers, but to be honest, it was weeks ago now and really even at the time I only wrote down my vague impressions of them, so here’s what they were.
Shinee fucking rocked out and made me realise why they were the headline act and not 2AM or someone else. I decided I really must listen to more Shinee. They are cool, you know… for a Korean boy band. B2ST got the biggest response from the crowd and as shelf later said, that is the true test of a boy band’s power … how nuts the girls in the audience went, and believe me they went NUTS.
CNBlue were a surprise because I didn’t know them and as it turned out.. they are a real band ! With real instruments that people had to carry on stage for them to play. Not what I was expecting at a Kpop concert, but definitely cool. They were good too. I mean, they’re not L’Arc~en~Ciel, but they were a very cool K-rock band. 2AM were ok, but sorta not as cool as I thought they would be so I can’t say much about them.
The “other” girl groups were the real highlight as I was not expecting how much they would impress me and I was so surprised how many songs I knew. I mean, I pretty much knew every song that was performed by every group. Secret were cool, Sistar were fucking brilliant, and 4 minute were epic. But Kara. Kara fucking rocked out. They blew my mind. Their outfits, their dancing, the power of their music. They were AWESOME !
And then there was SNSD. They were so awesome that the time just flashed by and before I knew it they were gone again and I was crying that it was all over. During Gee I was holding my video camera to catch it on video and taking photographs with the other hand and balancing my Xoom on my lap while dancing in my seat. Sure, my friends were down the front going nuts, but I was pretty cool there, sitting in a seat with a good (though distant) view, a scotch beside me and my tablet on my lap. I looked over and a young Korean journalist’s pregnant wife was looking over at me with a smile on her face.
And then they were over and I was disappointed. But other acts followed to lift me up and the whole show was really stunning. I mean, Kara’s lightshow was A-MAZING. It was truly Pink Floyd quality with tonnes of coloured lasers and smoke and searchlights and stage lights. Shinee had made heavy use of plumes of fire, and I think it was Sistar or Secret who used some fireworks, but Kara’s lightshow was the one that blew me away the most since I’d never been to a concert with such an impressive display and I’d only seen it on concert videos. I really felt like I was right inside one of those amazing Morning Musume concerts in Tokyo that I’d seen on their concert videos.
After the concert I went and hooked up with shelf and Kirretov who I’d met for the first time at the event and we talked about how great it was. Shelf had caught a rose from Sunny of SNSD which was awesome for him and I was secretly very jealous, although Sunny wasn’t my favourite member. Since he was so jealous of me having gotten such special access to see the performers before the show and got such a unique experience seeing them from the suite I felt pretty good and it was fun boasting to it about people for the following days, weeks, months and will no doubt be for years whenever I meet an SNSD fan, which I did a couple of times on the way home.
The couple sitting behind me on the train from Sydney to Brisbane were from Samoa and the Cook Islands and they had come down from Brisbane and gotten gold standing tickets. I was half asleep listening to them and I caught the words “Sunny” and then “Jessica” and quickly spun around to say “Hey, you were at SNSD weren’t you ?” and they were and had booked tickets in August to attend. They were suitably impressed when I told them how I’d gotten to see SNSD before the show and the Samoan girl said “Some have all the luck don’t they ?”
Anyway it was an amazing weekend and I stayed in Sydney an extra day to look around, and when I got to Brisbane I stayed there for three more days chilling at Tin Billy’s in the city and staying in the hotel upstairs before eventually making my way home to Hervey Bay to return to work. I used to watch J and Kpop concerts with Jo years ago and think “God I would love to go to something like that and feel the energy and see that many crazed fans with glow sticks singing along to their favourite idols”. Well, now I’ve done it. And done it in style. Private suite, backstage access. Mwahahaha.
There’s nothing more I can say so I may as well just show you the photos. Oh but if you want to see this amazing show, and you have bittorrent, a full quality professional video of the whole festival is available on bittorrent. I have no idea on what tracker because I only have a magnet URI, but if you stick this into your bittorrent client you should be able to download it if it hasn’t lost all its seeders.
Did I show you the video of my friend Toan singing at my hotel a month or so ago ? I can’t remember if I did. Anyway, Toan and I were hanging out, and he was listening to instrumental versions of songs on YouTube and singing along to them. I filmed him singing one, and I later put it on YouTube. Someone commented that he was really good and should audition for Vietnamese Idol.
Well, he sorta did. He applied for Vietnam’s Got Talent. Not sure when the auditions are held but I sure hope I’m in Saigon at the time. I’ve love to be there to support him and cheer for him, coz he really does want to be a singer, and he’s really very good. He’s hoping to record an album soon. I sure hope he makes it onto TV. That would be so awesome to say that I have a friend who appeared on a Vietnamese talent show.
You wanna hear his song ? I know you do. Here it is. I actually find this song really addictive. Whenever I listen to it it gets stuck in my head for ages. Go Toan.. you totally deserve to be a Vietnamese pop idol !
We went to an amazing karaoke party for a friend of Merry’s birthday the other night. It was so much fun. It wasn’t pub-style karaoke. It was Japanese-style private-booth style karaoke and it was so much fun. We did a small number of Vietnamese songs, but most were western songs. I know Hotel Calafornia is one of Merry’s favourite songs so I said we’d do that and she fucking wussed out and made me sing it on my own ! I sucked at it too ! I only got a 95% rating on the computer, though that wasn’t the worst one, it’s just that other people were scoring 99% so they obviously sang better.
When we did Bohemian Rhapsody though I ran across to the other side of the room to sing with John, even though we don’t get along and frankly he makes me want to punch him most times I talk to him, but since he was there with us I thought I should put our differences aside and go sing with him, and we had fun.
The best song of the night was the final one though. We all sang Champagne Supernova by Oasis and oh my god it was good. Everyone linked arms and we sang it like the beautiful ballad that it was.
I’d tell you more, but I mean… that’s it really. We all went out. I didn’t even know who was going other than Tuan, so it was great to realise that I actually knew half the people there, even though not always by name. It’s good to know that I actually have a circle of friends who all know each other and hang out together. I really feel included when I go somewhere and go “Oh hi ! I didn’t know you were going to be here too !”
Lots of fun. Great night out. Here’s the photos. Oh, and a video of us singing Born to be Wild by Steppenwolf !
Champage Supernova like you've never heard it before
No, this story isn’t about me wanting to disappear. It’s about music. You know I love to promote music, but mainly Asian pop music it seems. But some of you know I have a soft spot for great rock songs. I love Bob Seger and Bob Dylan. But I always remember that as a child, my mother’s favourite artist was Lou Reed, especially his song “Satellite of Love” from his 1972 album “Transformer”.
Lou Reed is an amazing person and a great performer and a poet that will go down in history of one of America’s greatest performers and songwriters. He is one of those people that are loved now, but I think his fans know that when he dies, people will look back and go “Oh my god, wasn’t he INCREDIBLE ?”
I didn’t get into Lou Reed for many years and I had no idea why. I didn’t hate him, I just didn’t really like him. I had heard my dad’s music for years and got into that but I had no interest in Lou Reed for almost decades after I had heard my mother first getting into it.
But at one point, I was downloading some Lou Reed at random to sample because I knew some people into that culture and I wanted some classic songs, and of the many albums I downloaded, one was his 2004 live album “Animal Serenade”.
This isn’t just a good album and my love of it is really not even to do with Lou Reed specifically. This album is just the greatest live masterpiece ever made. Not only does this album focus on Lou Reed’s greatest and most epic and long and emotional songs from his entire history, but it is an album of sheer poetry. Literally. It contains him reciting Edgar Allen Poe.
Look, I haven’t heard Lou Reed in person EVER, and I’m sure he’s done some great concerts but I’ve at least heard all his official albums and all of his major bootlegs. But if you want to hear Lou Reed’s greatest pieces of work in all of history, Animal Serenade is THE concert you have to have.
I only meant to comment on one song, but this had to turn into a review of the entire album. There are so many amazing songs on the album, although I won’t feature them all. I mention Vanishing Act because it’s a song that Lou only features as a tiny part of and it’s such a beautiful and different song that if you think you know who Lou Reed is and you haven’t heard this album, then you have no idea.
This album is an instrumental masterpiece. It is experimental rock music, which is what Lou is about, but it’s not just his, it’s Lou and his friends. It’s 90% his songs, but adapted and done if not on different instruments than at least done in a different style and pace than you have ever heard them before.
I love Street Hassle and Dirty Boulevard so much that they represent literary masterpieces to me that always conjure up images of John Birmingham and even my own stories. I really feel like I have almost visited Dirty Boulevard in my time, despite not knowing precisely where Lou based it on.
His version of “The Day John Kennedy Died” is extra special because I have never owned it on any of his other albums. I am amazed that it was not more well known, but apparently it never made it onto one his major albums and therefore it never made it to the public’s eye. Had I been alive when this happened and an American, I am quite sure this song would bring me to tears, abut as it is, it just opens my eyes and think “Wow. Lou really sees things as they are”.
I always imagine my own blogs as being written in the same style as Lou Reed wrote that song. But not quite as amazing as Street Hassle. Wow. I have had some experiences in life, but for him to come up with Street Hassle. Is that based on personal experience or something he’s heard ? It feels so real. I mean, if you’re a fan of Street Hassle, you know the story, but the version on Animal Serenade is extra amazing.
Guitar ? Well, while Animal Serenade is about Lou’s amazing lyrics, they are couched by music done by many different people. Lou himself plays very few instruments. Despite it being his show, it is all his amazing friends that make the show what it is. Sometime he stands in the limelight, singing “Ecstacy” and playing solo guitar and you think that’s it until you notice a beautiful violin come in in the background. Then later for the guitar solo, you are treated to the single greatest guitar solo I think I have ever heard. I’m sorry to Kirk Hammett or Yngwie Malmsteen, but the guitar solo during “Ecstacy” on Lou Reed’s “Animal Serenade” is quite simply the most powerful solo I have ever felt. Technically simple but more powerful than anything I’ve ever heard before.
I could explain every song for hours, but I cannot. Just take my word for it. If you’ve ever liked any song Lou Reed has ever written, or you like this post and want something creative, then look him up, enjoy it.
Well, I didn’t know until I stumbled across her. This is Cuca.
She’s an 8 year old girl from Japan who has a cult following because she performs her favourite Jpop and Kpop songs on YouTube. She just practices the moves and sets up her video camera and then videos herself dancing to the song in her house, and uploads it to YouTube. She’s not even old enough to work out how to crop the annoying black bars out of her 4:3 aspect videos that play as 16:9 hehe.
But she does have a cult following. She’s been reported in newspapers and online many times. People know her. She has over 10,000 subscribers to her channel. Damn. I wish I had 10,000 subscribers to ANYTHING I did. She’s famous in her own right and it’s clear why. It won’t be long before Cuca is rocking the stage with one of the big groups. If not a Hello! Project group or one of the AKB48 stable, she’ll be with a new group. She’s going to be a star.
Here’s her channel. Check it out. She has 159 videos and over 4 million views. She covers KARA, °C-ute, S/mileage, Berryz Koubou, Morning Musume and many more. What a hero.
I was gonna show you her doing Run Devil Run because I’m very fond of that song, but to be honest the dance is pretty mediocre. The only reason I was gonna show is because of the bizarre dress she wears in the clip. Oh hell, I’ll show you.
What is she wearing in that clip ? What is that ? Gothic Barbie wear for an 8 year old. Who buys her that stuff ? Her parents I guess. Weird. But I mean, she’s in Japan. There’s probably tonnes of places that sell that stuff. I mean we’re talking about the country that pioneered the “gothic lolita look”.
But it’s not that weird. At least not as weird as this.
Does she really go outside in that ? LOL. Poor child. I bet her parents do that to her. Or maybe that’s fashionable in Japan. It probably is.
I saw something funny on the Berryz Kobo International Fan website. There was a making of session from one of Berryz Kobo’s video sessions and they had photos. At the end they said “Unfortunately we don’t have any video of the girls doing this, so instead, here’s a clip of Cuca performing the song !
Ok, just ONE more clip of Cuca, because if you like her by this stage you’ll have gone to her channel.
Yes that’s Cuca’s mum and little brother. And is it just or is Cuca’s mum HOT as ? Wow. I’m not gonna say that four letter M word that sounds a bit like “milk”, but damn. She is a mum I wouldn’t mind getting to know. Cuca, why doesn’t your mum’s name get mentioned.
Oh wait, she’s probably married, right ? Damn. We can dream I suppose, can’t we ? How do I teach my daughter to dance like Cuca and get millions of followers online and earn lots of money… err, I mean entertain lots of fans ?
Oh you’re not going to talk about this same fucking song again are you pawz ?
Maybe. What if I am ? Ok I just wanted to paste this for no particular reason. I know at least one person who’ll enjoy this. Peta, I’m sure you’ll love this.
I will say one thing. If you’ve just watched these last few posts in chronological order, you must agree on something. Koreans dance so much better than Japanese. I mean the Japanese dances are sometimes cuter, because they’re so damn STUPID which just warms your heart, but Koreans actually dance really well and are cute in other ways. Just sayin’.
Oh, btw, I doubt when many of you come here you go “OMG pawz is talking about SNSD again. I’m so pleased !”, but on the off chance some of you do, let’s have one more clip of the same song.
Since I was talking about Michishige, let’s talk about something else Hello! Project related. It’s an OOOOOLLLLDDD video. I mean like 2004. Watch it first and then I’ll dissect it a bit.
First off, this is a great video. I mean it’s sheer choreography genius combined with one of Tsunku’s best happy, feel-good songs ever. And the fact that there’s 46 Jpop idols dancing in school uniforms doesn’t hurt.
Now at the time, when my wife asked, I used to say my favourite was Kago. Or Tsuji. Depending on my mood. Just because she liked them. Let’s look at them.
Jo preferred Kago, but I sorta preferred Tsuji coz she was so funny the way she was so addicted to food and would do anything for a food reward. They’d put her on gameshows and go “Tsuji, here’s a whole plate of cream cakes for you if you put on a stupid hat and wiggle through a tube on the ground with an egg under your chin and don’t break it”.
Tsuji would jump up and down with excitement at the thought of a big plate of cakes and she’d normally completely fail the mission and end up with egg all over her, and then start crying and they’d have to give her the cakes anyway to make her happy again. The funny thing about the pair was learning to tell them apart because they looked so bloody similar and Tsunku used to deliberately dress them and style them the same to take advantage of this. But there was an easy way. Wait till they smile. Tsuji’s the one with the huge vampire fangs, LOL !
Moving on to the next picture. Let’s look at who my real favourite was.
Iida. She’s the one on the left. Aahhh Iida was such a goddess. She played the “mature, reserved girl” who didn’t jump up and down and act like an idiot like the other girls. She was meant to appeal to guys who like the silent, bookish type. I normally like short girls the most, but every now and again people would put the sort of tall, shy girl that I liked into something. Iida into H!P, or Zakura into Tokyo Mew Mew or Sakaki in Azumanga Diaoh! She was also just really cool. I dunno why. She didn’t speak much but I always imagined she would be really smart. As it turned out when they were tested for academic ability she was sadly lacking, but I just try to block that out of my mind.
Next up let’s look at outfits. There’s something about this video that used to make me WTF 7 years ago when I first saw this video and still does it to me now.
Ok, The Hello! Project eggs are actually wearing pretty normal outfits right ? You sorta assume that coz they’re the youngest subgroup and so dorky and annoying that they’d be wearing something stupid. But surprisingly not. I’ll show you who is though.
What the hell ? Did Berryz Koubo have a wardrobe malfunction back in December 2004 ? Why are they wearing lumberjack outfits ? Someone please tell me what school this is supposed to be so that I can make sure none of my kids ever go there !
But who does the cutest pose in the clip ? Why, that’s easy.
It’s Michishige of course, living up to her motto of being ichiban kawaii. Trust her to do a neko pose.
It’s a good video. If you’re already a H!P fan you’re probably asking “Why are you reviewing a 7 year old video clip ?” Well, I dunno. Because I didn’t review it 7 years ago I guess ! Is there something wrong with that ? Better late than never and it’s still a great video and it sure takes me back to that time when I used to put that on the lounge room TV and sing along as I was working on my laptop.
Ahh, good times. Well, mostly. But you tend to focus on the best bits of history and ignore the bad bits hehe.
Ok, I did it. You all managed to convince me that if I wanted a real audience for my Asian music video reviews, that I had to stick a camera in front of my face and review them ON YouTube. So finally, when someone said it one more time, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak and I just went “Ok fine. I’ll throw something together to shut you up, but you won’t like it !”
Or at least, I figured I wouldn’t like it. I hate the sound of my recorded voice and I’m not really the coolest, most attractive person to be doing YouTube reviews. I mean, I’m no Ray William Johnson, right ? But I thought I’d give it a shot. I have wanted to make my own YouTube videos before (ie, ones that feature me rather than just video’s I’ve made of other things) but they’ve always turned out badly and I have never uploaded them, but this time. I’m not entirely disgusted by what I created.
It’s just a simple little review segment where I talk a bit of shit, crack some not-very-politically-correct jokes, and then show off some Asian music videos that I’ve found that I want to share with people. In this case, they’re just two amateur webcam videos of girls rapping. One Vietnamese and one Chinese.
I don’t have a proper video camera, nor do I have a second person to film me like many YouTubers do. And on this occasion, my Nikon D90′s battery was flat AND my Macbook Air was in the shop being repaired, so I had to resort to the built-in webcam on my Asus eeePc so the quality is very poor. But it’s a start. I’m not sure I’m ready for the trolls though. Trolls on YouTube are so BRUTAL. They can say the meanest, most horrible things sometimes, so that’s gonna be interesting to deal with. But anyway, enough talking. Just watch it and see what you think.
Is it alright ? Is it horrible ? I reckon it’s not bad for a first go. Later if people give me positive feedback, I’ll get an external mic and I’ll do the videos on the Nikon since it does nice 720p video, but for now. Take it as it comes. Enjoy !
Ok so I have a new favourite Korean Girl group. I’m not saying they’re going to supplant SNSD any time soon, but right now, I’m addicted to one of their songs.
It’s “Hug Me Once” by “Girl’s Day”, and I found it because Simon and Martina recommended it in their latest K Crunch episode that I actually reviewed yesterday ! So thanks Simon and Martina, but I have one bone to pick with you.
Why you be hatin’ on Girl’s Day ? I know you probably liked the song because you featured it in your review, or did you just review it because it was new and popular ? But you ripped on it so hard ! All throughout the video Simon is going “This is so absurd, it’s supposed to be a beach party but they never actually go to the beach. Blah Blah. Totally unrealistic. A girl goes swimming in the hotel pool fully clothed. Who does that ? Doesn’t she realise she’s doin’ it wrong ?”
Simon. Sometimes people go swimming fully clothed when they’re having fun and they DIDN’T BRING A BATHING SUIT ! It’s just fun sometimes. Try it one day. It won’t kill you. I’m pretty sure if the producers of that video thought they could appeal to people more by putting that girl in a bathing suit, they wouldda done it, amirite or amirite ?
It’s just bubbly girl dance pop. It doesn’t need a deep complex meaning in the video. It just needs girls dancing and doing really cute things. That’s the genre. You know that. Don’t rip on Girl’s Day because I love this song and this video too ! After only the second watch I was like “Yep. Love this. Don’t care what Simon and Martina say, there is NOTHING wrong with this video. It’s fun and I like it”.
So yeah, I know you just like to be funny and describing the cuteness of the video wasn’t really gonna be that entertaining to people so you had to pick on its flaws, but to be honest it wasn’t one of the videos I was gonna check out from your review, but once I did, I loved it !
I did also quite enjoy T-ara’s Roly Poly by the way. Definitely not my sort of music, but it’s cool anyway. Hard to believe it was made this decade though, LOL. It’d make a great AMV soundtrack I reckon. Hmmmmm.
Anyway, thanks for the review guys. If I was as inclined to put my ugly mug and boring voice in front of a camera, I’d love to do what you guys do, but I’ll stick to the written word for the time being. Maybe you can look out for my channel one day though. Oh snap, this is the second time I’ve reviewed your review. Damn. These things really feed off each other don’t they. Anyway, Hi ! And for all MY readers, here’s the full video of Girl’s Day’s “Hug Me Once”. Enjoy.
Ok, I just realised I’ve become a YouTube reviewer. I know. There’s a million people who do that, not to mention if you sit on Facebook or IRC or any forums, people will spam you with fucking YouTube links all day long. But most of them are absolute garbage and they are on all sorts of themes. I pretty much only post videos about Asian music and culture, so I have a theme. Therefore I should review YouTube videos that I like because other people who share my interests might then subscribe.
But most people who do that do it ON YouTube. They vlog, not blog. But I dunno if I want to do that. I’m not a big fan of the sound of my recorded voice. I hate it actually. I’m better with the written word. And besides. I mean, if you could watch either Ray William Johnson (The most subscribed to YouTuber in the world, and current Guinness World Record holder for that accomplishment) or me.. who would you watch ? You’d watch Ray, amirite ?
I know a great American couple who do two series of videos about Korea. One about the crazy things they sell in the shops there that make you go “WTF ?!” and another in which they review the latest Kpop that they’ve heard. They’re both full-blooded Americans. They just happen to have ended up in Korea and they want to tell everyone what a great place it is. Their show is called “Eat Your Kimchi” and their channel is called simonandmartina and if you enjoy Korean culture and music, I recommend you check them out because they’re a really funny pair and I always enjoy their videos. Here’s a recent “WTF” episode they did which typifies what they do.
And here is one of their Kpop review videos.
Since I’ve now put you onto them, I will try not to review anything they review, but I can’t promise because they review some great stuff and they really know how to find the weird stuff since they actually live there (the lucky buggers).
One problem with finding music videos from Asian countries is that you just don’t know what to look for. You can’t just go to Youtube and say “Show me some wacky Kpop vids YouTube plzthxkgo”. Watching a show like Eat Your Kimchi definitely helps, but there is another good way to find stuff. It’s an “aww duh” thing if you are seasoned YouTuber, but I’m not and I only recently started doing this. If you somehow stumble onto a music video that you like, don’t just check out the uploader’s channel.
Check out their profile and see who else subscribes to them, because you can find a lot of links to other great small channels by people who are into this music, and if you subscribe to them and tell YouTube to notify you of uploads, then in a matter of days, your email box will be filled with bubbly Kpop or Jpop of Vpop or Cpop videos or whatever you happen to be into.
Here’s something I stumbled across. I wanted a particular Vpop song that I’d heard a couple of months ago and I couldn’t remember the group’s name, and I couldn’t find it in my history, and so I was aimlessly searching, hoping I could find it, when I came across this. Just watch it and I’ll explain it afterwards. It’s called “Cute Viet Girl Rap – I love you mama” but sadly the girl is not credited by name.
Yeah ? Yeah ? You fucking FEEL ME ? How good was THAT ?! Is your mind blown ? Did you have to pick you jaw up off the floor ? How fucking KICKASS was that ? I know lots of people who read my blog are like “Fuck that Asian pop music, I’m not into that”, but if you just watched that video, you were fucking impressed. Admit it. I bet half of you even pasted that video’s URL onto IRC or Facebook or something didn’t you ? (If you don’t know how to, click the YouTube icon down the bottom right and it’ll open the video on YouTube’s site)
The guy actually had another video on his channel called (once translated) “Hot girl cute ears dancing to Wonder Girls”. Well, I can’t not click on that now, can I ? Ok Ok, You don’t want to see ANOTHER Wonder Girls fan video ? Oh, but believe me. You do.
All I could think throughout this video was “Either her parents own a costume shop, or she has a worrying hobby and a lot of spare time”. Can I level with you for a second on what else I thought ? “Wow, imagine being her boyfriend and just being able to say ‘Ok, tonight can you wear the pink nurse’s outfit ?’ and ‘Will you be the police woman tonight ?’ and ‘You look good as a schoolgirl in a sailor suit’”. Yes, I know. I have a filthy mind. But she’s just so cute and funny in these outfits I couldn’t help but think “Wow. I bet she would be fun in the bedroom with those”.
Ok, Ok, I’ll shut up. I have girls reading this blog, they’ll be facepalming and going “Oh pawz you idiot, shut your mouth quickly”. So anyway, after that, let’s move back onto my new most favourite subject – Teenage Asian girl rap music. I stumbled across this great Chinese girl rapping as well !
Man, at 2:04 when she says “Yo Yo” and goes into that next verse, I could not fucking stop myself. I was bouncing. I was sitting there nodding my head and bouncing up and down, that’s how good she was. By the end of that song I was just in rapture, bouncing along listening to her amazing voice. Eat your heart out Eminem. This girl gets me pumping more than your songs do. Apparently Mandarin is a great language to rap in.
I realise that I don’t really talk about Cpop do I ? Why not ? I love Cpop too sometimes, I just don’t have any favourite singers or groups that I can think of. But let’s remedy that. Let’s share some Cpop with you. I found a guy called skyming2008 who has on his channel a bunch of amateur fan videos of teenage girls singing on webcams. Most are fairly “meh” to be honest, but here’s a good one that I liked. The girl may look like 11, but if you read the description, it says she is 19 and comes from Sichuan.
“But Paaaawwwwwzzzz”, I hear you saying. “I love all this new Kpop and Vpop and Cpop you’re showing us, but you haven’t talked about Jpop in SSSOOOO long ! You used to talk about Jpop all the time and now you don’t. Don’t you love it any more ? Prove it. Show us some Jpop girl group. And can you make it so they dance around in frilly pink outfits wearing rabbit ears and gigantic floppy socks ?”
Of course I can. Have you no faith in me ? But you know what ? I’m gonna go back for the oldschool. I’m gonna show you Morning Musume. This isn’t actually a video I’ve seen before because it’s from only 2009 which is when I had recently broken up with my MoMusu-obsessed wife and I was taking a break from listening to them, so I missed this song’s release. *Shock* *Horror*. I know. Anyway, this is Morning Musume, with “Kimagure Princess”.
It’s also the last single that ever featured Koharu Kusumi. Oh my god. It was just like YESTERDAY that I remember seeing her audition as a toothy little 13 year old and jump up and down excitedly when she was selected. Jo and I sorta hated her. She was a stupid little bitch, and she was always trying to steal the limelight from Sayumi Michishige, who was our favourite and she became Sayumi’s rival, so I was never able to really like Koharu. You know. The rules of Jpop idol fandom are complicated like that.
But even though I thought she was a smartarse little bitch who thought she was god’s gift to the idol scene, I will miss her. Someone actually pasted a “demotivational poster” image (you know, a Lolcat style poster) that had her as the picture and some smartarsed comment about Japanese girls being cute or something and I was like “Oh, I know who that is ! That’s Koharu from Morning Musume” and the guy went “Trust you to know the name of a random Japanese girl on a poster. I bet you know her blood type too don’t you ?”
“Know her blood type? As I would know her blood type”, I scoffed. “Ok, she’s type A just like Sayumi Michishige”. I can imagine this guy facepalming on the other side of the world. He just says “You’re creepy”.
Whaaat ? I am not. Blood type is very important in Japan and is considered to be a far more important indicator of your personality type than your horoscope. Which is curious, but I do admit, I like the idea that you could determine someone’s personality from their blood type rather than the random moment on which they chanced to be born. And Jpop idols all tell you their blood type. It’s on their official fan website. I’m not creepy. Fuck you. There’s nothing weird about wanting to know a 13 year old Japanese girl’s blood type when you see her audition for a place in a pop group. Is there ?
Did I just hear someone says “But pawz, before you finish this lengthy Asian music revue, could we maybe just see one more cute kid singing Wonder Girls ? Something even more insanely cute and funny than you’ve shown us before ? Is that humanly possible ?”
No. I doubt it. That would require Koreans to have like a TV show where they did shit like let 4 year old kids on stage to dance to a whole medley of Wonder Girls songs. They wouldn’t do that. Koreans aren’t like that. Oh wait ? They are ? Ok, sure, let’s see it then.
Man, at 3:06 when she’s talking to the host and she goes “Unnh ! Unnh !”, I honestly could not stop laughing for ages. How damn cute is that kid ? But I think you’re probably thinking something like “There ARE other countries in Asia you know pawz ? Ahem. Where’s the damn Fpop ? You haven’t shown me any Filipino girls. Don’t you like them ?”
Get off my case. Ok. Here’s one.
Ok so I lied. That wasn’t Fpop at all was it. But it did feature a Filipino girl at least. It was sorta creepy though wasn’t it ? It doesn’t seem that odd to see a pre-teen girl dancing to the Wonder Girls in front of their dad and the video camera, but suddenly when they do it to the Black Eyed Peas you’re like “Ohh. Should I be watching this ? I sorta feel this should be the sorta thing you get on a dodgy Russian website after handing over your credit card number”.
It’s just maybe there’s a line, and maaaayyybe that parent crossed it. That’s all I’m sayin’. But back to the music. I know what some of you girls are saying. “Hey, pawz. You’re only reviewing videos of girls. That’s a bit sexist. I know you like girls and all, but I thought this was a music and YouTube review and not a soft porn festival. How about something to appeal to the girls ?”
Hmmmm, I admit, you do have a point. So some boy bands would please you ? How about Kpop group Blaq with their hit “Mona Lisa” ?
That’s alright isn’t it ? I don’t mind the music, and the music and lyrics are catchy, except for at 2:40 they all start screaming loudly in this high pitched tone and I’m like “Wow, do you boys even HAVE balls ?” Yeah I don’t like that bit. The rest is ok.
And 2PM are pretty cool. Everyone loves them. Even my 18 year old Vietnamese friend Gau last night said he liked 2PM, but to be perfectly honest, I think there IS a good chance that Gau is gonna grow up to be a lady boy. He just has that vibe. I’m telling you. When he sings Wondergirls songs and dances, he looks pretty damn gay. Unlike me. I mean. When I do it, that’s cool. What ? It is. Here’s 2PM’s hit “Hands Up”.
“Wait pawz, can you recommend me some Asian music that ISN’T going to make everyone around me question my heterosexuality when they catch me listing to it please ?”
OOOH, sorry. Yeah. Sometimes I get carried away with the cheesy pop music. Let me fix that situation for you. Let’s just jump on a plane and fly back to Kanagawa in Japan to listen Rip Slyme. They’re a great Jhiphop group that I’ve been into for many years and they’re not bouncy and silly and cheesy. They’re actually really, really good, melodic, mellow hiphop. Really fucking good tunes. If you like this track, I recommend you look them up and download some of their music. They are a brilliant hiphop group and their shit is all as beautiful as that, and also sometimes a bit funkier and livelier. Check them out.
“Hey pawz. Didn’t you promise us some music from the Philippines ? What happened with that. All you showed us was a dubious fan video of a Filipino girl. That’s not Fpop”.
Shit, you got me. How about Frock ? That sounds a bit like a dirty word doesn’t it ? Or a phrase that could be badly interpreted at a friend’s house.
“Let’s put on some Frock !”
“Yeah good idea. One second, I’ll do that. BRB”
“What the fuck. Why are you wearing a dress ?”
“But I thought you said … Oh. Nevermind”
Sorry, I’ll shut up and put on the Frock, but I warn you. You’re not going to believe this is from the Philippines. You’re gonna think it’s American pop rock. Not to say it’s bad, it just doesn’t sound like traditional Filipino music.
“Got any other countries to show us ? How about an Indonesian duet ? I bet you subscribe to lots of channels that post cheesy Indonesian love songs don’t you ?”
Oh piss off. You’re just making fun of me now. What’s that ? “Just answer the question ?” you say. Oh ok. I do. Screw you. Here’s Ari Lasso & Bunga C. Lestari singing “Aku Dan Dirimu”. It’s a good song. A little soppy and cheesy, but I found this one some time ago and it’s a cute love song. I can imagine a guy and a girl going on a date together at a cafe in down-town Jakarta when this came out in 2008 and this comes on the radio and they smile at each other shyly and both admit they quite like this song. You know it’d happen.
“But Indonesians must have cool music as well right ? If I got caught listening to that I think I’d die inside a little”
Yeah, I know what you’re saying. They do though. Check out Nidjiri with their song “Biarlah”. They sorta blow my mind a bit. They’re pretty awesome.
“Ok pawz. That was a cool trip around South East Asia. But that’s nearly two dozen videos. I’ve had enough. But it was fun. What are you going to show us next time ?”
I dunno. Something you’ve probably never heard of before. Definitely something cool. Because I only review cool music and cool videos. If you don’t agree it’s just because you have shitty taste.
So how was my first official YouTube review for you ? Did you enjoy it ? Am I the next Ray William Johnson, but in text form ? No ? Fuck you. I might be. Someone must like my shit. Seriously. Anyone ? Does anyone like the shit I review ? To steal Ray’s line for a minute, put your answers in the comment section … beeeellllooowwww.
Oh and not that you’re likely to be reading, because you’re a busy internet celebrity, but if you are because you saw a trackback when I linked to your channel or something then… Hi Ray ! I’m stalkin’ yo mom !
Until next time folks. This is Pawz “Molly Meldrum in SE Asia” Lion. Enjoy your Asian music and I’ll talk to you again soon ! Ja ne !
Parodies are cool right ? I stumbled across a really really good one the other day. There’s this bunch of guys who make these funny videos, mostly parodying popular songs, and they do it very very well and they hire professional actors and everything. At one point, one of them pointed out to one of the others “Hey did you know you look EXACTLY like that bald Cuban dude who sings that new dance song that’s really popular ?”
And thus the Pitbull parody was born and become one of their regular characters. Pitbull ? You know Pitbull. You’ll know his song at least. It’s everywhere. Everyone knows it. At first it was one of those songs I fucken hated because I just thought “God that Pitbull guy is such a DICKHEAD”, but the song grew on me. It’s good. Ne-yo is a great singer and he features heavily in the song so it’s actually really good. First, let’s watch the original.
Ok, that’s a good song, but it’s in pretty dire need of having the piss taken out of it right ? Fear not ! The Key of Awesome to the rescue !
I mean that has to be the best parody I have ever seen in my life. Eat your heart out Weird Al. These guys get Pitbull and Ne-yo down so well. Not just Pitbull’s idiotic dance poses, but some of his bizarre mannerisms. One odd thing that Pitbull does is he says the word “Dale” a lot at random for no apparent reason (apparently it means “Go ahead” or “move” in Cuban and it’s used a lot in Miama as a general slang way of greeting or saying goodbye to someone in the sorta way you might say “bro” or “brother”), so they take the piss out of that too. First he points at random and says “Dalek”, then he’s holding a doll and goes “Dolly” and then when he asks Lassie what breed she is and she tells him he goes “Oh.. Collie !”
I especially love when Ne-yo sings “Call the fire department tell em HEY !”. And how they came up with the scenario of Pitbull getting stood up at the club by all his friends and Ne-yo getting stuck in the elevator with that chick he’s just banged. My god that is creative. That is just pure genius, don’t you think ?
I recommend you look up all their videos on Youtube. Other than impersonating musical celebrities they also do a lot of hilarious skits with puppets. If you enjoy these, go look up the rest on YouTube. Here’s another Pitbull video that’s quite funny. If you search YouTube, you can actually find a very funny video with deleted scenes from this video. Pitbull’s actor has his own channel as well which is very funny and features some great stand-up comedy. Search for “wombatron”.
Most people aren’t familiar with most of the music I talk about unless they happen to be big fans of Asian music, but today, just for once I’m going to talk about some American music. There’s this song by Bruno Mars that I’ve come to like. I had no idea who Bruno Mars was until I started watching Yan TV and at first I thought “Awww this is shit. I don’t like this guy”, but after I listened to “The Lazy Song” for the million time I realised I was dancing and singing to it because… well… it’s great ! It’s very popular here in Vietnam and I imagine most places around the world.
Bruno Mars if you’re not familiar with him is an American musician who was born and raised in Hawaii. His song “The Lazy Song” is just damn catchy, so I thought I’d share it with you just in case for some reason, you HAVEN’T heard this song. I’m also going to share two great fan covers of it because lately I have been really getting into seeing fan covers of songs and some of the people who do them are SO incredibly talented. Like this young Japanese kid. (Yeah I know, this post had to relate to Asia somehow didn’t it ? LOL) Is he not fucking great ? Here’s the original first, then the covers. Enjoy being lazy !
I just realised how old I am. And it’s not just because my birthday is on Saturday and I turn 33. I realised because I lived before a certain landmark in history. Which landmark ?
I grew up watching black and white TV. To be fair, colour TV’s were available. But they were more expensive, and they were not available in 12volt varieties, which was essential for us since we lived on a yacht and we didn’t have sufficient 240v power to run a colour TV.
I realised this when some friends were talking about their favourite anime theme songs from 80′s and how happy and awesome they sounded and someone linked to a couple of his favourites. He hadn’t grown up in the 80′s but I had, and I said “I have one that was very special to me as a little kid that got me so excited whenever the end theme came on and I would sing along to it as far back as I can remember”.
So I’d better share it with you hadn’t I ? Don’t press play on it yet. Read below and I’ll tell you when.
Yes, it’s Astroboy. The thing that amazed me though as I watched it was “Oh my god, I have never seen this in colour before !” I have watched the newer series of Astroboy in colour of course because it only came out in 2005 (and has a great theme song by ZONE btw !!), but I had never seen the original series in colour before. Suddenly I felt very old.
But nevermind that. Press play on the video now and sing along with me.
Come and join us in a melody,
A song of happiness for you and me.
Sing of joy, sing about a boy,
Little hero, AstroBoy!
Come and join us in a fantasy,
We can all be heroes, you and me.
Sing of joy, sing about a boy,
Little hero, AstroBoy!
Lighting up the way for all,
For soon he will fight for right,
Strong as steel and with a heart of gold.
Sing of glory,
Pour your heart out,
Your voices will be heard,
And it’s raining
out with love for all
So, I talked about the Wonder Girls right ? I showed you “Nobody”. It’s a great song. But while I hadn’t heard it until I got to Asia, it is apparently very popular around the world. And people LOVE to do their own dance to it.
Here’s a collection of people from around the world dancing to it that I stumbled across today. It’s a great little compilation except… where’s the other western countries ? Why is noone in Australia dancing to Nobody ?
There’s people from Norway, the Philippines, Thailand, Ireland, Mexico, Japan, China, Vietnam, Korea, and all over the USA singing and dancing to this song. But oddly, noone from England or Australia is featured.
COME ON AUSTRALIA !! Why do you hate Asian music so much ? This is a great song. Play it on the goddamn radio and on music video channels. People will love it. I want to see videos of Australians dancing to this song !
Anyway, enjoy this video. It’ll make you chuckle. Oh and by the way, isn’t that girl from Wisconsin HOT as hell ? I want nobody nobody but her !!!
A great American died today. A man of talent and a man who roused a generation and defined a culture. Adam Yauch, better known as “MCA”, the lead vocalist of hip hop band Beastie Boys died on Friday the 4th of May 2012, ending a very successful career and bringing to a close one of the most formative American hip-hop bands in history.
