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Slime Girls
“リンダリンダ (The Blue Hearts Cover)”
Live at The Smell 1.20.13

This was the conclusion to one of the greatest weekends ever. Meeting a lot of friends for the first time and being surrounded by a sense of positive energy that only inevitably instilled into us that our lives together are headed in a direction of greater things to come. 

I wish to spare any personal details, but only for the fact that this video right here sums up many of my feelings for not only the things I witnessed these past two days, but how I’ve come to sense a feeling of validation in concern with music and friends.

I briefly mentioned to Pedro last night when I saw the film Linda Linda Linda about several years ago and I heard this song. It was one of those things that I wished to share with others, to not only connect at the point of similar interests (which I find to only do that is a shallow basis for a friendship with anyone), but more importantly, to relate at the interpretive emotional level that such an interest presents, as such a level of understanding is what shows that raw, human connection that is important. 

When I think about who I am, I think mostly about Zoom Lens. This is something I always remain humble about often, and I’ve felt hard-pressed to talk about such a thing. I believe with talk comes ego, so I often pull up my guard and speak with hesitation. Zoom Lens is not nearly where I want it to be and in scope of size in comparison to other successful musicians and artists, it is extremely miniscule.

However, I’ve realized that a lot of the things I’ve wanted to accomplish on a personal level have already come true. To meet people with those similar interests who feel the same emotional sentiment behind those interests. 

If someone ever told me that in a year or two, I would meet someone over the Internet in a chiptune group only a few hours North of me, who loves Japanese idol culture and likes to end his sets with a cover of “Linda Linda,” then I wouldn’t have believed that. That I would walk through Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, constantly being alert for outdated VHS and laserdiscs, cheap manga from the 80’s and marked-down cassettes from Pony Canyon, with someone who had the same motivation for these sort of “artifacts.” I wouldn’t believe that.

But I did just this weekend, and if I hadn’t cared enough to push with my label and obsessively promote my personal interests for this past year or so, I wouldn’t have met such an inspiring person, nor anyone else who I’ve ever met through music and the Internet.

This post isn’t really just about Slime Girls though, it’s about anyone who I’ve ever met through just being a loser on the Internet who wears both his heart and his hobbies on his sleeve.

So I’m happy to have met Grace and Ben as well, who are both equally as amazing people too. Of course, I’ve met many people during these past few months as well who I do not wish to discredit, and I’m sure they already know who they are. Those who I could even consider family, those who I consider friends, acquaintances, and even lovers. And hopefully, I will only cross paths with more of those people in the future.

Music and the Internet is such a beautiful thing, and I am very appreciative of everyone and everything around me. I think whatever any of us do, or wherever we go, we’ll be getting there together and be doing it in our own way. It’s a very exciting time. 

It is so hard to add anything to anything Garrett says because he words it all so perfectly. Everything he said, it is everything I feel, and things are going to be so amazing for all of us. And we will build it ourselves.

This performance is an embodiment of so many hopes and dreams for all of us. Not this cover of Linda Linda specifically, but the energy, the emotion, the passion, it is all so fucking profound and beautiful, it’s something I always want and wished others could understand on a more broad scale. But even if its never something understood, we are all here and understand each other.

I love my friends. Each and every one.

Jesus christ way to make me cry, like Ben said I cannot even add anything to this. This was with all certainty the best weekend of my life thus far and I am so so glad everything worked out and everything that happened, happened. I haven’t quite had time to process everything that’s happened over the past 2 days, but everything that keeps running through my mind fills me with so much damn love for you jerks and everyone else I had the absolute pleasure of meeting for the first time. I feel like there’s something extremely special about the insane level of intimacy and emotional connection that I felt when I was in that pit when you consider I am singing a song in a language I am NOT at all fluent in, and that most people who were singing along, also weren’t. It isn’t the words themselves that have any importance at all, or how shitty or good we are at singing or playing our instruments. More than anything, I never wanted to be a band that performed and played music at you, somewhat disconnected from the crowd of people standing idly by. This was the single most gratifying and emotional moment I’ve experienced thus far in playing music and it is everything I’ve ever wanted to do with my music since I first picked up a guitar, and that is to simply just have that unspoken connection and get sweaty, teary and up close with people that I both don’t really know and friends I love.

I have too many things I want to say about this past weekend and this show, but I’m not entirely sure I can articulate them all right now, but needless to say, this is just the damn beginning   

 

I’m so glad Garrett caught this on video.  I made a different reply to my feelings towards this, but I was on my phone at the time & tumblr kept erroring it, but that’s okay.  I wanted to keep this short but I have so many feels & my head is still processing everything too.  Everything they said is so true & is what I felt too.

The week of Frequency, I went up to “Onett” to visit Pedro, & spend time with him.  This trip was a lot shorter, we had less than a week alone together.  Most of the time we worked on projects together (more on that later), working on separate projects, or we were at Slime Girls shows.  But, one of the things we did do was we happened to watch Linda Linda that week.  I’ve been meaning to see it for the longest & PD happened to own it.  I heard the Blue Hearts song before plenty of times, but after seeing that movie, it has a lot more emotional connection — even more so after this weekend.  My heart warms up so much and I’m just really glad to be alive to experience such things.

It’s really weird but this whole week EVERYTHING played out coincidentally.  Like us making bad Fred Durst impressions, & that ending up being the closing image projected on the wall for Frequency.  Or our dumb Home Improvement/Tim Allen jokes, & Garrett HAPPENING to have a cardboard cut out in his car.  It’s just… I really cool how the world works sometimes & I feel this is a sign we’re all going towards what we’re supposed to, and together too.  It’s really nice to feel you belong with a group of friends who have as much dreams and ambitions as you.   It’s just really good vibes & I’ve never felt this happy & hopeful in my life.  It really makes me want to cry because it’s just so surreal.

Like, even with the Linda Linda movie.  I feel I experienced something similar with these people,  especially PD, Ben, & Garret it was absolutely undescrieable.  Just in two days too!  Like, friendship or human relationships has always been a strange thing for me to comprehend. For a long time I always questioneed what friendship was or what makes a friend because people come & go all the time.  And sometimes it’s human nature to slowly close that door because you’re scared of getting hurt or anything.  So, it’s hard to make close friendships when you don’t open up.  And I’ve seen lots of movies about friendship, like Kamikaze Girls, but they usually don’t help aid that feeling of isolation a lot of times.  But, again, this played out coincidentally the same week I saw the Linda Linda movie.  Like in the movie, it was by chance that these people I once knew as people I knew online became more than that, and calling them friends is not hard at all because we get along very well (like how Son joined the band ‘cause of how things worked out, but it ended up creating something beautiful).  I feel this nice connection.  We all have similar interests, sense of humors, & it was genuinely nice to be around everyone.  It usually takes me awhile to open up to people, but right on the first day we were singing bad 90s/early 2000’s songs in a hotel room together.  It’s really nice to find a group of people who will be excited about things like idols, or even know what Ponycanyon is (amongst other things).

Then, to share that magical moment, that ending of Frequency with EVERYONE (even people I don’t personally know), just singing in unison — not even with Linda Linda, but everything! Even singing along to songs that had no lyrics.  Everyone smiling & full of life, it was quite an experience & I keep playing it over in my head because there was so much positive energy & togetherness.  I wish all shows were like this!!

I know I keep saying it, but I wish the weekend never ended.  It was the best.  Ahhhhhhhh all I ever wanted to do is to fill my world with good people, & this weekend was amazing.  If anything, it’s made me more hyped to get more work done.

This was a great start to 2013.  To the future you all!  I love you all!

Mega Crush - “Totchii Mint Vs. The World”

So, I went to homeroom today, for the art show since a few of my friends were in it, and helped out with it.  One of my friend’s, his band also was asked to play, and he played my “theme song” during sound check. THIS IS THAT SONG.

It was kinda surreal. Like, there was a bunch of people there, & you’re just standing there, and then you hear the song come on, and no one else knows, but YOU KNOW it’s “your song”. It’s kinda weird, but kinda cool too, just to know there’s a song out there made for you.

All my chiptune friends should make a song for me, so when I go to your shows & you play it I’ll feel special. Haha.