The road that had been less traveled have been discovered...

An Introduction…

I have been collecting some Japanese movies and anime for some years now, though most that I bought had been a bit of an accident or by chances when I saw them at store… I’d rather call them self discovering of some sort… I bought them not because I saw them from some television shows, most people would laugh at me when one would see them at my box collection… and makes fun of me… Even the type of music/records I’ve been collecting or playing over my component or pc… not just the JROCK/JPOP but also my other music collections that I’ve been collecting even before I started to be in a band that my friends and I formed way back in the late 90’s… I like to play my music real loud, as “The Cure” would put it in their album “play this music loud”.

I’ve been always in the habit of self discovering what my interest would be… from music, books etc, etc… well, not always… some are introduced by some friends… though there’s a high chance I would totally ignore or forget what is shown to me if I’m not interested, err… Usually I’m not interested… ^_^;

I’ve been influenced by some…

Jon “Slayer” – One of my closest friend, and one of the founder/original member, drummer and bassist of our “Auditory Onslaught” band till he moved/went to the state… and with it our ever struggle to keep the band intact till I and Igor just lost interest keeping the band together… anyway, he’s the one who introduced me to this whole metal/rock scene…I would just categorize the gothic, symphonic, doom, death and everything nice and spicy err… I mean, with metal as “metal/rock” ^_^;

This guy is a big influenced on me on almost anything and my attitude towards everything/anything… or should I just say… makes me even more sinister and darker back then hak! hak! ^_^; Though, I don’t share he’s style of laughter like “Bwahahaha!” I’ll just leave that style of laughing to both of Igor and him… ^_^; I’m the shy type of person you know…

Whenever this guy would to come at our house, he would have a handful of some metal band records from his hands that we would listen to at my room while chatting over something of a dark theme ^_^ hehehe… and with that, I became interested in this type of music, and I find myself collecting these types of music…. For years we would trade and borrow each others collections… now, back then… It was really hard to find a copy of this type of music and it’s even harder to find some info about the bands we like… and the radio are not playing them… So, He and I kinda like to hunt for records label like the “Nuclear Blast”, “Music For Nation” and “Century Media” to name a few, It would be luck if you find one with that type of record label at some record bar, I never pass the opportunity and buy that record without a second thought, just grab it from the shelves and pay… I would usually visit the store once or twice a week, and staying there for an hour or so, searching everything just so I can have a new records to listen to… then my craving would stop for a couple of days… I couldn’t satisfy my craving till I find one and it’s been a trial and error when buying these types of music. Most are really not that worth the money but since we had no choice back then as we couldn’t find a review on things we like to listen to… we kinda just reviewed each other’s collections. Though at some point in time I also began to collect anything that interest me like some classical music from Mozart, Old Rock and Roll… Beach Boys, Simon And Garfunkel, Beatles… etc… etc… Yeah, go laugh at it… But seriously, I kinda had/have a really wide range of taste of interest for music though I find it really hard to have interest in or to like the RNB type of music… Sorry about that…

Igor – Also one of my closest… He’s our band vocalist/guitarist/bassist/drummer uhm… multi talented individuals here… have I missed something? This guy, doesn’t introduced me to anything and doesn’t share anything with me… well, until we talked about it or I would talk about the things that interest me or things I’ve discovered recently and I want to share my new found knowledge and experience with him… Then I would find out that he already knows everything about it… ^_^ crazy…

He let me borrow this black tattered cover book during one of these Christian holiday called holy week when there was still no cable TV, no internet, no cell phone and even phone lines… no nothing… that was the late 80’s or early 90’s? so long for me to remember and during this time there are no television/radio shows aired at the local channels for a week and you are not allowed to play outside or play anything loud or even listen to music… So, you’ll really die of boredom during those/that time… That black book was “The Queen of the Damned” by Anne Rice… And I instantly got hooked reading that book and the Vampire Chronicles… though he already knows I was into vampires and things like that…

Fast forward a couple of years after Jon left for the state, as I was watching something or channel surfing one evening, I came across this concert being shown from this cable channel called wowow, and saw this young female singing…I fell in love with her voice and her song though I couldn’t understand a word she sings ‘cause it’s in Japanese but the title of the song was shown below the screen and it’s called “Endless Sorrow”. And before I knew It, I was watching the whole concert and recording it with my VCR hehehe… I’ve become an instant fan of Ayumi Hamasaki that night. And that kind of started my interest in the JPOP/JROCK scene… Then one afternoon, Igor and I met outside and went to the store for a cigar and some soft drinks… I told him about Ayumi and he laughed and said “Blond ang buhok ano?” (She’s got a blond color hair), What? You already knew about her? And he’s already been into Japanese stuffed long before I even got interested into anime and stuffed like that… Well, as of this day… we kinda traded / borrow each other stuffed… And I’m grabbing anything Japanese especially the horror movies from the video store whenever I could find one… That also includes the Korean horror movies like the “Tale of Two Sister”, "The Phone" ^_^;

What else you have not shared with me but until recently? ^_^ Oh’ the Linux operating system… I think he knows much, much more about this other OS than me… And I didn’t know he’s also into Linux until I saw him online at some late hours of the night at some messenger that I am using besides the Yahoo Messenger with a status of “Testing Different Types of Linux Distro” or something… hehehe… well, He doesn’t shared anything with me but he’s the guy that widened my knowledge on a lot of things… especially with computers… he makes it looks cool at everything he would show me of the things I’ve asked of him… making me much more interested on the things that interest me… besides… I’d rather find things out for myself, making it more exciting…


The Road That Had Been Less Traveled Have Been Discovered….

People would usually, no… that’s not the right word for it… they “always” laugh whenever they would hear me play my music collection, see me watching my Japanese anime VCD, or listening to my JPOP/JROCK… They would usually say or joke around like “oh’ are we in Japan? I think we’re lost…” or “Can you listen to that type of music? It’s just screaming and shouting and noises, you can’t even understand what the lyrics are…” or they would joke around my JPOP/JROCK music by singing/whistling the tune of Voltes V Opening theme, and laugh… But Things are changing now, local channels are showing some of the Japanese Anime dubbed in our own local language like the “Slam Dunk” which are one of the few that really hits to everyone, even the tricycle drivers are stopping by at some store so they can watch it on TV… Utada Hikaru album been released locally in the country so they know a bit of “JPOP” now… Radio Stations are playing a lot of air plays from “Evanescence” so, now you know some more… and most would know “Metallica” now by their album “St. Anger” and loving them while most of us are already cursing them for they already have lost their own identity. Some Ignorant would think the “The Red Hot Chilli Peppers” are a new band hahaha!… I would play this “Within Temptation” or “Leave’s Eye” music and some who hears would say “Oh’ Evanescence?”! ???? Now, Why don’t you just listen to your favorite OPM music… oh’ by the way… OPM stands for ORIGINAL PINOY MUSIC??? What’s so fucking original with that? I can’t stand some of the music in the Philippines being called or labeled as OPM… I don’t see any originality in it… one of the reasons I hate our local music scenes… I would have like some of it… If it’s not for the title of being labeled as OPM… hmm… Anyway… hate me or anything… It’s the fucking truth… I won’t say anything more as some of you might become interested on things or artist I would say here… waah!!!… Go discover it yourself!

Now, I kinda hate talking to these kinds of people as if they know everything there is to know about a certain topic when they’ve been only walking to this road ‘cause they’ve got a map to follow to… I for one doesn’t claimed to know everything about this road though I’ve been walking on this road for years now, and I’m endlessly discovering newer things and rediscovering the old things… I find it much nicer to walk and have a chat with someone new to this road that had discovered it all on his or her own without some guide map to follow… Besides it’s much nicer having a conversation, when both of you are gaining some knowledge and not just a one way… well, I had to end this now… So…


Who’s laughing now? If It’s Igor, it would be something like “wahehehe!!!”, and Jon would be like “BWaHAHAHAHA!!!”, and I would only be giggling! ‘cause I’m shy you know!