Helping you out, part 2

Here I am with part two. But first, let me reply to mr. Aron Biro's triple tag of death that really got me reminiscing bout the good ol' dayz.

First 5 pirated cd's I ever had:

1. U2 - Achtung Baby. This was back in '96, when I got my first nutbastard 120 mhz, 16 mb RAM pentium. Through high and low, I've loved this band eversince. And I can't wait to check out their U2 3D documentary/concert, it's rated a whopping 94% fresh on rottentomatoes.com, a movie critics site I still trust. Some dude said if they could somehow blend in the smell of beer, weed and sweat in it it'd be just like going to the concert. By the way, do you know the one about Bono stopping the concert and clapping his hands and saying "Everytime I clap my hands, a child dies in Africa", and this irish dude in the first row yells "Well then stop yer fok'n clapping you wanker!"? Now you do. In terms of what the album means to me personally - I think we all associate the music we were listening to with what was going on at that time, so almost everytime I hear "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" I think of two things - who my girlfriend was at the time and that fucked up tunnel level in Cyberia it took me 3 days to finish.

2. Therapy? - Infernal Love. I had this on tape at first, I stayed a tape enthusiast until the early 2000's, since I listen to most of my music on the street, walkmen were pretty easy to come by and I hated the discman because of all the skipping (antiskip system my ass!). But I had to have it on cd, too. I remember "Diane" and "Die Laughing" were in heavy rotation on Mtv, and I'll be slapping myself across the face every april from now on for missing their show in Bucharest last year. I was fucking lazy. Unacceptable. Everytime I hear "Epilepsy" and "30 seconds" I get flashbacks of Shamblers coming after me through dark corridors and that unmistakeable screeching of the Fiend. By the way, these amazing fellows have another album coming up this year. I still haven't gotten around listening to all their stuff. Prolific muthas.

3. Cypress Hill - Black Sunday. Whoever has this better return it, it's been almost 10 years now, all is forgiven. I can't believe I used to turn the tv on and see a video like "Ain't Goin Out" on Mtv. Classic shit. They too are releasing a new LP this year.

4. Fear Factory - Demanufacture. This stuff, I can't listen to anymore. But it was fun as hell when I was a teenager. I couldn't believe that drummer could blastbeat like that (well, I still kinda don't. It's superhuman). Remanufacture, the remixed album, was even more interesting. The one thing I can say about these guys is that they're too heavy for me now, sorry. Oh and I remember always mishearing "All these years I've tried to break it through your knees", I really thought that was sexual, it isn't, pity. Is Dino Cazares really doing soundtracks for porn movies?

5. Soundgarden - Superunknown. Also had this on tape years before I got the cd. One of those experiences where the tape hiss is gone and you hear the dude clearly saying "I'm the dirt below your feet" instead of what you could swear was "I'm the gurgly Alfeen". Off topic - if you find these misheard things funny, this is the video to watch. Black Hole Sun was an amazing song and video, remember that? Superunknown. Great album. Speeeewwwnmmmaaeeeyn, feel the rhythm witchooo hayyyndz, saeeeyv maaeeeyh....

First 5 original cds:

1: The Prodigy - The Fat of the Land. Eversince I first saw the "No Good" vid, I knew I had to get me some. I had listened to "Experience" and "Music for the Jilted Generation" extensively and somehow intuited kick ass tracks like "Jericho", "Break & Enter" or "Their Law" just had to have some even more hardcore, dancefloor filling follow ups. I gave up on a sweet rollercoaster ride to be able to buy the cd in Munich and never regreted it. Every track was an instant classic, flawless production, and I still believe mr. Howlett is the most talented dance / electronic composer alive. And I missed them in Sibiu this New Year's, too. Let's not talk about that. TFOTL has one of the best looking booklets I ever got my hands on. And for the boys to stay on the cheeky side, included is this little meditation upon the guns / butter issue (jokingly, they claim): "Steel? We have no butter, but I ask you: would you rather have butter or guns? Shall we import lard or steel? Let me tell you: preparedness makes us powerful, butter merely makes us fat. Lard?". It was just later on that I found out the last phrase was a Herman Goering paraphrase, they had me there.

2. Distance to Goa (compilation): Here's a musical genre I was very much in love with and from which I can't remember how and when I drifted away. It wasn't those "I'm past this" situations, I think I just forgot goa existed. Maybe it's also because it's so much better when you're tripping, probably went away along with that. Or it could've been the gay hippie indian shit it comes wrapped up in. Or the fact that clubbing house crap these days hijacked the 4x4 TR 606 beat and turned it into such a trademark that I almost can't listen to trance anymore. Either way, my favorite wasn't an actual goa track, it was a downtempo remix of Astral Projection's "People Can Fly" that was just beautiful and I can't find anywhere. Or the cd for that matter. And I made copies, too - can't find those either. Here's Astral's classic, "Mahadeva", in case you have some peyote lying around the house and not much to do :) . "When you dream, there are no rules. People can fly, anything can happen".

3. Therion - Theli. Actually I have no idea if this was original but it looked that way. Very good songwriting, perfect for playing fantasy RPG's to. I never really understood what the Dragon Rouge was all about, or what lyrics like "the secret sign of Mendes unveil the magic of the goat, cults of the shadow under Ilan Hizon's root" were trying to tell the world. But I sure as heck enjoyed it in my short lived gothic period.

4. Infectious Grooves - The Plague That Makes Your Booty Move... It's The Infectious Grooves. Infectious Grooves is in the house! *slap slap slap*. Misters Muir and Trujillo of Suicidal Tendencies, funkafied. And some weird type of lizzard.

5. KoRn - Follow the Leader. Their last good album. Even though the numetal thing was already starting to get thinner and thinner, everything falls in the right place with this lp. It's like KoRn saying "here's the formula, stick to it, burn it out, we'll just go and pretend we're Duran Duran from now on". They took one step further from the raw, almost uniform guitar work on "Life Is Peachy", but kinda went too far with the eerie fx. Still, tracks like "It's On!" and "Dead Bodies Everywhere" rock as hard as ever. What happened to them post-98 is such a shame. And I cannot belieeeeeve the album turns 10 this year. Just can't fucking believe it. Because it means I haven't really matured as much as expected. But I don't mean that in a sexual way :)

'99. Yes, I too was a band t-shirt enthusiast.

5 people that influenced what music I listen to:

1. My older sister got me into listening to stuff like U2, Sting, Tracy Chapman, back when whatever was said on Yo!Mtv Raps was my credo and I would've normally rejected anything slightly poppy, and I'm really grateful for that. Forever in debt, sis.

2. My nuggah Barbu and I have been best friends since fifth grade, got into metal together, got into gothic metal together, got into numetal together, got into compulsive Insane Clown Posse listening marathons together, agreed black metal was for complexed faggots together, popped the bad pills for the 1st time together, mostly shared the same girlfriends for quite a while, then he went away to college in Timisoara, the girlfriend shareathon ended, you know how the sad story goes. Thanks for being my KoRn freak bro, bro. I thinks of joo everytime I lisenz to Therapy?'s "Six Mile Water". And here's an embarrassing picture of us, drunk in our teens. Upon close examination of the arms, you'll notice two of the prime directives we then lived our life by: "Coal Chamber" and "Fuck".

Braided and drunk. At least back then 16 year olds were still legal.

3. Frankie the Smokefighter - we were roomies throughout most of college, me being more of the listen to whatever's on the hard drive fellow and him and Serj of Guerrillas being more of the obsessed with downloading new music types, I was never running out of stuff to heavily filter through. Besides huge, hard to swallow chunks of metal, thrash and hardcore, Frankie got me into experimental/noise/IDM stuff like the Aphex Twin, Squarepusher and the likes. Naturally, this is what we were up to when we skipped school, most of the time that is - bumming pitchshifter free samples and walking around topless taking pictures of each other. Fuck, I remember once we didn't go out the house for like 3 days, and we were smoking a cig in the kitchen and Frankie goes "Dude, you know how I feel like? I feel like we're in this spaceship - whenever I step out of the room it feels like we should be getting somewhere by now". Cheers, Frankie!

4. Dome aka absurdcus has to be mentioned, although I hate it, goddamit! And I hate him for not getting his stupid lil lazy skinny ass off his stupid li'l couch, putting down his stupid li'l bass and showing the blogosphere some stupid li'l love. How has D influenced me musically? Well, centuries ago, when titans clashed and Alice Cooper was nothing but a stain in his momma's drawers, I bummed a Primus tape I never returned from him, and some Snot cd, teehee. I know you're reading this, I have no idea where the cd is, d00d, srsly. D has also taught me that you can listen to Prince and be straight at the same time, that Alicia Keys is ok even though now she's got a fat ass (I still disagree), and he's letting me use his guitar at rehearsals so I should say something real nice about him, too. Well, I must say that a lot of the little I know about music came from him, and I'm constantly bugging him with stupid music related questions and so far he hasn't snapped at me, so it's all good, mucho respecto my hungarian compadre. Btw congrats on your upcoming thousands of euros bass you brandwhore. You know I love ya.

5. The people of metalfan.ro* have really taught me a lot about music. I've learned that it's ok to listen to metal, and it's not ok to listen to anything but metal. Unless the guy making the aforementioned metal says or does so, in which case exceptions are made and carefully jotted down for further reference. I've also learned numetal wasn't ok from the beggining: it was just a way of getting kids to wear certain brand names. It was all about clothes, really. All those numetal kids looked the same, damnit. Metalheads in band t-shirt, black tights and armyboots don't. And those fucking numetal kids were ACTING THEIR AGE! FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!! I've learned metalheads never really teen - there's just this leap from infancy to full on metal infused maturity. I've also learned that hiphop is dumb repetitive music, and that obscure underproduced black metal that sounds like a washing machine banging against the bathroom wall isn't. I've learned it's ok to deem rap as childish and root for bands that believe they're elves and orcs, prancing around the forest accordingly wearing their mothers' makeup. I've also learned that metalheads are some of the most intelligent people on Earth - if my calculations are exact, every Maiden song played in your winamp gets you +5 intelligence. Are you one of the chosen few? Because whether you're down with the rawk or not is really the ultimate IQ test, bitches. Thanks, metalfan.ro! Kisses. Now lemme play some Maiden.

*Not all of them, some are nice dudes.

Ah, what a trip down memory lane. I'm hereby extending the "first 5 pirated, originals and influential motherfuckers" tag to Marius R., Roxa and Dome.



And now to the helping you out part,

Advice #2: buy this:




Ups:

- no need to dish out more and more money for expensive video cards
- omgwillmyrigrunthisgame factor eliminated
- wireless controllah inna yo life bwoi
- it plays all kindsa dvds and mp3s and other acronyms like that
- can get you to play racing games even if you despised them on pc
- online multiplayer
- generally looks sexy
- is fairly cheap
- not likely to turn obsolete in the next few years
- has had a lot of research put into it, unlike its more rushed japanese counterpart, apparently.

Downs:

- you gotta mod it to play pirated games
- you gotta get a double layer dvd writer to burn pirated games
- double layer dvds are kinda expensive
- your girlfriend won't like it (unless she discovers Viva Pinata is about building gardens in order to atract cute furry creatures)
- cooler's a bit noisy
- will make you cry to yourself in the bathroom cuz your broke ass can't afford a big screen HD tv.
- will probably push you into a life of crime to get that big screen HD tv.

It's right there walking the thin line between home improvement and homewrecking, but worth taking a shot if you're the least bit a gamer. And this concludes my meloncholy slash tech intervention, I'm off to clean cat piss & shit. Later yo!