Aurgasmic

It's been a good while since I've gone out of my way to scour for new music. 'New' in a relative sense; as in, never have I heard of these particular artist or band before, and neither has the local radio station.

Some few years ago (give or take 5), I used to dedicate large portions of my snail-paced Internet time searching the deepest, most obscured corners of the World Wide Web for semi unheard-of bands or song releases of bands from my then gospel: Japanese rock. Actually most of those bands were not that alternative if one was really into the J-rock scene in those days - Dir en Grey, MUCC, Laruku, Miyavi, Shiina Ringo.


Hell yeah, you still rock my sexy socks Kaoru

But through the powers of mp3 rotation sites, I was able to discover and even help spread the word of what I'd like to think were lesser known bands - Alice Nine, Coaltar of the Deeper, Deathgaze, Baroque. I promise I'm not name-dropping for the sake of it; it's more of a tribute post to another time, and perhaps some former mp3 rotation peers would one day do a Google search and be brought here. And we can reminisce over the good times together - back when visual kei bands were original and wrote some killer stuff, and metal did not necessarily equate to mindless death screams from start till end.

Once I moved on from J-rock, I got into local indie rock bands. For a while, I was really into the burgeoning underground English music scene in KL; going to bars and dilapidated pubs to watch them perform. We even became quite chummy with a few of them, exchanging pleasantries at gigs, scouring free CDs and posters. Good times, good times. And I think the scene has grown quite a lot since then; at least new bands don't have to be subjected to the creaking floorboards and piss-stained stairs of Paul's Place anymore. ;)

Then I moved over here, lost touch of everything and everyone from that time, and pretty well just grew out of it, I guess. Most of us did, including the band guys themselves who suited up and got day jobs. And I think inadvertently, I became a grumpy old person who thinks that no music today comes close to being as good, let alone surpassing the music of yesterday (my days).

But thankfully, I'm with someone who shares my ideology of an ageing music grump. Despite his love for bad, synth-heavy 80's music, Mitch and I spend many collective hours in the car, bitching about the degradation of popular music these days. A simple comparison: Bieber vs BSB. Need I say more? Yes I do: BSB is not a 10 yr old lesbian boy trying to teach girls all over the world about love and heartbreak or whatever it is he sings about. At least Aaron Carter had the audacity to sing about candies and girls in sweaters when he was 10. And his brother was Nick Carter, so that's street cred times a billion in the late 90s.

Btw, it seems that The Biebs made a comment recently in the press about how he feels like he's the Kurt Cobain of this generation because he's "just as misunderstood by the masses". Well maybe he should put a gun to his head as well, because really nothing says teenage angst more than edgy bowl cuts and almost getting arrested for throwing water balloons at National Guards. Water fucking balloons.

And you know what angers me even more? His goddamn fans.



But I rest my case, because I am not a music snob and everyone has the right to pretend to like deceased grunge icons for the sake of being rad. Even emo mofos and Twilight fans.

Sigh, I think it's a sign that I'm growing old. I'm becoming one of the classic parent type who thinks that their kids' music is shit and that they don't make good songs anymore. And I very much agree - I do think the 60s-80s gave us some truly un-reproducable epics (mostly because power rock ballads unfortunately went out of fashion), but I also believe that the 90s gave some serious contenders in the form of alternative rock and early house music. Wallflowers, Soul Asylum, Chemical Brothers, Goo Goo Dolls, Foo Fighters, Fat Boy Slim, Counting Crows, Incubus, pre-solo-career Matchbox 20, Radiohead, STP, The Cranberries, Jamiroquai.

I digress, again. My train of thoughts never stay on track, I can't help myself. And then I can't bring myself to delete whole paragraphs of earnestly typed words. I wonder if I'm like that when I speak to people as well, hm.

ANYWAY! Back to my original intention of this post. I was meant to say that I've been uninspired by the popular music of today, which sent me backwards in time when searching for 'new old music'. I've forgotten how it feels like to discover a brand new sound, chance upon a singer or band who just absolutely blows my mind, one track at a time. And then spreading the word about said artist(s) to like-minded and like-tasted peers and watch their minds get blown away.

That is, until I came across this site.

Over the years I've stumbled upon similar sites, mostly forum-type things or web radio. And none of which really resonated with me up till now. I love the minute descriptions of each recommended artist and the varied hybrid-genres they feature. Most indie music sites stick to a fairly uniform set list of dreamy, lo-fi acoustic sounds, but Aurgasm branches out to jazz, big band, funk, soul, electro, and even hip-hop! (albeit, not your ordinary Jay-Z staple). And what's more, the guys also throw in a good mix of Scandinavian and European acts which we otherwise would not have heard of on this side of the planet.

Thanks to Paul Irish and his crew, I am now rocking some serious Dutch cabaret jazz, Swedish big band swing and a French soul man funking up Seven Nation Army.

I've been rejuvenated!