Just a Lark

It’s about time that I finally wrote something original for this blog–I want to get back into the habit of writing something at least once a week, and cross-posting stuff from my work blog not only doesn’t count, but should be like a minus-one penalty.

I have some pretty odd taste in music, to say the least. Ask anyone who’s really known me, and they’ll tell you this straight up. The fact of the matter is that video games have literally been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, and many facets of my life are entirely derived from or revolve around them (I volunteer my personal time to write professional previews/reviews about them for Christ’s sake). Because of my utter fascination with them–something that is entirely mysterious to me to this day but that I know for fact is not at all about escapism as you might imagine–one thing that really stood out to me all throughout my childhood was their music, and that’s stuck with me to this day.

Honestly I’m not really sure what drew me to it so much. My brother, while nostalgic about some of it (though he probably wouldn’t admit this), went through the usual phases of music and eventually mastered the ways of the Pretentious Indie Dick. But me, I never really did. It’s not like I tuned out the rest of the aural world out there–I probably couldn’t name more than a handful of them, but I’ve heard and would recognize most of the greats–but I never really went looking for anything else.

When we got the Internet in high school, I discovered two things: they actually sold video game soundtracks in Japan like proper albums (!), and there was an entire underground community of people that were either like me or shared my seemingly bizarre taste in music. So, on a 56k connection I began my collection of video game soundtracks. Today, I have God knows how many albums (they’re for the most part poorly organized, something I intend to fix but is really tough to find the months of time necessary to do) and a total of 192.59GB of (legally purchased, RIAA) video game music. Some are for games I’ve never played or never intend to play, a lot is encoded in 128kbps, and most I don’t find the time to listen to more than once or twice a year.

I’ve seen Nobuo Uematsu play live at the Dear Friends concert in San Francisco three years ago, and I’ve been to Video Games Live (this year, actually). While I did enjoy those events overall, I’ve come to the sad conclusion that I literally can’t stand the fawning masses that make up the majority of the fandom that go to those types of things on a regular basis. Maybe I’ve just mirrored my brother’s growth and become the king Pretentious Indie Dick of video game music; maybe I just see myself in those kids, even though I was and still am not enough of an extrovert to be like them, and I despise what I see. I don’t really know, though I’ve never really been one for self-loathing so I’m leaning towards Option A–my hatred of Tommy Tallarico for, among other things, turning video game music into a commercialized wank-fest backs that up too.

In the last couple years or so, I’ve done a lot to expand my horizons and taken a strong liking to Indie music. I guess I’m just in the right scene, but I’m fortunate enough to have friends who are big enough into it to know what’s good and I simply trust their recommendations. My co-worker Mindy in particular is big into the concert scene and, although I’ve been out of it for a while and had to flake out on the last couple because of one reason or another, whenever she asks me if I want to go I just say yes–usually without even knowing what I’m getting myself into. For example, I’m going to see Sons and Daughters with her and was later informed by another friend in passing that they were surprised I was into Rockabilly. I am? Whatever, she hasn’t let me down yet and I’m just along for the ride.