Ooooh, you know he’s in trouble. Mmmm-hmmm. Personally, I think he had it coming.

So a thread has been running around Facebook today, where friends send a request to their friends in an endless chain asking you to state your 15 favorite albums in 15 minutes. When given this mammoth task I was rather baffled. I honestly couldn’t give an answer that I’d be satisfied with. Basically my list would go something like this: Every album ever made by the Jam, followed by every album made by Frank Zappa (except “Jazz From Hell,” though I think that album was meant as a joke), followed by every album made by Queen, then Miles Davis, then Igor Stravinsky then Iron Maiden, then Rush, Dio,Devo,The Beatles,The Clash,KingCrimson,PinkFloydElectricLightOrchestraJethrolTullBillyJoelCaptainBeefheart on and on and on. You see, the problem is, I really haven’t listened to that many albums in full, I came into music about the same time Limewire and other music sharing tools came in vogue so I always listened to artists on a track to track basis collecting songs like they were pokemon, I never really bought CDs for the longest time. As I hit college, piracy became passe and I started hitting the music shops and buying them there album-discie things. But even after all that, I really couldn’t tell you which collected batch of songs burnt on CD were my favorite. It’s a difficult question for somebody who prefers listening to music in a radio arrangement, i.e. you don’t know what’s coming up next. I always get bored knowing which song is going to come next in the playlist, yeah that’s right, I’m a shuffle kind of guy.

I’ve had to wait atleast three years before listening to my old CD catalogue. Now it’s mostly new again, but even then…

Basically what I’m saying is, I don’t really have a favorite album, I can’t think in that way. It’s way too difficult. However, I do have a number of enjoyable albums I can recommend to you in no meaningful order.

-Confessions of a Rainwater

I’ve spent the last couple of days thinking about what Garage Raja might sound like if it had a soundtrack. I wanted to have a theme for each character, which is easy enough at first thought. The focus of their themes would be the instruments that they use in the band. Reginald would have a kick-ass guitar solo, with a strong melody driven composition throughout. Ghurnst being the bassist probably means his theme would be heavily rhythmic in nature, I would suppose. Thinking something funky kinda. Sterber…well, Sterber sucks so I can’t say I’ve thought too much about his song yet. The difficult one is Ned. I haven’t thought exactly how I would want to tackle the vocalist of the band. There’s the obvious approach, which is make lyrics and have someone sing the song. But I’m not entirely thrilled about that at the moment, simply because there’s the implication that the singer of that song is a representative of Ned. Then I thought, perhaps an instrument that makes strong use of the lungs like the harmonica. Not bad, but not my favorite approach. My favorite approach is whistling right now. This is in due part because I’m listening through the Hellsing soundtrack right now.

It’s yet another in my list of anime. Maybe you’ve seen it, maybe you haven’t. Quick synopsis: Hellsing is the story of a vampire (Alucard/Arucard? Whatever, Dracula backwards, we get it) and his work-a-day life protecting England from the sinister plots of murderous vampires, freaks, and Catholics(seriously) among other things. The whole show’s rocking, especially the soundtrack. And to get back to my point, there are a couple of really moody tunes that feature a melancholic whistler in the background, it sounds great in ensemble.

I’m beginning to wonder though if whistling only works with something downbeat, it might not work if I thought that Ned needed a fast tempo, upbeat song. Something that I’m having to consider there.

Truth is, I don’t know when such a thing as a Garage Raja soundtrack will be feasible, but it’s something I still like to think about. I think it’s also part of getting to know your characters better, but that’s just me. I don’t know if Austin thinks about the characters in the same way.

-Rainwater

In the words of David Bowie, “Wam, Bam, thank you, m’am!” But I’m pretty sure that line was about something other than shin kicking. Pretty sure.

-Rainwater (yeah, pretty sure)

Odds are if you’ve heard anything about the sudden and sad passing of Satoshi Kon then you’ve probably heard about this blog, which is said to be his last words to the world before his death. It’s a powerful read.

It’s still on my mind to some degree, mostly because I’ve been going through the man’s filmography this week. Though it’s not a big set of films, the films themselves are incredible. I can’t recommend Millenium Actress enough to you. There hasn’t been a story told in the way it’s told, none that I’ve ever seen anyway. Usually “breaking the fourth wall” is a trite and annoying narrative technique that falls under the snobby Post-modern banner we’re all so use to hearing about, but Kon manages to use it in such a way that it really pulls you into the story. No gimmicks, just good story-telling.

If I can’t find my copy of Perfect Blue, then I’m going on to Tokyo Godfathers. Which means I’ll probably watch that movie twice this year. Once this week and again in Christmas.

Just watch the movie and you’ll know what I mean.

-Rainwater