Going all in on the Japanese Shoegaze thing, and why not? It’s got pretty much everything I like and even that list isn’t too long. Give me fuzzy, distorted guitars and power chords and life is okay. There’s a Sonic Youth quality to a lot of it, and that works for me too. There isn’t a lot to be found online for some of these bands. BURRRN doesn’t have much of a digital footprint so their history (and present?) has to be pieced together from different websites and record companies. Are they still together? Dunno. Have they moved on to other projects and bands? Dunno. Have they thrown in the towel and gotten jobs in the corporate sector and raised families and gone into therapy? Maybe. It remains to be seen. A lot of the bands from Japanese scene have more in print but even a lot of that is only in Japanese for a lot of them. For now though, there’s this.

I’ll live with this until my squirrelly attention span pulls me in another direction. There is no shortage of new sounds and/or sounds that aren’t new to anyone but me.

The first week of February is easing along quietly, the remains of the snowstorm and all. That will be gone soon enough unless another one comes walloping along and buries us again. I’m okay either way. There are a few semi-social engagements to get out of the way in coming weeks but after that I’m free to wander as I please. The snow and ice don’t really hold me back all that much. I’m not bothered.

Thinking back to a year ago this week, with Super Bowl Sunday and Valentines Day coming up. We were all still joking about this “Novel Corona Virus,” or the Wu Flu and all that. The possibility of a year like this past one didn’t seem likely. It was funny, in a morbid way, when it was all on the other side of the planet. We made funnies about the Wu Handshake, which was standing apart and tapping feet as a greeting. We scoffed. We listened to the politicians here going back and forth about the degree of threat and it doesn’t seem in retrospect that anyone, including all of us, were taking it seriously.

Queue up Zappa & The Mothers, It can’t happen here. It can’t happen here. I’ve checked it out a couple of times and I have to tell you, dear. It can’t happen here.

Oh well.

We made it about another month before it became very real. I was looking yesterday at the photo I took on the A train platform on my last day in the office. It was rush hour and there were maybe a half dozen people on the platform and at least one of them was homeless and lived there. Life got very very real last year for a lot of people. It’s not that some people didn’t remain stuck in denial, and they are still mired there. Last year (and this one so far) have been no less ridiculous. It’s just that there’s an added dose of reality. Yes, it can happen here and will continue to happen here. It’s just funny looking back on it now. I may have been the biggest skeptic at this point a year ago. Yet I’ve learned that my disbelief doesn’t stop things from existing. It’s a good lesson to learn at an early age and I would suggest you teach that to your children. If you want to make your God laugh, tell him your plans for tomorrow.

Cheers. I’ve got to get on with the day.