Poagao's Journal

Absolutely Not Your Monkey

May 01 2002

Turns out that, while ICRT’s new building is a lar…

Turns out that, while ICRT’s new building is a large, brand new structure up on Songjiang Rd., their actual offices aren’t much better than the interior of Ye Old Shack of Yore on Yangming Mountain. It could have been any office, any school with listening booths, and their recording equipment couldn’t even do seperate tracks for sound. Amazing. I met David Wang, Joseph Lin, “Captain” Tim Bergie (I had to resist saluting him), and Richie Walker rushed by on his way somewhere. David and I chatted a bit about our army experiences, but Joseph grew up in LA or somewhere, I guess.

Jeff Steele, the reporter and a very nice guy as well, let me listen to what he had so far. Some of the music didn’t quite fit, and he couldn’t find much in the way of military sounds, so afterwards I went down to the Guanghua Market to have a look around. Unfortunately it was closed, so I went to a nearby record store and asked if they had any military music.

“Japanese military music?” the lady asked. I shook my head.

“European? American?”

“No, Taiwanese military music. In Chinese,” I said. But she just looked at me as if I were crazy. Fortunately one of the other women knew of a store near the Yonghe Night Market called “Andy”, where they had what I was looking for. She gave me directions and I went home, parked my motorcycle and walked to Guting Station, where I caught the train out to Dingxi Station. I followed the woman’s directions, threading my way through the night market, and eventually found the Andy Music Shop. It turned out, after a few more strange looks, that it wasn’t the right Andy Music Store, and I was again given directions the other Andy Music Store, which was about 15 minutes down an alley towards the river.

The woman behind the counter at the other Andy Music Store couldn’t fathom how anyone would know they had those particular CD’s, but at least they had them. I bought a couple and made my way back to the station. I didn’t feel like going home, so I called up Harry and Kirk and to find out if they felt like going out, so we all met up at Fresh, where we sat out on the balcony and talked until late. As usual, it wasn’t my crowd at all, but it was good to get out for a bit. Harry, being the resident expert on Things Taoist, gave me a lecture on the little “ghost table” they have set up on the 4th floor. Turns out it’s a mixture of Tibetan and more local gods. Hopefully they all get along.

After lazing around all day today, I brought the CD’s in to the studio this evening, and Jeff seemed pleased with the results. We picked some of the songs I could actually remember singing in the army, and then added some sound effects from a tape I made myself back then of marching sounds, hiding my walkman in my uniform and clipping the microphone to my collar. The piece is going to run at about 7:35 a.m. and again at about 6:25 p.m. tomorrow, May 2nd. I think it’s going to come out ok. I enjoyed doing it. It certainly involves more creativity than my day job can provide.

Speaking of which, it’s back to the grind tomorrow. Gavin has arranged a get-together at Saints and Sinners after work. Apparently there’s some arrangement wherein “blokes get free beer”, as he put it. I suppose that couldn’t go too far amiss.

I just finished watching Scarface, in which Al Pacino spends two hours and 45 minutes being an asshole to Yanni music. Could have been worse, I suppose. He could have spent a similar amount of time being an asshole to Enya stuff.

posted by Poagao at 5:13 pm  

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