What I played on CJSF: Eriko's guide to new indie music

Here's a list of independent artists from Canada and elsewhere I played on my CJSF Jumbalaya show, a show hosted by new volunteers wanting to get used to being on air:

The Archives
B-17
Bad Religion
Barenaked Ladies
Depeche Mode
Dig It Up
Dog Day
Feadz
Flaming Lips
Haim
Japanese Girls (often referred to as JPNSGRLS)
Light Fires
Lightning Dust
Mark Mills
Moby
Neko Case
Quadron
Raine Maida
Random Recipe
Said the Whale
Shad
Sigur Ros
We Are the City

and a few I may have missed.

I tend to lean more on the rock and electronic side, and I also enjoy some hip-hop-influenced songs (Shad and Random Recipe especially). Most of the songs I play are fairly upbeat. My favourite songs I play on air tend to have catchy melodies and solid beats.
On the other hand I'm not too much of a fan of folk-oriented music. Neko Case and Raine Maida are the exceptions, though I only really play their folk-oriented songs once in a blue moon.

Which artists do you like most, out of those you have played on air so far?

That's a tough one...I'd say Depeche Mode and Neko Case, since they've got the more inspiring tracks. Possibly also Random Recipe, JPNSGRLS, We Are the City and Shad.

What are your favourite songs to play on air?

I'll draw up a list:
Man - Neko Case
Night Still Comes - Neko Case
Mother - Said the Whale
Remember to Remember - Shad (featuring Lights)
Soothe My Soul - Depeche Mode
Vancouver Grizzly - JPNSGRLS
Legs Give Out - We Are the City
King David - We Are the City
Hey Love - Quadron
SOS - Raine Maida

Is there a song you like that you haven't got a chance to air yet?

Yes! Thanks to another Jumbalaya host I got a chance to hear Random Recipe, a hip-hop/electro band. My favourite track by them right now is "Big Girl" which I haven't played yet. I will in the next Jumbalaya set! I also quite like "Nearly Midnight, Honolulu" by Neko Case...such a powerful and heartbreaking a capella track.

Retitling of the blog, deletion of past posts, change in theme

Now that I've survived four years of university and successfully obtained a post-graduate work permit, I have decided to change the direction of this blog as a (for lack of a better word) log of the actions and antics of a recent graduate looking for jobs.

What comes after a B.Sc. in Physical Geography and a Certificate in Spatial Information Systems (very much linked with the study of Geographic Information Systems)? Well, for me...I still have no idea which direction to go in with this degree. My interests lean more towards geology, but if I were to get relevant jobs in the field I may have to go back to school and take some extra earth science classes. And there's remote sensing, the class which interested me the most out of all the classes I've ever taken, but I'll have to get at least a Master's to get a decent remote sensing-specific job.

Until then...well, I need to earn and save up money. In the meantime I'd like to explore various career options to see whether what I studied in my undergraduate years is really for me.
In the meantime, this blog will serve as a journal for my progress in job searches. Hopefully my blog will help prepare future grads for what's potentially in store for them.

I also deleted a few of the earlier posts mostly to keep this space a bit more positive and entertaining, since I was feeling very ranty in my university years and that made this a real drag to read (at least to me anyways). Ever since school ended I wanted to avoid discussing politically-charged topics and instead talk about the simple things in life more people understand (and are interested in).

Will update this blog as often as I can! Consider this my 'second Facebook'. ;)

Facebook break

Starting from May 18, I will deactivate my Facebook account indefinitely.

Throughout high school and university, oftentimes I have observed how people interact - or rather, choose not to - on Facebook, and this has led me to think how my life would be like without the social networking site. Ever since I began deactivating my account temporarily during exam times and high-stress situations in my third year, I've begun to realize how much more sanity I've managed to retain when I was off the social networking site, even though I was out of the loop with certain events. It sometimes sucked for getting people together, mostly because traditionally it was done on Facebook (or rather, traditionally since Facebook was launched).

Looking back on my high school years, when email communication was still used, I remembered it mostly just focusing on the communication between me and my contact. It didn't matter what they thought of me, or what my social life was like, as long as we stayed connected...most because they weren't visible. With Facebook, on the other hand, I was bombarded with pictures of my classmates and peers having fun going out while I was stuck in school studying. It made me feel awful to see that many of them still manage to do well in school even when they seem to be going out all the time, while I have to spend hours studying to actually stay on top.

Also, how much care the contacts on Facebook give about certain events and situations is painfully visible on how much response (likes, comments, messages) the photos and statuses which illustrate them will get, especially when compared to similar/same posts posted by other people. By email communication, it's not as easy to find out how little attention the problems are getting as opposed to Facebook.

I also have an issue with unfriending - though I have unfriended people myself on rare occasions, I only do it when I am having serious problems with the person in question. Lack of contact is not a sufficient reason to sever online ties with that person. It's not like removing phone numbers and emails from your address book; you wouldn't know immediately if they've removed your contact info from an address book. Unfriending on the other hand is pretty obvious and in-your-face painful. I honestly still don't get how people who say they perform 'regular Facebook friend cleanups' do it. I'd rather just 'unsubscribe' from their updates, which is a less obvious move.

I know a lot of you will think that I'm too much of a sensitive person, and this post is very much on the whiny side. Well, it is true that I tend to take things a little too seriously and personally at times, and this may well illustrate the fact that Facebook just isn't the site for me. But hey, it's always good to be aware of a different perspective on the social networking site and what happens there, right?

I am potentially going to start a blog during the Facebook break, which will show how things have progressed since getting off the site. I'll link you to it on this blog once it's up and running.

You've Arrived at Panic Station

No matter how many times I listen to Muse's "Panic Station" I never get sick of it...that is, until I saw the comments reflecting the fans' reactions to the accompanying music video.

I'm still addicted to the song, but every time I listen to it now I get really angry as I get reminded of the comments to the original music vid. Which isn't fair, because the song is awesome. Initially when I viewed the music video my only thought was that it was way too crazy for my liking, but otherwise wasn't too bad. But then I scrolled down to the comments to see a slew of angry reactions, mostly from the Koreans, who were clearly offended to see that Muse (or rather, whoever made the video) used the Rising Sun flag for the intro graphic, not knowing that it was to people of some Asian nations was the equivalent to the Nazi Germany flag.

Now, being someone who was terrible with history and social sciences, I had no idea the flag caused that much offense. (I'm a terrible Japanese person, I know.) Apparently Muse didn't either. They apologized on Twitter, took the original MV down, and uploaded an edited version with no offending images.

The angry comments still continued, saying that their "apology wasn't enough" and that "they didn't understand why what they did was wrong". Some YouTubers even went far as to attack fellow YouTubers telling them to let go of the mistake, and their comments were especially offensive to Japanese Muse fans.

The reactions remind me of how certain people in Beijing treated me and expressed their views on my country, back when I lived there during my high school years. It was really awful, some of the Chinese people making horribly misguided generalizations about Japanese people and assuming I'm just another bad person. I tried to be nice and sympathetic to prove otherwise, as well as learn a bit of history to find out the source of their ill feelings against Japan, but it still continued. I came to the unfortunate conclusion that no matter how much effort I try to put in to see where they're coming from, those people who held/are holding the grudge will never understand my stance. In a way, I felt that even if Japan were to officially apologize and modify their history curriculum to actually teach their students to not repeat what the nation did back in the 1940s, they'll never let that piece of history go.

What I'm trying to say is: it's not OK to just assume Japan's an evil nation. No nation is completely evil.

Fortunately a lot of people I know from these nations don't hold that assumption, and for those of you guys: thank you. Thank you for not holding these misguided assumptions and actually making the effort to get to know my country as just another country, and me as a friend or a nice acquaintance.

And Muse (or whoever in charge of graphics in the music video) didn't even know that the flag could potentially cause offense to people from certain nations due to historical reasons. It was an honest mistake, and they apologized and corrected it. Guess in this instance, they couldn't "do what the fuck [they] want to", as there are people "to appease".

I just hope now I can enjoy the song without getting angry, and play it out loud without making certain people upset.