Sunday, July 19, 2009


I’d been living in Plön for about 1.5 years in the same flat, so naturally, I was getting restless. I moved at the beginning of July to a new apartment. It’s a bit bigger, a bit cheaper, a bit closer to work. But that ain’t so exciting. More entertaining is that, while sorting my junk, I found a DVD with most of the files from my old desktop. I’ve only owned one desktop in my life, and I received it as a gift before heading off to college. That computer, and its monstrous 10 GB hard drive, got me through a 4-year bachelor program. After leaving for Finland, the computer collected dust for several years in my parent’s basement before it was given to charity. But before donating it, my brother burned all my old files on a single DVD and sent them to me. I never really sorted through them, but upon finding this DVD during my move, I had a look. The music was most interesting (this blog is supposed to deal with rock ‘n roll, you know). I had this computer during the lawless Napster days, so shortly after hooking up to the dorm network it was full of miscellaneous obscure mp3s. Browsing through this music nowadays brought about a variety of reactions, ranging from “oh man, what was I thinking” to “awesome, I remember those guys”. A few examples falling in the first category: Bloodhound Gang – Bad Touch (in my defense I was still a teenie when they released that one), Evanescence – Bring me to Life (damn the radio senders still spinning this!), a thrash metal cover of Welcome to the Jungle (I don’t even like the original), a number of unreleased Limp Bizkit tracks (it took me longer than most to outgrow the Bizkit), and Hot Action Cop – Fever for the Flava (that’s probably the low point). Although the presence of such tracks on my old computer causes me shake my head, it also makes me smile. It’s about the memories; nothing says turn-of-the millennium like radio rock hits from Breaking Benjamin (remember them? I didn’t until hearing their songs). Happily, not all of the old archive was so embarrassing. Here’s a short coolest-of list: Ben Kweller – Wasted and Ready, Basement Jaxx – Where’s your Head At?, The Distillers – City of Angels, The Darkness – I believe in a thing called Love (this was nearly assigned to the embarrassing list, but it’s so kitschy it’s cool), Liars – Mr. You’re on Fire Mr., Our Lady Peace – Superman’s Dead, Prodigy – Baby’s got a Temper, Sev – Same Old Song (they were on the Farmclub, remember that short-lived program?), Rorschach Test – Fornicator, Sleater Kinney – More than a Feeling (any Boston cover is bound to be good), and VAST – Free. I can’t really claim to have an emotional connection to any these songs. If I did, they probably would have successfully migrated to my next computer. Actually, I’m glad they didn’t make it, because going through the old files was like opening a time capsule from 2002. Reveling in such musical nostalgia inspired me to go out and download some cool skins for Winamp (it still whips the llama’s ass).

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