Jason Jang

I finally caved and purchased a pair of prescription sunglasses.

Never have I had such a string of bad luck with my computer.

First, for no particular reason, the internal hard drive fails to boot up. I didn’t execute anything fishy. No new programs are hardware. I did everything a nerdlike myself would to try to figure out the problem, but I would boot up only to have the thing stare at me blankly, blinking.

I test the Hard Drive on another computer and my data is all still there, in tact, it just won’t boot. So I say fuck it, pop an old 30gb hard drive in to the notebook, load windows on it so I have a means to back up my original notebook harddrive onto my 300gb external drive. I cue that up for copying and go to bed.

I wake up only to find that my 300gb external drive died in the process. Died-died. Dead. Gonzo. I don’t mind that a lot of it is gone. Software, Movies, Tv shows, those things are replaceable. Recorded song ideas, old photos dating back to 2000, home videos, these are the things that have disappeared forever.

So I figure I’ll cheer my self up with a new 500gb SATA external hard drive. I figure I need something to backup stuff onto anyways. I also purchase a USB Hard Disk adapter, one that can read multiple kinds of drives, notebook drives, desktop drives, SATA, IDE, whatever. I get home and plug that into my USB port.

Zap.

Now it was I that was staring blankly at my computer.

It won’t turn on, now. I figure I got some shoddy peripheral that overloaded my motherboard or something. It powers on, but nobodies home. The BIOS won’t even boot up. It’s quite upsetting since I live on my computer.

But liberating too. I’ve been thinking lately that my love for computers and the internet is more of an addiction than anything. I was thinking I needed to cut back if I were to go back to Toronto and try to accomplish great thigns. I was thinking I’ll need the time off from technology and constant connectivity.

We’ll see.

Drawings of Jason

Originally uploaded by jason.jang

I find out through the grapevine, all in one day, that

1. My good friend Fraser got into a motorcycle accident. thankfully he’s fine. He thanked me today because the only reason he had purchased a helmet was because he had tried mine on first. (Like me, he’s inflicted with a large, large head.)

2. My Dad had a collapsed lung 2 weeks ago. A poorly placed acupuncture needle from a rookie acupuncture doctor placed beneath his shoulder blade sent him to the hospital for an emergency procedure. He was in the hospital for 3 days. And NO ONE called me!!! wtf?

3. My cousin’s wife has been diagnosed with ovarian cancer.

Fucked up day.

jj.

Things have been productive and busy on the music making front. Craig and I created this track under a new monikor: Polar Bears of Mexico - Attack! It’s dance music, I know. But to be honest there hasn’t been much new rock music lately that gets me the least bit excited. It’s music like this, heavy, ballsy, and in your face, and make you move your ass kind of music that I’ve been stoked about lately.

Las Pistolas have also completed recording the drum tracks for the songs on our upcoming EP. I’ve been hashing out the details of packaging and such in my head for the past months now, and it’ll be interesting and how much of it, and how it will come to fruition. I’m enjoying the DIY aspect of it all. We recorded the drums using four random mics, stands that aren’t mic stands, duct tape, broken 4-tracks, and shitty PA mixers. It’ll be interesting on how the final product will sound after we bombard it with digital processing.

Have also decided to start another project after having met a new girl who lives in my area. She’s a violinist which will be a welcome aspect to my songwriting. I’ve put together a new group of people, of friends with talent to do some open mic nights, and maybe even a gig or two in the next few months. We’re gonna tackle covering some Arcade Fire songs, but I really hope to create something cool, something different, something pretty, and uplifting, and full of passion.

That’s the most important thing for me really. Passion.

It’s something I try to exude every time I play, whether it is solo on the acoustic guitar, or with the band. All the sweat, and stomping, and yelling, and spitting, vigorous head nodding, and strange facial expressions is me simply showing you passion.

As for DJing, I think I’m going to wait until I get home to really tackle this. It seems there isn’t really a market for electronic music in Daegu, and every time I DJ at some party, or some other event, the response is always tepid. I really,really want a chance at DJing in a place where people are there to dance, and not for some other reason. But it’s a slow and steady race, I guess, huh?

And for the final aspect of my musical life, I haven’t written too much solo material in the last months, but I do have a few songs that didn’t pass that Las Pistolas filter that I do actually like. I may release them on my own this summer. I might actually re-release the Snow Day songs, re-recorded using all my newly acquired skills in music production from the past months.

Phew. I figure if I just keep at it, doing all these things, ONE of them has GOT to pan out, no?