Wired with a twist of lime

In between e-mailing, phone calls, writing "stuff" and the usual rounds of blogs and sites, a few weeks ago, I discovered somewhat belatedly the addictive pleasures of Limewire. In between oohs and ahhs, and some tsk-tsk's, I no sooner delved into downloading music of my youth, ano pa nga ba, new wave. But what ELSE to download? I've already amassed several "underground" and new wave mp3 collections courtesy of CD peddlers of Makati and Manila. Google would have to give some suggestions. Which led me, though I don't recall exactly how (isn't that just the charm of Google?), to DigitalDreamDoor, the personal site of some guy named Lew, who had this passion for both music and making lists. There was a list of what the site believes are the 100 greatest new wave songs. And no sooner in finishing the whole 100 entry-list I realized what a hick I've been as a kid. I couldn't recall over half of the entries.

To quench my curiosity, Limewiring became the fitting strategy to meet the objective. And that's how a week-and-a-half-long vigil started. It was a fulfilling vigil, actually. Sometimes, I'd get disappointed for not having to find open servers from where the files can be downloaded. Argghh! Then sometimes, the available downloads were not really of good quality. Kainiz! But by and large, it was a fun experience. But the most fun, of course, was telling friends (and them getting involved) about it. And I had one perfect guy in mind. Ferdie. A good friend, one of the officers of the organization, and born into this world not with an infantile wail but with a song and dance production number.

Somewhere in the middle of my Limewire-like-crazy phase, he visited and got as much involved with the list as I did... in a matter of seconds. I particularly remember this one instance. Though I had my suspcion what the song was, I wasn't sure. Until this list, I thought I know everything about new wave. Ano ba itong "Too Shy"? And what in the world is/was Kajagoogoo?! Ferdie suddenly broke into his song-and-(a bit of) dance number. We were thinking of the same thing. Then we almost simultaneously asked each other, "new wave ba ito??" So then, a Limewire search was in order for Kajagoogoo. We were also both dunzo for some other songs on the list. But as soon as we downloaded some, the epiphanies came "Ay, alam ko na to! So yun pala yun..."

My hunny, though in a more somber manner, got into it as well, him more interested in pursuing some of his own curiosities. While continuing with the list, I searched for some of his requests, essentially Big Country and Alan Parsons Project. (The latter one was not new wave, but I found out that DigitalDreamDoor listed it as one of the most underrated artists. Hunny and I agree.) My hunny even helped fixing one download, "Send Me An Angel" by Real Life; it had a skip in the middle. I e-mailed the file to him and he fixed the skip through Sound Forge. When I got it back, I thought it sounded better than when I first downloaded it. I love him to bits!

Two nights ago, I was down to just several seemingly rare, hard-to-find mp3's. Limewire had them listed but servers hosting them don't seem to come up when I was online. I felt frustration for having only two left unfound, especially that I have also made a resolve to do something with my new found collection. I wanted to share this with friends and family. (Profiting from this actually crossed my mind, but hey, I'm a "Fair Use" kind of guy. I'm almost HIP - or I try to honor intellectual property when I have the money for it.) I was almost at the point of giving up on the idea when Ferdie visited again and I proudly updated him with my Limewire discoveries. At six in the morning (he then just arrived from Legazpi, where he manages our project over there), we were exchanging raves and he was egging me to look for other sources, "other" being purchasing music online. WTF?! Me? Buy music, when there's just about thousands available for free?? Well, there may be thousands, but for two, he reminded me. He was feeding into my desperation. What the hell... I pulled out my credit card.

Some sites like iTunes charge a fortune for downloads, around 0.99USD per song. 50 pesos is already full meal in a carinderia -- at may softdrinks pa yun! Was I that desperate? I gotta search for more alternatives; I must be desperate and crazy, but I've enough sense remaining to look for alternatives. The new wave gods sent me an angel as I googled for alternative download-for-pay sites. I happened on MP3Search.ru and it only charges 0.10USD per download. There must be a catch, I couldn't believe it. The catch was I have to have my credit charged for 20USD at the minimum, and charges will be debited for every download I was to make. Hmmm... still sounded like a fair deal. Plus, there was Ferdie cheering me from behind. I was able to download the rare ones, "Messages" (OMD) and "Reaping the Wild Wind" (Ultravox) -- after listening, I thought they sounded far better than some of the freely downloaded and later trashed mp3's. (After all, their songs had 192kbps sample rates as well as the new VBR "standard.") I also decided to download two more, which I got through Limewire but were of poorer quality (actually, the beginning and fade-out ending portions were cut): "Love and Money" (Bronski Beat) and "Some Like It Hot" (The Power Station).

This morning, I put my plans to pilot test. I bought some CDR's and burned my downloads on one; this one's gonna go to Ferdie. If there's one person who's gonna utterly love me for this alone, it's gonna be him, I thought. And why should I just burn a CD and send him like it's not really special? So early Sunday morning, I googled for some JPG's and designed a cover for the CD's jewel case. And tonight, Eon wondered at how I've made this obsession into a full, short-term career. I shrugged and had stupid grin on my face. I felt very happy.