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Yamaoka Tesshu, as a young student of Zen, visited one master after another. He called upon Dokuon of Shokoku.

Desiring to show his attainment, he said: "The mind, Buddha, and sentient beings, after all, do not exist. The true nature of phenomena is emptiness. There is no realization, no delusion, no sage, no mediocrity. There is no giving and nothing to be received."

Dokuon, who was smoking quietly, said nothing. Suddenly he whacked Yamaoka with his bamboo pipe. This made the youth quite angry.

"If nothing exists," inquired Dokuon, "where did this anger come from?"

So anyway check out Dub Side Of The Moon if you're looking for something the same but a little bit different, there are some pretty good covers on there. And a little dub never hurt anyone (wakka wakka).

Other mentions, 1800s Sea Monster have some new free stuff up, if you liked them the last time I mentioned them you might want to grab it.

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It's been exactly one year and one day since I registered for Last.fm. Accordingly, I've decided to take a look back at the last year.

My top albums
1. The Beatles – The Beatles
I could have chosen almost anything from The Beatles for the top spot, but I find I listen to this one more than the others. It was a major influence on my guitar playing when I first began, and practically every song has a fond memory attached to it.

2. M.I.A. – Kala
If you’ve read my journal with any regularity over the past few months, you’ll know that I hold Maya Arulpragasam in high regard, to say the least. I’m so glad to live in a time when something as gloriously strange as Boyz can be considered pop. Maya’s out in a field of her own and no one else is even close.

3. Blur – Parklife
The ultimate pop record, Blur’s third album is a funhouse of melody, texture and sound held together by the sterling bass playing of Alex James.

4. My Bloody Valentine – Isn’t Anything
Go here.

5. Nirvana – In Utero
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My latest obsession is Kate Bush. We're studying "Wuthering Heights" in English class and we did something about its effect on pop culture so I decided to look up the Kate Bush video of the same name on Youtube. The video (click here to view) features Kate dancing in a field in a red dress, delivering the song's narrative lyric with the most delightfully melodramatic facial expressions I've ever seen in a rock video. That one song is unlike anything I've ever heard before. It's not strange in a Björk sort of way, but its weirdness comes from the fact that musically, it sounds like a typical late-70s pop record, though the lyrics are about a 19th century novel and the singing is so... different.
Anyway, I was actually hooked after that exposure, so I watched a few of Kate's other videos and I can say that I am truly obsessed. I just received The Whole Story in the mail today, and I’m playing the shit out of it. (When I get into a new artist…

This will be a journal I shall update whenever I find a new band or artist (thanks to Last.fm) that I dig. :)

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I don't even remember HOW I found 1800s Sea Monster, but I did. And I am so happy that I did. It's raw, experimental, sometimes low quality (sound-wise), but jesus christ I dig it. Also... it's free. Yeppers. Jakob Battick (jakobbattick) said it himself, "I feel selling music is kind of a retarded concept." How can you not give someone's, who says that, music a chance?! :P

Songs I can't stop listening to over and over:
1. The King with the Iron Lung
2. Staring At The Stars / Make It To Your Party
3. 11
4. 12
5. 13

Websites:
1800s Sea Monster's Last.fm
1800s Sea Monster's Myspace

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My friend called Museum a German Interpol. Though I will have to agree slightly, I mostly disagree. They have their own flavor. The beginning of flowers and dust really reminds me of Interpol, but that is the biggest connection that I see. …

My Bloody Valentine: You Made Me Realise EP
My Bloody Valentine is one of those bands that’s inspired some seriously bloated prose. I’ll not add my own to it, so I’ll just say without any reservations that their two full-length albums, 1988’s Isn’t Anything and 1991’s Loveless are must-owns for anyone who listens to music.
If you haven’t noticed, I’ve got a bit of a fetish for awesome singles and EP’s, and MBV did quite a few of those. While Glider and Tremolo, the two that preceded Loveless, are frequently lauded, You Made Me Realise, which was released in England three months before Isn’t Anything, is song-for-song, even better. Here’s a look at this groovy little record, song by song:
You Made Me Realise: Any idiot who insists on calling MBV a ‘dream-pop’ band ought to listen to this track and feel thoroughly ashamed for labeling the band’s music so inaccurately. This is nothing less than the sound of nuclear holocaust in the form of a three-minute pop single. …

I've been listening to Madonna's Like a Prayer album (probably the only mainstream pop album from the 80's still worth listening to outside of Prince) and I don't know, but for some reason, it's really inspired me. The album is almost shockingly ambitious for 80's pop. Madonna and her army of musicians explore everything from gospel (the title track) and piano dirges ("Promise To Try") to Sgt. Pepper-esque orchestration ("Dear Jessie") and Butthole Surfers tape manipulations ("Act of Contrition"), with straightforward lyrics that address both the sacred and the personal. It's pretty awesome, so my new idea is record something of an answer record (kind of like Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville was supposedly a feminist response to The Rolling Stones Exile On Main Street). It will be like the Madonna record in that it hops around from genre to genre and has lyrics that address the sacred and the personal. I want to make a project that borrows from the more intelligent…

I've just ordered three CDs from Amazon:

-Nirvana, Nevermind
-Smashing Pumpkins, Siamese Dream
I've already owned these before, but loaned them out and never saw them again. Not very bright of me. Anyway, you already know about these. Together, they basically are the Holy Bible of 80% of the rock groups out there now. I don't really need to say much else.

-Neutral Milk Hotel, In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
I read a very enthusiastic review of this record on Jakob Battick's page (he's the singer and guitarist for 1800s Sea Monster) and I downloaded "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea." It was pretty cool, so I tacked it on my order. Jeff Mangum's got a voice you either love or hate. He sounds kind of unhinged and I kinda dig that.

Nirvana
The Smashing Pumpkins
Neutral Milk Hotel
Nevermind
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Siamese Dream