Since I was a kid, I have always loved music. I was selected as one of the Chinese dance performers when we had this inter-kindergarten dance show back in 1995. I auditioned and got picked to play drums for school orchestra only to find out we had to play Cindai during Hari Penyampaian hadiah in 1999. Man, I thought orchestra was just as cool as Iklim.
On 2002, I saved up my monthly allowance money to buy a walkman. Back in my days, a walkman was not considered an item of luxury. Everyone had one. It doesn't matter what brand did you buy (Sony, Aiwa, Panasonic, some weird cheap-ass China-made brand, what else..?), because as long as you had one, you were cool. I bought a decent Sony walkman worth RM70.
When you have a walkman, it's always nice to have some cassette tapes too. Apis Awang is famous because of his incredible cassette tapes stack lined up nicely in his locker. I used to stare at his collections in awe. And he was real particular and cautious when I wanted to borrow his cassette tape because at that time a cassette tape worth at least RM25! That was half of monthly allowance money!
But I saved my money anyway in pursuit of my first cassette tape. I didn't go for a blank cassette tape which you can record songs in it to make mix tapes. I wanna buy a real record from real artist. Not Ceramah Motivasi Pelajar Cemerlang tape. Eventually, I saved up enough money and bought a Blink 182 - Take Off Your Pants and Jacket tape in Terminal Seremban.
To be honest, I didn't even know why in the world would I buy a Blink 182 tape. I didn't even knew them. Heck, I didn't even knew what 'take off' means back then! I just picked the tape out of moment of randomness.
Now, it has been 9 years I've been listening to Blink 182. People told me to get over this 'crappy' pop punk thing and start listening to some real punk stuff. Like Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, Bad Brains and all those hardcore stuff. I did but I won't get over pop element in rock music. And that's when I learned to respect other people interests.
The latest Blink 182 album was released two weeks ago and I bought the record (and the old records too. It's sort of my effort to get my brothers to start listening to them). But I've got one question for you guys...
Is it me or listening to your favorite records from childhood just give you the chills and a feeling of deja vu? Can a record be some sort of a time machine?
