Magic Marmalade
America (America Tribute Mix)
America (Hot Chill Mix)
This song consists of basically four elements:
1. A vocal sample from “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life”
2. A chorus shouting “go go up the road again”
3. A dude in a heavy German accent scowling “AMERICA!”
4. What sounds like someone having s seizure on synthesizer

And repeat.

So what I’m saying is, it’s pretty good. Strange how a dude yelling “America!” following by a vaguely menacing melody works as a shorthand to describe how I feel about the state of the union in 2018. Funny or sad. Whatever.

I guess I should talk about Magic Marmalade (sigh…that name) but I really don’t know who they are. Discogs’ profile for the group is literally nothing more than “Italian project.” That’s it. Dudes don’t even get a “An.” The four Italians in the group are unknown to me, but I’m sure if I put forth the effort I could Kevin Bacon at least one of them to a Goblin offshoot in less than five steps. From what I can gather, they never put out an actual record, just a series of singles followed by a compilation. If there are any Magic Marmalade (god…that fucking name) superfans out there and you wanna share a deep cut, let me know in the comments. And if anyone from Magic Marmalade (….) is reading this, let me know what the fuck is up with your name. Cuz damn.

John Carpenter
The End (J. Anthony Scratch Mix)
Okay, I’m going to use this opportunity to rant about something only tangentally related to this song. I apologize. Okay, not really, it’s my blog after all and no one is forcing you to read it.

The new Halloween movie came out a few weeks ago, any of y’all see it? Was it good? I heard it was good. I, being a die-hard Halloween fan who even owns the one with Busta Rhymes, really wanted to see it. Only one problem, it never came out in theaters here in Japan. Why? No fucking clue. No one knows. My boyfriend even did a bit of digging in Japanese and couldn’t find anything aside from angry Japanese fans wondering the same thing.

Now, you may be thinking “hey, that’s just how international release dates are.” And you’d be right, if it was 1978. It’s 2018. Shit’s changed. Halloween was nearly simultaneously released in about 40 countries. Forty! You know who got to see Halloween the week of Halloween? The Ukrraine! Sri Lanka! Poland! Kuwait! Turkey! Kazakhstan! What the fuck? You’re telling me that the studio had time to negotiate a release and subtitle the movie in…whatever they speak there (sorry) but not do the same in Japan?

Japan isn’t getting the movie until April. What the fuck they gonna do, rename it Easter and play up the whole resurrection angle?

One thing that I’ve really started to notice ever since I moved overseas is that media companies are woefully behind when it comes to adapting their product and sales strategies for an increasingly shrinking/international audience. They create these artificial restrictions and releases for reasons that no doubt make sense to them, probably financial ones. But they fail to realize that the people who really want to see the movie/TV show/whatever that’s being locked away for whatever-the-fuck reason sure as hell are going to find a way to watch it. Legal or not. And all that means is less money for them.

When MST3K announced a new season, I was hella stoked. I didn’t back the Kickstarter, but I figured I’d be able to watch it easily when it came out, especially when Netflix announced that they picked the show up. To this day, the show has never shown up on Netflix here in Japan. And sure, I get that it would probably be hard to translate to a Japanese audience, but they could’ve just put it up as is, with a disclaimer. It’s not like doing that is going to piss anyone off. I wanted to watch it, so I just fucking stole it. Fuck them. I pay for their fucking service. Why the hell should I feel bad when they withhold their own product from me without giving me any option to view it legally. I stole that shit guilt free. And if they do the same with season two I’ll probably swipe that too.

America is probably already facing a brain drain, if not, it will soon. As more and more Americans immigrate abroad to escape dire political oppression/climate hell, they’re still going to want to consume their favorite media once they settle down in their new home. And if they can’t pay to get what they want. They’ll just steal it. Why the fuck shouldn’t they?

Anyways, “The End” is the theme to Carpenter’s classic Assault On Prescient 13. It was kind of a club hit back in the day, no doubt due to its electro sound that made it well-suited for breakdancing. I had never heard this particiular version though, which I found off of an oddly-named 12″ single that featured it, and a terrible track called “Waiting For A Train” by an act called Moonbase as the B-side. I’m not sharing that because it’s really bad. Seriously. I know I share a lot of “bad” music but even I have my limits. And considering I watched Cannonball Run and Congo this weekend, that’s really saying something.