Casual Conversation

I've been going to a karaoke bar every Saturday since the year started . I can't recommend it enough.

A good karaoke bar is a great time. You don't have to sing if you don't want to. And if you do sing, it doesn't matter if you suck or can't sing or stumble your words or forget some lyrics. Going up there and singing is an accomplishment in itself and no one at the bar is going to boo you or kick you off the stage. Worst thing that happens is you get no applause at the end but a good bar with a good vibe will always have people cheering you on.

Going regularly and getting up there and singing and not caring if I suck has done so much to improve my confidence and self esteem. And trust me, I suck at singing but I promise you that it doesn't matter. No one will care that you suck. If you go up to sing, just go and have fun with it.

A year or so ago I had stumbled across the music video for Rydeen by Yellow Magic Orchestra which had a weird blip of modern popularity for an obscure song from 1979. I think people latched onto it because it's a pretty goofy video, and the song is actually really catchy. I saw it shared all over the place on Instagram, and ended up diving down that rabbit hole. At some point the digging led me to Mint Jams by Casiopea, which I immediately fell in love with. I even shelled out big bucks for the vinyl, it's such a good record to just slap on for some chill background music.

I had an opportunity to see them play through that entire album live in Vermont recently (Last July) and didn't end up going... I really should have just went. It would have been a ~6 hour drive to get there, though, that was the main sticking point. I've skipped out on a couple unique concerts in the last few years and I always regret it afterwards, I should just stop doing that lol.

I checked their Discord, and they say they do use AI to "automate the production process", but not to "write the music" (whatever those 2 things mean), and claim to be transparent, but there's a channel called "argue with Dysmn about AI ethics" and they sure do love to be vague and argumentative and not answer questions fully lol. Take that to mean whatever, but I personally find it suspicious that I can't quickly find any videos of them playing any instruments... And also the rate that they can produce music. I follow a couple other Youtube musicians who all at least have one video showing them playing instruments... But in certain circumstances even that can come into question . It's almost a little sad that people can't just enjoy things for what they are, and also you have to question everything you see, because it's so easy to fake things now.

There's an artist I follow, Violet Cold, who has had "AI Generated" in their bio since way before AI generated music was a thing, and it's come around to be an annoyance for them. A quote:

"Are you seriously still asking if i use ai to write my music?
i put “ai-generated” in my bio way before ai music became a trendy buzzword — not because i use ai, but because no one fucking understood the artistic message: i am the ai, as part of this simulation. and if i’m part of the machine, then everything i create is, by definition, ai-generated. simple. but no, instead of using your damn brain, you'd rather ignore that violet cold has existed since 2013 and pretend all of that work somehow wasn’t mine."