Here in My Garage with a Laptop

Tomoaki D. Imamichi

Abstract

This personal reflection and life writing is on my experiences and technology in the 1990s. My focus is on how music has been consumed and produced, and I reflect on the ‘90s and current times with an original music video titled “Here in my garage with a laptop,” connecting it to elements that are possibly inspired by the ‘90s.

Intro

If anything good has come out of the pandemic for me, it may have been being in my garage with a laptop. While I have not gone quite viral yet, it has given me some satisfaction, plenty to reflect upon, most certainly a draft, and perhaps even a publication. A situation that I most likely would not have gotten myself into had it not been for the stay-at-home orders and social distancing that inevitably increased reliance on technologies.

This has led to much time spent with technologies. When deprived of many alternatives of spending time otherwise, one might as well make the most of it. This included exploring various functions embedded in one’s laptop that was primarily used for its word processing function (like it is used to compose this paper), keeping up with one’s email inbox, and of course browsing the World Wide Web.^[1] That single device not only supports one’s professional and social life, it also provides plenty of leisure, ranging from indulging in consuming music videos to creating music videos. This brings me to the theme of Happy Nostalgia: Making Connections to the Music of the ‘90s. Much of the music consumed as well as the music created may have been inspired by the ‘90s.

The ‘90s

To what extent I am specifically referring to the ‘90s, I cannot say for sure. Some of the references may more aptly apply to the late ‘80s and the early 2000’s, to which I may refer to as the ‘90s indiscriminately. After all, different decades bleed into one another. As one gets older, the decades seem to get shorter. In one’s recollection the ten years in one’s youth may occupy more space than perhaps the more recent ones in one’s later years. At the same time, it has been said that the ‘90s as an era began in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and ended in 2001 with 9/11. Furthermore the ‘90s may have been the last definable decade, if we contrast it with the perpetual presence of subsequent decades in the 2000s.^[2]

My ‘90s refer to a personal context. Developmentally, it involved several so-called major life events with many transitions, overlapping with high school, college, and post-college years, and geographically some back and forth between Japan, Germany, and the United States.

The ‘90s is sometimes referred to as a golden age of music. If the 1990s are part of one’s formative years, a period in one’s development when one may be particularly impressionable and open to experience, this would make a plausible explanation for those who label it as such. Sometimes it is hard to tell whether there is something about the music itself, or the association that one has with the music, the positive experiences one may have had. One’s formative years are also a period that is not only perceived as being personally but also historically significant. There is a bias towards the perceived historical significance of events that occurred in one’s emerging adulthood, revealed through cross sectional studies of different generations that tend to place significant historical events in their emerging adulthoods.

At the same time, one could argue that there is indeed something special about the ‘90s. It was the post Berlin Wall/Iron Curtain era that marked the end of the Cold War, the unification of Germany, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the creation of the European Union. In this context music played a significant role, specifically the Techno that served as a bridge for Eastern and Western Berliners, as documented by Sextro and Wick (2008) and Monroe (2017).^[3] It was an era full of possibilities in the vacuum left by post-communist industrial buildings that became new experimental spaces for music and art.

There was also the Eurovision Song Contest, which was founded in 1956 and envisioned in part to create a sense of unification associated with a unified Europe. It has grown in participation especially from Eastern European countries after the fall of the Iron Curtain.^[4] Eurovision became an opportunity for various countries to showcase themselves, their performers, and their music, and an opportunity for audiences to be exposed to different kinds of performers and music. While many of the entries are performances in English and emulate mainstream US, or use British pop music to appeal to wider audiences, there are also several that are performed in the native language and unique sounds that have fared well with audiences. The celebration of native language went well beyond Eurovision, as with German Hip-hop or the Metal band Rammstein, whose fame may be attributed to performances in German (and rolling r’s), not despite it.

The ‘90s was an era of optimism, globalization, new technologies, and diverse musical styles that have received some scholarly attention. Among the musical styles there was Techno, House, Metal, Alternative, Hip Hop, and Latin music. Music that was emerging or tended to exist more on the fringes crossed over to mainstream, to the degree that I was exposed to it in various contexts and enjoyed different styles. Among the styles there were emerging crossover genres. It is not that I liked all music; if anything there may have been more music thatI disliked or did not care for. However, the music I liked included various genres, which may not be atypical. The music that I cared for made it worth putting up with the other music and commercial breaks that one had to endure on a radio or TV station, before the age of on-demand access. Via radio or TV, one may have become overexposed to a popular song that one would love to hate, and that one inadvertently would also learn lyrics to. This was part of a shared experience, and when one encounters the song again, it brings one back to the times where one nostalgically recalls: I used to hate this song!

It may have been these circumstances, before the age of on-demand access, that exposed one to different kinds of music, which in turn made it more likely to encounter music one would grow to like. Spending summers in Germany in the 1980s, I recall that I had only access to three TV stations, with programming not particularly geared to the youth. But gradually the station and program offerings increased, with satellite TV bringing MTV Europe, MTV Germany, VH1, and my beloved, now defunct VIVA. Listening to VIVA, I would sit in anticipation hoping for a great music video, and to learn about a great artist or group so that I might seek a record store to buy a CD, or better yet, to borrow it from a friend, only to be disappointed by the rest of the album filler songs. It was frustrating encountering a great song after buying the album and finding the rest of the album filler songs, or not being able to learn a song’s title or artist. One could try one’s luck by trying to imitate the song to the record store clerk, if one can make out and remember tunes and some words (generally the most often repeated words of the song). Now, if one can make out and remember some of the words from the lyrics, a web-search can often yield some promising results; I have found instantly songs I have been desperately trying to identify for years. Not only has identifying the songs become painless, but once identified one can replay the song or the music video until one gets sick of it! But before this occurs the algorithm will make some recommendations where one can find material of similar taste.

This may explain the theme of Happy Nostalgia: Making Connections with the Music of the ‘90s. There is no need to engage with current music when one can easily access music from different eras via the Internet. This may be a setback to current music, considering that it has to compete with music from different eras more so than ever. Rather than taking the risk to engage with current music, the music of the past, particularly the ‘90s, may be more rewarding in many instances. On the one hand, it may be because of memories associated with one’s youth and better times -- the phenomenon called “rosy retrospection.”^[5] On the other hand, it may be because the music of the ‘90s may in fact be superior to contemporary music. Relative to contemporary music, the ‘90s may have been more characterized by originality, authenticity, and less commercialization or selling out. In terms of contemporary music, there does not seem to be any particularly new genre or style -- much appears to be an imitation of the past, copies of copies, and much recycling. While imitation may have always have been a part of art, as in mimesis (c.f. Aristotle), postmodern theorists have argued that we live in an era of simulacra with imitations of imitations.^[6]

Music critic Jonas Čeika has argued that a way of playing it safe for artists and industry is based on what has worked in the past, with much to borrow from.^[7] But if there is no need to come up with something oneself, and with so much already done, what is there new to create?

The memories of a past that never was

Happy nostalgia does not merely apply to the songs that one has known. It also applies to songs from the nostalgic past that one has not known. Thanks to the algorithm based on one’s profile and past searches and views, one no longer has to look for music; music will find one. Algorithms have become increasingly refined and now seem to know one better than oneself. Some of the recommendations will provide one with something new and old: Old in the sense that it may be music from decades ago, new in the sense that one has not encountered it before. A song that may have fallen through the cracks because one happened to be somewhere else at the time (e.g. in the U.S.), or the song happened somewhere else (e.g. behind the Iron Curtain). But now one may catch up with the music one missed out on through the algorithm.

Among contemporary music one may encounter a phenomenon of old and new: New in the sense that it is technically a new song, but old in the sense of sounding familiar, with a sense of inauthenticity and lack of imagination when it is merely an imitation. Although I must say that some of the music that I liked in the ‘90s sounded much better at the time. This is not to say that all ‘90s music has not aged well.

Changes in the physical environment and materiality of music

Having grown up in Tokyo, Japan, I recall browsing through many record stores in the commercial district of Shibuya. There was Tower Records and HMV, but they were not where I obtained music. There were several branches of a store called Recofan with a huge selection of used CDs. Unlike the US, these stores carried a much wider selection of music from various countries. When there was an oversupply of a high demand CDs from years prior, one could obtain them very cheaply. There were also CD rentals stores (e.g. a store called You & I) throughout the city, where one could rent CDs after a restriction period of the commercial release. While some of the record stores and second hand record stores still stand, they have become considerably less in numbers, and rental CD stores have more or less disappeared. There have been changes in the physical environment where smaller stores got displaced by big stores, and big stores displaced by online stores, that do not have a visible presence in the cityscape.

I also recall going to music instrument stores, marveling at different instruments and recording technologies that would, in theory, allow me to make my own music. One of the positives of being exposed to low quality music is that encourages one to make one’s own music: “I can make low quality music, too.” I had some general ideas of what I wanted to do or hear, but putting them into practice was another thing.

There were three problems: 1) lack of budget for all the necessary technologies; 2) lack of necessary space; and most crucially, 3) lack of the necessary knowledge and skills -- how to set things up and how to use them.

Now all of these problems have been more or less solved via the laptop: It makes the process so much easier and allows for much better quality. Not only can one easily produce a song, one can easily produce a music video. It is interesting to note that we can do more with fewer things.^[8] These are reflected in the changes in the physical environment, in one’s living space where devices have become fewer and smaller -- no more stereo tapes or CD racks that reveal one’s taste and material commitment to certain music. An ordinary laptop now has embedded features that allow for music and music video making, something that a few decades ago would have involved multiple devices, considerable technical know-how, and several people. (Music instruments, sound recording and editing devices, video cameras, and video-editing devices are all features that are embedded in a laptop).

One can choose from a variety of instruments that one can play on one’s laptop keys (that map onto a keyboard of a piano). One can add multiple tacks and can almost sound like a full orchestra. Should one not be in full command of one’s fingers or change one’s mind, one can easily manipulate the notes to the degree that the computer is able produce sounds that one may have been only able to do so in theory. Now a single person on a single device with relatively little skill can create a music video. The applications features are user-friendly with their default settings and intuitive layout of the various functions.

This phenomenon has inspired a self-made music video, and the title of this article: ‘Here in my garage with a laptop.’ As the title states, the music video more or less was created in its entirety in my garage with a laptop, including the footage. The song celebrates the technologies of the 2010’s, when apps such as GarageBand and iMovie became free and standard on Apple devices.^[9] The very fact of the appreciation of these technologies may be telling. I have lived through an era that did not have these now standard and taken for granted user-friendly and easily synchronized features.

The music and the video, though created by different applications, can be easily synchronized, as the default setting for GarageBand is 120bpm and a 4/4 measure, which translates into 2 seconds per measure; the default setting for iMovie is 4 seconds per cut, thus mapping on very nicely with two measures per cut, which can be easily adjusted as needed.

With the ubiquitous smartphone, one has a camera onhand. It is small and light, with ample battery life and storage space, which allows one to easily and spontaneously capture brief encounters and fleeting moments of everyday experiences via video that otherwise quickly would slip into oblivion, which one can eternalize in a music video that may live on YouTube.

Changes in time: 8-second snippets

The demise of radio and TV stations broadcasting music coincides with the rise of on-demand access to music. That demise influenced they way people listen to music and thereby influenced music itself. One would be spared from music that one did not like, but one may miss out on music that they might like. Speaking of shrinking attention spans brought to us by the TV remote and satellite and cable television, where programs had to compete with each other by holding the viewers attention with fast-paced editing lest they quickly switch to the so many other choices, the age of social media has brought things to a different level. Nowadays, there are ways in which one can keep up with the latest charts -- not a tedious one-hour program that may go through select top 20 hits filled with boy bands and girl groups, but snippets of top the 100 hits condensed into 10 minutes. With the 100 hits in 10 minutes format, one must make up one mind within a few seconds whether or not to take a closer look or listen by a quick internet search that would lead to the full music video.

It is worth noting that music is strongly tied to visual components, and that its popularity may at least in part hinge on the visual, hence the obligatory music video that at times may exceed the efforts put into the song itself. Music videos rely on associative learning: Even a boring song can be made exciting when paired with some exciting visuals. The fate of a song may be decided on a few seconds, whether it will spark some interest or not, but as it has been shown in the Cola test, a sip is not necessarily the best judgment criteria (sippers have shown preferential ratings for Pepsi and New Coke, but when it comes to drinking an entire can the winner remained Traditional Coke). Thus, one may prefer a short snippet of a song over another only to be disappointed when it comes to the whole song. At that point judgment has already passed. One passes over the better song based on a short sampling and premature judgment.

On the other hand, many songs seem to be based on a loop of a four measure, cord sequence, which on a default 120 beat per minute, 4/4 measure comes down to eight seconds. This allows for the 100 hits in ten minute format, or about 6 seconds per song. Six seconds may suffice to get a sense of the song and whether it is worth hearing or not.

Of course, six seconds may not be enough for songs that have a more complex structure or lyrics that tell a story, but there may not be that many to begin with, let alone in a top-100 chart.

More to the point, it is quite possible to entertain oneself with a four-measure, four-chord loop with variations. This can be as satisfying, if not more satisfying, than working oneself through a top-100 chart. One has control over the content and modifications, and can add variations to the notes, rhythm, and sounds as one sees fit. There is plenty to expand upon a seemingly simple four-measure loop with sounds that are easily copied and pasted.

Conclusions

One likes to believe that one is creative. Composing original music, I am inevitably drawing on sounds that I have been exposed to. A friend of mine commented on the “Here in my garage with my laptop” music video by saying that it sounded ’80s-ish. This comment made me reconsider how my music has components of different genres, ranging from metal, techno, and reggae, and how I sample different sounds inspired by my everyday experiences and environments, such as a cat’s meow and traffic lights.

Bibliography

Čeika, Jonas. “Hauntology, Lost Futures and 80s Nostalgia.” Youtube video 11:10. July
1, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSvUqhZcbVg
Čeika, Jonas. “The Late Capitalism of K-Pop,” YouTube video 17:33. November 10,
2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8LxORztUWY.
Fricker, Karen, and Milija Gluhovic. “Introduction: Eurovision and the ‘New’ Europe.” In Performing the ‘New’ Europe: Identities, Feelings, and Politics in the Eurovision Song Contest. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2013. 1-28. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137367983_1
Imamichi, Tomoaki D. “Creativity in Crisis: A Journey into YouTube.” Human Arenas 4, no. 3 (2021): 379-390. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42087-021-00199-x
Jameson, Frederic. Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke University Press, 1992.
Klosterman, Chuck. The Nineties: A Book. New York: Penguin Press, 2022.
Monroe, Alexei. “Sender Deutschland -- The Development and Reception of Techno in Germany.” In German Pop Music: A Companion. Edited by Uwe Schütte. Berlin,
Boston: De Gruyter, 2017. 171-188.
Myers, David. Exploring Social Psychology. McGraw Hill, 2014.
Piotrowska, Anna G. “The Eurovision Song Contest -- A Continent (Still) Divided?” Journal of Historical Sociology 33, no. 3 (2020): 371-388. Accessed April 1, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1111/johs.12285.
Telekom Electronic Beats TV. “WE CALL IT TECHNO! A documentary about Germany’s early Techno scene and culture.” YouTube video 1:41:58. December
19, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWPFrWojYQ4
Trentmann, Frank. Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth-century to the Twenty-first. London: Allen Lane, 2016.
We Call It Techno. Directed by Marin Sextro and Holger Wick (2008, Sense Music and Media). Accessed September 28, 2024. https://vimeo.com/247467951.
Welch, Chris. “Apple’s GarageBand, iMovie, and iWork Apps Are Now Completely Free.” The Verge, Vox Media, April 18, 2017. https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/18/15344834/apple-free-apps-garageband- imovie-pages-keynote-numbers

Notes

Tomoaki D. Imamichi, “Creativity in Crisis: A Journey into YouTube,” Human Arenas 4, no. 3 (2021).
↑
Chuck Klosterman, The Nineties: A Book (New York: Penguin Press, 2022).
↑
We Call It Techno, directed by Marin Sextro and Holger Wick (2008, Sense Music and Media). Accessed September 28, 2024. https://vimeo.com/247467951; Alexei Monroe, “Sender Deutschland -- The Development and Reception of Techno inGermany.” In German Pop Music: A Companion, edited by Uwe Schütte (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2017), 171-88.
↑
Karen Fricker and Milija Gluhovic, “Introduction: Eurovision and the ‘New’ Europe.” In Performing the ‘New’ Europe: Identities, Feelings, and Politics in the Eurovision Song Contest, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 1-29.
↑
David Meyers, Exploring Social Psychology (McGraw Hill, 2014).
↑
Frederic Jameson, Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Durham: Duke University Press, 1992).
↑
Jonas Čeika, “The Late Capitalism of K-Pop,” YouTube video 17:33. November 10, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8LxORztUWY.
↑
Frank Trentmann, Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth-Century to the Twenty-first (London: Allen Lane, 2016).
↑
Chris Welch, “Apple’s GarageBand, iMovie, and iWork Apps Are Now Completely Free.” The Verge, Vox Media. April 18, 2017, https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/18/15344834/apple-free-apps-garageband-imovie-pages-keynote-numbers.
↑

Sonic Auto-Ethnographies