I just listened to “Patto”, the album pictured here, and I have to say, never have I better understood the smile of one of the people I’ve photographed with their recent record-shop score. This album just melted my face right off my head. Dare I say that I probably looked a lot like the illustrated face on the cover here, while listening to the whole album as amazing guitar heavy guitar, wild changing chord progressions, and some outer-space avant-guarde free jazz interludes washed over me. What an absolutely killer album! Where has this been my whole life? Jeez, I’m a little speechless…
And that’s not a bad thing for this particular post about my photo-homie and record-homie Yusya, who’s kindly participated in a couple of my photo volunteer efforts and now Tokyo Record Style Day, because when I asked him in a chat to share a nugget or two about himself so I could write a short blip about him, he replied with a perfectly written essay about himself. Rather than parse it apart into my own word, I think I’ll let him do the heavy lifting on this one.
So I owe you one Yusya, well a couple, I guess. And especially for turning me on to that face-melting Patto album. Thanks for joining all the projects, for writing this up, and for introducing yourself, and for getting the memo about showing up style-y with your “Sup Bro” (Sup Pop) sweater and your cool Yellow “Onban Domei” 音盤同盟 Disk Union bag! Props. Looking forward to our next hang and more Yusya record rec’s!
“Hey Brian! My friends call me Yusya, born in Indonesia and raised in Illinois. I was with the Indonesian group at the Photohope and Photohohoho events. It was there I met Tetsuo aka Bemsha and we talked about life in the States as expats, but more importantly, it was also at that event that I learned we had the same love for Ahmad Jamal, the jazz pianist, and both love music and collected records. At that point in time, I was still an employee at the Ochanomizu Disk Union and he mentioned going there just the day before (we missed each other by a day, what a coincidence!) Since then, our conversations were not far from vintage cameras and record-hoarding. LOL! I’m in my late 20s now, and although circumstances led me to Japan to hopefully make a band and be a musician… I ended up as an engineer. LOL”
“I believe my parents got me into music. We use to live in rural Illinois and my access to any “quality” music was whatever they were listening to on the long drive to the nearest grocery store. We only had a couple of cassettes in the car and they played the hell out of them them. So as an elementary school kid, I was listening to a lot of Mob Marley, Billy Joel, B.B. King, Deep Purple, Phil Collins, etc., thanks to them.”
“When I did start collecting, I don’t remember why but I was drawn into vinyl. I was playing/listening to a lot of ska (the original ska that was closer to mento (editor’s note: I have no idea what “mento” is… time to educate myself yet again) and not the two-tone reincarnation), rocksteady and roots reggae. I remember being fascinated with the Jamaican vinyl record scene of the 60s and 70s and wanted to learn more about riddims and versions and dubs, so naturally, I started collecting from there. As my reggae collection grew larger I started to collect other genres as well, for example, the LPs of the cassettes I used to hear as a kid. Now collecting records for me is like a curse (*editor’s next note: “We all relate.”), it doesn’t matter if I’m on a vacation or a business trip, no matter how remote the place, if I found a record store and see a record I like, I buy it then and there. I always have this thought “What if it’s not there the next time I come?””
“I think it’s the sense of ownership and ‘owning that piece of music’ the reason I collect vinyl. It’s hard to explain, but there is a joy when a song is being played through the speakers or a live performance, I could say “Oh hey, I have that!”…I mean come on, you can’t get that with streaming right? It’s no different than like shooting with film: time-consuming, inconvenient, just downright expensive, and tbh the end product is really not that great, but I sure still do it anyways. LOL!”
Patto – Patto
Label: Vertigo – 6360 016
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: UK
Released: 1970
Genre: Rock
Style: Prog Rock, Hard Rock
https://www.discogs.com/release/1231914-Patto-Patto
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