Photography by Me…

Well my friends, the time has come. The break the rules and have some fun. It’s been a nutty 4+ someodd years over here at tsururadio, we’ve gone through a lot of changes, did everything from mixtapes to vinyl rips, contests to out and out giveaways, we always tried to have fun and keep ourselves in check that we are just music bloggerin’, like 4 kabillion other kids out there on the wide world interconnected super highway of love canals.

But as the wise Canadian Nelly Furtado once sang, all good things come to an end.  But, as some other wise human probably said, for every door that closes another opens unless it’s the door to a serial killers basement in which you are probably fucked.

(Ir)regardless… every now and then I find its important to step back and take stock at what the fuck you are doing, then ask yourself, what needs to be cut, what needs to go, and what wants my time & energy.  I’ve been a photographer for the past 20ish years. Sometimes a hobbyist, other times an enthusiast, but always a passionist.  And for the past 6 months or so, I knew it was coming, I could feel it deep down in the cockles of my balls, that it was time to leave this crazy little thing called music bloggerin’ behind.

Yep.

We’re done.

Why?

A thousand reasons.  It could be all the white noise of music bloggerin’.  There are so many out there all blogging the same shit, you certainly don’t need this odd ball doing it too, eh? Twitter definitely didn’t help.  I love twitter, I really do, but when some crappy ass PR email hits your inbox and suddenly a thousand copy/paste tweeted blog posts hit the stream, well, let’s just say my desire to listen to it kind goes down the shitter with my morning poo.  But then again, I don’t do the PR thing. I don’t do the festival thing. I don’t get starry-eyed over the latest hyped band and what is at once my niche is also my downfall. I love music with all my heart, it’s been so critical to so much of what I am, what I do, what I think, but as much fun as I had sharing so many finds over the years, writing about music is just not my passion.

No… at the end of the day, it was my ego that a) kept it going and b) makes me want to shut it down.  You see, many of us bloggerin’ fools would probably call it day right now, it gets pretty chore-like at times, but the one thing that keeps you from pulling the plug and going to, say, write for a friend’s blog or whatever is the ego.  This is MY blog.  I’m famous in my teeny tiny slice of the internet for it.  Yeah, not easy to let that go.  But, here’s the thing for me that seeded in my brain last year.  I blog about music, but it’s not my music, these aren’t my creations.  The words are, sure, and to a smaller degree the mixtapes are a bit, but when my heart lies in takin’ pictures and making my zines (Issue #8 is over to the right & we just released our MICRO), things that are my creations, the little marks I’m leaving on this silly little globe (see, my ego again), the whole music bloggerin’ thing seemed silly for me.

There are people out there who have a genuine passion for writing about music and they are wonderful, even when they drive me bat shit, but as much as I thought I would become that, it just isn’t me.

Shhh… don’t cry because I’ve got good news.  Though tsururadio is dead, tsurufoto still lives!!!

Sure, it’s littered with all my nudie photography, but going forward, it will also be the site for all my mixtapes as well as the usual songs and viddies that inspire me in my little day-to-day.  WOOOT!  You can subscribe here:

And you know what? Maybe you aren’t all about nekkid people & nudiezines? That’s cool (weird, but cool). You can still find me tweeting & facebooking & google+ing all kinds of things musical! AND, of course, there’s still our super secret society of music geeks & freaks (shhh… it’s a secret).  So, you see? You aren’t losing a blog, you are gaining a more focused and happy Tsuru and that’s a good thing.

BUT.

It wouldn’t be very tsururific to drop a load of big news on ya without an accompanying mixtape, now would it?  Of course not.  Especially since we are the reigning king of the mixtape battles — Not once, not twice, but THRICE bitches!!! What was going to be just our “July Mixtape” became our final mixtape for the site… almost bitter sweet, eh? But, to get the full effect, I recommend just pushing play on the big fat fatty link right below of the full mixtape all mixed up with a few special secret gems and what not.  But, if you are just here for mp3s, you probably aren’t reading this and are already downloading the individual mp3s. It’s cool.

Alright. That’s it!  Last thing I want to say is thank you. Thank you to all the wonderful people I’ve met (online and in real life) and all of you who have left sweet comments here and there via the infinite number of methods the intertubes have given us.  Without you guys, this would’ve been dead ages ago.   I love you guys!  You are all amazing….  I’ll see you at the avenue for hanging out of your choice!

Enough mushy pants! Let’s get on with the music, shall we, as…………………………………

tsururadio proudly presents… I am the passenger

PSST…. CLICK PLAY FOR THE FULL MIXTAPE, IT CONTAINS SECRET BONUS SHIT!

01 Neutral Milk Hotel – Song Against Sex (Vinyl)
02 Portugal. The Man – So American
03 Traveling Wilburys – Tweeter And The Monkey Man
04 Mother Mother – Chasing It Down
05 Mister Heavenly – Your Girl
06 Pulp – Help the Aged
07 Smith Westerns – Smile
08 David Lowery – Marigold
09 Queen – You’re My Best Friends
10 Death Cab For Cutie – You Are a Tourist
11 Okkervil River – It Ends With A Fall (Vinyl)
12 The Format – Inches And Falling
13 Ezra Furman & The Harpoons – Teenage Wasteland
14 Nick Diamonds – Gone Bananas
15 Beirut – Santa Fe
16 Trips and Falls – This is All Going to End Badly
17 The Killers – All These Things I’ve Done
18 They Might Be Giants – Destination Moon
19 The Decemberists – The Perfect Crime #1
20 R.E.M – The Passenger

- Zip of individual tracks -

That’s it! Thank you everyone, it’s been fun! I’ll see you over at tsurufoto. Until then, go ride your bikes, go take lots of pictures (of your boobies) and we’ll see you all before long…

Cheers,
Aaron aka Tsuru
Follow @tsururadio