Mister Lee is my Sensei
A long, long time ago, when I was a little boy, I got my first radio. It was an old white clock radio with big red LED digits. Sturdy rubber buttons controlled the clock and tuned the receiver. With the late seventies - early eighties design it was a perfect decorative piece to any geek’s hangout. It’s one of those things Star Trek’s Scotty would have used his famous saying for, “They don’t make ‘em like they used to”. My father gave it to me after it had served him for years before he got married. The thing had lost it’s whiteness but functioned perfectly, and still continues to do so.
Every young kid wants to stay up late, especially when their parents tell them not to. So I refused to go asleep. I used to turn on the radio and listen to it in secrecy. After a few months of switching between stations, I discovered a hidden station I had never heard before. I had to position the antenna wire in a very awkward position to remove most of the static out of the signal. It was a station I only seemed to be able to receive at night somehow, during the day the radio would only play static.
The guy presented himself as Mister Lee. His show was called “Mister Lee’s Crazy Washing Machine”. It could just as well be something else, because the guy talked English with a very heavy Chinese accent and I was six years old. It does make sense in a way, because most of the launderettes are run by Chinese people. Anyway, it was a radio show completely filled with him talking about stuff (and me guessing what the fuck he was talking about) and the most brutal metal I had ever heard. Actually, before Mister Lee came around I didn’t even know about the genre.
I think my taste for the right kind of music and my affinity with the English language at a young age are largely contributed by Mister Lee. As of now I will honor his doings by giving him the Sensei title. Now, here are some offerings to our new Sensei.
Progressive, but so good. Katatonia’s July is one of the best progressive songs out there and can line up next to Opeth’s Face of Melinda.
Kataklysm is to make up for the progressive. This song, Crippled and Broken, clearly shows their quality. Need I say more?
Classic. Like Death. Like it. Listen to it!
