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The Fantastic Plastic Machine – The Guy

June 08, 2007 | 1 Minute Read

fantastic-plastic-machine.jpg

While I was waiting for the plane to board in the Oakland airport a few days ago, I was messing around with my Macbook. I tried getting an internet connection, but the stupid airport (the actual airport I was in, not the wireless card on my Macbook) wanted me to pay for it. Oh, they let me check out the Oakland Airport website, though. But that’s not interesting.

Anyway, I opened iTunes and started listening to a podcast I had saved. Some business podcast that had a guy talking about Google. He was supposed to have an insider’s scoop, but what he gave was a super high-level description of things that I already pretty much understood before.

Then I noticed that there was something in the “shared music” section. I guess the airport still allowed me to get on some kind of local area network. So I was listening to this dude’s shared music (something like, Hernando Fernandez or something, I forgot his name). A lot of it was R&B or random electronica. One of the artists that caught my ear was named The Fantastic Plastic Machine.

I listened to a few songs before I had to start boarding. I wrote down the name of the artist for future reference though. Funny: apparently FPM is a Japanese j-pop-ish artist. So when I listen to music blindly, I choose J-Pop. It’s a bit different, though.

Some now defunct company published some FPM stuff a while back. I wonder if it’d be legit to download some of the music? Otherwise I’d have to buy some out of print CDs or import… Anyway, I thought it was pretty neat to be able to discover a new artist through the kindness of a random Oakland Airport guy. Thanks!