When I was at work today Green Day's "Time of You Life (Good Riddance)" came on the radio. Other than being one of the most overused graduation themes in recent memory, it made me think back to when I was in grade school.

In the 5 or 6th grade, one of our assignments was to write a fan letter to a person/band we admired/enjoyed. At the time Green Day's Dookie album was all over the charts and was one of those things everyone listened to. A classmate and I decided to write to Green Day (my other friend wrote to The Offspring because he was totally into their Smash album.)

A few years, grades and another Green Day album, Insominac, later we completely forgot about sending those letters. In the 8th grade we received something back out of the blue, stickers for the band's fourth album, Nimrod.

Granted, it wasn't a written response - and we really weren't expecting such considering the fact the members of any band are busy individuals - but we were both stunned we got anykind of response considering all the time that elapsed.

Anyway, I bring this up as I was wondering if anyone here has ever written a fan letter. With technology, e-mail, message/bulletin boards on sites has such an idea died outside of sports fans looking for autographs? In a certain sense, if I were famous person I'd think more of someone that took the time to write and mail a letter than e-mail me - it's a little more personal and time consuming than shooting an e-mail.

Also, I'm curious - has anyone ever sent a fan letter to a composer before?

Uh, sorry. That should be "The Fan Letter? An idea lost to time and technology?"

I've hit a new low, I'm correcting my own grammar

I wrote Yu Miyake a message over MySpace once, but he never responded. I'm satisfied simply knowing that he now knows how his music has affected someone all the way across the world. Assuming he can read English, that is. I tried e-mailing Hiroshi Okubo once but the e-mail address I had for him bounced back. I might send Satoru Kousaki some flowers someday, though.

I haven't wrote (er, written?) any other letters to composers, or other celebrities for that matter, but I did receive two letters from composers regarding a couple of reviews that I wrote for Chudah's Corner. Steve Kirk contacted me and thanked me for my write-up of his Voodoo Vince OST (I gave it an A-), and asked for my permission to edit it and use it for a future press kit. I agreed, but I haven't seen the press kit, so I don't know if he ever did anything with it. Stuart Chatwood e-mailed me about my review of Prince of Persia SoT OST (B+), and then commented on my main gripe with the CD - the crappy presentation, especially concerning the last songs. He said that he had no say in that department since he wasn't involved in the arrangement of the disc and felt the same way I did about the final product. Getting those notes were very cool.

I once wrote a fan letter to Tori Amos. I was in 6th grade. I got a response from some publicity manager ... he was surprised that such a young person enjoyed Tori's more "mature" music.

I also wrote a letter to an author once  ... but he's not really famous, he just wrote some books. Eventually we became personal friends.

Those are my only two fan letters.

Ramza

I once wrote an email to Hiroki Kikuta and he responsed personally in broken English.  I think this was during his Sacnoth days.

About 3 years ago I wrote a letter to the lead singer/song-write of Liars Inc.  They were (in my mind) the last good thing to come from the 90's alt-rock scene.  Never heard back, although I'm still waiting.  My aunt used to date the manager of his record label.  *crosses fingers*

Oh yes, I did the same with Noriyuki Iwadare. His English was pretty good, though. That was around 2001 or 2002?

Ramza

So, that's framed and hung up in your music room, right?  RIGHT!?!

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