Musical mystery.

Way back when, when I first lived up in Hayward, I had my own radio show.

Yeah. We'll just let that sink in for a little bit.

Bet you probably wanna do me now, huh? I know. I get it. I would, too, if I were you and you were me.

Anyway! One of the perks of working at a public radio station was that we often got indie records and demos from local and independent artists. Some of these were great and went into "I know this great new band that you've never heard of so now I'm going to play it on my show and BLOW YER MIND!" DJ rotation. Others went into the "Hey. Someone take this home so we don't have to throw it away and feel bad about ourselves" bin.

One of the CDs that I plucked from the latter bin happened to be a CD by this kid named Jason Bowers. It was DJ/techno/house-esque, which normally isn't my style, but you could tell that he had obviously spent a lot of time working on the CD and sunk some money into it, so I decided it at least deserved a spin on the way home.

It was AWFUL. Horrible, horrible vocals. The music itself...fine. The lyrics were kind of cheesy (okay, a lot) but the vocals. Oof. So bad that I felt sorry for the kid.

There was this one song, though...

See, Kylie Minogue was big at the time, and this song sounded like it was tailor-made for her. And the more I listened to it and tried to imagine Kylie singing it, the more I liked it.

So I kept that track around.

Flash-forward to about ten+ years later.

I'm checking out David Guetta's new CD, and I start listening to "Just One Last Time", featuring Taped Rai.

And I listen to it again, and I'm like...holy shit. That sounds like that kid who sang that "Diamonds In Your Eyes" song.

And the more I listen to the two tracks back-to-back, the more I start to be convinced that Taped Rai is Jason Bowers...albeit fresh off some serious vocal lessons.

So I do a Google search. Nothing - I can't find any modern info for Jason Bowers.

But I also can't find any info on who this Taped Rai person is either.

And so I still kind of think they're the same person. 

Listen to Diamonds In Your Eyes and then listen to the David Guetta track. Do that not sound similar to Jason Bowers? When he hits the high notes?



DID I JUST UNCOVER A SECRET MUSICAL IDENTITY? Did I just solve a musical mystery by holding on to this weird obscure track for ten+ years? 

I think I did, kids.

I think I did. 

And even if I didn't, you still had to listen to "Diamonds In Your Eyes" and feel what I felt when I heard it for the first time, so I still won something out of it.