Cat Delicious

Electro / Indie / Pop

Bellingham, WA

Billboard

In 1987, the Sony Corporation commenced development on what was to be the greatest breakthrough in commercial music technology since the invention of the gramophone. Literally translated from the Japanese as "Cat Delicious," the product's ultimate purpose was to create a stereo capable of producing its own music, requiring only the subconscious brain activity of its end-users both to power the system and to contribute the musical aesthetic. "Dreams + Music = Profit" was Sony's guiding equation. It was affirmed during the morning exercises, written on every inspirational poster, and served as the postscript for each piece of internal correspondence in the department.

Hoping to capitalize on America's growing market of economically independent children, the so-called "dreambox" creators out-sourced the research and development aspect of the project to Boy Scout Troop 342, based in Bellingham, WA. As Sony's in-house development team fine-tuned Cat Delicious and its various components, dispatches from the Troop 342 arrived bi-monthly in manila envelops. Over the course of a decade, Sony received a warehouse worth of the troop's daydreams, summer catnaps and sugar-addled nightly respites.

With an abundance of American subconscious material and the technological know-how of Japan's most skilled engineers, Cat Delicious was set to both create and conquer the dream-powered novelty stereo niche. Only one thing halted its imminent success. Of the 1,300,000 units Sony hastened to manufacture, not one worked. The project was a dismal failure. The Sony Corporation went bankrupt, recouping its losses only after signing an agreement to develop a line of stereos capable of playing the then-unknown compact disc music format. One of the Cat Delicious units was kept in the office of Sony's president as a reminder of the ultimate consequence of attempted innovation. The other 1,299,999 units were delivered to Troop 342's doorstep the following Spring.

The arrival of the Cat Delicious units was met by the scouts with excitement first, then confusion, and finally tearful frustration. The boys, each yearning for the musical stardom they witnessed on MTV, dreamed nightly of becoming the next Billy Ocean or Rick Astley. When the morning brought only disappointing white noise from their Cat Delicious units, the boys abandoned their dreamboxes. They grew up spiteful and bitter, and soaked their once so visceral hopes of stardom in many hundreds of bottles of beer until their dreams became as washed and faded as their Bugle Boy jeans.

Only two scouts proved impervious to the lures of fame and fortune all others saw in Cat Delicious. As the rest of the troop busily bulldozed the mountain of Cat Delicious units into Semiahmoo Bay, Ryan Paul and Luke Stanage cradled their Cat Deliciouses and warmly assured the units of their indestructible fidelity. Over the years, the boys played constantly with their units, taking them to the park, pushing them on the swings, exploring condemned property with them, all the while expressing the deep well a love that so often blossoms between a boy and a quality Japanese product.

And Cat Delicious loved them back. Every morning for nearly two decades, the boys have woken to a rainbow of sound and music, as pure as the dreams of uncorrupted youth. Recently, word has reached Sony that two of the Cat Delicious units are functional. Sony was quick to contact the boys, pleading with them to reveal the secret behind their operational units. The reply Sony received was at once an illuminating revelation and an utter blow to their rekindled hopes of releasing the product. Written on a seagull's feather and sealed in a manila envelope it read:

DREAMS + LOVE = CAT DELICIOUS