A collective blog which is also a bar, or several bars,
where good pop songs inspire inebriated and often bilingual conversations
"Great rock writing has moved to where the music is moving. Somewhere out there" -Paul Morley
As a major Beatle fan, it is hard to choose one, only one, favorite song. Since they're my absolute favorite band, this could also be considered my all time favorite song. A melancholic title for a not so melancholic tune. "If the rain falls, they run and hide their heads", if you've never heard it and you read that line, perhaps you'll think it is a serious song, however I couldn't consider the Beatles a serious group. Yes, they caused a revolution and all that, in that sense they are serious. But have you seen how much fun they always had? Even in Let It Be, with all the tensions within the band, they had a blast. The final lyrical lines in "Rain" are sung backwards because John couldn't place the tape correctly, I mean, is that having fun or what? I could say that this is an ethereal song for me. I've never really owned it, in a physical sense. It is a b-side ("Paperback Writer" being on the a-side), the only way to get it nowadays is in Past MastersVol.2, which I have never bought for some strange reason. I have never downloaded it, I have never downloaded anything by the Beatles, actually. I used to have a copy of the album in cassette, but I played it so many times it spoiled. Everytime I played it I pumped up the volume to the max and imagined I was Ringo beating the shit out of the drums (he actually considers this one as his best performance). Outdoors, oddly enough, the sky was falling down. Indoors, Grandmother used to tell me: "That song again? Play some other things". Maybe, this is the song I'd like to be played at my funeral. Click here to see the original promotional video.
He was in a ship. Out the window the sea was emerald green. The ship became a submarine and he thought he could not open the window because all the water and fish of the sea would get in. The submarine/ship swayed as if dancing a waltz. He could not move, but he could listen to music, and knew that some people, above, were having a party. Maybe a New Year's Eve party. The men would be dressed in black suits and the ladies in long silk dresses and high heels. They were dancing to a song he could recognize. He imagined the gentlemen and the ladies dancing close to each other, holding hands. The Now-Ship/Now-Submarine kept dancing away to the beat. The water through the white blinds of his window was now a shade of grey. He could not move as the party went on and the music progressed. He wanted to go to the party upstairs, but he could not move and could not breath and he was thirsty and he felt that if he opened the window all the creatures of the sea would come in and kill them all. Then he woke up and realized it all had been a dream, his room was not a cabin and his building was not a ship nor a submarine, outside his window there was no sea but only the stark darkness of the night. The Ballad of Sister Sue was still playing on the computer, until the sound died in a subtle fade out.
Creating a mixtape is such an art. Who am I going to give this one to? What do I want to provoke on him/her? A mixtape can save a life. ["Your tape, it saved my life"]. A couple of days I saw someone to whom I gave a mixtape a couple of years ago. She told me: "I never thanked you for that tape you gave me". She also said that in spite it had been four years since I gave it to her, she still listened to it whenever she felt life didn't make any sense. I hadn't seen her in three years, so I was amazed to learn that. I had already forgotten that I'd given her a mixtape. I do that kind of things only to very, very close people to me. Dear friends, mostly. Maybe this season I'll do some. Maybe not.
It's that time of the year again. One starts recollecting and thinking about what went wrong and what went well. Of the reasons why things happened. One counts his blessings, yes, but one also counts his failures, his weaknesses, his mistakes.
One would like to be a child again (or, at least, 15, when I first listened to this song), inflate a balloon, tie this song to it and let it go toward the sky.
I've been very lucky and I have had what I wanted many times. I have also lost it. Just as one learns that one should be careful what one asks for, one should also learn how to let things -and people- go. The process hurts.
And still, one thinks, it is Christmas, and one would like to make a wish...
Si, hay canciones que nunca olvidaremos. Que invocarán momentos, que los traerán al presente como una epifanía. Hay cosas tan simples en la vida, como una canción así, cargada de una ingenuidad tan dolorosa como la naturaleza irrecuperable de la infancia.
Hay canciones que hacen cosas. No son sólo decoración o acompañamiento. Tampoco se limitan a provocar un movimiento del cuerpo o a contar una historia. No sólo nos hacen cantar. Quiero decir que hay canciones que hacen cosas, las mueven de lugar, reorganizan el universo que tocan cada vez que alguien pone "play".
Hay canciones que uno dedicará eternamente. Canciones para serenata, pues, que nadie quizá toque en ninguna serenata, pero que son eso, himnos, peticiones, plegarias, oraciones, rituales, ofrendas, poemas para las mujeres amadas. Porque hay canciones que uno hace propias, y que aunque hablen de otra cosa -quizá- cada vez que las escuchamos las dedicamos, las hacemos decir, nos recordamos y nos construimos, nos demolemos y nos recuperamos. Canciones que dedicamos cada vez que las escuchamos porque nos recuerdan quienes somos y quienes fuimos, porque dicen, sin que digan, eso que somos o queremos ser.
Con dedicatoria y todo, pues, esta serenata. Shingao.
Hay una tristeza especial a la hora de cerrar un bar: sólo los fieles, los desesperados, los abandonados, los perdidos y los valientes quedan.
Elegir la última pieza antes de apagar todo es siempre un arte: todo dependerá de quién queda, qué paso esa noche, cómo está el clima allá afuera.
Me pregunto si ustedes, queridos habitués de estos bares, se han preguntado tantas veces como yo qué canción desearían escuchar antes de apagar las luces de su vida, antes de escuchar las últimas campanadas de las últimas last orders de su tiempo en esta tierra.
Si dependiera de ustedes, ¿qué canción escucharían, de qué duración, con qué beat elegirían parar su corazón?
Me pregunto, también, si alguna vez se han puesto a pensar quién creen que habitaría su mente al momento preciso de su último latido.
Hay una tristeza muy particular a la hora de apagar las luces, ¿no?
Ayer iba a subir lo que ahora ven pero la unam se quedó sin luz y las computadoras enmudecieron. Ya no recuerdo lo que iba a decir ayer, y eso es un problema porque tengo la impresión de que lo que iba a escribir tenía que ver con la música y con el concierto de hace ocho días. La verdad, ya no importa. Estoy escuchando "Into the Sea" mientras escribo y me gusta lo que oigo tanto como hace ocho días me gustó, es más, lamento no tener un poco de tequila y estarlo bebieno. Quizá al rato lo haga.
La imagen que ven es una fotografía que salió cuando en google escribí "the album leaf" y es una hoja de un albúm fotográfico de Miller Dam. La imagen no tiene nada que ver con "The Album Leaf" pero ilustra lo que me sucede cuando esucho música, en mi cabeza se hace un hueco y empiezan a brotar recuerdos, al azar. Por ejemplo, hace ocho días cuando se escuchaba "Always for you" recordé lo que, luego de unos días se hizo más nítido: un día de verano caminaba por las esquinas de mi colonia para llegar a un puesto de periódicos. En esos días usaba muletas y me sentía tranquilo, podía jugar sobre ellas. Caminaba hacia el puesto de periodicos porque ocho días antes había comprado un episodio más del Hombre Araña y yo estaba intrigado por el destino de la historia que se había empezado a narrar en el capítulo anterior y que era esta: el Hombre Araña había sido esposado al periodista J. Jonas Jameson y lo que los sujetaba era una bomba de tiempo, cuarenta y ocho horas tenía el Hombre Araña para salvarse y salvar a quien lo castigaba en las columnas de su periódico. El dilema era de orden moral: salvar a J. Jonas Jameson era absurdo pero no salvarlo era aceptar su muerte, la del Hombre Araña, y matar a quien le daba trabajo a Peter Parker. ¡Increíble!
Hasta entonces no había leído nada parecido. Yo estaba emocionado y las muletas me daban el ejercicio físico que yo suponía el Hombre Araña realizaba: balancearce por el aire. Con el tiempo las muletas se resbalaron como las hojas se resbalan de los árboles e intenté algo más temerario: trepar por las ramas y llegar a las copas de los árboles y ponerme a leer en las alturas al Hombre Araña. El episodio terminó cuando el Hombre Araña quiebra las esposas y las lanza al aire. Sin embargo, él no ha resuelto el dilema: odia a quien ha salvado, se siente insultado y jamás, parece, estará en calma.
Hoy hemos hablado de Joplin, de mi antipatía por Lennon, del espíritu de Roxy Music, del vigor de Zeppelin...
-"¿Que canción te gusta de The Beatles"?- Te pregunté
-"In my Life..." dijiste...
Algo ocurre en tus ojos cuando mencionas la canción. Como si ocurriera una intemperie donde un deslumbramiento adormecido te diera alcance. Tus ojos estallan de pasado como si el tiempo fuera un embate de infinitos secretos. Tus ojos palian ausencias y se hunden en un ocaso lustral. Tus ojos pesan como un claro de bosque y yo recuerdo una hermosa imagen de un árbol que hunde las raíces en el cielo. Hoy tus ojos engendraron fantasmas de grutas inasibles.
Hace unos días recuperé dos maletas que había dejado atrás. En ellas había restos del pasado: huellas, como las de los dedos sobre el cristal al abrir una ventana en un día de frío. En una, una guía de París, comprada en Cambridge, Inglaterra, el día 21 de diciembre del 2002, firmada en la primera página por dos nombres propios. En la otra, el doce pulgadas de Rose Rouge.
En París nos cayó la nieve. En la recámara del hotel comimos latería y baguettes y camembert; tomamos vino rojo barato. Todo era color crema en ese hotel. Las escaleras, angostas. Por las noches hablábamos viendo al techo. Comparábamos al Sena con el Támesis. Caminamos sobre puentes. Hacía mucho frío. Con guantes, caminábamos de la mano, con cuidado de no resbalarnos por el hielo.
Un día caminamos de Saint Germain- des-prés hasta el marais. En una pequeña tienda de discos gay dedicada a la devoción a Madonna encontré este doce pulgadas. Fue una reconciliación con una pieza que llegué a aborrecer por su eterna repetición. Tú me habías dicho que te recordaba a tu exnovio porque el tipo la ponía siempre en el lugar donde trabajaba porque era de su mamá y donde tú habías pasado horas sin hacer nada. Cómo lo llegué a odiar. Comprar el disco en vinil fue apropiarme, de nuevo, de una buena pieza musical destruida por los celos retrospectivos y anticipatorios. En ese entonces ni idea tenía. Quizá sí.
Yo no sé si tú te acuerdes. A tí te regalé cientos de docenas de rosas rojas. Mi recuerdo de París en ese fin de año tiene ese sabor. El de las rosas rojas.
Dicen que segundas partes nunca fueron buenas... pero ¿qué tal terceras, o cuartas? He perdido la cuenta. Nuestras cabezas torcidas, nuestras piernas dolidas, nuestros brazos atrapados estaban muertos, como la conversación.
Me dueles en el recuerdo, ahí donde no puedo rascarme si no estás cerca, en el punto ciego de mi nostalgia. Vuelvo a ti, englorietado, agrietado del frío que cala cuando evitas mis besos, cuando te cubres la cara con las sábanas para que no me acerque. Una y otra noche, te tengo y no te tengo y nunca volveremos a querernos.
There are many things this song makes me want to say. Maybe it's true and pop music, like poetry and love, is supposed to be experienced, not explained. Sometimes one just feels like shutting up, keeping quiet once and for all and just listen.
That she sings Bob Dylan's song here on her own is quite something. The strength and ultimate sadness that the arrangements and lyrics breath out come to the fore with an unexpected intensity. Is it because of what we know about Baez and Dylan? Yes, and no. Is it because of something internal, structural to Baez's performance? Yes, and no. Maybe it's all about who you are and how you feel about it.
It's after all, as she said it well back then in 1965, a protest song.
There is something about being in love which is so much like being lost at sea. The missed correspondence, the deprivation, the long nights unable to sleep, the sense of being adrift, at the mercy of stronger forces. The sense of a point of departure, an unknown destination and the endlessness of it all. The loneliness of the individual left at his/her own devices; the relationship with nature, the weather, the storm, the salty taste, the hunger, the boredom, the excitement. The sense of needing someone else, the communion with fellow sailors, the storytelling under the stars, the belief in stars and the writing of destiny. The sense of being or wanting to be with someone. Being Lost. Holding hands.
And while the seagulls are crying We fall but our souls are flying
There is something about falling out of love which is so much like surviving a wreckage. Sometimes you feel like grabbing the other's wrist, the right ankle, forecefully, strongly, leaving red marks around the joints. The sense of being dragged into the bottomless, dark pit. The twirling whirlwind, the inward movement towards the abyss. So aye, darling, let's go, but we both go down together.
--- The Decemberists, in San Francisco, of all places:
When I was younger, in 1999, everyone was listening to Moby's Play. But before that, a couple of years earlier he released an album named I Like To Score, where he put together songs he composed for movies. In this album, this track was included. This track was featured in Heat (Michael Mann, 1995). I have a friend who considers this flick the best film ever made. It is good, indeed. It shows that Mann is a crafty filmmaker, but most of all it is also the proof that Mann is a great soundtracker, that is, he can ensamble amazing soundtracks. "God Moving Over The Face Of The Water" appears in the final sequence, and throughout the final credits, after 3 hours of fine violence, clever dialogues, brilliant performances and a perfectly edited final sequence. You see the fates of the characters coming. But you never see the brutal way Moby musicalizes Al Pacino looking at Robert DeNiro, planes flying at the break of dawn. Sorry for saying this so abruptly, but this is, basically, my favorite end credits sequence.
There comes a moment in Everyman's life in which one needs simple things. A cup of tea, a good book, a lazy chair, an unexpected kiss on the cheek in the morning. Not all catchy pop songs have to be obvious and plain stupid. Good, transcendent pop songs can be simple, straight-forward and down-to-earth, referring to everyday experiences and common feelings. Start Again is one of my favorite tunes by the Glasgow band, pretty much summing up the melody-and-harmony, hook-and-vocal-driven signature aesthetics of the Fannies.
It's grim up north, indeed, but there is still an unwaning light deep within the human heart: when everything seems dark, there's always room for hope.
Recientemente alguien dijo que lo que yo escuchaba era "música para treintañero soltero", y me pareció una muy buena descripción de mi gusto musical. Queda claro que no hablamos de AOR ni de Luis Miguel ni de Silvio Rodríguez o de los discos más chafas de Sting como solista, o de la colección "Real World" de Peter Gabriel o de Putumayo cuando nos ponemos exquisitos, que es con lo que yo relacionaría la treintañerez mexicana contemporánea. Es más bien que a algunos treintañeros solteros, a los que no nos hace felices lo arriba mencionado, ya nos alcanzó el presente, y llega un momento en la vida de cada hombre en que se tiene que asumir la profundidad de las patas de gallo cuando se llora o se ríe y las repentinas canas que se asoman burlonas frente al espejo.
Así que parte de estar en los treintas es, por supuesto, preocuparse por estar al tanto de la nueva música que está saliendo todo el tiempo, alguna terriblemente mala y otra dolorosamente bella, pero también implica una recuperación de historias suprimidas. A Jacques Brel yo lo conocí en el café del Parnaso de Coyoacán, un domingo, leyendo Astérix en Bélgica, cuando hay una referencia a Le Plat Pays y luego sale un mensajero belga que es el mismísimo Jacques Brel. Supe esto porque no entendí de qué hablaba el jefe galo cuando hablaba de que las únicas montañas ahí eran los pueblos, cosa que mi padre tuvo a bien pacientemente explicar. Llegando a la casa puso el vinil de Jacques Brel, cosa que yo, en mi ignorancia infantil, encontré demasiado antigua y, por lo tanto, aburrida.
Pero después uno crece y está en la época de la mutación radical adolescente y se quiere alejar lo más posible de la música de los treintañeros solteros que gustan de Luis Miguel para ligarse chicas en los automóviles que les compró papi, y entonces aparecen David Bowie, Ute Lemper, Black Box Recorder, Marc Almond, Scott Walker, mucho más recientemente Dresden Dolls, todos de una manera u otra haciendo homenaje a la voz y a la capacidad lírica y escénica de Jacques Brel. Una música no apta para quienes le tienen miedo al "azote", para quienes su idea de lo que debe ser la música popular es música para el olvido y el desmadre. A veces, vale la pena tomarse la vida en serio.
Así pues, llega un momento en la vida de cada hombre en que las millas náuticas ya se nos notan, en las arrugas o en las canas, en las calvas o en las panzas, en los tatuajes o en las cicatrices, en los dolores y en las heridas. Y entonces se puede recuperar a alguien como Jacques Brel, cuya pasión fue impermeable a la mierda superficial del mundo y que sin embargo logró, con un coraje y una sensibilidad incomparables, lograr un reconocimiento amplio, pero que, en esta humilde opinión, debería ser incluso más abierta y esparcida. Porque en la chanson de Jacques Brel está también la semilla de las estéticas del pop británico, su melancolía desoladora, su romanticisimo enloquecido. Gente como Nick Cave o Neil Hannon o Scott Walker, por citar sólo tres, serían sus herederos y traductores más preclaros.
Así andamos a la deriva por la vida. Llega un momento en que hay que detenerse en un puerto y reconocer el pasado para poder pensar en el futuro. Y cómo no, a veces, identificarse con aquello de "Et qui boivent et reboivent/Et qui reboivent encore". La melancolía del marinero, pues, que "Se plantent le nez au ciel/Se mouchent dans les étoiles" y que llora por aquellas que lo han abandonado.
Estos días me gustan porque tienen más anaranjado que de costumbre, el sol ya no brilla demasiado y el viento es fresco, por eso me gustan estos días. También me gustan porque uno puede comer todo el pan de muerto que quiera, y el pan de muerto es muy rico. En mi casa suelen poner un altar y llenarlo de fotos de los familiares que ya murieron, supongo que este año se pondrá una o dos fotos de Canelo. Esto no me da alegría, y todavía estoy triste.
I think this is the first song in Spanish to be played at these bars. Maybe this won't make many of their frequent costumers very happy, but since I'm the official resident DJ I think I can get away with it. Come on, pour yourselves a whiskey and listen to it.
I have been thinking about how some pop songs can actually become "more than the sum of their parts", as a writer we have been rereading a lot recently would say, and I think that's the case of Si Hoy. The music of Entre Ríos, with Isol singing, has always managed to dig deep inside of me, in spite of my dislike for pop music sung in español. This may be the first band from Latin America I openly accept liking, and liking a lot. This song, with its slow, minimal soundscape that keeps the tempo with a vinyl record-like scratch, and its electric early birds singing in the background, makes of verbs nouns, dismounts grammar to make language say what it would only say under unusual -not to say painful- circumstances. The Music of Entre Ríos, their lyrics and their sounds, tend to have the coldness and the intimate, difficult feeling of mornings. And mournings. Because mornings are the interruption of sleep -perchance dreams, maybe nightmares- and mourning an interruption of normality, of the daily intercourse of life, their music is also fragmentary, prone to interruptions, breakbeats, syncopations, deep heart-beats and obscure implications. Grammar and vocabulary, spelling and "orthography" (orthos, correct; straight) are twisted, torn, crunched and language (music, linguistics, pop lyricism) becomes something else. Isol's voice can make a rose become a rough verb, to graze, to rub. An infinitive verb will be rhetorically substituted by a noun, a temporal deictic, and meanings will flow in different directions. Entre Ríos used to make music for those who always end up missing someone-something-somewhere, for those who wake up, suddenly, thinking,
"Así todos los días me dejarás de ayer, que hoy no dirás: 'estoy extraño entre las paredes', mi cielo de contraluz. Destrozado ir dentro de este lado que no rosa, acostado donde cantan las espinas que ahora duelen.
It's been too long, chasing you, having you, losing you once more. Our stupid pride has made a gash in our trust and now I'm ranting all by myself about our meaning-to-be.
You came and told me you wanted to be here, that it was your toothbrush that deserved a place in my sink, that it was you in my bed, that I needed. You undressed and let me in you, and I was alive again.
And then you left, and I was left with nothing, asking Why. I'm hurt and I'm broken. It's been too long and I'm stretched beyond repair.
"I try not to believe in God, of course, but sometimes things happen in music, in songs, that bring me up short, make me do a double-take. When things add up to more than the sum of their parts, when the effects achieved are inexplicable, then atheists like me start to get into difficult territory." -Nick Hornby, in 31 Songs
Nick Hornby wrote those words about Rufus Wainwright (a man I think, too, has had some kind of contract with a superior being, even though I also try not to believe in God, because God in my religion, tends to be an Old Testament cruel and blood-thirsty bastard), but when I read him I thought about Mercury Rev's Holes. I listened to it for the first time watching the painfully beautiful Panic, a film that left me cold for hours after having watched it, one of those films that leave you wondering about the divine-like role of individual creators -such as filmmakers and musicians- and their ability to make us question the very core of our existence. The intro itself, full of friendly ghosts, is both funny and terrible; misterious and full of that kind of light you get to see in places like upstate New York in the winter or England in the autumn, when the dense clouds get pierced by shy but powerful light blades. And the whole vibe of the intro is repeated throughout the whole song, only to be made more evident by the drums and the guitar, that in this case redefine the possibilities of what a ballad is able to achieve. (One listens to this song, especially in its live interpretations, and wonders why things like Coldplay's Yellow can be so popular, when there are such truly beautiful pop artifacts such as Holes out there). It is not easy to know what Holes is about: the passage of time, the meaning of dreams, the remembrance of an hallucination, the translation of what the heart feels after/during a breakup, the tragic essence of human finiteness, our fleeting passing through this world, but also, importantly, as all great bands do in their great songs, about the very nature of rock and roll, a self-reflexive interrogation of what a band is, or the rock and roll band as a metaphor for human existence, for the performance that life is. For me, this song speaks to me in ways I cannot properly define, but all I know is that deep down I know this song is a love song, an attempt at grabbing all that which is solid but melts into the air; in some strange way an interpretation of what the "ineffable" is, which is to say what the divine is: "distant gods/and faded signs". We will all die, like flies, seemingly unstoppable, so fast we can't really see their transparent wings move, miniscule yet ubiquitous. Like flies, we are just small creatures controlled by time, an expression of what is uncontrollable and therefore ineffable. "All those endless ends/that can't be tied": Mercury Rev have composed in Holes a celebration of the void, of emptiness, of absolute darkness, of the blank spaces that separate intention and outcome, the painful awareness of our inability to decide completely our futile destinies. An anthem celebrating impossibility, then, "those funny little plans/that never work quite right", like love itself, that we can never really control. And yet we plan, and dream, and think it possible: to last, to fulfill our dreams, to love, finally, and to be loved, until the end. Only to find out that whether it happens or not is not really up to us.
There's an annoying lack of synchronicity between video and sound, and unfortunately the whole haunted intro of the original is lost, but it's the only version I found at You Tube:
Some songs will be in repeated playback in the dancefloor of my memory for the rest of my life. Shadow of a Doubt is one of those: it is more than a landmark; it is a milestone, a song that comes back to me when I least expect it, just when I thought that enough time had passed it comes up to the fore once again, the volume cranked up, to tell me new things about the old days and old things about the present. This song loops like a dream: it is, indeed, a surreal soundscape, an in crescendo hallucination. Kim's whispering penetrates your ears and brain like the voice of your unconscious: it grows, becomes something else, elevates itself as it gets deeper. Whispering becomes yelling, and the meditative, repetitive motif explodes in waves of ecstasy, like a wet dream, when one knows one is dreaming but is unable -and sometimes unwilling- to wake up. Not only a song to make love with, but a song that makes love to you as well, a passionate aesthetic artifact that makes the word 'psychedelia" seem very limited. Shadow of a Doubt deals with fate, regret, the tragic essence of love, the nakedness of our needs and desires, the uncanny nature of dreams, the crave for a kiss when nothing is certain and everything seems dark. Its possibilities are endless, like the infinite interpretations of a recurrent dream.
No recuerdo bien cuando fue la primera vez que escuché su lanzamiento, fue en algún momento de entre las 10 y las 12, algún lunes, martes o miércoles, no lo sé, pero desde ese día la percepción que tengo de esta canción es diferente. El programa era de Jordi Soler; creo que ha sido el programa de radio que mas he disfrutado, no me lo perdía. Era diferente a los demás, hacía cosas, decía cosas y ponía canciones, como esta.
Creo que la primera vez que lanzó el satélite del amor fue cuando se levanto el EZLN, después cada semana lo lanzaba por algo nuevo, hasta que, como nada se solucionaba, lo guardó. Tiempo después Jordi se fue y el programa se acabó.
No pienso que sea la mejor canción del Transformer; una de las grandes influencias al Bowie de la época; alguna vez escuché que participó en la nueva versión de Satellite of love, esa que ponía el señor Soler en su programa.
El satélite del amor no ha sido lanzado en mucho tiempo. En estos días creo que necesitaríamos una estación repitiendo una y otra vez:
Satellites gone Up to the skies Thing like that drive me Out of my mind.
O simplemente algún programa como ese de los lunes, martes y miércoles, de 10 a 12.
Oh, how we despised this song. It came out and it was for us the end of it all. "The Cure going happy", the Goths shrieked in shock, overlooking the history of the band and unable to see beyond Disintegration's quite profitable miserabilism. Because, we would understand, this song is, first of all, what you would call a perfect pop single: it is not only accesible and catchy, but also, like all good singles, it sums up a band's sound. In one way, with time's distance on my side, I can say this was The Cure at their commercial best. The look that would influence millions all over the world, the childish simplicity combined with the queerest masquerade. All great poets go back to nursery rhymes at one stage or another (think of Auden, for example) and this is Smith's most clear attempt to become widely mainstream by going back to the simplest structures. Porl Thompson's creative multitasking for the band -guitar, sax, keyboards, album artwork- summarized in his trademark crouching came to a high point in this single from their higher-charting album of their career. There was no way a song like, say, The Drowning Man would achieve, commercially, what this song did. "This is why I hate you," hardcore Cure fans said at the time. But, fourteen years -fourteen!- later, one has to accept his guilty pleasures and realize that there are days that, unavoidably, make us feel in a Friday I'm in Love mood. Boy, am I getting old...
Every once in a while there's a song me and my friends take as a hymn. In the old days of 99-00, Groove Armada was sounding hard with "I See You Baby" and "If Everybody Looked The Same". Somebody (I can't recall exactly who, but most likely it was Rafa) bought the record and in a party this song began to sound. It was near the death of the party, so there probably must have been 3 or 4 people hanging around. I won't say that I fell for it immediatly. I actually hated it. But Rafa kept on telling me: "You'll see that one day Groove Armada will shock the world" (as I've said before he tends to overreact, like when he said that Blind Melon could have been the new Beatles). It never happened. Yes, Groove Armada delivered great records later like Lovebox, but they never caused a revolution. Little by little I began liking this song. There was a point in which I heard it two or three times in a row. Then I couldn't hear it anymore. The other day I was at Rafa's place and "At The River" began. It came back to me. Those days of drinking and smoking as if the world would never end. Watch the video here
Four Spin magazine covers decorate the yellowish walls of my memory: one read 'Do you believe in Pixies?', the second said 'Grunge is Dead', the third featured the classic black-and-white photo of Kurt Cobain, the fourth one said, bombastically: 'J Mascis is God'. For those of us who had never thought that Eric Clapton was a deity, the remark sounded exaggerated but almost true. This was the mid nineties. My hair would get on my face all the time and the wind will make it go into knots impossible to untie. Once, a girlfriend noticed my hair reached my navel. And this was the sound of mornings for me. A song I recorded once and again on chrome tapes. No discmans nor i-Pods back then, but walkmans. Leave home at six thirty to make it to school at 7, and listen to J Mascis spread the word. His voice and his guitar were an unity that represented in several ways the way I used to feel back then. The city was sountracked by his aching voice. If a guitar has ever cried it has been under J Mascis's spell. There was always something silly about the lyrics, the easy rhymes and all, but through fragments he left enough room for us Sub Pop losers to imagine emotional landscapes. It was what was between the sentences, the unconnected meanings in the almost inarticulate syntax of his lyricism. This was the sound of early-twenties passion, the soundscapes of urban mornings and late arrivals, waiting in the cold and being stood up, of waking up late or never sleeping. The sound of youth's restlessness and common-place post-teenage angst. And he was dead right: Every dream is shot by daylight...
We would listen to it again and again. The description of restlessness: sleepwalking, the amplified sounds of night. The repetitive nature of a visitation: ghosts are real, are here. Walking among us. The clock, the phone, maybe water dripping. The sound of naked feet on the stairs. Staying awake, thinking of someone who is not here anymore. Some people just wake up hungry, can't sleep unless they eat. They hunt for easy preys in the kitchen in the wee hours. And then they hear steps, or voices. Others wake up hungry and make phone calls to empty houses. A song I used as a letter so many times, an alarm call, a testimony, an exorcism. You recognized his voice right away, Michael's achingly temperamental voice right there, behind her, like a supernatural dialogue. A spirit. This was a hymn for us, in many ways. How can someone we don't know pin down the feeling so well? How can one relate so much to someone else's craft? How can two voices, her Throwing Muse voice and his Georgian Starry Throat, a guitar and some strings -the ubiquitous Mr Martin McCarrick, (who we saw once play live in Mexico City next to Siouxsie and her Banshees many years ago, remember?) say so much, translate the presence of the spectre, invoke the melancholia felt when the ghost still drives in circles around us?
Because the blues are the root of it all, and because the blues, the mean blues, are the driving force behind essential creative efforts. Eric Burdon and his Animals get it straight here: music is a form of praying. One has to let them say it for us: the gap between intention and outcome (or interpretation) is bottomless. It's true, the song can also be used as a cheap excuse, an alibi for moral bullshit and infidelity. But all one can do is hope: please, believe me, trust in me: I'm just a soul whose intentions are good. But relationships are always contaminated, full of noise, unclear. Again, all we are left with is hope. Language is impossible to control, and so is the other's interpretation of ourselves. Oh lord, please don't let me be misunderstood...
Ya no importa qué días eran, aquí estamos cansados de la melancolía; tampoco si uno de nosotros leía o no, también estamos fastidiados por creer que lo sabíamos todo y que todo lo habíamos leído; y mucho menos importa si fuimos buenos amigos o no, la verdad es que después de tantos años la amistad es un término irrelevante. "El aquí y el ahora", dijiste, "es lo que importa."
Oh, after a tortous year finally the University. So, she asks you to go to her place, it's been a while since you don't see her. After your first day at the University you head to her place to have something to eat and hang out the rest of the evening, as usual. You get there and you talk about your first day, it might be great. She listens to you, but you notice there is something wrong. She's not as perceptive/talkative as usual. But she lets you talk and talk. You see the clock and it's almost nine o'clock. You say goodbye, and she tells you: "Hey, here's this record I bought the other day. I think you might like it. Give it to me whenever you want". Gallowsbird's Bark by The Fiery Furnaces. Never heard of 'em. For the next two weeks you listen to the record constantly. You like it. You find it intriguing and emotional. Then, you get her first call in two weeks. You expect the usual: "When will we see?" or something like that. The first thing she says as soon as you pick up the phone is: "When do you give me my record back? I'll leave the country in two days". So you tell her: "I'll drop by your place tomorrow if you want to". You get there and she receives you in the patio. She doesn't let you go inside the house. Fifteen minutes later you give her the record and you say goodbye. That's the last time you'll ever see her. You don't know it, but you suspect it. "Good-bye, have a nice trip". And she slams the door.
If you were born in a very catholic provincial town and you don't find it funny you might just run away as fast as you can. If you get far enough you might feel a bit out of place, as your reminiscent nun school years will chase you like furies --for an unknown sin. If you decide to move to the capital try not to have a lover who has a reputation for being lecherous. He might be outrageously beautiful, that I have to admit, but... his fantastic body and his cover girl face will cost you a future break up and quite an amount of money -- psychoanalisis isn't a free service yet. But listen, if you fall in love with the boy of your dreams and he falls in love with you, do not freak out. You'll find a thousand ways to sabotage this love. And many ways to be unhappy. Breath deeply and accept happiness as your destiny. Don't flirt with silly ideas or people. Oh, those people, they are mostly wrong about everything. They'll tell you he's an idiot, they'll tell you he doesn't deserve to be with a girl like you. Don't believe that crap. Run away from whatever you want, but don't you ever run away from yourslef. If you find yourself caught in love... say YES. But if you don't listen to the voices then my friend you'll soon run out of choices...
Ladytron, or the art of seduction. One of Brian Ferry's Roxy Music's best-known tracks, this song is the glam-space-age true inheritor of Victorian flare and Romantic megalomaniac melancholy. A science-fiction soundscape, a narrative epic made pop song, full of Celtic pixie-like echoes in the wind instruments (oboe, sax) and marchband grandiosity (the sound of the percussion, at the front, literally), Ladytron is the perfect pop translation of the lover-poet's restless state. A true description of 20th century gallantry and drug-induced amor fou ("Love is the drug", indeed, sought in red-light districts at night). Brian Ferry's voice resonates with the security of an experienced hunter-lover, yet many times hurt, made hard by constant heartache. "In Every Home a Heartache", he would also sing, because the glam rock star-lover's voice knows that even if he may "tame" the lady, he will also, very surely, be forsaken that which he sometime ejoyed. A Sir Thomas Wyatt of the Glitter Seventies, Brian Ferry's Roxy Music persona describes a landscape that is both geographical (urban) and emotional. The in crescendo structure of the song resembles a moon rocket launch, the elevation of love-as-a-drug-induced hallucination. A sentimental traveller's journal entry, Ladytron still sounds like an unparalleled love song for those who still decide to fall, even when knowing that everything, in the end, will fade away.
That day, me and my friend Luis Antonio had skipped classes just for the sake of it. Whenever we skipped classes we either ended up at his place, pretty drunk and playing (Luis in the drums, me playing some crazy chords on my guitar), or we ended at Tower, watching records and flicks we wouldn't buy for lack of money. Luis was a gifted drummer, but he had little idea about music. That day he had some cash and bought some Marilyn Manson record. When he was paying, he was given a CD that read on its cover: RYKODISC SAMPLER. When we were leaving the store, heading to his place, he told me: "I don't know any of the bands here, if you want it you can have it". I knew few bands, one of them being Morphine. Other performers included were Frank Zappa (I knew him), John Cale (I didn't know him back then), Oranj Symphonette, Golden Smog, Bob Mould, Alejandro Escovedo. When we arrived to his place, he wouldn't let me play the CD, and he obviously played the Marilyn Manson one. I left him listening to the Reverend, and I headed home. As soon as I arrived I played it. Track one was Morphine's "Super Sex". I liked it. Track two was Throwing Muses' "Freeloader". I didn't need to listen anything else contained in the sampler. From there I fell in love with Kristin Hersh, from there I began to track every single Muses' release. Eight years have passed since that epiphany, and to this day I still keep the sampler. Throwing Muses was definitely one of the bands that have changed my way of listening to pop music, one of the very few bands that really made something move inside me, and this song tells me so much I don't even know where to begin.
In the early nineties I wasn't very interested in Neil Young, but Saint Etienne offered this rendering that made his lyrics meaningful and touching. Only Love Can Break Your Heart became a maxim to live for, pretty much like "love will tear us apart" or "shyness is nice, but..." It was the cool keyboard loop and the danceable-yet-nostalgic beat. Along Everything But The Girl and His Name is Alive (very different projects that still found a common dancefloor in my very own internal Hertbreak Sound System), Saint Etienne evoked rainy Sundays, cobblestone roads and sad-yet-stylish breakups. She sang with childish ache:
When you were young And on your own How did it feel to be alone
Every heartbreak needs a soundtrack. Now, after fifteen years or so, I can finally listen to this song feeling "safe", somehow immune to its structural sadness while still able to enjoy it. This is a song to hold to but a song to leave behind, to grow: only love can break your heart, indeed, but only true love can put it back together.
I haven't tired of this song after playing it dozens of times over the last month. I keep going back to it because it's exactly what I look for in poetry: a moment that transcends its own origins to become something instantly familiar and beautiful to the reader/listener.
I feel foolish because it took me so long to find Syd Barrett. It was only two years ago that a good friend of mine in Tampa handed me a copy of The Madcap Laughs and said: "You have to hear this, you're gonna love it."
The opening verses of this song from his second album are exquisite, the way he phrases each word, modulating them with such intuitive elegance, his voice soft as though he were in someone's living room.
"It's an idea someday In my tears, my dreams..."
There's a line by Rilke that goes: "You must change your life." Syd Barrett's music has had that effect on me. I feel somehow we're privileged to have been around while he was alive.
Cuando salía a la calle y tomaba el micro o se subía al metro con los audífonos puestos, entonces todo fluía, todo era más líquido y todo parecía estar mejor, tal y como en ese momento se presentaba todo estaba bien: las calles angostas y las avenidas anchas, iluminadas por las luces anaranjadas, los carros deslizándose por el arroyo y la gente caminando en tríos o dúos, vestidos con ropas oscuras y caras frías; "todo está bien", dijo, "todo está en su lugar y resplandece"
Argel ha recordado aquella fiesta en la colonia del Valle que ocurrió hace varios años. Debo decir que esa reunion, tal vez ha sido la mejor de mi vida porque todavia recuerdo los matices diminutos de esa mañana. Recuerdo que Natalia solo tenía un cd player con un par de bocinas sencillas que apenas podían liberar las canciones en un volumen decente. Ella fue quien dijo alrededor de las 9 am.
-¿Tienen que hacer algo hoy? ¿Qué tal si nos quedamos aquí y no hacemos nada?-
Y asi fue. TODA la mañana estuvimos escuchando las canciones que salían del cd player. La mirada de todos se concentraba en el techo, paredes o los ojos de los amigos. (El sonido de la máquina de tortillas era un eterno loop.)
Yo llevaba en cinta el Barbed Wired Kisses de Jesus and Mary Chain y tenía ganas de escuchar Sidewalking esa mañana. Y de pronto ella preguntó:
-¿Qué canción les gustaría en su funeral? -
Yo fui el primero en responder:
-Sin duda "Wave of mutilation" de los Pixies. Es una canción corta que desde la primera vez que la escuché me dejó en pasmo. Porque me gustaría que mi vida se fuera así: con la sensación de partir ("sail away in a wave of mutilation") después de haber caminado sobre la arena sin ninguna huella possible ("walked the sand with the crustaceans"). Me gustaría ser recordado con esa canción porque la muerte ocurre así ("cease to resist/giving my goodbye") y porque, al final de cuentas, no sé qué demonios es un "wave of mutilation" (así como no sé qué demonios es la vida.) -
I would rewind the tape again and again. I had discovered SD in 1990, the first track by them I ever listened being Mommy's Little Monster, which I had recorded on a tape compilation of my favorite skate rock. (Yes, I was a skater back then). But I think I must have been seventeen at the most; maybe 1992, I really can't remember, when I first listened to this track. I worked at a stakeboard shop and all my friends were either skateboarders or amateur tattoo artists.
Social Distortion had introduced me to Mr Johnny Cash through their cover of Ring of Fire, but it was this song the one I played again and again. The lyrics spoke loud and clear to my teenage heart: I started listening to them when I was going through a period of isolation, when I was feeling already nostalgic for my junior high years and everything I had never been able to do. I got my first tattoo listening to that song, and soon it became a symbol of the passage of time and the intense feeling of finiteness I would so often drown into. Rewind. Play. Rewind. Play. Rewind. Play.
Life goes by so fast You only want to do what you think is right. Close your eyes and it's past; Story of my life
Now that I think about it, it's probably in some way their fault that it's permanently written on my skin: vita brevis. I listen to this song and it sounds so naïve now, but it still works like a time machine that sends me back to a time in which, without knowing it, I was the happiest. In a way, it defines the way I am, always missing someone, always thinking about what could have been and was not.
Good times come and good times go, I only wish the good times would last a little longer. I think about the good times we had And why they had to end.
This is what punk rock was to me, really. Outlaw love songs for times that would never come back.
cualquiera que haya estado en esa fiesta recordará lo que sigue:
lo mejor no sucedió en la noche, sino a la tarde siguiente. Ninguno de los que pasamos la noche en su casa nos fuimos temprano, de hecho estuvimos toda la mañana y parte de la tarde acostados en unos colchones que había en uno de los cuartos. Nuestro equipo de sonido, creo, se reducía a un discman y a unas bocinas. En esas bocinas escuchamos "Everywhere" y vimos cómo amanecía y luego como la mañana se hacía la tarde y así.
El ruido que nos despertó fue el de una tortillería que estaba justo enfrente del departamento y el ruido que nos anunció el final de la tarde fue, precisamente, la ausencia del chirrido de esa misma torillería.
Cuando nos dimos cuenta de esa ausencia decidimos pararnos y aceptar nuestra hambre. Ella nos invitó a comer a un "Burguer King" y pagó con su tarjeta. Después de la comida algunos nos fuimos para el metro y allí nos despedimos, yo iba al norte y los otros al sur.
The first time I saw Trainspotting, back in 1998 several memorable scenes caught my attention. But there was one in particular which kept moving in my mind over and over again for the next weeks. Renton waking up at Diane's flat. Diane singing: "Oh, you got green eyes, oh you got blue eyes, oh you got gray eyes. And I've never met anyone quite like you before". One of the reasons I believe this film works so fine is because its soundtrack. The soundtrack marks the film pretty well and even when you listen to it you an identify perfectly well the scene in which a song is located. I can't listen to "Temptation" without imagining Renton's surprise face when he looks at Diane in her junior high uniform. "Temptation" is also one of the songs that makes me happiest. Seven minutes of pure joy with its mesmerizing and endless guitar/bass line and the very high-pitched snare drum. Besides it is a perfect song for these cloudy days, full of uncertainty. A song full of hope, if you ask me.
En 1997 tenía 14 años. Todos los días saliendo de la escuela caminaba unos metros para entrar a Plaza Universidad y ver discos en Mixup. Mi colección de música se limitaba a unos cuantos casetes, algunos originales, otros copiados de las copias y otros grabados del radio. Recuerdo que por agosto, justo entrando a clases salió el nuevo sencillo de Oasis, D’you know what i mean?. También me acuerdo de que el OK computer salió en Julio, pero era inalcanzable para mi. Fue cuando descubrí los sencillos. Un día en el aparador estaba, no en el Mixup, sino en otra tienda de discos, -hoy ya no existe-, cuando lo vi abrí mi cartera y descubrí ese billete de 50 para emergencias, entré a preguntar cuánto costaba. Ese día me llevé mi primer sencillo de Oasis por 49 pesos. Una versión nacional, cuatro canciones, una de ellas grandiosa, Heroes de Bowie, un demo de Angel Child y Stay Young. Ese sencillo con sus cuatro canciones representa toda mi secundaria. Mis amigos no entendían porqué trabajaba y no salía con ellos. Tenía que comprarlos todos. Unos meses después los vería en vivo. Para ese momento ya tenía todos los sencillos, pero ya no versiones nacionales, todos importados. El OK computer podía esperar. Creo que no estaba listo. Era el momento de Oasis.
It was in 1995 that I organized my first britpop party in Mexico City. The independent party scene was completely taken over by illegal raves where mainly trance was played, and we decided to include The Smiths' famous battle cry, "hang the dj", in the flyer. It was a three-story building, and we put a sound system in each of the floors. Even some famous trance dj's from the local scene showed up to see what it was all about. By the time the Happy Mondays followed The Charlatans in my friend Demian's dj set, the main floor was filled with beautiful Mexican anglophiles -and a bunch of crazy expats- dancing with a previously-repressed nostalgia for a Madchester they have never experienced. I will always remember all the jumping and all the yelling and the smiles in everyone's faces and the yellow happy faces smiling in the tee shirts of all those vintage-Adidas-tracksuit-wearing John Squire look-alikes. It was a form of happy melancholia, a sad joy that expressed itself in dancing and hugging and the speakers blasting as if there were no tomorrow.
Back in 1995 I was 20, and I had never been to England but I had spent at least three years of my life reading NME's and Melody Makers and fantasizing about a scene that we would never witness but that defined our aesthetic itinerary and our sentimental education. By the time we were spinning it the track was already five years old, but it still sounded as if it had never been played before. Its power was delicate but ferocious, like fire. That year, some months later, they would release their collaboration with the Chemical Brothers, and the whole big beat thing would begin ruling the dancefloors of this side of the pond as well, even if in ridiculously small underground parties.
This was the sound of love and hope and possible futures and the pain of living. If you had asked me back then what it all meant, I would have said this was the music that defined the way I wanted my life to be like. This was me, this was my music, a sound that spoke to me like no other had before:
Everyone has been burned before, everybody knows the pain
Todavía recuerdo la sala cinematográfica. La textura del asiento. Las palomitas del de atrás en el suelo, crujiendo bajo mis pies.
Quizás ahora sea tan sólo un lugar común. Quizás, como a todo, el tiempo le haya quitado esa aura de originalidad, de dolorosa epifanía.
Pero la primera vez que se escucha ese "And so it is..." se sabe que algo se ha roto.
También recuerdo cómo, de repente (llovía afuera) el silencio se hizo en el bar cuando puse el blanco vinil de siete pulgadas en la tornamesa. Luego, una chica de ojos brillantes llegaría llorando a darme las gracias.
Los artistas verdaderos son capaces de traducir lo por naturaleza intraducible, el deseo que existe sin referente y sin significación porque es él mismo la significación misma. El deseo y la ruptura, la cercanía y la separación; la belleza de una melancolía repentinamente expresada.
Y así es, a veces, incluso en una sala de cine comercial, con el piso lleno de palomitas y el aire lleno de groseros murmullos y ringtones vulgares, se pueden dar las epifanías. Te descubres en la oscuridad de la sala, con lágrimas en los ojos y un dolor insospechado en el pecho. La pantalla queda a oscuras y no puedes más que decir, "putísimamadre".
Y, la mayoría del tiempo, olvidaremos esa brisa.
Para que, muchos años después, sin esperarlo, nos encontremos.
así era en las mañanas, y no sólo aquellas del fin de semana sino también las que había entre el lunes y el viernes, así era, tienes que recordar. Una vez acabada la escuela salíamos y éramos invulnerables, ¿ya recuerdas?, las calles largas y anchas, los bares repletos y llenos de humo, el frío allá y nosotros intocables. Así era. Sin un peso en la bolsa, sin mucho horizonte y sin mucha gana de saber cuál era el final, ¿para qué saberlo?, nos decíamos.
Acuérdate. Caminábamos bajo la noche y repasábamos lo visto en otras noches, las noches de otros días y de otros meses, así andábamos los cuatro. Tienes que recordar que el día de la gran lluvia alguno propuso algo y que todos dijimos que sí, que por qué no. Esperamos a que se hiciera de noche y empezamos a acobardarnos. Así que no lo hicimos y, sin embargo, hicimos lo que sabíamos hacer bien: gorreárle la cena y la cerveza a los que sentían por nosotros admiración. Eso hacíamos, ¿recuerdas?
Tienes que acordarte que vimos el amanecer y que juntos, ya solos, decidimos dormir. Dormimos hasta las doce y despertamos con hambre, nos besamos, nuestros labios suplieron la ausencia de pan, de leche, de fruta. Nosotros dijimos que eso era la vida e imaginamos un plan para que así durara. Decididos salimos para ver a los otros, a los que habíamos excluido de nuestro círculo, de nuestros abrazos, de nuestro amor.
Los vimos con sus trajes, con sus hábitos de oficina, criticamos el bigote mal recortado de un hombre y luego señalaste el tinte barato de una secretaria. Los vimos y nos dieron ganas de escupirles, ¿por qué no?, ¿para qué respetarlos?.
¿Ya recordaste? Tienes que recordar. Haz un esfuerzo. Haz memoria. Dijimos que yo moriría por ti y tú por mí. ¿Ya? Debes recordar. Haz un intento, el último, te juro que así eran esos días, que así se fueron tantas noches y tantas mañanas. No estoy inventando. Tienes que recordar. Así fue, te juro que así fue.
Nine years ago Ok Computer was released. Nine years ago I was 13 years old. Nine years ago Ok Computer was named "The best album ever". Nine years ago my uncle Mauricio gave me The Bends and told me: "This one's far better than Ok Computer, you don't need that depressive crap". I didn't understand what he meant with that. To this day, I still don't understand. "High & Dry" was the first song I learnt to play in guitar. Three or four chords and I found it very complicated, the solo was easy, though. My first performance was in the Mother's Day Festival of 1998 at the junior high I studied at. I played with an Oasis fan from hell, but he allowed me to do this song. He played the second guitar and I played the solo Johnny Greenwood-like, leaned forward my head facing the guitar. All the mothers in the auditorium/gym didn't understand what was going on. My mother couldn't make it, fortunately she didn't see her son playing the fool. It's been a while since I don't play "High & Dry", maybe I should dust off my guitar, plug it and...
I can't remember when it was I discovered The Pogues. I had never heard of them, but their name and the record covers got me interested and I started buying their albums. I must have been fifteen or so.There was something very literary about their songs and it was easy for me, as a teenage miserabilist, to relate to the whole vibe of the band.
For years, their songs decorated my room with a strange nostalgia for a life I had never lived. For years, I never found anybody else who liked them as well, so I felt completely alone in my fascination with them. This was the pre-Internet era, of course, so I had no idea what the Pogues actually meant for pop culture.
Shane MacGowan, along Black Francis-Frank Black, Tom Waits and Nick Cave and others, leaded my own private pop pantheon.
It hasn't stopped raining, and the city gets that strange glare; the light struggles with the sound of cars passing on wet roads. Pour yourself a glass of whiskey and show some respect. Cheers.
De las bandas que escuché de niño ésta es una de mis favoritas. Y de ella esta canción junto con "Who Killed Bamby?" y "My Way" fueron las que hirieron mi imaginación.
Quizá una banda como The Clash sea mejor que los Sex Pistols, pero la verdad es que la energía y el estruendo de los Sex Pistols subyuga mi imaginación y mi sensibilidad.
Por último, ¿quién no recuerda la escena de la película "New Order" (creo que así es el título) en donde los Sex Pistols están tocando y su público se reduce a 20 personas, 20 personas que después harán música?
Eran las once de la mañana, en algún sótano oscuro -el cuarto oficial del hermano mayor de mi amigo V.-, en una casona dejada al olvido por unos padres ocupados en un crucero especializado en la dieta Atkins, con la ruta Islas Bali-Tailandia.
V., H. y yo nos regodéabamos de estar en el cuarto del hermano de V. (no recuerdo su nombre) -único lugar donde se podía fumar sin que el velador se diera cuenta- en lugar de estar, como bien deberíamos, en el taller de mecanografía; y nos alegrábamos de haber cambiado los mecánicos golpeteos de: QWERT-espacio-POIUY, por los químicos tragos de Florida 7 con Oso Negro.
Yo, que acababa de descubrir a Bauhaus, traía el cassette de Mask y quería escucharlo. El problema era que no había aparatejo para tocarlo. Sólo había un viejo tocadiscos Sanyo, pero ningún disco a la vista. Ante la emergencia, V. se reunió de valor y entró en la recámara su hermano -y SÍ que se necesitaba valor, pues el hermano pesaba veinte kilos más que cualquiera de nosotros y además estaba con su chica, quien sabe qué haciendo- para pedirle un disco y de paso, más dinero para cerveza, que ya no había.
De la puerta entreabierta salió una mano con un objeto cuadrado negro, con grandes letras moradas que rezaban BLACK SABBATH y unas grises abajo: MASTER OF REALITY. La mano sacudió el objeto.
-¿Sabes cómo ponerlo, V.? -Sí. -Chido. Ahora: escúchenlo y no me jodan. -¿Y el dinero? Tenemos sed. -Ah... no tengo, pero toma esto.
La mano le dio el disco a V. y regresó al cuarto. La mano regresó con un vil cigarro y cerró la puerta, sin más.
V. me entregó el disco y lo puse a andar en el tocadiscos, ahí fue cuando sonó la primera canción Sweet Leaf, y mientras alguien en el disco tosía, investigué el interior de la caja para ver la letra:
Alright now!! Wont you listen?
When I first met you, didnt realize I cant forget you, for your surprise You introduced me, to my mind And left me wanting, you and your kind
I love you, oh you know it
My life was empty forever on a down Until you took me, showed me around My life is free now, my life is clear I love you sweet leaf, though you cant hear
Come on now, try it out
Straight people dont know, what your about They put you down and shut you out You gave to me a new belief And soon the world will love you sweet leaf
Cuando la canción llegaba a la parte I love you, oh you know it, V. se levantó para compartirme del cigarro que tronaba y tenía un color raro y olía a pueblo quemado y que después me enteré era la verdadera Sweet Leaf.
Después de que acabó la canción, ya nadie quiso cerveza.
It was the year 2000, the turn of the century. I was sixteen "clumsy and shy", a depressive teenager into The Smiths, Bowie, Pulp, Oasis, Blur and something else. The Smashing Pumpkins were my favorite American band although Pearl Jam was still respectable. Those were though days for me: once that summer was forever gone, suddenly I was out of school and nobody seemed to believe in me anymore; I was a complete mess and music was my only shelter. I'm not sure if it was August or September when I heard this song on the radio. Those guys in Radioactivo were playing some stuff they found at the European summer festivals. At first heard I believed it was a new single by Hole, I thought this was that song supposedly written by Courtney Love and Liam Gallagher (well, they might had been so "busy" or drunk to write a song if they ever met)...fortunately it wasn't. Actually it was the first single of this Irish power trio that I got to love.
Then I used to buy very often records at some tower shop, so those were Napster’s glory days and I also used to download 5 or 6 tunes daily with my 56 kbps dial up internet connection. As the Jj72 homonym debut album remained unavailable in Mexico until 2002 I downloaded the whole of it song by song that autumn.
Since the very first time I heard the A chord softly strummed by Mark Greany I knew this song would easily enter in my personal hit parade of that year, not the same in the mass media. Now I know that this song is a must in the soundtrack of my adolescence. The band was described as a new Nirvana, although the Smashing Pumpkins heavily influenced them; I didn’t care about what the press was saying about this band, anyway I bought a Melody Maker issue with them on the cover. Inside the magazine, which strangely was sold (almost given away with a price of 15 Mexican pesos) in Mexico City with a month delay, I found an interview with the band. The bass player, Hilary Woods was described as the sexiest woman of Indy rock and Mark, guitarist, singer and composer, was acclaimed as the next best lyricist of Ireland. Fergal, the drummer were also worshiped by one of the two magazines that build and break musicians in the UK; now “The maker” does not exist anymore, it was absorbed by the New Musical Express. Reading that I acknowledged that the band was formed in a Dublin high school in 1995. Mark attended a Jesuits school: Belvedere College where James Joyce also attended class when he was a youngster. The band members were aware and proud of it; half the interview was about literature. That lead me not only to pay more attention to what Mark sang in his songs, I also began reading Joyce. In that interview Mark also mentioned he love Manic Street Preachers, I downloaded some songs of them and in two years time I was delighted by the Manics.
Those things I discovered in the interview are things that matter for me now. But at that time what made Jj72 so dear to my ears was the teenage angst in their songs. It was the time when MTV became crap and the so-called teen stars and boy bands were spread around the world as a mortal disease. Jj72, being each of them 20 years old at that time, were a truthful teenage band as Artic Monkeys are now. Listening to their music I really felt that it had something to do with my life or the life of any sensible teenager living in any big city. As Joyce, Mark is very interested in the urban life as a theme; the difference is that Mark's Dublin is a real city, not that big town of Dubliners.
Airports and undergrounds waiting to find the unfound rising to pure insanity…
I played the guitar since I was 13. When I reached that hopeless months when I heard Jj72 for the first time I was able to play their songs, which I might still be able to play. At that time I also had a couple of years trying to write songs. The music to my songs was frankly bad, so the lyrics were not as silly as you expect from a teenager. May be listening to Jj72, and the references I got from Mark's lyrics lead me to focus on poetry and give up writing songs. When I was 17 I started exploring the effect of urban life in my first poems about circular streets and summers with sunny mornings and cold rainy afternoons as those we have in Mexico City. The treatment to that theme was contaminated by the pseudo-grunge desolated imagery of Jj72.
Oxygen is a song about love, even when I was a lonely weirdo that song made me feel fine for it gave me the idea that as long as I keep feeling young I’m able to be a “God in my world”.
Short sleeves and warm skin losing coins calling next of kin dropping words about the city we're in ponds compressed by heavy air us without care just sprawling there god's in our world
Teenagers messing around and how well they feel to do so. That is exactly what this song is about, or at least what I caught the very first time I read the lyrics.
Two years later my life was still a mess but at least there was room for hope. I was 18, and then Jj72 released their second album. At that time I didn’t played the guitar so often as two years before. The band had a single that became a little bit successful in America and I felt disappointed. After all they didn’t become another U2 and kept being a cult band. That second album I to Sky, became as special for me as the first. It was 2002 and there is a song in the album responding to the fear after the well-known events in September 2001 at the USA. There were a lot of albums “concerned” of those events. Jj72 didn’t respond to it with a political song, the did with Serpent Sky, which might be their most powerful headbanger song with lyrics that evoke words spoken by Whitman:
“I was watching American television, not in a Delores O'Riordan type of way though, and there was a program running about Walt Whitman, great American poet and how he wrote how he felt after Abraham Lincoln was shot and he talked about the clouds had turned into serpents in the sky and very short poem but I wanted the song to have the same effect, an exorcism of intense feelings really.." Said Mark.
Mark also said about Glimmer, another song in their second album:
"This is the one I get really pretentious, I wouldn't say I've stolen, but I've borrowed heavily from certain poets like Yeats and a Portugese poet called Fernando Pessoa. Go read Fernando Pessoa. It's unashamed love song, not towards a partner but more towards family and everyone. It's the one song on the album which is trying to embrace every stranger, every person who listens to it...."
Once again listening to Jj72 was leading me close to literature; by the end of 2002 I was sure I wanted to study literature.
Back to 2006 almost everything I do is related to literature, or at least writing. Few days ago I knew it: Jj72 won’t release a third album, the band does not exist anymore. May be next year Mark will release a solo album or create a new band. When I knew it I listened to this song and a tear escaped from my eye. Jj72 is so far the only band I followed, single by single, since they appeared until the band split up. I lost all the hopes I had to see them if they ever came to this far off city or at least to Coachella. It feels as if a close friend of mine had passed away. It feels as an ominous sign of my adolescence’s dusk. I sit back once again and listen to this song, the one that caught my ears six years ago. There are days that won’t come back, but the songs remain.
The best-known of all New Romantic bands, Duran Duran could be as corny as heart-shaped balloons.
And still, who who has ever been in love has not been corny?
Not their best song, of course, but Ordinary World synthetised -indeed- the New Romantic formula to its simplest elements. This was a guilty pleasure; a song I would cherish secretly. It spoke to me in a way other songs did not dare to: directly and without complex metaphors; just the present experience of having to go out and live in the "real" world after realizing love creates illusions that reality cannot stand. A song to listen to after being woken up, violently, from a sweet dream.
I remember one of those rainy Thursday evenings, when ghosts would pass hastily before me on my way home, and I would wish I could listen to this song.
Came in from a rainy thursday on the avenue Thought I heard you talking softly. I turned on the lights, the tv and the radio Still I cant escape the ghost of you What has happened to it all?
A simple song about coming back into the world; about being haunted, and hurt, and in mourning. Everything ends apruptly and all too soon, like this song.
A song about coming home and finding nothing but ghosts; a song about surviving the past and learning to live again.
La canción más romántica no es una historia de vidas eternamente felices o de promesas vanas de amor incondicional. No es flechazo a primera vista ni re-encuentro después de años. No menciona al destino y no le atribuye la magia a las estrellas.
Habla de un escape, de la gratitud, de la compañía y de la circunstancia.
Yo estoy agradecido porque el amor es la mejor compañía para escapar de la mera circunstancia.
El cielo es un cántaro de luz y no nos damos cuenta: la respiración se puede borrar para siempre si nuestra oquedad acompasada ve por primera vez un crepúsculo en su estado original o descubre el onarmento de un atardecer perfecto. Escogemos sólo ciertas palabras como las grutas para llegar al poema, pero en el frenesí de la búsqueda la lejanía nos ahoga.
El cielo: como el rostro de una tentación cautelosa que nos obliga a ocultar la tristeza, esa postura agónica que tanto nos quita y nos disfraza, y nos hace recordar nuestra primera apetencia: the First Breath After Coma.
First Breath After Coma, by Explosions in the Sky.
Salgo de la facultad temprano. No hay tráfico, los finales terminaron. Empiezo a pedalear, llego a la bajada, suelto el manubrio y me dejo ir. Llego al retorno y a lo lejos veo aquel coche gris; eres tu, lo se. Te alejas, pedaleo mas duro y te alcanzo en Cerro del Agua, tomo velocidad, ya me viste. Cambias de carril, sabes que yo lo haré, cruzo al lado izquierdo de la calle, pegado al camellón, voy atrás de ti. Por la altura de la bici solo alcanzo a ver parte de tu cuello por el retrovisor. Viene el tope, yo daré vuelta en la que sigue, te agachas, me ves, una sonrisa, y sigues derecho.
No te conozco, pero espero encontrar esa sonrisa de nuevo el próximo semestre cuando regrese a casa.
