I went to see the Hold Steady last night, and before I say anything else I have to put down that I really don't want to be one of those people. One of those people who gush about the music they like and the bands they have seen and brag about what they like and how it's the new big thing. I don't want to come across all tween-scream, gushing 14 year old girl about it. But at the same time, I can't deny greatness. You see last night was brilliant, and for the first time in a long time I feel like I have music again, like it is something forming an integral part of my life and I can enthuse about it. The short of it is I am back in love with it. After last night I had this warm and unbelievably comfortable feeling in the core of my stomach like a really perfect warm dinner after hours of coldness and hunger. I feel all fuzzy-like on the insides, you know? But how can this be because of seeing a bunch of guys playing guitars on a stage? Why does this good feeling come that way? It seems like the world wants me to value solely human interaction. Loving your friends and your family. Don't get me wrong I adore my family. My Families. My friends? Not so much, due to lack of good ones it seems. I think I'm now happy to refill that gap. When I was at high school it's what I did, where people sucked and I just popped in the earphones and zoned it all out. There was some great music then, and of course I was educating myself with the past and all that had happened prior to my existence. But for so long there was a musical drought. Two factors impinged on this; firstly my finding the one person who is like me and the inability to think of anything else other than him; and secondly the lack of music that warrented such love. But now I have a few bands to love once more. Last night's gig was so good. I can tell because it went so fast, and there was no point in checking the time or thinking about how long they had been on. For once the pointless ritual of an encore seemed more meaningful than anything outside of that dark, sticky floored venue. One more tune! Or why not ten! or FIFTY! I could watch you forever...
Like I said, I don't like gushing about music. So many people do it. How many people do you know who say "music is my life"? I tried to distance myself from that in a desperate attempt to not be the same as these people I did not value. I'm not going to hold out anymore. There was something about that gig which transcended the basis of it. It wasn't just music being played for people to listen to. It was a performance. And for the first time in a long, long while I actually felt part of it. For the first time in a long, long time I actually felt part of a crowd, music or otherwise. Maybe I'm just getting all sentimental over a lack of interaction. Maybe nostalgia for days past plays a role (it almost certainly does). Either way last night I stood in the big family, full of understanding and connection, soaking every drop up like a sponge into my pores. Now it rests in the middle and it makes me feel happy and calm and safe and worthwhile as I do the mundane things in life. It rests so well with domestic bliss and it continues to warm me, long after the heat is gone.
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Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Thursday, 10 February 2011
Sunday, 10 October 2010
I fell out of love with you, but I still want you
When I was young I liked Steps and the Spice Girls and probably some other crap which it appears my brain in sheilding me from acknowledging. Thanks brain.
When I was a little less young I liked better music. I liked bands from the 90s that were getting long in the tooth but that I had been too young to like when they first emerged. I always felt annoyed that all the bands I liked had already happened and they were someone else's, not my own.
When I was slightly older than that I liked contemporary bands. I went to the gigs, got chased out of the gigs, and I encased myself in these bands because I had to cling to something and the rest of my sociable life was a void. I could have been that person if I'd wanted to but even then I realised there was nothing there for me so I didn't make it stick. I kept my earphones in to block out the irritations.
When I was in that middling age I also did the sterotypical raid of the parents cds and then I discovered all the music that had passed by long before I was even considered.
When I was that age I fell in love with music and I fell in love with bands, certain special bands, and I stayed in the honeymoon period for a long time.
The first band that initiated this free fall was Manic Street Preachers. I don't know if it was the story behind it or the cult following but I immersed myself in a world where there was no sense of popularity and in the real world I made the gap between myself and my contemporaries a chasm. Everyone I knew became like myths, phantoms of real people, and all the people I couldn't fully know became more real than I'd ever imagined. I felt like I was understood, I was accepted and I could fit without neglecting myself. This was something I could never have done in the oppressive, moulding social structure of high school. So I created two worlds. In one world I was a little known, little cared of girl whose peers either never noticed her or purposley ignored her. In the other world I was a girl as part of a story with a plot and a trajectory and a great sound track. This lasted for years and is always carried.
From Despair to Where - Manic Street Preachers
From then on I would get up in the morning and put on something upbeat. I would ready myself for the day caring not for fashion and not for their Ben Sherman blue shirts or Jane Norman shoulder bags. I dressed like the boys I admired. I'd leave my room putting in my earphones with something more serious, more deadly. This would last to the bus stop and would be turned up on the bus as the morons bounced and chattered. I'd listen to music in as much of the day as I was allowed, on break, in class. I loved that Mrs Forrester and Mr Wilson let me escape for hours while working. On the bus home I again filled my ears with the other world and blocked out 'reality'. Once I got home I would put it on in my room again and I would fall asleep to it. 4pm-10pm the real world really didn't seem to exist.
Exit Music - Radiohead
I listened to Manic Street Preachers while writing, lying on my bed. I Listened to Fiery Furnaces while reading. I listened to the Mars Volta late in the evening in despair. It's a sweet thing, love. What's not so sweet is not getting it back, and of course I couldn't really.
Take the Veil Cerpin Taxt - Mars Volta
I didn't get it back from my other world in a full way and when I reverted to seeking it in the real world it was starkly transparent, egg-timed and once more not reciprocated. I ended the real world fling and stayed with old faithful. Then I met Stuart.
I Wanna Die - Adam Green
I suppose I fell out of love with music and the whole other world it opened gradually. It's like balancing clutch and accelerator in the car, it gradually faded and the necessity to keep up with it diminished. I realised that the other world was a defence and an escape. It was life support until things came sure and safe in the real world. It was a frank exhange. I fell out of love naturally.
Death on the Stairs - The Libertines
In the last few years I've been pining for it though, but the door to the other world seems hesitant and the world uninviting, harsh. I get in and find I'm in someone else's house, a niche I no longer fit. I still dip in but it's not the same. I still love music but I am no longer in love with it. I really just wanted to explain this. It feels like I've lost a bit of myself sometimes. Then I realise it's ok, I'll always have it, in some way or other.
Fall to Climb - R.E.M.
When I was a little less young I liked better music. I liked bands from the 90s that were getting long in the tooth but that I had been too young to like when they first emerged. I always felt annoyed that all the bands I liked had already happened and they were someone else's, not my own.
When I was slightly older than that I liked contemporary bands. I went to the gigs, got chased out of the gigs, and I encased myself in these bands because I had to cling to something and the rest of my sociable life was a void. I could have been that person if I'd wanted to but even then I realised there was nothing there for me so I didn't make it stick. I kept my earphones in to block out the irritations.
When I was in that middling age I also did the sterotypical raid of the parents cds and then I discovered all the music that had passed by long before I was even considered.
When I was that age I fell in love with music and I fell in love with bands, certain special bands, and I stayed in the honeymoon period for a long time.
The first band that initiated this free fall was Manic Street Preachers. I don't know if it was the story behind it or the cult following but I immersed myself in a world where there was no sense of popularity and in the real world I made the gap between myself and my contemporaries a chasm. Everyone I knew became like myths, phantoms of real people, and all the people I couldn't fully know became more real than I'd ever imagined. I felt like I was understood, I was accepted and I could fit without neglecting myself. This was something I could never have done in the oppressive, moulding social structure of high school. So I created two worlds. In one world I was a little known, little cared of girl whose peers either never noticed her or purposley ignored her. In the other world I was a girl as part of a story with a plot and a trajectory and a great sound track. This lasted for years and is always carried.
From Despair to Where - Manic Street Preachers
From then on I would get up in the morning and put on something upbeat. I would ready myself for the day caring not for fashion and not for their Ben Sherman blue shirts or Jane Norman shoulder bags. I dressed like the boys I admired. I'd leave my room putting in my earphones with something more serious, more deadly. This would last to the bus stop and would be turned up on the bus as the morons bounced and chattered. I'd listen to music in as much of the day as I was allowed, on break, in class. I loved that Mrs Forrester and Mr Wilson let me escape for hours while working. On the bus home I again filled my ears with the other world and blocked out 'reality'. Once I got home I would put it on in my room again and I would fall asleep to it. 4pm-10pm the real world really didn't seem to exist.
Exit Music - Radiohead
I listened to Manic Street Preachers while writing, lying on my bed. I Listened to Fiery Furnaces while reading. I listened to the Mars Volta late in the evening in despair. It's a sweet thing, love. What's not so sweet is not getting it back, and of course I couldn't really.
Take the Veil Cerpin Taxt - Mars Volta
I didn't get it back from my other world in a full way and when I reverted to seeking it in the real world it was starkly transparent, egg-timed and once more not reciprocated. I ended the real world fling and stayed with old faithful. Then I met Stuart.
I Wanna Die - Adam Green
I suppose I fell out of love with music and the whole other world it opened gradually. It's like balancing clutch and accelerator in the car, it gradually faded and the necessity to keep up with it diminished. I realised that the other world was a defence and an escape. It was life support until things came sure and safe in the real world. It was a frank exhange. I fell out of love naturally.
Death on the Stairs - The Libertines
In the last few years I've been pining for it though, but the door to the other world seems hesitant and the world uninviting, harsh. I get in and find I'm in someone else's house, a niche I no longer fit. I still dip in but it's not the same. I still love music but I am no longer in love with it. I really just wanted to explain this. It feels like I've lost a bit of myself sometimes. Then I realise it's ok, I'll always have it, in some way or other.
Fall to Climb - R.E.M.
Saturday, 30 January 2010
Cynicism, ism ism
I am so cynical.
There are so many wonderful topics I could dwell on here. This is meant to be a blog where I complain about myself and how I am the most cynical and easily irritated person in the history of life and living &c. However, I feel it is just going to become a rant. Well, I've put in several blogs so far about fairly sentimental things and such that weren't angry so it is in my nature to feel it now justified.
Andy Murray. AKA moody bawbag of a teenager turned reluctant carrier of a nation's (and the nation it is attached to's) pride. It is not so much Andy Murray himself I don't like, though I have a certain disdain for the sullenness of teenage boys too but I best not get carried away here. Basically this guy comes along as a decent tennis player and people dont really notice until Wimbledon and then all of a sudden it's like "Tim who? ITS MURRAY MOUND!!!". His management realises he is about to be swept off by the ravenous national-pride-deprived sports fans of the UK (and I do mean sports fans, not tennis fans, as suddenly those only content with football normally are sitting in bars going "ohhh look at that fore hand") and he stops swearing and uses the top end of his pencil to change from the box that says "Scottish" to the box that says "British" under National Identity on any government issued questionnaires. Don't get me wrong, I don't really mind that he can and is loved by many of the United Kingdom's inhabitants, but what I saw in the paper today pissed me off. Apparently, if Murray loses todays Grand Slam Final he remains Scottish, but if he wins he becomes English. WHAT THE FUCK? So basically, English people only want the Scottish sports star IF he can deliver the goods. Like, you know he isn't actually English, but if he is accomplished at his game then, yeah we would like to adopt him. Why must all only support people in sport who are the same nationality as themselves? Why can't someone just support the player who they admire the most in the game? I support Jarno Trulli and I stand by that. Please don't get me started about Lewis Hamilton.
I guess it all boils down to me here. I don't like to share. I don't like it if someone asks "where did you get that" just so they can buy it. But this idea usually only applies to stuff you can't buy. The greatest example is Music. I used to like music and go to gigs. What pisses me off about this is two-fold. You can get a great band/artist that you like and so do someothers and you go to the gigs and you buy the cd and hooray you are a fan. What gets to me is that you can have been a fan for years, literally like 6 years plus, and then, all of a sudden, the band you like is grabbed from you and hundreds of people are suddenly pulling it all ways, stretching it out and making it unwearable. This was justified in the most obvious form at Adam Green. Since when did ANYONE? (anyone beside the Germans) like Adam Green? I will proceed to answer this: Since that fucking Juno film came out and some song by the Moldy Peaches was in it. And then all the morons who will latch onto anything that is "popular", as I guess Adam Green is now as he was in that film, and lie all over it. So people like Adam Green now and I have to leave it there. It's stubborn but it is true and I guarantee to you, that now, after 6 albums, Adam Green will no longer be the same again. Maybe I am too hasty and he will retain his charm, the charm of being undiscovered, but I just don't envisage it happening. I'm sure that you now and convulsing in rages of my stubborness but this is why I have to write this. I am cynical and I don't feel like changing because if I do it will break my heart. I noted that this hatred was two-fold, the second fold being that there are so many popular bands out there, and have you noticed that before they got famous there was always one or two albums prior that no-one knew of but are infinatley better quality and worth listening to? Good Example: Kings of Leon. Great band, 3 cool albums, then the label get involved and they fast track a shit new album with pishy anthem type songs on it, cut their hair, shave and don the skinny jeans. Wasted Time.
I had like 4 more things to talk about but as preidicted the rant took over my brain and englufed me. So I have just one more illustration of my unwavering cynicism/irritableness. People being late. I'm sorry to any of my friends who read this and are like "Ok i'm late sometimes, she must hate me". Don't hate anyone, and if you are a late person and I like to go out with you then I guess I love you so you have nothing to worry about, for I appear not to suffer fools... Yeah but I'm keeping this short and sweet and it is targetted at the general population/human race. If you say you will be there at 9: Be there at 9. This is NOT hard, and all it involves is a simple thought process of "I need to be there at 9. I takes 30 minutes to get there. I need 30 minutes to get ready. I will leave at 8". No more effort is required and I seriously do not understand how people do not do this. I mean, if someone is late it pretty much is like saying, Yeah I wanted to come out but this event/meeting you didn't matter as much as something else I was doing that prevented me from leaving on time. And I am guessing that most of the time this is sleeping. Set your bloody alarm clock - and if you want to snooze, allow another 5 minutes when setting the time on the alarm. Now I sound so patronising. But it is just to illustrate something... I know fine well that 99% of people are aware of all these things, yes they know how to set an alarm and how to get out of bed. Basically my annoyance stems from people not giving a shit about the other person, who has arrived and has to perpetually stand at the bar feeling very lonely, or wait in the freezing cold outside somewhere only to find that delightful text "running late be there in 30 minutes". Traffic is understandable, as is being late by 10 minutes as obviously stuff happens and you might forget your phone and have to go back &c &c. All I will say is that it is very apparent when someone is genuinely held up or late by a little while, and generally up to 20 minutes I can deal with, but why say lets meet at 9 only when you know fine well your gonna be there at half past. It's basically a lie. And I don't understand why people lie to eachother. I must note this is NOT a personal attack and is based mostly on stories from other people about late friends &c, I mean not to offend, only get off my chest what frustrates me about people in general.
So, as you can see, I am cynical and I am irritable and I am stubborn and I am hard to please. Basically I am a pain in the arse you wish you had never met. But this is me cordial, if you get my drift. That's why this isn't going on facebook.
There are so many wonderful topics I could dwell on here. This is meant to be a blog where I complain about myself and how I am the most cynical and easily irritated person in the history of life and living &c. However, I feel it is just going to become a rant. Well, I've put in several blogs so far about fairly sentimental things and such that weren't angry so it is in my nature to feel it now justified.
Andy Murray. AKA moody bawbag of a teenager turned reluctant carrier of a nation's (and the nation it is attached to's) pride. It is not so much Andy Murray himself I don't like, though I have a certain disdain for the sullenness of teenage boys too but I best not get carried away here. Basically this guy comes along as a decent tennis player and people dont really notice until Wimbledon and then all of a sudden it's like "Tim who? ITS MURRAY MOUND!!!". His management realises he is about to be swept off by the ravenous national-pride-deprived sports fans of the UK (and I do mean sports fans, not tennis fans, as suddenly those only content with football normally are sitting in bars going "ohhh look at that fore hand") and he stops swearing and uses the top end of his pencil to change from the box that says "Scottish" to the box that says "British" under National Identity on any government issued questionnaires. Don't get me wrong, I don't really mind that he can and is loved by many of the United Kingdom's inhabitants, but what I saw in the paper today pissed me off. Apparently, if Murray loses todays Grand Slam Final he remains Scottish, but if he wins he becomes English. WHAT THE FUCK? So basically, English people only want the Scottish sports star IF he can deliver the goods. Like, you know he isn't actually English, but if he is accomplished at his game then, yeah we would like to adopt him. Why must all only support people in sport who are the same nationality as themselves? Why can't someone just support the player who they admire the most in the game? I support Jarno Trulli and I stand by that. Please don't get me started about Lewis Hamilton.
I guess it all boils down to me here. I don't like to share. I don't like it if someone asks "where did you get that" just so they can buy it. But this idea usually only applies to stuff you can't buy. The greatest example is Music. I used to like music and go to gigs. What pisses me off about this is two-fold. You can get a great band/artist that you like and so do someothers and you go to the gigs and you buy the cd and hooray you are a fan. What gets to me is that you can have been a fan for years, literally like 6 years plus, and then, all of a sudden, the band you like is grabbed from you and hundreds of people are suddenly pulling it all ways, stretching it out and making it unwearable. This was justified in the most obvious form at Adam Green. Since when did ANYONE? (anyone beside the Germans) like Adam Green? I will proceed to answer this: Since that fucking Juno film came out and some song by the Moldy Peaches was in it. And then all the morons who will latch onto anything that is "popular", as I guess Adam Green is now as he was in that film, and lie all over it. So people like Adam Green now and I have to leave it there. It's stubborn but it is true and I guarantee to you, that now, after 6 albums, Adam Green will no longer be the same again. Maybe I am too hasty and he will retain his charm, the charm of being undiscovered, but I just don't envisage it happening. I'm sure that you now and convulsing in rages of my stubborness but this is why I have to write this. I am cynical and I don't feel like changing because if I do it will break my heart. I noted that this hatred was two-fold, the second fold being that there are so many popular bands out there, and have you noticed that before they got famous there was always one or two albums prior that no-one knew of but are infinatley better quality and worth listening to? Good Example: Kings of Leon. Great band, 3 cool albums, then the label get involved and they fast track a shit new album with pishy anthem type songs on it, cut their hair, shave and don the skinny jeans. Wasted Time.
I had like 4 more things to talk about but as preidicted the rant took over my brain and englufed me. So I have just one more illustration of my unwavering cynicism/irritableness. People being late. I'm sorry to any of my friends who read this and are like "Ok i'm late sometimes, she must hate me". Don't hate anyone, and if you are a late person and I like to go out with you then I guess I love you so you have nothing to worry about, for I appear not to suffer fools... Yeah but I'm keeping this short and sweet and it is targetted at the general population/human race. If you say you will be there at 9: Be there at 9. This is NOT hard, and all it involves is a simple thought process of "I need to be there at 9. I takes 30 minutes to get there. I need 30 minutes to get ready. I will leave at 8". No more effort is required and I seriously do not understand how people do not do this. I mean, if someone is late it pretty much is like saying, Yeah I wanted to come out but this event/meeting you didn't matter as much as something else I was doing that prevented me from leaving on time. And I am guessing that most of the time this is sleeping. Set your bloody alarm clock - and if you want to snooze, allow another 5 minutes when setting the time on the alarm. Now I sound so patronising. But it is just to illustrate something... I know fine well that 99% of people are aware of all these things, yes they know how to set an alarm and how to get out of bed. Basically my annoyance stems from people not giving a shit about the other person, who has arrived and has to perpetually stand at the bar feeling very lonely, or wait in the freezing cold outside somewhere only to find that delightful text "running late be there in 30 minutes". Traffic is understandable, as is being late by 10 minutes as obviously stuff happens and you might forget your phone and have to go back &c &c. All I will say is that it is very apparent when someone is genuinely held up or late by a little while, and generally up to 20 minutes I can deal with, but why say lets meet at 9 only when you know fine well your gonna be there at half past. It's basically a lie. And I don't understand why people lie to eachother. I must note this is NOT a personal attack and is based mostly on stories from other people about late friends &c, I mean not to offend, only get off my chest what frustrates me about people in general.
So, as you can see, I am cynical and I am irritable and I am stubborn and I am hard to please. Basically I am a pain in the arse you wish you had never met. But this is me cordial, if you get my drift. That's why this isn't going on facebook.
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