Scott Walker and his stain glass whispers...

Scott Walker, no, not the Senator for Wisconsin..
.Scott Walker, the God like genius according to Julian Cope...He hates to be in the spotlight, but I wonder what he thinks about people like me,who regard him as someone who I could not live without. Yes Scott is one of those singers that literally I can't live without listening to him at least once a day, or he is in every of my play lists.
He touches, he inspires, maybe he's not aware of this, or maybe he chooses to ignore it.
He touched me deeply, his songs are he words of someone who aches, and the world is something that is better to keep  at bay or to avoid.
The  world is there to live in, but at the same time is a place to loath, a place to dissapear in. He once, after having it all, after having the fame and the experiences that everybody only dream off, he decided to dissapear.
I use his songs to dissapear into...I loose myself in the universe of "Orpheus", or in the self deception of "Humphrey Plugg", or I dream of those "stain glass whispers"
Scott's imagery is like an art that is almost impossible to describe or put a label...I guess he hates labels...I hate them too.  Lazy journalism like to label everything, sometimes just because they want to pretend they "understand"
There is nothing to understand with Scott Walker songs, you suppose to feel and loose yourself in his worlds...Scott songs fit in different circumstances of my life...right now this lines just say what I feel, and what I would like to say...
"You're on your own again
And you're your best again
That's what you tell yourself
I see it all the way as far as anyone can see
Except when it began I was so happy I didn't feel like me"... 
This is me right now...
Scott is permanently telling me things that I wish I could say outloud, but the words don't come out, or I'm afraid to say them...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg8-3wbCFi4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9wV7QWyXf8&feature=fvsr

Exiled in your own country? better just "wait around and die" Townes Van Zandt and me.

I always felt a foreigner in my own country, I never related to  latin american cultural heritage, and always prefered the Anglo-Saxon culture, specially musically. I truly relate to the views and feelings of certain British and American artists, their sensibility is very similar to mine.

When for the first time I heard "Waiting around to die" by Townes Van Zandt I heard it in a very bad period of my life... I guess I always been slightly more sensitive than the rest, and certain music and certain lyrics do touch me deeply...Townes was one of those very sensitive, delicate beautiful souls, those souls that are too special to stay around longer in this earth...
To be unhappy is hard, and music is a soothing balm in my heart. Townes was an unhappy soul too, and is reflected in his lyrics...doomed love, poverty, drunkness, gambling, etc...he sang about all those romantic themes, and he maked me feel, less miserable,less worthless. When people tell me, "why can you listen music less depresive" they don't understand, that is a question  of "relating" to this sadness, relating to it means,  that your own pain is less heavy over your shoulders...and Townes takes that heavy weight out of me...Scott Walker helps me the same way (but I will talked about him in another blog)...

Townes, through your own pain, you help me to deal with my own pain, and I'm sure others feel the same...Is hard to explain in words...I guess he felt alien in his own land, the way I feel in my own land. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe is my own impression...but God, thank you for your songs!!! and thank you for using my name in your songs "Quicksilver daydreams of Maria"!!

He must be one of the few singer sonwriters who make me weep...sometimes of joy, sometimes of sadness, but non the less he awakes all my feelings and senses...
I could carry on, but I don't want to be a bore.

Townes.

I love him so bad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lioB6CQeEX4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwR1n0p1V7U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkAwARWBlEU

Music and love: Intimate connection.

In my previous post, I talked about my early dealings with music, and the value of music's presence in my teens, as it was part of my formative years.

Music had other influences and effects during my life. Love. Must of music lyrics, and poetry in general, has to do with the feelings of love; either happiness or heartbreak derived from love, or even hate, as we know that between love and hate is only a thread in between.
In my case, music and love were part of the source of happiness.

Now, the link between the finding of love and music was the british band Tindersticks.

Tindersticks has a been a very important band in my life, their haunting music catched my imagination and my deepest feelings...Some journalists called them 'Chamber pop' and they were put under the same bracket with bands such as Lambshop, Walkabout, and Cousteau (another very important band in my life).

Tindersticks is important in my life, as they were a direct link within a certain loneliness and my love life.
As a 'Sticks' fan, I used to post in their online forum, and share thoughts about the band, their influences, and what their music meant for me and for other fans in the forum.
I met someone in this forum, we took things further outside this forum, and a beautiful relationship blossomed. I was in Chile he was in Birmingham. We spend at least over a year writting emails to each other. Our love for Tindersticks and music in general, our personal angst and loneliness brought us togheter too.
After thousands of email,we decided to be together. I took the plunge and I went to the UK, we loved each other, and after a few years we married.  The day of the marriage, we received many presents, but was a single present the most important of all: We received a huge bunch of flowers, which for our surprise, was sent by Tindersticks!!  We had a acquintance who new the band's manager and they thought in this gesture, giving our story....
Our marriage was beautiful, but came to a halt recently. We are not together anymore.
Music brought too lonely souls together, sadly circumstances beyond our control  had brought us apart....
But this does not take away the fact that Music was there when I was the happiest in my life...at least I was then.
Who knows, maybe my inconditional love for music might bring love back to my life, and to his life again.
Anyway...thank you Tindersticks, thank you Stuart and co. for bringing me happiness  all this years!!!

Tindersticks circa 1996

Stuart Staples.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moxF6OjD8xI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfF7dP41U58

Dreaming of Heaven?...feeling like you're in Hell?...

Then turn the music on!...This blog is about the effect music have in our lives...Life in general isn't a bed of roses, the shores, the mistakes and responsibilities of someone who constantly lives in the clouds, makes life rather impossible at times, specially when we don't really want to come down to earth as often as we should.

But here's what is keeping me sane, and a link between the clouds and earth: Music. Not any music mind you, music is not an easy thing to digest. Certain people take music as a form of pure entertainment, i.e dance music, clubbing, R&B in the later meaning of the initials, etc..
How I see, or I should say hear music, is rather different, and I know there's many people who listen to music the way I do.
Loneliness is a key part of my life, sometimes circumstances in life, sometimes self inflicted. In general, I'm not surrounded by people, and sometimes I choose the lonely path.
In those moments is when music comes in, and fill what is missing.

During this blog, I will share my views about certain artists and genres, in a regular basis. Certain artists had been key in certain moments and events in my life.
I'm 34 in October, and music has been in my life since the womb, when my mum and dad used to play rock music in the early 70's...I vividly remember my dad playing The Dark Side of the moon as a toddler, or my mother playing the French singer Joe Dasin (whom I love till this day)
I fell in love with music, before I fell in love with a boy for the first time, so yes, music was my first love...and still is.

I guess the way to start this blog is with my first musical love:
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

I was 14, and I was at school. I wasn't rich, and to get your hands in music meant to save pocket money, and buy pirate cassettes from the older boys who made copies from their original records in the local market. I remember seeing Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders, where features a performance by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, plus another great love Crime and the City Solution. I guess my first love was Wim Wenders fault...That film changed everything for me. Since then,  music begin to take the front row in my life.
THANK YOU MR WENDERS!

I remember  been almost short of air, when I saw this film and this performance. Primarily because Nick Cave was part of the plot in the film. Nick Cave, for a 14 years old girl like me, was simply electrifying, attractive, beautiful...The baritone voice became my favorite feature in a singer. I cried, Simon Bonney of Crime and the city solution, also created a huge impact on me...I was obsessed with this two Down Under bands...For me, then, Australia was the centre of the world in musical terms, and London following closer, as this bands started with gigs in small venues in London...
As a teenager I wanted so bad to be part of their world...I was a lonely full of angst girl, and their music fitted my personality perfectly...English isn't my first language, and it took great deal to learn and understand English, because I wanted to understand that energy and feelings, those music waves which I absorbed and I knew they were so important...It was the music first, the emotions they provoked on me, afterwords, I found that the lyrics truly matched those feelings, and I knew then, that music was to be forever part of my daily life.

Take a look at this performances and you will see what I mean...you will see why I fell in love.



Nick Cave and Blixa Bargeld performing.



Nick and the Angel Cassiel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1uVDZ9Gpcg


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrMRks07XyY