Current song you are listening to(or the Last song you listened to) - by Andarthiel
Gray on 8/9/2019 at 02:33
I've always had a soft spot for music sung in French, even though I don't speak the language. It just sounds poetic and rhythmic to me, and given enough time and a dictionary I can decode some of it. An event recently reminded me of a song I used to listen to some 30-odd years ago, Mylene Farmer, Sans Contrefacon. I listened to quite a few of her songs back in the day, but this might be my favourite, or possibly Desenchantee.
[video=youtube;d03wJOgoq1k]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d03wJOgoq1k[/video]
[Edit]
To illustrate my point, here is one of my all time favourite EBM tracks, by a Swedish band singing in French. It just kicks ass.
Restricted Area: Oublier
[video=youtube;ltObXWrQ2lg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltObXWrQ2lg[/video]
And as a massive Kraftwerk nerd, having pretty much everything they ever recorded, this is by far my favourite version of Pocket Calculator, or in French, Mini Calculateur - the rhythm is completely different, and much funkier somehow.
[video=youtube;0GKk_T_tjdM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GKk_T_tjdM[/video]
Tocky on 8/9/2019 at 05:51
Quote Posted by Gray
Today would have been her birthday.
Tocky, I'm yet again impressed that you know of Lords of Acid, I didn't think many others had heard of them. Maybe that's just my own arrogant elitist stupid head, they're obviously popular enough to have made it across oceans and decades. One day you and I need to sit down with a bottle of cheap whisky and talk about nothing but music.
I don't know what to tell you about death. It sucks but you know that. My best friend from high school, Kevin, called me and told me his sister just died. I had a story about her in my stories thread. So many have died. More as the years go on. They all die too soon. It's not fair. Here we are alive and still not knowing what to do with life and they have already gone. None of it makes any sense. The wrong people die. Lisa was a wonderful funny person. She used to spring at me when I walked in like a vampire in an old Hammer film and hiss about sucking my blood. I held my fingers in a cross saying "back foul demon, you will never taste my virgin blood" but I wanted her to bite me. I would have offered her my throat if she were a real vampire. It kills me. She should have had a wonderful life and yet I had it in her stead. None of life is fair and it breaks my heart. I can't even imagine what you feel. It must be a thousand times worse. I don't know what the hell any of this is about. I'm drinking and it was drink that killed her. There is more of course. There always is. Not a whit of it any sense of it makes. Not to my heart.
No. If we meet one day it won't be just music we talk of. Music is wound in every fiber but it isn't what the cloth is made of. It's a wonderful damn suit of memories we make. It's made of the people we know. It's always them. It's always those who make our lives. How did our parents bear it so well? This seeing those we love go? I don't remember. I know they did. For us they did. Just now I don't know how. I'll remember soon enough. I'm drunk now and I don't recall.
[video=youtube_share;tmuMVdnaFus]https://youtu.be/tmuMVdnaFus[/video]
SubJeff on 8/9/2019 at 08:48
I'm digging the future/otherworld feel of the new Grimes track.
[video=youtube;M9SGYBHY0qs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9SGYBHY0qs[/video]
I've got to put this on a playlist.
Gray on 8/9/2019 at 12:30
Quote Posted by Tocky
The wrong people die.
Yes. My wife was so important to so many people, and an amazing person. I mean nothing to anybody but her, and now she's gone. I'm utterly insignificant. When she got cancer, I wished I could trade places with her so I'd die and she'd live, but it doesn't work that way. If I only could...
[video=youtube;wp43OdtAAkM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp43OdtAAkM[/video]
I know that that's not what the song is about. And she hated Kate Bush. But that song pretty accurately describes what I felt for two and a half years between diagnosis and death. It should have been me instead.
SubJeff on 8/9/2019 at 14:32
???
I thought that was what this song was about.
Gray on 8/9/2019 at 15:12
No, it's about Kate wanting to be a man to see how it feels. It's not about illness at all, I just misappropriated it for my own needs.
Tocky on 8/9/2019 at 18:13
Quote Posted by Gray
Yes. My wife was so important to so many people, and an amazing person. I mean nothing to anybody but her, and now she's gone. I'm utterly insignificant. When she got cancer, I wished I could trade places with her so I'd die and she'd live, but it doesn't work that way. If I only could...
I'm sorry. When I'm drinking I'm not thinking. I don't agree with you. You are not insignificant. I understand the feeling but you aren't. She picked you. This wonderful person picked you out of all the guys in the world. That means something. I see why. I bet a lot of other people do too.
Gray on 8/9/2019 at 18:40
Thanks. Yes, I know, I'm a classic example of survivor's guilt, but knowing that doesn't make me not feel it. So I try to distract myself with things like music, and this thread.
qolelis on 13/9/2019 at 09:30
In the big scheme of things, we are all insignificant, like ants in someone's basement, but that's not what you are talking about, is it!?
I'm taking it that what you are saying, although I'm probably talking out of that orifice that is not the mouth (figuratively speaking), is that you only meant something together with her or because of her, and now that she is physically not there any more, you think that people who once tolerated you because of her will not do so any more!? I've never met you -- nor them -- so I can't really say anything about that, but maybe you're underestimating yourself, and maybe you are also underestimating the people around you -- or the strangers around you. Not for me to say anything about, but I'm going to be so bold and suggest it.
Tocky already said it better, so suffice it to say that I think that you are probably underestimating your own importance. It's even very likely. People tend to do that -- and the nicer they are, the more they do it. You made someone happy, and that means something, a lot even, being able to make someone happy means a hell of a lot more than you seem to give yourself credit for.
On to something else:
I've been listening to a lot lately, too much to post about, so I'm just going to pick the tracks with the most story. Let's start from the beginning -- or, rather, somewhere in the middle:
I woke up way too early today, couldn't go back to sleep, but stayed in bed anyway and read about (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_music) defining music, Beethoven's (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gro%C3%9Fe_Fuge)
Große Fuge and listened to (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU0C7QcNo1U) it for a bit. I can't say I liked it much, kind of boring, reading about it was a lot more interesting, although I might give it a second chance later.
While reading about that grand fugue, my mind started wandering to, firstly, Stravinsky's
The Rite of Spring, which I can enjoy a lot more, and especially Marie Chouinard's (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK0dNoaYyi4) choreography to it, which I had the pleasure of experiencing live (together with the equally enjoyable Sharon Eyal's (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHWFyLP4uW4)
Untitled Black).
The Rite of Spring is a piece I first learned about as a teenager in school. I remember telling someone that I liked it, only to have him tell me back that I didn't really like it. Maybe he was used to people around him not liking it. Maybe he didn't expect me specifically to like it, because of some arbitrary notion; I've had that reaction in other settings too.
Secondly, my mind wandered to Alfred Schnittke's (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaaRk0c-780)
Concerto Grosso No. 1, which I also like a lot more than that huge fugue from earlier. Not much of a story here, though, expect that the cadenza and the rondo are my favourite parts, supposedly because they are the most accessible for me coming from electronic music?
While preparing for this post I rediscovered Venetian Snares's
Hospitality album (a new favourite among the albums of his that I don't yet own):
[video=youtube;Zg1sgrw1PGM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg1sgrw1PGM[/video]
...and also Woven Hand's
Swedish Purse:
[video=youtube;jkaR-r9ZfIY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkaR-r9ZfIY[/video]
I don't know what made the purse particularly Swedish, but the song is great.
What it all started with, though, was Bach's (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho9rZjlsyYY)
Toccata and Fugue:
My first memory of this is from my childhood as I was watching the French TV-series (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Time..._Man)
Once Upon a Time... Man, which uses Bach's piece for the (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfnLa4B-Pbg) opening theme. My second, more recent memory, from a couple of days ago, is from working on a thing of my own, being stuck and taking a break, watching videos about counterpoint, not claiming to fully understand it, because I don't know all the terminology and notation, but still being inspired to add some life to the otherwise lifeless by adding more details and layers to it, effectively solving the problem of being stuck.
Edit:
Another thing about me and Venetian Snares is that I, as I grow older, tend to not listen so much to his edgier stuff, like for example his terror/horrorcore tracks, any more and move more towards his jazzier(?) material when I do.