Filed under: Greece, brutal memoirs | Tags: 1999, earthquake, Greece, nemesis divina, satyricon, the dawn of a new age
It was the 7th of September 1999 and I was hanging out with my friend Nick at his house. He still lived with his parents back then and we were sitting in his room listening to Satyricon. In that room with the wooden floor, the heavy wooden desk and the huge bookcase, we had experienced countless hours of headbanging and philosophising about how amazing the music we listened to was. Some of the most vivid memories include listening to Draconian Times (Paradise Lost) around 1995-1996, or to Coma of Souls (Kreator), Maiden or anything by Dismember, Unleashed and At The Gates.
It was still summer in greece, it was early afternoon and it was fairly hot. I don’t think I had had lunch yet. My mother and my brother were at home, my mother was cooking. My dad was still at work. Me and Nick were as usual wasting our time lying on his bed and listening to Nemesis Divina by Satyricon. Now that I think about it, listening to Satyricon in the middle of a sunny, hot day is quite surreal! Anyway, we were listening to the opening track which kicks off with the line “This is armaggeddon”. At some point in the middle of the song (around the 3rd minute), Nick jumps up and says “listen to the way he says ‘and there was a great earthquake’!, right before Satyr sings the lyric. Right after that, the cd starts to jump. So Nick stands up again furious at his stupid cd player, because it spoiled the atmosphere. Within seconds though, we start to realise that things on the desk also started to move, that the bookcase was moving and that the wooden floor was rumbling and creaking. Eventually, books started falling off the bookcase and we could see the floor moving up and down. I remained frozen on my seat for less than ten seconds and finally Nick grabbed me by my neck and threw me under his desk. We stayed there for another ten seconds untill the earthquake stoped and then we stormed out of the room. By the time we reached the living room the shaking resumed. That day was the start of a week-long period of smaller and bigger earthquakes that kept many people out of their houses. A few people were killed. Many houses were seriously damaged and had to be demolished. And for us, that experience started with Satyr saying “and there was a great earthquake“.
Filed under: Brighton, people | Tags: conventions, flirtation, institutions
Most people are not aware of the important role of institutions in their everyday lives. I am not talking about formalised state institutions. I am refering to those conventions that regulate our daily conduct. Imagine facing countless options each time a decision needs to be made! Instead, institutions in the form of norms or conventions have been developed which frame human action and limit our choices from hundreds to a few. Some conventions go even further and provide prescriptions for action that entail only one option which cannot be disputed. Before we walk out the door each morning we don’t wonder whether we should wear clothes or not, even when it is summer and not wearing clothes would be a plausible choice!
However, I think that there are still some aspects in human relationships that are not sufficiently regulated by informal institutions. Take “flirtation” for example. Most people are still crippled by fear when they try to approach a person they feel attracted to. Further, many people although they may receive signals which according to the popular conventions mean something, they are reluctant to interpret them as such. Instead they feel that they mean something else. That is because most people don’t have faith in these conventions. Chances are that they have misinterpreted them in the past. The interactive learning process in that case, whereby a certain behaviour would persistently be associated with a rejection, is often challenged by the existing conventions which were proven insufficient in the first place.
In a few words, what happens if you are shy and/or are afraid of rejection? Even worse, what happens if both people involved in a flirting game are like that? I’d like to see these people (I’m one of them) as spoiled kids who don’t want to take any chances and want things readily made and delivered to them. What happens if noone gives them what they want? They’ll sit down and cry.
Filed under: Brighton, people | Tags: Alice, cowley club, new years eve, sisters of mercy
On new years eve people drink and dance to start the new year as fancy as possible and every corner of the city is beaming with eagerness and expectation. Company in this hour is consolation; an unspoken deal with superstition that the new year I’ll never be lonely. Yet for some people, securing the deal may be unbearable and company may prove itself more frightening than solitude. It was in Cowley Club, one of my new years stops, where I met Alice.
She was standing against the wall near the door with her drink, observing the dancing crowd. My friend A noticed her and wondered why she did not dance. I thought that alcohol had failed to bless her with the intimacy the rest of the crowd was feeling. It could be that what for some people is a frantic ritual of celebration, for others is a stampede. But still she remained because she needed the illusion of company. An illusion that everything will turn out fine and according to plan. After a while, A asked her if she wanted to dance. Alice kindly declined the invitation.
Alice pressed against the wall
So she can see the door
In case the laughing strangers crawl and
Crush the petals on the floor
Alice in her party dress
She thanks you kindly
So serene
She needs you like she needs her tranqs
To tell her that the world is clean
To promise her a definition
Tell her where the rain will fall
Tell her where the sun shines bright
And tell her she can have it all
Today
Today
Pass the crystal spread the Tarot
In illusion comfort lies
The safest way the straight and narrow
No confusion no surprise
Alice in her party dressed to kill
She the thanks you turns away
She needs you like she needs needs her pills
To tell her that the world’s okay
To promise her a definition
Tell her where the rain will fall
Tell her where the sun shines bright
And tell her she can have it all
Today
Today
Alice
Don’t give it way
It has been quite some time since a new punk album blew me away. The latest Propagandhi album was really good but predictable, the canadian band Vancougar I discovered a year ago plays very impressive pop-punk which amazed me, but besides that I’ve been mainly living on early eighties stuff. And honestly I did not see that coming! First of all let me clarify that I am sick of all those new brutal hardcore or crust bands that are poping up every day in every neighbourhood claiming anarchism, or whatever. The rule of the thumb is that they are talentless and devoid of any trace of inspiration or innovativeness, which were the drivers for bands they may look up to such as CRASS, CONFLICT, DISCHARGE, AMEBIX, NEUROSIS etc.
However, Cross Stitched Eyes is nothing like that. I have only listened to it once and now I am writing this. This record is so amazing that it makes me not want to go to sleep tonight, and instead stay up and listen to it over and over. We are talking about 14 songs that each one is unique. That is a damn hard thing to say for a crust album… We are talking about a terrifying claustrophobic atmosphere, desperate melodies, great playing, and fantastic sceaming vocals! There is a huge tempo for each song, making it a very aggressive album overall. The style is consistent throughout the record, but it brings in elements from different genres. The influence of the early english crust scene, may it be the fast one (e.g. Antisect) or the slow/mid-tempo one (e.g. Exit-stance, Cress) is obvious. Amebix of course is the band that comes into mind after hearing the first notes. However, their influence is implicit and does not become annoying like for example with Born Dead Icons, where at times the resemblance is ridiculous! In other instances, they sound like Celtic Frost (e.g. the song “Sufffer”) and other times the vocals remind of (the other) Tom from Sodom! There is a lot more, however, on this record that I have not discovered yet (for example, my friend George Norton shrewdly observed that they must have listened a lot to New Model Army! Indeed listen to how the record starts!) .
So if you are into good crust music with character definetly check this out. Below is the song “End”, the closing track of the album.
The lyric “I’ve been grasping at rainbows, hanging on till the end, but the rain is so real lord, and the rainbows pretend” by Savatage, can perfectly describe my feelings this summer in several ways. First of all literally, since the weather is awful. It is even worse than last year. At least June and July 2008 have been hot and summery! This year’s July has been miserable and wet, and it seems that August will be similar. Secondly metaphorically, since all my hopes that fieldwork would be carried out smoothly are going down the drain. Both my interviewees and supervisors ignore me. If I open my mailbox one more time and see no e-mails I will eat my feet.
Enjoy some songs (for all tastes) about “rain”, or about “summer and rain”:
Rainy days revisited – The Hellacopters
And it rained all night – Thom York
Έρχεται βροχή, έρχεται μπόρα – Διονύσης Σαββόπουλος
Summer’s rain – Savatage
I hear the rain – Violent Femmes
Rain King – Sonic Youth
Colossal rains – Paradise Lost
Naked in the rain – Dio
Let the napalm Rain – Dismember
Let it rain – The Adolescents
