Music and Seasons
In my memory, some of the music albums and songs that I like are connected
to seasons. I remember what time of year it was when I listened to them
extensively and especially when I discovered them.
When a season
and a specific kind of weather comes, it makes me want to listen to a song
or album I listened to years before during the same time of year.
I
love feeling nostalgic. For some reason, remembering the past often feels
good even if the events I recall weren’t particularly pleasant.
I
wrote this article mostly for myself — to consult it with the coming of a
new season — to remember what to listen to and what to feel nostalgic
about.
But those who want to know me better as a person may find
it interesting as well.
Summer
Late May-August 2000
In May, I was an eight-year boy going to turn nine. I barely imagined what the terms rock music and metal meant. I didn’t know the term heavy metal — only metal. My favourite band was DDT, a rock band that my father and cousin liked. I also knew Chris Rea. But I didn’t know their music was called rock music.
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| I was about five years old. Once, my father picked me up from the kindergarten, as usual. We came home, and he played this record that he had bought before picking me up. I remembered the word “dirt” from the first song, or probably the whole phrase: “... and our great dirt!..”. I recall pronouncing it with contempt, imitating the singer, at the kindergarten when trying to sing it to myself or to someone. As a teenager, I’d listen to this record pretty often (and earlier, as a kid, to DDT’s other albums on cassettes). The first song on it — Поэт (Poet, rus) — is very hard rocking — with prominent slap bass and aggressive guitar solos throughout the whole song. It’s a russian band, and after the beginning of the russian-Ukrainian war in 2022, the singer manifested his position by criticising their president publicly and with contempt saying that "motherland is not the president's ass that you should kiss all the time". He had a talk with the police later. |
I think sometime at the age of 8, I heard the term metal referring to the music genre. And I
think it was that spring that I watched a TV documentary about Metallica,
which impressed me significantly (although they have never become one of my
favourite bands, even despite my later genuine efforts to like them).
I
remember a talk with my classmate, Kostya, about music genres. He explained
to me what rap was: “It’s the music where they speak rather than sing…”. But
I already decided that it didn’t interest me. That sunny May day, after that
conversation in the English classroom, I decided that I was a metalhead.
The
same day, after school, on my way home, I felt inspired by metal, or rather
by what I imagined it to be. I made a grumpy face to look badass, because
that’s the mood of metal… supposedly.
Two older girls were
passing me by. One of them said to the other jokingly: “Look, the boy has a
gloomy face: he must have got a bad mark at school today”. I didn’t like her
comment, but I didn’t say anything — I just thought she was stupid and
didn’t understand that I looked badass.
Iron Maiden — Fear of the Dark (1992) and Virtual XI (1998)
A bit later, when the summer vacation started, I decided to find some metal
to listen to. I started sifting through my parents’ cassettes looking for
some. I didn’t know my father actually used to listen to rock music. I just
assumed that among that number of cassettes there might be one or two metal
ones.
I tried a few that didn’t sound like metal. And then,
suddenly, one of them did! And it blew me away immediately.
It
was signed Nazareth — The Catch 1984, Nazareth —
No Mean City 1979 — one album per side. It was a self-recorded copy,
so there was no album art.
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| The boombox on which I listened to that cassette. It was my main device for listening to music for years, even after buying the 3 in 1 sound system (AIWA NSX-BL44 discussed later in this article), because I could take it to my room and to dacha while AIWA stayed in my parents’ room (until moved to mine when I was about 14). The boombox was bought in my early childhood (perhaps I was about 3 years old. I don’t remember the day it was purchased). I don’t have the boombox anymore, but I still have this box on the balcony storing Christmas tree decorations. |
It became my favourite cassette. I’d listen to it many times per day. I
remember sitting alone in the car on a rainy day waiting for my grandparents
to come back (after a morning at the market where my grandparents and I used
to sell strawberries and other berries and fruits grown at our dacha
garden). The car’s window was fogged up, and I wrote Nazareth on it
with my finger.
One day, at the dacha, when I was either reading
my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics (a birthday present from my mom) or
playing LEGO and listening to the cassette, it got chewed up by the cassette
player. And the tape was torn apart. That was a real tragedy for me, and I
cried a lot. My grandma tried to reassure me that we’d buy a new one, which
I was sceptical about, because, as I told her, there was only crappy pop
music everywhere, and there was no way to find those exact albums. I was a
hell of a pessimist as a kid.
Then my father, who came with my
mom for the weekend to the dacha, repaired the cassette and made me happy.
He had to remove a piece of tape though, so the beginning of
Don’t Look to the Eyes of a Stranger on one side and the end of
another song on the other side were missing now. Yet, most of the content
stayed in place.
You may ask: ”But
Don’t Look to the Eyes of a Stranger is a song by Iron Maiden and not
Nazareth, isn’t it?” Exactly. Despite what was written on the case, the
albums recorded on the cassette were Fear of the Dark and
Virtual XI by Iron Maiden.
I learned it later from my elder cousin — Denis (four or five years older
than I), who came from russia with my other cousin, Andrey (half year older
than I), and their parents for a few weeks during the same summer to visit
us. The previous summer, Denis had forgotten this cassette in our cassette
player, and one of my parents mistakenly put it in the case from Nazareth
(while the real Nazareth cassette stayed without a case — I remember we had
a few caseless cassettes).
Denis had borrowed this cassette from
a friend, so he took it back when he returned home. I don’t remember feeling
heartbroken because of this, however. Perhaps, because by then, I already
had enough rock music vinyl records and cassettes to listen to (which I’m
talking about a bit later in this article).
On that cassette, the
song order was weird. One of the sides started with
Don't Look to the Eyes of a Stranger (a song from Virtual XI)
and then followed by the album Fear of the Dark (two or more last
songs were missing because of the lack of tape). The other side contained
the rest of Virtual XI.
Next winter (sometime in February
2001), when my grandma went to russia to visit my cousins and their
parents*, she came back with two cassettes — Iron Maiden’s first album and
an AC/DC compilation — the very thoughtful presents from Denis who must have
remembered I had told him that I loved Iron Maiden the previous summer.
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| This cassette lacks the song Sanctuary. |
Once, I think it was in the autumn of 2002, I asked my mom to buy another Iron Maiden cassette for me, in addition to their debut album that I already had.
We went to that shop, and mom bought me The X Factor, 1995. What surprises me a bit is that she had no problem buying it for me despite that horrific cover art showing Eddie the Head, Iron Maiden’s mascot, being violently tortured with a device looking like something used by the Inquisition. Unlike Iron Maiden’s other album covers, where Eddie was cartoonish, here he was realistic. I wasn’t shocked by that cover art (although I found it creepy), but an average mom might very well be. Mine appeared to be understanding though.
Despite the depressing feel of that album, and less heavy guitars, I liked the music. I’d listen to it especially when I felt sad. It’s still one of my favourite albums.
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This cassette lacks two songs: 2 AM and The Unbeliever. Western Thunder Records — WT-611. Unofficial release (bootleg, I suppose, like most of cassettes and CDs sold here) |
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| A cassette by Studio Vox — a label based in my city, Zaporizhzhia, that released rock music. |
The SEGA given to me was a bootleg device. It was written “СЮБОР (Subor) 16 bit” on the console. In reality, Subor was SEGA’s older 8-bit model while mine ran 16 bit SEGA Genesis / Mega Drive cartridges. The bootleg manufacturer seems to have confused those two models. Some of the games wouldn’t work properly (especially sport games that my cousins brought me twice — hockey (NHL) and football (FIFA)) — perhaps because of the lack of processing power or something else done improperly by the bootleg manufacturer to cut corners.
I was very happy to receive that console. My parents would have never bought one for me. I’ve never been a talented gamer, but I had many good memories playing it, including with Andrey during the subsequent summers.
In a few years, his mom (my aunt), while doing cleaning at my grandma’s home, just threw it away without asking me (she loved throwing things away), later reasoning this by the fact that at that time I already had a computer. I missed it a lot, until I got the Internet years later, installed a SEGA emulator, and played the same games again (and new ones too) for a short period of time. Apart from that, I’ve never been a gamer.
Deep Purple, Scorpions, Yngwie Malmsteen, and Led Zeppelin
The same summer, in 2000, my father, having noticed my passion for rock music, took his old vinyl player out of the closet to show me more rock bands that he used to listen to when he was younger.First, he showed me Scorpions (two “best of” compilations with the songs from their 2nd to 5th albums) and Yngwie Malmsteen’s Trilogy (which, as my father pointed out, was considerably worn out — the needle would skip grooves: my father used to listen to this album a lot). I loved them all.
That evening, I noticed, and told my father about it, that the sound of vinyl was different from the one cassettes had. My father answered that the sound was cool. I specified that I didn’t mean it was worse, just different (and I meant it). I don’t think I thought it was better or worse. But the fact it was different seemed interesting to me on its own.
That was a very exciting evening for me.
For some time, I’d ask my parents to put records on the player for me as my father didn’t let me operate the player myself so that I wouldn’t damage it or the records. Later that summer, he showed me how to use it and offered me to start using it myself, but I preferred not to: I was overly insecure and careful. However, a bit later, I started using it according to my father’s careful and detailed instructions: not touching the records’ surface with my fingers, wiping the disc before playing, placing the needle onto the record only by using the lever, etc. It was a whole ritual, and it felt good.
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| Luckily, I still have this disc and could take pictures. But, unfortunately, I no longer have the vinyl player. |
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| The Vol. 2 pictures were found online. It’s not the same exact release of this album I had (I had a soviet copy). |
Being already an adult, I used the two astronaut/diver figurines (along with other toys left from my childhood) in my music videos: the TMNT cover song, Hocico — Drowning cover, and Korrozia Metalla — Doctor Frankenstein cover.
Another day (or many days) was on or after my birthday, when my parents gifted me a Stealth jet plane model kit of Shifty or Brick constructor (one of the fake Asian LEGO rip-off brands that weren’t of a worse quality yet far cheaper than real LEGO).
For my birthday (I think it was my 10th birthday), my classmate friends (Roma, Vania, and Kirill) were invited. When Roma and Vania already came and we were waiting for Kirill, I played the Best of Scorpions Vol. 1 record. When one of the songs on side 2 was ending, I said which one was coming up. Vania was surprised: “Do you remember the order of all of the songs on the record?” I said yes and cited it. He looked at the envelope and confirmed what I had said was correct.
I think the same year as I recorded that cover song, I recorded the songs from those two Scorpions discs on a CD-R to listen to on my Hi-Fi stereo. I took them manually from CD editions of the Scorpions’ albums those songs originally come from. I excluded a couple of them because of the lack of space on the CD-R: Backstage Queen, All Night Long, Longing for Fire, Speedy’s Coming (Live version from Vol. 2), and We’ll Burn the Sky (I remember I’d skip the latter sometimes as a child because it sounded sad. When I told my father about it, he laughed slightly. I didn’t skip In Trance and Crying Days though — We’ll Burn the Sky has a special, different kind of moodiness to it). But I added a few more on the CD-R that weren’t on the vinyls: Drifting Sun, I’ve Got to Be Free, and Polar Nights.
In my childhood, I didn’t care about the sound quality. But now I pay careful attention to it. I concluded that these four Scorpions’ albums are the best sounding releases (when listened to on a Hi-Fi stereo) I’ve ever heard in terms of sound production. Here are the exact releases I took the tracks from:
- Fly to the Rainbow 1974 — 1989, Japan B20D-41010 RCA
- In Trance 1975 — 1989, Japan B20D-41011 RCA
- Virgin Killer 1976 — 1989, Japan B20D-41012 RCA
- Taken by Force 1977 — 1989, Japan B20D-41013 RCA
The sensation I get while listening to them is indescribable. By listening to them, I literally, without any exaggeration, keep myself in a state of continuous euphoria for about 80 minutes the disc takes to play.
Music-wise, these are some of the heaviest, most aggressive, and coolest classic rock/heavy metal albums (unlike that pop music Scorpions switched to starting with their album Lovedrive, 1979). Those insane singers’ screams (Klaus Meine and especially Uli Roth sounding reckless and drunk), insane guitar squeals and other noises, memorable solid riffs, super noisy but also intricate and melodic, virtuoso-level refined guitar passages… Songs from those four albums have stayed my favourite since my childhood, and now I love and enjoy them even more, and from an additional (the Hi-Fi sound) perspective.
Later, my father also introduced me to compilations of songs by Deep Purple
and Led Zeppelin, also on vinyl. I loved Deep Purple immediately. I remember
that I had heard the name of the band from my school best friend, Roma.
Once, he came to me to play together, and I showed him the cassettes we had.
This was before the spring when I “decided I was a metalhead”. While looking
through my cassettes, he asked: “Do you have Deep Purple?”. I said no. He
said it was a cool band.
Later, during my “first heavy metal
summer”, my father and I, before going to sleep, saw Deep Purple on TV
playing Smoke on the Water live. I didn’t know either the song or the
band. I don’t remember my father mentioning the name of the band, but he did
mention Ritchie Blackmore and the song title. A few minutes later, when we
were already trying to sleep (on the same bed in my parents’ room. Mom was
probably working a night shift), I asked my father what the name of the band
was. He said “Deep Purple”, and I thought “Wow, that’s the band Roma
mentioned”.
Later, I remember my parents listening to the radio, and there was Child in Time playing. I didn’t know it was Deep Purple and I heard too little, because I was in another room (I think I was watching TV in my parents’ room, and they were either in mine or in the kitchen). But I remember my parents joking referring to the singer’s screaming and imitating him and mentioning the song’s title. I think the same evening (probably because I showed interest in what I had overheard) my father showed me that Deep Purple “best of” record with both Smoke on the Water and Child in Time on it. I was excited to hear these songs. Deep Purple became my new favourite band for a long time.
Later, my father also showed me Led Zeppelin (also mentioned previously by
Roma while being yet unknown by me), a “best of” vinyl too. I liked the
first track — Immigrant Song, but the next two —
Gallows Pole and Since I’ve Been Loving You — weren’t
heavy enough. I found the latter especially boring because it was mellow and
slow. I told my father about this, and he said that it was still a nice
“bluesy” song (the first time that I heard the term “blues”). I wanted to
turn it off, and he said “Wait, let me listen to it to the end at least”.
And he sat until the end of the song enjoying it, before going out for some
business.
I also thought Robert Plant in the picture on the front
cover of that disc looked like an old lady. He really does look like an old
lady there.
Later, though, I gave Led Zeppelin another try and
loved them as well. My father told me their Stairway to Heaven was
considered the greatest rock song “of all times and peoples”…
My father told me the names of the members of both Deep Purple and Led
Zeppelin, and I learnt them, repeating them from time to time so I wouldn’t
forget.
Those rock bands were introduced to me by my father as
hard rock bands but not as metal. So I didn’t know there was a connection
between the genres. Later that summer, in a conversation with my father at
the dacha in the evening (we were going to sleep and we were talking while I
was downstairs with my grandparents and my father was upstairs with my mom),
he told me that rock and heavy metal (the first time I heard this
term with the word heavy in it) were related genres. I was excited to
learn that and to realise that now I’ve actually found my metal, and it was
more than just one cassette but quite a few bands.
Later, my parents and I decided to buy Scorpions on a cassette, since I
liked them on the vinyls. My mom bought their then-new album
Moment of Glory that was advertised that summer on TV as an unusual
album of a rock band with a symphonic orchestra (or maybe it was their tour
advertised rather than the album). I looked forward to my mom bringing the
cassette.
When she brought it, I liked the cover with the raptor.
The first song was ok, and the song Rock You Like A Hurricane too.
But in general, it was nothing like their real hard rock / heavy metal songs
from the early 70’s. I hated that album and was so disappointed by the fact
they had become pop music (at that time I violently despised all pop music)
that I cried. I hated the song Here in My Heart the most.
This
must have been August 2000 as this album was released on August 8, 2000.
All
these heavy metal memories from my early childhood were written down while
listening to Shoot From The Hip and
Trip the Light Fantastic by Sophie Ellis-Bextor. If at that age I
knew what I’d become, I would have killed myself.
Summer 2001
ZZ Top and Biker's Ballads
It was the very end of May. I was nine years old (about to turn ten), just
finished the 3rd grade of primary school, and was exactly one year into rock
music.
My parents bought a 3 in 1 sound system (a “music centre”
as it was called in Ukraine and russia): a device combining a CD player, a
cassette deck, and a radio tuner. It also had audio inputs to use it as an
amplifier. And two detached speakers. AIWA NSX-BL44.
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| It’s not my photo — I found it online. But I had the exact same model. |
It wasn’t a Hi-Fi system — just a multimedia device. However, it was the
best of all equipment my father had had in his life (a reel to reel tape
recorder, a vinyl record player — both soviet devices — and the small
two-deck cassette boombox shown above).
At that time, it cost 900
hryvnias, an equivalent of $163 (at the dollar’s value for 2001).
I
was very surprised by this purchase, and my first reaction was “Why did you
buy such an expensive thing when we have the boombox?!”. Like if it was me
who was responsible for the family finances.
I think they also
bought a brown carpet for their room on the same day or around that time
(which is still there at the time of writing this — in May 2023).
So
now we could listen to CDs. But they were four times more expensive than
cassettes: 4 hryvnias (or $3.7) for a CD against 5 hryvnias (or $0.9) per
cassette (indicated dollar values valid for 2001). But I think those were
prices for pirated cassettes and CDs rather than officially licensed ones,
which had to be more expensive.
So we didn’t buy CDs often, and
cassettes stayed the main media for us.
On that day, my father
and I went to a small record shop near our home to buy a couple of CDs. It
was a good shop (or rather a stall on the first floor of a small trading
centre). We were lucky to have it so close to us. Unlike most shops only
selling pop music, it had a good selection of old hard rock and heavy metal
to offer.
I was curious about ZZ Top that I had read about in a russian magazine titled simply Heavy Metal, given to me by the
husband of my mom’s colleague when we once visited their family for
someone’s birthday or something. It contained biographies, discographies and
black-and-white photos of major hard rock and heavy metal bands up until
1990, in an alphabetical order (starting with Lee Aaron whom I found
pretty).
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At dacha, my aunt put a frying pan on this magazine thinking it was
something nobody needed. |
So my father bought a compilation of ZZ Top — Greatest Hits (1992),
another compilation titled Biker's Ballads, by various hard and not
so hard rock bands, and Burn by Deep Purple.
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| The front and back of the cover. It unfolds, but when unfolded, it’s just blank inside. So I suppose it’s a bootleg copy, like most CDs and cassettes sold here at that time. The fog under the band members' faces is supposed to be purple. But here it’s rather brown. However, the sound is good, which is the only thing that really matters to me. |
Once I brought the ZZ Top CD to school, I think for Lesha (which should have
been in 2002 or 2003), and Dima, a classmate, when he saw the sexy women in
the album art, said smiling: “Wow, is this what your dad listens to?”. I
think I responded saying it was me who listened to this.
As we
usually bought cassettes at that store, and now we came for CDs, the
saleswoman (the shop was held by a married couple, sometimes we were served
by the man too) asked “Did you buy a music centre?”. And my father said
“Yes. How do you know? Can you hear it from here?”
So ZZ Top and
some of the songs from that Biker's Ballads disc remind me of that
end of May-beginning of June.
June-July 2009
Summer Camp Secrets
Summer Camp Secrets is an adult film by Viv Thomas. It’s about girls
in a summer camp. As the file creation date shows, I downloaded it on July
5, 2009, when I was exploring Viv Thomas’ films.
This movie is
set in a location looking like a resort. It has a summer feel totally
corresponding to its title. Right now, the non-sexual scenes are actually my
favourite ones.
There is a scene where the girls are going to the
lake (but don’t bath in it). I love the music playing during this scene.
Other compositions are beautiful too.
Every summer I remember
about Summer Camp Secrets and listen to the music from it. I even
extracted it to upload to YouTube — the compositions from the score along
with video.
Ladytron
I discovered Ladytron in the summer or late spring of 2009. The files’
creation date says I downloaded their albums on June 05, 2009.
While
searching for the song Destroy Everything by Hatebreed (a hardcore
band that I’ve never liked) on vk.com, one of the search results was
Ladytron — Destroy Everything You Touch (Liquilade bootleg remix).
The band’s name made me curious, so I listened to the song and loved it.
Then I explored and downloaded the rest of the band’s music.
When
my cousin, Andrey, came to visit me that summer for a few weeks, we’d listen
to Ladytron among other things. He recognized the song Runaway and
told me it was in the soundtrack of a FIFA video game. He also liked the
song Burning Up.
June 2021
Lio
I think I discovered Lio in December 2020 (the file creation dates say I
downloaded her albums then). Later, in June 2021, I recorded a cover song of
her La petite amazone. It was during the June rain season, and I
included footage of rain and night lightnings* in the music video.
To
make a reference to another Lio’s song — Banana split — I made a
banana split to film its cooking process for the music video. One of its
ingredients is ice cream. I didn’t want to buy ice cream, so I made it
myself. I made a bit too much of it: there were two recipes, both of which I
wanted to try — one condensed milk-based, and another one was more natural
and more labour-intensive.
So I had to eat that ice cream during
the rest of the summer (my mom didn’t want to help me finish it, although
the ice cream was good. She’d buy ice cream with flavours for herself).
On
the filming day, my mom came back from work, and I treated her with the
banana split — this scene is also in the video, at the end. Then, when I
finished editing the video, I showed it to mom, and she laughed. I also
showed her Lio singing Banana split when she was about 15.
So
my cover of Lio’s Banana split brings me memories of that summer
evening spent cooking a banana split and then treating my mom as well as
June rains and lightnings.
Not long before that video, in May, I also filmed another cover song — a crossover between I Cum Blood by Cannibal Corpse and Tristeza by Lio. The video features footage taken from the film La grande bouffe starring Marcello Mastroiani among others — because Lio’s song mentions this actor.
Later the same summer, I also discovered the song and music video Les matins de Paris by Teki Latex and Lio and I loved it. I watched it at night, a few times in a row. It’s also a summer song for me.
—
* One June Sunday night, I was home alone. It was about 3:30 AM. As usual, I
was watching Ina.fr on YouTube (a recording of a 70’s TV broadcast about old
and cute Paris buildings being destroyed and replaced by ugly HLMs) before
going to sleep, finishing my weekend.
I noticed with my
peripheral vision that my curtain flashed for a moment from time to time. I
was wearing headphones, so I didn’t hear the rain and thunder. I went to the
balcony and found out it was raining heavily, with frequent and powerful
lightnings. I took my phone and started filming until the storm went away. I
spent about half an hour filming lightnings, and at 4 or 4:30 AM, I went to
sleep. Later, one evening, I filmed more lightnings. Then I selected the
most beautiful of them and edited them together into one video.
June 2016
The Residents
I discovered The Residents thanks to Dan, a fellow of mine who liked
avant-garde music. In a message on vk.com, he sent me their music video for
the song Constantinople. I liked it and explored the band’s
discography. I didn’t like most of it, but I loved some of their albums and
songs.
I remember listening to the album
Postcards from Patmos at night, while working (at that time I was a
customer support specialist at a Honolulu car rental company, working
remotely).
I also liked their albums:
- Gingerbread Man
- Duck Stab
- The King and Eye
and selected songs from other albums.
Not long after, Veronika, my then-girlfriend, left me. We stayed friends,
but this was an emotional event for me. So The Residents remind me of that
time.
It was a sad event, but it happened for the better. I got
much more free time to spend online, which I used to watch videos in
English. This improved my level significantly. It was the summer when I
transferred to content in English completely, to the point that YouTube
stopped suggesting videos in russian and Ukrainian. A bit later, I noticed
that I no longer had trouble comprehending oral English. It’s that summer
that I watched Eurotika — the TV documentary series about
European exploitation films.
As I didn’t have to go see Veronika anymore, I stopped going out. Now I
leave my apartment only in case of practical necessity such as going
shopping. Apart from my parents, I had nobody left to regularly discuss the
events related to the local reality, which I’d rather ignore.
So
besides the breakup itself, The Residents were a harbinger of a new era in
my life — more isolated from the local Ukrainian environment I’ve been
uncomfortable with during all my teenage and adult life, more virtual and
digital, immersed deeper into the foreign culture, full of films and new
acquaintances with my foreign virtual friends.
I’m not sure if
I’d have the time and determination to learn French a year later if I still
dated Veronika. As well as to start exercising physically. In short, it was
for the better in terms of my personal development.
June-July 2022
To remember the previous summer, when I listened to French funk (see the
subsection Cortex and Other French Funk in the section
July-August 2020 and 2021), I listened to it again, and to more
compilations. I connected my phone to Fender Greta, my little 2 Watt tube
guitar amplifier and listened to the music during my working day and in the
evening.
I found so many great songs and added those compilations
to my library on YouTube. But later, in the autumn or winter, I found out
they had disappeared: deleted by YouTube because of copyright problems. A
few songs (very few in comparison to the previous collection) stayed though,
which I found one by one and added to a playlist again.
Also, I tried 80’s funk compilations, but I didn’t like many of those songs.
However, there was one I loved — Sophie — J’adore (by a Canadian
singer). I added her to another playlist:
July-August 2012
In the late spring of 2012, I discovered witch house, the music genre. I had
known about it for a couple of months without liking any of what I heard
until I watched Flesh Palace — a music video for a song by Glass
Teeth. It was among the videos in the vk.com account of Ruslan, my virtual
fellow from Donetsk who liked various genres of electronic music (notably
dark electro, synth pop, witch house, EBM, futurepop, and similar).
I loved that song immediately, and this band is still my favourite witch
house project. So I discovered more…
I downloaded Glass Teeth on May
26, 2012, as the files’ creation date says. Later, at the beginning of
June, I started dating Veronika. On our third date (the one when I kissed
her for the first time), we were sitting on a bench, in the evening,
drinking cherry juice and kissing. She asked me what I was listening to
during that period. I remember mentioning witch house among other things. I
also remember listening to Isaac Hayes and Manowar.
Later, I
think one of the next summers, my cousin Denis with his then-girlfriend
Yulia came from russia to visit my family. I remember them showing photos
that they had taken during their previous trip to Mexico. We watched them on
TV in my parents’ room. I had to go to work (the steel plant that I hated)
for a night shift. I’d usually go outside to wait for the bus at about 9:50
PM.
I hated going to work. Yet it was a summer night, which is an
enjoyable time on its own. I remember Overseer, a song by Glass
Teeth, playing in my head when I was going out and then waiting for the bus
outside, in the calmness of the summer night. Sometimes I listen to it to
evoke the brief memory of that night in my mind.
July-August 2020 and 2021
Mogwai – Come On Die Young
One of the weekends at the end of the summer of 2020, I was listening to it
on my stereo, dreaming about my future life in France, which I still hope
for despite everything that has been happening to make it impossible for
now.
Since then, it’s been my go-to album that I listen to on my
stereo when I’m too tired for anything heavy or when I just feel like it. I
think I’ve listened to it on my stereo more than to any other album.
Amesoeurs
The file creation dates say I downloaded Amesoeurs on August 22, 2019.
But I think I have known them for longer and discovered them sometime in
winter, when listening to music on YouTube while working at night.
I
recorded them on a CD-R to listen to on my stereo either in 2019 or 2020.
But, perhaps, I was in a more appropriate mood for them a year after
recording them on a CD-R.
Then, in August, when I listened to
them on stereo, the album strongly resonated with my emotional state, so it
stayed in my memory as music for August and early September.
Sixth June
I don’t have their recordings on my computer, so I can’t track the download
date. But I think I discovered them during the same time as Amesoeurs. It
was definitely when listening to music while working at night, as well as
Gold Zebra (which I downloaded on November 4, 2019 — a couple of months
after Amesoeurs). The songs by Sixth June and Gold Zebra were in one of
darkwave compilations (or in different ones), and they got my attention.
Regardless
of when I discovered them, their music video Drowning shows summer,
and I watched it in the subsequent summers to get a summer feel.
Cortex and Other French Funk
I discovered Cortex, as well as a few other French jazz-funk bands in the
summer of 2021, on YouTube. I remember listening to Cortex on my stereo for
the first few times at the end of the summer or, perhaps, in July.
As
in their song Colchiques the singer sings “C’est la fin de l’été !
C’est la fin de l’été !” (“It’s the end of the summer! It’s the end of the
summer!”), for me it stays music for August.
At that time,
jazz-funk was a new genre for me. I had known about its existence, but I
didn’t know I’d love it. And that summer, I did.
The summer I
discovered Cortex, I also discovered, and then recorded on CD-R, the
following albums:
Noel McGhie & Space Spies — Trapeze (1975)
Chute Libre —
Chute Libre (1977) and Ali Baba (1978)
Godchild —
Godchild (1975)
However, the album by Godchild is too dynamically compressed, so it’s not
good for listening to it on stereo.
Apart from these albums, I
made a YouTube playlist of French funk:
July-August 2023
Sun Choke OST and Unison
My revived passion for Buffy the Vampire Slayer (see the section Far — Tin Cans with Strings to You for more detail) led me to stumbling upon a video interview with one of the secondary actresses in season 7 — Sarah Hagan who played Amanda, one of the young potential vampire slayers.
After that interview, I decided to watch films starring and featuring her. I watched Sun Choke, Jess + Moss, and a couple of short films featuring the actress.
I was so impressed by Sun Choke! I watched it again two weeks after the first time. And then again, later — in October. It has become one of my favourite films, together with Fascination by Jean Rollin.
The plot of Sun Choke isn’t totally clear. I put much effort in analysing and trying to understand every detail of it. I read every director’s and actresses’ interview about this movie I could find online, as well as some bloggers’ reviews, one of which helped me understand some of the details.
I also came up with questions for my own interview — to clarify the plot for other fans and myself. But I couldn’t reach the director or the actresses, no matter how I tried.
I was also highly impressed and touched by Jess + Moss. Sarah Hagan is one of the best and most unique actresses I know.
In July, I watched those films while eating blueberries. Lots of them, to complete satisfaction. They were expensive, but I didn’t care anymore, not knowing what disaster possibly awaited me soon, considering the war. Did it still make sense to save money when I seemed to have no future anyway? Just trying to get as much pleasure as I could during my short weekends, while I had an opportunity… Thus, for me, this film has a blueberry flavour. As well as Mumu by Joël Séria.
Sun Choke has an outstanding soundtrack. I downloaded it from Bandcamp. But one of the best compositions in the film is absent from the official OST album. So I extracted it from the film and uploaded it to my YouTube channel.
Sometime around that period (maybe in August), I also listened to Unison, especially their songs Darkness and Put Your Hands in the Air. One late Sunday-Monday night, I was listening to them before going to sleep before another working week. I think it was almost 4 AM. I went to the balcony to breathe fresh air and to revive the nostalgic memories about the summer of 2012 — the year when I discovered witch house. See my memories in the section July-August 2012 for more detail on this feeling.
I already knew Unison in the summer of 2011 (I remember watching their music video Brothers and Sisters just before going to Yaroslavl in the summer of 2011. I also played Alice Is Dead, a Flash point and click quest game with an eponymous theme song by Hania Zdunek whose name was Hania Lee at that time), but at that time I didn’t like witch house yet, although I knew about its existence.
I listened to those two Unison songs probably right after watching one of Sarah Hagan’s films. But I may be wrong. Maybe it was later, in autumn. My memories may have mixed up in my head by now (I’m writing this down on March 4, 2024)…
Autumn
September-October 2000
After my first heavy metal summer, came my first heavy metal autumn. I had
to go to school and do homework at the desk in my room.
My father
put the vinyl player back into the closet because it took too much space on
my desk where I did homework. I remember asking him to keep it saying that
I’d have enough space left. But he refused. So I couldn’t listen to vinyls
anymore (until a year or two later, when I got a small old cabinet installed
near my desk, on which I could place the vinyl player, and the records were
placed inside the cabinet).
But my father would buy cassettes for
me. And I’d borrow them from Roma (and a year or two later — from Kirill who
started to listen to rock music too under my and his father’s influence,
although not for a long time — he preferred rap mostly. I borrowed Iron
Maiden — Piece of Mind (Side A) and Powerslave (Side B) from
him (and copied them) and a Black Sabbath compilation that I later asked him
to give me away because he didn’t need it anyway. I also borrowed a
compilation of later recordings by The Beatles from him and copied them. But
all this happened in 2002-2004).
Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd — The Wall
I think in September, my father and mom were going to Angolenko, the largest
city market, to buy something for home or clothes. My father promised to buy
more cassettes too.
When they were about to go out, he asked me
jokingly if he should buy Deep Purple if there was a cassette for sale. I
said yes. And Led Zeppelin? — Yes! And AC/DC? — What is AC/DC? — I asked.
And he said “It’s a band where everything is like…” and he started to make
noises imitating crazy heavy guitars.
I said “No, I don’t like it
when it’s like that” (at that time I already knew there were heavier and
more modern genres that I didn’t like).
He laughed and said “me
too”.
I said: “I have something like this on a cassette, let me
show you”. But he said: “No, I’m already about to leave…”. He was dressed
and ready to go.
The cassette with “too heavy music” that I
wanted to show him was Lost Control (2006) by Epilepsy Bout, a
russian hardcore/rapcore band. It was left here by my elder cousin, Denis,
after his summer visit. But later, in about a year, I liked it. And I still
do. Once, when I was listening to it in my room, my parents (being in their
room) were annoyed hearing it through the wall (or perhaps the doors were
open), and my mom asked me to turn it off saying it was гавкотня (barking) —
“Can’t you hear it’s barking?!” But another time (I think sometime before
that — I don’t remember), I was listening to Epilepsy Bout in my room, and
my father was in the next room, and the doors were open. I asked him if he
liked it, and he said yes. But perhaps he said it just so that I’d leave him
alone. Knowing his taste, I don’t think he could like it.
So from the market, my parents brought compilations of Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd — The Wall on cassettes. I didn’t like Pink Floyd because they weren’t fast and heavy. But in half a year or later, I liked them too.
This wasn’t the first Pink Floyd cassette we had. My father had The Division Bell (there was also the song Wish You Were Here and probably some others added to fill the space on the tape) and Animals on self-recorded copies. I knew we had them and remembered at least the intro from High Hopes, but I listened to them myself only later, when I developed a taste for Pink Floyd. However, I remember being probably 7-8 years old, not a rocker yet, and asking my father to play “that song where bells are ringing” (High Hopes), at dacha, in the evening, when lying in bed. But everyone was already going to sleep, so he declined my request politely.
 |
| That cassette with “the song where bells are ringing”. The album’s title wasn’t even written on it. |
I remember Roma mentioning The Wall saying that during a live show, there was a real helicopter flying above the band or the audience. He mentioned it as a very curious fact.
In about a year from the sound system purchase (I think it was in late
May or in summer), he also bought Led Zeppelin II on a cassette.
|
| Another edition of Led Zeppelin II, with a funny error in the name of the band, that Roma gave me a couple of years later, when he didn’t need cassettes anymore because he had got an MP3 player. This cassette was type II, which was rare (normally cassettes were type I). Roma told me that type II tape was bad for tape players and “affected the magnetic head like sandpaper”. |
As for AC/DC, later in the autumn 2000, among our old cassettes, I
found a cassette signed “ACDC”. First, I was unsure of how it was
pronounced. I suspected it was the same band my father had mentioned before
but I doubted it as my father had told me he didn’t like music like this…
I
asked my father about it, and he said it was AC/DC, so I was surprised and
understood there had been a miscommunication. I listened to it and liked it.
I found the singer’s voice funny. But later, the cassette stopped working (I
think it stopped spinning).
In a few months, in winter, I got an
AC/DC compilation as a present from Denis (see the section
Late May-August 2000). I don’t remember what songs that first AC/DC
cassette had. But I think either Highway to Hell or
Back in Black or Hells Bells were on it. On the new AC/DC
cassette, I recognized a couple of songs that I had had on the old one.
Then
(approximately in a year) my father and I bought more Deep Purple on CDs —
also unofficial “best of” compilations. The first one contained their later
recordings — from the 80’s to the 90’s. And another one (purchased later) —
from In Rock to the end of the 70’s. I liked the earlier songs
better, although I liked both CDs.
 |
| The only record of Pink Floyd my father had on vinyl. I listened to it later, when I was a teenager, at about 13-15 years old. |
October-November 2000
Black Sabbath — Vol.4
My school best friend, Roma, who appeared to be a rocker too (as well as his
elder brother, Ilya, and perhaps father), told me about Aria, the russian
heavy metal band. I also heard them on radio Zaporizhzhia 103.7 FM, the
local city rock radio Roma showed me, and saw their music videos on TV. At
that time, Roma would say his favourite bands were Aria and Metallica. Mine
was Deep Purple.
I got interested in Aria and asked my father to
buy a cassette for me. We went to the shop next to our house, and he bought
Aria’s album Игра с огнем (Igra s Ogneom, rus) (1989), which I
liked.
I think it was my first time going to that shop. That
evening, my father and I met both owners — the husband and the wife. They
were pleasantly surprised to see a nine year old child showing interest in
old rock music unlike other kids of my age who preferred pop and rap. They
made me feel proud and special by noting this.
I think I remember
it was on a typical autumn day, perhaps a rainy one, and it was already dark
outside (while the shop was still open, so it had to be around 5-6 PM
latest). So this was November or so.
My parents’ friends and their kid, Sasha (short for Alexander), a boy one year younger than I, would visit us sometimes. Once, I asked Sasha about his musical preferences, and he described the kind of music he liked as “fast and loud”*. So I played the Aria and Iron Maiden ’80 cassettes for him, and he liked them.
In one song on the Aria cassette (which wasn’t the part of the album — it was a bonus track) — Go Away and Don’t Come Back (Уходи и не возвращайся) there is a phrase: “Bye-bye, baby, there are many old goats in the world” (in russian, the word “goat” is often used as offensive, but it’s not one of the worst swear words). Sasha was surprised to hear such a rude word in a song.
A couple of years later, when I had the vinyl player installed back in my room, I also played Elvis Presley and The Beatles for him, and he loved them. When he visited me next time, he asked me to play Elvis and The Beatles for him.
Once, I wanted to play Scorpions for him. I started their Best of Scorpions Vol. 2 vinyl, and the lead guitar at the very beginning of the song Top of the Bill made him say “Wow!”. But in a moment, his parents came into my room to take Sasha because they were leaving. He wanted to stay and listen to Scorpions, but it was impossible.
Later though, I stopped
respecting Aria, when I learned that they plagiarised almost all of their
music by ripping Iron Maiden off.
During the same autumn (perhaps
on the same day), my father and I also bought Black Sabbath — Vol. 4,
which I liked as well. This was my first Black Sabbath album.
|
| Black Sabbath — Vol.4 (Western Thunder, WT-074, Ukraine) |
I don’t know why, but I hadn’t listened to them on vinyls in summer,
together with Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin. My father had about five vinyls
of Black Sabbath — one compilation (songs from the first two albums),
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Sabotage, and Live at Last. But
I got to them later anyway. I remember my father showing me their first song
— Black Sabbath on vinyl and humorously saying it was spooky. But I
don’t remember when it happened — maybe a year or two later.
So
the day we bought Vol. 4, my father and I were listening to it on the
boombox, lying on the bed in my parents’ room. My mom was in the kitchen,
but she heard it too. She isn’t a rocker. When the instrumental
Laguna Sunrise was playing, mom joked: “I like this song” (implying
it sounded good because it didn’t sound like rock music). My father
responded, also humorously: “He hasn’t sung anything yet”.
—
* When I was seven or eight years old and wasn’t a rocker yet, I had a similar preference. When my cousin, Denis (while visiting us for summer with Andrey and my aunt), brought a cassette of Backstreet Boys, I liked the first song on it — Everybody (and I think there was also a music video with vampires that I thought was cool) because that song was the most intense. Others were too mellow. I asked Denis how many of the songs on that cassette were fast.
A few years later, when Andrey and I discussed our music tastes as children, he also noted that he used to like fast music as a kid.
September 2020
Les Discrets — Septembre et ses dernières pensées
The file creation dates say I downloaded Les Discrets on September 07,
2020. But I think I have known them for a longer time. I think I remember
discovering them sometime in winter while listening to music on YouTube
while working. As well as Amesoeurs.
When listening to their song
Septembre et ses dernières pensées, the girl’s voice at the beginning
of the song, when she says “Je ne crois pas décidément que nous ferons ce
voyage…” and so on, reminded me of the voice of Brigitte Lahaié in
Fascination by Jean Rollin
— my favourite film.
While she is speaking, there are sounds of
howling wind and crows’ voices and thunder, which make me think of cold
weather. Also, the album is titled
Septembre et ses dernières pensées (September and its last thoughts).
So this is music for autumn.
October — November 2017
In October 2017, I painted Brigitte Lahaié from the film Fascination on my T-shirt. And a little bit later — in November 2017 — I painted Françoise Pascal from La Rose de fer.
When working on those designs, I was listening to the music listed below. I was listening to it on repeat — albums or playlists played two or more times in a row automatically: I was too absorbed by painting to change an album.
Witch House
One of those nights, I was listening to music in my folder with songs by
various witch house artists (some of them aren’t really witch house):
- BLVCK CEILING — Young
- BLVCK CEILING — Scorpion
- BLVCK CEILING — Keep Crying
- Coals — Rave03 (feat Bobkovski)
- Fraunhofer Diffraction — Asphyxia
- Fraunhofer Diffraction — Asphyxia (NEDOSTUPNOSTЬ special mix) (a version with higher pitch)
- MORGVE — Sisterhood
- SEMICOLOŊ — Astral Mind (feat. BΛNMΛSKIM)
- SEMICOLOŊ — The Unborn (in collaboration with FLESH)
- ZOO — Softcore
A year or two later, I added the following songs to the folder:
- Damn Whore — Black Opium
- Skeler — Tokyo
Pink Turns Blue
I also listened to them when working on one of those T-shirts. Probably all of
their four albums that I like:
- If Two Worlds Kiss (LP rip) (1987)
- Meta (1988)
- Eremite (1990)
- Aerdt (1991)
In September 2019, I made another painted shirt — a tank top for my
French friend Lili (who, unfortunately, lost contact with me a year or two
later, I don’t know why). While painting, I was listening to the same music to
remember the previous autumn nights when I had painted on shirts too, two
years before.
Lili’s favourite animal was the otter. She also liked
guinea pigs. So I painted them both.
I mailed it to her. She received it and thanked me. I asked her to send me a
picture of her wearing it, but she ignored the request. I suspect I hadn’t
guessed the size so it didn’t fit her. I wanted it to be a surprise so I
hadn’t asked her what size she wore.
In late September or early
October 2019, I also painted my Shadoks T-shirt. I think I listened to the
same music then. Read about this shirt in more detail in the
Muriel Dacq section (January-February 2020).
October 2023
U 96 — Club Bizarre
At the end of Ocober, I discovered the music video for this song while scrolling down my newsfeed in the Facebook Lite app. I just loved it.The song is relaxing. The video’s 90’s CGI style reminds me of the film Latex and one of my favourite TV series — Lexx (which I started to watch again in January).
Winter
December 2003
The Rolling Stones
That year (or earlier?) I got a small old cabinet installed next to my desk in
my room, which allowed for placing the vinyl record player on it (and the
records inside it). I didn’t have to put the player back into the closet for
the school year as it no longer occupied the space on my desk required for
doing homework. So I could listen to vinyls as much as I had free time and
felt like it!
In December (or the previous autumn), when exploring
my father’s vinyls, I tried The Rolling Stones. My father had three
compilations with songs:
- from 1964 to 1965
- from 1965 to 1966
- from 1967
 |
| An MP3 disc that I bought a few years later. Those discs say “All rights reserved, unauthorised copying is prohibited”, etc. But I doubt that the companies making and selling those MP3 discs really had a licence given by the copyright holder to sell multiple albums of a band on one disc four times cheaper than (an also pirated) CD-Audio with a single album on it. |
The first volume I noticed was the third one (Архив популярной музыки (Archive
of popular music, rus) #12) — the blue one. But I didn’t like it much. I tried
the others (with earlier songs), and I liked them better. Later, I appreciated
the one with later songs too.
This kind of music was new to me. It
wasn’t as heavy as the hard rock and heavy metal bands I liked. But it sounded
bluesy and archaic (which especially attracted me).
I listened to
them a lot that December (perhaps in the autumn as well, but I remember
listening to them especially during the pre-New Year time) and later on.
I
also listened to Elvis Presley on vinyl: one compilation from the same series,
Архив популярной музыки, and a Bulgarian compilation release (in the picture
below).
Later, I also liked The Beatles. I actually loved them. My father had three
vinyls: A Taste of Honey (a compilation), A Hard Day’s Night,
and Love Songs (a double disc album or compilation, also a Bulgarian
release).
The same year (or perhaps, the next one?), I borrowed a
cassette with their later songs from Kirill and copied it. But after about a
year, I lost my passion for them and stopped considering them a rock band,
preferring The Rolling Stones over The Beatles.
December-January 2007
Jefferson Airplane
Sometime earlier than the winter of 2007-2008, in a russian edition of the
Classic Rock magazine, I read an article about the San Francisco psychedelic
rock bands of the 60’s: Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, and others.
|
| Classic Rock #12 (27) December 2003 (russia) |
I think it was in my last year of high school, in 2006, when I was 14-15 years old: in the English textbook we used for the subject called Regional Geography (країнознавство (ukr) / страноведение (rus)) (which was just another type of English where we would learn facts about English-speaking countries), there was an article about San Francisco with a mention of beat poets in the 60’s, probably rock bands, and a photo of Jefferson Airplane. I recognized the band and was excited about them being in the textbook.* So I already knew them, and I surely had learnt about them from that magazine.
I didn’t have the Internet at that time. So I tried to find recordings of Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead at local music stores, but they weren’t for sale anywhere. I went to an Internet café next to my home a couple of times and listened to Jefferson Airplane a little bit on their official website. The connection was slow, so the songs played in small pieces, being interrupted all the time. I liked what I heard. I remember fragments of Somebody to Love and Volunteers and I dreamt of getting more — to listen to at home.
That year, we also had English lessons led by a real American woman (only twice or once a week, and the rest were with our regular teachers). Her name was Cathrine Brownell (not sure about the spelling of her first name). She used to be a librarian in the USA, and then came to Ukraine as a volunteer. She was a big lady in her 50’s or so.
Once, after a class, I had a conversation about rock music with her. I told her I wanted to get Jefferson Airplane recordings, and she said she and her husband used to have all of their albums on vinyl but then sold their collection. She also told me Jefferson Airplane had become Jefferson Starship. She asked me if I knew The Who and told me she liked their album Tommy. I said that just two days before I had bought an MP3 CD of The Who. This was a nice conversation — for the first time in my life I talked with a native speaker on a topic that wasn’t included in the school program, which made this foreign conversation real.
 |
| The disc I told Catherine about. It even looks so bootleg. Not sure she even understood what an “MP3 disc” was. I assume such discs weren’t a thing in the U.S. or Europe or other developed countries where copyright laws are strictly enforced. The green label on it is for renting. There was a small shop at the bus stop, near the market near my home (not the one where I usually bought cassettes), where they’d rent MP3 CDs with the option to buy. I think I rented this one, and then bought it (at that time I didn’t have a computer to copy it. I listened to MP3 discs on a DVD player connected to the AIWA NSX-BL44 3-in-1 sound system). When I just bought this disc and turned it on loudly in my room so that the sound would reach the kitchen where my parents and I were dining, mom asked if I liked this music (she was a bit surprised because it wasn't as heavy as other bands I liked). I answered that I did like it, and I was honest. |
In the winter of 2007-2008, I went to russia
to visit my cousins. We went to a local music store, and an MP3 CD of
Jefferson Airplane with all of their studio albums (and one concert recording
— Bless Its Pointed Little Head) was there. I bought it and felt very
excited. That store also had a video of The Grateful Dead live show, but I
didn’t want a video.
When listening to the disc at my cousins’, I
loved Jefferson Airplane, while Denis, my elder cousin, made fun of me for
listening to old hippy crap.
That winter, at my cousins’, being inspired by Jefferson Airplane’s song White Rabbit, I also read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and loved it. With the permission of my cousin, Andrey (who also deemed it as one of his favourite books, although he hadn’t read many in his life, at least by then), I took that book home. I still own it.
Either during that trip or the next one, when I visited my russian cousins in the summer of 2011 (during my vacation leave after my first year of working at the steel plant), my cousins and Denis's girlfriend watched a comedy (Friends with Benefits or something like that). We were supposed to watch it together, but I wasn’t interested in the film, so I preferred to go to another room to watch the soviet animated film about Alice in Wonderland (I had watched it more than once as a child and wanted to refresh it in my memory).
Just before my 2011 summer visit to my cousins', I also played Alice Is Dead, the online point-and-click Flash game (whose soundtrack is also a nostalgic memory from the summer of 2011**) and read the book in English (I downloaded Lewis Carrol’s manuscript scans — they lacked the chapter about the mad tea party and perhaps others, which were added only in the second edition of the book, if I’m not mistaken). It was the first time that I read a book in English (actually, the only one) in my life.
Later, in college, I asked Andrey (a college friend who studied industrial design and was one year older than I), who had the Internet, to download The Grateful Dead for me. But, unlike Jefferson Airplane, I didn’t like them.
—
* I have another story about a rock band making a cameo in my
school program. On a cassette with English audio exercises, one exercise was a
story of a guy telling about him attending a rock concert. The story started
and ended with a sample of Under the House by Public Image Limited. I didn’t
know that band at that time, although I knew Sex Pistols. I’m not sure if
Johnny Rotten’s voice seemed familiar to me then. But I remembered the phrase
“under the house” that he was repeating.
Later, I think in the
autumn of 2006 (I was 15, in the first year of technical college), I bought an
MP3 CD of Sex Pistols and their members’ side projects, including Public image
Limited. That’s when I learnt where that song was from and was surprised that
such an underground band got on the cassette for kids to learn English in
school.
** The game has an outstanding theme song — Alice Is Dead by Hania Lee (now her name is Hania Zdunek). I discovered Hania thanks to that game. I also like her other songs from that era — Tormented Heart and Days Ahead. Later, in the summer of 2016, she recorded vocals for my song The Sad Ballad About a Little Rabbit’s Cruel Fate in return for me contributing my voice to a choir-style chorus (among many other people) in her song Hope.
Late December 2008-January 2009
The memories of this period are among my most joyful ones. That winter, my mom
finally succeeded in convincing my father to get us connected to the Internet.
Since then, the Internet has basically been my life.
That winter
was extremely snowy. Schools were shut down because of the cold, roads were
covered with snow compressed by cars’ wheels and staying slippery. Cars had to
go slowly causing traffic jams. We’d even have some of the lessons at
the technical college cancelled because most of the students just wouldn’t
care to show up. We had a few winters like this coming in a series alternating
with a series of warm winters with little snow.
I got the Internet
connection either before or during the winter exam session.
I
struggled preparing myself for the exam on the subject called Electrical
Machines. It was a difficult subject and the teacher was a very unpleasant and
difficult person too. Plus, I’ve recently got the Internet with all those
exciting things it had to offer, which distracted me a lot.
|
|
I used to make such cheat sheets for tests that we had every lesson on
that subject. They didn’t help much — the teacher was walking around the
classroom, so it was difficult to look at my hand, while the time was
very limited. I believe this cheat sheet wasn’t for the exam — just for
a regular test we had every lesson. |
When preparing myself for the exam, I was trying hard to understand and
memorise the material from the textbook. But when I was reading it, it just
wouldn’t stay in my memory. My mind was just rejecting it. My classmate,
Denis, admitted this as well, regarding the same material for the same exam.
It was about how electrical engines work — the electromagnetic processes
making the rotor spin, various types of current running through the parts, and
other things. I still recall it with disgust.
I made, I think,
three attempts to pass the exam during the period when most of the classmates
were on winter vacation, having passed the exam. On the last day (I think it
was Sunday) before the beginning of the next semester, I passed that exam and
got the lowest acceptable grade. The fact that I passed the exam before the
beginning of the next semester allowed me to continue getting my scholarship.
But it was only thanks to my class curator who had asked the Electrical
Machines teacher to show me mercy as overall I was a good student.
One
of the first things I did when I got the Internet connection was downloading
all the albums by Mylène Farmer and the albums by Mogwai that I didn’t have
yet. Mylène Farmer and Mogwai are still among my favourite musicians.
Mylène Farmer
I have known Mylène Farmer since my childhood: her songs would play on the
radio from time to time. The first song that caught my attention as a kid was
XXL. Later, at the age of 14 or 15, I recorded the music video with
this song from TV on a VHS cassette together with other music videos I
liked.
I also knew her song Californie. I remember seeing
the music video for this song on TV on Aleks (a local TV channel), late at
night, in my room, listening to it with minimal volume so that my parents
wouldn’t hear me staying up late. I don’t remember when this happened, but I
must have been 15-17 years old (either during my last year at school or my
first or second year of college). By that time, I had already heard that song
but I probably hadn’t seen the music video. It was a program showing a local
Internet chat with a section for music videos occupying only 1/4 of the screen
(either top left or top right).
I remember watching her music video
for L'Âme-stram-gram as a child in 1999 or 2000 on TV too, and telling
about its plot to Andrey one of those years when he visited me during summer
vacations.
In 2005, I watched her music video for
Fuck Them All on TV.
When I downloaded all of her albums, I
also found that her song Sans contrefaçon sounded familiar.
I started to listen to all of Mylène Farmer’s albums one by one, beginning
with the first one. I liked them all. Then, during subsequent months or years,
I watched her music videos and Giorgino (a film where Mylène plays one
of the main roles), and the more I learnt about Mylène Farmer, the more she
fascinated me.
I have a brief memory of coming into a local
minimarket and hearing her song Appelle mon numéro playing on the
radio. It felt pleasant, especially because I hated (and I still do) most
music played on the radio. At that time, the album Point de suture this
song is from was relatively recent (released in August 2008). So
Appelle mon numéro is one of my soundtracks for this time of year.
I
also remember, perhaps that or the next winter, when going to college in the
morning, standing in a crowded bus, feeling unhappy, I played
Je te rends ton amour in my head.
Mogwai
As mentioned above, apart from Mylène Farmer, I also downloaded Mogwai first
thing after getting connected to the Internet. I already had a few of their
albums on my computer, so I downloaded the remaining ones:
- The Hawk Is Howling (released in 2008, so that year it was new)
- Mr. Beast (2006)
- Zidane — A 21st Century Portrait (2006)
and maybe Government Commissions (BBC Sessions 1996-2003) (2005), but
I’m not sure about this one. Perhaps, I downloaded it later.
I
think I started listening to them with The Hawk Is Howling, and I loved
this album. It’s my soundtrack to this time of year as well.
Later,
from the Internet, I learnt the term post rock — the term referring to
Mogwai’s music genre. I discovered other bands of the genre that I also
liked:
- Godspeed You! Black Emperor
- God Is an Astronaut
- Daturah
- The Evpatoria Report (which I discovered by listening to the post rock “radio” on the website last.fm)
- 65daysofstatic
- Kafabindunya
- ZXYZXY
- Mono, and others.
I still listen to Daturah and The Evpatoria Report at least a couple of
times per year and to Godspeed You! Black Emperor, God Is an Astronaut, and
ZXYZXY more rarely.
Later, I even recorded post rock music at home.
Those recordings are published on my YouTube channel:
I remember how I discovered Mogwai. It was either in late 2004 or early 2005,
when I was 13 years old. I saw their Hunted by a Freak music video, I
think, on Enter Music or A1 — one of the two music channels in the cable
package we had at that time that broadcasted rock and other less mainstream
genres.
I watched it in my parent’s room, with my mom. I didn’t get
to watch the music video from the beginning, but I think I saw most of it. I
was totally fascinated by the song — something incomparable to anything I had
heard before, especially that strange vocoder vocals.
I loved the
video as well. I felt for the animals mistreated by that cruel creep — the
main character. It made me feel sad, as well as the song. At that time, I
already was fond of sad and gloomy music, notably doom metal that I had learnt
about from Illya, the elder brother of Roma, my rocker school friend.
Unfortunately, I failed to remember the name of the band shown in the lower
thirds credits at the end of the music video. I only remembered the title of
the song and probably the name of the album. So as I didn’t have the Internet,
for the next few years, I lost this band, and I dreamt of getting their
recordings.
Later, in the spring (March or April) of 2005, I heard
their song on the radio — 103.7 FM, Radio Zaporizhzhia — our local city
station. In 2000-2003 (summer), or even up until the summer of 2004, it used
to be a rock and metal radio that Roma (who showed it to me in 2000) and I
listened to a lot. But in the summer of 2003 or 2004, to my great regret, it
had become a regular pop music radio station.
However, during that
period, in the winter or spring of 2005, while temporarily living at my
grandma’s, I heard a few rock songs on it, and thought that rock music
partially returned to their broadcasts. So I’d listen to it sometimes hoping
to hear something decent, which still happened rarely.
I would even
call their show where the DJs played songs on demand, and even then, I
succeeded in having them play songs by our local city rock bands — notably
K.O.M.A. and Inula (former Mary Jane), which I recorded on a cassette. It was
one of the very few sources for me to find local bands’ recordings. The other
two were TV shows on the local city channels and Roma’s and Illya’s cassettes.
I was fond of the local rock music scene then.
Once I called them
and asked to play something local, and the DJ said that unfortunately he
wasn’t allowed to play local rock music anymore. He said he sincerely
regretted it because he liked it himself, but his management prohibited it.
So
in the spring of 2005, I heard Killing All the Flies on that radio. I
was sure it was the same band — because of the vocoder vocals. After the song,
I listened to the DJ attentively trying not to miss the band’s name. But when
he said it, I didn’t understand it. I thought it was something like “One Way”
but I wasn’t sure. So I lost them again.
Later, when I was in the
second year of college, in September 2007, I made a brief acquaintance with
the owner of the rocker merch store at Angolenko, the largest local market. I
gave him a DVD-R, on which, for a small fee, he recorded the live video of
Pink Floyd in Pompeii. To fill the remaining space on the disc, he also
recorded other music (it was nice of him because I didn’t ask for it) —
Tomahawk, The Dillinger Escape Plan (I didn’t like either of those bands), and
Mogwai — all albums up to Happy Songs for Happy People which contains
those two songs I had heard before.
I think I also vaguely
remembered the name of the album that I must have seen in the credits of that
music video on TV: when I was opening the album’s folder, I already hoped to
see the song Hunted by a Freak in it, which was there. That’s when my
dream came true. Ever since, this has been one of my favourite bands. I think
I still listen to them more often than to any other band or singer.
December 2010
White Oleander
The files’ creation date of the soundtrack to the film
White Oleander on my computer says I downloaded it on December 13,
2010, but I’m not sure I hadn’t watched this film earlier than that. Before
looking at the date, I thought it was during my college years.
I
only remember it was in winter, before the New Year (which is consistent with
the aforementioned date). I saw the beginning of the film on TV in the
kitchen.* I was charmed by the two blond women — Michelle Pfeiffer playing the
mother and Alyson Lohman — the daughter. The mood of the film was calm and
soothing.
I googled the TV program for that channel and date to
find the film’s title. Then I watched it online (perhaps on the same night) or
downloaded it. I sympathised with Alyson Lohman’s character — a young teenage
girl going through multiple troubles and tragedies.
White Oleander became one of my favourite films, and its soundtrack
(one of the reasons why the film is soothing) — one of my favourite albums.
In
the scene during which I realised I loved the soundtrack, the girl is sitting
alone in her mom’s car waiting for her. She imagines herself talking to a man,
looking at herself in the car’s lateral mirror: “You’re not my type… You’re
not my type…”
Before and after she says this, there are shots of
palm trees with their leaves touched by a gentle breeze and clear sky behind
them… And the music giving the picture an even more peaceful feel.
I have watched this film more than once. I downloaded it and recorded it on a
DVD-R. I remember watching it in russian initially, and then in English. I
gave that DVD to my mom later — to watch on the DVD player (this was during my
relationship with Veronika, so during or after 2012). I don’t think mom was as
impressed as I was, but she didn’t hate it.
—
* Perhaps, I thought it was during my college years because
on another pre-New Year night, in the kitchen, I watched Step Brothers,
a comedy that I liked. Perhaps, it was even in 2008, when I got the Internet
connection. So maybe my memories about these similar nights mixed together,
and I had an impression that I watched While Oleander during my college
years as well.
December-January 2018
Agata Kristi and L[u]Myia Dark
I remember listening to the
russian band Agata Kristi
and L[u]Mya Dark a lot one winter (probably even each of these bands in a
different year, and perhaps L[u]Mya Dark was in autumn…), during rainy or
cloudy and gloomy days. I think it was sometime before January 2019.
I’ve
known Agata Kristi since my early childhood: some of their songs played on the
radio. However, those were the softest of their songs. The gloomiest, the
angriest, and the most depressing ones stayed unknown to me.
When I
was 13 or 14 years old, one spring, I borrowed a cassette with their 1998
album Chudesa (Miracles Eng.) from my school best friend,
Kostya. I think it was his father’s cassette because Kostya wasn’t much into
rock music. He also gave me away a few of his father’s rock and heavy metal
vinyls (Chorniy Kofe — Perestupi Porog and Volnomu Volia, Aria —
Geroy Asphalta, Kris Kelmi — My Znaem, Kino —
Gruppa Krovi, Alisa — Blokada and Elektrichestvo,
Televizor — Shestvie Ryb, Nautilus Pompilius — Knyaz Tishini,
The Moody Blues — The Other Side of Life, and probably something else.
But I only liked the first album of the aforementioned ones and Kris Kelmi
whom I no longer listen to). In one of those vinyls’ envelopes, I found
Kostya’s stash of Math tests with bad marks that he hid from his parents…
 |
| Chorniy Kofe — Perestupi Porog is actually a great heavy metal album. Interesting riffs, tunes, and masterfully played solos. The singer’s voice is very strong and unusual: resembling Udo Dirkschneider and Brian Johnson. There was another soviet heavy metal band with a similar voice — Скорая Помощь / Skoraya Pomosh (Ambulance, rus). Not sure if it would sound good on a Hi-Fi stereo — I’ve never tried. |
So Agata Kristi’s album Chudesa uncovered the real face of the band for me. It’s still my favourite album of theirs. At that time, I was rather a rock music fundamentalist: I despised computer-programmed drums in songs. But that time, I had to make an exception for Agata Kristi. It didn’t even sound like rock music: it was more synthesiser-based. So it was something new for me, and I had to make a little effort to accept the idea of liking it despite not being pure rock music.
I was already fond of dark and depressing music. I still am, but at that time
it was more recent for me. At about 12-13 years old, I got interested in
gothic doom metal (early Anathema, Tiamat, Theatre of Tragedy, Lacrimas
Profundere… which I still like).
I discovered this genre thanks to
Roma’s (my rocker classmate) elder brother — Ilya. He was 16-18 years old at
that time, going through his goth phase. He’d often show interest in sad
songs, and I was a bit surprised by this at first. Although he didn’t seem
gloomy as a person. He was humorous and friendly to me and Roma’s other
friends, treating us as equals, unlike other older guys who like to show their
superiority over younger kids.
He also played the drums in a band called Eva. They tried to play goth metal
or something like that. Once, he recorded their demo song —
Luna (Moon) (in a terrible quality) on a cassette for me, along
with a guitar-only composition titled Midnight by his fellow guitarist
— Shpieker (nickname). I’d listen to those recordings pretty often.
So
I thought he was cool, and I looked up to him. And I did the right thing —
thanks to him, I have discovered many bands and albums I still love.
So
as a teenager going through his goth phase, he liked sad music. Once, I
brought him Yngwie Malmsteen’s Trilogy on vinyl. He skipped through a
few songs, and then showed slight interest in the song titled Crying. I
think I said something like “Well, it’s not really a metal song: you may not
like it”, and he said “Why, it sounds sad… If it’s said, it might be
interesting”. Then, when the song developed into something less sad, he
concluded he didn’t like it. As well as the rest of the songs on the album
that seemed plain heavy metal to him, in which he had already lost interest by
then. He said Yngwie Malmsteen’s music was “empty”.
I used to write “song lyrics” at that time. My first few were in russian, and
they were supposed to be for hard rock and heavy metal songs. But then, after
borrowing doom metal albums from Ilya and being inspired by them, I switched
to English and to more depressing topics.
Once, I mentioned to
Ilya that I wrote lyrics and that my latest songs were inspired by doom metal
and were like “everything is bad, I’m going to hang myself”. Ilya showed
interest asking me to let him read the ones that were “everything is bad, I’m
going to hang myself”.
After reading, he said that it was
interesting (out of politeness) or something like that. And advised me not to
join any writing class or club so that my “style” wouldn’t become standard.
His answer was polite, but he didn’t seem to be impressed, which was
understandable because my “songs” were something a 12-13 years old kid wrote.
Now I feel awkward remembering my “songs” from that time.
I also
brought a compilation of Alice Cooper’s songs from his earlier years, and Ilya
said Alice Cooper was more interesting than he had thought because some of the
songs had keyboards in them. Before that, he had probably only heard
Poison (a plain heavy metal song) that was on the radio and TV
sometimes, just like me before buying that cassette.
I think it was in the spring of 2003, because sometime during that period I
also brought Evanescence — Fallen to show him, which was a new album
then. I bought it because I liked their song Bring Me to Life that I
had heard on TV and that sounded rather sad.
I learned about doom
metal from Roma: he told me Ilya liked to listen to doom. When I asked
what it was like, Roma described it as slow and gloomy metal where a vocalist
growls something in a raspy voice. Which actually was a pretty accurate
description considering it describes gothic doom or doom/death metal and not
stoner doom.
I got curious about it and wanted to hear what it was. In 2003, I saw that music video — Bring Me to Life by Evanescence (I think it was on Enter Music, an alternative music cable TV channel). At the end, the singer briefly screams or kind of growls a short phrase. And the song wasn’t fast. And it sounded heavy. So I wondered if it was doom or at least something close to it. I bought the album (together with Iron Maiden’s then-new Dance of Death that I had learnt about from Art Mosaica, a tabloid newspaper my mom would buy every Thursday and that I liked too). I rather liked Fallen by Evanescence, some songs less than others though. But it didn’t last.
So I brought it to Roma’s to have Ilya listen to it and tell me whether or not
it was doom. He said it was “pops” (his expression for pop music).
Perhaps
sometime after that, I borrowed a few doom metal albums from Ilya.
First, he gave me Sunterra — Lost Time, which wasn’t doom
metal (it’s gothic death metal, I guess), but it was gloomy and sad, and I was
very impressed and copied it on a cassette.
I recorded it over one of the Sector Gaza albums that Denis had left here
after one of his and Andrey’s summer visits.
Inside, there are the
lyrics of Thank You, the last song on the album. These lyrics were in
the album art inside the original cassette.
Then I borrowed more:
- Tiamat — Wildhoney and The Astral Sleep (one album per cassette side)
- Anathema — Silent Enigma
- Lacrimas Profundere — Memorandum
- Empyrium — A Wintersunset and Where at Night the Wood Grouse Plays (one album per cassette side, a 120-minute cassette),
which I still like. Then he gave me more. I copied all that on my cassettes
and listened to them often.
|
| On the left, it’s Ilya’s cassette with his handwriting. I liked the idea of writing in this “gothic” font and copied his style (poorly). |
On the left, it’s the cover of the original cassette. Ilya gave it away to me
(together with many other cassettes) when he no longer needed cassettes, after
buying an MP3 player.
Later, he bought a portable CD player that
read MP3 (he connected it to an old soviet half-disassembled tape cassette
player on his desk used as an amplifier connected to soviet S-90 speakers),
and didn’t need many of his cassettes anymore, so he gave me away lots of
them, among which was Summoning — Minas Morgul and two first releases
by Anathema that I loved then and still do.
This is how my gloomy teenage phase started (and partially stayed with me
forever). I felt it made me special, because normally people like joyful
things, and I was looking for sadness. Overall, I’m still unhappy, but now
it’s because I have a valid reason — a number of things I want to have in my
life and don’t have. While in my adolescence I looked for sadness mostly to
feel special in comparison to other people.
So this section was
supposed to be about Agata Kristi… Sometime in the spring (I think) of 2003 or
2004 I borrowed and copied their album Chudesa and had to excuse them
for their electronic drums. It wasn’t doom metal, but it was perhaps even more
depressing. Later, when I already had the Internet, I downloaded their other
albums, of which only Mein Kaif can compete in being gloomy (but in a
bit different way — it’s more aggressive while Chudesa is more
depressive).
Also, this section was supposed to be about winter… So
in December of 2018, I had a period of returning to their music which sounds
very appropriate for a cold season with rain and dirt from molten snow and
little sunshine.
Perhaps it was in 2018, because that December I
recorded two videos showing my city and used songs by Agata Kristi in them:
I also returned to Agata Kristi in the autumn-winter of 2009-2010, when I was
a technical college student in my third year. I downloaded all of their albums
and explored their music beyond Chudesa, watched documentaries about
them and interviews.
At the technical college, during breaks, I’d
meet with my fellows, who were a year older than I, at the canteen, near the
aquariums with catfish. Those were the guys with whom I had played in a band a
year before (winter 2008-2009).
It was my first experience playing
an electric guitar in a band (I only had an old acoustic one at home). We were
all amateurs and played only two songs which weren’t ours: B2 —
Polkovniku Nikto ne Pishet (which wasn’t my choice and I wasn’t excited
about that song) and U Stani Nirvany, an industrial metal song written
by their friend whom I didn’t know.
We were all newbie musicians,
but I progressed faster than them. Then we disbanded because each of us wanted
to play a different genre, and I started my attempts to gather my own bands:
thrash/death metal, post rock, grindcore… All of which failed.
There
was a pretty girl, a friend and classmate of Kostya, one of the band members.
Her name was Kira. She liked Agata Kristi too, and we’d discuss the band
sometimes during those break meetups at the canteen and online.
January-February 2020
Muriel Dacq
That winter I came up with my “brand” colour scheme (turquoise and purple on
black background) as well as selected the main font for my blog. I got the
idea to select these colours thanks to another T-shirt I had painted.
I
think in late September or early October 2019, I decided to paint Shadoks (the
characters from a French humorous animated TV series from the 1970’s) on a
black T-shirt. But I ran out of white paint (before that, I’d always use
either white paint on black shirts or black paint on white shirts).
I
went to a store to buy paint, but they didn’t have white. So I bought
turquoise and purple (lavender). Purple was already my favourite colour. And I
bought the turquoise one just in case — because it seemed nice to me as
well.
I remember when I was a child, I saw turquoise on a coffee
can, or maybe it was a package of M&Ms or something else. I was looking at
it puzzled, unable to decide whether it was blue or green — it was both at the
same time! I told my grandma about this, and she said it was called
turquoise.
When buying that paint, I didn’t know anything about
combining colours and that some colours look good together while others don’t.
So I was just lucky that those two did.
|
| The colours on the shirt are much brighter in real life. The shadok in the picture behind me is a drawing by Coline (Coco), my French friend. She sent it to me by physical mail in response to my letter. |
So when choosing a “brand” colour scheme for my blog, I just used the one from
the shirt.
Also, in February 2020, I interviewed the
actress Pamela Stanford. This interview took my blog to the next level. Before it, I’d mostly write
movie reviews, which is most often pretty useless as a form of content — who
cares what a random person thinks about a film that was released sometime in
the 70’s and has already been reviewed by many? Unless it’s a very obscure
film that is hard to find and the review includes interesting facts about it
unavailable anywhere else in English, like my review of
La goulve / Erotic Witchcraft by Mario Mercier.
So after interviewing Pamela Stanford, I interviewed a few other notable
personas and translated a few interviews from French to English, filling my
blog with really unique and valuable information.
Sometime in
January or February that year, I worked on my blog’s design and on troubles
with Google Search indexing the aforementioned interview. One night, I also
discovered that I had to fix the alignment of photos on mobile devices (to
make them show centre-aligned, I have to manually edit the html code — the
Blogger’s interface is full of bugs). So while working on my site late at
night, after work, I listened to Muriel Daq, and the more I listened to her,
the more I loved her songs.
Mo-Do — Eins-Zwei Polizei
I think it was in February 2020, but I’m not sure. I watched
Samedi soir en province, a documentary about the rural life of French
teenagers, shot in 1995. It shows either winter or spring in the French
countryside and rural discotheques.
In the closing scene, when one
of the young people drives home very early in the morning after a discotheque,
as well as during the closing titles, there is a song — Mo-Do —
Eins-Zwei Polizei, cheesy techno from the 90’s.
A year or
two later, I watched this documentary again — just to revive the feeling I had
while watching it earlier, especially that French rural cold sunrise in winter
or spring at the end. Now this song reminds me of it.
December 2021-February 2022
Darkwave Compilations: Nouvelle Phénomène and Système Paradoxe
That winter I listened to music while working. Normally I don’t, but at that
time I did tasks that didn’t require as much concentration as when, for
example, proofreading content, so I’d listen to music to keep me from feeling
too sleepy.
I listened to death metal compilations (or was it a
year before?), and then to darkwave/coldwave ones on YouTube. I discovered a
few bands that I liked, notably:
- Nouvelle Phénomène (they sing in French, but they are Hungarians)
- Système Paradoxe
- Xeno & Oaklander
- Xarah Dion
I adored the first two while I liked the last two less, although they also
sound nice.
There is also a song that I liked —
Nevinovataja by Diakova, a girl from Kharkiv, Ukraine. I thought she
was russian, because she sings in russian, but she is Ukrainian, which is
nicer.
Nevermind the YouTube upload date in the first one. It must
have been reuploaded in 2023. But I surely listened to it in 2021:
Ladytron
A couple of songs by Ladytron were in the aforementioned darkwave compilations
on YouTube, notably the song Nothing to Hide which I hadn’t heard
before and that I loved.
This made me want to revisit Ladytron that
I used to listen to a lot many years before (see the subsection about this
band in the section about June-July 2009 in this article), and then somehow
abandoned them for a decade or so.
I remembered that in those years
one of my favourite songs by Ladytron was Black Cat. And I decided to
record an acoustic metal cover of this song, which I did.
It was
the time I knew the war was coming, so I started my attempt to get a visa to
France. I had been planning this for years, regardless of the war, but the
news about the approaching war made me start my attempt to leave earlier than
planned. It failed because I made an extremely stupid mistake, so I had to
stay.
On the snowy December 25 or 24, I went to pick up my paper
proving the absence of a criminal record. The paper was required for a French
visa and took a couple of weeks to get issued, during which I made that stupid
mistake, so when picking the paper up, I already knew it would most likely be
useless.
Taking advantage of the occasion to go out, I also filmed
the city, all covered in snow, and the continuing snowfall.
I used that footage for the music video for my Ladytron cover. In that music
video, I also used fragments of
Outre tombe (Haunted Earth), a film by Alexandre Mathis, my French friend, starring Pamela Stanford whom I had interviewed two years
before.
In the music video, I used a contrast between Ukraine (all
dark and snowy) and France (mostly summer footage, but there are other seasons
too) — to express the idea of being in Ukraine physically but dreaming of
France.
The song’s lyrics are also dreamy, which somewhat fits the
story in my music video. The song is in Bulgarian (Mira Aroyo, who was born in
Bulgaria, wrote and sang it). I don’t speak Bulgarian, but I learnt the song
anyway, trying my best to copy Mira’s pronunciation. I think I made at least
one pronunciation mistake though.
I remember, while walking and
filming in the city, after getting the paper, I wanted to pee really bad. But
I made it home rather than doing it there. Also, I caught a cold. And the next
day or in a day, I filmed more footage around my house, despite being sick.
On
that second filming day, I went to the drug store, located in the house next
to mine, to buy medicine — a pack of Amizon. My card was charged twice due to
a malfunction, which I found out only when I came home, after filming. I
didn’t go back to the drug store to settle this that day, but I did it a few
days after. The salesgirl remembered me and was actually waiting for me to
return my money. She asked if I’d prefer another pack of Amizon instead of the
money, but I chose the money.
At the end of the video, I also
reused some of the old footage from a video filmed in 2018 where I walked in
my neighbourhood, also in winter (see the two embedded videos in the section
about Agata Kristi in this article).
When revisiting Ladytron
during that period, I also loved the song International Dateline that
hadn’t been among my favourites before I forgot about this band for a few
years.
Véronique Jannot and Lise Loyal
In the morning on February 24, at about 7 o’clock, my mom woke me up to tell
me that the war had started. I looked at the news on my phone where a
threatening red headline, all in bold capital letters (uncommon for that
website’s newsfeed) said:
PUTIN HAS ATTACKED UKRAINE. Another one said a general mobilisation was announced. Other headlines
provided other details.
My mom woke me up so that I would help her
and father to go panic buying and do other preparations for extreme
circumstances.
When I got up, I was shaking. I didn’t know whether
it was because of a shock or cold (I had to get out from under my warm
blanket, and the room wasn’t very warm). I didn’t feel panic, I wasn’t even
scared, although I didn’t like the news either. So I found my body trembling
unnecessary, inappropriate, and annoying (in case it wasn’t because of the
cold). Shaking stopped sometime after brushing my teeth and dressing.
Either
from the news or from my mom, I think when I was still in bed, I learned that
the russians had started the attack by shooting missiles at Ukrainian
airports. Probably because of this, the song Aviateur by Véronique
Jannot started to spin in my head. It was combined with a tune from
Cœur perdu by Lise Loïal, as if it were the same song. This combination
span in my head for a couple of days. So now Aviateur is my war song.
My Marselliese.
January-February 2011(?)
Björk, Agent 5.1, Jay Munly, Mogwai, and Mylène Farmer
That winter I decided not to go out until spring: it was cold and I hated
going out in winter because of having to wear a heavy, bulky coat and overall
discomfort of the cold (actually, now I hate going out during any season).
During
that period, I’d often meet with my friend Lisa or other fellows, but
especially with Lisa. As I didn’t go out during that winter, I didn’t see
Lisa, so I missed her.
I’d listen to the song I Miss You by
Björk, and this would remind me of Lisa. This is the only song by Björk that I
like. It also has a funny animated music video drawn by the creator of Ren
& Stimpy (a cartoon that I hated as a kid and that I still don’t like).
During
that winter, I had to spend a couple of months living at my grandma’s: in my
room, my parents were doing home improvement.
When I was moving to
my grandma, it was a dark and snowy evening. I was walking alone, and on my
way I was developing an idea of making a mashup-instrumental cover of various
songs by Mylène Farmer, making them smoothly transfer one into another and
combine tunes from different songs: California,
Sans contrefaçon, and others… It was supposed to be made of FL Studio
sounds, perhaps with a little guitar too, like my other songs. It stayed an
idea though — I never made it.
At home, my computer was moved from my room to my parents’. I’d visit home to
take a look at the internet during my days off (which weren’t always during
weekends: I worked at the steel plant, and my schedule alternated between day,
evening, and night shifts).
Before moving to grandma, I recorded
music on my phone to listen to at work: before sleep on night shifts and
before going home at night at the end of evening shifts (on which I’d often
sleep too). Perhaps, I listened to it during my day shifts too, on which I’d
often sleep as well — when they fell on weekends. At that noisy and dirty
steel plant that I hated, I almost always felt tired and sleepy. But I’d also
make wooden figurines or metal shurikens or read (not during that specific
period though)...
Most of the time, there was no work: as an
electrician, I was mostly busy only when something broke down. So unless it
was a day shift on a weekday (when all of the shop’s staff and management were
present), I’d spend much time alone in a relatively “cosy” little workshop
upstairs. It was located on the 2nd floor — a large space with the induction
oven that melted steel and a crane. The noise of that crane was pretty loud,
but I managed to sleep despite it.
The workshop consisted of two
small rooms. The room you enter first had a metal cupboard (or whatever its
industrial kind is called) on the right of the door (right next to it), a
workbench (farther, to the left), shelving (to the right, along the entire
wall), and at the end of the room, opposite to the door — a double-ended
grinding machine (I used it when making wooden figurines and metal shurikens a
year or two later).
The second room, where I slept, was twice or even trice smaller. To the right
of the door, on the floor, in a corner, it had two electrical heaters. They
were self-made but not by me, of course. One of them was installed on small
asbestos blocks, and had asbestos sheets and wire isolation inside. It was of
nearly a cubical shape, of a rusty colour (because it was all rusty). Another
one was tall and of light metal colour (perhaps it was aluminium). There was
another one — flat, rectangular, of skin colour, manufactured. It was hidden
behind or under the bench I slept on and almost never used.
A row
of three or four old red folding seats (like in a cinema) stood along the left
wall. Opposite to them (to the right of the door), there was a bench (to sleep
on). And above it, there was a small window.
On the same wall,
closer to the heaters, there was a calendar with young female models in
military uniform advertising Prima, a cigarette brand. A year or two later, I
threw my DIY shurikens into them.
On the opposite wall, above the
folding seats, there was a map of the city with cartoonish icons showing
various locations like museums and other places of interest.
Above
the heater, on the right of the door, on the wall (the same wall the door was
cut in), hung a metal cabinet with two sections. On the wall opposite to the
door, there was another similar cabinet. And under it — a workbench with a
radio and a phone on it.
It was a good radio — Ocean-214
(Океан-214) that caught broadcasts from all over the world and had various
wavelength ranges. I used to have one at home too — it used to be my grandpa’s
before I took it. Mine didn’t catch FM waves, but the one at work was modified
to catch them. It was also connected to an external speaker. Obviously, some
radio DIY enthusiast had worked on it.
I’d listen to the station
called Промiнь (meaning Ray in Ukrainian). It broadcasted mostly serious
programs with little music. Kind of a station for the older generation. I’d
listen to Radio Rocks too though, a rock music station.
My work
partner, Andrey (a man in his 40’s or 50’s), spent time in the workshop
downstairs. In case of a management’s raid (to check if everyone was working
and not sleeping) or if some work had to be done, he’d call me on the
telephone standing on the workbench. It was an old dial phone that rang loudly
and rudely like the old phones from the 70’s do.
I’d spend much
time on that bench in the small room with my bag under my head as a pillow and
both heaters on. In winter, it was freezing at first, but by the middle or the
end of the night it became warm and even hot.
Among the music on my
phone were:
- some album by Björk (I think it was Homogenic because I remember the song Hunter) — to give her a try, but I didn’t like it
- Jay Munly — Peter and the Wolf and songs from other albums (the songs Amen Corner and Goose Walking Over My Grave were there for sure. One night, I listened to the lyrics of the latter attentively and was amazed by that sick story)
- Mogwai — Summer (Klute's Weird Winter Remix)
- Mylène Farmer — Jardin de Vienne
I think that in winter or some other, I also listened to Cake Song by Agent 5.1. I had seen the music video for Cake Song by Agent 5.1 a few years before, on TV. I think it was in my high or secondary school years. I wasn’t impressed by the music (I was all rocker then), but the story told by the video stayed in my memory: a woman cooks a cake for a man and poisons him and herself. I also remembered the screen is divided into sections…
I remembered it and decided to find it online. I thought it was Björk, but it
wasn’t. Fortunately, I remembered the song’s title. I’m not 100% sure I
listened to it that winter. Maybe it was another year… But still, listening to
it now makes me think of winter.
As for Björk, I think I wanted to
listen to her because of a radio program that I heard at work during one of
that winter’s evening shifts. In that program, a DJ played one of the earliest
recordings of hers, when she, being a teenager or even a child, sang in a rock
band. It’s not like I liked that song, but I just thought that Björk might
appear to be a singer I’d enjoy, because of her weirdness and originality. But
she didn’t.
I remember those cold and snowy winter nights when I’d
return to my grandma’s home, at about 12:30 AM, after evening shifts — walking
from the bus stop near the maternity home. It felt unusual — to return home
from work to a place that wasn’t my normal home.
When living at my
grandma’s, I read a few stories by Thomas Mann, which weren’t terrible, but I
didn’t like them much. I also reread the book of Guy de Maupassant’s novellas
(that I had read for the first time years before — when I was 12 or 13 I
think). Once more he proved himself to be one of my favourite writers.
When
spring came and it wasn’t too cold, Lisa and I met again, in the evening.
January 2022
Latex Soundtrack
That winter, on Facebook, I saw a clip made of shots from Latex, an
artistic cyberpunk adult film from 1995. It seemed hypnotising, and I
remembered its title from my 2021 video
interview with Nigel Wingrove: he mentioned that he had released it on his label — Redemption Films in the
90’s. So I decided to watch it.
I think I was sick with the flu
while watching it.
The film impressed me a lot, and I loved the
soundtrack, which I extracted and published on YouTube.
I also
downloaded that clip from Facebook and
uploaded it to my YouTube channel
as well. But it can’t be watched when embedded as it’s limited because of
sexual content.
December 2022
Watch Me Soundtrack
Watch Me is a 1995 erotic film. I remember watching it at the age of 13
or 14, at night, on TV, secretly from my parents sleeping in the room next to
mine. With the volume set to minimum, or perhaps to zero, so that my parents
wouldn't know I was up watching TV. I had to stay on guard to hear their door
handle squeaking should one of them leave their bedroom… So I’d turn the TV
off until they’d go back to their room.
The feeling of "danger",
however, added rather annoyance than excitement to this experience.
Until
the first half of December 2022, the only scene from this film that my memory
retained was the one where the character of Kehli O'Byrne was watching the
character of Jennifer Burton making love to a man in the building facing hers.
Watching very attentively — through a telescope! And pouring a drink, looking
like a peach smoothie, onto her excited naked body.
I also vaguely
remembered both actresses' appearance: bright red lipstick and dark hair of
Jennifer Burton and lighter hair and big eyes of Kehli O'Byrne. And the fact
that I found both of them stunningly beautiful. And that Jennifer Burton had
smaller breasts than Kehli O’Byrne.
It's all that stayed in my
memory after about twenty years since that viewing. But it was enough for me
to want to find this film online about twenty years after.
I don’t
remember what exactly led me to recalling this, but I remembered about this
film at about 6 PM, on a weekday, while having a few-minute rest between the
series of physical exercises, in my dark room, during one of those scheduled
power outages caused by the russians regularly bombing the Ukrainian power
infrastructure. It was the time of my working day, but I couldn’t work until
the power was on. But I already had a mobile internet connection so I could
try to look the film up online.*
Without knowing the title or any
other specific data, I wrote a vague description of that scene in Google on my
phone: something like “erotic film 1990’s girl pours cocktail on herself
telescope”. I made a few attempts with similar phrases. At some point, the
movie poster among the first search results in Google Images felt like a blast
from the past!
Upon the viewing, I found that Watch Me had more to it than the
actresses' beauty. It has a nice romantic plot, although the story is trivial.
Good acting too. At least good enough to make me sympathise with the
characters. The charming ladies — enigmatic and stoic Elise (Kehli O'Byrne)
and sassy Samantha (Jennifer Burton).
What I loved right away was
the music. The main theme immersed me into a dream from the first seconds of
the opening scene. Most of the runtime, there is music in the background. I
loved it enough to extract it from the film and publish it on YouTube for
myself and anyone else to enjoy.
The score contains many dialogues
going on along with the music. I preferred to keep the parts with dialogues
because what the characters said was either beautiful or cheesy and amusing.
The dialogues only support the dreamlike atmosphere of the score.
After watching this film, I downloaded other movies with Jennifer Burton and
Kehli O’Byrne:
- Play Time, 1995 (starring Jennifer Burton and Monique Parent. This film is as good as Watch Me, although less serious or romantic, but perhaps even sexier)
- Solitaire, 1996 (starring Kehli O’Byrne — a captivating spy/detective thriller)
- Erotic Confessions (a silly and primitive but nice and relaxing TV series from the 90’s with Jennifer Burton and Monique Parent in some of the episodes. I plan to extract its soundtrack as well)
As I’m writing this, I haven’t finished watching all of the episodes of
Erotic Confessions. I watch them on weekdays after working on my hobby
projects (such as writing this article or working on my B-movie T-shirt online
store) after my working day at my job. If I don’t finish too late, at 3-4 AM,
which is often the case.
—
* The outages were scheduled and happened 2-3 times per day
lasting for 2-3 hours. This disrupted my work, so later I bought a laptop to
be able to work despite the outages, with a mobile Internet connection. After
a couple of months, the outages stopped.
When googling
Watch Me, I already had a mobile Internet connection (though it was
terribly unstable and slow), but I didn’t have the laptop yet.
I
started to pay for the mobile Internet because even after the power was on, I
nevertheless didn’t have the fibre internet for another hour or two. The
city’s power consumers were divided into 3 groups (queues) so that the power
would be off only for one queue at a time except for an hour (or two) of
overlap while two queues at a time were off.
I was in one queue,
but the equipment of my Internet provider was in another queue. So even after
I had the power on, I didn’t have the fibre internet for another one or two
hours.
Later, the government reviewed the queues, and my house was
placed in the same queue as the equipment of my Internet provider, which
became more convenient: as soon as I had the power on, I had the Internet too.
But I had to buy a laptop anyway — to work during the outages…
January-February 2023
Jazz-Funk
After finishing listening to all (or almost all) of the albums by Mylène
Farmer during December (and perhaps also early January) to immerse myself into
the memories about late December 2008-January 2009 (see the respective
section), something made me listen to Nucleus and Missus Beastly — jazz-funk
bands that I had discovered about a year before.
I had
Alleycat, Nucleus’ album, on a CD-R, but I didn’t have any other of
their albums, and neither did I have Missus Beastly. I started to listen to
their albums on YouTube while working on something at night (perhaps T-shirt
designs, although I think I made a pause for a month or two that winter — I
felt tired and switched to watching French films suggested to me by Zelda (a
French girl I met on Interpals and who I talk to on Whatsapp), and then
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and then Angel (Buffy’s
spin-off) after work instead of making shirt designs).
So I
discovered a few wonderful albums by those two bands and listened more
carefully to Dedalus — Dedalus, 1973 (that I had discovered the
previous summer while listening to funk on my phone connected to my tube
guitar amplifier, Fender Greta, during work, in the afternoon and evening. I
discovered Dedalus in the afternoon. It started to play automatically,
suggested by YouTube, after some funk.)
So that winter, I listened
to the following albums on stereo:
Missus Beastly — Dr. Aftershave and the Mixed-Pickles, 1976 (I loved
especially the opening song — Miles All Along The Watchtower — with
that cool groovy organ parts and the song High Life with the beautiful female
vocals)
Missus Beastly — Missus Beastly (2nd self-titled release),
1974 (I loved especially the song Paranoidl with that powerful drum
beat sounding like a sped-up waltz and blast beat at the same time)
Nucleus
— Elastic Rock, 1970 (I loved especially the song
Torrid Zone with nice brass parts — saxophone and probably trombone)
Nucleus
— Alleycat, 1975
Nucleus — Under the Sun, 1974 (I loved
especially the song New Life, with some of the most impressive drumming
I’ve ever heard)
Nucleus — Roots, 1973 (I especially loved the
song Images, a soothing bossa nova)
Nucleus —
Out of the Long Dark, 1979 (I didn’t like this one too much, although
it’s not terrible)
I have listened to both albums by Missus Beastly and Elastic Rock,
Under the Sun, and Roots by Nucleus multiple times. And twice to
Dedalus.
I also listened to Noel McGhie & Space Spies —
Trapeze, 1975 and both albums by Chute libre that I have on CD-R:
Chute Libre, 1977 and Ali Baba, 1978. But those weren’t new to
me — I had recorded them the previous summer or even in the summer before
one.
I didn’t listen to Cortex though. It felt to me like too
‘summer’ music for that season.
That winter was mostly a jazz-funk
winter for me.
Far — Tin Cans with Strings to You
Once that winter, on Facebook, I saw a post related to
Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I used to be a big fan of this show in my
childhood, especially when I was 11-12 years old.
For the first
time in my life, I saw Buffy when I was seven years old. It was in
summer, after graduating from kindergarten. I’d watch a TV series about Robin
the Hood on 1+1 (a national TV channel that at that time shared the frequency
with another channel — UT-2 (УТ-2)). I think it was at 5PM or slightly after.
After the last episode, the anchorman said that in place of
Robin the Hood, there would be another TV series —
Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I liked the name of the show. It sounded
cool. This was at the riverside flat — in the neighbourhood I lived in when
attending the kindergarten.
When the first Buffy episode ran on TV, I was at my grandma’s. For some
reason, I couldn’t keep following it consistently. Perhaps, it aired at an
inconvenient time, when I had to do my homework (I went to the 1st grade of
elementary school). But I’ve watched a few episodes during that period. This
was already at the flat where I still live at the time of writing this (my
family had moved just before I went to school).
When I was 11-12
years old, Buffy started airing again on another channel — on Novy
Canal. I was excited to start watching it again. I watched it alone during the
school year, and then, next summer, when my cousin Andrey came to visit me for
almost the whole summer, we watched it together at the dacha, and he became a
fan as well. Perhaps, we even watched it two summers in a row.
I
remember that Denis (my elder cousin and Andrey’s brother) came to dacha later
the same summer, for a shorter period, and took a glance at one episode with
us. He asked questions to better understand the plot (he asked something about
Willow, I think). But he didn’t become interested enough to continue following
it.
I think in August, Andrey and I saw an article in Art Mosaica
(a tabloid newspaper my mom would buy every Thursday and that I liked too)
titled Buffy Has Got Married. It was about Sarah Michelle Gellar
getting married and other information about her in general. I remember it said
that Sarah-Michelle liked rafting in her swimming pool or something like that.
It said Buffy was a very popular show internationally, which surprised me a
bit.
There were also mentions of other films where she had acted: Scream 2, Beverly
Hills Family Robinson, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and perhaps Cruel
Intentions (that Andrey and I were also lucky to watch on TV and found
Sarah-Michelle Gellar very sexy in it, especially that very wet kiss between
her and another girl).
That article must have told old news
because, as I think, we watched Buffy in the summer of 2003, and
Sarah-Michelle Gellar got married in September 2001 — almost a year earlier. I
was excited to have that article.
We were also excited to be able
to watch Buffy The Vampire Slayer, the 1992 full-length film which we
found cheesy although not terrible.
We were so into this show that
we made wooden stakes at dacha (we’d carve many different things out of wood —
pipes, arches, small boats and other DIY items)... I still have that stake
carved out of apple wood.
Both of us agreed that Anya (played by Emma Caulfield) was the prettiest girl
in the show (in the episodes that we watched together, because I remembered
Cordelia (played by Charisma Carpenter) as the most beautiful girl. But she
left the show after season 3, which I had watched alone, during the school
year).
Being already an adult, I didn’t think I’d ever be
interested in watching Buffy again: it seemed too childish. However, that
Facebook post evoked memories about the characters and events in that TV
show.
I remembered Tara — a shy girl, Willow’s lesbian girlfriend
and a witch, like Willow. When I was a kid, I preferred other girls from the
series — Cordelia, Anya, and Faith, thinking they were prettier. I didn’t care
much about Tara, although I didn’t hate her either.
I remembered
that she died and how exactly… I started to recall more and more events from
the show, and I watched a few excerpts featuring Tara on YouTube: compilations
of scenes featuring her and a fragment of the episode where Glory (played by
Claire Kramer) makes Tara insane by eating her mind in the park at a fair.
Then I watched the van chase, when Buffy and her friends were running away
from the army of knights.
Tara was a shy girl — the kind I find
cute now, at my present age. When remembering the episode where she dies, I
started to imagine what I’d do to prevent it if I were there with my knowledge
of the plot...
I watched Bring on the Night, an episode from season 6 (the one about
the time loop the Trio placed Buffy in, the funny mummy hand at the magic
shop, and Buffy looking for a job). Not sure why I watched it specifically.
Perhaps randomly.
Then I decided to watch the whole season
featuring Tara — season 5, where Glory is the ‘big bad’ (although Tara appears
a bit earlier — amidst season 4, but I didn’t want to start with a middle of a
season).
This immersed me into fantasy so much that for some time
(a month or two) I’d spend more time thinking about that imaginary TV show
world and my possible actions in it than about my real life. I joined multiple
Facebook groups and followed pages about Buffy.
I also watched
multiple comic con videos where the actors told stories and answered questions
about their work on Buffy.
Then I watched the subsequent seasons,
until the end of the TV show. And then — the remaining ones — from the pilot
episode and season 1 to the end of season 4.
Then I watched Angel, Buffy’s spin-off show and loved it as much
as Buffy (especially Illyria). Then I started to read the continuation
of Buffy and Angel in the form of comic books (at the time of
writing this, I haven’t finished them — I read them before going to sleep if I
don’t finish working on my hobby projects after work too late).
Now
I think that the most beautiful girl on Buffy was Darla (played by
Julie Benz) — a vampire, former (and future — on Angel) girlfriend of
Angel. It’s a pity she is only featured in a couple of episodes of Buffy. On
Angel, she has much more screen time, but she looks far cuter on Buffy.
Perhaps because of being a little younger and her hairstyle.
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So one of those nights, when watching Buffy after work, it was the episode
about Xander and a company of bad guys from his school possessed by spirits of
hyenas. There is a sequence where Xander, having become a bad guy, is walking
in slow motion in the school yard. It looks very cool, especially with the
slow heavy bass guitar-led music playing in the background, which I
immediately liked.
I found out the song title used in that scene — Job’s Eyes by Far. I listened to their album with this song (Tin Cans with Strings to You, 1996) on YouTube and loved it entirely. I could only find it in MP3 to download, so I don’t have it on a CD-R (I record CD-Rs from FLAC). The rest of their albums didn’t seem as good to me, except for a couple of songs from their previous album: Quick (1994).
Nightwish (February)
Once that winter, I saw a video of Nightwish’s live performance playing
Gethsemane, a song from their second album — Oceanborn. It
sounded good. It wasn’t one of the songs I used to listen to in 2003 and a few
years on, but I think I recognized the tune.
This made me want to
listen to them again, after about 20 years of pause. After work, when
designing pictures for my B-movie shirts, I listened to their albums starting
with the debut and up to Century Child (2002).
I barely
listened to the first two in my childhood — they were on a CD-R (in MP3) that
Lesha, my school friend, gave me then (I still have that disc). They didn’t
impress me then, and now either.
But the other two — the ones I’d
listen to a lot in my childhood — sounded sweet, especially given the 20-year
pause and nostalgic feeling they gave me. So I rediscovered the band.
Either
in 2003-2004 or 2004-2005, many of my classmates listened to Nightwish, even
though they didn’t like heavy metal in particular. We had 30 students in the
class, and about 10 of them listened to Nightwish at least briefly.
I had a cassette given to me by Kirill, a classmate, with the album
Century Child on it (as well as Leningrad, a russian band that my
classmates, including myself, used to find funny because their songs were full
of swearing and vulgarity).
Perhaps, there was something else on
that cassette as well, because when discovering Nightwish on it, I didn’t know
it was Nightwish. And I didn’t know Leningrad was Leningrad either (I thought
it was Garik Sukachov but Kirill told me it wasn’t). So I must have borrowed
that cassette for something else that was on it apart from those two bands,
but I no longer remember what exactly. Perhaps, English audio exercises for
our school program…
I’d listen to that cassette while doing
homework, after coming home from volleyball training (that my parents forced
me to attend thinking I led an unhealthy lifestyle spending all my free time
at home without physical activity). That volleyball training wasn’t terrible,
it was even fun, but I preferred not to attend it. Especially because after
training, I still had to do homework, often until late at night.
I’d
whine to my mom asking for permission not to go there every time, and one day
she gave up and said ok, with irritation. That was my victory, and I stopped
going there.
At the same period of time, after those training
sessions, apart from Nightwish, I listened to Grazhdanskaya Oborona on
cassettes taken from Roma. One of the cassettes was the one on which Illya had
recorded his demos for me (see the subsection
Agata Kristi and L[u]Myia Dark in the section
December-January 2018).
Then I borrowed Wishmaster, the 2000 album by Nightwish, from Kirill (I
think it was him) on CD and copied it on a cassette. Later, Gelia (Angelina,
another classmate, an eccentric girl) lended me Century Child as well,
where I found already familiar songs from Kirill’s cassette.
I
remember I also bought Once, their 2004 album for Nastya, a girl I had
a crush on in my last year of high school. I was 14. She was a year older than
I and going through her goth phase — HIM (she wore a pendant — their logo),
Cradle of Filth, Agata Kristi… It was the first time I met a girl with such
music taste, which seemed unusual to me then. However, she smoked, which I saw
as a drawback (and I still do).
It was in winter, a gift for the
New Year 2006. She appreciated it. I listened to it only once on my DVD
(connected to the multimedia 3-in-one (CD, cassette, and radio) sound system),
but it didn’t impress me enough to copy it on a cassette.
To get
that album, I asked Lesha, my classmate and rocker friend, to buy it for me at
the store next to his home, and I then returned its cost to him. He thanked me
because he copied the album on his computer, which meant he got it for free
(although I suppose he could have done it by downloading it online for free
anyway). Either before or after that, he recorded the rest of the discography
in MP3 on a CD-R and gave it away to me. On the case with that disc inside, he
wrote “disc for free”. It was generous of him.
I remember the music video for the song Nemo from Once often
playing on Enter Music and A1 (two alternative music channels on cable TV). I
still remember the chorus tune and the words “Oh, how I wish…” I think I
haven’t heard that song for about 19 years.
Erotic Confessions Soundtrack
When I finished watching Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s
spin-off), I started to watch Erotic Confessions. But not every
night.
At the time of writing this (May 17 2023), I haven’t yet
finished all of the episodes that I downloaded.
It’s a silly and
primitive 90’s TV series showing trivial and often not thought-through (plot
wise) erotic adventures. Very good to watch after work: it’s relaxing, doesn’t
feel heavy, doesn’t demand concentration. I like the 90’s feel.
But
what I don’t like is that most of the actresses have unnatural breasts.
Some of the episodes feature Monique Parent and Jennifer Burton (mentioned in
this article’s section about other two 90’s films — Watch Me and
Play Time).
The soundtrack from this show will also stay a
memory tied to the spring of 2023 in my mind.
Later, I plan on
extracting one or a few soundtrack compositions from this series and publish
them on my YouTube channel.
Update: I extracted and published the music from Erotic Confessions in October 2023, after finishing creating all planned designs (and improving some of the existing ones) for my T-shirts.
Often, I finish working on my hobby
projects (which I do after a working day at my job) too late: at 3-4 AM. So I
don’t have the time to watch Erotic Confessions, drinking milk (often with dissolvable chicory added to it). In this
case, I drink milk in the kitchen. I like these moments — it’s dark, quiet and
calm, and I’m home alone. It’s also cold in the flat, and hot milk warms me
up. I think I will recall these winter and spring nights of 2023 in later
years too.
December 2023
Hocico — Songs from the Early Demos
In December (or maybe late November 2023), I started writing a novel (which I then postponed or abandoned — we’ll see). During that time period, I listened to the early demos by Hocico, which I had never paid close enough attention to. The three demos — Misuse, Abuse and Accident (1993), Autoagresión Persistente (1994), and Triste Desprecio (1995-1996) — were released in 2003 on CD as a box set — Hate Never Dies, the Celebration.
The title of one of the songs — I Kill My Own Life — worked well with the subject matter of my novel. I looked for the lyrics online, but I couldn’t find them. Unfortunately, I can’t understand the words because of the singer’s distorted voice. Listening to this song (and some others) contributed to maintaining the right mood for writing.
I selected the songs I liked most and recorded them onto a CD-R to listen to on my stereo:
- Sexo Bajo Testosterona
- Juego en Silencio
- The Scent of Hate
- Our Death
- Sin Piel
- Not Blind Anymore
- ...Su miedo
- Sad Scorn
- Depression
- In the End
- Sangra el Cristo
- I Kill my own Life
- Trip to my Past
- Total Mistrust
- El Mundo de los que Callan...
The extremely depressing mood of those recordings pleasantly resonated with my own despair being at its peak at that time.
I also listened to the first two albums by Hocico during the same month. One of the details in that early Hocico sound that I particularly liked was the reverbed bass drum. In general, their early, amateur sound is more reverbed, aggressive and depressing than their later recordings that have become more and more overproduced.
During that period, I thought of buying a drum set and installing it in my father’s garage’s basement or even buying my own garage for this — to be able to record music as a full ‘band’ — with real drums (and doing a few covers of Hocico and Suicide Commando, which I also listened to during that period). I also thought of buying electronic drums and playing at home, but I realised they would still be too loud for neighbours and, after all, electronic drums are not real drums.
Buying a garage would be a bold move in such uncertain times, but I thought that if the times were so uncertain and I didn’t know how much time I had left to live, perhaps, realising my smaller dream — having and recording a drum set — would be a nice little thing to do before having my life completely destroyed or ended by the war.
Fortunately, I refrained from this, and my life took a favourable turn that I barely hoped for (but that I had been dreaming about for many years, gradually losing hope after the beginning of the war).
During that period, I also discovered the Old Amsterdam cheese which I loved. I ate it with coffee while listening to my stereo in December after drinking tea with my mom who’d bring me groceries on Fridays or weekends.
Mom did this in December and January: I avoided leaving home because during that period it became especially dangerous for men due to the risk of being caught by the war office squads kidnapping men and torturing them into consenting to go to war.
After my mom left at about 4-5 PM, I’d listen to my stereo. I think one time I listened to these recordings after baking a pizza with my mom.
Within Temptation
Scrolling down my Facebook newsfeed on my phone, just like this had happened with Nightwish half a year before, I saw a live video of Within Temptation playing their song Ice Queen. I’ve never been a fan of this band, but I remembered that I liked this song, and a couple more, when I was about 14-15 years old and saw their music videos on TV.
I watched the music video of Ice Queen on YouTube, and I loved it, much more than I did in my adolescence. Sharon Den Adel is so pretty in the video. The whole video is primitive — just the musicians playing in front of CGI backgrounds. But it still looks entertaining and even beautiful.
I love the way Sharon sings this song (she is a great singer in general, but this song is special). Rather than following a basic note progression corresponding to the main tune, she adds creative deviations — so inventive and emotional. Breathtaking.
I watched many of their other music videos, and loved some of them too — Stand My Ground and Faster.
I didn’t recognize Stand My Ground by its title. But when the music video began, I had this exciting feeling of gradually remembering a long-forgotten tune.
Faster is a very good, catchy song, but, unfortunately, too modern to have an acceptable dynamic range. It’s still okay to listen to in headphones.
Their other music videos and songs weren’t bad. But none of their recordings have good enough sound to listen to them on a stereo — all are overcompressed, even the first albums, which I tried to record onto a CD-RW to test the sound — it was dull.
I’d watch those three music videos (Ice Queen, Stand My Ground, and Faster) many times in a row, a few nights after work.
I made a YouTube playlist with my favourite songs of the band.
This gave me an idea to find other memorable music videos from my past, starting with the earliest memories, and assemble them into one playlist:
Elsa — Jour de neige and Julie Pietri — Eve, lève-toi
I found the music video for Jour de neige among YouTube’s suggestions, and I loved it. I often watched it on repeat — in December and January. Then I found one more song by Elsa that I also liked — Qu'est ce que ça peut lui faire.
I also discovered the beautiful song and music video — Eve, lève-toi — by Julie Pietri (whom I had already known for her song Enfant d’exil).
During the same period, I created a playlist containing music videos of old French pop:
January 2023
Dust Heaven — Красный чай (Red Tea)
I arrived in Odessa and rented an apartment for a few days, waiting for my departure to France. This was a stressful period but also exciting and full of hope. The apartment was dirty, but it would do for a few days — my last days in Ukraine.
In a kitchen cabinet, I found a tiny amount of hibiscus (‘red tea’, which isn’t really tea), along with oatmeal. I drank that hibiscus and bought more. It reminded me of the song Красный чай (Red Tea) by Dust Heaven, which, by coincidence, was a band from Odessa.
I listened to this song many times with great nostalgic pleasure, especially before going to sleep. I listened to other songs too and watched live recordings.
Anastasia Bukina is a talented and skillful singer. I read about her and discovered she was pretty famous internationally in the jazz community. Glenn Hughes even complimented her once. She owns a musical school in Odessa and currently sings pop music in Ukrainian.
Apart from that, to maintain French-oriented mood, I continued to listen to Elsa — Jour de neige, Julie Pietri — Eve, lève-toi, and Mylène Farmer — Appelle mon numéro.
The first one was especially relevant because the weather in Odessa was very snowy and cold — up to –10°C (which was why my departure was delayed a couple of times, notably because of black ice). The delays made the trip more stressful, making me wonder if it was my destiny to stay in Ukraine no matter what efforts I’d make to realise my dream of leaving it. Fortunately, it wasn’t.
Noir désir, Sonic Youth, Françoise Hardy, Jimi Hendrix, France Gall
I arrived in France. My friend Lucille hosted me in the apartment she lived in when we met online in 2016.
In the apartment, there is a cheap sound system manufactured sometime in the 90’s, judging by its design — Pioneer SX-P420 with the Philips FB 36/20 speakers. Similar to the one my parents bought when I was little (see the section Summer 2001) but older and consisting of 3 separated sections — to imitate the concept of a Hi-Fi stereo. Still perfectly functional (at least the CD and the amplifier sections — I didn’t test the rest).
Among Lucille’s and Lucille’s mom’s CDs, I found a few that interested me:
- Sonic Youth — Goo (a 1990 edition, not a remaster, according to the information on the disk)
- Françoise Hardy — a one hundred songs, five CDs box set
- Jimi Hendrix — Band of Gypsies (a 2010 reissue)
- France Gall — a CD-R, apparently a compilation
- Noir désir — Des visages des figures (I didn’t know this band, but Lucille advised me to listen to it saying their lyrics were beautiful)
First, I listened to Noir désir. It was okay but not something I’d like to listen to again. I read the lyrics of some of the songs, and they were too poetic for me to understand. I told Lucille I had listened to the album, and she mentioned that their singer, Bertrand Cantat, had murdered his girlfriend, Marie Trintignant (the daughter of Jean-Louis Trintignant, a famous French actor). I read about it on Wikipedia. A terrible story.
I listened to Sonic Youth — Goo a few times.
I listened to Françoise Hardy a lot. Before that, I didn’t like her (except for the song La fleur de lune, which, funny enough, has a riff similar to one in Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven released later than Françoise Hardy’s song). But being limited in the options of CDs to listen to, I listened to her songs more attentively and appreciated many of them. After listening to all the five CDs from the box set (especially the first three CDs multiple times — they contain earlier recordings), I created a YouTube playlist of my favourites:
I listened to Jimi Hendrix a couple of times. I love the song Machine Gun with the most outstanding solo on the album, and the riffs are the coolest too.
I listened to France Gall a couple of times and liked a few songs from that disc a lot. I made a YouTube playlist too:
I listened to that cheap vintage sound system while drinking tea or milk with chicory after having my dinner at 6-7 PM.
Sonic Youth, Jimi Hendrix, Noir désir, and especially Françoise Hardy and France Gall are the soundtracks to my arrival in France.
Spring
February — March 2005
That winter-spring, I lived at my grandma’s: my parents were doing home
improvement in their room. I took a tape cassette player and cassettes to my
grandma’s:
- Anathema — The Crestfallen (EP) and Serenades
- Summoning — Minas Morgul
- Dio — Strange Highways with Manowar — Kings of Metal on another side
- U.D.O. — Animal House & Timebomb (I still deem them Udo’s best albums)
- AC/DC — Ballbreaker and Stiff Upper Lip (these albums and High Voltage, the debut, Australian version, are still my favourites among all the albums of the band)
- Some compilation of goth metal songs.
All of those cassettes were given away to me by Ilya and Roma after they had
bought devices to listen to MP3 and didn’t need cassettes anymore.
I
listened to them while reading a fantasy book — Druss the Legend by
David Gemmell that my mom had gifted to me for the New Year or birthday. She
knew I liked books about Conan, so she bought something similar.
During
that period, I’d also call Zaporizhzhia 103.7 FM (the already former rock
radio), to have them play local rock bands (Inula — Tviy Fanat (Your Fan, Ukr) in particular) during the song on-demand show at 8-9 PM (another one
was at 2-3 PM, but I was still at school).
March 2007
Dust Heaven and Antimatter
The files’ creation dates of Dust Heaven’s demo Nevidimki say I
recorded it on my computer on March 30 2007.
I was already in
college and I didn’t have the Internet yet. I had to do some task for
Ukrainian Literature. I think it was an abstract (not sure if it’s the right
word for it in English. In Ukrainian it’s called “referat”). I went to Roma,
my former school classmate, to download it online (that’s how this type of
task was usually done — just download someone else’s from the Internet and
print it out).
Apart from that, I copied some of the music Roma had
on his computer, among which were Dust Heaven — Nevidimki (demo) and
Antimatter — Saviour.
I also asked him to look in the city’s
local network (it was like the Internet, but limited to our city. Not sure if
it still exists) for recordings of our city rock bands and copied some as
well. At that time, I was interested in the local rock scene.
March or April 2006
Theatre of Tragedy — Assembly
I bought this album as a birthday gift for the aforementioned Nastya I had a
crush on in my last school year, when I was 14.
I knew Theatre of
Tragedy as a gothic metal band — at that time I only had their debut album
(copied from a CD-RW onto a cassette. I had Roma record that CD-RW in wav
format for me from MP3 files on his computer so that I’d be able to listen to
it on my AIWA 3-in-1 sound system).
In an issue of Dark City (a russian magazine about heavy metal music), I read a review of Assembly,
the latest Theatre of Tragedy album at that time. It was a very positive
review, but it said that it was EBM or synth pop.
|
| Dark City, April / May 2002 (#8 / 2002) |
I barely imagined what those genres were. These terms were unfamiliar to me,
but synth pop made me especially cautious because of “pop” in it. So I
was curious about what that album sounded like but unsure of whether or not I
wanted to buy it. I’ve read that short review multiple times trying to
decide…
There was also an interview with the band talking about the
making of the album.
Nastya liked gothic metal, and she knew
Theatre of Tragedy too. So I decided to buy that album for her birthday and
give it a listen myself as well.
When I bought and listened to it
for the first time, I had mixed feelings. On one hand, it sounded interesting
and pleasant. On another hand, to admit I liked it, I had to reconsider my
tastes: I despised pop and electronic music and everything that wasn’t “true”
hard rock or metal, including alternative metal.
I listened to
Assembly at least twice before presenting it to Nastya. But I didn’t
copy it on a cassette for some reason. Perhaps, I decided to stay a
conservative bureaucrat and adhere to my normal “only true rock and metal”
policy.
I remember that feeling of curiosity and confusion. Looking
at the abstract, sci-fi album art untypical for gothic metal and the band’s
futuristic cyberpunk outfits and hairstyles…
Later, I asked Nastya
to lend it to me so that I’d copy it on a cassette after all, and she said she
had given it away to a friend of hers. Which wasn’t pleasant to learn as it
was a present.
The following winter (or the winter after it), I
bought an MP3 disc of Theatre of Tragedy, with this album included.
Later, I also bought their album Storm, and it was ok to listen to on the computer in headphones. But on the Hi-Fi stereo it sounds bad, like any modern release, because of the loudness war.
March 2023
It’s only May, but I already miss those nights after work in February-March of 2023: working on T-shirt designs while listening to Nightwish and Sophie Ellis-Bextor rediscovered after 10-20 years, watching Angel (Buffy spin-off TV show) and (after finishing all episodes of Angel —) Erotic Confessions or watching Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s music videos while drinking milk or just drinking milk (often with chicory) in my cold and dark kitchen before going to read Buffy and Angel comic books before sleep.
I still lead a similar lifestyle, read Angel comics, watch Erotic Confessions, and drink milk in my dark kitchen. But it’s no longer cold. And the excitement of rediscovering Nightwish and Sophie Ellis-Bextor isn't as fresh.
Sophie Ellis-Bextor
I’ve known Sophie Ellis-Bextor since the age of 11-12. The first song of hers
that I heard was I Won’t Change You. Sometime in 2002 or so, I saw the
music video on M1, a music-only TV channel that played pop. Rarely, one could
see rock and pop-rock bands there. I remember seeing Rolling Stones’
Don’t Stop, The Beatles’ Rain… But mostly lame pop music. So if
I watched it, it was for killing time or while waiting for something better on
another channel (cartoons or Buffy…).
At that time, I didn’t
admit that I liked the song. But something made me remember that music video
and the woman for a long time.
Later, in 2007 or so, I saw
Me and My Imagination but I didn’t remember what the music video was
about until watching it again years later. And in 2010 (the year I finished
college and started working at the steel plant) —
Can’t Fight This Feeling.
I remember watching TV in my parents’ room in summer, at night. Not sure which
year it was. Perhaps 2010 (because the Sophie Ellis-Bextor folder was created
on my computer on September 20, 2010).
That night, one channel
played multiple trance/techno music videos in a row. At that time, I already
listened to Ladytron and Hocico, so these videos got me interested. I remember
one of them was Members of Mayday, but I don’t remember what the video was
about or the song’s title. Later, I couldn’t find that exact video and song.
And when I listened to this band, I didn’t like them.
However, I
loved the music video and the song by Busface and Sophie Ellis-Bextor —
Circles (Just My Good Time). The same night or the next day, I found it
online and I think it’s then that I started to listen to Sophie Ellis-Bextor.
However, not too deeply and not too often. And shortly after, I abandoned her
for about ten years.
In March 2023, I was looking for something to listen to when working on my
B-movie T-shirt designs. I wanted to listen to something I hadn’t listened to
for a long time. So I tried Sophie Ellis-Bextor and loved her songs even more
than before.
I listened to the album Make a Scene, which was
on my computer. Then I listened to her other albums on YouTube. After an album
ended, other songs started to play randomly… Some of the songs would play
multiple times. Some caught my attention more than others: Catch You,
Mixed Up World, Homewrecker,
New York City Lights…
Then I downloaded all of her
albums.
In 2010, I mostly liked Make a Scene — her most
recent album for that time, which had the most electronic sound. The rest also
felt nice, but not as much. Now, I like all of her albums equally (except for
the ones after Make a Scene — they are too dynamically compressed,
although the songs are good).
I remembered that summer of 2010 when
I discovered the Circles music video. This made me feel nostalgic, and
I listened to the song too (after listening to Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s own songs
first). At first, this song didn’t impress me as much as it used to in the
past. But after watching the music video, I loved it much more, as well as the
music video itself — the story, and the way it’s filmed.
I watched this music video non-stop 5-10 times in a row after work,
while drinking milk, on multiple nights.
One night, I think on
Friday, I also watched all of Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s music videos in a row. My
favourite ones are:
- Get Over You (so colourful and I love the song)
- I Won’t Change You (Sophie Ellis Bextor changing her look trying different hairstyles, makeup, and outfits — I remembered it from my childhood).
- Murder on the Dancefloor (a funny story about cheating mischievously at a dancing contest)
- Heartbreak (Make Me a Dancer)
- Bittersweet
- Crying at the Discotheque
- Mixed Up World (also one of my favourite songs of hers)
- Catch You (where she wears a cute red dress, in Venice)
I made a playlist where I gathered almost all of Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s
music videos:
At the time of writing this, I’ve been also rehearsing an acoustic metal cover
of Just Can’t Fight This Feeling.
Update: in a few days, I
recorded it:
When I was listening to Sophie Ellis-Bextor, YouTube also suggested the song
In And Out Of Love by Armin van Buuren feat. Sharon den Adel, which I
liked a lot as well. I think I had heard it years before, when it was on the
radio and I was in college, but I didn’t pay attention to it then. I was a bit
surprised to recognize Sharon den Adel as I knew her only for her career in
Within Temptation, a gothic metal band.
Guano Apes and Akira Yamaoka & Melissa Williamson
Sometime in October 2006 (according to the file creation dates), when
exchanging music on CR-RWs with a college rocker fellow, Denis (who also
introduced me to the heaviest genres — death metal, grindcore... As well as
metalcore and nu metal, which, unlike death metal, didn’t last among my
tastes), I got the following songs from him:
- Guano Apes — Quietly
- Akira Yamaoka & Melissa Williamson — You’re not Here
- Akira Yamaoka & Melissa Williamson — I Want Love
- Akira Yamaoka & Melissa Williamson — I Want Love (Studio Mix)
which I liked and kept on my computer.
At some point, I
abandoned them for many years or listened to them very rarely.
During
the same time when I rediscovered Sophie Ellis-Bextor (March 2023), I listened
to them again and it felt very nice.
I’d watch Guano Apes —
Quietly a few times in a row on the same nights as
Circles (Just My Good Time) by Busface and Sophie Ellis-Bextor.
April 2010
Hocico
At the end of my last college year, when I was working on my diploma (or maybe
it was a second-most important project prior to it), I discovered this band
(as well as Obituary).
Sometime during that period, I remember
going outside after staying at home for a few days working on that project and
suddenly noticing that trees already had leaves on them. It got me surprised
because the last time I had looked at them, they were all bare. I think during
some time we didn’t have lessons so that we’d work on that project, and
perhaps that’s why I didn’t go out for many days. Or maybe I’d go out from
time to time, but I didn’t look around myself, being lost in my thoughts…
The
song that got me interested in Hocico was The Last Warning. A friend
from vk com, a girl from st. petersburg — Anya, posted a music video
consisting of footage from some animé and this song on my profile.
Anya’s full name was Anait, an Armenian name, although she didn’t look
Armenian. But neither russian… She had a weird face. Resembling Ajita
Wilson.
Anya liked industrial music, notably Marylin Manson. She
also liked things like BDSM and androgines, which I’ve never been interested
in and found repulsive. But as a person, she was nice and interesting to talk
with, and we bonded. Also, she was a lesbian.
When I already worked
at the steel plant (I think it was the spring or summer of 2010), she was
visiting some friend in Kharkiv, and came to see me as well. I met her at the
train station and accompanied her to a hotel. Then we went for a walk for the
rest of the day, and the next day too.
So after that song, I
explored Hocico’s discography and liked it all. The latest album for that time
was Memorias Atras, 2008. When the subsequent albums came out, I didn’t
like any of them.
Later, I recorded an acoustic metal cover and an
animated music video for their song Drowning.
May-June 2012
Lexx Soundtrack
For the first time, I watched Lexx, the sci-fi TV series, in my school
years, when I was about 12 years old, on Alex, a local city TV channel. I
think it was during the same period as Buffy (if so, it was aired after
Buffy). It was the third season: I remember Zev meeting Prince. I also
remember episodes from season 4. But I didn’t follow it consistently to the
end.
I remember finding Xenia Zieberg very beautiful. At that age,
I didn’t understand that her lips were silicone and looked oversized and
weird.
Later, in 2012, I saw a picture of 790, the robot head from
Lexx, on vk.com in the profile of an online friend from moscow (Egor, a
friend of Roman Kamaev, who had a home-based horror film-inspired electronic
music project called Jeepers Creepers, which I still listen to sometimes).
That picture made me want to watch Lexx (I didn’t know the name of the
show but I found it out) again. I did, and I was very impressed and loved
it.
That spring, I had a dream inspired by Lexx. I had it at
the steel plant where I used to work. It was during a day shift (which must
have fallen on Saturday or Sunday, so the management and most of the staff
weren't at work, and I could sleep).
The dream was about Mantrid's
mechanical flying arms. Mantrid is a villain from Lexx.
Mantrid’s mechanical flying arms were attacking me at the workshop where I
slept. They had “TV” written on their shoulders, and there were many of
them.
The arms were breaking into the workshop by flying in from
the street through the small window above the bench I slept on.
I
ran out of the workshop, down the metal stairway, heading to the ground of the
large premises where the crane would pick up scrap metal to deliver it to the
furnace upstairs.
While I was still on the stairway, I heard a
noise (like giant feet stomping) coming from downstairs, and I understood that
in that premises, and everywhere else, there would be other similar threats
because those, and perhaps other kinds of creatures, must have already invaded
everything.
The same May, I would come to Lisa to spend time at her
home and watch cartoons. Lisa would sit on the floor, with her laptop in front
of her on the floor too. I would lay on the sofa on my stomach, behind
Lisa.
I think when I came for the first time, Lisa was watching
American Dad (a cartoon similar to Family Guy that I liked to
watch later, during the period when I dated Veronika. I tried
American Dad too, but didn’t like it).
One of those evenings, Lisa and I watched an episode of Lexx (it was
the one about the TV world), but it didn’t seem interesting to her.
On
another day, I missed the last bus home and stayed overnight at Lisa’s. She
suggested downloading a few Lexx episodes for me to watch before sleep.
This was thoughtful of her. On that night, those were episodes from season
4.
Once, we also watched TV and Lisa laughed at yanukovych, the
former Ukrainian president.
Once, I asked Lisa to suggest a scary
horror film, and she said that The People Under the Stairs, which I
hadn’t seen, used to scare her as a kid. We tried to watch it, but didn’t
finish as it didn’t seem interesting.
Lisa had giant pet cockroaches and a tarantula that I had bought for her as a
gift. When I bought it (I think it was in December), it was a baby, the size
of a fly or smaller, and of white colour. At the period of my May visits, the
spider was still very small. It was supposed to be the size of a palm or
larger when it would be an adult. Later, Lisa’s then-boyfriend and
now-husband, Anton, accidentally dropped the tarantula, and it died.
Later
that year, in the summer, I started dating Veronika. That year, I was actively
looking for a girlfriend, making acquaintances on vk.com and a dating site,
and Veronika was one of the vk.com ones.
I saw she liked Lexx as
was in a group dedicated to the show. I used this as a conversation starter. I
sent her an initial message in May or even April, but she replied only in a
few weeks. I remember talking to her on my birthday, when I came home from
Lisa’s. I think it was the day when Veronika replied to me for the first or
second time. So either that evening or a couple of weeks later, I asked her
out, and we started dating in June.
- So Lexx and the music from it mostly remind me of:
- the time spent with Lisa at her home
- the warm May nights outside, when I was on my way to the bus stop and then waiting for a bus after visiting Lisa
- the dream at the steel plant
- the beginning of my relationship with Veronika.
April-May 2019
It’s a Fine Day
As the file creation date shows, I downloaded the song
It’s a Fine Day by Kirsty Hawkshaw (the 2002 version) on March 17,
2019. So I had discovered it and its other versions (including the Opus III
and the original one — by Jane and Barton) not long before.
I liked
the song enough to want to make an acoustic death metal cover of it. I shot
some footage in May and had Lucille (my French friend whom I’ve known since
October 2016) film herself pretending to be singing — she also contributed her
vocals to the song.
The music videos by Jane and Barton, Opus III,
and Kirsty Hawkshaw have a summer vibe. Mine was shot in May, but it’s almost
summer.
I placed this song in the same folder as
All Around The World (Usura Mix) by Silvia Coleman (downloaded earlier
— on September 25, 2017) and Willkommen in meinem Garten by Blümchen
(downloaded on May 07, 2019 — the same period as It’s a Fine Day) and
listened to them all together many times. So all three songs are summer songs
for me.
When sharing the music video on Facebook, I tagged Kirsty Hawkshaw, and she
commented saying it was funny, and the vocals were scary, and that there
should’ve been 5G towers among the electrical towers filmed in my
neighbourhood — to match the scary vibe, or something like this (she was
anti-5G according to her social media posts). I’m pleased to know she was
amused.
Later, Lucille told me that her coworkers had looked her
name up online and found this video. They found it funny and cute, but this
situation was awkward for Lucille, so I removed the mention of her second name
from the description.
April 2023
Lee Aaron and Glam Rock
As mentioned previously, I learnt about Lee Aaron from Heavy Metal — the russian almanack of biographies of rock and heavy metal bands from the late 60’s to 1990.
The article about her with a photo (in which I found her pretty), was the
first — because the bands were listed in alphabetical order, and her surname
is Aaron.
I remember watching her music videos in 2012 or earlier
(before dating Veronika, I talked to Yulia online, a girl I got acquainted
with thanks to Lesha. I showed her Barely Holding On, a song by Lee
Aaron when discussing female singers with powerful voices).
I
didn’t listen to Lee Aaron often though. And I didn’t record her on CD-Rs. But
in April 2023, I decided to do it, and I’m glad I did — her early albums sound
great on Hi-Fi.
I recorded on CD-Rs:
- Metal Queen, 1984
- Call of the Wild, 1985
- Lee Aaron, 1987
I also recorded the album by Phantom Blue and another CD-R with selected songs
by Lee Aaron from her later albums that I didn’t like entirely. As well as
other songs:
- Femme Fatale — Waiting for the Big One and Falling in and out of Love
- Tahnee Cain and The Tryanglz — Photoplay and Burnin’ in the 3rd Degree (from the Terminator, 1984 soundtrack)
- Motley Crue — 10 Seconds to Love (a song I’d hear on the aforementioned radio 103.7 FM when I was 9-11 years old but didn’t know the band’s name or the song’s title. Once, I recorded it onto a cassette from the radio… Later, with the help of the Internet, I found out its title and the band: I recorded myself playing its main riff, that I still remembered, on my acoustic guitar and posted it in a Facebook group for rockers asking if anyone knew the song’s title. Someone responded. It was on May 16 2017, as per the video upload date on Facebook)
- Whitesnake — Is This Love? (a song I’ve known since I was 9 as it was on the aforementioned Biker's Ballads compilation)
- Phantom Blue — Why Call This Love?
I listened to some of Lee Aaron’s albums twice, as well as that compilation, and was very impressed.
May-June 2022
Deep Purple — Knocking at Your Back Door
I’ve known this song since 2001 or 2002, when my father bought the two
aforementioned Deep Purple compilations on CD (see the subsection
ZZ Top and Biker's Ballads in the section
Summer 2001).
I liked this song like most of their other
songs and listened to it from time to time, together with other Deep Purple’s
songs and albums. But in May 2022 I got a taste for it like never before. I
listened to it on repeat and watched almost every video of its live
performance on YouTube. I remember it was late at night, basically morning. I
also read the lyrics and the story behind them, which I found amusing.
One
late May Sunday (or was it early June?) I was listening to the album
Perfect Strangers (the album this song is on) on my stereo. It was
raining violently outside. After listening to this song a few times on repeat,
I looked at my balcony and discovered it was flooded with rain water. I
cleaned it before my parents came back from dacha.
That
spring-summer, I also recorded all later Deep Purple albums, starting from
Perfect Strangers and on, on CD-Rs and listened to them.
Update: Today, on May 21 2023, also on a rainy Sunday, like a year before, I listened to this song trice (and Wasted Sunsets twice) on my stereo, savouring it. I hope this becomes my tradition now. I also listened to the Scorpions' songs from my childhood yesterday and today. It felt amazing.
I created this blog for like-minded people with weird taste for unpopular, obscure, and sleazy films and music. If you feel our tastes are similar, let's be email friends. You can also reach out to me if you need help in finding any rare film or music mentioned in by blog.
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