#355

Things have definitely changed for the better since I broke my toe. It happened at the end of one of the worst, most exhausting weeks of my life, when I happened to be in the frontline of a present-apocalyptic, nuclear,  no-mercy-for-all war with my family, my work and my love life. Guess I just came to a point where even a broken toe could be the best thing. My mother had to call me twice a day just to make sure I was alright. I chain-smoked packs of cigarettes just to have myself lost in a glamorous cloud of stating “I know it kills me that’s why I try to get addicted.” Put it down—too much work to do with no result. And I just broke down too many times when I had to realize some people do care about me and just want me to be happy or only feel better. Tears of joy in the state of desolation.
 First I went to an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet then said fuck the bad parts and let the good things come. Basically this is how shallow my emotions are and yes this is how quick I decide to end my melancholy. Even though it’s still with me as it always was, because something’s gotta fuel the rage that made me who I am.


We played a horrible alley show at an industrial site next to dumpsters after 10 hours of painstaking work. My band, which is collapsing since forever, got invited to play at a skate contest’s after-party. We fucked up our set big time. So much for only playing the bass for months now—I still can’t play in the dark cause I have to look for the dots and sometimes mushrooms are not really helping one of our guitar players either with being in tune and time. I had no grimace, no motives and turned my denim covered back on the crowd. Realized we are too far gone from saving this show, and thus forcing some fun into our 15 minutes to live our life-that-really-matters-span.

The sex of punk is playing a show. And to look sometimes on the crowd and see friends just being there for us as we punks are always there for each other when it comes to just banging our heads and enjoying each other’s desperate noise was touching. Like a mother who cheers for her kid even when there’s no hope the poor kiddo will make it. Agreed, this was bad, and we realized it was a good thing that we always stuck to the description of our music as “psychedelic oi” but it was also a predestined falling in a good way, being a good excuse for the bad way failures.

So with lost faith I just shrugged my shoulders thinking whatever is cool with me and just let the night be what it should be.  Sipped some of my leftover beers and went inside to the skate pool where the ashes of the competition were. There I just transformed myself into a skate rat. I skated and broke my toe but I was happy, but by then it was more like the circumstances allowed me to. Everything just seemed to turn better.

I mean skating is fun, when you’re drunk nothing really hurts and finally even with the heavy pretence of almost-pros we just were there to be happy. Those cute punks trying to do as much old school tricks as possible shitting their pants when it comes to dropping into a mini ramp. But we already fucked up everything with our collapsing shitty music, so we of course had nothing to lose. And who cares about others, about anything, when it’s just fun what we do and no one gets hurt?

The truth is, I whine so much here in these columns but I guess just as everybody else I love life and I would love to live it fully. But this relation sometimes seems one-sided. But that night, whatever was in me and maybe could be caught some days in brief moments fully came to the surface and the halo of “I do care about having fun,” and it was my guiding light for the rest of the night. I later fell down from a bus seat when the bus took a minor turn, at that point we would have laughed even if a tram cut my legs off. I slept deeply and had amazing dreams.   


The next day friends came from Greece to visit and stayed for a couple days. An old-time friend and her friend who were our company for few days in a one room flat., sleeping four of us in two beds, cooking so much together and occupying bars.

Then White Lung came to play two shows. With a friend of mine we started booking bands we love and I guess we booked White Lung at a good time. They made it to a sold out show with 160+ people and a crazy sound guy who gave their singer Mish a backrub cause, as he stated it, she was transmitting bad vibes. The show was good. Sadly or not, the other show in a smaller town where my brother from another mother set up the show was better. But even ours was one of the bests of this year’s local shows. Everybody danced, I cracked my ribs, people were happy and enthusiastic. Skinheads were stagediving, girls were dancing. We listened to local gangster rap jams in our flat and passed out on the floor around 3 in the morning.

The same day as the show our new zine got published and it was just awesome to hold something we have done in our hands, to look on it, to browse through it and transform it to money to buy some beers.

I also went to see White Lung at that other town. It was good to meet them as people we already know. They also played a packed show there. I hung with many amazing people and woke up puking into a toilet. No idea what will happen to this band but they are amazing, awkward people who can party or just be nice and dedicated enough to sleep on floors next to drunk Europeans and smile while eating punk stews. That rage that they are carrying and the crazy guitar parts and entirely destroying phlegmatism is something that is hard to resist. It definitely got me to have tons of fun. My hope for next time they come is that I can sing a duet with them for their song “Tales.”

During these fun days we also had band practices, which are still pretty intense. Can’t wait to get these energies and punk love out on stage and crush everything that is shit with our existence. For example epic neo crust. No beef and total trust in full will, but that genre seems to become something here as in the beginning of the ‘00s when every band had at lest one ska song. I don’t mean we will be the best band ever, but everybody has to have an agenda right?

Then like last weekend after work I was reading about the pointlessness of life, which filled me with joy. ‘Cause it really is just mostly what you make out of it. And the least you like it the more sense you wanna force into it. It’s like creating something beautiful,  even when you’re making it alone in locked rooms. And what is the big problem except for the fact that things somehow turn badly cause norms are hateful and anti social? I have friends, I have punk, I’m doing what I love with whom I love. The rest shouldn’t matter. A crazy old man told me it’s not always easy to be an outsider. And he was right. Who is anti-social: the one who is silent and never bothers anyone or the one who always talks but doesn’t say anything and at the first moment when someone is different from them they just become hostile?

This stupid outside world. But again when i was kinda down or in an unstable frightening state of mind, life had found me. I got asked to do a monthly radio show in collaboration with people who are down to the core. It happened a week after I have found three sealed tapes in my window sil. Probably the construction workers left them there who are camping in front of our window fixing the roof for weeks. I stole ‘em, will fill them with mixes and send them away so I didn’t steal for keeps.

Nowadays I just have think about music I should mix together. I hope it will get me closer to paying closer attention to songs themselves, not just the grooves and the whole punk vibe. I’m such a terrible listener although I constantly have to hear something. The only thing I knew for sure when I did the radio show for MRR was that I wanted to play “I Need You” from Victim. This amazing Irish band just wrote all the perfect songs. Not a huge fan of American pop punk although sometimes I can be hypnotized by some beer soaked bearded losers. But the Irish Bloodstains across… era bubble gum rage is the shit for sure.

My favorite band is Victim even if Stiff Little Fingers was the band to convince me to be punk. Victim are just loud and perfect. If Kevin Shields was a teen in Ireland at that time I’m kinda sure they should have made a huge impact on him and the sound he has created. Wall-of-sound, perfect harmonies that are just hitting me. Everything is loud. Even the acoustic parts you can hear the picks shredded into the strings. So lively. I just wish I could find a vinyl version of their discography record that I only own in digital format. This band has harmonies that are beyond punk, and still you can vision the torn apart jeans. Too bad “I Need You” is too connected to me that I only listen to it on specific periods of my life. And when I’m not able I just miss the loudest song ever written.

I was wondering a couple weeks back about listening to music without being emotionally engaged. Not without liking it but without searching for yourself in it. Without letting it influence your mood too much, or at all. ‘Cause as you can suggest I like to over think everything and juxtapose my visions with emotions that I get from music,  so sometimes I’m unable to listen to bands and just enjoy them. I started to envy some of my friends who are listening to just some unbearable music. I was hanging with them and they were just nerding out on noise-but-not-music, grind/speed core with so much joy. That genre for me was always about suffering and lifeless thoughts born in filthy basements. And not the ones I hang in but the ones that are more fitting to keep runaway child slaves. But they seemed to enjoy it more than ravers wave to whatever is their party music. For them, it was just pure joy and through them I could see that loving music doesn’t always have to connect to relating to the music’s mood as fully as you can.  Because while that could sometimes be the best thing ever I guess having a different look on things isn’t that bad either.

So I’m jamming D-Clone right now and thinking this is just fun and it works.

One of the best new records I’ve heard over the last few weeks is the RAT COLUMNS LP. I was a RAT COLUMNS fan before I had even heard a second of sound of theirs. But someone who is the mastermind behind all those hopelessly vibrating riffs in RANK/XEROX, and being a part of the perfect fan-boy hardcore revival of Lou Barlow’s childhood-recreating band BURNING SENSATION can do no wrong. I saw them a few months before in San Francisco and they ruled my little world. Although the EP was weirdly tame and cute, this LP just holds a parade for every emotion what weirdos have to deal with. This record is just pure music. It’s loving melodies, guitars, noise, and sounds. It’s just being aware of things. It’s great because a person put himself in it. It’s great because it’s music to look up on empty-but still-lit office buildings while your night bus is taking you home from a failed date and everybody around you is drunk and irritatingly loud. But you can lose yourself in the moment and be mesmerized from this treasure. Those dreamy guitars are helping you. Those strange blippings that could come from equipment used in German new-wave sci-fi movies. Sometime it sounds like Loveless covered by a shy garage band through your neighbors’ walls. Other times it’s just beach music for those who only wonder on the shores on foggy days. There is a fog all around the record that carries its magic. Such a wonderful record. From kids to kids. It’s larger than life but still fits into a room.