Sunday, March 2, 2014

#370


It’s January the 2nd. I’m gonna be 27 in a few hours. January 3rd is the date when Nietzsche gone mad because he lost his faith in humanity. Not sure what is up to me but probably I will just go fat by eating homemade pizza while I will try to defeat my girlfriend in scrabble while we will drink gin tonic before cuddling. So humanity please don’t get too fucked up on my birthday.
Now it’s 14th of January and I’m pushing deadline with my Year End Top Ten. My birthday went better then planed even if my better half beat me with few points in Scrabble. But I got two cakes from her and from my mom thus felt a bit like someone close to Marie Antoinette. My girlfriend surprised me with a balisong knife (which turned out to be illegal to have with me in many countries, hungary counted as well) and a homemade Urinals t-shirt which are amazing gifts. She gave me a Modern Lovers LP for Christmas. Among other things I made her two mixtapes for Jesus’ bday. One of the tapes had Glue as the opening track cause unity songs are about love.
We were out at a gig the day after my birthday because one of my bands played a Food Not Bombs benefit show. The lineup was great with many of the best local bands. Too many friends again, too much moonshine always. I got so drunk at one point I wanted to break dance but people picked me up from the floor because they thought I fell and was rolling on the ground. I have jokingly reenacted horrible scenes from midday talk shows with my girlfriend, laughed a lot, started playing on a guitar that was in the neck of a performing guitar player at one show and woke up with vague memories. That show raised lots of money which is cool because Hungary is a place where the government is as dumb as they are hot headed so they do whatever they think is right and it forces many people out on the streets and FNB events are attended by more than a hundred people. This is where solidarity comes in, and benefit shows are a good way to support a noble cause while the only thing you do is you go to a show and have fun. But many times these shows have better vibes. For me almost every show is a benefit show since it benefits my every days when I’m being close to punk music among punx.
After this I have spent ten days with gathering almost everything that falls under my radar of punk music and I not just listened but tried to write short reviews for my hungarian blog. I ended up with many bands that I have missed out and twenty A4 pages of reviews. It was kind of an interesting / cool / painstaking / exhausting experiment I wish to happen with everybody who loves music and likes to have an opinion. In the breaks I was reading Rilke’s prose, not poems because I hate poems, and he writes a lot about sunlight and how it breaks through windows and how it encounters people’s faces. It was interesting because he has written about sunlight which is a simple thing and I was writing reviews after reviews of punk bands that most of the times are as simple and similar to each other as the sunlight that we enjoy every day. I tried my best but 70% of these reviews are sentences try to bullshit about music that is fast, ugly, dissonant, disordered, desolated, bleak, aggressive, ignorant, beautiful and funny. I don’t really care anymore how it ended up. I do want to be a good writer, I do want to improve and I do think there is more to music than a guitar player who shreds chords and a singer who screams lines which might rhyme. But other times even if something is really good you just can’t express how good it is without starting to speak about awkward, rambled thoughts. Which is fine with me.
I have also learned that critics are useful because they do the dirty job. This is one of the jobs where it’s the purest form of that you gave your time for others. Now if someone wants to know about punk records in 2013 in hungarian they just have to hit up my blog and decide if they trust me or not.
Conclusion One: We use channels (critics with platforms) to learn about new things. There won’t be hordes of bands kicking in my doors, presenting their music. MRR is a channel; blogs are as well as live shows. But I feel like I listen to too many American bands and I wanna find out about bands from more hidden, distant places. I’m sure amazing things are happening there as well.
Conclusion two: Punk is still amazing and fuck everybody who says there is just too much music that has been made. Music is not for critics, not for fans, not for listeners. It’s for people who wanna express themselves in a sonic way. There are people out there writing essays on the subject that there is too much culture and people should might stop making it but at the same time we just shrug our shoulders on the bullshit that is fabricated by the leaders of this world. When and why have we become our own enemies?
I’m also aware of how many bands have I missed to include in my list which is one of the reasons I made this list. I made this list because I hate lists. I can’t put up orders thus I felt I will write about every band. And I wrote about a few. This proves that lists are not sacred and who knows what will be the best thing from 2013 like even in a year from now? Wipers influenced more people in the 00s than they had in their hey days. Does it matter to listen to fresh bands? Are they fresh? We are punx we can do whatever the fuck we want to.
So what do i want to do in 2014? I started putting together a fanzine where i want to have lots of interviews. Never did this, i was never really down for interviews but this is something new i try to do. I will try to use my time way better than i manage with it now. I wanna write short critics on my own language about music, movies and books for my blog, I wanna keep doing shows here at Budapest, I wish Norms will be able to write, record and release a record. I also wanna make other zines, a graphic novel with my girlfriend who is a talented graphic designer. I just want to keep doing my punk things.
What do I expect from 2014? Not really an expectation because I have already heard it but the new White Wards LP is the shit. It’s everything! I also heard the Hysterics 7” (Nah, I don’t get promo shit, sadly, I do use soulseek – szivdkianyadbolageci). Hysterics will play here in May and if any of you ladies are reading this you will be hanging with me and I will make you pizza for breakfast. A month from now I will have Autistic Youth in my room and later Pleasure Leftists, Condominium, etc. 2014 will be sick. I guess every year is a bit better than the one before and 2013 was kinda cool. My band got released on vinyl, we booked shitloads of bands, I did my radio show, continued writing for MRR, joined bands, toured, got together with my girlfriend, left my shit job, was an intern at the coolest news paper in hungary, bought cool records. Check my YETT there I talk about music.
I accept gifts from anyone. Even digital links for non-usa bands.

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