Pavement-Shady Lane

Oh, God bless me for all the years i spent staring at my TV!
This is my favourite Pavement Track.
I like Steve Malkumus's singing, and i tell you why. The first episode of the Portuguese version of Sesame Street started on the same day i started Primary School. I saw all the adds for this new tv show and i knew it was american because i had seen the add in a satelite channel. I like the big bird but my favourite was the dracula - he's got a funny accent.
Oh well, the songs in sesame street don't usualy rhime and they always have to sing it in an od way to make it fit the melody and Steve Malkumus sings like that, doesn't he?

ok, i'll leave now, i just said Steve Malkumus sings like Sesame street characters...

BEST to listen to their songs. I love them.
I was assisting one of the cutting rooms on Nigel Godrich's Tv program, " From the Basement"(BY THE WAY, CHECK IT OUT ON WWW.FROMTHEBASEMENT.COM) a few months ago and my eye was caught when i saw the bass player from Pavement is now playing with Sonic Youth,

Oh joy


Check the special effects in this video! they are wicked! ahahahahahahaha

And it goes like this...

Declare independence don't let them do that to you?

I was looking for "Human Behaviour" or "All is full of love" to add to my favourite videos ever, to share with all of you, when i checked that Bjork has released her new video.
This song "declare independence" is from Bjork's most recent album, Volta, released last year.
I'm always very excited when bjork puts a new album out there, but i have to be honest, "Volta" didn't do much for me. I love the artwork (as always). My favourite tracks are this one, " the dull flame of desire" and "earth intruders" but the other ones just don't do much for me. Usualy her albums take a while to understand, and then you get to the point where you just can't take her songs out of your ipod/headphones. it gets addictive. But no, not this one.
Also i think she produces too much music. there's too much coming out and starts being a bit too much to digest.

Never the less, she's my favourite artist, always has been.

Declare independence is a very political song and the video even more so. A man playing an instrument with strings that leads to Bjork that leads to a crowd with no character. Bjork is telling them to raise their flags and be patriotic about whatever they want to, or they are proud of, but also seems slightly fascist... BJORK ISNT A FASCIST I know she's not. That's a character. Her character though is a bit fascist, she even raises her arm like hitler did. I bet she's having lots of critics.

To me this "fascism" is more, maybe, and this is just a personal opinion, about the music industry. because p[eople are attached to the strings that are producing the music. so i see it as " you hear what i want you to hear" now RAISE YOUR FLAGS!!! its a bittwer sweet message. she had to get slightly fascist to sort of wake this crowd!

oh. i still have mixed opinions about this video. i need to digeste it a little more.
Tell me your opinion. Lets open a debate.

And it goes like this

Strangelove

And here´s another love of my life - Strangelove.
First heard of them through Ed O´Brien from Radiohead who appeared in a magazine wearing a t-shirt of the band.I liked the artwork of the cover of "strangelove" which was the print on Ed´s t shirt. Went to Virgin Megastore in Lisbon (yes yes, it had just opened and now i was safe! at last a place where i could get my records!)
Patrick duff´s photos were in my bedroom´s wall (side to side with Damon Albarn´s). I remember when i was in the art school, walking to school listening to their songs... so deep, so emotional... Patrick Duff´s lyrics are so beautiful and pure... The last track on the b side of the tape was "sea of black" and it was just the time it took me to go to school. So still today, if i pass by the entrance of the art school, that´s what it sounds like.

Once on summer holidays me and my family went to Bristol. It was a short visit - Bristol didn´t seem to have much to see. I even putted my glasses with the hope of seing Patrick Duff somewhere. Nope, i didn´t see him. It broke my heart. Everyone was joking with me in the caravan on the way to London. My dad said "ok! enough, stop joking with her, lets stop and have a coffee in this petrol station.

My head was down. I was so sad i didn´t meet Patrick Duff until someone comes to me and says " Raquel! Raquel Welsh from Portugal!". You are never gonna guess who it was... JAMES DEAN BRADFIELD from Manic street Preachers!!!!!!

He gave me free tickets for this festival they were playing and backstage passes.He said " even if you don´t go, try to sell them cos you´ll make good money to continue your trip"

oh destiny...

*sigh*

will i ever meet Patrick Duff? I wonder...

And the song goes like this...

Pulp at 6 am

Oh oh oh. This Blog is a series of nostalgic moments i am sharing with the world.

I believe i was born with a walkman and headphones attached to me body, lets say, heaphones go to my ears, of course, and walkman could have one of those geekey pieces you could attach to your belt and look like bill gates, but cooler, it´s a walkman we are talking about for god sake!
When i started going out to clubs, i was 15 and my friends were coming out of the closet and they thought they were gay. I was not gay for loving someone with a similar body to mine, but i was gay to to out and see the people, the tribes, the dancing in beautiful colors and sounds. Some of those friends are now getting married with lovely girls... How bizarre.

Oh well, my walkman was the friend who never failed to take me home safe and sound in the half hour journey home at 6 am.

This is a classic, don´t you think? Everyone feels like the lyrics of this song, no?

I loved when Pulp performed this song at the mythic 1996 brit awards. In the end of the performance Jarvis is elevated in the air.

Beautiful. A pleasure.
And it goes like this...

Pulp

Who is this man who´s trying to look like Brett Anderson but inside a supermarket car?


hm



I didn´t notice this song. I notice the video.... I was intrigued for a while... there was no internet or even the thought of wikipedia back in 1996. This single, Common People was realeased in 1995, but only came to me a year later.
Soon Disco 2000 aproached me and made much since.
Then i went back to Common people and started my proper dancefloor moves in front of th tv trying to make Jarvis cocker´s choreography. After all, he doesn´t look a thing like Brett Anderson, and after all these years, Jarvis Cocker has showed me as a better artist, way more interesting than Anderson.

It was good to meet you jarvis. You teached me the moves.
And it goes like this...

The Happy Goth

"The lonely road you choose to travel on, it must seem awfully long.
Innocence all gone,
It must be wrong to hide your lovely face away.
That music you play, I'm not saying it's bad, it just seems terribly sad.
Is everything all right?
I'd like to think you'd tell me if something was wrong”.

Well her clothes are blacker than the blackest cloth
And her face is whiter than the snows of Hoth.
She wears Dr. Martens and a heavy cross,
But on the inside she's a happy goth.

"Don't worry Mum, don't worry Dad.
The hours that I spend alone are the happiest I've ever had”.

That's what she'd say if she ever spoke to you,
But it's something she can never do.
'Cos it's only by herself that she'll find out
What makes her different from the rest.

Well her clothes are blacker than the blackest cloth
And her face is whiter than the snows of Hoth.
She wears Dr. Martens and a heavy cross,
But on the inside she's a happy goth.


I never wore black clothes or a heavy cross.

I did have a pair of Dr Martens and a pale face, which, don´t ask me why, i wanted whiter and whiter. Never saw the snow of Hoth.I had long hair, and always in my face. True true.

I did love to be on my own. Still I do. It´s frightening sometimes to recognize that i do enjoy the time i spend on my own. Don´t get me wrong, i have lovely friends and i socialize these days, but nothing like a quiet day listening to my favorite albums, videos, doing my blog, writing my diary...

I think many times my parents thought the words of this song, specially my dad. But the good thing is that he always knew i was a "happy goth" and for that, not so much to worry after all. 

To all you goths out there, there´s no problem!

And it goes like this...

Ps. Dedicated to Estela and Sofia

Longpigs - Lost Myself

It is a beautiful tune. It´s not my favorite but a very important track. Marked, for sure, a changing point in my life.

I have an absolute devotion for music and with it comes music videos. For years and years the only sport i practiced was running like mad from my bedroom to the living room. A  complete looney to touch the magic button of rec and copy my favorite videos.That used to upset my parents who were quietly enjoying their calm evening. Many times fell in the floor, had many  bruises. The video was always ready and the tape HAD to be inside the video. It was my first ever obsession. I got over it after a few years but i´m getting back to it now though not so strong because there´s Youtube.If only i knew that one day record companies would release DVDs (WHAT??????) with all the videos... 

I had a tape ready inside my VHS player on saturday afternoon, exactly the 1st of May of 1997 when my dad insisted that i cleaned something he thought i messed. I said, like any rebel girl of 13 that i didn´t do it, so i wouldn´t tidy. He felt upset, like never before, opened the VHS player and took my tape out and smashed it full of rage. My father is the most pacient man i´ve ever known, he is so kind and generous. He was not in  good day. Happens to all...

when i saw my tape in pieces i couldnt´t believe and cried for many days. In this tape was Longpigs performing at TOTP "Lost myself". 11 years ago, in a suburb near Lisbon was very difficult to get records, better to buy them. No one, appart from my sister, knew the same bands as us where we lived. They used to call us "britpop girls".There was a channel that played on saturday afternoon the latest TOTP edition and that was my only source to ear the new sounds of britpop. To me losing that tape was like loosing a piece of me. Those VHS were my soul. Still today they are. It was my world, all my dreams combined in  magnetic tapes. But one was broken.

i took every single piece of the tape and very carefully kept it inside a grey Virgin bag for more than 7 years. I knew technology or i would find in the future a way to have that Longpigs recording back. 

And so it happened. First I glued the tape gently; Then opened another tape ( it had recorded the user´s guide to use my mobilephone - not interesting) and placed the tape into the new one. Closed it and tried to play it. With success i saw it again. I cried tears of joy. The version you see is not the one in my tape, but it´s a good one aswell.

After all, never loose faith in what you love the most, whatever it is that you love dearly.And it goes like this...

Radiohead - Just

Radiohead are one of my favourite bands all time. I could write a book with all my thoughts of them. I remember the first time i heard creep. Recorded from our old Sharp radio that used to be in our kitchen. It was a very bad recording but it was the only way to hear the song over and over again. I was nine. Had a very old blue walkman, my first one ever, which i used to take to the school bus for the everyday half hour jouney home. The kids my age didn´t quiet understand why would i listen to such a heavy track and so didn´t i, but Radiohead made since to me from an early age.

Then we managed by dodgy ways to have MTV in our living room and soon I watched  "Just". 

Completly blew my mind and still today i wonder what the man says to the police officer. I guess that´s the joy of this short film. No meter how many years will pass, i will always, always imagine the end. And while i grow older the end is changing all the time.

This video is my all time favorite and because of this i always wanted to be a music video director. 

And it goes like this...

California Dreaming

This blog is a tribute to all the musicians who wrote/write the songs of the soundtrack of my life. 

I don´t have the dream of going to California. In fact, until very recently America wasn´t in my plans at all, but life´s journey is now making it a possibility.

I believe my mother listened to this amazing track from Mamas and Papas when she was pregnant of me. Could only be. The first guitar sounds, those little tinny ones bring this imense happiness to my heart, like a wave of lava running through my vains. And then the chorus " All the leaves are brown, and the sky is grey".

Sometimes in life the fact that leaves in Autumn are brown makes me feel safe and in good direction. Times have been, and will be, that leaves won´t be so brown but listenning to this track will always bring me back to safety.

So, it goes like this...