Sexta-feira 29 Set 2006, 12h:41
Well, as a lil' child I was never into listening to music in fact. I only remember some random music-related facts from my earliest childhood. I recall Dr. Alban… the first song I really remember - It's My Life - was played at my 5th birthday.
When I was in primary school I remember listening to Pet Shop Boys and 4 Non Blondes, of course with little understanding of the lyrics. Fortunately there was always someone who explained at least what the title meant to me. Geez, I should be grateful that I wasn't born later, 'cause I can't imagine my parents watching MTV with me nowadays and translating stuff like "yo bitch, lay down, let's fuck" and other very flamboyant lyrics of the new r'n'b and hip hop.
Then I wasn't interested in music again and it hadn't really hit hard on me until I was about 11. In 1995 I got my first own cassettes - by Captain Jack and Fun Factory, I was also listening to the radio a lot, feeding my lil' brain with commercial pop shit. Of course, nowadays it makes me smile when I hear those sounds of my childhood… I can still listen to them, 'cause they bring back good memories. When I was 12-14 I moved more toward boybands… I always liked singing, so I imagined myself as a member of a boyband singing love songs to some pretty teenage girl. That's how I got all the albums of Backstreet Boys and other stuff like Worlds Apart, East 17, Caught In The Act, etc. Back then I was slowly starting to appreciate (soft) rock music, in the vein of Bryan Adams.
Some time around the final days of my primary school, I discovered my first musical idol - 2Pac - I had never been into rap or hip-hop before and after my fascination with 2Pac. At this time there was a huge boom of hip-hop culture in Poland and a lot of hip-hop acts emerged in my country, but I never enjoyed their music. In rap there was only 2Pac, apart from some pop-rap stuff from TV like Nana, to which I was still listening to a lot.
After my fascination with 2Pac, I moved further into black music. Fortunately, I always hated the new sound of it and I've never gotten into all the Destiny's Child clones at all. My black music was the one of the 1960s and 1970s - Motown was my Mecca. I became a hardcore fan of The Temptations, I collected albums (mostly best-ofs and re-issues) of all the motown groups, starting from Marvin Gaye and ending at the most obscure acts like The Five Heartbeats. Still I appreciated the harmony, the angelic voices and the compositions of that stuff.
Parallelly to my motown fascination, rock started ruling my world. Before I heard Van Halen, I'd only known the names of the most legendary rock bands and the most famous songs. Well, in fact I knew the most popular Queen songs and I knew who Freddie Mercury was. Then, when I was about 14-15, I heard When It's Love on the radio. It struck me like lightning. Then I saw the video of Can't Stop Lovin' You and I can't describe how big was the impact it had on me. I was always a very romantic type, and along with the beautiful music, came the ultra romantic messages of power ballads. Van Halen were surely my first big rock love. Right after them came Def Leppard - for a very long time the embodiment of a rock sound in my opinion. Somewhere around that time my parents got me the Internet connection and then I could really open the gates of undicovered music and dig up the most obscure hard rock acts from the farthest places in the world. I started collecting rare and undervalued recordings, as well as all the landmarks in the history of hair metal and hard rock. This collection is still growing, maybe on a little softer, AOR-ish side.
Still in my high school, I had a short fascination with punk music. I mean, apart from being romantic, I've always been a rebel, a rebel without a cause very often. And still I am. I saw some good messages in punk music, some rebel anthems… but it wasn't a long fascination. No, it was not meant for me. Even though I completely stopped listening to this stuff, still I enjoy punk more than the forementioned Destiny's Child clones.
Apart from collecting hard rock, melodic metal, AOR and rarities from all around the world, like Croatian rock (Parni Valjak), Brazilian folk (Tribalistas), Argentinian metal (Rata Blanca), etc., I have one more fascination. And this fascination is painted in blue. Blues has grown on me for a long time. The first day I really consciously met the old delta blues was when my American teacher lent me his Charlie Patton's collection. There was something magical in it, something unattainable, something wonderful, something that's not present in any other type of music. I quickly got to know the legend of Robert Johnson and other blues heroes. I took them all, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Son House and all the other people who defined the blues by their music and their lives. Blues is living in me. I am the blues and blues is me. My life seems to be took off from the blues songs: my loneliness, my misery, sometimes my bad attitude and habits I can't deal with… I can now honestly say: I found my soul in the blues.
Still, I haven't mentioned my all-time favourites… Blues band, rock band… call them what you want… Dżem. No other band and no other artist than Dżem and Ryszard Riedel mean that much to me now. There are no words by which I could describe my feelings to the legacy that Rysiek left behind. If you want to know… just listen to their songs… But listen not with your ears… but with your heart… let the drops of his soul fall gently onto the velvet layer on your heart… Let them melt with your teardrops… Let them be you…
Well, if you're still reading it… congratulations… I haven't bored you to death… And if you really read everything… Please, leave a comment…
Peace and love and rock with the blues, brothers and sisters!