Musical memory lane 2

The turning point, from rock to grunge and metal came very slightly around the end of 1991, heavily influenced by the “Smells like teen spirit” airplay. While I was still mainly listening GNR, AC/DC and Iron Maiden, in 1992 some marvellous albums rose to fame.

To start, the Rage against the Machine debut album. The use of the mf word, Zack´s great vocals the splendid lyrics and the devious distortion of the guitar made you just want to grab your bike, rush to the record store and buy the album, even if it would cost you half your paper delivery salary.

The debut album of Pearl Jam, Ten, was also very popular. Not that I´d consider myself a fan, but many Saturday nights spent at the discotheque with the blokes from my hometown and a few beers to many, the Alive song, or Even Flow, Jeremy or Black, it were tracks that belonged in that place at that time.

But somehow I searched and found even DARKER grunge, around 1993 I became very fond of Alice in Chains. And around this time I started listening to Anthrax with their new Sound of White Noise album that has some excellent songs, e.g. the sinister Black Lodge.

My neighbour E., who was in his mid-twenties then, borrowed me his Spreading the Disease cd so that I could tape it.

Then suddenly, Spoonman from Soundgarden came around and wow, how fabulous the 1994 Superunknown album and it still sounds great after 24 years.

Around this time I started digging in the past of rock music and found a Deep Purple compilation, singing Smoke on the Water and Child in Time during a session of cleaning the dishes. My neighbour told me he listened the new Megadeth album Youthanasia whenever it was his turn to do the dishes.
Eventually he told me that Megadeth would come to Arnhem for a concert and I joined him. We both knew that Anthrax would give a concert a couple of months later that year in Zwolle, and we went there too. It was nice, but Anthrax changed their style a lot with the Stomp 442 album.

During a library CD borrowing visit (1 buck = 1 CD) I found the 1971 L.A. Woman album by The Doors. At the Pere Lachaise in Paris in September ´95, Riders on the Storm sounded from my Walkman while standing at our friend Jim´s grave.

B., my dad´s niece found out that Deep Purple would perform in Rotterdam in the early spring of 1996 and of course I went there too, but I had to go to school the next day, so I didn´t sleep much and went to class with my Purpendicular shirt.

Between summer and autumn of ´96 I discovered the Sex Pistols and with them, the punk. Because of the popularity of grunge, apparently the punk got “reinvented” in the USA and in the Netherlands, the Offspring became very popular, therefore I started to research on the real punk from 1976. Technically, punk was not that beautiful as a style, but it did make a statement and it brought another fabulous band, The Clash.

In March 1998, I was done with studying and started to search for a job to earn some dough. Quickly I visited half a dozen “temporary job agencies” in the lovely small city of Zutphen. Then I went to a fabulous bar and had a coffee and later a beer while M., the owner stashed a Stranglers CD in the player. The Stranglers, famous 1974 UK based punk / new wave style band, known from smash hits like No More Heroes, Golden Brown and many more. With a French bloke on the bass and a very talented keyboardist.

At the end of the millennium, new vintage style record stores opened their doors, for example in the city of Deventer. Little by little I started collecting LP´s, some of them rare (picture discs and purple or blue vinyl) and now my brother is keeping all those records in his house because I could not bring it with me to Spain.

Musically, the years 2000 and further were even crappier than the nineties but I left my country and learned about Spanish music. My “ex” brother in law listened to Estopa, 2 brothers from north west Barcelona. Finally I moved to that city and my new “brother” was from Russia. We listened to Zemfira with her song “Skazki” (animated fairytales).

A new revolution arrived with my new “homie” from Pamplona, Navarra.  He listened more alternative music, reggae and stuff from basque groups. At that time I only knew the group Hertzainak thanks to some boys from Vitoria who lived with us for a couple of months.

Oh well, if you like Hertzainak, you must listen other basque groups, such as the 5 K´s: Kortatu, Kuraia, Ken Zazpi, Kerobia and Kauta, Berri Txarrak, Betagarri, Zea Mays and singer-songwriter Ruper Ordorika…

All of this music you need to listen with the lyrics on your screen and afterwards translate those lyrics because Basque is a very difficult language.

Around the same time I remembered having read an article about Jerry Garcia from the Grateful Dead and started listening to it. But then, French hardrock band Trust came along cause I bought the Répression album in Perpignan in north Catalonia (French territory obviously) and later a live album in Grenoble. If you have read my blog from the start, you will recall that it started in the French language because j´adore le français. Happy Quatorze Juillet everyone!