That feeling of "discovering" a band that you know most of the continent has known of for years, is still exciting. My most recent discovery is a Finnish band called The Rasmus. I'm sure that by even putting the name in this entry I'll get a few hits from people looking for information on these guys- so let me first say, I really don't know much about them. I don't think that I've even met anybody from Finland in my life. I mean, my neighbor dated a guy from Sweden, but that doesn't mean that I know anything about IKEA.
What I do know is that when I saw one of their videos on one of the million music channels that Sky Satellite has, I thought that one of them looked like a guy that I'd met in 1996 at a writers workshop in Virginia. Let me state for all of those fans of the band who inadvertantly link here- IT IS NOT POSSIBLE THAT THIS GUY IS A MEMBER OF THE BAND! Anyway, this got me to actually watch the video and to my urprise they weren't bad. I was quite confused by the very gothic imagery and the Long Beach Dub Allstars sound, but hey- it's Europe.
The other musical observation I have to offer is that every stinking music channel has their own awards show! And apparently each is the BEST show around. Now come on, I realize that advertising is necessary, but isn't the point of an award that not many people have one? I guess that you could say that they all honor different genres. I'm not sure how much I believe that makes a difference. I think that my favorite awards show to come out of Europe, that we Americans would know of, is the CLIO awards (they honor the best commercials in world). That is a truly funny 2 hours of your life to waste. Then again I did just waste a day watching the news in order to figure out who would be the next US President. Oddly, the Afghans were able to elect their president before the USA, and they've been entrenched in a civil war for the last 2 decades. On a more positive note, I voted in Florida again this time and things could have been worse. (note to Ohio- what were you thinking?)
Anyway, it looks as though I'll be going back across the Atlantic in January (unless I change my flight again) and before then I'd like to go to some live shows in London. It seems a waste not to, but if I don't get to there's always the 9:30 club in Washington, D.C.
So, the curcuitous moral of this rant is, listen to more European bands. You never know if they might be worth investing in their album.
CSHL- 10 November, 2004. St. Brice, France.
Virginia Woolf
