jawnbc | Nov. 2nd, 2005

...or "tanks very much" to everyone yesterday for the incredible display of support. Our LJ peeps rawq da house! Word!

Am working on a research proposal, doing admin stuff, and trying to psyche myself up for aquafit 2nite. J'ai trop de chose à faire aussi, mais...fook it. Some frivolity is called for

The Banal, the Boring, the Bodacious: some jawnbc trivia

I hardly spoke until I was 4. When I started I sounded like Brenda Vaccaro

I did, however, wave maniacally at everyone everwhere all the time

I don't remember learning how to swim; I grew up in the ocean

I accidently pierced my nose when I was 7 or 8. There's still a little divit in the side of it.

I used to be able to walk on my hands for many, many metres

I wasn't allowed to read the NY Times when I was a kid, because it was a "communist" paper

After he released "Imagine" Ma would change the station whenever a Lennon or Beatles song came on

Given a choice between an orange, a raw potato, or an apple I'll take the prawtee every time

I did really well in year 8 math because: 1.) I'm good at math; and 2.) the teacher had a hairy chest

I never had to sneak out as a teen because I never had a curfew. That was bad.

I did, however, have to sneak the car out, since it was Ma's. That was bad.

I went to ~~university~~ college less than 100km from the US/Canada border. Never once visited Canada. Only to emigrate there 4 years later.

Meme: 5 albums, 5 tracks, 5 tags

Albums
Avalon, Roxy Music: when a great innovative band reaches its artist peak, it should quit. They did. This was the tape I wore out backpacking through Europe in 1982. I was really into Flesh and Blood but this album is in a league of its own.

Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen: I love my rock and this is my favourite disc. No concept, but so many themes (lust, escape, small-mindedness, freedom, family, identity, Gawd, the Church, the expressive heart, shal I stop there?)--and every one of them integrated into an incredible song. If I have to nominate one song though, it'd be Thunder Road: ...all the boys you sent away,they haunt these dusty beach roads in their skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets." Poetry to a rockin guitar. And this is when Bruce was earthy/wild hawt, rather than gym pumped hawt.

D'eux, Celine Dion: With the right producer and the right material, you can take a raw talent like Celine, harness and refine it, and create music that is inspiring in its quality and just great to listen to. Unlike her anglo stuff, there are torch songs, dance tracks, rock, blues, and pop; Celine sings about where she is, where she's come from, where she's headed, who she is. The title is a pun, of deux (2, Celine and writer/produce Jean-Jacques Goldmann), and j'ai partie d'eux (I'm a part of them, as in Quebec and Canada). By the end of the last track--Vole, Fly...the song of a mother whose child is dying--I'm howling. Goldmann was briliiant in not showing her that song until all the others were in the can. Apparently it's the 2nd take: she sobbed through the first one.

Common Ground, (various): Being of the Irish diaspora means crossing borders: where does my Irishness stop and my Canadianness (or Americanness) begin? Who am I, in relation to other "Irish" people. Donal Lunny did something brilliant here: he gathered an array of brilliant musicians and had them sing songs of Ireland. Many of the artists (Christy Moore, Paul Brady, Bono & Adam Clayton from U2, Brian Kennedy) are considered among Ireland's best; others like Kate Bush (mother Irish) and the Finn Brothers from Split Enz (mother Irish) bring in the voice of people like me. Irish who've not ever lived in Ireland, yet for whom the identity and culture are compelling and powerful. The first time I heard it I thought "jesus, they've made a record for me".

There is no #5

Tracks
Full of Grace, Sarah McLachlan: heartbreaking and beautiful, yet hopeful.
Hymne a l'amour, Edit Piaf: this seems to be following me, since I "discovered" it last year. A full-on melodramatic, die-for-you love song.
American Pie, Don McLean: captures a generation, captures a moment. The facile way a lot of people clung to it after 11/9 didn't make me happy, however...
The Town I Loved So Well, no version in particular: After a childhood of empty republican rhetoric, it was the words--the heartache--of a Derryman himself that made "the Troubles" human for me.
Forever (Voodoo & Serrano radio edit), N-Trance: the first trance track I ever "got". It was used in the 2003 Sydney Queer Film Fest trailer and every time they showed the trailer I got goosebumps.

Tags

f8n_begorra

zurcherart

garpu

superbluewren

fao