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By globalistgirl, on March 9th, 2008

Getting hold of music no matter where you are

I recently bought a 3rd generation iPod nano, and have spent most of today ripping CDs and deleting mp3s I never listen to anymore to make space for the CD rips. Going through my music not only brings up memories of other places, but due to the global purchase locations of my CD collection, it also caused some excitement and work: will there be cover art for something iTunes doesn’t sell? Do I have to copy and paste Chinese characters manually for entire album names? Amazingly, there were no problems with any non-English characters of either European or Asian origin. Somewhat interestingly, there was no cover art for Andy C’s Nightlife or any of the Gatecrasher: Resident Transmission CDs, but there was cover art for all my Ultra Bra CDs. (Notice how you can’t buy any Ultra Bra CDs on Amazon. Or anywhere else online, for that matter. Someone was nice enough to rip me some of their CDs before I made it back to Finland to actually buy some.) There was no album art for A*Mei (張惠妹)’s 真實 (Truth), of which I own an actual legit copy. At least, legit-looking enough to fool me, if it’s a pirated copy. But I bought it at Capital Airport (PEK) while waiting for UA850 going to the States for college, and perhaps they try to keep the copies out of airports so tourists won’t raise a stink, with the WTO and all. (Looking for a link for that album, it seems that you also can’t buy it on Amazon or any other large web stores.) I ripped my European-bought (and hence legal) copy of Garbage’s Version 2.0. I biked 10 km every day to that one summer in Ludvika, along the lake. Light Nordic summer nights and mosquitoes slapping against my face and legs come to mind when I listen to that. Garbage’s first album I bought on tape in 北京 (Běijīng) and listened to in my Walkman almost every day on the bus. Listening to that album, especially Milk, with my eyes closed puts me on a hot summer bus as the only one on the bus who knows what she’s singing and knows who they are, with dusty rubber seals enclosing people on bikes, people walking, cars, trees, and all “my” streetsigns. And being 胖 (pàng, fat).

Sometimes it can be quite difficult to get hold of music from other countries than the one you’re in that you’re looking for. Other than the above-mentioned examples, finding drum and bass CDs in the States is an exercise in futility. Not even the Virgin Megastore in San Fransisco has anything worth mentioning – not a single Andy C album. As I don’t travel to the UK on a regular basis anymore, I have no idea of what’s going on in that scene and can’t buy any new records anyway, so all I can do is listen to the same CDs over and over and over and over… you get the idea. Most people in my immediate vicinity have no idea of what a dance club is (as opposed to a meat market) nor know what drum and bass is. Last time I encountered an American reference to jungle was in a book called Culture Moves by Hermay Gray, about who gets to define African-American culture. I don’t know the origins of drum and bass, but I do know that I encountered it in the UK in a fairly cosmopolitan crowd, out of very few were black but many more were brown. I have no idea of what that means – am I inauthentically claiming Black American culture that I encountered in London for my own? (Disregarding the large uncertaintly in what exactly is my own culture.) I’ve met about 15 Americans total of any skin color that know what drum and bass is in the first place, and the context in which I encountered it links it to the music of my generation – trance, techno, Europop, Cantopop, J-pop, house… not what Americans seem to consider Black American culture. Or maybe I have no idea of what Black or White American culture is. That’s always quite possible. However, rave and dance culture isn’t a very fertile medium for linking race and music, that’s part of the point. The godly jungle DJs are both black and white (but not brown, curiously). But then, rave culture doesn’t seem to exist in the US, save perhaps (I’m hoping here) NYC. What all of the godly dnb DJs do have in common is being British. Whatever way this works out, I’m confused about who gets to make and listen and dance to jungle in the US authentically, but I really wish I could be more connected to the London scene. Actually, I wish even more there was a local scene, but I’ve given up hope years ago. Nobody knows what I’m talking about when I say “event” or “rave”, so clearly can be no scene.

This, by the way, is the kind of thing I’m talking about:

Currently, I’m in an even bigger fix with trying to find a Chilean album called Aerolineas Makiza by a band called Makiza. I’ve seen a YouTube video of Makiza’s hit La Rosa de los Vientos, which I wrote about earlier. After reading more about them, I’d love to have the whole album, but of course no one is trying to sell me an older Chilean album in the US. Sony signed them, but not even Sony’s website helps. Given that Chilean hiphop is said to be divided into “before Makiza” and “after Makiza”, I’m sure any record store in Chile would have a copy. Not that that helps me any, since I’ve never set foot in Chile and my life trajectory doesn’t seem to be taking a swing by Chile any time soon.

I realize I’m part of a niche market here, but why can’t there be at least *one* web store that can get you any reasonably popular music or film (Took me three years to actually get a copy of Anglagard into my hands from the US as well) in one country from another? The global shopping gets slow, and you only go to so many places anyway. It’s assumed that if you live in certain places, you have no interest in what’s going on elsewhere. Or know that there is something going on to begin with. But when you’re a third culture kid, you know a lot of people from various countries who can say “Hey, isn’t Blahblahblah Band really awesome?” or “Did you see Really Cool Movie?” and prompt you to want to hear Blahblahblah Band or see Really Cool Movie whether they were released officially in whatever country you’re in. Perhaps when third culture kids have taken over the world, I will be able to order Aerolineas Makiza.

March 9th, 2008 | Tags: , | Category: Distant Proximities, Fragmegation | 360 comments

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