Connections: between black butts and glittery confetti (5 of 9)
Finally I had found a real-life version of The Beatles. I started following everything that came from the UK from that time. I read ‘Q’, local music magazines and the newspaper that I delivered, which always had good stories on British music. It was the height of the Britpop hype. Blur vs. Oasis, you know, all that ridiculous stuff. I finally felt at home in my time. This time shaped me to the person I am right now. Lots of decisions were made final. I wanted to be a rock star from when I was twelve, but now I was definitely going to be one. With the first teenage angst setting in, I started spending hours and hours locked up in my room with my guitar, writing songs and singing Oasis ones.
Friends at school, I discovered, shared my musical taste. We started exchanging CDs and making mixed tapes for each other. Eventually we visited our first concerts together. Magical times. But times change. R&B, and I mean the slick, commercial version of it, began to replace Britpop on MTV and the radio. No scruffy white guys with cheap guitars but great songs anymore, but richer and richer black people who only seemed to enjoy lots and lots of bare-assed women. Not that I don’t enjoy a bare-assed woman, but there’s a time and place for everything, you know.
So radio and TV… (ctd tomorrow)