Hang My Head, Drown My Fear Till You All Just Disappear

Almost four years ago I went to a Soundgarden show. It was the first time the band came to Mexico City. They just had released King Animal and they were touring the album. Even though I didn't like it at all, I wouldn't miss the opportunity to hear one of my favorite bands playing live music in my country. 

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I bought a couple of tickets as soon as I could. Besides Nirvana, Soundgarden was the band I heard the most when I was a teenager. I particularly didn't like that they sounded more like a heavy metal band than a garage punk band -as it is the case of Ultramega OK and Badmotorfinger-, but eventually, I loved them. 

The first Soundgarden's song I heard was Black Hole Sun and it blew up my mind, immediately. It must have been in the middle of the summer in 1994, shortly after USA's World Cup. Cobain just had died and it was impossible to avoid thinking of him, while hearing the song. The video was awesome and violent. Then, I watched Fell On Black Days' video and I just adored it. Later, Jesus Christ Pose and so on. 

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In a few years, I went from Superunknown to Badmotorfinger -it was the easiest way to find their music-, just about time to hear Down On The Upside when it came out. 

I was  17 years old when the band announced their break. Never thought I would hear them playing live music, but after almost 20 years since their last studio album they recorded King Animal and announced a World Tour. 

It was an awesome show. I was euphoric. Felt I was a teenager, too. 

Chris Cornell just died today. 

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Black Hole Sun

Close That Cute Mouth And Kiss Me

I heard of Kurt Vile in bed. I was so sick and half dead. It was noon, in a cold Saturday and all I wanted to do was to take a nap, but I felt so tired that I couldn't do it. Had flu and pharyngotonsillitis. I couldn't even read a couple of paragraphs of anything, without sneezing. Besides, my eyes watered all the time. It was annoying and so disturbing.  

Turned on my Smart TV to distract myself, and found out a video of a guy named Kurt Vile in You Tube. His band was playing a radio show for KEXP. He was singing melancholically and I felt sort of hypnotized. I was almost in an hallucinatory state, due to the illness itself. 

I thought he was singing just the way I felt. The song was so hypnotic, too. Guitar and drum and percussions made up the whole melody, and above all, Kurt's voice told a story of a man needing to be alone even when surrounded by friends, or so. I loved the song, and heard it several times. It was called Wheelhouse. 

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I became interested in his music, and soon heard B'lieve I'm Going Down. After a while, I loved the songs. I bought the album and just a few days later the band announced they will come to Mexico City. It was a happy coincidence, and of course I bought a couple of tickets for the show. 

My wife rarely enjoys the music I like. She's more into pop music. Even though, she accompanies me to all the shows I want to go. She's so nice and lovely. Nevertheless, I had spoken to her about Kurt Vile and she had heard a few songs of B'lieve I'm Going Down and she had just liked them. For several months, maybe for our entire relationship, it would be the first show we would attend to in which we were both interested. 

After a couple of months, the day of the show finally arrived. I was so excited. I had thought for entire nights about the show. How would it end up? Would I be disappointed? Would it be the most amazing and intimate show I ever attend to? Would Kurt Vile became my most admired multi-instrumentalist?  

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I had never attended to a show of this kind. Kurt Vile's music was more folk than garage, and my entire life I had attended to garage punk shows, mainly. Media said he sounded like Neil Young at times. And Kurt Vile even played the banjo in a song of B'lieve I'm Going Down and I sort of hated it. Nevertheless, I was so excited and had great expectancies of the show. 

We arrived to El Plaza an hour before the show, or so. 

My wife made me notice a guy who was speaking in a funny mixture of Spanish and English to another guy selling souvenirs of the show. He wanted to buy both a cap and a T-shirt of Kurt Vile's Tour in Mexico. Obviously, none of the stuff was official merchandise. The souvenir seller was Mexican for sure, and the other guy apparently was from the United States. 

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I didn't think much of him, 'cause it was normal to me to find out tourists in that place of the city. I just kind of thought it would be nice to attend a show from an artist of your country in another country, in your holidays. Besides, my wife started to ask me to help out the guy. He was having difficulties to communicate to the souvenir seller. Sometimes I don't like to speak English. I felt selfish, but I wasn't in the mood. 

Suddenly I looked around and I sort of recognized one of the musicians of Kurt Vile's band. Thought I had seen him in the KEXP show. He was playing bass guitar in Wheelhouse. I got close to him and asked him if he was the bass player of the band. He said he was, and then I asked him if I could take a picture with him. He agreed. After that I thanked him and we shook hands. 

We entered to El Plaza and my wife made me notice I just had ignored the other musicians. I felt stupid and mean. She's right all the time. 

The show started with Dust Bunnies. People was connected to the band and sang along almost all the songs. Even though the band didn't play Wheelhouse, the show was awesome. Kurt Vile was left alone on stage a few times, and he was amazing. I understood why media said he was like Neil Young, when he sang and played guitar all alone. It was so intimate and almost made me cry. Stand Inside was my favorite song of the night.       

Stand Inside

The Girl Was Never There, It's Always The Same

I had a girlfriend who loved to smoke pot and to do some other drugs. From the beginning, I always thought she was a snob. She talked about meaningless issues of her life, as if they were the most relevant thing in the world. She never heard me at all. 

Besides, she dressed all in fancy brand clothes and her language had an elitist affectation, so no one believed she was a junkie. I hated it, 'cause I was the opposite to her -I wore awful and old clothes, and never spoke of my life to anyone- and people immediately thought I was the junkie, including her parents. I didn't do drugs, I was just a poor shy boy. 

We had been together for a month or so. She was some sort of knucklehead. We kissed for the first time in a cemetery, in front of people who visited the tombs or their loved ones. It was a sunny day and I couldn't stop thinking in their grief and suffering, while our lips remained glued. I kept my eyes open. One tiny little girl stared at me with a grim look and an older woman put a hand on one of her shoulders and took her away. As they walked, the older woman shook her head and started to mourn. I felt guilty. Thought maybe the girl just had lost her dad and that they were visiting his tomb. 


We kissed for the second time in a retirement home, in front of older people. We were there in some sort of an extra class, with other class mates. Our teacher asked us to watch older people for understanding some stupid psychological topic. It was too damned boring. Elderlies were so excited, and I felt suffocated. They couldn't stop talking about their own lives, nor couldn't stop complaining about the way their families just abandoned them in that place. So, we went to a lonely room, and started to kissing. 

Besides my old and awful clothing, I used to have long hair -I had 20 years and didn't care about my bad looking-, and, unfortunately, an older lady saw us -and saw me from my back- and she thought we were lesbians and she started to scream like crazy. We had to run away from the retirement home. At one time, elderlies were screaming, so offended, and looking for us. Two women were kissing at the retirement home!

The third time we kissed, we were camping in a forest. My girlfriend started to put the tent in a place she considered to be nice, and asked me to buy some water bottles. I walked to the nearest village. In a few minutes I got there and bought four or five water bottles. I hadn't experience at all in that kind of journey, so I got lost when I tried to return to the tent. Walked for hours. It got dark and scary, and I couldn't find the place. It started to rain and I decided to walk to the village, again. I asked someone else's help and finally found the place where the tent was. 

My crazy girlfriend yelled at me. She was so mad. Asked me if I was stupid or what. Asked me if I wasn't aware of the risks of leaving her alone in the middle of a forest. Asked me many things. Of course I was worried about her, all the time. I had really tried like crazy to find her out. 

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In her rage, she never thought I was about to die. At one time, while I was lost and desperate, just about giving up, I drank the last water bottle I had bought in the village, and I started to run like crazy going nowhere. Suddenly, I tripped on a rock and rolled on a free fall along a hill and, somehow, managed to grab a tree a few meters from a cliff.

When she was a little bit quiet, she started to smoke. Didn't invited me, but I just took the pot away from her. It was the first time I smoke pot. It was raining, again. Got so high and I closed my eyes and started to dream about what would it be to get lost in the middle of a forest, or to die in an attempt to find out the tent where my girlfriend was.  

A Forest