the purefinder - archives - Tue, 2004-06-22
« Plopped through my letterbox | Main | tenacious tree »June 22, 2004
Matranga frenzy
My Jonah Matranga frenzy continues.
When I was a boy.
Actually... There was a time when my youth, and my isolation in the middle of nowhere, excused my music binges. I saved money, or more accurately - didn't have anything to spend it on, for weeks and months and then bused or hitch-hiked, seventy or one hundred miles, to Belfast or Dublin to splurge*.
I'd return with my bags filled with... Die Electric Eels, Husker Du, DAF, Birthday Party or A Certain Ratio records. Back in my backwater, I'd share my musical explorations with those of my friends whose lives contained music in the same way that mine did.
I invariably felt I had to smuggle my records into the house. It wasn't as if I had stolen the money - or indeed the records, but I did feel a little guilty at appearing with an amount of vinyl, inches thick, that would take days to listen to.
Now I am older.
I have disguised the obsessed and enthusiastic boy as an, apparently normal, 38 year old man.
The splurging continues.
At regular intervals a small amount of money is injected into my bank account. At approximately identical intervals I splurge. It's only on a trivial level. I might spend £50 a month - perhaps occasionally a bit more... I don't feel guilty about the money; I can think of any number of grubbier ways of disposing of income. Nevertheless, there is some guilt - either at the amount of music or the importance of music.
Today, as we returned from a midday trip to the cinema, I found myself a little embarassed to discover three CDs had arrived, by post, in our absence.
onelinedrawing - sketchy e.p. #2
All of these feature, or are, Jonah Matranga. All of these feature his fantastic voice and his splendid songs.
Posted by padraig at June 22, 2004 03:25 PM