![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
floatingleafYesterday I suddenly realized that now I have a regular, reliable credit card, I can finally register at those intriguing mp3 websites my sister recommended to me some time ago. So I spent the better part of the evening browsing the catalog at mp3sugar.com. OMG they really do have everything imaginable... well, almost. They don't have the obscure Australian art rock band called Aragon (not to be confused with Aragorn... lol) that I had discovered on bootleg tapes back in Poland; but then, I couldn't find that one anywhere, so I guess it's just a lost cause. *sigh* (I still have those bootleg tapes, but they are so worn out I'm afraid I won't be able to listen to them much longer...) Other than that, almost anything I typed into the search box brought up very satisfying results.:) Especially the Polish gothic metal/dark wave bands that both I and my sister love. She had told me it was all there, available for less than two bucks an album and 15 cents a track, but I couldn't quite believe it. So now that I have seen it for myself, I am busy downloading.:D Unfortunately, some longer tracks take forever to download (occasionally I even get the message that they cannot be downloaded because "the session has timed out"), and some other ones have a very poor sound quality (screeching like an old vinyl record... lol). But that's probably my computer's fault. It hasn't been exactly the fastest running machine of late.;) So, to be honest, I am actually glad I have bought most of the Lacrimosa albums on CD, instead of trying to download them from the net (not to mention the fact that I ADORE the lovely artwork on the CD covers). However, the problem with the abovementioned Polish bands is that their CD's usually aren't available anywhere outside Poland or Europe, and ordering them from there would be too expensive. So, in that case, the mp3 option is a blessing (I did find some Polish music on Amazon, but there were no listening samples available - and I'd rather not pay for a CD if I have no idea what the music actually sounds like, so...). And should I ever go to Poland to visit old friends who don't even write to me any longer, I will at least know what to look for at the music stores... lol.
Which somehow brings me back to the main source of my not-quite-mainstream music tastes. I have meant to make a post about it for quite some time, and now is just as good a time as any. As a teenager, I was a typical pop/disco lover; possibly even into my twenties, if memory serves right. But then something happened. I was never a morning person, and always a loner, but I didn't have internet access back then... so in the evenings, when I wasn't watching TV or reading romantic novels, I usually amused myself by flipping through radio stations in search of something that would catch my ear, so to speak. And that's how I first stumbled upon the late night music program hosted by a guy named Tomasz Beksinski. It was so different from anything I had ever heard before that I was immediately hooked; the music he played had almost mystical depth to it, and all of a sudden the cheerful pop I fed myself with on a daily basis wasn't enough anymore. The program did include some mainstream bands too, but mostly of the dark variety; and some names he introduced were so obscure I'm positive I never heard about them anywhere else, either before or since. I have no idea where he found all those hidden treasures, but he seemed to never run out of steam, always trying to squeeze as much as possible into the two or three hours of air time he had available. The program ran once a week for a few years, I'm not sure how many exactly, since I didn't follow it from the beginning, and couldn't even follow it to the end; sometime during my university studies it was shifted from Saturdays to Thursdays, I think, and since it still aired very late at night, I couldn't listen to it if I had to get up early for classes the next morning. Anyway... I didn't find out until much later that the program is no more, because Beksinski is no more. The guy killed himself. On Christmas Eve, no less (1999). Yes, he had a very dark sense of humor. He had supposedly written his own epitaph while still in high school. To put it as simply as possible, he wasn't a happy person. I have no idea whether he suffered from chronic depression or even something more serious that that, or whether he just had a lot of bad luck in life; anyway, his decidedly melancholy disposition was clearly reflected in the music he loved. As an interesting bit of trivia I might add he was the son of the famous surrealist painter Zdzislaw Beksinski, whose beautiful, but morbid art is not something most people would hang on their bedroom wall.;) He was also - the son, not the father - a brilliant English/Polish translator, to whom the Polish viewers owe the dialogue - and song lyrics - from all Monty Python films, for example. As well as many gothic/horror/vampire movies. He was totally obsessed with those themes - he worshipped Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker etc. He sometimes read dark, romantic poetry during his radio nights; and, of course, the lyrics to the songs he played, usually in his own very good translations (which helped a lot, since my English wasn't good enough back then to fully appreciate the original lyrics yet). He broadened my musical horizons so much I cannot even begin to express it. It was during his program that I first heard The Cure, The Sisters of Mercy, Siouxie and the Banshees, Nick Cave, Marillion, Peter Hamill, Dead Can Dance, Joy Division, This Mortal Coil, The Moody Blues, The Strawbs, Lacrimosa - yes, Lacrimosa - and countless others... it is only thanks to him that I even know what to search for when I try to find exciting music online. I know I still haven't fully explored half of what he had introduced me to; and I'll be happy for the rest of my days doing just that. I only wish I could repay that debt somehow by sharing with him all the gorgeous music he missed due to his untimely death; like the three Lacrimosa albums released after he was gone...
Which somehow brings me back to the main source of my not-quite-mainstream music tastes. I have meant to make a post about it for quite some time, and now is just as good a time as any. As a teenager, I was a typical pop/disco lover; possibly even into my twenties, if memory serves right. But then something happened. I was never a morning person, and always a loner, but I didn't have internet access back then... so in the evenings, when I wasn't watching TV or reading romantic novels, I usually amused myself by flipping through radio stations in search of something that would catch my ear, so to speak. And that's how I first stumbled upon the late night music program hosted by a guy named Tomasz Beksinski. It was so different from anything I had ever heard before that I was immediately hooked; the music he played had almost mystical depth to it, and all of a sudden the cheerful pop I fed myself with on a daily basis wasn't enough anymore. The program did include some mainstream bands too, but mostly of the dark variety; and some names he introduced were so obscure I'm positive I never heard about them anywhere else, either before or since. I have no idea where he found all those hidden treasures, but he seemed to never run out of steam, always trying to squeeze as much as possible into the two or three hours of air time he had available. The program ran once a week for a few years, I'm not sure how many exactly, since I didn't follow it from the beginning, and couldn't even follow it to the end; sometime during my university studies it was shifted from Saturdays to Thursdays, I think, and since it still aired very late at night, I couldn't listen to it if I had to get up early for classes the next morning. Anyway... I didn't find out until much later that the program is no more, because Beksinski is no more. The guy killed himself. On Christmas Eve, no less (1999). Yes, he had a very dark sense of humor. He had supposedly written his own epitaph while still in high school. To put it as simply as possible, he wasn't a happy person. I have no idea whether he suffered from chronic depression or even something more serious that that, or whether he just had a lot of bad luck in life; anyway, his decidedly melancholy disposition was clearly reflected in the music he loved. As an interesting bit of trivia I might add he was the son of the famous surrealist painter Zdzislaw Beksinski, whose beautiful, but morbid art is not something most people would hang on their bedroom wall.;) He was also - the son, not the father - a brilliant English/Polish translator, to whom the Polish viewers owe the dialogue - and song lyrics - from all Monty Python films, for example. As well as many gothic/horror/vampire movies. He was totally obsessed with those themes - he worshipped Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker etc. He sometimes read dark, romantic poetry during his radio nights; and, of course, the lyrics to the songs he played, usually in his own very good translations (which helped a lot, since my English wasn't good enough back then to fully appreciate the original lyrics yet). He broadened my musical horizons so much I cannot even begin to express it. It was during his program that I first heard The Cure, The Sisters of Mercy, Siouxie and the Banshees, Nick Cave, Marillion, Peter Hamill, Dead Can Dance, Joy Division, This Mortal Coil, The Moody Blues, The Strawbs, Lacrimosa - yes, Lacrimosa - and countless others... it is only thanks to him that I even know what to search for when I try to find exciting music online. I know I still haven't fully explored half of what he had introduced me to; and I'll be happy for the rest of my days doing just that. I only wish I could repay that debt somehow by sharing with him all the gorgeous music he missed due to his untimely death; like the three Lacrimosa albums released after he was gone...
