All this (well trodden) talk about nationalism in our little scene is
actually slightly related to something I experienced on our recent tour of
Spain. The tour was just great, you can imagine, and the mod kids that I met
there were very cool. they definitely had the clothing thing together, I was
feeling decidedly scruffy in comparison.
Anyway, this certainly isn't the case with everyone I met, but a lot of the
people who came to our shows expressed to me that they saw us as
representative of American rock and roll. A fellow who had driven 100 km to
see us was saying how excited he was to see a real American band. (in fact,
we were billed as 'Power Pop Genuino' at one venue, which sounds like the
particular kind of Esperanto idiotico that I used throughout the tour). I
asked him if there weren't a lot of Spanish rock bands that he liked and he
said that it just wasn't the same as seeing a real American rock band. In
fact, he told me that most of the non-Spanish bands that they get in Spain
come from the UK which just about guarantees that they stare at the floor
when they play. He was quite excited to see a band jump about and sweat while
playing. It left me with a certain sense of responsibility to somehow live up
to this guys expectations of being an American rock band. I didn't know if we
should just do Little Richard numbers, or what. It certainly made us go all
out to put on a goo show. Anyway, it was just something I experienced, and I
certainly don't mean it to sound condescending ('cuz I heard a number of good
Spanish bands there). By the way, if anyone has some extra time on their
hands, I've posted my tour diary at www.monolyth.com/pills.htm
Corin
_____________________________________________________________
Want to find the best email lists? Check out the Topica 20!
http://www.topica.com/topica20
