Music is my boyfriend and no one likes him

Let's leave the Mayan prophecies alone for a minute. I want to talk about music. Or lack of thereof.

The thing is, it's only until I moved here that I realize how much I miss being able to talk music with people. It's not as if I'm particularly gifted, knowledgeable or obsessive in that department. In fact, quite the opposite. But I do need to be able to discuss the merits (in this case, none, and I'm a fan) of the new Spice Girls single. Or have someone to be excited with about the fact that Liars are playing Barcelona soon. You get my drift.

At work, luckily enough, there's two TVs showing VH1 all the time. But it is to my surprise that every time I make a comment about any particular video showing at any given time - and this usually happens after every single video - I am met with blank stares. The most I have got out of people when saying how sick James Blunt makes me feel and how he looks like a psycho (and I could go on and on, I mean, how does he get all those supermodels to even lick his face let alone have sex with him?) was someone saying "oh yeah what a soppy ballad". That's a start, I guess...

Last Sunday night I went to meet Metronomy, who were supporting Bloc Party, at a little bar in town. I wanna meet up with every single person who comes here from England. Makes me feel a little bit closer to home! (so keep that in mind for the future.) Considering my lack of friends, I was lucky I managed to convince Flavia - my only female housemate who's single - to come with me with the promise of nice chat and some drinks. She has been a godsend, since every time I actually manage to get her to come out, she's the perfect party partner. I don't know how much it says about me that I, twenty-five, am the one who's always trying to get her, twenty, to stay out for just that little bit longer.

Thanks to Joe Metronomy and Carmelita's lovely hubby Gordy, I got some tickets to see the show on Monday. So after inviting Flavia I told everyone I know (all of about ten people) if they wanted to come. When I told them it was for Bloc Party, the unanimous response I got was, "Who?". I never thought it would be so difficult to find people to go to a gig for free! "Loonelyyyy, I am so loonelyyyy, I have nobodyyyy, oooof my oooown... " (to be sang with Chipmunks voice)

I finally went to the gig with Flavia and Laura, a mexican girl who lives with another friend of mine. Metronomy were amazing, better than any other time I've seen them and from the looks of it their newly acquired sound engineer is really doing a great job. This being the first time I've seen them in such a big venue, it was amazing how much they filled the space, sounding rather more like a live band than an electronic act. The vocals sounded clearer than the other times I'd seen them and I was won over by Joe's voice. Add to that their ass-busting choreographic moves, and you've got a 10 in the Maria-is-a-Loser-but-Loves-Music Chart.

This was the first time I'd seen Bloc Party (hearing them from a campsite at Glastonbury doesn't count), and they surpassed all my expectations. Since I don't especially listen to them that often, I'd forgotten how it was for me when I heard them for the first time on record, particularly the insane drumbeats and the range and sheer beauty of Kele's voice. Well, this gig made me remember what it was like. They seemed to me like truly accomplished musicians, each to their own right, and you can tell from their pre-gig preparations that they've reached a level of professionalism that guarantees an amazing performance (I even found myself closing my eyes in a couple of songs. I get a 10 in the Maria-is-a-Loser loser chart but I just kinda felt like it... I guess this doesn't only happen to Drowned In Sound forum users. It can happen to you and me and your neighbour).

I am not losing faith in the Spanish love of music yet though. I know I have only been here for two weeks, and it takes time to meet people who are into what you are. On the other hand, every friend you make meets different needs and shares different little bits of your life, and I am lucky enough to be living with people that despite being different to me, are all amazingly nice people who I can spend time and have good conversations with, as well as genuinely worrying with my worries and trying to make me feel a part of the household. I also have other old friends who I just need time to start making memories together with. So it's not that bad, really. I'm just moaning.

Now, can anyone please send me any of the following? prettyprettyplease...
-Animal Collective
-Battles
-Tom Vek
-The Blow
-Life Without Buildings
-The Knife
-Postal Service

(these are only but a few of the files that recently disappeared from my iTunes to never be seen again, about 1GB of music lost!)

my email: gomez.mariaelisa@gmail.com
my AIM: pocahontasonx

I would be forever grateful.

Squinx you later.

Rainy nights and imaginary friends

Photo by Monica. Artwork by Maria@assholeartists.com

Despite a slightly tough few days (after my fun fun weekend had ended and real life started) I'm feeling a bit more upbeat about things over here. I've started a job today, working three hours a day in a little restaurant near my house. It does give me a bit of routine as well as much-needed CASH! Despite not wanting to go back to the "catering business" after years of breaking my back serving people food I want to eat and drinks I want to drink, the opportunity arose through a friend and it would've been foolish not to take it. You know the drill, if you've worked as a waitress once you can do it twice, thrice or thousandice. I guess I do have a manual skill I can use anywhere in the world! Drab.

I'm still getting used to my new home, which is probably not home yet but will be as soon as I know whether I get to stay here or not. My sleeping arrangements are thus: Two big square cushions on the floor, covered with a tie-dye sarong, fold out to a bed where my feet stick out when I go to sleep but don't in the morning, since said cushions have been slowly sliding apart throughout the night so that my bum fits nicely in the gap between them. On the upside, I've got a walk-in wardrobe. Or as other people might wanna call it, a toilet with an "Out of Service" sign on the door with all my clothes still in the bags where I packed them (albeit a lot messier). These are not reasons to complain though. Monica and her housemates have been kind enough to let me stay here and have made me feel right at home, include me in their communal meals and ask me how my day was. I couldn't ask for more (ok, maybe if they didn't ask for so many cigarettes... )

The other thing about "my room" is that it's always night-time and it's always raining. I explain: Since the living room sits on what used to be the social centre which sits on what used to be a hairdressers, there are metal shutters that are always closed so that our lives are not in the open to random passers-by. This means lamps and halogen lights all day. And when it's silent, you can hear the water from the whole building trickle down the pipes and there you have it: rainy night! All I wanna do is stay in bed, eat, watch TV and smoke cigarettes...

Something else I like to do on a rainy night is waste as much time as possible on the internet. It usually goes like this: check Myspace, check Facebook, check Gmail, check Flickr, check Hotmail, check Google Analytics, check Girlcore, check Myspace again in case I got a new message, check the blog in case someone finally decided to leave a comment, check Facebook in case there are new tagged photos and so on and so forth.
While I sit in front of my laptop with my headphones on every waking hour, my housemates spend their spare time smoking dope, playing guitar, cooking, cleaning, listening to reggae and debating philosophy in italian, among other higher purposes. I do interact from time to time, but it still seems as if my life is on the other side of this screen. When I stop posting a daily bulletin about nothing, commenting photos of people I've never met or writing about my personal life for invisible readers, don't worry. It will mean I finally have a life!

PS. I think this is the first time in a very long time that I stay in for that many days. I haven't had a proper night out since... well, does my weekend with the broken neck count? The good thing about this is that I finally went through my flickr account and sorted it out. So now i'ts www.flickr.com/photos/brixtonia/sets... the "people etc" set is particularly nostalgic.

Coming up next time... The Mayan Prophecies.

One Week On

No, that's not me. But give me a couple of months.

It's now been a week since I came to Barcelona. A lot has happened, very little has happened. A day after my last post, I went to see my friend Julieta, who was over from London for the weekend, at the club Apolo. Thanks to the blagging skills acquired during my postgraduate in the London University of Life, I managed to sneak in for free. So the tuition fees were well worth it. The rest of the weekend was a series of coincidences as well as a mini-roadtrip, a family visit and a broken neck (almost).

Michally, me and Jen

My friend Jen, who I met at Bestival, has been driving the tour van of this amazing band from New York called Holy Hail. They are, coincidentally, supporting Bonde Do Role in their European tour and were to stop over in Barcelona for a night before heading to Madrid. So Jen + Bonde Do Role= amazing friends I get to see over here!
I went to meet Jen at the place where they were staying for the night. This was the really nice, non-hippie (yes, I'm traumatized) flat of a friend of Cat, Holy Hail's singer. Another coincidence: one of my random Flickr contacts is Gerard, who runs a website called www.icanteachyouhowtodoit.com, the Barcelonian equivalent of sites like The Cobra Snake or DirtyDirtyDancing. I had myspaced him before coming here in order to find out a bit about the city and stuff to do, so it was to my surprise to find out that, coincidentally, the flat was his. What are the odds.

Welcome to Spain

We went to see him DJ at a place called Moog, and set off to Madrid the next morning. Seven hours of amazing terracota landscapes, grey rolling hills, beautiful little towns, houses in the middle of nowhere that were the exact same colour of the soil they were built on... at times I felt as if I was in Don Quixote, at times I felt as if I was in Star Wars, in the bit where they kill Darth Vader's mum before he becomes Darth Vader.
As soon as we got to Madrid we headed off to the venue, a place called Moby Dick which looks like a ship from the outside. While Holy Hail were soundchecking I waited downstairs since I didn't want their soundcheck to be my first experience of the band. Bonde arrived and it was like a little bit of my London had arrived with them. Marina's addicted to that pink Nintendo DS! (Julia: me and Pedro tried to call you but you're an asshole and didn't answer).

Holy Hail

Now Holy Hail. They were amazing. Cat (former Fannypack member) and Kevin provide the vocals (he also plays the keyboards), while Michally does the bass and Alex the drums. They sound like an optimistic and poppy new-wave (can that exist?) mixed with the best of what could be described (by me) as dreamy electro-indie-pop. Or something like that. Cat's voice takes turns between a pretty, almost naive-sounding vocal style and some unexpected but well-placed high-pitched screams. It reminds me a bit of Love is All (another band I've been obsessing about). In fact, take no notice of this attempt at a band review: I liked their music, it made me dance, I like listening to it at home and they're nice. That's all I need from a band.

Bonde in full swing

The gig went great, I got up on stage in Bonde's set (typical) and properly went off on one, perfecting my "circular head-banging" so well that I'm still nursing a sore neck. Talk about dedication to the cause.
After the gig we stayed at a friend of Gerard's who used to be Pedro Almodovar's assistant. After years of living in shit-holes, I can really say I find it hard not to gawp when I find myself in places as amazing as his flat. It was beautiful. So there are people in the world who can own a place like this before their mid-thirties! I thought the only way was the loser hedonistic squatter hippie way. Right.

After the neck-breaking, head-banging incident

Next morning I woke up early and met my cousin for breakfast. He's also a successful, talented, hard-working gay in his mid-thirties with a beautifully decorated flat. What is it with gay guys? It is now more apparent to me than ever that they're always the good-looking, well turned-out, stylish men with a great taste in interior design. Why oh why wasn't I born a gay boy?
After another long and entertaining drive back to Barcelona, we met up with Bonde again at the Apolo 2. I got a text from a friend of Marisa's called Pablo, who she had said I should definitely meet. It said he was at the venue, so I texted back saying I'd meet him after the gig. It turns out that, coincidentally, Holy Hail were friends with him, so I ended up meeting him by default... He did say after we met: "wasn't it you who was dancing like a maniac on stage?" Oops I did it again.

Ouch.

Some other bits and bobs:

• I'm finding myself looking at things with a Londoner point of view, which is weird considering I'm Colombian. It makes me feel like a twat.
• Spotted: THREE fit boys. Woop! (I'm not counting the gayboys cos that's a given)
• I found two burgeoning mini-dreadlocks at the back of my head. Is it the water here? That would explain a lot.
• I'm trying to keep a positive outlook overall. Despite this, I'm finding it all a bit harder than I thought, leaving all my friends, my life, my work... (oh no, scrap that, I wasn't working actually) But really, starting a new life when you haven't really chosen to do so is quite challenging. I miss every single one of you. But let's keep things 'happy'.
  

(All photos by www.icanteachyouhowtodoit.com)

Observations as of 09/11/2007 (From a London-trained, Colombia-born exile)

So I´ve been here in Barcelona for a day. Slept most of the morning as the last few days/nights in London had been hectic. I´m staying with an old friend of mine(Mónica) who lives in what used to be an environmental social centre with a hippie vibe which she and her now ex-boyfriend put into motion. The centre is ertswhile "closed until further notice" so we´re sleeping in the ground floor while four other people sleep in the rooms upstairs. It is quite cosy to be surrounded by so many earthy colours and indian tie-dye.

I dedicated my afternoon to riding Mónica´s bycicle (which will be mine when she travels to Brazil in three weeks, woo hoo!) around the streets of Barcelona, starting from Gracia which is where we live down towards the centre, taking in the Raval, Ramblas, Barrio Gótico and then all the way to Plaza Espanya where she and her argentinian beau Alejandro are working nights giving information about the trains. Apparently something´s going on with Spain´s major rail network Renfe and there´s a big demonstration happening today against the company as well as the exploitation of workers, the rise in property prices and God-knows what else. Two of my new housemates spent the whole evening making placards and flyers to wave around today. Is this a sign of things to come? Will I get back to my hippie, demonstrating, politically active, spliff-smoking roots? Only time will tell. Haha.

During my bike-ride around the city, I noted a few things that probably only someone who looks at the city with fresh eyes would notice and a few more obvious ones but which I thought would still be good to mention:

• It is actually a lot warmer here (sorry about the bragging, couldn´t help it!)
• The best-dressed men are all gay.
• There´s a pharmacy practically in every corner. (Do Spanish people get sick more often or is it just for the aesthetic pleasure?)
• Tourists are all the same, in every country.
• Same goes with posh people.
• It´s not trucker caps like Vice said. It is "The Skullet" with a dread finish that will never go out of fashion in Spain.
• Toilets are easier to flush.
• Catalan sounds quite funny (No offense to catalunians, I´m definitely planning on going on catalan lessons)
• There is an active reaction to fur-wearing. Or at least that´s what I gather from having been scolded about my coat in the street by a complete stranger. He just yelled behind my ear: "Oooh, freshly-killed rabbit!"
• As much as I´ve made it a resolution to not think about boys (don´t snigger), I can´t help but notice I´ve only seen one fit (straight) boy in the whole day. What will happen when I do start thinking about boys?

OK so that´s it for now. I won´t go into how much I find myself comparing everything and everyone to London, or how it made me cry to see its lights below me from the plane, or how much I miss everyone I left there. That´s too cheesy and like, what´s the point in that?