FOR “BELLE AND SEBASTIAN”

03.06.04


Today I woke up with an insatiable appetite to listen to “Belle and Sebastian”. I had to head straight to work and didn’t even hold out my hand to fumble in the cds. If I did that, I would be late for at least 10 minutes. I was thinking all the time of my sister’s words and wondered whether the history of that Scottish band would interest no other person than me.

It isn’t some great story. I just think it is always interesting to study the history of bands that aren’t so popular as Rolling Stones or U2.
In “Tiger Milk”, the first album of “Belle and Sebastian”, which came out again in 1999 (under the label of the Records Company “Jeepster”), there are a lot of details regarding the history of the band. When Belle met Sebastian, she was not even called Belle but had some other name. I don’t know how and why there is no such detail on the internet.

She taught piano and looked for students who would pay her for a living. He (Sebastian) was passing outside a supermarket and accidentally read an announcement stuck on a window. He noted the phone number and found himself next to a piano (I suppose not a grand piano). He wanted to learn how to play the guitar but the piano was also all right. Belle could teach him music by virtue of a different method than the one applied by the teachers at conservatories. They used to play little songs and giggle. I suppose they also did other things that I have a hard time imagining. The most important thing is that they composed the first songs that transformed them and gave them the strength to keep up with what they were doing and become what they are today: “Belle and Sebastian”, a band which is not liked by everyone, of course, but by those who wish to cover their melancholy with happy melodies and prefer dancing to crying, without forgetting that music opens underground streets before it lifts you up to the sky.

The press info reveals that things were different. That the band was formed one night of January in 1996 in a café that stayed open for 24 hours. The name of the girl isn’t reported anywhere, neither is there any word about the German television series that inspired those two to name the band. No matter what the truth is, the result was unique. Some times, music doesn’t have to be complicated and the musicians don’t always have to have a degree. What the artist has to offer is or is not important. This is the norm under which nobody should ever look for a superstar or for a diva who is dancing on his pick-up.

It is neither the bright smiles nor the shaking bodies that give the rhythm. It’s the energy; it’s the power of those who listen and those who are listened to; not because they always choose to say something important but because they can simply have a nice time. Such a nice time, in fact, that I am reminded of the day when “Belle and Sebastian” went to the concert they gave a few years ago in our country.

Do you remember Tina from my trip to Holland; we went to the concert together. We had a fabulous time, although the place was awful and the sound recording awful as well. I was sitting on my chair, with my face stuck almost onto the behinds of those who stood in front of me. With my head turning like a wheel, I looked for all those very small “windows” that allowed me to peep at the stage and watch the show, even in excerpts. Most of the times, I fit in corners in front of or at the side of the stage. These are my lucky moments. Many were the times that I came to meet my beloved musicians closely, right because I happened to find myself in front of them. Every time I go to a concert, I know that my night is probably going to be full of surprises.

That night, as soon as the music stopped, we muttered at an ‘injustice’. We’d like to have listened to a little more music. One more song would have probably made the difference. We took the road home humming the melodies that were still ringing to our ears. On the road home, we picked up a ‘colleague’ with crutches. With or without crutches, we had to carry this guy. He had drunk so much that he didn’t see in front of him. He kept thanking us for our good act, while staring at Tina, who seemed to have fascinated him. What should someone say? After a great night, everything is to be forgiven.