Velvet Underground – Waiting for the Man (didn’t for the obvious one)
I’ve been reading a lot lately about the drug chaos in Mexico. I learned that the heroin trade in Sinaloa, Mexico was started by Chinese immigrants who moved to the region in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The difficult-to-traverse mountains provided a perfect place to start a drug trade that continues to this day.
Book recommendations:
Murder City by Charles Bowden El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency by Ioan Grillo 2666 by Roberto Bolaño
“Being tired of all illusions and of everything about illusions – the loss of illusions, the uselessness of having them, the prefatigue of having to have them in order to lose them, the sadness of having had them, the intellectual shame of having had them knowing that they would have to end this way.”
This is a quick snapshot of my life. I hear a song. I love the song. I try and find out who sings the song. I can’t find out who sings the song. The song takes on mythic proportions of greatness.
My Time was one of these songs. I heard it on my phone while out on a walk. I was listening to my favorite internet radio station from Italy. I tried to catch the name of the artist. I didn’t have a pen just my lousy memory brain. By the time I finished with my long walk, all I could remember was Roberto Ca____? I couldn’t remember his last name or the name of the song, grrr!
I spent many hours on the internet searching, trying variations of Roberto Ca (missing letters). I searched through a database of Italian last names to jog my memory, nothing. I watched the internet radio station playlist to see if it would pop up again, nope. I gave up, temporarily. I then began a futile search for another song called morceau inconnu 7, which I was soon to find out meant “unknown song track 7” in French. Haha, the joke is always on me.
Last week I was in San Francisco. My tradition is to have breakfast at Boogaloo on Valencia and then pop into Aquarius Records to see what’s new. I usually buy something there because they’ll have stuff no one else does like, for instance, my beloved Hala Strana. I bought a CD last year, I don’t remember who it was, I ended up selling it. But who buys CDs anymore, right? It’s all about the vinyl these days. And the vinyl section is where I was looking when I saw it! The Ann Steel album by Roberto Cacciapaglia! It was a re-issue from the late 70s and they wrote a little blurb about it being electronic music ahead of it’s time. This must be the guy, I thought. I didn’t buy it though because I still wasn’t sure if it was the right person (duh) and I wanted to double check. Now I kick myself for not getting it but I was in a really bad mood that morning and about to drive back to Los Angeles. So my joy was tempered by other frustrations.
With the name of the album I was able to find the song on YouTube. It was still a bit confusing because the artist is listed as Ann Steel on many of the uploaded videos while the album credit is given to Roberto Cacciapaglia. If you look up Roberto Cacciapaglia on YouTube, all that comes up is his more recent music which is nice but not my thing. So as I have explained, finding this song was not easy but through a lucky chance my musical mission has been fulfilled, this time.
My Time was covered by the Belgium synth-pop band Telex (video below). Their version, I think, is the more popular one. I prefer the oddly-accented vocals by singer Ann Steel on Cacciapaglia’s original. It’s what made this song worthy of investigations.
