Monday, September 28, 1998
Tone-deaf Europe makes American music something to be
appreciated
COLUMN: Foreign idea of song, dance jarringly clashes with
its breathtaking surroundings
A passionate, life-affirming madness surges through the
cobblestone streets of Barcelona, pulses beyond the aching blue
shores of Mykenos and jolts the icy fog that hovers in the valleys
just below the Swiss Alps. This rich European energy finds fuel in
the red wine of France, sharp Schnapps shots of Austria and hearty
Weiss beer of Prague. It tears through the souls of travelers
touring from afar, shredding their very senses in such a way that
leaves many to vow never to return to their native shores
again.
Until they turn on the radio.
If I have to hear "So Horny; horny, horny, horny" while dancing
next to some sweat-drenched Spanish guy twice my age in pants three
times as tight as my own one more time, I will give birth to a
heifer. And, no, the conundrum, "What’s it Gonna Take For Me to
Turn You On?" wasn’t really coursing through my mind as I nursed a
Pilsner alongside a red-nosed barkeep at an oak-furnished dive in
Prague.
But the cake-taking musical memory of my entire dreamy overseas
adventure came in Greece. Here, at 4 o’clock in the morning, a
meaty Italian guy "wooed" me with the World Cup theme song, "Here
We Go; Ole, Ole, Ole" as I held onto his chest from the back of a
moped while attempting to locate my hotel room.
Zipping up and down Grecian hills in the warm morning air, he
repeated the brash, poppy chorus. Again and again. In his
not-so-romantic Italian accent that hacked the grating melody in
two.
And, being a manly, open-white-linen-shirted stud, he felt the
need to bounce up and down on the motor bike, looking back at me
for reassurance with a grin every time oncoming traffic barreled
down the hill toward us, warping his unending World Cup serenade
beyond all bearability.
And again the chorus would be repeated.
"Here we go, Ole, Ole, Ole" were to him the most expressive
words in the English language. They apparently could be used to
mean everything from "hello" to "good morning" to "would you like
to have sex with me at Paradise Beach and watch the sun rise since
we can’t find your hotel room in the dark, silly drunken lost
American girl?"
Perhaps I’d heard "So Horny" one too many times.
Moving on, I received more than my fair share of cow
bell-playing, beer hall waitresses dancing alongside German men in
liederhosen and Greek men in tights bellowing out "Hey! Hey! Hey
hey hey!" while jumping into each others’ arms, as the back-up band
crammed accordion music down my ear canals and demanded that I join
the congo line snaking through the restaurant table aisles.
Though I must say, I sort of dug the whole thing. After six
weeks, you get the abrasive dance-party beats clogged in your
racing bloodstream alongside the traditional tunes (handed down
from one generation to the next solely to milk visitors for foreign
currency). This potpourri of artistically lacking material lodges
itself so far into your inner consciousness and is so a part of the
overall mind-blowing experience – of viewing historical ruins,
roaming the spectacular countryside and bonding with life-lusting
individuals – that it can be difficult to separate the physical and
cultural impressiveness of Europe from its disappointing musical
homefront.
After all, how can one not love to hear the bass line of a
hollow electronica remix that samples the voice of David
Hasselhoff, pounding out of some stern-looking young Austrian’s car
in Vienna?
Or the harshly vocalized lines to a lesser-known German techno
piece which goes (ahem), "I like to watch you dance, dance/ I like
the way you bounce, bounce/ I want to see you move, groove/ Ya, ya/
Move, groove/ Ya, ya."
"Whoa, dude. This," you tell yourself, "is Germany. That’s just
how they do it here. Let’s lick dry a plate of pork knuckles."
Hey, I was singing along to the Spice Girls by the end of the
first week.
But on cold days in Switzerland I would yearn to hear just one
blistered track off Radiohead’s "OK Computer." And passing through
France, looking out the train window after two sleepless,
showerless nights, travelling from the Czech Republic to Spain, all
I craved was the steady comfortingly lonely voice of Bob Dylan to
keep me rolling on.
"Where are these crazy honkys’ souls?" I would demand, as though
repressed by the abundance of discoteques scattered throughout
Europe. "These people do not share the genes of my ancestors.
They’re a mutant race of prancing Homo sapiens who have driven my
forefathers from the homeland in order to spread musical
moronicness into the minds of the easily controllable
meat-and-cheese eating masses!"
Well, except for the guy in Prague who played me Neil Young’s
soundtrack to a Jim Jarmusch movie. And the street guitarists in
Florence who broke my heart wailing by the riverside. And the
almost painfully stark sounds of a female musician whose recorded
voice haunted a Viennese modern art museum.
But because I thrive on scrawling, offensive blanket statements,
never mind all of these few and far between moments of European
musical magic.
The bottom line? Europe would do better if they began importing
American radio commercial jingles. (You think it’s a good song and
it turns out to be a Hyundai ad. Damn those tricky corporate
geniuses!)
Meanwhile, as I dreaded returning home to bleach-brained L.A.
shmucks who "hit the beach," nibbling on tofu and getting carded
even when I’m with my mom, the one thing pulling me back home from
foreign soil wasn’t my two cats. Or my family up north. Or my
friends down here. (Though I missed them all).
It was the promise of music that makes you glad to be
lonely.
So I guess that means in some strange way, I came back for the
Daily Bruin, to propagate the melodic seeds of a healthy musical
environment throughout Los Angeles, and then, the world.
Or it could be that I had one year left to graduate, an old man
back home to front the bill, and not one red cent to my name
otherwise.
"Why, hello Express Mart employees! May I please show you a
plastic card with my photo and some numbers on it along with $3.99
in exchange for 12 cans full of yellowish water that will have me
behaving very immaturely in about an hour and a half? Why, thank
you, kind sirs, and have a fabulously sunny day!"
It’s good to be home.
VanderZanden, a fourth-year English student and this year’s
music editor, floats.
Vanessa VanderZanden
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