epílogo: memórias são melodias

(escrito para o last.fm)

surprisingly the Fiery Furnaces peak on 1331. does that make them my "favourite band"? not at all - just reminds me of last July's compulsive sick behaviour, which relied on the Furnaces for some kind of redemption, and then almost discarded them completely from my musical urges (although Blueberry Boat's and Rehearsing My Choir's verses have left permanent echoes). also, pure oblivion kept me from pausing the player nights in a row - and there you have 23 Bitter Tea reprises. Matthew Friedberger's weary piano goes on playing forever. he and his sister are pastiche masters, with sudden transitions and dissonant chords that at first seem out of place, but pair up in another dimension. clever lyrics, most of the time. plus: mucho gusto singing along every time because i think my voice has a similar pitch to Eleanor's, and when they come with the blues i can say they almost - almost - match up to Jack White.
Calexico, not so close second with 1037, can vomit dazzling wonders as well as profound shit. seek patiently through the albums and there'll be a reward. the Latin melancholy grip keeps me alive, even though sometimes "but they're not even from Calexico, nor California or Mexico, not folk music thus, Kitschfolk (pseudofolk?) would be more accurate" crossed my mind.
what's to say about Neutral Milk Hotel and its folksurrealism? even the White Stripes jam both their feet on Folkmud, in a dirtier way. can Noel Rosa be considered more keen on his society for composing sambas, as expected to, talking sarcastically about Rio de Janeiro's bohemian life on the 30s, which was his own? almost 800 and he still fascinates me. (when did the Calexico guys actually live in Mexico?) but likewise - one might go deeper on the matter and think pure Brazilian folk music comes from tribes established here long before anything. (one might as well say that our native language is Tupi, not Portuguese, like Lima Barreto's Policarpo Quaresma.) Calexico's excuse is "being Texan", which gives them plenty of reasons to go Latin, but other Texans called the Mars Volta got straight connections with Mex culture and do not turn it in the band's special feature. they go much farther and much closer at the same time, bringing stuff like jazz and punk together, creating a new perspective on melodic fusion, their own musical and lyrical approach.
deeper: if the Volta create more than Calexico, as in new possibilities to be explored, in a sense they mark a different moment of society, becoming not just a revival, but the new folk itself. or progressivism is the direct opposite to folkism (and here you could easily replace by the heavy metal x punk long dated disagreement)? does folk suggest a steady rhythmic base and working it to the last drop? i've always thought of it as closing oneself up in a box just to see how many spots you can reach and amplify. squeeze out every detail. and there is another turn of the screw when you come to think about Hindu music: there is a fixed base, called "cicles", but the musicians improvise freely inside that agreed start point; much like jazz.
i like them both(Calexico&Volta)in different states of mind, but discussing which one is "folker" is pointless conservative stupidity, fearfulness; a desperate quest for lost origins, a taxonomic frenzy. interesting to think about the open questions, the problems we face in classification, but without hoping for definitive conclusions.
what IS folk music, indeed, before any attempts to labeling bands? theoretically "music from the people", Volksmusik, natural expressions from a certain community. for sure MPB (Brazilian Popular Music) is another way of saying "folk" without realizing it, right next to samba! in fact, both genres can be summed up under the folk label. doubtlessly "Folk" shatters itself everywhere (America's got the blues), we're just not interested enough to learn about it. perhaps if i studied musical theory i'd be able to tell them all apart.
after munching for an awful good while on differences between the folk bands' thematic, melodic and geographical coherence, surely the screaming conclusion is - nonsense. quality music is sincere music above all, so if it is heartfelt, soulful, born from passion channeled to reason, it doesn't matter where or whom it comes from. and that, i guess, is much more alike the Folkspirit: the music balm preventing us from bursting at the seams, let it be out of joy or sadness, keeping our pieces working together when no one (nothing) else can.

a friend of mine used to say
- in this life you're whether a folker or a jazzer and i'm the latter
(sounds lyrical in English)
and i'd have to say i am a folker before denying there is any necessary antithesis between them.