Cigarette, wine, and impulsive shopping in the kitchen
Checking the calendar to count the days I will get paid for with my new job, I noticed it’s been a month since I went to the Alvvays concert. I bought the ticket in the kitchen, leaning on my stove, drinking Cote du Rhône and smoking cigarettes, probably my last pack, right before lashing out all my feelings to anyone for the first time in a very long time. I forgot about the concert immediately after the fight slash resolution with this person that night, and was completely unaware until I was reminded by the ticket app 4 hours before the show. Pretty hungover from a different bottle, but I had to see them perform Pharmacy, I just had to. That song was the reason I drank the night I bought the ticket, and sadly I could still relate to the song, although now added layers of melancholy and deeper appreciation for the song. This time, I wasn’t questioning if I crossed the mind of anyone, I related more to the loose and airy soundscape of the song, because I was living a life that feels even less firm and secure.
Last few years in Beijing, discovering Alvvays
I never expected myself to see them live when I started listening to them at work. If you are a reader from a western country, you may not know in China, where I’m from, we don’t get to see indie bands let alone a shoe-gaze band from Canada performing there. Also, I’m pretty sure I’m the only person who knew about Alvvays in 5 km radius in Beijing. I got to know about Alvvays, specifically the Blue Rev album from Robert Christgau’s subscription monthly newsletter. I remember he gave it an A, if i’m not mistaken the album cover was featured in the article, so it caught my attention. Again, the importance of packaging. With Christgau’s review after 2013, I feel like I tend to skip A+ albums because they are either too country or Americana or something way too polished, like Renaissance by Beyoncé. Blue Rev was just the right thing for me at the right time.
I was getting comfortable with my life in Bytedance, almost hit the balance between life and work, healthy, financially comfortable, socially active yet very mellow. The worst part is, I could see myself getting mellower by the day. In fact, I had to take several actions to just feel young again, like starting to learn how to code with Python, quitting cigarette, stop drinking and even signing up for, hear this, not only gym, a private trainer. All positive, for sure, built a lot of confidence now thinking back. But even at the time, I knew they were very little remedies for how little satisfaction I was having for my life that is getting plainer and tinier. Friends were going faster than the pace of new onse coming if they are coming at all. I could count all the places that I may go to have fun without missing any if not over estimating one or two.
They said it is what it is, turning 27. There wasn’t seem to be any thing that could happen to improve my life as it did when I was 21. I needed to do just something while being prepared for the rejection of my french visa application. This was the context of me clicking through the album cover and getting ready for saving one or two songs just so I will see the cover again. And when I heard, “I know you’re back, I saw your sister at the pharmacy…” I knew this album was going to be something of a WhiteChocolateSpaceEgg (Liz Phair, 1998)status for me very soon.
Blue Rev and the Show
If it wasn’t clear, this is not a concert journal nor an album review. The concert was at Élysée Montmarte, mostly well organized, almost an hour late with Girl Scout opening for them who by the way seems to have a lot of potential. Alvvays was great. Vocals were clean, instruments were mixed well, the whole set was generally enjoyable. I find cheesy recounting of all the things happen in the concert very boring but I have to mention three things:
The set list is a bit same-same. I understand that having a signature sound is the sign of a good musician who stays true to how they feel inside. Even when Prince, the greatest musician of all time had to explore new sounds with the Black Album (1987 or 1994) what he produced was just a “darker” version of Sign of the Time. I think there is a way around it without disappointing your audience who came to hear specific songs, like me who came just to hear Ph… Don’t put songs that shares the same tempo back to back. I think having same melodies or chords matters less in their case since we were really there to listen to the lyrics and the “vibe”. See a SZA concert if you want to know what I mean, most of the songs in her Primavera Sound 2024 setlist “sounds the same”, but because the she mixed fast and slow tempo songs and there’s vaguely a storyline, it didn’t feel like the show was dragging along.
They should definitely open with Pharmacy (I know,I know) not Easy on Your Own, I could hear myself and the 21 year-olds next to me getting disappointed audibly and confused why would they open the show with a downer, even Pressed, which they didn’t perform, would’ve been so much better. If any live performer reading this, see how PJ Harvey opened her album Story of the City, Story of the Sea (2001) with Big Exit, and apply it to every live performance, in every genre, music, comedy, even magic. Set the tone with a piece that loosely connects all elements that rest of the performance has to offer.
Lastly, don’t end your set by just ending the song walking away. Watch PJ Harvey’s sets and how she ends with gratitude and a seemingly genuine speech. Not every one has to reach her level of humility and theatrics, but, there’s a reason people line up to music festivals just to see her perform (I am sure I will write about her in the future) At least say thank you and wave hands?
Seeing them live didn’t do much for my appreciation of the album, thank god. But she sang the bridge of After the Earthquake so beautifully, I now have a perfect visual every time I hear the song, and I believe that is what a great performance should do for the album, create memories and serve the album, a very reverse Taylor Swift.
I love that Molly, or whoever wrote the album, feels uneasy about aging. I introduced this album to my close friends saying this is Charli XCX if she didn’t go clubbing. My friends and I spent most of our 20s listening to Pop2 (2017) while getting drunk on paper cups of 1/3 Soju + 2/3 Beer. Yet something about Brat (2024) feels so cold and alienated, fun but mechanic. And Blue Rev for me is almost opposite, it’s warm but melancholic, reflective but still active. It’s about looking at the past, looking at the present as someone from the past, and looking further into the future with so little certainty, and all this was exactly how I have been feeling for a while, especially after arriving in Paris.
Lost in Paris once again
The first few months in Paris was a continuous out of body experience. You would think with near 28 years of life experience feeling like a stranger in your own homeland would somewhat prepare you for this. But nothing could’ve prepared me for feeling uncomfortably free. I remember the day in late October struggling to enter the pin for the gate with my very french grocery bag with two croissants and a baguette, thinking that I should be quicker before anyone notices that I don’t know the pin by heart. “Because if they notice, they’ll know I’m not them.” I recently came across a term that sums of up anxiety pretty well, Minority Stress. It struck me only then that it doesn’t matter anymore: no one will look, or better put, notice my existence, because I am no more of a stranger here than any other foreigner, or someone simply isn’t from Paris. I’m no longer anything special and I almost have no relationship with my surroundings, just like anyone who’s struggling to enter with baguettes in arms, who’s departure would left unnoticed until the day for paying the rent.
It was liberating at first, no burden, and then came the void, and the strange restriction within the void. I have produced the EP inhibition (2024) while going through it. I think I hated it so much, that I jumped into a relationship when I saw the glimpse of possibility that I can anchor myself to something. I now know how unfair it is for someone else to have this burden, to make me feel stable while I didn’t even know what that meant for me myself. The day of the concert was three month after we have separated and two month after I knew it was over. As I walked out of the concert, I knew it all started to fade and I was left for my own device once again. To quote Claire Marin, “Je pense à lui et non plus à “toi”” (I think of him and no longer of “you”.) (Ruptures, 2019, p61) Liberating for I no longer feel the “pain of” or the “pain from” in such intensity, it was the new state of devoid, it was the “pain in”, in floating in this city in which I gained yet quickly lose my anchor.
Now it’s been a month…
I always knew what to do to save myself from a rot. Three words: stretch, clean, create. It worked out when I was 16 while suffering from teenage angst, it saved me from a career burnout and landed me my dream job in 2021, and I was sure I was going to be ok only if I was willing to. To tie all these together, I think going to the Alvvays concert was the ritualistic end to my latest rot that I needed. Being in the crowd of very young fans who are so passionate about a band whose language they couldn’t speak fluently was inspiring. It made me realize where I was. In Montmarte, in the hippy center of Paris, in France, where I should aim a bit higher than getting my messages replied on time by someone who won’t understand why they ever mattered to me.
Stretch, clean, create. That’s all I did. I got up from my sofa, cleaned my table, created a functioning work station and practice stretching my arms and legs for 15 minutes every 2 hours. I don’t know the science behind it, but it sure is relaxing and I feel a lot healthier afterwards, and that’s what matters, even just to signal myself that I’m doing something good for myself. And all that’s left for me to do is to create. Hence, Rupture (RedValentine, 2024)
After a month of working towards just one goal: staying here for one more year, I secured an MBA offer majoring marketing from a small school and a pretty enjoyable part-time job in the centre of Paris. The whole process is a blog post on its own. But now having these two anchors, I do feel a lot more related to the city, at least I now have more slashes during my self-introductions. A student slash musician and now, slash Blogger.
When in doubt, just create. A very big part of the reason I started to write this blog is to hone my writing skill and learn to be honest with myself, and to record what i hear in my head with actual words so that they won’t fade away untraced. I write in my third language, it is pretty challenging, but it will be so rewarding, as a former language instructor, if these blogs encourage anyone to explore their authentic selves in their foreign languages as well. If they do, let me know about your journey of stretching, cleaning and creating.
Yes the color name. 