Street life - Bread and circuses
As the first world and the second world become enmeshed in a subterranean video game, as the Russians invade every corner of Europe with their shiny tops and cold stares, as every popstrel on the planet loads up their homemade sounds on Myspace, as the...
As the first world and the second world become enmeshed in a subterranean video game, as the Russians invade every corner of Europe with their shiny tops and cold stares, as every popstrel on the planet loads up their homemade sounds on Myspace, as the future begins to look more and more like a homogenous mass of cheeky self-expression - Malta remains firmly stuck in a repetitive loop, where the music playing in the background is none other than Pink Floyd - daw daw dawn dawn.
As the forces that be seek to create visual landmarks that reach for the skies, I see only billboards on the side of the crowded short roads advertising tribute bands tributing has-been bands, washed up legends washing up to these shores to croak out an old tune - and then, there in big bold letters and back by popular demand - the Australian Pink Floyd show - can this be true? A nation of suckers two times over.
Sure give the people what they want, but help get me out of here, I'm in a musical time warp and wherever I turn bad noise gets into my ear. Can it really be that we are only truly interested in dirty hardcore techno and traditional rock? Is this illusion the fault of the authorities wishing to play safe and bring the kind of musicians that will draw the crowds in busloads, so that we may call it a commercial success? What is this culture only as business?
Of course you all cry, why bother to put up an event if you're not going to make loads of money doing it? Art? Culture? Boq!
Yet steeped in this dusty pile of Marillion records, I am grateful for this stubborn stuck in the mud attitude. For poetic reasons I will cite romantic moments in Malta where the sentiments of childhood have returned. It is comforting to see enormous tongue-flicked powerboats with twin engines being driven down the hill to St Thomas Bay - the penchant for speed and noise embodied in this mutant powerbeast that will be driven by my two short, scary-looking men who have come down to the bay to show off their outrageous purchase. Here is the meeting of old and new Malta. A solid old lady looks out from her blue porch unimpressed, the rollers in her hair sit in neat rows under a net, as she staires out and beyond on the chubby children playing ungracefully at the small, sandy beach screaming at each other in what I can only assume is playful jest.
As photographer Amelia Troubridge stated when recently returning there to swim on her wedding morning - it's like Malta in the 1970s. And I think I am never happier than when I am immersed in some "grotty" backward, disorderly place with not a faux parquet floor in sight. Malta simply looks better when she's dusty and rusty and swaying to the sound of boring old rock.
Will old Malta disappear one day? I doubt it for the aspirations of many are to live in a concentrated area and be heavily involved with each other's lives, and so I am comforted by the thought that greed and development will move in one direction only, leaving the simple, the humble and the favela-style chic untouched.
How grotty it is down here, eh - said a smart, well-groomed lady who had come down to Tigné Beach for a game of bridge. I know she is a Reef Club regular, so I assume that would be her benchmark. Grotty? Well, yes it is, thankfully unchanged as all around it falls, drops and is rebuilt, a small enclave of old Malta that still echoes with the familiar mas and tas of Sliema before it turned into Beirut.
But come to think of it, even the Sliema front has assumed a hint of old 1970s charm, and I am sure that in many a seafront bedroom Pink Floyd blares out across the echoing, long corridors, hitting against the fantiques and plastic fish hung on the damp, mouldy walls.
As the forces that be seek to create visual landmarks that reach for the skies, I see only billboards on the side of the crowded short roads advertising tribute bands tributing has-been bands, washed up legends washing up to these shores to croak out an old tune - and then, there in big bold letters and back by popular demand - the Australian Pink Floyd show - can this be true? A nation of suckers two times over.
Sure give the people what they want, but help get me out of here, I'm in a musical time warp and wherever I turn bad noise gets into my ear. Can it really be that we are only truly interested in dirty hardcore techno and traditional rock? Is this illusion the fault of the authorities wishing to play safe and bring the kind of musicians that will draw the crowds in busloads, so that we may call it a commercial success? What is this culture only as business?
Of course you all cry, why bother to put up an event if you're not going to make loads of money doing it? Art? Culture? Boq!
Yet steeped in this dusty pile of Marillion records, I am grateful for this stubborn stuck in the mud attitude. For poetic reasons I will cite romantic moments in Malta where the sentiments of childhood have returned. It is comforting to see enormous tongue-flicked powerboats with twin engines being driven down the hill to St Thomas Bay - the penchant for speed and noise embodied in this mutant powerbeast that will be driven by my two short, scary-looking men who have come down to the bay to show off their outrageous purchase. Here is the meeting of old and new Malta. A solid old lady looks out from her blue porch unimpressed, the rollers in her hair sit in neat rows under a net, as she staires out and beyond on the chubby children playing ungracefully at the small, sandy beach screaming at each other in what I can only assume is playful jest.
As photographer Amelia Troubridge stated when recently returning there to swim on her wedding morning - it's like Malta in the 1970s. And I think I am never happier than when I am immersed in some "grotty" backward, disorderly place with not a faux parquet floor in sight. Malta simply looks better when she's dusty and rusty and swaying to the sound of boring old rock.
Will old Malta disappear one day? I doubt it for the aspirations of many are to live in a concentrated area and be heavily involved with each other's lives, and so I am comforted by the thought that greed and development will move in one direction only, leaving the simple, the humble and the favela-style chic untouched.
How grotty it is down here, eh - said a smart, well-groomed lady who had come down to Tigné Beach for a game of bridge. I know she is a Reef Club regular, so I assume that would be her benchmark. Grotty? Well, yes it is, thankfully unchanged as all around it falls, drops and is rebuilt, a small enclave of old Malta that still echoes with the familiar mas and tas of Sliema before it turned into Beirut.
But come to think of it, even the Sliema front has assumed a hint of old 1970s charm, and I am sure that in many a seafront bedroom Pink Floyd blares out across the echoing, long corridors, hitting against the fantiques and plastic fish hung on the damp, mouldy walls.