Natasha Atlas - Gafsa

3Iron Soundtrack

Played an Hour

I began taking drum classes yesterday. It means:

- I'm not going on with my kendo (Japanese sword) and improvisation (theatre) classes.

- I'm not giving up searching for "my passion" or "my thing" despite how ugly these hobbies look in their structured-monetised covers served strictly one hour per week.

- I want to "make" music, and I don't want to die before I make it.

So how did it feel like?

It surely feels gooood to hit the drums with all my power. It really is a basic instinct to hit a surface and get fascinated as it reacts and resonates according to your movements. But unlike some instruments, drum is all about letting your instincts show in an extremely controlled manner. The same pace, the same pattern, the same order for minutes for hours, for ages. You are setting the background of the song, being the backbone of the group, policing around. Not experimenting, that's not your job if you are not Keith Moon. You have to stay within your boundary, stay within the same pattern no matter how emotional the song gets. %100 concentration, %100 dedication...

It's more fun than it sounds though... Very useful if you need some loud self-discipline or syncronization of head, legs and arms. Useful indeed if you want to make army-like sounds and use rhtym instead of a gun.

Dublin's Advocate

A wise man warned me. He told me that I should get the hell out of Dublin and run for my life. My friends agree. It's my fifth time here, so I know what they mean, but I keep coming back. I'll now paint you a dark picture as to why. Don't freak out, because the picture is painted on a stormy day when full moon is high.

Think of this city as an uneasy David Lynch movie, or a film nouveau filled with complex triangular relations. Everything seems to be plasticly right at first sight, but hell is set loose as time passes by. As I said a lot of times, Dublin is simple and gloomy. It's not savage so you don't have any thrilling survival motivations. It's not artistic so you don't spend time for inspired expressions. It's not drowning in stormy politics either to keep you up at night. The stage is filled with temporary actors with no guiding script, no reason to be, and no decorations. It's life in its simplest form. And life in its simplest form brings the core of men out, which is the core reason I always return to this bloody town. I'm amazed by the abundance of food for insanity here. Bizarre Halloween goes on 365 days a year. Don't misunderstand my accusations, I feel deeply connected. I like the calm heartwarming surface as well as the rest of the iceberg where people are on fire as default. Here, emotions are rapidly multiplied, norms are recklessly defied. Every night, River Liffey is filled with beers, a constant lack of consiousness, and eventually, tears. When subconscious takes control, man becomes a Lemming, gets rid of the pain of being a man, and claims his muddy intentions. Sex is too easy to find, so people construct delicious walls of drama and complications for spicing up their fading relations. Newcommers are warmly invited into circles of ego wars and are supplied with wet ammo and cloudy weapons. Besides the green of the city, life comes in the shades of red or grey. You feel as if every minute, you live another day. And just when you feel that you can't take this crash&burn anymore, a total stranger comes to you with sincere concern on his face and tells you everything's going to be OK. With sweet relief, you erase disturbing memories, take shelter in the few lovely people who keep their hands clean of this mess, and wonder why this ending reminds you of the end of Devil's Advocate.