August 20, 2016 — On August 20, 2013, whispergirl.net went live with a huge party. That’s three years and running!
I like to mark important times and to thank all the people who matter to me. So thanks to each and all of you for making this place so wonderful. It wouldn’t be here and certainly wouldn’t be still standing without you. Thanks to jhs for building the site three times, at least, and for getting on the screen every crazy idea and vision I have! Thanks too to each of you for letting me be me, for letting me always talk about music, some you like, some you don’t like. Thanks for inspiring me to take chances and to be a better me. Thanks for inspiring my own musical paths.
Here’s the song I do the best, not that it’s likely you’ll hear my version anytime soon — Garbage, I’m Only Happy When it Rains (how appropriate for someone from Southern California)!
And here’s Shirley Manson, the singer of Garbage, still rocking in 2016 and looking really cute for her 50 years (go girlie), and doing the important thing – passing the music on. So I dedicate this post to the future, the future of all of us, the future of music, a future I’ll never give up on.
Rock on, bitches!
XOXO
Whispegirl
Epilogue (8-21-16): I’ve had lots of music on today while cleaning house. I worked really hard, and my house finally is starting to look more house, less storage room. I used music to keep me company, varying everything from Steve Aoki’s set at the Tomorrowland festival (and others that followed) and Garbage’s current tour. Oddly, both seemed to match my mood. Somewhere in the midst of this influence, I thought of a part of a song, but I got a work call and lost the part right after. I suppose I should find my hand tape recorder for those moments if my dead-for-years creativity is going to return.
I know very little about the singer of Garbage, other than she’s Scottish and had a role on the Terminator tv series, so I looked her up. Sparing you the full details of the Wikipedia article, it said a few things I related to. The first — her influences are women. She has favorite male artists, but took her style from females. Her big influence Soixsie and the Banshees, with others thrown in — a little Blonde, a little Pretenders, a little Cher and some really old stuff. The second — she likes and gives support to current female artists. Two on her list, Taylor Momsen of The Pretty Reckless and Lana del Rey. Her personal life — one later-life marriage; no children; a bout of sadness and a lapse in creativity in the same years I had, with the same prompting event — the illness and death of her mother; the desire to do dark music, sometimes too dark for record executives. Reading that bio, I’m really feeling a kindred spirit to her, something I suppose I had without reading the bio just from singing that song for decades, but wow, I see so much the same. As far as influences, I lived for the Sonny and Cher show, belted out the words to those songs on the record I had when I was a kid. Want to hear me sing Half Breed, or how about Gypsies Tramps and Thieves? To this day, I can do every word. And Blondie? Oh my goodness, I wore out that 8-track. Taylor Momsen… Lana del Rey, Shirley Manson has good taste. Oh and with that, I’ll never again apologize that Lana del Rey isn’t rock. No way.
Garbage is playing Hollywood Forever in October. That’s a cemetery that has concerts. Lana del Rey played there. If only I had known. I would have been so happy to see my dark Lana del Rey play in a cemetery. Perhaps a Garbage show would be a good substitute; I wonder?
Again, thanks for letting me be me, for putting up with my own personal influences with a few of everyone else’s thrown in, especially as I learn guitar and such. I didn’t know my little pop-up of I’m Only Happy When it Rains was going to validate all of my crazy music, validate my tastes and influences, but it is always the surprise things that just fall on our doorstep (or in this case Youtube feed) that do that. Thanks Garbage. Thanks Shirley Manson. Thanks y’all, really, really, really thanks y’all. Three years, bitches, three years!