Chris J. Desmet | Musings

  In 2012 Marillion -- an English progrock band -- released the album 'Sounds that can't be made'. The album featured the song 'Gaza', a seventeen minute long description of life in Gaza as seen through the eyes of a child. This was long before the general outrage in the western world on the conflict. Steve Hogarth, Marillion singer and lyricist, could have chosen a militant point of view, as many are prone to today. He didn't. Instead he wrote a story. A story on how a child copes with the such a dire living situation.  As Hogarth explained himself he wrote the lyrics after many conversations with ordinary Palestinians living in the refugee camps of Gaza and the West Bank. He also spoke to Israelis and to N.G.O workers. Commendable, to gather information first and form an opninion after. Still, the song is not militant. It is a poetic account. It's about how a child shouldn't have to grow up like this, living like this, living in a place with a wall aro...

Over the years I’ve gotten to know many musicians in the local alternative scene . They work day jobs, rehearse at night, and play live whenever they can. All of them take their music seriously. None of them chose the easy path — they refused the mainstream, poppy sound. They gather a few thousand streams, sell some CDs and vinyl at a makeshift merch stand . They know mass success won’t come their way. And that’s fine. It probably never was the goal. The local scene runs on passion, not profit. But what if one of them did have what it takes to make it? Really make it. Success, being the fickle thing it is, often depends on right time, right place. Sometimes even on luck: one critic with some clout in the audience, one review picked up by a larger outlet, one celebrity namedropping. Quality and artistic value alone rarely cut it. It makes you wonder how much talent has gone unnoticed — not just among musicians, but across all the arts. Franz Kafka saw almost no success while alive. Vin...