Goa. My memories of Goa were from a track that the Prodigy put out as a B side in 1994. I never even heard of the place until then. Blur and Oasis were kicking the shit out of each other in the pop charts and on the ‘techno’ side of things there were a handful of artists which spanned anything electronic as a term which included the Orb, Orbital and Future Sound of London, and more, which were anything but techno in the real sense of what Techno actually is today. Anyway Im sure theres someone out there to disagree with me, and thats alright discourse ist gut? Music always has contentious aggravators.
But back to Goa, I knew there was a contingent who were going there to party soak up the sun and as much “e” as possible and a few big DJs would go there and make a presence and then go back to Ibiza which was the party capital of Europe. It was two hundred and twenty five quid to jump on a plane to Ibiza for a week of sunburn, drinking and getting lucky with someone after the bar closed at never o’clock. A right of passage for a great many twenty somethings, getting away from the parents for the potential of a hot fuck and lots of partying.
Goa on the other hand was a more exotic location farther away and cost more to go to. it seems now that the place has a well established and well beaten track though its not as burned out as many other right of passage places primarily because Indians themselves are slow to move into the 21st century and that is a blessing and in return; the interest in coming here is less and so it remains a beaten path and not a highway. Despite it being a destination since the beatniks in the 1960s.
Sadly I have to say that my ten days here have been pretty uninspiring. It seems that the beaten path comes with some baggage in the form of a strong sense of peter pan syndrome (I’m coining that phrase if it hasn’t already been coined). Peter Pan Syndrome: in the sense that, may white people come to Goa to avoid growing up. Every day is a recovery from the night before, and every night is seeking out the next party and who’s going. Subsequently you get 45+ year old post burnouts who are so far from reality in any sense of the word, burned out over drugged, over boozed and over smoked people Its like the Break glass for Emergency Exit was broken but the Exit was never made. A lot of Yoga folks come to south Goa to get some peace from their ‘peace’ going specifically south for short terms but never leave, or go to expensive exclusive reports to avail of a genuine blast from the 1960s. I met some German people who all had children and had accrued them whilst on the road. People that who have been here for more than a year, here come here to get away from something and end up becoming assistants to yoga teachers in leu of enlightenment.
There are also Indian people who come here to work- migrant workers, a lot of them from up north Kashmir, Himalaya, Delhi, Punjab, Calcutta, Bangladesh etc to work as cook’s in teh scattered bamboo bars and leaf huts with mosquito repellent candles and broken plastic chairs.
Then there are the old guys Who left when the going was good as Hippies or renegades and they never left like they transcended from one level to another and never left. There are plenty of those in America also, but they arent like these guys who are typically intellectuals with self educated professorships in everything. They are in some cases stoners but not all, because there are people who left America to contentiously object to some policy, or had minor felonies, for crimes now deemed legal like possession of Marajuana.
i love the tropics, its a fascination I got from my time in Australia.. Living and working in cities forces you to look closely at the things in your immediacy because cities are fast moving and theres a lot going on. Existing in the jungle forces you to expand and see the world around you at a distance but with intimacy. Theres less to catch the eye with specificity but more to capture the spirit and magic. I think this is why I like to make field recordings because its photography for the ear, capturing a more esoteric and expansive reality with the intimacy that playback is.
I have more to say about Goa but for now lets move on.
In my 20s I decided that I was going to try my level best not to own a car before I was 40. and so I never owned a car before I was 40. And so learned to ride a scooter in Goa and for the liberation of the natives to my righteous new message which my people are working on as we speak. Perhaps Ill have to get into the rat-race of car ownership if I ever get back to city life. I hate the reality of it but love the concept and the independence. One thing I realize having come away from America is that I actually really love it there, and that I want to soak up as much of at as I possibly can. Its a fascinating country with a lot going on under the covers.