Devendra Banhart - Sight to Behold: youtube.com/watch?v=cig2Ep-4udg
I have a strange affection for Devendra Banhart. I used to drive my brothers car around a lot and there wasn't much in there for music but was 2 burned CDs of Devendra Banhart. If I could draw a line of why I think my affection is so strong it would likely go from Nick Drake and through Leonard Cohen. I am a sucker for a classical guitar, for finger picking, for subversive lyrics and the ability to carry a song without any accompaniment. And I find he captures a good deal of masculinity and femininity in his stance, which is refreshing.
I've thought before that perhaps I was born in the wrong time. I find what is considered to be major aspects of current youth culture come from a place where we've been marketed to for so long and for so hard, everyone selling us sex and death, overstimulating our senses, that we've embraced those things and made them our own. And I find it hard to hold onto that. I hate Crystal Castles. But what seemed like the youth culture of the 1960s I can hold onto. Love. Freedom. Immediate experience. The subversive. Expression. Though I know it wouldn't have been all it has been idealized to have been, it still seems appealing. Probably if I had been in my mid twenties at that time I would have felt I'd been born in the wrong time.
And I've only been alive for about 3 years. I grew up shielded by a small town. I went to university in 2 small cities where I holed myself into libraries and book stores and met few common souls. I came alive when I left that all behind and continue to grow and understand and to love the concept of "youth culture," as vacuous a term that might be. For my youth culture was found in a dirty garage where everyone took drugs, listened to rave music and avoided the giant, nervous rottweilers that sat among us. Or drinking in the woods, hiding or running from bored cops. I didn't have much to hold onto there to expand who I saw myself as and becoming.
And am I crazy, or did Devendra Banhart used to spell his name "Devendra Banhardt"? I've looked into this and can't find anything to confirm or deny.
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