by Sima Kalmens

The crowd parted rather quickly, loud enough for me not to discern between screams of awe and laughter. I saw a shaggy-haired demon heading towards me, staring venemously with tiny, rubber, black dots–eyes. I panicked and turned rapidly to follow my friends, but the demon had found his target. He grabbed my arm and lightly hit me with a stick. The crowd was amused but quickly closed in again. The demon disappeared, the sound of his stick hitting the sidewalk the only marker of his presence.

No, the Alpine yuletide does not involve public humiliation. I had walked right into the middle of an old pagan tradition: men dressing up as demons and running around with sticks, hitting people. Welcome to Christmastime in Salzburg, Austria, a tiny valley town alive with history and beauty, surrounded by the Alps, and at this time of the year, decked out in Christmas markets, which warm the December chill, and weird traditions.

So I was lucky enough to be properly initiated into Salzburg, but despite the title of this post, that wasn’t all I did. The highlight of my weekend in Salzburg was the Sound of Music tour, a four-hour endeavor that took me to all the classic film’s principle locations: the lake, the houses used as the front and back of the Von Trapp residence, the gazebo, and St. Michael’s church–from the wedding scene–which is located in the small town of Mondsee just outside of Salzburg. It was amazing, as well as mildly surreal, seeing all the places that had existed only on my television for thirteen years. However, my favorite part of the tour was seeing the Austrian countryside through the windows of the tour bus as it rolled down the autobahn. I saw rolling green fields, the towering Alps, glistening lakes, and small houses dotting the uneven terrain. I had the opportunity to get off the bus and take pictures of the town of St. Gilgen–and Wolfgangsee, the lake–and Mondsee, which is one of those charming Alpine towns that only seem to exist on postcards.

Salzburg itself is a charming Alpine town, the likes of which also appear on postcards: old European buildings, churches, orange-lit Christmas markets selling traditional glühwein (hot spiced wine) and stollen (Christmas bread), and the ambiance of local authenticity. Despite modern times, Germanic tradition seems to be deeply rooted in Salzburg. St. Nicholas walks around, distributing peanuts and candy to children, the demons float through the crowds with their sticks, carolers sing on the steps of the Dom Cathedral, and vendors at the market dole out–for money, of course–every handcrafted good imaginable. The Christmas spirit is alive and well, and despite the evening chill, I’m happy to be there among the demons.

by Peter Moore

Number Seven – Jeff Buckley: Hallelujah

Over some of the most memorable performances, singles and albums, hangs a faint air of tragedy. If art is about exploring boundaries, then we are most fascinated by those who stray closest to the edge. Listening to recordings Jimi Hendrix in 1970, Kurt Cobain in 1994, John Lennon in 1980 or Elliott Smith in 2003, you are accompanied by an ethereal sense of fatalism that no producer alive could ever reproduce.

Jeff Buckley was another that was destined to never grow old. It wasn’t drugs, depression, alcohol or crazed fans that did for him, but the sinisterly titled Wolf River in Tennessee. Son of folk singer songwriter Tim Buckley (who himself died of a heroin overdose at 28), hereditary expectations of success greeted the release of his first album, Grace, in 1994.

Upon the cover of Grace, Buckley was pictured as a young Elvis, clutching a classic microphone confidently in his left hand: his eyes closed and his head tilted downwards. It sets the tone for a record, which, mixed up with notions of iconography and socio-religious imagery, is well worthy of a PhD thesis in itself. Of its more easily digestible components, however, we have a cover of the Leonard Cohen song Hallelujah.

Whilst most of the Western world appears to have given up on Sunday as a day of rest, if not religious observance, I thought it would be a good idea to nominate Buckley as today’s Vibe Box entry. Young, talented and having made an auspicious beginning to his career, the listener can’t deny the poignancy of Hallelujah, which sounds a little like a solemn prayer from an artist edging ever closer towards his impending fate.

by Peter Moore

The countdown to Christmas

If this isn’t the zenith of self-indulgence, then god knows what is. In the next twenty five days, as we approach Christmas Day, I am going to be posting a different song each day on this blog. It is, if you like, a bit of an extended version of the familiar Vibe Box that you can find in various editions of EV Magazine – the twist here being that it is all online, accessible, digitalised, interactive, and all those other impressive business-like adjectives that you can associate with the web.

Blogging, so I have learnt, is supposed to be personal, with the writer throwing into the mix a few details about him or herself, and how many glasses of orange juice that they have drunk that day.

So here goes. My name is Peter Moore. I’m English and I’m 25. If my memory serves me correctly (and occasionally it doesn’t), I’ve been writing for EV Magazine since issue two, and in that time I have written articles about music, films, books, culture and sport and travel. I had a spell as editor of this magazine, and if you want an odd fact about me, then I’ll confess to being allergic to octopus.

All these songs that are going to emerge over the next couple of weeks are ones that I love, for one reason or another. I’ll try and accompany each post with a little vignette, or explanation. Don’t expect them in any way to reflect the kind of Christmas music that you hear in Starbucks, El Corte Ingles or Vips. And Bing Crosby will certainly not be making an appearance.

I won’t apologise if you don’t like this music; because if you don’t, then you are, as Stephen Fry once accused people who didn’t enjoy reading PG Wodehouse, ‘fit only for treasons, stratagems and spoils.’

Right, I’ll get on with it.