YOU TUBE: Music Even After Death

It was a bit shocking to see my father’s picture pop up as the song downloaded on a You Tube song I came across. Then I found more and more of his music, as well as his band mate (my uncle) and subsequent successful musician. It’s was a bit odd for me, even more so to see other’s comment about how great that song is and what a great band it is (was). In one post I read someone commented that he didn’t know much about this band but wanted to know more and was going to do more research as to where the band members were presently. I couldn’t help and I responded the following:

“Saludos- referente a Los Caracoles de Durango, el acordeonista fue mi padre. Falleció cuando yo tenía 10 años. El Bajo sestero, Juan Antonio Coronado, o Tony Coronado (y tío), trabajó por varios años con Ramón Ayala y los Bravos del Norte, y después formó su propio conjunto llamado Los Sultanes de Nuevo León. Ha compartido el escenario con los grandes, como Kiko Montalvo, Los Donneños, Juan Villareal, Cornelio Reyna (descansa en paz) y muchos más. Recomiendo busquen los nombres dados para que conozcan un poco más de los músicos que fueron los pilares en cual ahora tantos florecen en el género norteño.”

I think it may have been my way of letting this music lover know that he should not waste his time, that at least one of those band members was not ‘doing anything’ anymore, that in fact he was dead, that my father has been dead over 25 years, and that the other member, my tío, was not in music anymore; he’s still a musician, just not in the business.

I started thinking about other musicians and artists who have passed and the “release” of their music. I’m not comparing my father to Elvis or Hendrix or Selena and others that have made more after their death than while alive, but I started to think about what it means to the family to see their loved one cherished by others, have new generations discover their music and connect with it.

Is music, thus, defiant of time?

Is it like art or writing, which last beyond the generations? Yes yes, I know know everything has a shelf life... And yet if it’s “pop”, does the expiration date come quicker? Corridos record stories of love and war and heroism and pain. Is the corrido a painted story for the ear, transformed into a media stream to be uploaded on a “broadcast yourself” service that is free to the world?

Heidegger believed that language was here before us, and that it would be here after us. Is music, intimately tied to poetry (at its origins and now with spoken work, Flor y Canto, Slam poetry events and more), thus able to bend and defy time as well? Maybe I’m stretching that one a bit too much. Maybe not... The music does sound “dated” to me, however. The genre of "musica norteña" was in it's infancy, with Los Tigeres del Norte's "Camelia la Tejana" soon t be a smashing success, and arguably the birth of the narco-corrido. One has to listen gently.

I will say that I’m not sure I was ready to see my father and his music on YouTube, nor am I sure I’m ready to posthumously download my father.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=los+caracoles+de+durango&aq=f