My Music - Chapter 1

My Music is not a Windows folder in my computer, instead is a little story on how music, along the years, created the pseudonym of Patius, the character I use today to write the Patius blog.

I remember one day I was probably 6 or 7 years old, in the town of Leopoldo de Bulhões, I was outside in the porch and the radio was playing, if my memory doesn’t fail me, something from Donna Summers. It was probably one of her disco hit songs, and I was dancing with passion, moving my hips because I could feel the music, but not lifting my arms. These 3 minutes of euphoria were interrupted when I looked around and saw my father enjoying the Patius kid’s version of what would be one day “do you think you can dance”, that was my cue to run and hide from this shameless moment of freedom I had embarked at such a young age.

My parents should have seen what was to come. Hello? Donna Summers and dancing at six years old?

Loved the school dances and tried not to miss any of them, this is where I had the chance to keep moving my hips and to perfection the coordination between the rhythm of the music and the movement of my body. You heard it before, feel the music and let your body follow.

Few years later in the city of Goiânia, I kept my love for the school dances, we are talking the 80’s already, and Disco had left us, and it had been replaced by Michael Jackson, Cyndi Lauper and many others. Rock was also everywhere, Rolling Stones, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Queen, AC/DC, but although I enjoyed those tunes, my tasted gravitated towards the dancing tunes.

Music wise, the 80’s was a great decade to be in Brazil, Brazilian rock literally rocked my world. Already living in Brasilia, actually I lived in Guara, a satellite city, and now I was a teenager singing the tunes of Camisa de Vênus, Barão Vermelho, Kid Abelha, Paralamas do Sucesso, Ultraje a Rigor and many others.


Music was there to be enjoyed, and now I was actually allowed to go to house parties, kept going to the school dances, but then I was also moving on to more serious stuff. Finally arrived the day when my brothers actually took me to different concerts. I remember the first time my brothers drove me to this little bar in the basement of this commercial building in Brasilia. I can only remember the great party we had, and it was all about music and dancing, it felt as if I couldn’t get enough. House parties, karaoke nights, concerts, man had I made it to the big leagues already?

In my last year in Brasilia, there was a new kid from Venezuela at my school. One of the house parties was at his place, and it was the first time I can say I actually enjoyed listening to Latin music, you must remember until then Merengue, Salsa, Cumbia and many other Latin styles were solely my parents music, as a teenager I could never allow myself to enjoy those tunes right? It was my parents music.

Probably this Venezuelan kid has no idea how his party prepared me music wise to my return to El Salvador in the late 80’s.