May
May 2025 has certainly been... a thing. I was going to post about a number of these things individually but given the ripple effects that ended up affecting everything, this is just going to be one long mega-post capturing, well, a lot of things.
Manic Street Preachers - Live
The month started off with seeing the Manic Street Preachers live. Manics are probably my favourite band of all time - certainly the one who have had the most impact in my life - and I've not seen them live since 2003, so needless to say I was extremely excited to catch them in person again.
It's easy to be cynical of the Manics live if you're knee-deep into the fandom and are exposed to everything they do in concert without attending one yourself - they are extremely guilty of predictable setlists full of overplayed hits and general favourites, often eschewing the kinds of deep cuts that fans would love to see more often and sometimes even at the expense of the latest album they're promoting. But they are still a fierce force live and such a genuinely engaging presence throughout: explosive, ecstatic and proving time and time again why those songs they wheel out all the time are such majestic creatures which deserve such prominence (apart from "Your Love Alone Is Not Enough" which we just have to deal with for all eternity now, and the baffling addition of "Autumnsong" which no one likes but the band seem to be oblivious of it). The main surprises came from James' acoustic slot partway through, with a wonderful airing of "This Sullen Welsh Heart" and "This Is Yesterday", culminating in a fantastic live rendition of "The Everlasting" where the band joined partway through.
What made this gig also a bit special was that beforehand, I got the chance to meet up with some of the members of the What Is Music podcast Discord community, who have become wonderful online accomplices in music nerdery across the past years. Many of them attended the concert and we met up beforehand, and it was such a joy to just hang out and put faces to names.
I really enjoyed the concert, I had a great time, but the final stretch of it is a complete blur in my memory.
Mum
As mentioned in my previous placeholder post, my mother passed away this month - it actually happened towards the end of the Manics concert and I got the call about 3-4 songs to the end of the set.
I'm still processing the whole matter and I'm still in some stage of denial - my brain simply doesn't want to accept it as reality. My mother had a difficult start of the year following my dad's passing in December 2024, but in the past month she was already starting to become her old self - less worried about life without my dad, excited about the future and making plans. Her passing away was completely sudden and unexpected, though in hindsight there may have been signs as we've been talking, but many of these would've been covered by the stress and symptoms of the mourning period for my dad.
Her funeral day was beautiful. Most of the extended family and friends both recent and from literal decades ago came to see her off; the priest's speech at the church was beautiful and poignant and you could hear that even she was struggling to stifle tears as she reflected on my mother's life and importance based on what we had been telling her in the days before. After the funeral we held her wake in our home garden, which had been the hub for many family celebrations through our entire lives and which my mother had seen as a point of pride to execute flawlessly, and I think she would've been proud of the job we did without her. Her garden was her gem and on the morning of the funeral I took some time to bundle branches and flowers from many of the plants and trees there into a bouquet which we laid into the coffin with her. Many of the anecdotes, off-hand comments and stories spoken out by people throughout the day really highlighted the importance my mother had had in everyone's lives, whether professionally (she was a school nurse and the driver of the car her coffin was placed in mentioned that just as she had taken care of all of her students, he will ensure her final drive will be done with as much care, and it sounded like it came from the heart), as a friend or as a family member.
I can honestly say that I am so proud of my mother and the life that she had, and the lessons she taught myself and my sisters along the way. She was a true legend, and she's left behind a hole that will never be filled. But I will take her example and do my best to live my life the way she did, and begin to honour certain ideas she held because after her passing, it's become clear just how important those matters are once you are gone.
A musical interlude
When my dad passed away, the questions about what we do with all the stuff that he had gathered throughout his life and stored in our family home began to appear in everyone's heads. At that point I already started to take away some of his music collection with me; I'd been doing it for years anyway (upon his insistence) but in very meager amounts with only items that genuinely ticked my musical boxes. After his passing, it became a matter of linking deeper with my dad's rich musical history and trying to hear the music he listened to through his years. Now, with my mother gone, this effort has taken on an even deeper meaning: listening to the music they listened to both in their memory, and in appreciation of my own cultural roots (something which had began with my project to go through the Finnish #1s).
This means listening to a lot of schlager and adult contemporary, and learning to appreciate what these songs that as a kid I dismissed as old people music now mean when viewed through a wholly different context, and with a more matured mindset. My dad loved buying mid-price and budget compilations of old classics (you won't believe how many "golden hits of the 60s" type compilations his CD, vinyl and cassette collections have), and these are now proving to be a valuable treasure chest as means to reconnect with songs I've heard through all my life in radios, singalongs and TV performances, but this time listening with intent.
I suspect I'll eventually have to find a home to most things in my folks' music collection, but in the aftermath of everything that's happened I decided to grab the following entries from the shelf for now, as I continue to process the last five months' events through Finnish soft rock and adult contemporary.
- Kirka - Legendat. Kirka Babitzin was one of Finland's most popular adult contemporary singers and one of my mother's favourites; one of his songs was played by the organ player in her funeral as we carried her coffin to the car. So grabbing this budget compilation, which my dad had snagged for a measly €3 price tag, felt obvious. There are so many evergreens in these 12 tracks alone.
- V/A - 40 Suomihittiä. "40 Finnhits". A 2CD compilation from 2001 released in honour of 100 years of Finnish recording industry, featuring a veritable cavalcade of huge evergreens (and a few questionable choices) from the 1960s to the then-present day. In summary, if you want a crash course of airplay mainstays of Finnish schlager radio this does a brilliant job of it, and that's why this called to me. Again, so many of these are songs I've heard all my life and now they sound different. Aside from the music, I love the price tag which includes the figure in both EUR as well as Finnish marks, a brief symbol of the period when the shift from one currency to another take place. Don't think I'll be peeling off this one.
- V/A - Tilkkutäkki: Kitara, tähdet ja taivas. This was an interesting thing to bump into in the collection. It's a 2005 various artists release of contemporary musicians covering songs associated with rippikoulu ("confirmation school", I think?), a Christian coming-of-age event you'd undertake during the summer around when you turn 16, concluding in a week-long summer camp where many of these songs would be played. Finland is a very habitually Christian country and when I grew up, most kids undertook rippikoulu even if they weren't from Christian families because it was just the thing you did - with the added benefit that your family would typically throw a grand celebration for you once it had concluded and then you'd get a whole bunch of gifts and money from your family (my mother, of course, held the celebration in our garden). I suspect it's because of this cultural link that my dad bought this, rather than because he really wanted to hear gospel songs performed by trendy hitmakers. And that's basically why I've "inherited" this too.
- V/A - Suomen Euroviisut 1961-2005 / Käännetyt viisuhelmet. A set of compilations released in 2005, one of which I definitely bought for my mother as a Christmas present. The first one is a collection of all of Finland's Eurovision entries from the time range specified (a little ironically ending just before Finland won the contest for the first time in 2006), the second one is a selection of covers of other countries' Eurovision entries, which were subsequently translated into Finnish and covered by domestic stars following their success. These are a nice thing to have partly because of the historic curio value, but also the first collection was the last thing my mum and I listened together when I last visited her: we went through the compilation while completing a tricky puzzle together, enjoying and cringing at the songs in equal measures. The CD was still in the CD player when I came home this month.
- V/A - Kaikkien aikojen The Beatles suomennokset. A 3CD compilation of translated covers of The Beatles' songs through the decades. I've been listening to The Beatles in months since dad's passing after taking hold of his Beatle stereo box set the last time I visited home, and this will be part of that "project" - an epilogue of sorts, if you will.
Confuzzled 2025
Oh and I also went to a furry convention in the middle of all this.
The timing of Confuzzled 2025 couldn't have been worse: not only because I wasn't in much of a party mood because of the tragic events around me, but also because I'd managed to hurt my leg right before the con which meant that I could barely walk in some days. Meaning, I was neither mentally nor physically able to enjoy the convention to the fullest, especially given the importance fursuiting has for me in conventions and Flint being such a bouncy character to perform that slowly walking around as him felt like a mockery of his very self. I didn't even bother bringing Berninger to the convention partly for that reason, because merely getting into the giant roo would've been a nightmare with my leg, much less trying to move the several kg of padding around a busy hotel environment. But, given we had spent the money on it, we thought we'd try and make the most of it - to try and give ourselves a moment of levity amongst all the sadness and confusion.
And, well, I don't really know how it all went. I had some good times hanging out with friends and meeting a few new people in person for the first time; I could also really feel the love and care of some of my friends given they were aware of what had been going on, and even the little words of comfort were really appreciated. I can't say I really enjoyed the con to the fullest given I barely fursuited, didn't really partake in any of the events or other extracurricular activities, and didn't venture much outside the hotel (again, given the leg). I guess I did enjoy going but I think that when I look back on this convention in years to come, it'll all be a massive blur and it'll be an event that happened, rather than one I experienced. It's also why I don't have to much say about this year's convention, I sort of just sleep-walked through it.
But I did grab a wonderful new cardigan from the dealer's den and some great little pins and stickers, so hooray for supporting community artisans at least.
Thank you to everyone who put up with me being a moody little party-pooper at some times - your company and words throughout the convention were very meaningful and I appreciated every time that I was able to unwind and have a genuine smile and laugh in your presence.
So what now?
Well, life has to go on I guess. I'm due to get back to work this week and that's going to be an ordeal. Anthrocon's in a month and hopefully by that point my leg is better and my spirits more in line with a furcon experience. Got some gigs lined up in the coming months, games to play, some blog entries to do on a few games and general music events. May has been a mess of a birthday month (oh yes, that happened too) in 2025 but somehow I survived. I still feel very overwhelmed by everything but right now I'm just taking things day by day and trying to build on the promises I've made to myself recently. I'm also incredibly lucky to have such a sturdy corner of a partner to lean against during this period, who has been nothing less than a miracle with the patience of a saint as they've supported me throughout these incredibly difficult period.
Fingers crossed, the next blog posts won't be as... hefty.