Master
In order to support my attempt to release albums regularly with Black Sea Storm, I decided to put out a remastered version of Boşalan Dünyam. The actual album was first released in 2011. The songs constituting the album were the last songs I had recorded while still living in San Diego, California. The release occurred when I returned to Europe. At that time, I had no home-studio, no much money to invest in mastering. Still, I wanted to keep the Black Sea Storm adventure going, so I released Boşalan Dünyam, 2005, 2006, 2009 albums digitally without mastering them. Until then, I had most of these songs on the Black Sea Storm MySpace page. With the death of MySpace (R.I.P.) and the emergence of Spotify, I thought it would be a good move to release my previous songs digitally in the shape of albums. In 2011 cheap online mastering solutions weren’t widely available as they are today, so I decided to release the records with the final mix versions.
I don’t think I will be mastering 2005, 2006, 2009 albums. The reason for that being that they are my very early recordings, and the songs are in English. Now that I have been pursuing the Black Sea Storm project with Turkish lyrics since 2010, I don’t want to confuse my audience with releases in English. I’ve been marketing Black Sea Storm as Rock in Turkish since 2010, and recently as I started to play live shows, I sell it as Turkish Rock. For that reason, in the remastered series, there will only be the Boşalan Dünyam.
Turkish Rock, so why a band name in English?
Lately, I’ve been asked this question a lot. I am going to try to answer it the best I can. In the Turkish and Spanish speaking markets, my band name has not been serving me very well lately. Since the project name isn’t in Turkish, the Turkish speaking audience doesn’t seem to get the idea right away that it is music in Turkish. Also, some are thinking that I am an American band wannabe. In the Spanish speaking market, most people just can’t pronounce Black Sea Storm. For that reason during my shows I have to say “Mi proyecto se llama Black Sea Storm – La Tormenta del Mat Negro – en inglés”
I started Black Sea Storm as a side project in 2002 and named the project as such in 2004. Back then, I was the bass player and singer of a San Diegan band called Channing Cope. In a way, Black Sea Storm was also an American music project when I first started. During that period, I would have never thought that I would be able to sing in Turkish one day. With my knowledge of music made in the Turkish language at the time, there were two types of lyrics. Ones that had an unreachable poetic level and the others basically being of garbage quality lyrics to my ears. As a lyricist, I thought that I could not do either of them. Therefore for many years, I felt that creating music in Turkish was out of my reach.
In 2010 when I was recording a song called “Onca Onsuz” with Black Sea Storm, I started to lay my lyrics in English as usual, and in the middle of the song, I began to sing in Turkish. It was a fantastic experience, the words would naturally pour out of my mouth. Not only they sounded good to my ears, but most importantly, stylistically, they represented who I was. I wasn’t trying too hard to look like a poet from Sivas, nor I was surfing with the dominant cheesiness of Turkish commercial music. My lyrics in my views did not fall in either of the categories I mentioned earlier. In a way, I had found my voice. Singing in Turkish felt terrific. It felt real. I felt like I was genuinely representing the person I was and not trying to sing in a learned language. Since during that period, Channing Cope was no more, I did not have a reason to sing in English anymore. It has now been almost 10 years that I am solely singing in Turkish.
Continuity and Respect
In 2010 I could have changed the band name and have a band name in Turkish, but I did not want to throw all the Black Sea Storm history into the trash and kept the name to preserve continuity. I could have also renamed the project Black Sea Storm in Turkish, which translates to “Karadeniz Fırtınası.” The latter happens to be the nickname of my adored football team TRABZONSPOR from the Turkish Black Sea Coast. For me, there is only one “Karadeniz Fırtınası” in the entire World. The team has earned the actual nickname during the 70s when opponents playing against TRABZONSPOR would feel like being caught in the Black Sea Storm. The actual storm having the reputation of creating very rough weather conditions. By respect and love I have for my team TRABZONSPOR, I could have not named my project “Karadeniz Fırtınası.”
I will remain as Black Sea Storm, hoping that my listeners will get the idea that I am a Turkish Rock act, and I am not a wannabe American band. The American side of me is legitimate. I have spent 11 and a half years in the U.S. playing in various bands and touring the country several times.
The Second Querétaro Show
The first show I played at El Árbol in Querétaro allowed me to play a second one. I got hired by Mi Tierra Querétaro to perform as Black Sea Storm to celebrate The Day of The Deaths. Mi Tierra is a privately own store of local products. They represent one of the many small structures within El Árbol. We put a lot of effort to try to draw people. Although we did not fully meet our expectations in terms of the draw, we still managed to get more people to the show than my first El Árbol performance. The after-party once again was a lot of fun. My friend Lorena who I had met during the first show, wanted me to teach her some Turkish. We’ve spent a good couple of hours to go over the Turkish basics. I was even taking notes for her to show her the Turkish writing rules visually.
Representing Türkiye
In addition to promoting my music, the best way I can, one of my goals in touring Latin America as a Turkish act, is to encourage curiosity towards my native country. As I have been living for almost three whole years in Latin America, I can tell that Türkiye isn’t very well known. The Turkish T.V. series are a bit changing this, but on many occasions when I talk to people, I can sense that they are mistaken Türkiye with Middle-Eastern and North African countries. I am often asked if I like spicy food, or if I speak Arabic.
One day I was visiting a good friend of mine in Oaxaca at her house, and we were talking about health practices. I suggested to her son to walk barefoot on the grass once in a while to promote wellbeing. My friend commented. Oh yeah, you must know what you are talking about since you come from the same area as Jesus Christ, and you are used to walking on the desert sand barefoot. If she were a total stranger, it would be one thing, but I realized that in knowing her for almost a year, I wasn’t able to give an accurate image of where exactly I am coming from. At that point, I realized that as Turks living in Latin America, we had a long way to go to represent our country and our culture in a way that is aligned with reality.
A Call to Action
I see the orientalist approach towards my native country as a widespread disease in the west. Growing up in Europe as a Turk, I had experienced a similar situation, if not worst. I find the majority of people I meet extremely ignorant about modern Türkiye. And I think as Turks we are to blame for this. I believe, as a nation, we are too caught up in our own national reality that we do not open up sufficiently towards the outside. We should not wait for any support from the government or some sort of national organization to act. I invite all creative people who have the means to produce their art on this side of the Atlantic to come over to the Americas. It does not matter if we lose money or don’t make any money doing what we do over here. I think we should just do it at all cost.
As I am advancing with the Black Sea Storm tour in Mexico, I am witnessing how much people are actually interested in knowing more about where I am originally from. If you are a Turkish creative and you are not completely broke. Instead of going to Kuşadası or Kemer on your next summer vacation, come over to the Americas, and present your work to the people of Latin or North America. I promise you that amazing things will start to happen. If we are enough creative Turks to do it, I am confident that it will have some positive consequences in representing our country’s modern culture and promoting it.
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