Xmas Choices for the Turntable

Given the fact that Jingle Bells Rock is not what I have in mind when talking about new Xmas classics, this year I called – emailed – Santa a few weeks earlier to ask for my season greetings in vinyl.

So this is what I got to keep me company – and my cat Prozac – while decorating the house with mistletoe:

Phil Spector’s Christmas Album (80′s reissue, Phil Spector Records)

A Very Special Christmas (1st pressing, original Haring’s illustration, 1987 A&M Records Europe)

I strongly recommend these records as an eggnog soundtrack. Although I’ll be releasing my Punk Rock Xmas compilation as usual.

Merry Xmas everybody!

I’m so glad you came here/ It won’t be the same now that I’m with you.

An unusual excitement took over me as I entered the room for one of the few screenings Scorcese’s ‘George Harrison: Living In The Material World’. Shown in Lisbon as part of Heartbeat cycle (DocLisboa Film Festival), it was split into two parts, being the first sold out several days in advance. So yeah, it was quite a thrill to see lines of people forming in front of the doors of the screening room, way before the scheduled time, as if Beatlemania was still an issue in the XXIth century.

But I must say I was quite disappointed: the first part of Scorcese’s documentary is centered in George Harrison’s status as a Beatle, and is nothing but a re-assemblage of footage that had already been used in several documentaries to the date – me being a Beatles’ fan myself couldn’t help but anticipate every sentence of every interview -, and as Harrison was kind of left to the background of what was really happening in London during the Swinging Sixties, it brought little or nothing new to what was already known about him during that season. But it also brought the feeling that Part II would add much value to George’s memory as one of the Beatles that had his solo career more shadowed by Paul’s popism with Wings or John’s experimenting with political acts. So, expecting nothing this time, I was pleased to see a much more intense insight of George Harrison’s life and works, his spirituality, and his relationships with family and friends.

The thing with George Harrison: Living In The Material World is that his personality gets somehow erased during the first part – or it’s simply assumed that he was what he pretended to be, no mask involved -, while the second part of the film unveils a different George, more mature both musically and spiritually and with a very specific goal in his life. As we watch his serenity regarding the loss of some of his closest friends and family (his mother, John Lennon, Roy Orbison…) we can’t help but realize the amazing human being that this small lad from Liverpool had become.

So the film is very good even – or especially – if you’re not a Beatles scholar, for providing you with the necessary material and context before throwing you into Harrison’s mind and work. If one word had to be chosen to serve as assembling for the whole story, I guess it would have to be Love; not Lennon’s revolutionary, tough kind of love, but an insightful and universal feeling that everyone that had the privilege to know Harrison could sense. And you leave the screening room with the intense feeling of having been blessed with it as well.

George Harrison by Richard Avedon

20 years over Nirvana’s Nevermind

The following review was written when the album completed its 15th anniversary. It was published in Portuguese in the Elegy Iberica magazine with a series of other reviews. This is a free translation of the original article of 2006.

 

 

 

 

 

 

15 Years Over Nirvana’s Nevermind

Nevermind is probably the most well-known Nirvana’s album; not only because his cover caused a controversy at the time – I remember being a little girl and wondering why a baby was swimming after a dollar bill – but also because it contains some of the most radio-friendly singles of the band. Actually, also the ones that Cobain liked the least. But anyway.

Recorded back in 1991, it’s a strange stop between Bleach and Incesticide – the latter being a collection of outtakes and B-sides more than a ‘studio album’; Nevermind was the album that threw Nirvana to the front page, to the edge of fame, but also the one that broke through a whole aesthetic of the Grunge movement. The A-side opens with Smells Like Teen Spirit, that became a hymn to a whole generation (Cobain would later confess to be fed up with playing that song), flowing to an In Bloom that sounds like a pre-In Utero - kudos for the videoclip, amazingly directed by Kevin Kerslake. Come As You Are completes this trilogy of fabulous musicvideos, while Breed calls us back to Bleach. Lithium brings the pressure to the Grunge spirit before Polly closes the A-side with a splendid break – maybe a pre-determined point of reflexion?

Territorial Pissings opens the B-side with an excerpt on The Youngbloods’ Get Together, almost as an announcement that the Peace and Love Generation was long lost and forgotten. Drain You continues the headbanging, followed by one of the most beautiful tracks of the album: Lounge Act couldn’t be included in any other Nirvana’s album, and still it seems to escape to the alignment of Nevermind; Novoselic’s bass riffs goes slightly Love Buzz, but the schizophrenic vocals provided by Cobain announce an Unplugged – in which this track was oddly left out, although perfectly able to be included, given its metamorphosical nature. Stay Away is typically Nervermind, and On A Plain has the important role of preparing the listener for the catharsis of Something In The Way. This track passed by a troubled recording period: Cobain and the other musicians couldn’t agree on a precise beat, and Butch Vig asked everybody to leave the studio, leaving Cobain alone to play the song from the top with a guitar only. The silence was deadly, everyone was holding their breath – Butch Vig even unplugged the fan to provide total concentration. Everything else was ‘built from that skeleton’ (Butch Vig).

Nevermind isn’t my favourite Nirvana’s album; however, it was a great influence in my work as a musician, a work of art you can’t allow not to have on your shelf – and like a good book, it requires a careful listening. And like every masterpiece, it deserves to be bought as an original. And in vinyl, of course.

But it’s never too late to begin.

It’s been four years since The Pierces made it big with Thirteen Tales of love and Revenge, which rould eventually save them from extinction after the first albums of the two sisters had been almost unnoticeable by the international media.

After two EPs – Love You More and You’ll Be Mine -, the much expected new long-play has arrived. You & I is a record of maturity, beauty, and much more connected to the hippie roots that forged Catherine and Allison’s childhood than its antecessor. Though Love You More would make us believe in a Tarantinesque ambience, the acoustic versions that kept on leaking through the web showed that The Pierces were going for the gold when it comes to vocal harmonies, putting all the chips on the folk-rock song while leaving behind some of the Big Apple inspiration that had been colouring Thirteen Tales.

You’ll Be Mine was one of the major follow-up singles after Love You More, and was given the privilege of opening the album. Although it is indeed a beautiful song, it doesn’t have the usual strength of the two sisters’ composing, and one could be led to wonder if You & I would keep up to the expectations its predecessor had built. But suddenly the record breaks in the beautiful and folk-rooted It Will Not Be Forgotten. The A-side is undoubtly the strongest of the album, full of successful singles – Love You More, We Are Stars and Glorious – and closing with another Tarantino-like song, a filmic slow adventure called The Good Samaritan.

Kissing You Goodbye and Close My Eyes become a little dull after all the excitement given by the first six songs, but their fabulous arrangements bring us back to Thirteen Tales and prepare us for giant leap of Space + Time and Drag You Down, with their catchy choruses and simple but effective songwriting. The closing of the album is wonderfully done by I Put Your Records On, a much more mature farewell song than Go to Heaven, but nevertheless brilliant as a finale.

It’s nothing if not exciting being able to find a wonderfully concepted album these days; one that flows naturally and which existence enriches undoubtfully your record shelf, leaving you with the certainty that you will always play it from beginning to the end, for it is much bigger than its singles. The girls go retro every way; even when ir comes to doing genius records.

And now the final frame/ Love is a losing game

I’ve always found obituaries one of the most difficult things to write; if you really admired the person, you could never stay away from your emotional side enough to write ir properly, and if the person were indifferent to you – well, what kind of obituary would you write, then?

Amy Winehouse was found dead today in her apartment in London – there, I said it. If only things could be so simple and we could stick to this sentence and pretend nothing happened the obituary would be so much easier to do. But the more you want to say the more you realise that words aren’t enough; at this point, even music isn’t enough, for if it was, it would have kept her alive.

Forget the so-called 27-Club. Forget the drugs, forget the booze. Forget the career marked by bitter moments as many – or even more – as downward-spiral ones. Forget about everything and imagine yourself torn in the inside, with no place to go and feeling like you’re living on borrowed time, that you’ve only come to this world to share your genius and, done that, life doesn’t make any sense anymore.

Picture yourself relating to Amy, being in her shoes for a while. You’d be filled with an immense sadness concealed by any addictions possible, facing the rising demands of people that make money through your voice and that will steal little pieces from you any time they can. And you will pretend it doesn’t hurt.

And eventually you’re numb – it really doesn’t matter anymore. So you don’t give up on life; life gives up on you, and as you feel it leaving your body you meet again the peace you thought was lost forever.

Le temps passe (mais pas avec toi)

After the big boom of French rockers and ye-ye girls and bubblegum Pop of the 1960s,  pop music made in France seemed to be doomed to bad mainstream Eurodance and hip-hop,  and Punk-Hardcore for the underground lads.

It wasn’t until the mid-noughties that a fresh new wave bubbled under the 37 Paris bridges, heavily announced by the Rock&Folk magazine as ‘le renouveau du rock’, creating what was later called the ‘nouvelle scène rock française’.

Of course that a lot has changed since the EMI golden years in France; there were no more Chats Sauvages, no Françoise Hardys, and definitely no Gainsbourgs to write more-than-fabulous songs about lollipops; besides that, and as weird as it may seem when we’re talking about the host-city of mai ’68, the new French Rock Revolution didn’t come from the working class, nor did it have any revolted young boys and girls singing about the social and political situation of their country. Bands like Plastiscines, Les Shades or The Parisians, with early visibility given by a compilation called ‘Paris Calling’, had members that came from the rich Paris’  arrondissements – like the 16ème -, which motivated some of the critics to call them ‘spoiled rich children with expensive instruments’. The tender age that most of these so-called ‘children’ had at the time provided a new nickname for them – they were often called ‘bébé-rockeurs’ by the national press.

Like every major or minor music movement, the survival of determined genre heavily depends on its innovative sense – even if it was simply recycled in the right time – and, of course, its quality; since 2006 and the birth of ‘Paris Calling’, some of the bands kept up with their work, but some faded fast with the fad. Both BB Brunes and Plastiscines released albums – and provided follow-ups -, as well as The Parisians and Les Shades, but by 2010 many of these new bands had splitted-up or were simply swallowed by the music industry that no longer left them room for a relevant visibility.

As we enter a new decade, Plastiscines are working on a third album without the bassist Louise Basilien and BB Brunes have participated in a tribute to Alain Bashung, while an EP fully in English was being released; but will they be able to find a comfortable place in an almost exclusive English market, or will they fade like smoke into the sweet life of Paris’ upper class? Les jeux sont faits; ladies and gentlemen, place your bets.

Plastiscines’ Pas Avec Toi (About Love, 2009)

I’ll put it on the wedding list.

After a while without posting here, one gets the feeling that only a relevant event will lead us to break the blogging silence – well, this event has arrived: the release of Kate Bush’s new album, ‘Director’s Cut’.

It’s been six years since we has news from the lady – the last time we heard about her recording material was in 2005, with ‘Aerial’ – and it seems that ‘Director’s Cut’ will not be a mere remix of ‘The Red Shoes’ and ‘The Sensual World’ tracks, as it had been previously announced. The new album acts as a warm-up for fresh air coming from England’s most famous banshee as Bush announces she’s working on new material and even thinking about returning to the stage, after not performing in public regulary since 1979′s The Tour of Life.

So as we place our pre-orders for ‘Director’s Cut’ and secretly pray for new winds to arise from the north country, we long to hear the announcement that the mother of all female innovative singers of the XXth century is alive and in good health, never ceasing to surprise us in any way.

So long, Maggie.

 

‘What is the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof? – I wish I knew… Just staying on it, I guess, as long as she can.’

Sisterhood is Powerful – 100 years

When I take some time to think about it, I’m no better than the next one to talk about women’s rights. After all, what difference does a day make in a year to celebrate all the women of the world – the living, the dead and the ones that are yet to come.

Still, 24 hours are more than enough to stop and meditate on how far we’ve come; since basic rights like equal education to right to vote, our sisters fought to improve society(ies) equality when it comes to gender. Let us not forget that women aren’t the only winners of the continuous battle – every man of value feels more comfortable in a society where he knows that it wasn’t his sexuality that got him his high-paid job, or his promotion, or his cherished place in politics in order to represent a society that is itself constituted by both men and women.

Yes, the battle is fought in every ground, in every way, every single day. We long to help our sisters from developing countries to get things that we now take for granted, such as a higher education that prevents them to end up in the streets prostituting to pay a husband she was forced to marry with. We fight to break the silent but still existent glass ceiling that prevents women to reach leading positions in fields that were still closed to them a few decades ago.

Men are a precious help in this battle; gender equality is a right that assists both sexes and that makes a society proud when it is lived in its fullness by men and women.

We shall overcome; sisterhood is powerful.

 

Chronicles of a Vinyl Collector – The Lisbon Era

One of the first purchases I made when I moved to Lisbon a couple of months ago was a turntable (slash radio slash cd and mp3 player) for I wasn’t in the mood to bring my whole hi-fi from home.

The first sign arrived when I was looking for an appartment and the one I ended up choosing has shelves especially designed for vinyl records that seemed to have been constructed four ou five decades ago – which, I may add, is a visible sign of a music lover when you are talking about an appartment as small as a studio. Then, slowly, I began to bring some of my records and, obviously, made some new, interesting purchases.

So this entry is a micro-catalogue of what is on those shelves the moment I write about it. I therefore present you about 10% of my collection.

Imagine, John Lennon (1971),

EMI 2000 digitally remastered edition

 

The Velvet Underground and Nico, Velvet Underground (1967),

Verve 2000 yellow vinyl remastered edition (ltd 500 copies)

 

Portishead, Portishead (1997),

1997 Go! Beat edited by Polygram US double LP edition

 

MTV Unplugged in New York, Nirvana (1994),

2008 Geffen Records European release (part of the Back to Black series)

 

Waiting For the Sun, The Doors (1968),

2009 Elektra reissue 180-gram vinyl US edition

 

A Arte Maior de, Elis Regina (1983)

1983 Polygram Discos double vinyl edition

 

Abbey Road, The Beatles (1969),

1995 Capitol Records Yellow Apple US Release

 

 

Transformer, Lou Reed (1972),

Undated Portuguese RCA – Polygram release

 

 

Disque d’Or vol. 1, Edith Piaf (1980)

1980 Portuguese Columbia edition

 

 

Ralph Burns, Cabaret OST (1972),

1977 ABC Records US edition

 

About Love, Plastiscines (2009),

2009 Nylon Records US Edition

 

Back To Black, Amy Winehouse (2007),

2007 Universal Island Records Europe edition

 

Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, Leipzig Philharmonic Orchestra (1982),

1982 Spanish Phillips, brazillian edition

 

Pulp Fiction OST, V.A (1991),

2008 MCA Records Europe (part of the Back to Black series)

 

Big Brother & the Holding Company, Big Brother & the Holding Company (1967),

2008 Sundazed Records US mono edition

 

Falco 3, Falco (1985),

1985 A&M edition, US promotional use only release

 

The Big Black & The Blue, first Aid Kit (2010),

2010 Wichita Recordings Ltd UK edition

 

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts’ Club Band, The Beatles (1967),

1967 UK EMI/Parlophone first edition with cutout insert

 

Serge Gainsbourg ft. Brigitte Bardot, Bonnie and Clyde (1968),

2009 4 Men With Beards US edition 180 gram vinyl

The Singles, Pretenders (1987),

1987 WEA Records European edition (Spain)