Soccer mania is sweeping the world, and today my country (Uruguay) managed to beat the team playing host (that’s South Africa, in case soccer is not your thing) 3 – 0. Time for a quick musical revision of the event so far.
First of all, this is the Black Eyed Peas performing at the opening of the tournament.
Shakira and Juanes did also perform that night, and they were very well-received too.
A Fellow Playing His Vuvuzela? Good Fun. 80,000 Fellows Playing Their Vuvuzelas? The Cue For The Four Horsemen To Come Charging.
Moving on, this is the “Vuvuzela Sucks Song”. A must-see for people who ardently believe the charming African instrument is robbing the game of its essential atmosphere. And I guess fans of Star Wars will also grow to love it.
Finally (and in case you haven’t seen it yet) this is the official video for the World Cup anthem by K’naan.
It’s quite good, but it doesn’t hold a candle to this one. Ah, the early ’90s…
Laiojan Sebastian Were Andrés Pardo Di Nardo, Alejandro Reyes, Andrés Puppo & Ismael Pardo Di Nardo
Laiojan Sebastian was the band that made me decide to cover Uruguayan unsigned artists on MusicKO. I learned of their existence in late 2009. I had recently became acquainted with Ismael Pardo Di Nardo, the drummer and percussionist of the band. His older brother Andrés was the lead singer and sole composer of the songs the band (a very representative exponent of River Plate rock) was to record for a self-titled debut that was sadly never to be released. I recall the impression that the CD caused on me when Ismael played the first song (“Despierta”) [Wake Up] over his speakers – it was a truly alive piece of music. It felt as if the message of the lyrics had been deprived of its mobility by the indifference that befell the whole album, but its ability to move others remained unscathed. I wouldn’t say that I become an awakened one that day. But I felt less dormant for certain.
Of course, that the disc hit me so hard when I first listened to it was no coincidence – not when I learned that the bass player and the lead guitarist were Andrés Puppo and Alejandro Reyes, two professional musicians that had been part of the local scene for some time now.
Another thing that caught my immediate fancy was the cover art. Andrés had designed it, and a well-known Argentinean comic artist put his thumb into motion to bring the nominal character to life. The manga influence was palpable by a mile, and the Iojan Sebastian that we can see pictured there seemed the closest to a living paradox to me, with a mien that expressed as many emotions as the ones it counter-expressed. I could imagine him saying “It is all in vain. Nothing means anything except everything. And you can get everything in life except nothing. But” – he would continue with a grin – “there is always a way to get anything.”
And if “Despierta” was a song that told of latent possibilities, the remaining songs were to deal with their realization. One of the clearest examples was to be “Jhonny Balón”, a fairy story about a child soccer prodigy that dies during a match only to resurrect and score at the last minute as his team reaches the final many years later. The song offers up a raving mixture of funky passages with murga drumming (conveying the tragedy of the protagonist’s death) and in the last section (the match) Andrés emulates a commentator over real ambience noise. Continue reading →
“One For The Road” Was Released In 1980. It Depicted The Kinks As True Stadium Warriors.
To many, this live album is the one that incarnates The Kinks’ glory days during the late ‘70s/early ‘80s. It acted as a sort of story book in which the band – a true pioneer of “loud” genres such as punk and (up to a point) metal showed how they had helped define those genres, and how it was capable of blending in with current movements without really losing its touch, and without Ray Davies’ legendary eye becoming blurred at all. Thus, we have a version of “You Really Got Me” that is done in the vein of Van Halen, and a rendering of “Lola” that has a disco-inflected ending.
The contemporary album “Low Budget” is the one better-represented here. Many songs are extended both instrumentally and lyrically (the title track is one of the clearest examples, and “Wish I Could Fly Like Superman” is done as a straight up rock song – it loses the disco edge). “Pressure” is the one exception, with the song being abridged (and it was a short song to begin with). Just when you are becoming drawn to it, it finishes – but rather explosively, I must say. And “National Health” was one of the most played songs from the album here in Uruguay and in Argentina.
I don’t have to tell you that the remaining of the disc is made up of a smattering of old tunes. Hey, we are talking about Ray Davies here. He takes his nostalgia seriously. The band performs “Stop Your Sobbing”, “Where Have The Good Times Gone”, the ultra-popular “All Day And All Of The Night” and even “Till The End Of The Day”. That particular song receives a bizarre reggae treatment that is as disconcerting on subsequent listens as the first time around. And they also do “Victoria”, but the CD version is (sorrowfully) abridged.
The same happens with “Celluloid Heroes” and “Misfits”, but speaking of the latter I prefer this version to its studio counterpart – even if it misses a key section, the sound is less furnished on the whole and it truly reflects the sincerity that lies at the nucleus of the song.
I must tell you that the CD edition of the concert originally omitted one of the best tracks found on the two-LP album, “20th Century Man”. That was thankfully set to right in the Konk/Velvel reissue. Continue reading →
Forget about “America’s Got Talent”, the Internet is where the chances of being discovered lie for any young performer (Greyson Chance) or for those who did never get the exposure in their day (Steve Moore). There is something incredibly idyllic about it all- it is the knowledge that if you are good, you are making it. The Internet obliterates the loathsome meet-and-greet tradition that places all the emphasis on who you know, and not on what you can do. And new performers know it by now.
I think that is the reason why there are lots of social sites for indie musicians available. Well, this is a new one – and it is quite comprehensive if you ask me. Bands can create their own profile pages, upload their songs, stream their videos and create a calendar that highlights upcoming gigs. They interact both with fellow musicians and with members of the public while doing it all. And they also do get a chance to interact with industry professionals. That is a possibility that is not offered in that many networks for indie musicians as far as I can tell. Continue reading →
Facebook privacy this, Facebook privacy that… it looks like the whole world can’t find anything else to talk about. And while the topic at hand is a legit cause of concern, it seems not enough people are worried enough to change their ways and turn their backs on the site that experts claim will revolutionize the Internet like Google did in the ‘90s when it introduced AdSense.
Well, that is the impression I am left with after seeing the results of the official “Quit Facebook Day” that took just place on the 31st of May. Can you guess how many people quitted Facebook from the 400,000,000 users that the network has? A staggering 20,000. Hey, no, wait, that’s not it – 20,000 folks pledged to quit. The actual number of people who jumped ship must have been much lower. The word “flop” doesn’t get much more suitable than this.
So, did something good come out of the official “Quit Facebook Day”? Well, this music video is the closest thing I managed to find. It is a parody rap anthem by SeanieMic, and it is named… “I’m Quitting You Facebook”.
Pretty cool. If you liked it, give this previous post a try – it includes a metal hair anthem by Back Of The Class called “My Mom’s On Facebook”. Lots of fun too.
Retrocedonia Are Pablo Sassi, Sergio Astengo, Ana Garland & Alejandro Tuala
A band that got me quite intrigued, Retrocedonia is more pop than rock, but it can rock far more than your conventional poppy outfit. More than anything, it is a band whose sound melds old and new Uruguayan traditions in a very idiosyncratic way – they clearly know what has come and gone before and they make sure indicators are dropped all over the place, but not in a way that would devaluate what they are actually doing.
That is something tricky to pull off – to many younger listeners, the musical history of the country is often anything but cool or hip. They won’t necessarily listen to someone who plays an accordion and sings about the Mama Vieja (one of the most representative protagonists of Uruguayan Candombe) as this band does. Continue reading →
"Leather Jackets" Was Issued In 1986, And It Is Regarded As One Of Elton John's Biggest Failures. It Was The First Album Since "Tumbleweed Connection" To Yield No Top 40 Singles.
It is generally accepted that the ’80s were spotty years for the vast majority of artists that had careers which had commenced in the previous decade (or decades). The other day I was talking with a fan of Bowie that made some of the most venomous comments I had ever heard in my life about anybody regarding Ziggy Stardust and his output during that decade. And from an entirely objective viewpoint, I can’t speak much better about my favorite bands – The Who released only two albums back then, and they are traditionally considered artistic dead ends in themselves. Although I am fond of “Face Dances” (and quite fond of it at that), if you were to look at it objectively the disc is just an intermittent reminder of what used to be, whereas “It’s Hard” is inexcusable. For its part, even XTC (a band that is characterized for not stepping out of line) missed the boat with the release of “The Big Express”. And there is Elton John.
The decade had started on the wrong foot with the release of the “Victim Of Love” album, and it was to be a bumpy ride from that point until he (sort of) reinvented himself in the ’90s as an adult entertainer. Some of his worst-selling albums ever came during the ’80s, and while some of these discs weren’t really that bad (The Fox), some deserved all the stick they got. And this is one of these.
“Leather Jackets” is the kind of album that can only be listened to with one finger on the fast-forward button. It produced no hit singles at a time in which Elton was known for churning them out quite easily, and Elton was later to disown the album completely. The album was also the last Gus Dudgeon would helm for Elton – he was given a second chance after “Ice On Fire”. Sadly, the soft rock approach he applied just buried the bits that could have been interesting (like Davey Johnstone’s guitar), driving another definitive nail in the coffin and ending a truly memorable partnership in an unnecessarily low note. Continue reading →
There is no end to the number of ways in which you can sell and market music online. If anything, these services become more and more direct as time goes by. A case in point: the Buy Widget website.
In general words, Buy Widget is a generator of playlists that you can place in your blog or website in order to sell music. These playlists take the shape of widgets – hence, the name of the service. If you want to sell something else, you will have to browse. But if you want to sell your own tracks this will do the honors.
You can upload entire albums and then have people buy them right away. The widget is also somehow configurable, and you can tweak with more aspects than one – you get a chance to modify the logo that is displayed and so on.
Of course, a system for direct monetization is always preferable to other revenue models that adhere to a “one size fits all” ethos. Buy Widget simplifies the way in which your own music can be sold so notably that just any person can get down to it. All he needs is having a website or blog. If he does, he will be able to get this system working for sure – WordPress, Blogger and TypedPad blogs are fully supported. So is HTML, of course. Continue reading →
The Traveling Wilburys: Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison & George Harrison
I have been asked a couple of times already who sings exactly what on the two volumes that The Traveling Wilburys were to issue during their stint together. Some (younger) people just aren’t accustomed to the singers’ voices on their own, and that is aggravated by the fact Petty sounds just like Dylan more than sporadically (“End Of The Line”, “7 Deadly Sins”). That is the reason why I decided to put this list together.
Handle With Care – Harrison
Dirty World – Dylan
Rattled – Lynne
Last Night – Petty
Not Alone Anymore – Orbison
Congratulations – Dylan
Heading for the Light – Harrison
Margarita – Dylan
Tweeter and the Monkey Man- Dylan
End of the Line- Petty (with Harrison, Lynne and Orbison singing a verse or two each) Continue reading →
Richard Thompson Issued "Mirror Blue" In 1994, More Than Two Years After The Critically-acclaimed "Rumour And Sigh" Album Was Released. It Was Produced By Mitchell Froom Again.
It remains something of a mystery why Richard Thompson did not capitalize on the success of “Rumour And Sigh” and took more than two years to deliver his next album. Well, it is a mystery only if you are not familiar with the man himself, that is. Thompson did never care about making “commercial” albums, and he has never player by the rules of the industry either. His music is something that is created in a context where expressions like “hit single” or “chart success” are either redefined or absolutely discarded. And there is no clearer example of that than the album he was to finally release long after “Rumour And Sigh” had run its course.
The album was to be titled “Mirror Blue” (after a poem by Lord Tennyson which is quoted on the booklet), and it would be the penultimate album that Mitchell Froom was to produce for Thompson. Many would point his fingers at the finished album, and cite Froom’s production as the reason it could not dent the charts. But today we know that Richard was the main instigator for the somehow disconcerting drum sound that was employed in the end. If anything, it seems as if Thompson was doing all he could to decommercialize the album, as if the successes attained by “Rumour And Sigh” were a cause of concern. More than anything, one is left feeling that Thompson came up with a disc to please his long time fans after having created one that pleased casual listeners, as if all he wanted to do was prove he could have mainstream success if he wanted to.
The themes he broaches are true to his best compositions – people who feel too much in too limited ways like the character from “For The Sake Of Mary” (and whose narrowness ultimately seals his fate) and delinquents like Shane and Dixie (two non-hopers who might as well have been called Sid and Nancy) are some of the protagonists you get to know during the disc’s duration. You feel you have met them before in different guises if you have been a listener of Thompson’s albums for a while, but there are topics which are infinite in themselves. Leaving aside the inherent nefarious thrill of such stories, I believe that tales about wrongdoing are always alluring if only because we believe deep down inside that by being exposed to other people’s faults me might be eventually able to address our own shortcomings. That might explain the popularity of songs like “1952 Vincent Black Lighting” from the previous album, and the heart-rending “Beeswing” from this one. “Beeswing” is a delicate Celtic ballad in which the fierceness of young love is demolished against the ineluctability of maturing. The final verse is bestial in its desolation. The listeners who have been there themselves will sink low for sure, and younger listeners will have one of the harder-hitting reality checks of their lives. Continue reading →
