In 1974, Lou Reed flew to Sydney to perform two sold out concerts. As part of the trip, Lou was forced to endure a ridiculous press conference where he was cross-examined by a group of Australian news reporters.
The interview is done in a style reminiscent to the Warhol school of deadpan "show-no-emotion" answers. Lou turns the tables on the redneck Australian journalists, and comes off cooler than Marlon Brando in a scene straight out of the "The Wild One."
Reporter: "Could I put it bluntly... parden the question, but are you a transvestite or a homosexual?"
I was fortunate to attend the 4664 Nelson Mandela concert in London's Hyde Park on Friday June 27th.
The low points of the concert included Amy Winehouse, the Sugarbabes and Leona Lewis. And why was Gerri Spice standing beside Nelson Mandela when he made his speach?
The highlight of the show was totally unexpected, and went to the former Sudanese child soldier turned rapper, Emmanuel Jal. He blew the 50,000 strong crowd down, with a lovely introduction by none other than Peter Gabriel, who proclaimed him as “having the potential of a young Bob Marley.”
Jal's Mandela performance was timely, as it dovetailed his forthcoming digital download single, 'Emma' (keep checking iTunes), released from 22nd July.
Featured on the Sudanese rapper's new album ‘Warchild’, ‘Emma’ is dedicated to the British Aid worker Emma McCune, who rescued Emmanuel Jal from a continued existence as a child soldier.
Emma adopted Emmanuel and smuggled him to Kenya to begin a new life, where he could grow up safe and get an education. A few months later Emma died in a car accident.
“I met the next artist about 3 years ago and was enormously impressed with this young man from Sudan,” said Peter Gabriel, as he introduced Emmanuel Jal at the 46664 Nelson Mandela concert.
“His brutal childhood as a 7 year old child soldier taught him to be a mindless killing machine. People expected Mandela to come out of 27 years in jail calling for revenge but he came out calling for forgiveness, compassion and collaboration.”
"This next artist came out of the horror of a brutal war, a brutal childhood with a clear voice calling out against violence, hatred and materialism. He’s gonna have a huge influence in the world way beyond his music."
"He’s still developing and exploring his musical voice, but I think you have the opportunity to see someone with the potential of a young Bob Marley… Please give an enormous welcome to the amazing Emmanuel Jal.”
But this was no ordinary hype. Not even the likes of Queen and Paul Rodgers or Amy Winehouse could compete against the killer combination of Emmanuel Jal and Peter Gabriel. Along with Simple Minds and Eddy Grant, these were the only other artists that truly displayed pure "masterclass" at the Mandela event.
It came to no surprise then when the Daily Telegraph newspaper acknowledged Emmanuel Jal's explosive contribution to the Mandela bash.
"Some of the most memorable moments at the Mandela concert were the least expected. Peter Gabriel popped up to introduce Sudanese rapper and ex-boy soldier Emmanuel Jal, whose vivid and eloquent performance suggested the arrival of a star-in-waiting." - Adam Sweeting, Daily Telegraph
“His story demands to be heard” – Mojo
“Emmanuel Jal was electric (at Mandela).” – London Evening Standard
Emmanuel Jal on tour / Summer 2008: * July 12th - Rising Styles Hiphop festival in Brighton * July 13th - Rise Festival in Finsbury Park, London * Aug 4th - 9th - Afrikadey Festival in Calgary, Canada * Aug 16th - 17th - the V Festival * Aug 22nd - the Greenbelt Festival, Cheltenham, UK
Last year Róisín Murphy released 'Overpowered', her second solo album. Murphy used to be one half of the Sheffield based electronica duo 'Moloko'.
One of the songs from Murphy's new solo album ('Let Me Know') had this wonderfully entertaining video accompanying it with the lady in question returning from a night out to her local chip shop, only to turn it into an imaginary disco (you probably have to be a little drunk).
The results are hilarious, sexy and pure knock out. The track is an elegant dancefloor stomper, while Murphy looks like a stylish Grace Kelly with a retro pillbox hat.
Last week I read a news story in one of the UK newspaper websites where Chris Martin did an interview with BBC Radio 4's 'Front Row' programme, and two minutes into the interview, Chris said something like (and I'm paraphrasing here), "I don't feel comfortable with the questions that you are asking," and walked out.
I sat there and thought to myself, 'Chris Martin guy is not playing the game. How refreshing.'
Along comes the new Coldplay album and everyone anticipates that it's gonna be a load of old cobblers (the American translation: "a pile of crap"). However, not one for name-dropping, but the god-like Brian Eno produced the album (on the liner notes he's also credited for 'Sonic landscapes'), and when you read the credit, you can't help but crack a smile.
Track one, 'Life in Technicolour' starts off all ambient keyboards, then on comes some spagetti western acoustic guitar that's heavily treated. Suddenly you begin to think, 'Wait a minute, isn't this a homage to Simple Minds' See The Lights?'
As the songs unfold, you can feel of a church-like or majestic choir or orchestral atmosphere. The liner notes say the album was recorded in a bakery, a nunnery, a magic shop and a church. It's easy to name-drop other bands like U2, Simple Minds and Pink Floyd, however, this album is more Roger Waters than Bono.
Hold up, I'm now listening to track 5, 'Lovers In Japan/Reign of Love', and it vocally does sound like vintage U2, but the electronic soundscapes are very reminscent of Simple Minds doing session work with Brian Eno. The track has a military ballad vibe to it that is rather beautiful.
This is a lush album, and yet a brave one at that for Coldplay. In the past I've never taken Coldplay seriously, although their last album 'X&Y', did stand out, particularly that Kraftwerk track, 'Talk'.
But back to the new album... Track 6, 'Yes' kicks off with some soothing strings, then wanders into Pink Floyd territory via 'Darkside of the Moon' and 'Wish You Were Here'. I swear I could hear David Gilmore playing guitar on this song. Are those violins I hear? Interesting composition.
"I used to rule world" sings Chris Martin on the stunning title track 'Viva La Vida'. This has to be the knockout track on the album. I first heard this track on the Apple advert and it blew my mind.
They come, they go, and then in walks Ladyhawke with this infectious new song entitled "Paris is Burning."
What starts off with a lyrical melodic riff reminiscent to Gary Numan's "Cars" (dig it... "Here in my car, I see nothing at all.."), Ladyhawke is seen walking down the street at night, looking sexy and punky, something like Kelly out of Girlschool meets the lead singer of Garbage.
The track kicks off in a suspect way. You think to yourself, "Not another Numan rip off," but then the track suddenly steers off into a New Disco direction, and you're thinking, this is a garage rock attitude Studio 54 disco raunch ditty that really is a lot of fun.
I've read a few things about Ladyhawke, but I haven't checked my facts, however, from what I read, I think she's from New Zealand, but is into Ultravox, Gary Numan and all the early eighties electronic new wave music. She brings it up to date and throws in her own trademark sound.
After 25 years, the wait for the reissue of Martha and the Muffins’ Danseparc is over. Stockhausen collides with punk funk in an aural collage of rhythm and found sound as the second most fan requested Martha and the Muffins album gets officially reissued and digitally re-mastered 25 years after its 1983 vinyl debut.
The fourth album from the Muffins canon, the second of three production collaborations by the now legendary and critically acclaimed producer Daniel Lanois (U2, Peter Gabriel), Danseparc will be reissued by Cherry Red for the very first time on CD in the UK and Europe on Monday 4th August 2008.
The digitally remastered 25th Anniversary edition of Danseparc will be the first of two major releases from the Muffins this year. In November, the band will release their brand new studio album 'Delicate', mixed by David Bottrill (Peter Gabriel, King Crimson, Tool).
With songs written and performed by original founding Muffins, Martha Johnson (vocals, inverse guitar, keyboards, percussion) and Mark Gane (guitars, vocals, keyboards, percussion and treatments), Danseparc also features the musical expertise of Daniel Lanois' sister, Jocelyne Lanois (bass), Nick Kent (drums), and the Plunderphonics' John Oswald on sax.
Hailed as their strongest collection of songs to date, this beautifully packaged 25th Anniversary Edition CD edition captures the Muffins at their creative peak.
Track Listing:
1. Obedience 2. World Without Borders 3. Walking Into Walls 4. Danseparc (Every Day It's Tomorrow) 5. Sins Of Children 6. Several Styles Of Blonde Girls Dancing 7. Boys In The Bushes 8. What People Do For Fun 9. Whatever Happened To Radio Valve Road?
Bonus Tracks:
10. Danseparc (Every Day It's Tomorrow) (Original 12”Dance Mix) 11. These Dangerous Machines (B-side to Danseparc 12” EP) 12. Sins Of Children (Live at The Ontario Place Forum, Toronto, July 1983)
“When we worked in the studio,” reminisces Mark Gane, “Dan became the fifth member of the Muffins. Suddenly he’d play a percussion part, and then we worked on a treatment for the sound together. He constantly came up with great ideas.”
The album was digitally re-mastered during January and February 2008 by Peter J. Moore at The E Room in Toronto. Moore is best known for his production and engineering work on the Cowboys Junkies’ The Trinity Sessions album.
Danseparc 25th Anniversary Edition includes three bonus tracks including the original 12" inch dance mix of Danseparc, plus the accompanying b-side These Dangerous Machines, plus a previously unreleased live version of Sins of Children taken from the band's July 1983 concert at Toronto's Ontario Place Forum, featuring Michael Brook (guitar).
“The songs are an exciting mixture of the experimental and traditional pop,” says Liam Lacey of the Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper.
“The point of view, as Gane has said in the past, is middle class. It shows, not only in the obsessions with privacy and with personal revelation, but also in the concern with such classic Canadian literary themes as isolation and the precariousness of civilization and, at a deeper level, with sexuality and the tension between energy and order.”
“Some people frequent parks to romance each other,” observes Mark Gane, “but for others it can also be a place where you can get attacked and mugged. It’s a synthetic jungle, similar to a dance club at 3am in the morning when some people behave wildly and strive to become primitive, but don’t know how to achieve it. It’s impossible because we’re two million years ahead of the jungle.”
It’s no surprise the songs on Danseparc embody themes from the urban jungle. “When we originally recorded the album, we had an obsession with parks,” says Gane. “The concept of the park is an attempt by urban man to get to a point of naturalness again.”
Says the Globe & Mail’s Liam Lacey - “Between them, the songwriters define a dialectic, with Johnson favouring the songs about breaking down the restrictions of the world, and Gane leaning toward songs that attempt to define another kind of pleasant centre, into the almost infantile consciousness of dreams and mythology.”
“Rene Girard (the author of Violence and The Sacred) has said that cultures anxious about peace and security,” says Lacey, “are those most subject to destruction through violence, and that theme, or something like that theme, is often intimated throughout Danseparc.”
“If Johnson’s songs Obedience and Sins Of Children, delineate the social restrictions and traps,” continues Lacey, “then Gane’s Several Styles Of Blonde Girls Dancing is the song about seeking pleasure through dreams and myths. It was inspired by Gane’s dream of walking through a park, looking at trees inhabited by copulating monkeys, merged with Indian fertility symbols carved on a rock face.
The title track, Danseparc (Every Day It’s Tomorrow), is about people in their native urban city centers: structured and fearful, and imbued with complacency about society that is deliberately evasive.
Johnson’s wry commentary on What People Do For Fun addresses rarely-mined contemporary topics with disarming precision and unassailable musicality. Gane uncovers the existential angst in everyday social situations and ignites them with abstract ideas, accentuated by irrepressibly rhythmic music.
Martha and the Muffins: Official Site - www.marthaandthemuffins.com/
Cherry Records: Official Site - www.cherryred.co.uk/
Amidst the initial media speculation surrounding Madonna's latest platter, you'd anticipate that it would be a dog's dinner. Well, you know what they say, "Jealousy will get you somewhere."
On first play, the album is consistently slick, awesome and downright cool. The album has an infectious minimalism about it which is refreshing, when one would think someone of Madonna's stature would try to throw everything into it but the kitchen sink.
But Madonna's always understood the groove and what gets people moving. Her music is physical and impulsive, and 'Hard Candy' is no exception.
The Neptunes enhanced 'Candy Shop' kicks off the festivities with Madonna singing, "My sugar is raw." And you know something, she just may have a point. But this ain't Brown Sugar. It's a metaphor for Madonna's hidden agenda, which is, ultimately, to make people THINK while SHE does all the entertaining.
It's a simple but effective ploy, and it's done with precision and passion.
'Hard Candy' doesn't automatically go through the motions. If you've been following Madonna from day one, you'll know she hates to go backwards. So, with that said, if she wants to co-write some tracks with Pharrell Williams of NERD and Neptunes fame, Timbaland (the king of cell phone drama in the studio) and Justin Timberlake, Madonna has good reason.
The press would like YOU to think that she was so desperate that she had to rope the same dudes who made Nelly Furtado and Gwen Stefani relevant. However, unlike Stefani, Madonna is cool, and everybody knows it. Madonna doesn't need the Hiruku girls to validate her bullshit.
So, we dive straight into the second track, '4 Mintues' which, I must admit, when I first heard it on YouTube, I went along with the pack and said, "This is Madonna gone Wal-Mart!" But on third listen, it was hard to kick, and that's when the addiction set in. It's also good to see Justin participating in something cool again, because, in my opinion, he hasn't recorded anything this funky since his first solo album.
So, what about the singles? There's going to be many. After '4 Minutes', it could be 'Miles Away' the pretty ballad songs with the infectious chorus, or the dance frenzy 'Give It 2 Me'. "You've done it all before, it's nothing new." Madonna ain't no hypocrite. She just wants you to lick her boots.
Can she pull it off live? Are you kidding? I saw her BBC Radio 1 performance in the UK last night. Madonna continues to own the stage. Her performance of 'Candy Shop', 'Give It 2 Me' and '4 Minutes' (the latter staged with stunning hi-tech video footage of Timberlake choreographed to Madonna's live dance routine). Forget the music, visually, the show is spectacular.
It's an event. It's Madonna. Bring on the clowns.
What's probably putting people off is the crass artwork on the CD inlay. Pictured is your royal badass licking a leather wristband, dressed up in some tacky wrestling bondage outfit and a look that's very reminiscent to Peaches.
Track #5 is the acoustic guitar flavored 'Miles Away' gets a robotic synth treated vibe, and suddenly Madonna takes you back to the sound of the brilliant 'Music' album. Potentially, this could be the biggest hit from the album. For those lazy journalists who have mistaken this song for a hip-hop groove throw-away, think again. This is pop music at it's most supreme.
'She's Not Me' kicks off with some funky hand claps then follows with some timely lyrics - "I should have seen the sign way back then, when she told me that you were her best friend ... She started dressin' like me and talkin' like me. It freaked me out. She started callin' you up in the middle of the night, what's that about? I just wanna be there when you discover, you wake up in the morning next to your new lover. She might cook you breakfast and love you in the shower . The flavor of the moment is she don't have what's ours. She's not me. She doesn't have my name. She'll never have what I'll have. It won't be the same." Pow.
'Incredible' sounds like a electro pop funk dance floor ditty, a grown up fairy tale that's both beautiful and optimistic. It's like the cherry on a vanilla sundae. "I can't get my head around it," says Madonna. "I need to think about it!"
'Beat Goes On' features Kayne West, is both sexy, moody and slick. Great dance track that gives several nods to Chic and hazy memories of Andy Warhol, Bianca Jagger and Studio 54. This is a great driving track. And thank god Kayne doesn't kill the song by rapping on it. Instead, Madonna makes good use of his falsetto, "Get down, beep beep, gotta get up outta your seat!" Sassy and classy.
'Dance 2Night', another sexy slow tempo funk workout. Great dance track. Meanwhile, the folks in South America and Spain will dig the flamenco enhanced Pharrell Williams co-written track 'Spanish Lession' (for hardcore Madonna fans only).
Madonna saves two thought provoking ballads for the end of the album, the piano driven 'The Devil Wouldn't Recognize You' and the Massive Attack influenced 'Voices'. Both are spiritual in nature and shows Madonna at her most mature, musically speaking of course. What's more, she still looks gorgeous, sophisticated, and most importantly, in control of her destiny.
