| Author | Message | ||
     Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2071 Registered: 10-2006 |
The Velvet Underground – New Age Lewis Allan Reed, 80 today! So many bad decisions were made about this sublime song between this live version and the pigsh** awful thing that arrived on Loaded… I’d love to read about what happened. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRsJpYPm 3Ak | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 4727 Registered: 03-2005 |
Thanks for that Stuart. "Loaded" was somebody's attempt to make the Velvets commercially accessible. 80. Wow. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2073 Registered: 10-2006 |
Charlotte Leslie - Les Filles C'est Fait Pour Faire L'amour Impossible to think this 1966 track wasn’t in the Rezillo’s record collection – sounds so much like Fay Fife at some points it’s hilarious. With a name like Leslie, I suspected some Scots blood perhaps, but, no, real name Rosetta Aiello, so Italian descent if anything! Born in Tunisia. Great voice, anyway, and great stomping French pop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npc4H6jz 8mE | ||
| Austin Member Username: Bruegelpie Post Number: 234 Registered: 09-2004 |
Alex Cameron is back with what is shaping up to be a return to form after his misfire with "Miami Memory." His 2 new singles "Best Life" and "Khole" are highly recommended. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fu5jcgK0 wvo and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_nNUgIG jZw | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 1471 Registered: 04-2005 |
Much as I love the version on Loaded, this demo version of "I Found A Reason" with a lot of harmonica is simply charming. And almost like another song completely. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M79VFQ9i orw What a band. I remember being in a bar in Paris when I found out that Reed was dead. There were 3 old guys (well they seemed old to this 60 year old youngster) downing beers and discussing his life. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 4729 Registered: 03-2005 |
The Velvets going Dylanesque! It's interesting that they decided to slow it down for the album. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2074 Registered: 10-2006 |
Waterboys – Glastonbury Song (in various live versions) Felt like rawkin out with Mike S live videos for a few days, though the Waterboys now seem to be a very slick pick-up bunch of musos from Memphis & Nashville, so that the layered, raggle-taggle passion of Fisherman days is gone. Keyboard player something of a force of nature hoot, though. Mike in good voice & humour generally. His main weakness is to perhaps rawk out on tunes that don’t really merit it, when he could easily pack in several other songs from a pretty rich & enormous back catalogue. Glastonbury is strong enough to survive though and shows him in fine form. “In Britain, they wouldn't play it (on the radio) because of the chorus,” he says. I wonder why? It’s a great chorus, “I’ve just found God, where he always was.” Lots of Celtic place names suitably mentioned, but the meaning is still usefully ambiguous. Who would object to it, not even the Archbishop of Canterbury, I imagine. He’s very funny describing the video: “Worst of all, every time the chorus came round the dry ice footage showed me portentously sticking my head, Jehovah-like, from a cloud high above Glastonbury Tor. And because viewers assume artists to be complicit in their videos, it made me look like an egotist with a messiah complex who thought I was god.” Perish the thought. He managed to bury the vid for a fair number of years apparently. Version I enjoyed the most perhaps at 48:53, here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78-_6GXr C9M | ||
| Rob Brookman Member Username: Rob_b Post Number: 2044 Registered: 08-2006 |
Saw the discussion about Lou Reed's birthday and I thought I'd mention it was my dad's birthday, too. My favorite musician and my favorite father were born the exact same day and date. Both would have been 80. I had an annual ritual where I'd call my dad on March 2 and say, "Happy Lou Reed's birthday!" It confounded him at first but he eventually found it funny. And he once confessed he liked "I Love You, Suzanne." That's as far as I got on that front. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2077 Registered: 10-2006 |
Waterboys – Bring ‘em all in More live Mike S doing (rather like Robert F) what he does best, marshalling the simplest elements into something magical. One critic wrote: “The song is a terse taunt rumble of guitar with plenty of drama as Scott shepherds the title chant from a whispered plea to a gravelly command.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxPl9Ka4 yD4 | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2078 Registered: 10-2006 |
Ornella Vanoni - Il mio posto qual č One I’m sure Mr Adams will know, starting out with a misleading guitar rumble and then allowing la Vanoni at the peak of her powers to head for the stratosphere. Brilliant piece of 60s Italian pop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaUGgXu- SOQ | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 4732 Registered: 03-2005 |
Indeed I know it well. But surely the ultimate Ornella Vanoni for one Stuart Wilson is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHKw5GuI hSs Perhaps she doesn't unload the way you like Stuart but in my long-ago teenage jargon this one is "god's eye." It's such an original choice for a cover by a big Europop balladeer. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2079 Registered: 10-2006 |
Yes, a startling choice at the time, I imagine, though British prog was loved very intensely in Italy, and if you ask any guy here over the age of about 40 who their favourite group is, then Pink Floyd will often be the answer. (Or Queen). There was a bit more flexibility here perhaps, with prog musicians often backing some of the great Italian singer-songwriters and someone like Battisti moving back and forth between the two forms quite easily. But I prefer Ornella in her 60s glory days, with full orchestra and some wildly dramatic tune cooked up in a smoke-filled room in Milan or Rome’s Tin Pan Alley! | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2080 Registered: 10-2006 |
Fai Baba – Fotograf Still one of the loveliest things I’ve heard over the past weeks. There’s a vinyl album apparently, but no CD as yet, if ever: even the artwork looks highly engaging. Singing, apparently, about the delights of being a kiosk owner on the streets of Zurich. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hftRrwVw qwM | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10248 Registered: 05-2005 |
Thank you for that, Stuart. Never heard of him before. That’s great. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10249 Registered: 05-2005 |
Elbow - The Blanket Of Night. Such a beautiful song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1dVWaaU NSA | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2081 Registered: 10-2006 |
Glad you like it, Pádraig! There are some other good album tracks on Utube, particularly Veränderet and Rägeboge. For some reason, I can't warm to his previous stuff in English, but switching to Swiss-German seems to have opened up his songwriting in a highly attractive way. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 4733 Registered: 03-2005 |
I generally prefer an artist singing in his or her own language. One of the most vivid examples that comes to mind is Stéphane Milochevitch who records as "Thousand." I loathe his earlier English language records and adore the French ones. I'm ok with (Finnish) songwriter Mattias Björkas singing in English because his lyrics are so magnificent but he's an exception. There are also some singers whose accented voice works well but, again, they are exceptions. The lack of a CD is grrr-inducing. I wonder if that will change. | ||
| fsh Member Username: Fsh Post Number: 380 Registered: 05-2005 |
The day the fish came out dancing in Guru Weirdbrain's ming by Michael and the Multi-coloured Rainbow People. It's a classic (of its kind). Check it out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HDsTFt0 wKA | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2082 Registered: 10-2006 |
Mattiel - Lighthouse This sounded great on the radio, a good robust pop song. Mattiel has her own visual fascination of course, though the surname Brown seems a little at odds with those striking Mediterranean features – French? Italian? But with the first name Atina, perhaps Greek is more likely. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPoxbIlp bg4 | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2083 Registered: 10-2006 |
It was a funny day some weeks back, Morrissey, often so wild and lashing, sounding lucid and rational, and the usually thoughtful Damon Albarn spouting tosh. And then this great radio diptych. The Smiths - Girl Afraid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVy-zkB3 ESg This sounded pure & majestic as it leapt unexpectedly from the speaker, first the riff, then that forlorn voice, those uniquely fascinating lyrics. Age shall not weary them, nor etc etc. Hatful of Hollow, what a life-changer. Meanwhile, together with Conor O, today’s most splendidly melancholic troubadour, another cleansing, moody ballad to raise the ragged spirits of all those blown off course. Damon Albarn - Polaris https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaxIQdHY t8I | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 4734 Registered: 03-2005 |
Nińa Lobo - Decis Que No Always on the lookout for a new(ish) talent in the other Antipodes, I found this all female band from Uruguay. I find them pleasingly understated. Here is the valedictory number on their second 2019 EP and first LP. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8doi9NG 02k&list=OLAK5uy_lJ9JerqCsFrvq4X-sde9pVP mGSIxckNys&index=5 Here's a 2021 song that I found while looking for the above video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1q3nger TYo | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2086 Registered: 10-2006 |
Peter Doherty & Frédéric Lo – Invictus This particular song is at 22.35 on this curiously poetic, strangely haunting film. Album of the year for me, I suspect. In time of great need, boy… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuFrAdtb Z0M | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 4739 Registered: 03-2005 |
Los Odio - Chino Every once in a while my iPod tosses up a song by this mysterious Mexican supergroup project. And virtually every time, whatever track is tossed at me works like a charm. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdK5XzwQ UfI I always thought there was something vaguely French about the uninhibited trashiness of Los Odio's music. Here I'm reminded of some of the earlier rock-oriented Bashung. |