hard not to have heard of Beirut. In two weeks I'm going to see especially in Berlin. A preview for those who will see on this tour, in remembrance for those who have already seen, to compensate a bit for those who will not see it, the BBC posted a recording of a part of her concert in Glastonbury this weekend. He played consecutively Prenzlauerberg (a district of Berlin very nice as well), Postcard from Italy, a new song, Elephant Gun, The Canals of Our City and a second new song. I am always amazed that has only 21 years ...
His next album will be released in October, strongly inspired by Jacques Brel and French chanson in particular apparently. He resumed elsewhere "the dying" in front of his new single B Elephant Gun song has long been available on the Lon Gisland EP that most of us have got a bonus when buying Gulag Orkestar. This album will be substantially different from his first, for sure. Something tells me we are witnessing the emergence of a great artist. Confirmation in October.
I can not implement the BBC video on this blog, please go HERE so .
foremost, I realized there was an option in Blogger to allow anyone to comment without having to be registered provided . This does have me taken five months to find it. Finally, it's done, so your comments!
Lou Reed turned 65 on March 2, Brian Wilson celebrated his 65th birthday yesterday at the Ancienne Belgique. I go months without seeing a single musician over 30 years and then in three days I will attend two concerts sexagénères. I guess you take them out for the summer.
so hard not to compare. Both men have thought the same age they do not address so far on tour in the same way. On one hand we have Lou Reed, in his great goodness, gratifies his audience a live performance of one of its flagship album. His motives are unclear, it does not look like her. What is known is that As his audience of his albums has melted ... then resuming Berlin, he refilled the great dirty. And despite his disdain, he seems to take a lot of fun. On the other hand we have Brian Wilson who, more or less absent for thirty years, returns to his audience and chained his greatest success with apparent pleasure. Which of these two giants won the round? We are not a tabloid in English, there is no winner. Both concerts were nostalgic and professionals.
This concert was one of Brian Wilson expericence totally anachronistic. All the songs played had their heyday in the 60s even if not quite the case of public intergenerational mix, further proof of the timelessness of the great success of the Beach Boys. On stage, Brian Wilson is the linchpin of a show in the former. Everything is set like clockwork (I guess that is the same setlist every night). The tubes are connected one after the other, often introduced by small sentences or well rehearsed dialogues between Brian and musicians. "- I want to go on a holiday! - Where do you want to go Brian? - I want to go to Hawaii ...!" and go for "In Blue Hawaii". Yet this does not ring true, it's just overplayed, histrionic. We are far from the artist who made the same joke every night pretending natural. Even when one of the musicians stopped Brian Wilson at the beginning of a song to sing "Happy Birthday Brian" the crowd that seems completely orchestrated. No contemporary group does manage to get away with hits such as engaging manner. Age and baggage Brian Wilson gives it a certain panache, and we forgive him much.
music, everybody knows, there are no surprises. The majority of his set is devoted to classics from the albums Pet Sounds and Smile. Would not It Be Nice and Good Vibrations trigger obviously thunderous applause but do not forget to slide the beads as God Only Knows and Sloop John B. They could play for hours without a single song we is unknown. The orchestra of ten musicians behind Brian Wilson provides the show without a false note, without extravagance either. Former Beach Boys remains seated him at center stage behind his keyboard, the last bastion between him and the public. On most tracks he is content to ensure the song, to great effect elsewhere. Apart from a few false notes here and there his voice has not changed, true to the versions we've all got to know. From time to time his hands lightly touch the keys of his keyboard but it does not fool many people. One clearly sees the other two musicians on their synthesizers getting excited just behind him. Spend all the classics but he keeps the best for last. A reminder, without breaks, Johnny B Good, Help Me Rhonda, Barbara Ann, Surfin 'USA and Fun Fun Fun. Difficult to leave the dirty without smiling.
So, for or against this style of revivalist concerts? Personally, I find it hard to hide a smile cynically when they handed me a flyer announcing them. Brian Wilson and Lou Reed are yet evidence that this can be done well.
I was not going there. It could not be good. A children's choir was announced. Just imagine a choir accompany Caroline Says little "doo doo" and other "whoo whoo" should be enough to discourage the most avid fan. "I only do this Every Thirty Years. One time, one time only. You Can Tell your kids you saw Lou Reed's Berlin . "He wrote with his arrogance so characteristic in the press release announcing European tour. This statement would have to persuade me once and for all not to go. In addition, the capitalist has set ticket prices between 40 € and 80 €. Obviously I do not go! Then yesterday, thinking back to that concert I realized that Lou was right. Cunt. He would play Berlin in its entirety at 15 minutes from my house and needed me to be there, was only to be able to tell my kids. We will attempt to find excuses, Julian Schnabel was the staging, her daughter has incredible projection, if it is the bus of the choir will have a flat tire tire ... And shit. I go there.
I decided to give fate one last chance to stop me going there on my way to National Forest armed with a single € 20 note. After 15 minutes of waiting fans desperate to sell me a heart-cons up to 80 € in the pit for this one blue ticket. I can not turn back. I enter the room that stinks already hamburger, misses the booth of T-Shirt € 30, avoids the opener and found my place. Perfect atmosphere for a Rock 'N Roll Animal. The seats are numbered the couple from whom I bought the place not long join me. Embarrassed smiles. The room is busy but not full house and a stream of images are projected onto a large white sheet behind all the instruments. It looks more sober than expected eventually. Lou Reed is perhaps not yet completely megalomaniac. The lights are extinguished and the white sheet is removed to make room decor consists of draperies with bourgeois 18th century before they what appears to be a couch hung vertically. The choir of 15 girls is definitely there, dressed for church, accompanied by a small orchestra of eight strings and brass in turquoise tuxedo. While the subtlety Lou.
The introduction of Berlin ("Ein Prosit, Ein Prosit" followed by "Happy Birthday") sounds as the musicians find their marks. The chorus kicks in and then surprise, she is not too invasive. She subtly accompanies the pieces. Berlin, Lady Day and Men of Good Fortune melodic pass in a flash. Caroline Says happens, the choir sits down, we do hear more to The Bed and Lou really in between her concert. The result is magnificent. We all know the songs and these repetitions do not live to fade before the recordings. My neighbor is obviously not the same view he chose this moment to leave definitely the concert. An amateur Lo-Fi surely. The quartet's final in Berlin, Caroline Says II, the Kids, The Bed and Sad Song now close an beauty. Lou was again because the choir is quite a place in this show. For the staging of Julian Schnabel cons it will go through. Apart from choosing the location of musicians, the decor and color of the T-Shirt Lou maybe we can not say that he has trodden. The concert could not be more static. The projections are also Schnabel Jr. quickly shelved. We prefer to do him all the tricks which were partly used as a pretext for coming to our focus on music. These 50 minutes had anything to displease. Cher, pompous, selfish, opportunist, etc.. I think many would have liked to say they did not like. Only now, Lou Reed is doing very well.
Berlin ends, the band left the stage to return a few minutes later with a trilogy of "crowd pleasers". Lou Reed sticks to its concept, it would have been frowned Resort a darkness from The Raven at this time. He drops Sweet Jane, Satellite of Love and Walk on the Wild Side. The public rejoices but it's less successful than the first part. Lou is content to sing the words "Sweet Jane ..." and let her do the rest singer. Satellite of Love accompanied by a choir reached as you can imagine the heights of kitsch. Lou smiled throughout the song and likes to play the conductor before his five young daughters. Walk on the Wild Side closing concert very agreed but nothing in the world would be left without ... I thought he was going back to Perfect Day as we went but it was obviously too much.
there two weeks ago I went to an old chapel converted into a Brussels concert hall to attend the concert by Scout Niblett (which I I spoke last week). Before the superb delivery of Ms Niblett, two other groups were responsible for heating the room. Both French and unknown to my battalion, Lapin Machin and François Virot. Suffice to say that seeing the words "(FR)" beside their name on the flyer for the event I am worried. What was to inflict as punishment made in France before earning the star of the evening? The new French song or a new pastiche of pop / rock with a London accent ridiculous (I'm not targeting anyone)? Should I tell my reasons for being afraid, few French groups have managed to do was not interested these days ... and made me much mercy. And yet, if Lapin Machin are very far from me left a lasting impression (vaguely endearing, vaguely evil), François Virot me greatly impressed him.
Alone on stage with his guitar, sitting on a chair, if he manages to please at least interesting for everyone. Capture the attention of hundreds of strangers who came mostly to see another concert, just sitting on a chair to play the songs of his own, never say a word is the feat. Yet I think that few people took advantage of his concert to go outside to smoke a cigarette (even though I was not there to check). Only me, he did more than interested. Describing his music is not something obvious. If lazy journalists had him stick a big label on the front, I think they would make the cousin of the red white and blue freak-folk movement which Denvendra Banhart and Cocorosie are the heads of prows. I dread to see his album already out with a big sticker "The French Devendra Banhart!-Telerama" on the cover. This categorization would be really off base.
His deconstructed but melodic songs, carried by a nasal voice rarely "just" pushing more than one. But it works extremely well. A title like "My Head is Blank" could very well have been included on the Sung Tongs Animal Collective. Like them he manages to mix the main ingredients and the structure of a pop song with a healthy dose of eccentricity. The comparison stops there, because by listening and seeing more importantly, it sends an emotion that I can not find in Animal Collective: pain. The birth of his songs and their public regurgitation seem to be extremely painful process. His face twists in every direction, his eyes close, his voice shaky. This can even put uncomfortable. You feel like torturers to force the boy to sing for us as it makes him visibly ill. Then, between songs, half smile and looks stealth to the public. We are reassured.
He released his first album in the fall on the label clapping music hopefully. Meanwhile several songs are as usual listening and even downloadable for once on his myspace for 5 € and you can order a house CD-R (I wait with impatience mine!). François Virot has also created a second account on myspace which he repeatedly put only from Elliott Smith to Jay-Z. The worst is that it succeeded.
To make us wait until the release of her fourth album due in August, Miss Scout Niblett released two weeks ago a little 45. If these three titles are a foretaste of what awaits us, it's a safe bet that this album will finally be one of his consecration. Scout Niblett remains relatively unknown in effect where other female solo artist, Cat Power head, got a huge popular success (especially since his last two albums there a "smoothed"). Electric folk sound is not so far from what was Chan Marshall, or PJ Harvey in their infancy. The comparison is inevitable but Scout Niblett does not turn pale before his illustrious colleagues, quite the contrary. Army stripped her songs, just an amazing voice and a hint of electric guitar for most, and his roughened by her screams and distortion sudden, Scout Niblett manages to convey emotion like no other. Sometimes fragile, sometimes surly, sometimes childish but still dark, the sincerity with which she sings can not leave indifferent those who manage to forget himself in his music.
"Dinosaur Egg", the flagship title of this new single is a little rhyme based on a text by David Shrigley, written for an American comics. This text innocent, in which a character asks his dinosaur egg to hatch so you can show his friends, took the hands of Scout Niblett a very dark connotation. By listening we do not know if the character she plays is just crazy or if he has a real dinosaur egg. It also calls to mind that it relies a bit later in the song "scare the shit out of you ...". In line with the text, the song is a childlike simplicity, everything is in motion, and it works wonderfully.
Despite all the qualities of the "Dinosaur Egg" is the second track of side A, "Just what I needed" that touches me the most. This is a cover of the Cars, transformed for the occasion. Pop / rock Ric Ocasek & Co, a little bland for my taste, she made a heartbreaking song. The text does not shine by its originality but sung as it does it takes another dimension. This little lady would be able to make us cry with a rendition of "It was a small ship" if it wanted to ...
I suggest you listen to these two songs and the original version of "Just What I Needed" from the Cars (for information). I do not stand up in drag "Wolfie," from his 2005 album "Kidnapped by Neptune" that remains for me his masterpiece. For the road, a video of Ms. Niblett interpreting his "Dinosaur Egg" a few weeks ago in London. The video quality but does not yet fully do justice to cette immense artiste live.
