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Tuesday 28 May 2013

Sidonie and the feelgoodometer


Sidonie live at the Casino, Gijon, 25th May 2013

There are some bands that will bring a smile to your face. The Beatles, The Small Faces, The Lovin' Spoonful, Madness, The Who, The Grateful Dead... all of them had a sense of humour and gave off strong feelgood vibes. The Beatles had a cheeky and absurdist wit, as seen in the films Hard Day's Night and Help; the The Who were subject to the uncontrollable farce of Moon the Loon; the Small Faces were imbued with a keen knockabout cockney comedy and featured it most strongly in Lazy Sunday; and the Dead took cues from Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters. It all adds up to setting your feelgoodometer spinning and good vibes a-flowing. Maybe the humour and positive vibes are part of their greatness. If the Beatles are anything to go by it is perhaps evidence of greater artistic self-confidence and a longer-lasting more genuine "cool" than the pale-faced, leather-trousered art school attempts at such. The feelgood positivity is an essential part of their art.

Sidonie are a Spanish band who are also imbued with this sense of existential anti-angst. I saw them play live on Saturday night in Gijon. Sidonie are Marc Ros (vocals, guitar), Jesús Senra (vocals, bass, sitar) y Axel Pi (drums, tablas, bongos). They owe their existence to a record shop in Leeds where the 3 members met in 1997. Axel Pi and Marc Ros were on holiday in the UK and were looking for a specific song by Brigitte Bardot. They went into a local Leeds shop and behind the counter was Jesús Senra. To memorialise this moment of heavy synchronicity the band named themselves after the Bardot song they were looking for – Sidonie.

They have made around half a dozen albums and are band with evident 60s pop and rock influences. You get occasional flashes of the Kinks or the Small Faces in their sound, not necessarily in specific songs but in the general ambiance. I have mentioned them before here. Their last album A Mil Anos Luz is recommended for its riffy psychedelic rock. They also have a knack of writing catchy songs and there was much singalong at the gig on Saturday night. The band don't appear to take themselves too seriously and they have a cheeky feelgood factor in their stage presence, somewhat reminiscent of the Lovin' Spoonful, which is refreshing. Rock music seems to have spent so much of the last 20 years trying so hard to be post modern and self referential that it now appears to be disappearing up its own output socket. Sidonie are definitely an antidote to that.

Plus any band that comes on stage with a sitar gets my vote.

The gig had some notable highlights. I’ve included some clips from youtube below. The show built from a slow unplugged start with Jesús Senra singing solo, featured a few intense electric versions on some of their hits like El Bosque and A Mil Años Luz, and even featured the aforementioned the sitar on the instrumental “Sidonie Goes To London”. The band ended the show by coming out into the middle of the audience and doing a couple of acoustic numbers (one of which was the Everly BrothersAll I Have To Do Is Dream) with everyone sat around them on the floor. A nice chummy way to finish with big grins all round and everyone getting their Smartphones out to memorialize the moment.

There was spontaneity and warmth and the band achieved a genuine rapport with the audience. Good vibes and positivity. My feelgoodometer recorded a natural high.



El Bosque (The Wood)




A Mil Años Luz (A Thousand Light Years Away)




Encore



Sidonie band website here (Spanish)


Now try this Horizonte Eléctrico - 10 Great contemporary Spanish bands that should be better known outside Spain




Wednesday 22 May 2013

My Radio Kras Podcasts - From Punk to Funk



When I was a around 10 or 11 years old if you'd asked me what I wanted to be in life I would have said a DJ. I used to record myself introducing the few singles I had at the time onto onto a very cheap 70s cassette player and make my own "shows".

So, in the last year or so, and thanks to Gimi at Radio Kras in Gijon, Spain, I have just recently fulfilled a kind of lifetime ambition. I guested on Gimi's show "In Campo Aperto" on Gijon's Radio Kras. The first show we did was on 70s punk and pub rock and last week we did another on 60s and 70s funk. It was great fun. You get to talk about and play the music you love with the knowledge that you might just be introducing someone somewhere to a song or performance you have loved for years.

Both shows are in Spanish and after a few beers my Spanish tends to get even more eccentric than it is usually but we made it through.

Each program tries to give a general summary of the music featured.

If anyone is interested here are the links to the 2 podcasts of the shows we did.




Funk and Soul Power (17th May 2013)
We discuss and play tracks by the following;

Al Green | Alan Toussaint | Ann Peebles | Aretha Franklin | Bernard Purdie | Cornell Dupree | Curtis Mayfield | Dr. John | Gladys Knight | Impressions | Isley Brothers | James Brown | Jr Walker | King Curtis | Lee Dorsey | Little Feat | Maceo Parker | Marvin Gaye | O. V. Wright | Otis Redding | Sam and Dave | Syl Johnson | Sly and The Family Stone | Temptations | The Meters | Wilson Pickett

Link to podcast



See my other post related to it  - Optimism, Positivity and SOUL POWER!




Punk (August 2012)
A show about mid 70s Punk rock, pre-punk and Pub Rock featuring The Velvet Underground, MC5, Stooges, Flamin Groovies, Television, Richard Hell, Dr Feelgood, Mike Spencer and the Cannibals, 101ers, Eddie and the Hot Rods, Nick Lowe, The Clash, The Sex Pistols etc.) 

You can listen to it here


Both podcasts are in Spanish but the music is universal.




Monday 20 May 2013

Optimism, Positivity and SOUL POWER!



The other night I was guesting on Campo Aperto, a radio show on Spanish Radio Kras. The theme of the program was late 60s and early 70s funk and soul. Mainly funk. We were playing James Brown, The Meters, Sly Stone, King Curtis... that kind of thing. If you want to listen to the program, the link to the podcast is here http://radiokras.net63.net /index.php?id=1535 (however it is in Spanish)

Anyway, while doing the show I was struck by how positive and optimistic Soul was. Fueled by a righteousness born of gospel and the belief that future really was going to be better than the present, Soul music marched on Washington and, against truly overwhelming odds, really did change the world.

Real change is always slow but if some 45 years later there is a black man in the White House, this is the music that put him there.

There is a lesson here for our times. We too have a need for optimism. We need to believe that the future will be a better place. And we need a music, art, philosophy that inspires that belief.

So, meanwhile, here is some Soul Power to get you through your day.




The Temptations' Ball of Confusion shows that in 45 years the world's problems have not changed much.




Marvin Gaye - What's Going On?





Involvement
Get into it. James Brown - Get Up! Get Involved!




Sly Stone - Stand!






Belief
Lee Dorsey - Yes We Can!




The Impressions - We're a Winner!




Curtis Mayfield - Move On Up!





The real soul power?
OV Wright - You Must Believe In Yourself!





More
James Brown's Deep Funk




Sunday 5 May 2013

Baby Woodrose and Kadavar in Gijon, 3rd May 2013



Rock music has been around for nearly 60 years now and pretty much everything that can be done with it has been done.

It had its period of youthful experimentation and like country music, jazz and blues before it, has now settled into a grand old age of lifetime achievement awards and hanging out in the rock and roll hall of fame.

However rock’s golden era still seems to fascinate those who were born too late to experience it first time round. Only the other day I was explaining the virtues of the MC5 to a 16 year-old who had just discovered Grand Funk Railroad.

Rock’s past seems ever present. It lingers on offering mythical tales of a lawless land of long ago; a musical wild west of dangerous guitar slingers, drug addled desperados and visionary shamen, all of whom make contemporary musicians look like rather dull and plodding insurance clerks. We have an audience, young and old, who hanker after the nostalgia of a period which is now an astonishing 40 – 50 years old. Rock is now the stuff of myth and legend. And its history is forever being rehashed, reheated and resampled by a contemporary culture desperate to fill in the void at its heart.

So, given that it’s all been done before, what can a young boy do if he (or she) wants to play in a rock and roll band in the 21st century?


I saw Baby Woodrose and Kadavar play live the other night. Both bands openly take their cues from rock’s past but seem to have found, if not a way out then at least a way of bypassing rock’s creative cul-de-sac.

Kadavar take you right back to 1971. A power trio from Berlin (Lupus Lindemann on vocals and guitar, Mammut on bass and Tiger on Drums) whose intense Black Sabbath style heavy riffage return you to an era of flailing hair and brain crushing reinforced concrete block chords. And they are actually really good at it. This is the stuff I was raised on in the mid 70s and back then these guys could have held their own.

I remember seeing Black Sabbath in the mid 70s and there might be some interesting comparisons to be made between these musical fathers and sons. When I saw Sabbath they were probably already a little past their peak (1976). They already seemed to be going through the motions and were more than a little distant. Kadavar are a much sprightlier band than the Black Sabbath I saw. Kadavar’s drummer, the er... aptly named “Tiger” really pushed the band hard and the musical interplay between the musicians, the pace of the set and the band’s attack really impresses. Kadavar play with a passion and brute force which I don’t remember Black Sabbath having in 1976 and on that score they actually win out. What Kadavar don’t have of course is an Ozzie Osborne and, as yet and perhaps more importantly, songs that equal the stature of the Sabs’ Paranoid, Iron Man, Children of the Grave, War Pigs etc.

However, in the mean time, Kadavar are one hell of a fine hard rock band to see on a good night. Shut your eyes and it could just be 1971 again…






Baby Woodrose are something else. If Kadavar want to take you back to 1971 Baby Woodrose exist in an eternal 1966. And those of us hooked on a haze of shimmering 12 string Rickenbackers, backwards Kinks riffs and swirling sitars know that’s a pretty good place to exist in.

Baby Woodrose have been around for a dozen or so years and have a prolific number of albums that exist in that alternative 1966 universe. Formed in Copenhagen in 2001 the current line-up is Lorenzo Woodrose: Lead guitar, lead vocals; Kåre Joensen: Bass, vocals; Mads Såby: Guitar, vocals and Hans Beck: Drums.

They know, as you and I do, that the true soul of rock and roll can be found on the original Nuggets box set. Their goal is to smoke it out, reawaken it and deliver it to you in the garage of your mind.

Live they don’t mess about. On record Lorenzo Woodrose can sound on occasion, uncannily like Arthur Lee on the first Love album. Live he plays guitar like Ron Ashton on the first Stooges album. Pulsating wah-wah solos ignite and soar over the band’s relentless garage pump and stomp and everyone gets lost in the sheer force of the moment.  And that is the point. They have some catchy songs, nothing as great as their heroes of 1966 but that doesn’t seem to be what this is about. These “songs” are just a pretext to get lost in the psychedelic fuzz freak-out of that eternal 1966.

And it works. The band’s passion for the music is what pulls everyone through.

Both these bands seem to me to be examples of how you can take a form that has been around for half a century and pump some life back into it. It’s the passion. The soul. You don’t have to original or inventive or smart. It’s the Punk ethic. Just play the fucker like your life depended on it and that will see us all through.


And thanks to Kadavar and Baby Woodrose for doing that the other night.





Links
Baby Woodrose http://babywoodrose.wordpress.com and on facebook


Kadavar on facebook and twitter