Saw this cracking new Jazz singer at The Voodoo Lounge last night. She was knocked over by a Jeep a couple of years ago which has affected both her sight and her ability to walk, vbut this just addsan air of mystique to her personality.
She performed a very intimate (short) set with her band consisting of trumpet, drums and bass under two fixed red spots which gave it a really old fashioned Jazzy feel. all it needed was for everyone in the audience to be smoking and we’d have been transported to a New York Basement Bar circa 1956.
Anyway, a superb singer that had the fortune not to have been beaten by the ugly stick.
To be honest I thought the choice of live songs meant she was better live than she is on her album; Worriesome Heart.
Based on Rudyard Kipling’s iconic poem the new Irn Bru commercial has landed. Set in various locations across Scotland and somewhere abroad it features some lovely vignettes. Some work brilliantly, like the Loony Dooking pensioners (at 33 seconds) which struck a real chord with me, also the kissing Celtic and Rangers fans, the despondent Scotland fan with his wee lassie and the way folk choose the wrong descriptor for their meal times are all great.
Others are less succesful and I’d question Martin Compston’s voiceover.
But three cheers for the choice of South Queensferry for two of the settings!
I feel the whole campaign suffers from being shackled by a weak strapline. Phenomenal does nothing for me. It’s unphenomenal frankly.
Overall it’s a nice, rather touching return to form.
Whoa. Stop right there. What the fuck is this? I’ll tell you what it is - it’s a beast. The most finely concieved, played and produced African album I have ever heard.
It is an absolutely stunning mashup of tribal rythm from Mali an extended family of Saharan nomads who are quite unlike anything you’ve ever seen or heard in your life.
Count yoursef blessed that you have stumbled upon this post because the track I have for you, the first from their third album, is an absolute stonewall classic. This stuff takes your breath away and played back to back with The Very Best of Ethiopiques it shows the quality of music coming out of Northern Africa is nothing short of sublime
Please do yourself a favour. Buy this record. And Pick up The Very Best of Ethiopiques while you’re at it.
The new Portishead album has been ten years in the making. I read a review that said it was “nice background listening”. It may have been written by a monkey stabbing randomly at keys until this particular sentence appeared because nothing could be further from the truth; as this track demonstrates.
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This, the fourth on the album, is the best song they have ever written. It is a thing of intense beauty.
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Throughout the record Beth Gibbons’ vocals are used sparingly above an electronic symphony. Cool, funky, orchestral but all synth driven with utterly astounding drumming. This is so good that I thought I was going to cry just listening to it on the train home from Glasgow on Thursday night.
I told you this was a great event. Particularly because Alfredo Marcantonio showed us a reel of commercials that were all low budget but brilliant. Here are a few of them.
I’d never seen this VW Karmann Ghia ad before but it really is a classic.
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He showed this too. Which made us all laugh.
And this cracker for Carling Black label.
He showed a different ad from this one for the x show. But this is a pretty good alternative…
I met Jim Sutherland last week at a Guardian event in Edinburgh. A really interesting and modest guy with a great vision for this orchestra.
I particularly liked the ideas of the four Hurdy Gurdies that feature in his orchestra.
He brought along a Japanese Saw player (Su-a Lee) who performed ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow on the saw’. Cracking and really beautiful.
You can hear some of the music on their myspace site here. I urge you to do so because it is stunning. Beautiful. Magical.
And this is what his myspace site says about the orchestra.
La Banda Europa is an extraordinary 35 piece band of virtuoso musicians assembled from some of the finest musicians across Europe
“The Hurdy Gurdies are amazing to look at, like Elizabethan ships, with a sound somewhere between the violin and the bagpipes. The nykelharpas are similar, having a strange, other-worldly sound to them.”
In 2006, composer, Jim Sutherland was awarded the Creative Scotland Prize for artists of distinction It is one of the richest arts awards to an individual in Europe….. The Award allowed him time to develop his ideas for an orchestra that could make a unique ’sound of Europe.
“All in all we’ve got some incredible musicians, some of the very best in the world on their particular instruments.”…… …..“The Armenians play an ancient instrument called the duduk made from the wood of the apricot tree and which sounds like a woman singing alto.”
The whole thing was initially Inspired by Jim’s score for the BAFTA and Brittish Comedy Award winning film Festival when they famously flew the Drambuie Pipe band over to Seville to record Jim’s score with La Banda Tres Caidas, an Eighty piece Semana Santa band.
“Instruments like the ancient Celtic carnyx will grab the eye – it’s the only one of its kind in the world and was reconstructed from one found in bogland in Scotland. It’s a bronze war horn which was 6ft long and held vertically above the player’s head.”
Jim initially put the orchestra together to perform his score for ‘Before the Wolf’, a theatrically presented outdoor production. Niel Butler of UZ events raised the funds and facilitated the shows. These first performances were very successful and have lead to enquiries from event organisers and festivals throughout Europe.
“Bagpipes of 5 countries, Swedish nyckelharpas, , Armenian duduks, Turkish drums, trumpeters from Scotland and Serbia……..Many of the players in the Banda Europa are exciting composers in their own right.”.
So sang Hugh Cornwell in 1977, or thereabouts, on Rattus Norvegicus - one of the greatest albums of all time.
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But how could he have predicted that in 2008 a poll of 3,000 British blokes would decide that Glasgow would be voted the king of the mingers.
I mean, I’ve seen some good looking Weegies in my time so I was a little surprised to read that Glasgow is officially the home of the boot. But right enough you do get some total double baggers in the ’stan.
Some of them have names to much too - take Aquavita McGlumpha for instance - that’s the name of a burd with a face like the back end of a baboon.
Sorry Glasgow. you’ll just have to come to Edinburgh to see a bit of totty.
Or Barry Island, or Grimsby, or Sellafield, or Macclesfield, or Nantwich, or The Wirral, or Newcastle Under Lyme, or Harthill - let’s face it - they’re all now, officially, bonnier.
Edwyn’s recuperation continues at a remarkable level and I read in the paper today that he is to play Glastonbury. Coincidentally, can you believe how chuffed I was that a post what I wrote in December last year was stumbled upon by his amazing wife Grace and even merited her comments via my bro-in law Alan McBlane?
