I am familiar with almost all their music and growing up, I tended to have compilation records of Beatles hits. That was good enough for me, but I never had an proper studio albums and only recently, when I “borrowed” Solomon’s (Veneto Lounge Manager) external drive, did I rip almost all their later albums.
I would have downloaded cuts and records from iTunes… but Beatles music has never been available. Until, maybe tomorrow.
Will it really matter? I think so. I think I personally would have downloaded a few records by now. I know a bunch of songs.
As it stands, I have slightly over half the discography, so now the only nickels they’ll be getting is for the early pop hits which I am sorely missing. I need “Twist and Shout” in my mix. That song slays.
An unsought, unintended, and/or unexpected discovery and/or learning experience that happens by accident and sagacity.
I was thinking about it the other day because of my recent collection of French pop.
And how nothing just happens. I think it all goes back to when Brendan Canning (Broken Social Scene) guest DJ’s on the Zone and dropped some 70s Zimbabwean Afro-pop on the Capital City masses.
Neat.
Then at record club last week Tiemen at Talk’s Cheap Record Store played a band that he called Nouveau French Pop band… and I said… “french Pop?”
He quickly explained what 60s French Pop (ye-ye) is and played the song. It was good.
Saturday at Veneto, St. Christopher stops by with a record player for me (thank you!) and some records and we played Serge Gainsbourg. Sounded so good in the Veneto. I thought, “this is what the Veneto sounds like to me…”
I wikipedia Serge Gainsbourg and yeah… yesterday’s post. I download a bunch of 60s European pop and ye-ye from France and Italy because it turns out there was a fun pop scene in Italy at the time as well.
Then yesterday this from FMQB.com:
Uber producer/deejay Danger Mouse is working on a collaboration with Italian composer Daniele Luppi called Rome. The project is inspired by their mutual love for 1960s Italian film soundtracks and it features loads of vintage equipment, as well as guest spots from Jack White and Norah Jones. Danger Mouse has actually been cooking up the project for five years, and he says he can hear traces of it in everything he’s done since then. “Rome seems to have fed into everything I’ve done — you can hear it in a lot of Gnarls Barkley, it’s all over Broken Bells too,” he told The Guardian in the U.K. “I get a lot of offers to do film soundtracks and I’ve never said yes, because no one has heard this yet, and I think some people still think of me as a hip-hop producer. But this is what I would actually do, if I were to make a soundtrack. I’m really happy it’s out. I just hope it’s not going to take five years to do the next one.”
The bartenders try and revive and explore recipes from the late 1800s and early 1900s. Great for cocktails but less so musically.
To help set the vibe in the lounge, Motown and early rock have always been a staple of my music sets (with modern indie rock and chillwave).
Trying to think of something more European and mod, I have started exploring the pop music scenes of France and Italy.
The journey led me to discover a few decent Italian singers of the period, but the treasure was a French pop style called “ye-ye.”
Its a very cool and slinky style that will transport you to the Mediterranean circa 1968. I have no idea what these girls are singing about but I want to know all of them more carnally.
A name from the scene that you may of heard of is Serge Gainsbourg. He wrote and/or performed many of the standards of the time. His style was very progressive, dark and sexual.
Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin – “Je t’aime moi non plus”
What a dishy number… Jane Birkin’s simulated sexual breathing? yikes, someone hold me. This song gets me hot and bothered just listening to it.
Gainsbourg was an interesting character. One of the more hilarious stories was his involvement with 16-year-old ye-ye singer France Gall. Gainsbourg helped her early in her career and penned some of her biggest European hits.
The thing with the French pop of the 60s was that it was innocent teenager music. Generally sung by teen girls about finding that first crush and navigating those first awkward years of sexuality.
That’s cool, till you sprinkle in the dark mind of son of Jewish Russian Revolution survivors who then translated there way through Nazi occupied Paris during World War 2.
Enter the too adorable for words France Gall. Serge Gainsbourg wrote a song for her called “Les Sucettes” (lollipops). Long before my ganger Lil Wayne took this delicious candy and made it sinisterly wicked, Serge had an innocent 18-year-old girl on stage singing a song she knew nothing about.
Hilarity ensued, some scandal, a little embarrassment… and a song that Serge Gainsbourg described as the “the most daring song of the century” was born.
France Gall – “Les Sucettes”
Now this is a song you include on your “I like you, but I like you more when you’re getting down” mixtape.
When France discovered the true meaning of “Les Sucettes” she was mortified and sad. She felt that the “adults” around her used her and later in career she was very resentful of the early ye-ye years.
Having read her story and downloading a couple key tracks, I have developed a retro-active crush on this French doll.
It makes the song “Poupee de cire, poupee de son” (doll of wax, doll of song) all the more foretelling.
France Gall – “Poupee de cire, poupee de son”
“Poupee de cire” was a big hit for Gall and it would get an English make-over from English 60s singer Twinkle.
The song will help give you Anglophones a heads up on what the ye-ye songs of the 60s were all about.
Twinkle – “A lonely singing doll”
Its an interesting snap-shot of the “pop-star.” Serge Gainsbourg says of this song (he wrote it): “The songs young people turn to for help in their first attempts at discovering what life and love are about, are sung by people too young and inexperienced to be of much help and condemned by their celebrity to find out.”
It may or may not be a surprise to some of you, that I do enjoy me some AM radio.
I started my journey into the realm of commercial radio pushing buttons for a radio show called Coast-to-Coast AM on CFUN.
When I started there, I hated the show. It was so stupid.
But after the better part of a year, staying up late and listening to the show all the time, I kinda got into it.
When I moved to Victoria, I more or less just stopped listening to AM radio.
Recently however, I have been enjoying this late night radio show twice a week. After my DJ sets at the Veneto.
I only listen for 30 minutes or less… but its enough to hear some weird shit.
Last Saturday was a show called “Renegade History of the United States.”
People calling up the host to debate facts about history and motivations for stuff. Slavery came up lots and the host said something interesting. He wasn’t justifying the practice at all, but he did say that some good might have come for the horrible evil.
Chiefly, rock and roll.
Wow.
He said that the earliest roots of rock trace back to slave music. No slaves, no slave culture, maybe no rock and roll.
Bob Seger – “Old Time Rock and Roll”
The weird consequences of the law don’t stop there.
The Untied States flirted with banning the manufacture and sale of alcohol.
As you might suspect, that didn’t go over to well with.. well pretty much everyone. So an underclass of illegal nightclubs and saloons sprung up all over the US called the Speakeasy.
Seattle is known by many of us as the place where grunge music comes from. But long before the Seattle scene of the late 80s and early 90s, there was another rock and roll scene going on.
In the late 50s and early 60s, Seattle was home to a bunch of garage rock bands. One of my favourites is a group that some people consider one of the first punk rock bands, The Sonics.
The Sonics were known for the fast and hard playing. Simple chord progressions and darker themed song lyrics. They also covered many of the garage rock staples of the time, including one of the more famous versions of “Have Love, Will Travel.”
I was flipping through the 45s bin at Ditch Records today with Madelyn when I spotted a couple Norton Record‘s re-issues of The Sonics.
I picked up their hits “Witch” and “Psycho.” And look at that, the b-side to “Psycho” is “Have Love, Will Travel.”
I continue to flip and find an old Black Keys’ 7-inch that features “The Moan”… b-side, “Have Love, Will Travel.”
$20 later, I have a collection of Sonics 45s, a Black Keys… and what the heck, The Kingsmen doing “Louie Louie” for good measure.
The Black Keys are one of the biggest bands in Modern Rock right now… formally topping The Modern Rock Countdown here in Victoria; and currently Billboard’s Alternative Songs chart.
It is always a battle to try and create time where I don’t answer the blackberry, I don’t check facebook, I don’t “hop in the studio,” or sit down to write a blog.
Halloween finally offered a moment to just go trick-or-treating. When we got home from our ritualized begging, Mads crashed hard and Coral went to bed early.
I took the time to… do sweet fuck all.
Watched a Zombie TV show, The Walking Dead. Then listened to music and read about history. I mean seriously, when was the last time you set aside an hour to read about the The Franks and their conquest of Gaul?
I’ve blogged before about my love of Vancouver fuzz duo Japandroids. MCR (whoa, some shorthand as My Chemical Romance) are an alt-rock duo too… but their style is more reflective of a band growing up in the sunny excess of California and not the down-and-out hipster rain forest of Vancouver.
David Eleanor first brought up Middle Class Rut at our music meeting last Friday. he noticed some radio traction in the US. First listen, and I loved it. The style of their single “New Low” immediately screamed Fu Manchu (another California desert fuzz band). in fact, the Fu Manchu comparison was so strong, I jammed out all California Crossing all weekend.
Finally on Sunday night I broke down and downloaded No Name No Color. NNNC is a collection of their earlier EPs and demos. A gritty, genuine, fuzzed out rock sound. I mentioned comparisons to Japandroids and Fu Manchu earlier, but you’ll also pull out threads of Black Keys and Queens of the Stone Age.
The style says desert and suburbs to me. Lyrically, they tackle themes of our modern consumer culture. I haven’t owned the record for longer than 24 hours yet, and adore it.
The gentlemen of MCR recorded most of the songs in their studio located in one end of the drummer’s Mom’s house. The record for the most part was recorded in the capital (or capitol in Americanese) of California and much of it was mixed in Van Nuys.
Middle Class Rut has had the opportunity to support Social Distortion, Alice in Chains, Them Crooked Vultures and Chevelle in concert. They are off right now opening for Filter.
Its Halloween, no better time to go for a ghost hunt in Victoria. Using my two-year-old daughter as bait… we first headed to Lime Bay in Esquimalt and searched around Spinniker’s Pub. Seeing no definite evidence of the super-natural, we were off to the basement of the Rialto Hotel. Again, we were having no luck until suddenly….
Memphis leads off the mixtape with a most fitting Ghost song… Torquil Campbell, the male vocal ying to Stars‘ Amy Milan’s female yang… put out a great little side project album many moons ago. I saw him perform at Logan’s back in like 2006, and it was mighty. I always remembered this cut because its so darn spooky.
The next song features a white Motown artist. SWA? I know right, a white guy that made MoTown magic back in the 60s and 70s. Only in Canada. R. Dean Taylor was born in Toronto, Ontario back when the Leafs lost the Stanley Cup to the Bruins (1939).
He recorded a song called “At The High School Dance” in 1961 which garnered some local success and his next song “I’ll Remember” charted on legendary Canadian rock radio station CHUM. The success promoted our Maple Leaf Rocker to move to Detroit…this historic occasion also marked the last time a Canadian would ever willingly move to that city yeesh. R. Dean taylor would get hired on by Motown as a performer and writer and would have a moderately successful career. Go Canada and obscure white Motown artists!
I make a mean game of dumping on Matthew Good, but the fact of the matter is, I like a lot of his songs. Apparitions are ghosts and “Apparitions” is on the list of favourite Matt Good songs.
Did I ever tell you the story of running into Matt Good at a gas station convenience store on Burrard street and I ran around the store heckling him till he left? Yeah, I’m an asshole and wouldn’t do that again if I had the day back. But it made sense at the time.
Hey Matt Good, if you google yourself and my blog comes up and you remember that time some skinny douche bag gave you a hard time in a gas station convenience store…. Sorry.
The only time we ever really dabbled with Band of Horses on the Zone… the song was about ghosts!
You should be familiar with Wintersleep’s “Weighy Ghost.” A more mainstream cut that got ample play on the radio.
Mother Mother is hard at it right now, working on a new record (due January). Currently “Hayloft” is the most requested song on the Zone Afternoon Show, but believe this hype! Its not even the most quirky song on the album O My Heart. Put this “Ghosting” song in your ear-hole and ruminate.
The National are my favourite band, so when I had a song on my iTunes with the word “Ghost” in it… well it had to make the list.
Riot Act, Pearl Jam’s seventh studio record and first post-9/11 and post Roskilde Festival Accident record has a song called “Ghosts.” Rad. I do like me some Pearl Jam… and going back to read about Riot Act after jamming out “Ghosts” and now I want to hear the whole record.
yee-yah… Riot Act is a great record.
The mixtape ends with a haunting cut from Spoon’sGa Ga Ga Ga Ga… “The Ghost of You Lingers.” Shit’s going on in my right ear… whoa, then my left. Stereo sound.
The Morning After 