Perfect Pop & Denmark’s Delia Derbyshire
16
Jun

Alphabeat have got a new single out!

If you don’t know them, they were all over the place around 2007-2008. They hit the radar of the hipsters as the token pop band it was OK to like – “Fascination” was their big hit:

I was actually at this gig at the Borderline in London. They sound incredibly tight live, which isn’t as easy as you think to achieve for full-on pop music.

There were signs even on the first album that they could have life beyond mere novelty, notably “What Is Happening”, a perfect Chairmen Of The Board / Dexys-sounding mature pop song, hinting at what they could conceivably achieve in years to come.

They even did A Public Image Limited cover version, which is frankly not their finest hour but worth hearing for novelty value. Daughter #1 was astonished to hear this was not an original (and she hates the original too, but then nobody’s perfect).

Alphabeat have a new album out soon and the lead single is called “Vacation” which is an homage to Madonna’s “Holiday” . God bless ‘em for staying the course.

Etferklang are an indie band from Copenhagen who release albums every few years which are always worth hearing. This track is lovely, it just gets into your head and won’t leave.

Now, to counter all this fresh-faced pop and dreamy indie loveliness, to Elsie Marie Pade, one of the first Danish practitioners of electronic music.

This track is from 1970. The repeated phrase is Danish for “Hitler is not dead”. Before it was censored, the track ended with the line “He lives on in Nixon”.

If you think THAT’S weird for its time, how about this one from 1958?

And this one from 1962 sounds absolutely contemporary. Still.

Else Marie Prade was born in 1924 and is still making music.

For more on Else and others, I recommend this excellent blog on women in electronic music

Finally, I couldn’t really write anything on Danish music without mentioning The Raveonettes.

For ten years, The Raveonettes have been one of my favourite bands. Yeah, they sound like Duane Eddy and The Jesus And Mary Chain and Blondie. Yeah, they’re dead retro, stuck in the late 50s / early 60s surfy gutar sound, with maybe a punky buzzsaw update.

But like all my favourite bands down the years, I have a total blind spot for them and I can’t really put my finger on what is so great about them.

With The Ravs, the basic test as to whether you will like them is to listen to this song

If you like this, you will like everything they’ve done. If not, then move along. Nothing to see here. And I don’t want to be your friend anyway. It would never have worked out.

Next in our journey around those bits of Europe that are slightly better at football than some of the other bits  – the Former Soviet Republic Of Russia.

Disco Polo
15
Jun

There are a few pop stars these days who have a little bit more to them than meets the eye from pictures like this one :

Dorota Rabczewska aka Doda shows off her tongue stud

Doda is one of the biggest pop stars in Poland. She has recently been found guilty of the crime of “offending religious sensibilities” for remarking in a year-ago television interview that she believed more in dinosaurs than she did in the Bible because “it is hard to believe in something written by people who drank too much wine and smoked herbal cigarettes”.

Bible Stories by Doda

If John Lennon had made his famous quote about the Beatles being “bigger than Jesus” and Christianity “fading away and dying pretty soon” in the present day in Poland, he’d probably have been crucified. Maybe literally.

Doda’s music is great pop. Non-Polish speakers shouldn’t let that put them off – after all, who listens to lyrics anyway? Love this video. Never mind the gyrating bottoms, this is a great track!

I reckon she actually looks slightly hotter at the start of the video with the glasses and fluffy slippers on. But maybe that’s just me.

Doda’s website is  here – loads of pix and videos. Enjoy.

For every one of Doda’s followers on Twitter, there are 469 who follow Shakira. Which isn’t as bad as it sounds as a LOT of people follow Shakira. Even former chat show hosts from Norwich.

Here are some Polish football hooligans who formed a boy band called – This is actually rather loverly. Take THAT, Take That. And they could definitely take Take That if it came to fisticuffs.

MIG “Co Ty Mi Dasz”

Now to what is becoming the obligatory prog rock section – a genre you can trust, no matter what the origin or the language. Poland’s biggest ever prog rock band were called SBB (which originally stood for the Silesian Blues Band). Not, unfortunately the Silurian Blues Band

Diana Ross And The Silurians

The name changed its meaning to the classically muddy prog monicker “Search, Break Up, Build”. Whatever the hell that means. The band are great – they properly rock out at times, as you can hear on this track which along with the usual proggy influences, has something of Roxy Music in the guitar solo. Definite similarities to Focus, too.

Finally, Republika were big in the 80s and 90s. This is called “Moja Krew” (“My Blood”)

Never made it over to the UK (don’t get me started on British cultural narrow-mindedness – a topic for another day …)

Next up – Denmark. Yeah, that means Alphabeat. Obviously.

Prog Rock (and more) from Italy
10
Jun

Italy’s footballers have the daunting task of stopping the Spanish juggernaut this evening, against a backdrop of yet another match-fixing scandal engulfing the Italian domestic game.

However, last time such a scandal erupted was in 2006, and that was the year that a dishevelled, unfancied Italian team got off their collective backsides and actually won the World Cup, in a final match that was less famous for the result than for Zinedine Zidaine’s headbutt on Marco Materazzi.

Musically, Italy has a rich history dating back to medieval times. Most people know Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” – this is “Winter” by I Musici, which has an unexpectedly great video.

The first Italian band I remember being aware of was PFM (Premiata Forneria Marconi – which is apparently Italian for “Award-winning Marconi bakery”.

They were the first Italian band to use a Moog synth in the seventies and can be said to have invented Italian prog rock.

As you can hear from the videos embedded below, their music was very much influenced by their British contemporaries like Yes and especially Genesis. Two things set them apart – first, the vocals. The band never rated their vocals and later in their career took on a specialist lead vocalist, but I quite like the gentler, more pastoral feel to the vocals on their earler stuff. And the keyboard lines are so much more melodic than anything produced by Rick Wakeman or Tony Banks.

For every PFM fan on facebook there are 5.65 fans of Yes, which seems unfair to me.

Impressioni Di Settembre – this 1972 clip is a bit grainy and the sound quality is not great but you can hear what they’re about.

Greg Lake of the prog giants ELP signed them to Manticore records and they released a few English-language albums, notably “The World Became The World”.

River Of Life – a pastoral, folky feel to this one at the beginning. Definitely a bit like King Crimson. Lyrics by “Mr pretentious” Pete Sinfield (“a vale of tears for the virgin birth”. Right on, Pete!)

This album also included a re-recording of “Impressioni di settembre” as the title track. This was their last collaboration with Pete Sinfield, as the group were not entirely pleased with the content of his English lyrics. (I reckon that prior to 1975 their English was not good enough to recognise bad poetry)

Which brings me to an interesting point – I love PFM, but I like their Italian stuff far better. I suspect this may be because I don’t understand Italian, so I remain in blissful ignorance of the lyrics.

May do a Top Ten worst prog rock lyrics one day. Watch this space.

Moving more up to date, Koine are a good indie-rock band. The big beautiful Italian vocals work really well with the jangly guitars. This one hits a classic rock groove towards the end and is none the worse for it. (The song actually finishes around 3.23, I wouldn’t bother with the two minutes of credits after that)

And finally, “La Cacada” by Checcio Zalone is currently number one in the Italian dance charts. I like this, its got a good beat. And still with the lovely voice. He’d have been singing opera back in the days of Vivaldi. But with worse teeth.

Ukraine tomorrow, a country which, I think it is fair to say, has not made a huge splash on the international music scene for one reason or another. Is this justified? Find out tomorrow, unless you’re Ukranian in which case I guess you already know the answer.

The Sound Of Portugal
9
Jun

Portugal open their Euro 2012 campaign this evening against Germany. Six, eight, ten years ago this would have been a fine contest but its fair to say the team of Cristiano Ronaldo and ten lesser players is not expected to trouble the German machine too much this evening.

Portugal is famous for fado music, which, unusually for folk music, has its roots in cities, notably the port city of Lisbon where many cultures met and merged over the centuries. Fado combines elements of traditional Portugese folk with Moorish and African influences.

Now, the Portugese have a word “saudade”, which has no exact translation in English. Roughly, it means “nostalgia” or “homesickness” but it also implies a bittersweet longing. Strange that English doesn’t include a word for this, as its something the English feel very deeply, especially at times of great national feeling such as – oh, I dunno, the Diamond Jubilee. Or a big football tournament.

“Saudade” pretty much nails the lyrical content of fado music. Songs are often about lost or unrequited love, death and general sadness. The sad, bittersweet lyrics are sung over beautiful plaintive melodies, sung in a wistful, yearning manner.

Despite that description, it doesn’t sound anything like The Smiths. This is Aldina Duarte, quite up-tempo.

Ana Moura, one of Portugal’s best-loved fadistas, with a more wistful song, more typical of the genre:

You can download Ana’s music here:

http://www.emusic.com/listen/#/artist/ana-moura/11640335/:

Other sites are available but iDon’t like them much so iDon’t see why iShould mention them. (you see what iDid there?)

Ana is also on twitter here:

https://twitter.com/#!/ana_moura

For every person who follows @AnaMoura on twitter, there are 3 who follow @AnnaCalvi (below)

Moving away from Fado, here are a few random links to Portugese bands you may find interesting.

Classic prog rock band Petrus Castrus :

And another one – Tantra. Bit like early (aka “good”) Genesis. The guy on the far-right makes Peter Gabriel look like Peter Noone.

The Skalibans! This starts off quite promising with a huge brassy punk intro, slips into a respectable ska beat (not too sure about the vocals though). Somebody’s dad had a Dexys album by the sound of it.

Finally, coming full circle in a way, a song called “Saudade” (see above) by Portugal’s biggest rock act of the seventies and eighties, Herois do Mar (Heroes Of The Sea)! Synth pop! With mandolins! – almost a prototype British Sea Power, at least to these ears.

So, a random selection but some excellent sounds there. I’d be interested if you know of any other Portugese music I should be aware of?

That’s all until tomorrow, when I will be “doing” Italy.

Waving Flags
7
Jun

I do love the old Queen. Still just as classy as ever as you can see from this video clip here

If you caught any of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee concert last week, you will have seen an array of popular British music acts from down the years. It all seemed very pleasant in the middle of an extended Bank Holiday weekend, with everyone in such a good mood.

There was Cliff Richard, Paul McCartney and Tom Jones (and of course Elton John!)  representing the old guard, Madness on top of Buck House and Jessie J and JLS among the current acts. Grace Jones and her amazing hula-hoop stole the show for me but that could be because deep down I suspect I am a gay man trapped in a straight man’s body.

And all I’ve heard since then is either “That was fantastic, what a great selection of bands” or “What a load of rubbish, we’ve got way better bands than that they could have had”. Polar opposite views, but they share a common assumption – we do pop music better than the rest of the world combined. You’ve only got to look at their charts – they’re all full of British music.

Erm – newsflash. The reason we, as English speaking people, think our music is better than the rest of the world’s is that we can’t speak French, Russian, Swahili, Punjabi, Dutch, Chinese or Swedish.

And the reason the charts in so many other countries have so many English speaking records is that a large percentage of the world’s population learns English from the cradle.

And you know why they speak English? That’s right. Its because the most powerful nation of the past 100 years is English speaking. And it ain’t England, or Britain, its the USA.

I listen to a lot of music. A lot. Because I’ve lived my whole life in England most of it is British or American. Its easy to get parochial on this point, but its also incorrect.

You only have to spend a short time abroad (and by that I mean mixing with the locals, not just staying in the Brit bars) to realise that there is a hell of a lot of music out there – some good, some bad, some great, but all of it worthy of a listen, and worthy of consideration in exactly the same way “our own” music is. And in the cases where different countries’ music has fused, its interesting to see the different takes on a familiar beat.

There’s a huge project to be done by somebody  on the music of the world (NOT “World Music” which in this country simply means another bunch of obsessives with another exclusive musical club – the arrogance of lumping the entire non-English speaking world into one category is so damn English)

Unfortunately, this is not that project. I don’t have the time as I have a day job and a relationship to hold down.

But over the next few weeks, to coincide with the 2012 European Football Championships, I will be featuring a random sample of music from each of the sixteen countries taking part. There is absolutely no plan or rhyme or reason for the selections, other than I love them all, and they won’t be bands everyone knows (so if you guessed Abba for Sweden, Demis Roussos for Greece and James Last for Germany, then guess again)

All are well worthy of your attention although it has to be said it isn’t always for purely musical reasons (you’re gonna LOVE Russia!)

To kick off, then, here are a couple of vids from great European bands whose countries unfortunately didn’t make it to Euro 2012 :

Its a mystery to me how Belgium, with Vincent Kompany and Eden Hazard, managed to avoid qualifying. They would have graced the tournament. It is also a mystery to me why this band are not huge. They even sing in English fer Chrissakes.

This lot are brilliant – saw them at the Thekla in Bristol a few weeks ago. They will go further than the Norn Iron football team ever will, with or without Neil Lennon.

And finally, ending on an “up”, Norway didn’t quite sneak in but Katzenjammer are the best band I’ve seen in a very long time. Dig this cheesy madcap trumpet ride!


Okay, back tomorrow with the first of the sixteen countries, ahead of the first day’s matches.

One last thing about Elton. I was so relieved when he didn’t do Candle In The Wind with the Diana words. That would have been awkward turtle and no mistake.