Amadou & Mariam: iTunes Festival gig review

A quick review from me of last night’s gig at the Roundhouse, Camden, with Amadou and Mariam.

French People
There were many many French people at the gig. I don’t know if this is because A&M are much bigger in France than here, or because Mali (where A&M are from) is an ex-French colony and somehow that’s the connection. Or because the support act Charlie Winston is apparently #1 in the French charts.

Charlie Winston – support
Never heard of him, but he claimed to have the #1 selling album currently in France. Seems bizarre as his band were fairly conventional acoustic blues-rock. Why pick him over any other average acoustic pop-rock band?

Not sure, but if you happen to be in an average sounding  acoustic blues-rock band struggling to make an impact here in the UK, I suggest you head over to France!

Amadou & Mariam
Yey! They were great, deploying their highly funky and surprisingly fierce-at-times sounding afro-beat-pop. I’d forgotten to mention to Meg that Amadou and Mariam were both blind, so she was surprised when they were helped on by stagehands. You realise how much performers must rely on seeing the audience when you find a pair of musicians who it doesn’t matter how much you wave your hands or dance in front if, they won’t be able to see the effect. There was plenty of cheering to keep them assured of our presence though.

But it’s the music what matters, and it’s rare for a 90 minute set go by so quickly. The crowd took a few songs to warm up, but by the end the atmosphere was hot, everyone dancing.

The only slight weirdness was by the end of the last song, we all knew they hadn’t played their hit song ‘Senegal Fast Food’ so when the musicians left the stage, we the audience did the usual ‘encore’ and ‘more’ stuff expecting it to be played. So when a roadie came on and unplugged the first microphone it caused the crowd to actually boo – which isn’t great form, no matter how much  you wanted another song.

I had actually spent the week trying to learn words of Senegal Fast Food so I could sing along, which is a surprisingly tricky task, and was cruelly deprived of this opportunity…

I notice that Amadou & Mariam are playing the Big Chill next week – and so am I with Cassette, so hopefully they play it then and I can test my pigeon French and Malinese (if that’s the language of the chorus)

Waterhouse, Windows, Whacking drums

A good weekend:

JW Waterhouse @ the Royal Academy

Femme fatales, Sorceresseses, Sirens, maidens on the cusp of womanhood…these are definitely the obsessions of JW Waterhouse, the post-pre-raphaelite of the late 19th/early 20th century. Cinematic in their drama and hyper-real in their execution, these paintings are ravishingly seductive. The detail is astounding – Waterhouse is a master of technique, sometimes photoreal in the Academy tradition and other times more impressionistic, but always in the service of the picture and it’s story.

These stories are almost always exploring the contradictory nature of women (as he saw it): seductive but dangerous, powerful yet vulnerable (the picture above is Circe the sorceress in her pomp and power just before falling victim to Odyseus, who can be seen skulking around in the shadows),  and nymphs with the power to hypnotise (check the mesmeric stare of the lead nymph and Hylas in Hylas and the Nymphs. Sexy stuff!)

Ezra Pound dismissed his work as ‘merely beautiful’, but that’s a silly thing to say. Waterhouse must be one of the last artists to really use classical and mythological themes to express his ideas before the modernist movement came along and swept all that away. And if you’re going to paint Narcissus lost in his reflection whilst Echo pines away next to him, it should definitely be painted like this. There’s nothing wrong with beauty, silly Ezra

Recommended:  visit at your earliest opportunity.

Windows
My mum bought a new computer last week with Vista on it. What a nightmare of an operating system! I had thought, despite all the negative press, that if couldn’t be that bad. As it turns out, it is.

It went back to the shop and a Mac Mini has been acquired in it’s place. The slight extra cost is well worth it for getting a computer that, you know, actually works.  I hadn’t recommended it at first, as I thought continuity and familarity with Windows might be the best option. Wrong.

Be scornful of ‘prettiness’ and the lack of ability to ‘get under the hood’ all you like, but user experience is product design is important. Apple gets that and for some reason the majority of the tech world still don’t really understand that and think Apple is just marketing and hype.

Whacking Drums
I played my first maracatu gig in three years on Saturday. No rehearsals, but it all came right back. Maracatu is so awesome…gearing up for Notting Hill Carnival now. Can’t wait!

Sidechain compression musing

Was playing around with Side Chain compression yesterday on the bassline of an electrohouse track, and it sure does give a track movement, dynamics and energy.

I wonder if some kind of inadvertant compression & limiting of that sort is what made pop of the 50s & 60s sound so good. Equipment was so basic that there had to be some of kind of crude compression and pumping going on, which they probably got the hang of to enhance the sound.

Listen to Bo Diddley’s ‘Bo Diddley’. Although I think it’s more of a tremolo on the guitar than actual deliberate pumping compression, it don’t half give it a nice a groove. And in this case the tremolo isn’t that different from the effect of heavily pumping compression.

Just a thought!

Maracatu gig this Saturday

It’s been a while, but I’m pretty excited to be doing a gig with Maracatu Estrela do Norte this Saturday at The Egg, Kings Cross.   

It’ll be the first gig I’ve done with them for a couple of years, and I haven’t been to any rehearsals. Still, I’m sure it’ll all come flooding back to me!

Here’s them in 2007 rehearsing for the Notting Hill Carnival (I’m not present at this point):

Details are a little sketchy at this point, I’m not sure if we’re playing at the club post-1opm or at an event before then. I’ll update this post when I have more details as you’ll want to come along.

Of course you do – you are sensible people and will love this powerful, raw drumming music of Brazil.

iTunes Live: Amadou & Mariam

Yey, scored some tickets to see Amadou & Mariam at the iTunes festival gig next Tuesday at the Roundhouse!

You should try and get some too.  Irrestible pop from Mali!

Tickets are free, but you have to be lucky enough to be drawn out of the hat:
http://www.roundhouse.org.uk/whats-on/productions/itunes-live-london-festival-09-3f

Here’s a review of their Manchester gig:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/jul/10/amadou-and-mariam-review

See you there, it’s gonna be a great gig, I can’t wait!

Keys are not tyre levers

They should make this clearer in the instruction manual for keys really.

And I should remember to always have tyre levers on me…

Derailleur Failure

If you’re at all familiar with the general concept of a bicycle, you’ll know that the derailleur gear shifter on the real wheel should not find itself in a position where it is bent back upwards into the real wheel spokes, locking up the wheel, snapping the chain and causing the user to suddenly stop in the middle of busy Borough Junction.

If you find this unusual situation has occurred – please take it to your local bicycle repair shop where they will charge ‘quite a lot’ to fit a new mech, mech holder, cassette, chain and to re-true the wheel.

And it’s not like I didn’t have a million bloody punctures last week either….grr!

Electronically Yours Vol. 1

Well, it’s been a little while in the making, but is well worth the wait. With our track ‘The Smartest Bomb’ in the honoured position of #3, preceded by Client, we urge you to purchase this collection of brand new female fronted electropop.

Available from MusicNonStop.co.uk

Unlike Little Boots, Lady GaGa, La Roux, et al, this is music written, produced and promoted by the artists themselves – without the help of major labels. (eg, Little Boots co-writer is Greg Kurstin – look him up and decide for yourselves how much Victoria Boots actually wrote herself….Greg on Wiki)

Anyway…I digress slightly! This is a collection of new electro produced by people with a passion for what they do and is the brainchild of Orac of League-Online, a man with a passion for all things electro and prepared to release an album to prove it!

———–

EMI Press Release:

Here it is – the release of Electronically Yours “EY Volume 1”, possibly the most significant collection of new electronic pop music since 1981’s “Some Bizzare Album” which launched the recording careers DEPECHE MODE, SOFT CELL, THE THE and BLANCMANGE. Featuring synthly the best new acts on Planet Earth, “EY Volume 1” has been pre-programmed for your listening pleasure!

Electronically Yours started life as a blog in tandem with Secrets Online, both in celebration of synthesizer pioneers THE HUMAN LEAGUE. The thrill of electronic music merged the two sites into one. But then in late 2006, the discovery of Greek electro-maidens MARSHEAUX changed everything…

EY webmeister Rob Windle (AKA Orac)’s belief in the duo’s wonderful analogue synchronicity and Eurocentric charm led to them headlining the first ‘EY Night’ for their live UK debut in London and the aftermath was an enthusiastic union with Undo Records to bring you this CD. Only one condition was specified…all the tracks had to be ‘really good’!

“EY Volume 1” perfectly captures a fantastic moment in time. The last 24 months have seen a resurgence in what is known to many as ‘electropop’. In the past, it was the mainstay of boys with their toys who were prepared to play the role of ‘outsider’ in yesterday’s tomorrow. What has revitalised the genre without a doubt are the feisty, glamourous ladies who are not only fronting the music but are helping to create it too. No electropop puppets here! 21st Century electro is fresh BECAUSE of the female voices… 80s synth pop never sounded this sexy!

So taking the lead from 21st Century female-fronted electronic acts LADYTRON, GOLDFRAPP and MISS KITTIN, this brilliant compilation brings together the best of ‘neu musik’ for those who still love the sound of synth.

No guitars here and frankly who cares?