Manu Chao

Manu Chao is a great little find, he has been entertaining my head for a couple of months now.

He is a French Latin folk singer of French and Spanish (Basque/Galician) origin.  He moved to Paris as a very young child, when his parents decided to escape the dictatorship of Francisco Franco.

During the Eightie’s, Manu Chao experimented with a number of different genres of music, including punk and rockabilly, before starting his band Mano Negra with his brother Antoine and some friends. His “stage name” in Mano Negra was Oscar Tramor. Mano Negra played a combination of rock, punk, rockabilly, ska and Latin music, and became wildly popular in Europe and South America.

After the breakup of Mano Negra, Manu Chao began to perform as a solo artist. His music is even more experimental than that of Mano Negra, with an even heavier focus on Ska, Rai and Latin Music. He plays the guitar, and is usually accompanied by a band called Radio Bemba Sound System, which includes horns, keyboards and various world musical instruments.

Manu Chao’s lyrics touch on a variety of issues, from the mundane and even silly (“King of the Bongo”) to love, poverty and world politics. He sings in at least seven languages: French, Spanish, Portuguese, Galician, English, Arabic and Wolof, often in the same sound (you have to love compulsive over achievers).

Manu Chao is decidedly left-wing, politically, and is very critical of various governmental regimes around the world, including the Bush Administration.

From Youtube, Manu Chao – Welcome To Tijuana

Think Punk Afro Carribean with a really solid backing.

Recommended

Websites at www.manuchao.net/ and www.myspace.com/manuchao

Brian Gladstone

Brian Gladstone is a singer /finger picking guitarist from Toronto. And why is he being featured today? Well head over to the MySpace site, and pick any song you like (it won’t matter- trust me), if you want my pick try “A Song For Everyone“.

Now we are ’bout to have a slight digression (there’s a surprise), back in the late Sixties when I discovered music I could go to half a dozen coffee lounges and folk clubs here in Melbourne. There were people playing amazing guitar and singing songs with lyrics the were a tad meatier than “She Loves You”. Don’t get me wrong, I always appreciated pop music and rock music and when the stuff started arriving from the West Coast of America. It seemed to put all the things I was interested in into one package. ( Think early Jefferson Airplane). But I kept going to the clubs and watched a single bloke on a guitar try and change the world. It worked I never looked back and that bring us to Brian Gladstone.

Brian is one of those performers, just like the ones I used to watch and listen to all those years ago. One guy and a guitar, writing songs that try and change the world. Brian’s style encompasses bluegrass, blues, Celtic, authentic country, and host of other root-based genres.

Here comes a rather long quote from the website

Brian Gladstone

As with Brian’s first CD ‘Back to the Dirt’ – the sound throughout ‘Psychedelic Pholk Psongs’ is entirely acoustic; no electrical instruments used. In fact, so committed was he to this ethic, when co-producer/engineer Robert Digioia plugged in the bass for a track, Brian went so far as to yank out the chord. It was just a natural reflex action, he says. “I didn’t really have a lot of predefined ideas of how the album should sound. I just wanted a very natural sound. I listen to a lot of folk music, and even when there’s electric bass as opposed to acoustic bass, to me, it doesn’t sound quite right. I just wanted a very pure unamplified sound.”The nineteen tracks on ‘Psychedelic Pholk Psongs’ were recorded over a 6-month period at Brian’s home recording studio, a quiltwork of spare parts picked up at music store blow-out sales. There was no guidance system or grand plan in place–just a willingness to spend a few evenings each week playing whatever he felt. Quite often Brian would take a 20-minute break, jot down a few lyrics, and then bound back to the basement to record it exactly the way he felt it—at that precise moment. This home-based atmosphere, I believe, goes a long way toward explaining the personality and spontaneity that is always at the forefront and which gives everything on this recording a cosy intimate feel: a sense that the listener is almost there in person.You’ll find yourself admiring Brian’s confident finger-picking, a tip-off to his debt to all the masters. You’ll hear him on both guitar and banjo. (there are four instrumental standouts on this collection). Some spicy, tasty, on-the-money solos were added by one of Canada’s foremost acoustic guitar aces, Tony Quarrington. Other performers include legendary Daisy DeBolt, Ron Korb, and Maureen Brown.

Short version, I love the guitar playing, I love the ironic and thought provoking lyrics, I love the sincerity and precision ( a rare combination), so give it a listen.

Highly Recommended

Websites at www.myspace.com/briangladstonefolkartist and www.backtothedirt.com/

The Either/Orchestra

It finally had to happen… yep a jazz big band. No don’t panic, it’s not going to hurt a bit. The Either/Orchestra is an amazing jazz group from Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. They fired up in the mid Eighties as a “small big band”, with three saxes, two trumpets and one or two trombones.

This is a band with some fairly left of centre approaches to the whole big band thing. Just when you think you have it they just change direction and you as the listener get to take a fairly amazing ride.

While deftly mixing idioms, E/O consistently meets the expectations of the best large-ensemble jazz; the band’s members solo with both passion and skill, navigate complex charts, and swing with abandon.”

The E/O began performing original arrangements of Ethiopian songs, inspired by a compilation called “Ethiopian Groove: the Golden 70s”. In 2000, after three of these songs appeared on their album “More Beautiful than Death”, they scored an invitation to play at the Ethiopian Music Festival in Addis Ababa in 2004.

I assume they went down a treat, the recording is a gem.

Recommended
Websites at either-orchestra.org/ and www.myspace.com/eitherorchestra

I stumbled over Clint Eastwood & General Saint a week or two back while looking for some old reggae music. A colleague I work with was complaining that all the new reggae music sounds like hip hop. I suspect she is looking in all the wrong place. But I digress.

Dancehall deejay Clint Eastwood first made a name for himself performing with deejay General Saint in Great Britain. Judging from the clip below they had a great live act. Sadly they chucked it in to pursue solo careers in the late Eighties.

Most off the music is fairly lightweight but there is this one killer track. “Another One Bites The Dust”, it is a serious piece of work, really interesting rhythmically and it has a killer chorus.

Here is a cilp from The Old Grey Whistle Test…

Their album has been re-released on Greensleeves, you can find them at www.greensleeves.net/

Recommended

Website at www.myspace.com/clinteastwoodgeneralsaint

The band is Prem Joshua on Sitar, Bamboo Flutes, Soprano Sax, Dilruba and Vocals, Chintan Relenberg on
Loops, Keyboards, Darbouka, Tabla and Vocals, Raul Sengupta on Tabla, Percussion and Vocals and Satgyan Fukuda on Bass, Percussion and of course Vocals.

Saroja by Prem Joshua and Band is a piece that I have listened to repeatedly. May it effect you similarly.

There is an interesting interview with the band on webIndia123.com. Further reading on the band can be found at the Prem Joshua website. Video of numerous live performances are available via google video and YouTube.

One of the founding members, violinist Ania Woznica has recently left and her worthy replacement Kamil Skicki has stepped into the breach. The band now comprises Piotr Bielecki on vocals and acoustic guitar, Lukasz Bajorski on acoustic guitar, djembe and mouthorgan, Milosz Pawski on bass guitar, Przemek Galek on tin whistle, low whistle and bodhran, the aforementioned Kamil Skicki on violin and Blazej Zadworny on bagpipes, bodhran, irish spoons and keyboards.

With influences listed as Lunasa and Flook they could hardly go wrong. So it is with pleasure that I share this musical treat with you. “Greenland” performed live by Banshee in Krakow, 2008.

Fortunately they have uploaded lots of live footage so that you can experience them – by the magic of the Internet. The Banshee website has a slew of links to video footage (and interviews if you understand Polish) and guess what, they have a MySpace site as well.

Everyday is a little adventure combing the byways and peering into the darkness of the odd gimmel of the Internet, and sometimes you find something that jumps out of the darkness screaming. This was such a day.

Poitín was the name of a band here in Australia. I frequented the bar of the Dan O’Connell in Carlton on numerous Saturday afternoons to partake of their smoke and alcohol fueled Irish/Scottish lust for life and music.

That Poitín are no longer strutting their stuff on the folk stages of Melbourne, instead there is a younger even more exotic band running around with the same name.

This incarnation of Poitín hang out in the burbs of Bohemia in the Czech Republic no less and like their namesake – the booze rather than the band, they are fiery and flawed. That celtic tiger has prowled far and wide and left her dainty footprints in the most unlikely places, it seems.

In any case the line up is as follows: Jaroslav “Oto” Machácheck – fiddle (founder member); Jakub Siegl – guitars; Jan Brabets – bouzouki, banjo, tin whistle; Jeremy Marc King – lead vocals, bodhran; Hana Cirova- low whistle and tin whistles; Sasha Shantorova- flute and whistles; Dick Savage- Didgeridoo, spoons.

Here is a video of Poitin Live at the Angel, Pilsen, Czech Republic.

Their bio reads:

Poitín play Celtic music in all its shapes and forms from haunting Breton melodies to raunchy traditional Irish songs. They’ve performed at festivals across Europe in Italy, France, Poland and Germany and the Czech Republic. The latest cd, Hot Days (2006) features a daring mix of saxophone, didgeridoo and more traditional instruments to create a sparkling collection of songs and tunes, some traditional, some new, all suffused with Poitín magic.

So if passion counts for anything – this may be the music for you. MySpace website: www.myspace.com/poitinkapela and for a little added spice head over to SoundClick for more streaming media for your delectation. Enjoy.

Trust me, this guy knows how to write a song, killer melodies (that will haunt you), rhythms from Zimbabwe and the South African townships and some of the most dealy lyrics you will find. He uses bright and happy music to expose the social and political dilemmas and the darkness that confront the people of Zimbabwe. He isn’t the first and wont be the last but he is one of the best. In his lyrics there are metaphors and folk tales that powerful and meaningful messages that have helped address issues that far too often remain ignored or shielded from view. And just to top it off a great voice and guitar playing.

Here is an example, Ndakuvara…

There is a great track over at his Myspace site and a good selection of songs at LastFm, checkout “Neria”. Just heartbreakingly fantastic.

Highly Recommended

Websites at www.tukumusic.com/ and www.myspace.com/olivermtukudzi

Today let’s chat about The Duhks. They play an amazing combination of Appalachian bluegrass, the odd irish fiddle tune, and a bit of folk rock just to round the mix off. I first found this band when I heard Down To The River off their 2006 album “Migrations”. This song has a wonderful arrangment, a truly sneaky piece of  bluegrass with alternating English and French verses (they’re Canadians) and when you get to the tunes you just know that these are incredibly hot players.

Then they lost two players, replaced them, recorded a new album and wow, they did good. Have a listen to “Mighty Storm” ( a timely song about Galveston getting hit by a storm)and check out the new lead singer, Sarah Dugas.

So what brought this band to the forefront of my brain was spending an evening in the Rainbow Hotel in Fitzroy, listening to friend of mine from New York jamming with the local bluegrass talent and having a ball. And for the life of me I couldn’t remember the name “The Duhks”… I found the track the day after he flew back home. Timing is everything.

Recommended

Websites at www.myspace.com/theduhks and www.duhks.com/

The Duhks with John Paul Jones perform Whole Lotta Love at Merlefest 2007 …

Here is some hype from their website…

Extra Golden was formed rather casually in May of 2004 when Ian Eagleson, Alex Minoff and Otieno Jagwasi began fiddling with each other’s compositions in an apartment in the Buru Buru neighborhood of Nairobi. For rhythmic inspiration, the trio used isolated drum tracks by Onyango Wuod Omari that Eagleson had recorded earlier that year. After several song ideas were hashed out, Omari came by the apartment and, tapping pencils on a table, familiarized himself with them. The next afternoon, the four musicians met at the Annex Club and Restaurant in Kariobangi South Estate. Positioning themselves on a concrete slab between the tables and the restrooms, they set up a laptop and mixing board, a broken-down drumset, a couple of amplifiers and several microphones. Three hours later they packed up and left, the majority of Ok-Oyot System completed.

A year after this initial recording session, Otieno Jagwasi succumbed to his long struggle with liver disease. Besides causing great sadness, Otieno’s passing spurred Eagleson and Minoff to bring these recordings to the public. Chicago’s Thrill Jockey Records agreed to release the album and, in May 2006 – exactly two years after the group’s formation – Extra Golden was introduced to the world.

One of the most memorable songs from the new album, is “Obama.” The senator and his office made it possible for Extra Golden’s Kenyan members to obtain visas to play in the U.S., and they sing his praises, as well as of others in the U.S. consulate in Nairobi who made their tours possible.

A lot of class and style here. Great guitar sounds and just plain killer tracks.

Highly Recommended.

Websites at www.myspace.com/extragolden and www.extragolden.com/