Monday, July 31, 2006
Me on ESG for NPR's Song of the Day. Posted by CP | Link |
Friday, July 21, 2006
My debut piece for NPR's Song of the Day is on my favorite singer-songwriter of the past 10 years, Thomas Dybdahl, whose third solo CD just came out in the U.S.
His site.
His MySpace.
A fan site.
A fan's MySpace site.
Buy his new CD.
Buy all three of his albums on iTunes.Posted by CP | Link |
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
The great pianist Martial Solal on the French Riviera, July 19, 2006.
He'll be 80 in January 2007, and he's still playing amazing music. Based in Paris, with relatively few trips to the U.S. during his 50-plus-year career, Solal's not well known outside of Europe. But it's safe to say he's one of the most original and talented jazz musicians ever from the continent. (And he's certainly the best to have grown up in Algeria.)
You can buy Solal's recent Dreyfus CDs and one Blue Note disc with ease, but his older music can be hard to get a hold of in the U.S. -- though virtually all of it is worth digging up. Or just watch Breathless again -- he did the soundtrack, though Godard has never told him whether or not he liked the music.
Somewhere in the near distance is F. Scott Fitzgerald's old joint, Villa Saint Louis/Belles Rives. God bless Rockville and its gorgeous pike, but I'd rather be buried in Juan-Les-Pins.Posted by CP | Link |
Monday, July 17, 2006
Baby Cham
Washington Post, Monday, July 17, 2006; Page C05
[DIRECTOR'S CUT]
Two things were learned Saturday night at Crossroads. One, no matter how good your dandruff shampoo is, never wear a dark T-shirt to a black-light party. Two, there are a million ways to refer to a woman's private parts.
It wasn't just headliner Baby Cham who referred repeatedly to women's cha-chas. Spice, an attractive female deejay from Jamaica, as well three local opening acts dropped enough "p" bombs to make you think an X-rated sex-ed class had broken out in the middle of a dancehall reggae show.
Sex and violence are common themes in modern Jamaican music, and an energetic Cham referenced both repeatedly in a 75-minute set that began at 2:45 a.m. on Sunday. But the man who may be the next Sean Paul -- a dancehall artist who crosses over to the U.S. hip-hop market - has such a charming personality that even his filthiest material sounds like a playful boast rather than a bad-man pledge.
A one-time protege of Bounty Killer, Baby Cham shares the same sort of guttural growl when he's rapping. But Cham also has a decent singing voice, and while he didn't use it all that often, the times he did showed a deep gospel influence. Cham even belted a verse from Bad English's 1989 power ballad "When I See You Smile," a big hit in Jamaica in 1992 when it was remade by Singing Sweet.
"Heading to the Top" was hip-hop with a Jamaican accent, while "Vitamin S," "Many Many" and "Ghetto Pledge" were straight dancehall bangers. But it's the raw "Ghetto Story" that has given the 29-year-old Cham the next-big-thing buzz. The extended version he performed live wasn't very focused, but it was still a thrill whenever the shouted "Rah rah rah!" chorus rang out with the roaring help of the club-wide choir, many of whom glowed eerily under the black lights. --Christopher PorterPosted by CP | Link |
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Amadou & Mariam: When the Blues Feels Good
Washington Post, Thursday, July 13, 2006; Page C09
He may not look like Jimi Hendrix or Jimmy Page, but Amadou Bagayoko is a guitar hero just the same. He put on an African blues-rock clinic Tuesday when the world-pop sensation Amadou & Mariam hit the packed Birchmere for their premiere Washington area appearance.
In 1977 Bagayoko and singer Mariam Doumbia met at the Institute for the Blind in Bamako, Mali. They married in 1980 and started performing the same year. After almost 25 years, they became an overnight success because of the CD "Dimanche a Bamako," a hit in France in 2004 and worldwide in 2005. The album is a fantastic blend of African blues-rock, Latin-tinged percussion and psychedelic R&B, made sweet by the charming vocals of the husband-wife duo.
"Dimanche a Bamako" received universal raves, from beard-scratching indie-rockers to native Africans. That eclectic mix was represented at the Birchmere, which staged the show in its bandstand area so people could dance: For 15 songs during the course of 100 minutes, Amadou & Mariam Afro-funked it up for the lovably motley crew who shook their booties to the band's fierce syncopated rhythms and tornadolike guitar solos.
While songs from Amadou & Mariam's breakthrough album made up the bulk of the set -- including "Senegal Fast Food," "Beaux Dimanches," "La Realite" and "Coulibaly" -- the duo dipped into its rich back catalogue with "Chantez-Chantez," which sounds like Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground" returned to its African roots, and the '70s-cop-rock funker "Nangaraba."
The polished group was tres, tres tight, deeply locking into the songs' hypnotic pulses, but Bagayoko was the star. His playing mixed garage-rock power with the delicate filigrees that define African guitar, but you could tell Amadou was happiest just ripping it like Jimi and Jimmy. --Christopher PorterPosted by CP | Link |
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Live, Camera Obscura Underdeveloped
Washington Post, Tuesday, July 11, 2006; Page C04
The things that make Camera Obscura charming on record -- singsong melodies, unpretentious indie-rock aspirations -- are the same things that doomed its live show Sunday at the Black Cat. The Scottish sextet played an enervating hour-long set, ambling through 14 songs with all the urgency of a concussed sloth.
Singer and guitarist Tracyanne Campbell has a flat, wee voice, but it sounds sweet and innocent on the band's latest CD, "Let's Get Out of This Country," where you can make out her lovelorn lyrics. But her singing was lost in the Black Cat's muddy mix, which was punctuated by several short blasts of feedback likely due to Campbell's microphone being pushed into the red because of her weak voice. (You couldn't hear what she was saying between songs, either.)
Camera Obscura's love of Phil Spectorish pop is obvious, and the band evokes that layered, reverb-drenched sound on its recordings. But live, despite having six instrumentalists, Camera Obscura displayed little to no dynamics. It was if the wall of sound had been chipped away to reveal songs that are little more than skeletons, not fully fleshed-out compositions.
The set's first five tunes were scarcely above a whisper, and it wasn't until the group's fab new single, "Lloyd, I'm Ready to Be Heartbroken," that the concert picked up, however briefly. The peppy song is a playful response to 1984's "Are You Ready to Be Heartbroken?," by the great Lloyd Cole, but it doesn't evoke his polished pop, sounding more like another '80s tune: Altered Image's "I Could Be Happy" as covered by the Pastels or Belle and Sebastian, the Glasgow indie-rock bands who were huge influences on Camera Obscura.
But after "Lloyd," the band brought the energy level back down to drowsy, leaving the large audience chatting away, heartbroken. --Christopher PorterPosted by CP | Link |
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Who cork the dance?
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