SUNDAY'S EXTRA HOUR
The ultimate snooze button, the end of daylight savings time
Crystal Pistol, Crystal Castles, Crystal Skulls--'crystal' is to indie bands in 2008 what 'wolf' (Wolf Eyes, Wolf Parade, Wolfmother) was to 2005! Don't think I'm not paying attention, ya'll. Let's get the jump for 2009, and pick a word we can all have fun with for next year's (danceable) indie onslaught. I find wolves scary--and crystals, too, having grown up in Bellingham with lots of new agers.
How about the ultimate symbol of life? The Egg!! Egg Palace, I'm from Egg!, I Believe in the Egg and the Egg Believes in Me, Get Egg Wear Egg Poach. Etc.
I got home on Monday and was pleased to find my daughter was feeling much better. Back to her old mischievous self. Thank you to everyone who sent in concerned mails.
This week I have been deep in mixing the Minky record. Playing on some of the songs, and just tweaking digital things here and there sending files hither and yon. That's an all-consuming job--I was still working when the clocks went back this morning at 3. I slept til noon today and have decided to take the day off and enjoy a little ear refresher.
I took time out to see two shows this week--on Wednesday I went to the rehearsal of the performance, part of a series of Serge Gainsbourg related events--in this case it was frequent Serge collaborator Jean-Claude Vannier directing an orchestra and choir to replicate the full sound of his own albums 'bis' and his music concrete (envisioned as a ballet) magnum opus 'L'Enfant Assassin des Mouches', plus a performance of Serge's album 'L'histoire de Melody Nelson', which was originally arranged magnificently by Vannier. Herbie Flowers was in the house to play his wicked bass line that underpins the album; Serge's words were performed by different vocalists for each song--Mathieu Amalric, who played the incredible lead role in the Diving Bell and the Butterfly; Brian Molko from Palcebo, Daniel D'arc, and so on; Jane Birkin didn't perform but her parts were done by another revolving cast--Martina Topley-Bird, the absolutely out-there Brigitte Fontaine, etc. Cool. 'L'Enfant...' features many found sounds--from a box for making gravelly footsteps sounds, like you find in a foley studio, to pots and pans played with an egg beater, etc.
Last night I went to see the
Rodney Graham Band, perform Rodney's wry songs (kind of David Byrne-like naivete/observations of the mundane for dry comic effect sort of thing) in the auditorium of the Louvre. This is a spacious theatre in the I.M. Pei designed main hall, lots of travertine and recessed squares etc. Rodney is of course well known for his work in art contemporain, and this show coincides with the
FIAC. His backing band has the drummer from
Copyright, plus Dave Carswell (who I know from early Posies shows with his old band
the Smugglers) and John Collins--whom I didn't know personally but have admired his work with Dave, on
Tegan and Sara e.g. I hooked the band up with a guitar tech for their Paris show, and after the show received a nice glass of Pommery as a reward, also chatted with Dave and John. At this backstage reception there were lots of art nerds, gallery owners and such, and Jarvis Cocker, who is looking rather gaunt and beardy--it's like the Robinson Crusoe version of the dandy from Pulp.
I received in the post this week the album by
A Life A Song A Cigarette that I produced, the album is called Black Air and will be released in the German speaking countries next month. It's in English tho!
You can vote for their single 'Marie' to be single of the week on Austrian National Radio
here...chime in!
Love
KS
Paris
