The Parting Glass: Vale Liam Clancy

Sad news from Ireland that Liam Clancy, of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, has died. They made Irish music roll like no-one before or since, and Liam was their mainstay. Bob Dylan was a huge fan, and said of Liam “I never heard a singer as good as him ever. He was just the best ballad singer I ever heard in my life, still is probably.” Those who saw the Scorcese doco on Dylan will have seen him recalling Liam Clancy's exhortation to the young singer, then starting out in Greenwich Village: "No fear, no malice, no envy".

Great advice. (Not that Bob followed it.)

In any case, my old man played the Clancy Brothers over and over through my childhood, and I grew to love their rollicking, twee-free, passionate sound - and also the native wit and literary sensibility of their stage humour between tracks on the live albums. And at the old man's funeral, at his oft-repeated request,were sung Shoals of Herring and Fields of Athenry. The Liam Clancy versions.

And so, a parting glass, to the magnificent Liam Clancy. Slán agus beannacht leat.

Oh, all the comrades e'er I had,
They're sorry for my going away,
And all the sweethearts e'er I had,
They'd wish me one more day to stay,
But since it falls unto my lot,
That I should rise and you should not,
I gently rise and softly call,
Good night and joy be with you all.

Carpe pm: seize the afternoon

Yes, if I can't sleep in, it ain't my revolution! etc. I don't know about you, but early's never been my scene. Indeed, I was just recalling the other day, when I was younger, in me carefree 20s with fewer responsibilities to other humans, my normal hours of sleep were 4am to 12pm.

Time and circumstance has modified all that, of course; now its 2am to 8.30am. Cutting back on sleep hasn't really led to any productivity gains though - I rarely have a sentient thought before 10am. My brain still gets 8 hours, though the body has learned sleep-dressing and transport management.

I can't really help it, and to be honest, I don't want to change. These hours of solitude and focus have been the most productive of my life. I reckon I wrote most of my PhD between 10pm and 1am. I guess I'd like to know there are others out there still staying up, despite careers and so on. Perhaps well into middle age!

For example, I suspect my men HET here, princes of Dutch 60s freakbeat, still kick it late*. Now that semester two is nearly done I'm hoping to be back here (at Fort Segue) more often. Check it out!


* Hat tip to my bro, aka The World of Yentl, for putting me on to this ace track.

Best Screen Devil Ever?

Bedazzled: Drimble Wedge & The Vegetations (1967).

France plays Germany

Unlike the staff here at BmL -who possibly comprise the entire membership of the France Gall Appreciation Society (Bureau d'Australie) - you may not be aware that the wonderful France was also big in Germany. She had quite a few German language records, and a decent career east of the Maginot line.

Frankly, all the German period songs are crap - except this one. I quite like Computer Nummer Drei (1968), despite its naff premise of a computer dating future (pfft ... as if!).

Der Computer Nr. 3
sucht für mich den richtigen Boy,
und die Liebe ist garantiert für beide dabei.

But that's not why I'm showing it here. Frankly, this clip ist der Uber-LULZ!!1! (as they say on the German internets). Viz, check the audience going off at 0.45 and 2.05. Woooohah!

Brisbane: Before the Saints & Go-Betweens

Growing up in Brisbane didn't always seem so great at the time. The big bands didn't drop through, pot was not only illegal but seriously draconian penalties attached, and demonstrations were essentially banned. I remember going with Mum to bail my old man in 1978 after after one of the endless - and illegal- civil liberties marches. Queensland, police state, demand the right to demonstrate. That's etched in my mind. Ten years later it was me at the demos, and everything was still the same. On the street and the state is not neutral. Chanting the same as my Dad had. Intoxicating... frightening. Then the inevitable blue shoulder charge, and we're running down the slope through Albert Park, someone's screaming. Its scarcely credible in retrospect.

What a hick town.

I'm so glad I was there.

The first gig I went to as an adult was at the Roxy (now the Arena) in early 1986 - I think it was the Huxton Creepers. I was 17 and the Valley by night was intoxicating. Its still had a serious air of danger then - and halfway through the gig I witnessed a classic pre-Fitzgerald Quinceland scene. To my left one of the walls in the Roxy literally opened up, and out strode Gerry Bellino, puffing on a fag. Behind him I could see an illegal casino, hidden in the walls. He didn't care, he spoke to some staff and casually sauntered back in. The door closed and the Creepers played on. Business as usual.

Anyway, among my Dad's records which were otherwise exclusively 50s jazz was a Brisbane band. Who knows upon which of the 1000 balmy, narcoleptic nights of adolescence in '80s Brisbane I first played it - but this magnificent track has always stuck in my mind. Before the Saints, and the Go-Betweens there was Carol Lloyd and Railroad Gin. Dad must have seen them live circa '75 and I suspect, been as blown away by this track as I was: Matter of Time.

Lusobeats #4: A minute's silence

For the master. Para O Mestre.

That's right: Keeping it highly real, here at BmL. All the choice cuts.

Lusobeats #3: Tin Tin por Tin Tin

There is only one master of Bossa Nova.
há somente um maestro de Bossa Nova.
His name is João Gilberto.
seu nome é João Gilberto

Update: I was a bit pissed when I posted this marvellous Bossa song, and I couldn't then be bothered adding this comment. Which is this: Faz favor, don't go buying those cruddy "Bachelor pad" style Bossa Nova compilations. Brazilian Bossa Nova became a real fad in the US circa '62-'65, and some truly dreadful covers and chintzy rip-offs were made.

Ok, yes, they're twee etc in that "look, I'm a hatstand" way, but its not Bossa. Não é bossa, compreende? If you really must hear the genre in English, I can recommend Antonio Jobim - who wrote his own lyrics in English. And he's great. Samba on one note is a premier example. Trust me, no tweemonger translated that for the hatstand market - Jobim rewrote the English lyrics himself.

April March - "Chick Habit"

You know, sometimes I don't feel quite so culturally adrift in this world when groovy, kismet-style shit like this comes to my attention. A memo from emissaries in the land of popular culture landed on my desk recently, and from it I learned that Tarantino's film Death Proof (2007) has in its soundtrack none other than an English adaptation of my very fave France Gall track Laissez Tomber les Filles. Posted previously here at BmL.

Its by groovy April March, a big fan of 60s French Pop herself, and its rendered in Anglais as "Chick Habit". Not a direct translation, and not as good as the Gall original (as if!) - but still a corker!

Plus, if you've always wanted to see a bunch of hot babes beat the living crap out of Kurt Russell, this clip's for you.

Update: Cha! I just watched the DVD, and aside from one slow patch in the middle, where you meet a whole new set of characters, its a riot. The last 10 minutes ought to be sent into space on one of those intergalactic messenger craft. Wooohah! Oh, and you get April March's version of the French original too, which of course, rang my cloches.

Boom Boom

Well, muchachos, it's that time of year isn't it. I must admit, I'm quite pro-December. End-of-year get-togethers, and seasonal pissups, as summer's long nights and social calenders collide in that month-long inexorable charge to..... the eruption of barely suppressed family tensions over Xmas lunch.

Its been a splendid time blogging in the company of such fine compañeros this year. Why, I even received my first Viagra spam on the blog today. And they said we'd never make it!

So, here's cheers et salutations saisonnières from BmL, home of the France Gall Appreciation Society (Bureau de l'Australie) wishing all of you un gran latte for the party season. Personally, I've been warming up for seasonal soirees with this track, one of my France Gall faves, and a splendid piece of 60s jazz-pop: Boom Boom (1966).

Entonces, felicidades a todos.

Credits roll until 0.30.

Lusobeats#2: Nara Leão sings Insensatez

If you're at all interested in Bossa Nova, you'll dig this clip. First, you not only get to listen to Nara Leão's utterly beschmoozling interpretation of the standard Insensatez (starts at 0.45), but you also get to hear her speak a little of the history and milieu of Bossa Nova. Frankly, the mere sound of her Brazilian Portuguese beschmoozles yours truly - but the history she alludes to is interesting.

Its a softly spoken style of acoustic jazz / samba, pioneered by João Gilberto, Tom Jobim, and herself, among others. Its grew up among the middle class of Rio De Janeiro - and all the genre's proponents speak of a great flowering of Brazilian culture and music from 1957 through to 1964 - until the coup leading to the dictatorship lasting until 1985. Like so many Latin American countries, the populist import substitution regimes of the era created a middle class that was later squeezed by dictatorship (and alternative 'economic medicines') in the years that followed. She is missing João Gilberto (Bebel's Dad, and first hubby of Astrud) because like many Bossa Nova artists, he was in exile in this period.

Anyway, its a beautiful song.

The Triffids: A Reverie

If you cornered me at a party and made me choose my favourite Australian band, you'd get quite bored as I pro-ed and con-ed between the Go-Betweens and the Triffids. On balance, (and well after you'd snuck off to fish beers in the esky), I'd give it to the Go-B's by sheer dint of sharing their hometown. They do mean a lot to Brisbaneiros of a certain vintage, like me.

But my favourite individual Australian songwriter is, without doubt, and without peer, David McComb of the Triffids. And what an extraordinary band. These songs live forever! A soundtrack to the endless sunny middays of edited memory. So many greats... to pick but a few: Beautiful Waste (surely the finest song about the all-encompassing madness of first love ever penned on these shores); Spanish Blue; Embedded; the entire album "Treeless Plain"; Place in the Sun; Red Pony; Jesus Calling; and of course, their only genuine hit, Wide Open Road.

For those who are fans, check out this page. Its full of downloadable early gems, thanks to the Triffids site.

I never did see the Triffids, sadly - though I did see David McComb sometime in the late 90s. It was after his heart transplant, so it was low energy, but the show was magnificent, the songs sublime. McComb died in '99, at far too young an age.

And now that I think about it, it was an old girlfriend of mine, many moons ago, who introduced me to the Triffids. I first heard this song, 'Raining Pleasure', when she played it to me on acoustic guitar, as the rain pattered on a Quinceland tin roof. So, here it is, a reverie.

Lusobeats #1: Bolinha da Sabão (Soap bubble)

Ok, I know I'm doing these posts on the cheap since I worked out how to embed video, but the fact is I'm a big fan of Brazilian music - especially Bossa Nova of the early João Gilberto/ Tom Jobim variety - but also 60s Lusopop outfits like Trio Esperança, formed in Rio De Janeiro in 1961. This is partly because I do believe Portuguese to be one of the best world languages for song. This particular track, Bolinha da Sabão is crazy. I just can't get enough of this upbeat Luso-lounge 60s pop.

So, if you ever see some wired-for-sound cat on a Melbourne train singing "tum plec tum pling" a bit too loud for surrounding passengers' comfort ... well, let's just pretend we don't know each other, sim?

60s French Girl Pop: #3

And so we end the series with my favourite 60s French Girl Pop song: Jacqueline Taieb's 7 Heures du Matin (7:00am). The original French version is the shiznitz, the real deal. However, because the film clip is so good, I'm going to post the English language version below, released the same year (1966). Personally, I think the French version a far better song than the Anglais; but I suppose the medium here is visual.

Incidentally, Taieb was born in Tunisia. And from what I can gather, this is the French-language equivalent of Wild Thing. Every guitar band starting out in a French-speaking garage learns this track. Un corquer!

60s French Girl Pop: #2

And now my favourite France Gall song, Les Sucettes (Lollipops), composed by that depraved and wicked genius Serge Gainsbourg. Which can only mean two things.

60s French Girl Pop: #1

Ok, so the thing is: I'm a bit of a fan of 60s French Girl Pop.

And since c'est mon blog, well ... voila! It's a new series. Hope you enjoy.

I think we'd best kick off with France Gall's Laisse Tomber Les Filles, non?

The Magnificent Gene Clark

You know, The Byrds had some luminaries as members: David Crosby, and Roger McGuinn. But watch their early videos on Youtube, and the only fully-fledged musical genius in that band is the guy playing the tamborine. The magnificent Gene Clark.

Any hit the Byrds had, if not composed by Dylan, you can bet it was written by him. Try "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better", "She Don't Care About Time" and "Eight Miles High" on fer size. All Clark compositions.

And if "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better" isn't objectively one of top 5 greatest songs of the 60s, I'll personally eat your hat. Sometimes, when it's late at Keating Towers, and I'm ferreting away here with headphones, while the world sleeps, I believe it to be the finest pop song ever written.

And how many other native American pop stars were there? If anyone knows others, comment away.

Anyhoo, if you like 60s west coast sounds, get yourself his solo album from 1967, after he left the Byrds: its sometimes called Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers, other times known as Echoes. It's truly a forgotten gem. In mon humble opinion.

The urge to Serge

And another thing! I'll have you know Serge Gainsbourg is not my favourite French artist. He's one of my favourite songwriters period.

I love every phase of his work. From the late 50s jazz (eg Le Poinçonneur des Lilas), through the Afro-Latin mambo style period (eg Couleur Cafe, Pauvre Lola), and into his classic 60s pop (Les Sucettes), tongue-in-cheek erotica ( is there a better bassline in all history than 69 Annee Erotique?) and hey, even his weirder themed efforts like L'homme à tête de chou and Histoire de Melody Nelson.

Ok, so Im not quite so enamoured of his 80s reggae and disco work - but cut the guy some slack, he was getting on.

I must confess I have never heard Rock around the Bunker - his album about WW2 and Nazi themes; reputedly in the usual form of a clever, lascivious pisstake (1975). But I really have to. In case that sounds tasteless, well ... firstly: welcome to Serge Gainsbourg. But second, Gainsbourg was Jewish, born in 1928, and wore the yellow star in occupied France, and spent some of the war years in hiding from the Nazis and Vichy regime. If that helps you get your head around it.

If you need a Serge start-up kit, I would avoid the trans-period "best of" collections. He's too diverse for that to work. Rather, I'd go for one of Du Jazz dans La Ravine, Couleur Cafe, or Comic Strip - which individually capture his three best periods.

New Eurotrends

You know, with Eurovision, I tend to skim or avoid the songs, and turn up avec popcorn for the regional bloc voting. Then try to annoy Ms LE by guessing as many douze points as possible. I got about two-thirds right tonight - not that its especially difficult.

Briefly, since I've got the flu and must retire, here's my take on a few evident trends:

• Its all shifting eastward folks. Maybe Rumsfeld was actually talking about Eurovision that time. Old Europe is finito!
• Is it just me, or was that huge pro-Armenia vote just one big ‘euro-finger’ to Turkey? 'You want in to Europe? Cool! Armenia's coming too. Oh, have you guys met? Hope the seating arrangements aren't awkward.'
• UK has firmed its place at the bottom, no doubt for linguistic reasons. Let's face it, history has turned - and its all about 2nd language Eurenglish now, and well... you native speakers are just a little embarassing to have around while we're rhyming shady with lady. How many times you gotta come last before you get the hint?
• Not even the French bother to sing in French anymore. Mind you, that was the only interesting entry for mine.
• I wonder how the inaugural Kosovo entry went? Make the semis? Non?

Beatles Art - shock pics exclusive!

Well, if that post title doesn't generate some google hits, nothing will. But hey, I've got a minor Beatles tale, a blog, and a shameless, self-promotional bent, so... you do the sums.

Back in November 1994, I louched up to Liverpool from my job in London (teaching politics at the lowest possible rung of tertiary institutions in the UK; South Thames College, Tooting. No doubt you've heard of it, while quaffing oysters with some ra-ra Oxbridge types).

Anyway, I was just hanging around pointlessly outside the abandoned Jacaranda Club, where Os Beatles - as they are known in Portugal - use to play before they landed the more famous Cavern gig.

Bing! Up comes Alan Williams, the Beatles first manager.
I said "hey, you're Alan Williams".
"yes, hello there ... have you read my book?"
"er, no, sorry. I saw your picture in Peter Brown's one".

Despite this, he invited me down into the low-ceilinged club, abandoned for 10 years at that time. Which was really nice of him - he's a very friendly chap. Thanks Alan! With him was the new prospective owner of the club, having an inspection.

According to your man Williams, the wall art you can see was painted by none other than Stuart Sutcliffe and John Lennon, back in 1960. Have a squiz. Below is a pic I snapped of Alan, with a Sutcliffe original behind him, and above some pre-renovation Sutcliffe and/or Lennon wall art.

I gather you can now go to the refurbished club, and see it yourself, if you're up Liverpool way.

PS if you want to see the restored version of the Stuart Sutcliffe painting behind Alan Williams, there's a picture of it here, half way down the page.

Te recordamos, Victor Jara

Here's a news item from a Latin American news list I'm on. The upshot is that the investigation into the death of Chilean singer Victor Jara, killed by Pinochet's forces in 1973, has been closed without a finding; raising the prospect of many other investigations into disappearances under the Pinochet regime being dropped.

I needn't translate the demand: NO A LA IMPUNIDAD.

Lot of it going around.

The Victor Jara Foundation webpage is here

ACCION CULTURAL POR LA JUSTICIANO A LA IMPUNIDAD EN LA INVESTIGACION DEL ASESINATO DE VICTOR JARA

La Fundación Víctor Jara convoca a toda la ciudadanía a una "Acción Cultural Por la Justicia" para repudiar e impedir el cierre del sumario en el caso de la investigación por la muerte del músico Víctor Jara.
Invitamos a los artistas, a los trabajadores, a los estudiantes, a los jóvenes, a los luchadores de derechos humanos y a todas las organizaciones de nuestro país, a participar en esta acción que pretende impedir que se cierre un caso emblemático de la lucha por los derechos humanos.

Creemos que el cierre del sumario en el caso de la investigación por la muerte de Víctor Jara, es el inicio del cierre de esta y otras causas de victimas de la dictadura. Hoy más que nunca debemos levantar nuestra voz para repudiar esta acción de la justicia chilena. Hoy debe ser la ciudadanía y las organizaciones culturales, sociales, sindicales y políticas las que deben pronunciarse.

El desafío es por el futuro de nuestro país, por la justicia y por el NO A LA IMPUNIDAD.
Nos juntaremos el lunes 19 de mayo en el Estadio Víctor Jara a partir de las 19 hrs. en un jornada en la que esperamos encontrar a todos los amigos de Víctor.
- Fundación Víctor Jara