Girls girls girls

It has been a faboo week for awesome babes.

First, Karita Mattila as the titular sex-crazed vamp and would-be exotic dancer in Richard Strauss's Salome at the Met. Hottt! I was lucky to be close enough to see the work that goes into a performance like this one (the opera starts at a fever pitch and unrelentingly stays there for all of its 100 minutes, and Salome is in every single scene, even when not actually singing). When she took her curtain call, Mattila was visibly drained, heavily breathing as she was trying to come back down to 2008 New York.

The next day I saw Paula West and the George Mesterhazy Quartet at the Oak Room. West is my favorite interpreter of jazz, pop and Great American Songbook standards right now: Nobody gets even close. It's that simple. The set cannily mixed obscure selections and well-known chestnuts, but she breathed new life even in songs I've heard a gazillion times and thought I could do without at this point (Mersterhazy's slinky arrangement of Rodgers & Hart's "I Wish I Were in Love Again" was particularly inspired). West finished her set with a glorious version of Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone." It was lump-in-throat time.

Then I belatedly caught up with the latest episode of Grey's Anatomy, which throws some of my fave actresses (all seen on the New York stage too, thank you very much) into a hot mess of medically flavored soap-opera shenanigans: What other show on TV has Sandra Oh, Chandra Wilson, Sara Ramirez and Brooke Smith? I can even deal with Katherine Heigl and Ellen "meh" Pompeo doesn't overly bug me. Plus Ramirez and Smith's characters are becoming entangled in a lesbionic relationship, so it's all gravy. That is, until Shonda Rhimes messes with them, ’cause that's just the way things roll on Grey. All in due time ladies, all in due time.

Even more belatedly I discovered Little Jackie's debut album, The Stoop, which is my default music for pretty much everything right now: at the gym, on the way to the office in the morning, back from the office at night, walking hideous Tenth Avenue to get coffee. Imani Coppola completely gets living in New York—particularly Brooklyn—in 2008 in a way that reminds me of how Lily Allen gets living in London.

Little Jackie "LOL" (from The Stoop, 2008)

France in the 1970s

France Culture, part of the French public-radio network, has been running great summer series. I mentioned the one about François Truffaut, but I've also been hooked to Les Années 70, which has been devoting two-hour shows of audio archives to each year of the 1970s. What's particularly inspired is that while the shows do mention big events, they also broadcast rather long, uninterrupted excerpts of less obvious but very 70s documents, like several minutes of Marguerite Duras explaining why it's okay to steal books (even if she herself doesn't have the guts to do it); Solzhenitsyn's appearance on the hit literary TV show Apostrophes; a report on Bertolucci filming Last Tango in Paris; the French Communist Party's head, Georges Marchais, interviewed about a strike; the mayor of a small town complaining about gay cruising; a news report a month after abortion was legalized; and so on.

And while I can't remember lyrics of the songs I hear now, even the ones I get obsessed with, lyrics from songs I heard when I was 10 or 12 are still crystal-clear in my memory, particularly Franco-Frenchy-French hits like Joe Dassin's hideous "L'été indien" (Joe was the son of director Jules Dassin), Johnny Halliday and Sylvie Vartan's "J'ai un problême" (I love the addition of vrooming sounds for the video) or Alain Souchon's "Bidon" (sensitive Alain was one of my mom's favorites and we listened to him a lot in the family Peugeot). Needless to say, none of these songs ever made it outside of France.

I was listening to the show about 1976 this morning, and they were playing excerpts from the very first Césars ceremony (France's answer to the Oscars). For Best Actress, the nominees were Isabelle Adjani in Truffaut's The Story of Adèle H, Delphine Seyrig in Duras' India Song, Catherine Deneuve in Rappeneau's Le Sauvage and Romy Schneider in Zulawski's L'Important c'est d'aimer. Schneider won and gave a speech magnificent in its economy and elegance. Here it is in its entirety: "Thank you very much. I'm very happy and very proud. And I'd like to tell you that tonight I'm especially thinking about one man who taught me my job, who was my master and my great friend. He'll be happy for me. It's Luchino Visconti."

A film that had a huge impact in 1976 France was Carlos Saura's Cria Cuervos. Partly it was because of the stupendous acting by young Ana Torrent, but also because the film's song, Jeanette's "Porque te Vas," was a hit. It remains a personal favorite to this day.

MP3 Jeanette "Porque te Vas"

The Saadiq factor

All right, not to toot my own magazine's horn here, but the Time Out–sponsored show at the South Street Seaport yesterday evening was a blast. The three acts were all completely different and yet to me it completely worked, even if I have to admit the crowds changed pretty drastically for each set, showing that my utopia of a single audience being able to enjoy Endless Boogie, Raphael Saadiq and Oneida is just that—a utopia. (I always find it funny when people tell me they have really diverse music tastes because their iPod has everything from Dylan to the Ting Tings. Give me a break.)

Of the three, my favorite was Saadiq, whose set put a goofy grin on my face. I wasn't really into his first band, Tony! Toni! Tone! but I absolutely loved his second one, Lucy Pearl—a trio with Dawn Robins (from En Vogue) and Ali Shaheed Muhammed (from A Tribe Called Quest)—and his solo output since Lucy Pearl's demise has been reliably sleek and inventive. On his upcoming album, The Way I See It, he looks back at old-school R&B (Smokey, Stevie) in typically smart and classy manner. Live he was the consumate showman, natty in a perfectly cut suit and working the crowd with ease and no cheese. And hearing the Lucy Pearl hit "Dance Tonight" live was a total treat (Saadiq did it with his female backup singer).

MP3 Lucy Pearl "Dance Tonight" (from Lucy Pearl, 2000)

There was an exodus of white hipsters during Saadiq's first song; I told a friend that maybe they would have stayed if that exact same music was played by a junkie instead. Never mind: their loss.

As I said, the crowd completely turned over from Saadiq to Oneida—basically all the black people left and the white ones came back/arrived. While I like Oneida, I'm not sure starting their gig with long, instrumental VU-type grooves was a great idea. It's the kind of stuff you build toward in a set; starting with it kinda defeats the purpose. Sequencing a live set is an art, and one that's quite different from sequencing an album (one of the reasons I don't enjoy the trend of bands playing an album in sequence live).

Michael Clark is back in New York

What a simple statement: Michael Clark is back in New York. It's been about ten years since we've had the pleasure of seeing the Scottish choreographer here, and based on tonight's show at the Rose Theater, it's a real shame. (For some background on Clark, check out Gia Kourlas's preview in Time Out New York.)

The first piece of the evening, OO, was set to songs by Iggy Pop (the ploddingly grandiose "Mass Production"—I'd forgotten how great it is), Wire, Barbra Streisand and the Sex Pistols; the second, O, was set to Stravinsky's Apollo (the evening and tomorrow's program are collectively billed as "The Stravinsky Project"). I haven't seen Balanchine's iconic take of the latter work so I was free of baggage there (okay, ignorant!) and so I was completely hypnotized by the minimalist purity—having seen some Clark pieces way back in the 1980s, I guess I was expecting a rock & roll take, which is more ovious in OO. This, after all, is a guy so fearless that he's worked with the Fall.

The New York Times' reviewer, Claudia La Rocco, seemed put off what she referred to (repeatedly, and not in a good way) as the "wall of sound" in OO. The volume wasn't that high tonight, so either it's been lowered since the Wednesday performance she attended, or she doesn't appreciate the singular importance of volume in rock. Clark does, which is why it is an integral part of the piece, and is intricately linked to the elegant vibrancy of the choreography. In particular, I was stunned by how well he understood the clean precision of Wire's music, which he echoed in the movement he devised (and the costumes he co-designed, for that matter). On the other hand, I also heard that tonight's performance was more energetic than the one from Wednesday, so something to keep in mind.

One last thing: I love Clark's humor too, so, so punk. The last segment was introduced by an excerpt from Julian Temple's The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle, in which a hilariously posh voice coach praises Malcolm McLaren's singing ability; this segued into the Sex Pistols' "Submission," in which Clark himself wandered among his dancers, dressed in a black suit. To me he was the McLaren figure, both part and apart of the action. This isn't surprising from an acolyte of Leigh Bowery; just check out Clark and Bowery primping for a night out.

If you're in NYC and free Saturday night—and even if you're not free, for that matter, just make the time—head up to the Rose to see Clark's troupe in action; the evening includes Mmm…, set to The Rite of Spring, and I Do, to Les Noces. So no loudness there, but I'd wager plenty of intensity matched with sheer visual beauty. Lord knows we can always use some of that. With luck, we won't have to wait another ten years to see him again here.

In the meantime, enjoy Iggy Pop's "Mass Production" (from his 1977 album The Idiot). And make sure you play it loud.

Jeanette Winterson likes French disco-house

Jeez I'm a lazy bum. A week without posts. And it's not like there's nothing going on but, er, I got this new HD television set, you see, and I wasted way too much time not watching it, no, but trying to figure out how to hook up the DVD player and cleaning up the sudden abundance of extra channels—all over the air since we don't have cable (this HD business is going to be bad news for cable companies, weeding out at least the customers who subscribe mostly for the improved reception). Pathetic, I know.

I did manage to go back to Passing Strange, and was struck again by how smart, how moving that show is, and how good Stew's songs are. If you insist on spending some of your dollars on Broadway, go see it. Well, that and Gypsy for old-school pizzazz.

Elsewhere, Jeanette Winterson, Ali Smith, AM Homes and Jackie Kay illustrate the Musketeers' motto (at least according to Dumas) of "one for all, all for one"by collaborating on a 52, a novel in installments for the Guardian. This is scheduled to go on for a year, as the title suggests, with the four authors taking turns writing chapters—but not revealing who wrote what. A paragraph like "Merrie England in the month of May: Cuckoo, cowslips, the sun early and shallow-rimmed as it rises, the deep dew at dawn, as though the planet were still damp from its making." reads very Wintersonesque to me. Or like one of the other three poking fun at the style of Winterson, who initiated the idea. (In any case, do read Winterson's monthly column on her website, it's a hoot.)

And finally, my current musical obsession, and a perfect illustration of how the right remix can turn lead into gold. Actually the Whitest Boy Alive's "Golden Cage" isn't quite lead because its frontman is Erland Øye, whom I actually like. But that song's just blah limp funk, an indie version of Liquid Liquid. It ambles along with an utter lack of a point as Øye sings his prettily wistful and fairly unremarkable lyrics.

But a few weeks ago—and a couple of years after "Golden Cage" was released—Fred Falke (often working with Alan Braxe but here operating on his own) released a remix that turns the track into a fantabulous disco-house summer hit. First of all, the overall vibe feels springier and more energetic without losing a certain melancholy undertow. Second, Falke's treated Øye's vocals, adding a faint echo that makes them feel more distant (and provides the aforementioned melancholy). Third, he's added at least a trio of distinct killer synth hooks; I mean, most songs would be happy to have just one, but Falke's thrown them all into the pot. Fourth, the occasional vocoder effect is not so much electroclash as weirdly 70s proggy, as if suddenly a bit from Alan Parsons Project or late ELO had been imported in.

Compare and contrast:
The Whitest Boy Alive: "Golden Cage"
The Whitest Boy Alive: "Golden Cage (Fred Falke Remix)"

The fresh sounds of hardcore

If you're in New York, set your dial to 93.9FM Monday at 2pm; you can also listen live on the web on the WNYC site. I will be on Soundcheck to discuss why it's so hard to find women who rawk hard these days. Oooh, incendiary!

Speaking of rawk, it erupted as if from some broken sewer pipe at Southpaw this past Wednesday when the reunited Negative Approach hit Brooklyn. And hit it did. Holy cow! NA was a classic Detroit hardcore combo that formed in 1981 and released an album on Touch & Go in 1983. For me the main draw in seeing the band now was singer John Brannon, whose post-NA project was Laughing Hyenas. I saw them a couple of times back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, and back then I loved the interplay between Brannon's vocals and Larissa Strickland's guitar; they were uneven (and could get too dirgey for my taste) but at their best, the Laughing Hyenas were a worthy American answer to the Birthday Party. Unfortunately they also had a similar penchant for self-destruction, with heroin abuse turning into a big problem. Strickland, who had started as a singer in Detroit's L-Seven (not to be confused with LA's L7), died in November 2006 of a prescription-drugs overdose.

Brannon seems to be doing fine now, and he still has one of the most amazing sets of pipes in rock, a sandpapery growl that can strip paint off walls. On Wednesday, NA showed it had lost nothing of the ferocity that made them a dangerous band 25 years ago. The pit was a chaotic mess and I had to fumigate my clothes after getting home—the beer had literally been flying. I have to say, however, that the guys slamming into each other weren't in the flower of youth. Either NA hasn't turned into a cult that can attract new fans, or the newbies didn't dare face off with the middle-aged meatheads pawing each other in front of the stage (and sometimes on it). The biggest of them all was a humongous mohawked steroid case who at one point seized the bassist's mike to sing along—and turned out to have a little pipsqueaky voice, even though he tried his darnedest to sound tough.

Here's the opening song in its entirety:



Opening band Clockcleaner, a bit of a Dilettante fave, did a short but efficient set that included the awesome "Vomiting Mirrors" and ended with a Negative Approach cover. Nice. Also nice: When frontman John Sharkey, being his usual obnoxious self while testing the reverb on his mike, was pelted with a full cup of beer. It was that kind of night.

Negative Approach "Can't Tell No One" (from Negative Approach EP, 1982)
Negative Approach "Tied Down" (from Tied Down, 1983)
L-Seven "Clear Vision" (1983)
Laughing Hyenas "Candy" (from Merry Go Round CD, 1987/95)
Laughing Hyenas "Hitman" (from Life of Crime, 1990)

Pop implosion

There's something about a specific kind of pop song that aggressively leaps out of your speakers: sometimes, more is more. It's hard to beat the exuberance of the ’60s in that respect, but the Xenomania producing team more than hold up its own. Here are two tracks that illustrate both approaches.

Orchester Günter Gollasch "Es Steht ein Haus in New Orleans" (from Achtung! German Grooves, 2007) This explosive 1969 cover of "House of Rising Sun" comes from an East German bandleader and conductor of the Berlin Radio Dance Orchestra. I think it's the propulsive drumming I like best, particularly at 1:57, when the song picks up after the bridge and reintroduces ultra-agressive horns and mixes them up with oddly haunting strings. (For another similarly themed comp, see also Amiga A Go-Go Vol.1—Deutsch-Demokratische Rare Grooves, a collection of funk and soul tracks from East Germany.)

Gabriella Cilmi "Don't Want to Go to Bed Now" (from Lessons to Be Learned, 2008) Cilmi's a 16-year-old Australian girl who's among the hordes of singers now getting tagged "the new Amy Winehouse." Please ignore that. She had the good fortune to get her debut album produced by Xenomania, the genius team behind Girls Aloud and countless hits. Two memorable things about "Don't Want to Go to Bed Now": the galloping acoustic-guitar riff that propels the song into the pop stratosphere (that's one of the best things about Xenomania arrangements: these guys just don't believe in understatement) and the way Cilmi's shouted "Tonight!" makes me think of Blondie's "Call Me."

Stars on 16rpm

I usually can't stand chill out/downtempo: there are good songs but they're incredibly hard to find, drowned as they are by a phenomenal amount of unspeakably horrible sonic goo that targets zombies drinking $20 appletinis after a shop in the Meatpacking district. For every memorable track like Groove Armada's "At the River," there are dozens of drecky Café del Mar compilations.

Quiet Village shows how to do downtempo right. Starting off with its name, a nod to exotica master Martin Denny, Quiet Village is a collaboration between Joel Martin and Radio Slave's Matt Edwards. Silent Movie, the duo's debut album, is a classy affair packed with pensive, lush soundscapes, but my favorite songs are the ones that sound like disco slowed down to a deliberate crawl. If you bumped the BPM on "Pacific Rhythm" and "Can't Be Beat," they'd be dance-floor scorchers; on the album, however, they amble along with tranquil grace. The string arrangement on "Can't Be Beat" sounded awfully familiar, however, and after a while I figured it out: It's lifted from David McWilliams' 1967 hit "Days of Pearly Spencer" (I'm giving out Marc Almond's cover, a hit again in 1992).

Quiet Village "Pacific Rhythm" (from Silent Movie, 2008)
Quiet Village "Can't Be Beat" (from Silent Movie, 2008)
Marc Almond "Days of Pearly Spencer" (from Tenement Symphony, 1991)

This is hardcore

One of my favorite black-metal bands is Norway's Gorgoroth, fronted by a true-blue psychopath named Gaahl (that guy on the left). Alas, Gorgoroth is unlikely to ever play in the States, and there's two main reasons. One is that Gaahl has a police record, having spent time in the clink for assaulting a man; the other is that Gorgoroth's live show includes rather interesting props. Click on this link and admire photos from a gig in Oslo. Nude crucified people wearing hoods—makes Chris Ofili's painting of the Virgin Mary made with elephant dung or Andres Serrano's Piss Christ look like Pat the Bunny, huh?

It's doubtful the band could ever get a visa to play in the US, except maybe…Here's a crazy idea: The Guggenheim or P.S 1 or some such institution should bring them over as an art project. Yes, that's it! Curators, if you're reading this please get on the horn! Otherwise New York fans will have to book a ticket for the Wacken Open Air festival in Germany, where Gorgoroth is scheduled to play this summer. Not a bad option, actually, considering this year's lineup also includes the Carcass and At the Gates reunions.

Gorgoroth "Wound Upon Wound" (from Ad Majorem Sathanas Gloriam, 2007)
Gorgoroth "Untamed Forces" (from Ad Majorem Sathanas Gloriam, 2007)

Songs of Paris

My TONY interview with director Christophe Honoré and actor Louis Garrel can be found here. In the main piece they discuss mostly their collaboration on their new musical, Love Songs (Les Chansons d'amour); if you want want more, there's also a bonus Q&A in which Honoré expends on the film's shoot and on the one he just completed, an adaptation of Madame de Lafayette's La Princesse de Clèves.

Two striking things about Love Songs: It's a French musical that does not remind the viewer of Jacques Demy every other second, and it features one of the most gorgeous casts I've ever seen. I mean, it's like some beauty bomb exploded on the set.

The songs were written by Alex Beaupain, who can actually be seen in the movie, performing "Brooklyn Bridge" in a club. Honoré, Beaupain and the cast members participated in a special DVD-release party-slash-show back in December, and it looked like a ton of fun.

Louis Garrel and Ludivine Sagnier "De bonnes raisons" (from Les Chansons d'amour soundtrack)
Louis Garrel, Clotilde Hesme and Ludivine Sagnier "Je n'aime que toi" (from Les Chansons d'amour soundtrack)
Chiara Mastroianni "Au parc" (from Les Chansons d'amour soundtrack)

Scenes from a break-up

Here's another installment in the occasional series in which I revisit some good shows of yore. Today: World of Pooh at Maxwell's on March 16, 1990—one of the most unbearably tense gigs I've ever seen. Forget pigfuck audience abuse or whatnot: We watched two people psychologically pummel each other on stage, and it really was not fun at all. It was also, of course, entirely memorable.

At that time, I was finishing my MA in history at Rutgers, though the truth is that most of my memories of that era have to do with music rather than scholarly pursuits: doing shows on WRSU, going to gigs several times a week—I'd gotten very familiar with the New Jersey turnpike (and Route 1, when I was too broke for the toll). I can't remember what prompted me to go see World of Pooh. I don't remember if I had their sole full-length, 1989's Land of Thirst, by then or if I bought it at the show. I may have been prompted by having heard the band was pals with Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, which I absolutely loved back then, ever since mail-ordering their debut cassette, Wormed by Leonard. World of Pooh was pretty emblematic of a short window in the mid-80s to early 90s when San Francisco was a hotbed of screwed-up inventivity. When I saw mentions of the NufSed label, Seymour Glass' Bananafish fanzine or producer Greg Freeman, I knew there was a good chance I'd like whatever it was.

World of Pooh was Barbara Manning on bass, Brandan Kearney on guitar and Jay Paget on drums; the group was both propelled and hampered by the love-hate relationship between Manning and Kearney, who were partners on and off stage. Except their couple was imploding at the time, and they took it all out to us, the audience. On record the songs revealed pent-up hostility beneath the jangly exterior, but even that didn't prepare us for Maxwell's.

Kearney kept berating and humiliating Manning, telling her she was fat and couldn't play, and she either demured uncomfortably or looked at him in what I now remember as stunned passivity. It was just horrible to watch, and of course completely enthralling. It didn't feel like a put-on but like the raw implosion of a couple right in front of us, Scenes from a Marriage punk rock–style. In fact, this turned out to be World of Pooh's last show, the band pretty much ending right there and then because Manning and Kearney could not function together anymore. And the weirdest part is that in between the tense banter, they managed to sound great.

Now, an art experience given extra meaning by the romantic relationship between two of the principals isn't new, from Richard and Linda Thompson to Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna. And the downfall of an artistic couple can be obvious fodder for both parties. But there's something quite different about listening to a song about a break-up and seeing the break-up of both a relationship and a band with your very eyes. World of Pooh at Maxwell's was uncomfortable because we were privy to something abjectly personal. It feels quaint in our age of sharing too much, but 18 years ago hearing and seeing this hate-filled intimacy was quite jarring.

Manning went on to a rich if now tragically unheralded solo career; Paget joined Thinking Fellers; and Kearney continued being active with a variety of projects including Caroliner, Job's Daughters, Archipelago Brewing Co. and Faxed Head, as well as the NufSed label.

World of Pooh "Mr. Coffee-Nerves" (from Land of Thirst, 1989)
World of Pooh "Bone Happy" (from Land of Thirst, 1989)
World of Pooh "Mogra" (from Land of Thirst, 1989)
World of Pooh "Druscilla Penny" (a cover of an odd 1971 song by the Carpenters, one of the few performed by Richard; from a free single that came with an issue of Bananafish)

Kooky cutter

After seeing maybe ten shows and pieces of his, from opera to evening-length works, I remain unconvinced by Mark Morris's genius. The staging of Purcell's King Arthur I saw at City Opera yesterday did not change my mind; When it comes to opera, Morris probably should not be left to his own devices; that is, he should not direct and choreograph. (Big exception: Orfeo, which was pretty great indeed but feels like a fluke.)

Having gotten rid of the plot, Morris staged King Arthur as one kooky tableau after another. His worst tendency—sentimental cuteness—quickly came to the fore and didn't depart for the rest of the evening. While I did enjoy the first-act orgy (who wouldn't?), the show felt pat, pandering, lazy. And still, I applauded just to shush the lone booer. The idea is to encourage experimentation with opera, not deter it. So what if it didn't work? You could close your eyes, block out the silliness on stage and bask in the glorious music. Fine, so it kinda goes against the point of live opera, but you also gotta make the most of what you have.

And the music was beautiful indeed. You may be more familiar with King Arthur than you'd think: Peter Greenaway and his composer Michael Nyman used Purcell, and KA in particular, as the departure point for The Draughtsman's Contract (the cue "Chasing Sheep Is Best Left to Shepherds" is probably the most famous), and back in the early 80s Klaus Nomi had an unlikely European hit with "The Cold Song", from the first act.

Klaus Nomi "The Cold Song"

Welcome back

Looks like Your Flesh, a zine I used to read with great interest back in the late 80s and early 90s, is back in action as an online publication. Okay, it's not really new news, but I'm happy enough to give them a belated shout-out. One of the reasons I so enjoyed the mag back then is that it plugged a lot of so-called pigfuck bands, which overall I much preferred to the concurrently happening—and much more successful—grunge acts.

Even better, Amphetamine Reptile, one of my favorite labels ever, is back in action. Cows, God Bullies, King Snake Roost, early Boss Hog: AmRep classics. (It's not a coincidence that the word "noise" was pretty much part of AmRep's logo.) Not only that, but flagship band Halo of Flies, led by label boss Tom Hazelmyer, is back as well! Watch out for a forthcoming three-song 7" by Lydia Lunch backed by…Halo of Flies! Oooh mama!!! I was lucky enough to hear a burn and it oozes bile. Just fantastic stuff—I listened to it five times in a row this afternoon, then went on and ordered the vinyl from AmRep mail order. You should as well.

I'll never forget that time in the early 90s when I went to the Park Slope food co-op (just visiting!) wearing a T-shirt bearing AmRep's signature slogan "Dope, Guns and Fucking in the Street." A woman stared at me and said, sotto voce, "You know you have a bad word on your shirt, right?"

Fortunately some brave souls are keeping the flame alive. There's Clockcleaner in Philly, for instance, and White Drugs, a quartet of mad Texans I know nothing about except their album Harlem is messed up in all the right ways:

White Drugs: "I Hate Yr Face" (note the righteous spelling of "your")
White Drugs: "Surrounded by Studs"

Bleating time

There are many stars of French variété I grew up disliking, like Michel Sardou and Serge Lama, and usually I remained steady in my dismissal of them: If I couldn't stand them when I was 13, chances are I still can't stand them. A major exception is Véronique Sanson. For years her bleaty vibrato drove me crazy, but for some reason hearing her 1972 song "Besoin de personne" on the radio a few months ago led to a conversion. It was as if I heard Sanson with a new pair of ears, discovering an uncanny melodic talent and great arrangements. I still have problems with her vocal mannerisms (something she shares with another singer of the same generation, Julien Clerc) but now I can overlook them and focus on the songwriting.

After releasing a pair of singles with her sister Violaine and François Bernheim under the name Les Roche Martin, Sanson put out her solo debut, Amoureuse, in 1972; in retrospect, it stands along Carole King's Tapestry as an album by an introspective female singer-songwriter backing herself on the piano in the early 1970s. (I started writing that it was ahead of its time but in actuality it is very much of its time.) The record and its followup were produced by Michel Berger, who'd go on to reinvent France Gall's career. In 1973, Sanson left for the US where she married Stephen Stills (yes, of Crosby, Stills etc.) and stayed for a while. Like many first-rank variété singers, she's still active and popular—the French public tends to remain more loyal than the American one.

From the variety show Cadet Rousselle, here's Sanson performing her first hit "Besoin de personne," sporting a sensational crochet vest:



Kiki Dee did an English version of the title track, "Amoureuse," in 1973:



Here are three MP3s from Sanson's 1972 solo debut, Amoureuse: "Tout est cassé tout est mort" "Pour qui" and, of course, "Besoin de personne."

Osterreich & roll

A couple of years ago, I reviewed Der Blutharsch's When Did Wonderland End? for TONY. It was a fairly positive review—at least about the music itself, since it's hard not to have qualms about the band's politics. I'm sure the band doesn't get much mainstream attention that actually focuse on its sound, as it plays martial folk and is prone to military uniforms and listing its song titles in Gothic font. In other words, Der Blutharsch causes me real problems because I quite like many of its albums but the reality of what bandleader Albin Julius is about makes me squeamish, to put it mildly.

Anyway out of the blue—or rather out of Austria—landed on my desk a package containing Der Blutharsch's latest album, The Philosopher's Stone. At first I was mildly freaked out because if there's one mailing list I'm not convinced I want to be on, it's that type. But the rock critic in me quickly took over and I listened to the album.

Judging by the one-sheet that came with it, the CD seems to be Der Blutharsch's last: The self-described "inventors of military pop" are "leaving the arena and heading towards new territories, the promised land on the search for the tower of song." (Huh?) The band's current motto further confuses matters: "Uniforms are always changing — Rock ’n’ roll will stay forever!" Yeah, whatever you say. At least we won't read this in Pitchfork anytime soon.

Once again divided in numbered segments, the CD isn't as diverse and compelling as When Did Wonderland End? (and the production sounds a bit muddy to my ears) but it has its moments, like the weird doomy-psych vibe on track 5. Not to mention that when it comes to a certain kind of grandeur, I'd love to see an oil-wrestling match between Der Blutarsch and the grad students in Arcade Fire.

Der Blutarsch "The Philosopher's Stone II" (from The Philosopher's Stone, 2008)

The ones that got away

Like last year I've contributed lists of my favorite albums and songs of 2007 to the polls run by Idolator and The Village Voice. I'm not entirely sure when they're going to come out, but in the meantime here are some songs from 2007 that I discovered after the deadline. I'm pretty sure Emmon's The Art and the Evil would have made the album list had I heard it on time.

Emmon "High Horses" and "Friends" (from The Art and the Evil)
Can't you picture Swedish popstress Emmon, aka Emma Nylén, listening to early Depeche Mode? She's around 13, holed up in her room while it's snowing outside, and suddenly it hits her: Speak & Spell is genius!!!

Nylén (pictured) had a busy year: She's also is in the band Paris, whose own ’07 release ain't too shabby either.
Paris "Mountains" (from The Landlord Is Kind Enough to Let Us Have Our Little Sessions)

Staying in northern Europe, Denmark gave us Private, the new project from former Superheroes mainman Thomas Troelsen. "My Secret Lover," the album's title track, betrays a fixation with early Michael Jackson and Prince. The lyrics are worthy of Miranda Cooper ("I met you at the club, no further comment/I said, Baby, let's go back to your apartment") and the song features two of my favorite pop ingredients: a phone call and meta lines ("Man, I'm a man machine/Check out my style cause I'm going real wild/I'm plugging in keyboards one at the time/And then I gotta song, gotta a song in no time") uttered in cartoonish voices. Added bonus: out of the blue someone threateningly bleats "I'm coming after you" in a chipmunk squeak. I almost never say this about a song, but "My Secret Lover" ends too quickly.
Private "My Secret Lover" (from My Secret Lover)

Crossing the Atlantic we end up in Argentina, where the techno-poppy Miranda! delivered its excellent fourth album, El Disco de tu Corazón. I picked a track featuring a guest, the Spanish band Fangoria, whose leads used to be in Alaska y su Dinarama, one of the prime groups of Madrid's early-’80s movida.
Miranda! "Vete De Aquí" (from El Disco de tu Corazón)

Sundance music

Over the past few days, I've taxed my brain cells with an onslaught of movies on TV and DVD and in theaters. I'll single out Little Miss Sunshine, Juno and Dan in Real Life not because they're my favorites but because they're thematically and aesthetically similar (even if Juno thinks of itself as a little hipper—it's not really), and because their soundtracks are pretty much interchangeable. Those scores say as much as the films themselves about a certain type of Hollywood aesthetics circa now. All three movies attempt to evoke a certain type of quirkiness (one that glorifies a palatable idea of individualism without actually offering any serious critique of the American social order), and in all three the music is a very specific type of indie rock/pop that translates that quirkiness into naiveté—a word meant as a compliment for many, but not necessarily a good thing in my mind.

This is most flagrant in Juno, which prominently features several songs by Kimya Dawson and in which a Moldy Peaches tune plays a rather big part. When you know that Jason Bateman plays an artiste manqué whose old band once opened for Melvins and who now writes music for commercials, you know you're in for indie-rock references as shortcuts for actual character development.

DeVotchKa did the music for Little Miss Sunshine and Dan in Real Life sports an extensive score plus a few songs by Sondre Lerche. In both, another type of indie sound is called up to help out potential deficiencies in screenwriting—this time, bouncy horns and jaunty melodies suggest that we are not in James Newton Howard or Hans Zimmer territory. Every time something meant to be unconventional, fanciful or touching happens, we get a bleating trumpet or a serious tuba instead of the 1,001 strings of the Hollywood Symphony Orchestra. That'll stick it to the man!

As an alternative to all these tubas, here's the nouveau-retro collaboration between Nouvelle Vague and director-screenwriter-actor Julie Delpy that plays over the end credits of Delpy's 2 Days in Paris (a movie with a successful first half about French-American cultural differences and a frustrating ending about Delpy and Adam Goldberg's couple trouble).

Nouvelle Vague featuring Julie Delpy "LaLaLa" (from 2 Days in Paris soundtrack, 2007)

Hurricane Carla

France is so awesome! First, its freshly divorced president is going out with a supermodel-turned-singer and the first photos of them together were taken during a trip to Eurodisney. The news of Sarkozy's affair with singer Carla Bruni came out just before my arrival in Paris and were the talk of the town. Sarkozy could not have found a better mate than Bruni, a bona fide "caviar left" bourgie known for ruthless maneating tendencies (that she was caught at Eurodisney is the icing on the cake). Indeed a few years ago Justine Levy, daughter of "public intellectual" Bernard-Henry Levy, wrote a roman à clef titled Nothing Serious about a love triangle revolving around a destructive supermodel-turned-singer named Paula. In real life, Bruni was dating editor Jean-Paul Enthoven then left him for his own son, philosopher Raphaël Enthoven, at the time with Levy.

I find this soap opera completely enthralling—after all, there aren't many heads of state out there dating someone with a MySpace page. Or, for that matter, someone who's also consorted with both Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton, come out in favor of polyandry and set Yeats to music—check out Carla's version of "Those Dancing Days Are Gone" (from No Promises, 2007).

Another thing that struck me during the trip is that while café owners are putting all their resources in finding ways to get around the smoking ban that's effective January 1, TV commercials for candy, cheese or snacks now come with health advice at the bottom of the screen, such as "For your health, avoid snacking between meals" and "For your health, avoid eating too fatty, too sweet or too salty," along with the address of a state-sponsored nutrition/health site. Somehow the contradiction between the two embodies a certain aspect of French society to me: the state puts a lot of effort into health campaigns but at the same time it's non-smokers who are perceived as being pests.

New York noir

Reading Lydia Lunch book Paradoxia a few weeks ago reminded me of a rather obscure movie called Vortex, by Scott and Beth B, in which Ms. Lunch starred. It's from 1982 and I saw it just once, around '83 or '84, as part of a film series about indie NY movies. I only remember glimpses from the movie—an indie noir made on a tiny budget and sporting a striking look—but the soundtrack made quite an impression and I bought the LP shortly thereafter.

As far as I know,Vortex isn't on video or DVD, and the soundtrack isn't on CD either, which is a shame because it features a Who's Who of No New Yorkers: Lunch of course, Adele Bertei, Pat Place, Kristian Hoffman, Richard Edson, John Lurie… It certainly fits in with the sidewalk-queen aura Lunch worked at the time, when she also released her excellent album Queen of Siam.

From the Vortex soundtrack, here's the still-awesome "Black Box Disco."

Quadruple gay axel

This will be a brief post but I'll try to gay-ify it as much as possible.

One: I went to the opera yesterday. The new Met's production of Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride starts off with a human sacrifice and some flying, and that's before the first note of music. I enjoyed it all as much as one physically can when burdened with a possible ear infection.

Two: hovering in the Met's lobby was…the cowboy from Village People! And he even wore his trademark Stetson hat!

Three: my current YouTube obsession is a clip from Applause, the 1970 musical adaptation of All About Eve starring Lauren Bacall. Watch Lauren as Margo Channing go to a very special bar, and weep with joy.

Four: The new Kylie Minogue album is disappointing, especially compared to the year's girl-pop masterpieces (Girls Aloud's Tangled Up and Róisin Murphy's Overpowered). BUT this bonus iTunes track is mighty fine.

Kylie Minogue "Magnetic Electric"