The Bloodbuzzed Jukebox Week 228

After the storm comes the calm... even the sun. So, seizing the moment (at least trying) of this splendid and spring-like weekend we bring you our latest TOP TEN JUKEBOX, which not on purpose, we promise, it has an eerie, very appropriate folkie vibe alongside the regular dose of new discoveries, such as Marble Arch or Daughter of Swords, Blog beloved acts, like Witching Waves or the infallible J. Mascis paying tribute to Tom Petty... and a huge, immense plus. Because we couldn't just ignore the fact that on Friday it would have been the 100 anniversary of the great Peter Seeger, the folk myth whose tunes and social commitment are still as meaningful and powerful today as when he originally wrote/sung them. Still fighting for the turning of the seasons dear Pete, still convinced we shall overcome. Happy birthday! Enjoy the sunny days and remember, all the songs are available at our Soundcloud. (Join Us!)

Direct links to 2019 Jukebox playlists

Week 214  Week 215 Week 216  Week 217 Week 218 Week 219 Week 220 Week 221 
Week 222 Week 223  Week 224  Week 225 Week 226  Week 227

These Go to 11: interviewing The Persian Leaps

After recovering the section last week, here's another chapter on our interview series. This week we have to pleasure to count with Drew Forsberg from our dear The Persian Leaps and the excellent Land Ski Records label answering our questionnaire. A little bit of old-school-noise-pop in our blog today. These Go to 11! 

Ready for the jump

Drew Forsberg, The Persian Leaps 

Hailing from Saint Paul, Minnesota, this trio was formed in 2012, when Drew Forsberg decided to transform his originally solo project into a full band. A year after, they released via his own label Land Ski Records debut EP 'Praise Elephants', followed by 'Drive Drive Delay' in September 2014. Now the circle of EPs has been completed with 'High & Vibrate', out just now. Direct, shiny, infectious songs, somewhere in between noise pop and power-pop, recalling the brightest side of Sugar and our beloved Teenage Fanclub, ready for making your day immediately. Alive and kicking tunes! Here we go!

Second hand news: this record was huge

1. First record that you bought (be honest)
I believe I got several albums at once because I joined the Columbia House record club (8 records for a penny!). But I’m pretty sure that Fleetwood Mac – 'Rumours' and an ABBA greatest hits album were in there.

2. First and last concert you have attended (be honest too!)

My first concert ever was Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie at the Minnesota State Fair in 1985. My first real rock and roll concert, though, was Echo & the Bunnymen and New Order in 1987. These days, I mostly go to shows by local bands. The awesome shoegaze band, Ringo Deathstarr, was the last larger show I went to.

The fast, furious & hairy 80s, MTV style

3. Guilty pleasure (song/band you shouldn’t like but you do, yes, it’s the embarrassing question)
I have a weakness for Def Leppard, especially 'Photograph'.

4. Most precious music item you own (collector mode on)

I’m not into vinyl, and although I have stacks of CDs, I just listen to music on my phone these days. My oldest, most precious music-related item is a songbook for The Smiths – 'Meat is Murder' that I bought around 1986. I basically taught myself to play guitar using the chords in that book.

The father of lo-fi, hearing the voices...

5. Favorite lyrics (not yours)
Just about anything by the Smiths or Guided By Voices. Morrissey and Robert Pollard are amazing lyricists, although very different. If I had to pick just one example, I’d choose 'The Headmaster Ritual' by the Smiths just because it so perfectly captures a bleak, miserable school experience.

6. Musician/s you would like to meet (should be alive, for obvious reasons, but you can choose a dead one too)
Robert Pollard from Guided by Voices.

7. Favorite artwork album (not yours)
My Bloody Valentine’s 'Loveless'.

8. Books or movies? Depending on your answer recommend us one (trick: you can choose both) 
My favorite movie is 'The Godfather'. My favorite book is 'The Crying of Lot 49' by Thomas Pynchon.

Elephants going noise-pop

9. Song (of yours) you are most proud of
They’re all my children. That said, I’m still very proud of the song 'Sleeples' from Praise Elephants. It’s about my father and so far, is the only time I’ve written a song with direct, personal content.

10. What does it mean indie for you? (yes, the “serious question”)
I’m biased and have a certain sound in mind when I hear that term (guitar-driven indie rock from the 80s and early 90s). But in general, it makes me think of musicians who are passionate enough about music to keep making it, even when they have little chance of commercial, popular success.

11. Where do you see yourself in 10 years? 
Still making music, with any luck, releasing the five best Persian Leaps songs we have ready every fall.

                                                                                     Zillion thanks Drew, thanks The Persian Leaps!

We Shall Overcome!

R.I.P. Pete Seeger

 R.I.P. hero. Rest well. Thanks for your wisdom and enlightenment.

THIS MACHINE SURROUNDS HATE AND FORCES IT TO SURRENDER

"Greenwich Village", Generation Folk

Greenwich Village: Music that Defined a Generation
Beefeater In-Edit 2013, Chapter II

Very few places have the mythical qualities of Greenwich Village. The Beats, CBGBs, Dylan, Woody Allen... Literature, music, cinema... these streets are sacred ground for me. I've been lucky to wander around the area, and despite the hipster-posh-pricey-style, full of Starbucks (that's heresy!) and organic stores, the neighborhood still has a special vibe. So watching this film at In-Edit Festival was an obvious choice.

As its perhaps too evident full title announces, "Greenwich Village" aims to be an in-depth take of what it meant to be there on the 60s-early 70s, and how the music scene fuelled, or at least was an intrinsic part of the political, social and cultural changes of American society. Director's Laura Archibald approach is a coral one, full of interviews mixed with some striking performance clips, which, on paper, makes absolute sense. After all, the Greenwich Village in the 60s was a collective, a community that became the voice for many. Right?

That's the question. And I'm afraid it remains unanswered after watching the documentary. Don't get me wrong, the film is excellently structured (the comic animations are pretty cool too) and the division in several "chapters" gives cohesion to the different remarks of the artists interviewed. But it is not as revelatory as it could haven been, in my opinion because the quick interventions from the speakers are so short the whole majority of them are just flashy or superficial statements that makes you think there's a bit of indulgence and self-importance. Won't add a lot to the ones who, like me, are already "converted" to the cause. But I don't want to criticise the film, as I believe it's a fantastic work, that can really grab the attention of the casual spectator or only big-names folk/protest songs fans, showing a glimpse of a simpler but probably more human way of understanding life, and a sense of commitment and unity that would be very much welcomed and needed today.

And it does has many points of interest and remarkable situations. Archibald goes way beyond Dylan (maybe the weakest chapter, despite Jose Feliciano's hilarious impersonation), and shows many others artists, rather unknown, doing justice/paying an unexpected tribute to a few of them. She also features some mesmerizing performances by the likes of Phil Ochs, Odette, Richie Havens or Joni Mitchell. And she's not shy to bring (although I would have loved a richer insight) a not-so-happy issue to the table: the blacklisting and persecution from the House Committee on Un-American Activities, and the perennially ridiculous fear of Communism.      

Finally, and it's such a big plus it deserves a separate comment: it does have PETE SEEGER (yeah, in big capital letters). Every remark he offers in the film is full of wisdom and joyous eloquence (don't miss the final credits where he reveals what happened on the über-famous Newport Folk Festival where Dylan "turned electric"), and brought me near tears a couple of times.“What in the world is an un-American activity?” Not singing songs about people, that's for sure...  

SCORE: 6,75/10

"Alan Lomax", the Folksong Hunter

Alan Lomax: The Man Who Recorded the World. A Biography- John Szwed

My interest on Alan Lomax's figure comes from one of this rare cinematographic experiences were one enters to a theatre with little-to-zero expectations and then leaves the venue almost in tears, deeply moved by what has seen. The film, better said documentary, was "Lomax , the Songhunter" written and directed by Rogier Kappiers. What an impact. Since then I've been looking for something to read about the man and his work. Now, after reading this biography, I can say I'm still impressed and amazed by his story, but also a bit confused, dubious to some extent, about his motivations. Damn, I have to find the film and watch it again...

"The Man Who Recorded the World" is an immaculate, scrupulous and fine biography, at least on its surface. Informative and argumentative, rich in statistics, facts, figures and complete, even to the point of saturation sometimes, in what regards to explain with detail every book, play, recording and field work Alan Lomax did (add letters too). And he did many (and I mean MANY). His task was so gigantic that becomes scary. That's not a relentless passion but probably also a worrying obsession. A feeling I was confirming while reading John Szwed's book.

The depth of the biography in Lomax's activities provides a rich account of a work life that really escapes from just one categorization and had several sides. Lomax was a musicologist, folklorist, filmmaker, music producer, television & radio host, writer, actor, singer, lecturer, ethnomusicologist (he's recognised as the father of the discipline by many), anthropologist, political activist (among the most interesting for me is the People's Song platform or being accused and surveyed for being a communist)... He tried everything for folk music, to restore its legacy, to make it known and popular... but in his very own terms, something that also  involved him in several controversies. Was he a purist or a popularizer? The book doesn't hide the contradictions and the heated debate around his figure and role in music's history, although Szwed take a clear side at the end.  

But unfortunately, and despite being very informative, "The Man Who Recorded the World" has some regrettable misses. Lomax's family is neglected from the book. Wives, daughter and sentimental partners are getting in and out at Szwed's will, while the extremely peculiar relation with his father and mentor John Lomax is almost left behind after Alan's goes on his own. Even worse is the lack of interest of Szwed in providing some space to the artists that Lomax recorded, and in several cases, discovered. Legendary musicians like Lead Belly, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger or Muddy Waters (or the thousands of unknown performers) don't anything to say in Lomax's story? That's a serious flaw.

In that sense, I certainly believe that Kappiers film pays a better tribute to Lomax's figure going to the places he visited to meet the folk singers he recorded and how they remember that peculiar song collector. I'm sorry but I don't care that much about cantometrics (to be honest, that will to measure and categorize folk music is as ambitious as questionable, to be polite, music doesn't need to be constrained by artificial definitions) or the dollars he received from every foundation or government institution he reached for his music investigations. The man and the music he discovered should have been more than enough for a fascinating biography. But we have an incomplete picture of the first, and even way less about the second. Interesting, but rather flat.

SCORE: 6,25/10

"Festival!", a music collage of the Sixties

Festival!
In-Edit Beefeater Festival 2011, chapter III

After Dylan and Kings of Leon, for our third film of the weekend at the In-Edit Festival, we "went" back to Newport, back to director Murray Lerner, and back to folk. But as I already announced when I reviewed "The Other Side of the Mirror", this film offers much than that previous documentary.

"Festival!" synthesizes four consecutive editions of the Newport Folk Festivals, from 1963 to 1966, being a complete summary, more a testimony, with many moments to highlight, of what was the music folk scene, and how it evolved. Lerner uses the same approach as we saw with the Dylan documentary: filming loads of songs. But this time the songs are not entirely recorded, as that's just a part of the film. The director wants to capture almost everything. As many artists as possible on stage, his/her opinions, as well as the audience's, and he also captures situations (pure cinema verité) that explain better than many speeches what's a Festival. All in all, a very entertaining package, an absorbing collage.

Of course, an amount of songs and artists wouldn't have much meaning if it didn't reveal something. And I would say "Festival!" is indeed able to tell us a few things. It offers an interesting attempt to define the nature of folk. Taking the opinions of public and some of the most dynamic performances, it is easy to catalogue folk as a popular art, that despite its message, is quite close to people, and then easy to understand. It is also a culture that intends to be participatory. It is really appealing to see/hear how young people debates on the  relevance of the lyrics as opposing the bubblegum pop that dominated radios by then, while others concede the most important virtue on the fact folk equals people: looks, beliefs, music skills don't matter that much.

There are contradictions though. Some artists prefer the company of the audience like Joan Baez, while others, Dylan basically, prefer to stay away from them. Some fans glorify the musician, while others debate on the need of fame. And there also different opinions on the music itself, as Lerner wants to show the different music styles that were gathered at Newport, from the open, politically charged early folk of Donovan, to the more eccentric, odd, numbers. Particularly striking in that sense is the "debate" on the blues. Watching Son House talking about it is just mind blowing.

Why I won't rate "Festival!" as a masterpiece then? Well, first, because it gets a bit weary. Not every scene (song, artist) adds something relevant, and I got the feeling, at least a couple of times, that the interest in what was being suggested (by an interview, or a series of songs) gets lost at the next scene. Second, because some labelling wouldn't do any harm. I guess in 1967 all the artists we see on it were very famous, but 44 years later... that doesn't help the flow of the movie. And third, and despite it doesn't have to do with "Festival!" itself, because the In-Edit organization didn't provide us a good viewing of the film. We lost Howlin' Wolf's performance due to the cuts in the image and the sound became pretty bad at the end. Sad.

Peter, Paul & Mary, Odetta, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Judy Collins, Howlin’ Wolf, Pete Seeger, Baez, Dylan, Son House... too many amazing artists to dislike this film. On the contrary, it is very easy to recommend and has many points of interest. But it lacks some punch to achieve what it could have been.

SCORE: 6,5/10