Small Bill$

Sometimes I am surprised where a musical education leads artists to. I typed Regina Spektor as a singer/songwriter based on folk music. Knowing that she plays the piano well and made some songs that are really good. She always tried to spread her sound into indie and piano-pop. So I was surprised watching the  video of her new songs in which she turns to Hip-Hop. Added with a massive orchestra sound she created a song that is too good for mainstream stations. Chapeau Mrs. Spektor.

Europe Is Lost

It is a very small ridge between poetry, rap and protest song and one the only one I know is Kate Tempest. I saw her early this summer on a festival promoting her new book and was astonished about rapping about social drawbacks in the UK. These days she released her new record called Let Them Eat Chaos. It's a title that might be program. She's one of the few that have something to say without uplifting trigger finger. She's able to give you some impressions of our world today. I don't agree in any word she raps but it makes me think about some things in a different way.

Listen to her poem and think about it (just if you want it). I didn't heard words that are more concrete than hers for months.

Europe is lost, America lost, London is lost,

Still we are clamouring victory.

All that is meaningless rules,

And we have learned nothing from history.

People are dead in their lifetimes,

Dazed in the shine of the streets.

But look how the traffic keeps moving.

The system’s too slick to stop working.

Business is good. And there’s bands every night in the pubs,

And there’s two for one drinks in the clubs.

We scrubbed up well

We washed off the work and the stress

Now all we want’s some excess

Better yet; A night to remember that we’ll soon forget.

All of the blood that was shed for these cities to grow,

All of the bodies that fell.

The roots that were dug from the ground

So these games could be played

I see it tonight in the stains on my hands.

The buildings are screaming

I cant ask for help though, nobody knows me,

Hostile and worried and lonely.

We move in our packs and these are the rites we were born to

Working and working so we can be all that we want

Then dancing the drudgery off

But even the drugs have got boring.

Well, sex is still good when you get it.

To sleep, to dream, to keep the dream in reach

To each a dream,

Don’t weep, don’t scream,

Just keep it in,

Keep sleeping in

What am I gonna do to wake up?

I feel the cost of it pushing my body

Like I push my hands into pockets

And softly I walk and I see it, it’s all we deserve

The wrongs of our past have resurfaced

Despite all we did to vanquish the traces

My very language is tainted

With all that we stole to replace it with this,

I am quiet,

Feeling the onset of riot.

But riots are tiny though,

Systems are huge,

The traffic keeps moving, proving there’s nothing to do.

It’s big business baby and its smile is hideous.

Top down violence, structural viciousness.

Your kids are doped up on medical sedatives.

But don’t worry bout that. Worry bout terrorists.

The water levels rising! The water levels rising!

The animals, the polarbears, the elephants are dying!

Stop crying. Start buying.

But what about the oil spill?

Shh. No one likes a party pooping spoil sport.

Massacres massacres massacres/new shoes

Ghettoised children murdered in broad daylight by those employed to protect them.

Live porn streamed to your pre-teens bedrooms.

Glass ceiling, no headroom. Half a generation live beneath the breadline.

Oh but it’s happy hour on the high street,

Friday night at last lads, my treat!

All went fine till that kid got glassed in the last bar,

Place went nuts, you can ask our Lou,

It was madness, the road ran red, pure claret.

And about them immigrants? I cant stand them.

Mostly, I mind my own business.

But they’re only coming over here to get rich.

It’s a sickness.

England! England!

Patriotism!

And you wonder why kids want to die for religion?

Work all your life for a pittance,

Maybe you’ll make it to manager,

Pray for a raise

Cross the beige days off on your beach babe calendar.

Anarchists desperate for something to smash

Scandalous pictures of glamorous rappers in fashionable magazines

Who’s dating who?

Politico cash in an envelope

Caught sniffing lines off a prostitutes prosthetic tits,

And it’s back to the house of lords with slapped wrists

They abduct kids and fuck the heads of dead pigs

But him in a hoodie with a couple of spliffs –

Jail him, he’s the criminal

It’s the BoredOfItAll generation

The product of product placement and manipulation,

Shoot em up, brutal, duty of care,

Come on, new shoes.

Beautiful hair.

Bullshit saccharine ballads

And selfies

And selfies

And selfies

And here’s me outside the palace of ME!

Construct a self and psyhcosis

And meanwhile the people are dead in their droves

But nobody noticed,

Well actually, some of them noticed,

You could tell by the emoji they posted.

Sleep like a gloved hand covers our eyes

The lights are so nice and bright and lets dream

But some of us are stuck like stones in a slipstream

What am I gonna do wake up?

We are lost

We are lost

We are lost

And still nothing

Will stop

Nothing pauses

We have ambitions and friends and our courtships to think of

Divorces to drink off the thought of

The money

The money

The oil

The planet is shaking and spoiled

Life is a plaything

A garment to soil

The toil the toil.

I cant see an ending at all.

Only the end.

How is this something to cherish?

When the tribesmen are dead in their deserts

To make room for alien structures,

Develop

Develop

Kill what you find if it threatens you.

No trace of love in the hunt for the bigger buck,

In Dub

Our beloved bass-man released a few days ago a retrospective of his dub works during the last decades. I think that I don't have to say much about him and his musical history. He was one of the few that made a lot of records better than the average when he played the bass. He absorbed many influences - punk, world and jazz in his very unique sound. I listened to this record a lot during the last days. Not every songs is close to me but all in all it shows the continues spectrum of his musical education.

Jah Wobble - Inspector out of Space (Youth Inner Space Dub)
Jah Wobble - Forest Gate Dub
Jah Wobble and Bill Laswell - Alam Dub

Neo Rodeo

Neo Rodeo is another German band based in the tradition of indie-rock with folk influences based deep down in Southern Germany in Freiburg. Handmade music with a touch of country and probably a band that is live better than on records. Anyway, a band that is much better than the average of other German bands. Have a listen and enjoy.

Old Vine In New Bottles

Today in the series two songs that are almost 50 years old and which was recorded when most of us played football with the kids next door on the street. Bob Dylan was always an artist whose songs were covered during the last decades. But Jimi Hendrix' version of All Along The Watchtower I've first recognized when I was at the cinema. In the 70's it was usual to show us some supporting movies before the main movie started. Most of them were very arty and we sat there waiting until the movie started. Some were inspiring others not. But I remember one afternoon when me and my mates went to see the latest Bruce Lee move and we sat down in our chairs and then no supporting movie started. Instead then they showed us a live version of this song with Jimi at the guitar. For me it was an epiphany to listen to this rough, clear and inspired sound. The movie was out of date and I felt for this sound. The next day I went to my local record shop to get me the first records. I still listen from time to time to his music. And I think that this version is much better than Bob Dylan's original.

As I told you some month ago I recognized Kris Kristofferson by his first movie Cisco Kid in the late 70's and from this time I was addicted to country-sized singer/songwriters. Me and Bobby McGee was a hymn to my generation and freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose was the slogan for us. For sure it is a song from the hippies but this could be also the slogan for every punk in the late 70's/early 80's.

Gone But Not Forgotten

... was a small series about musicians that passed away too early I started a few years ago. I stopped it because other things and music were on my focus these days. Cleaning up my room a few days ago I found a few CD's in a top-drawer I almost forgot that I had them. It was Tim Hardin's last record Homecoming Concert, recorded live in his hometown Eugene. It shows a broken man singing his songs for the last time in front of an audience. A few weeks later in 1980 he died on an overdose of heroin. He was addicted to drugs since his youngest days in fact of an high-school accident when his cerivical broke and he took opiates for pain relieve. He showed his big talent in composing on his first two records that contained classic records like Reason To Believe, If I were a carpenter and Red Balloon. Listening to this songs again you can hear a man knowing that his life is almost gone but his legacy was his songs that still shines like diamonds.

Tim Hardin - Misty Roses
Tim Hardin - Reason To Believe
Tim Hardin - If I Were A Carpenter
Tim Hardin - Red Balloon
Tim Hardin - Amen

Foreign Air

A few month ago when when my team left to play in the second league I posted Free Animal the first song by Foreign Air. Now they released their first EP. Foreign Air is the project by Jacob Michael and Jesse Clasen both Americans and from Washington DC/North Carolina. Their music is hard to describe but their songs accompanied me during the last days. When I have to compare them to some other band than I would name Glass Animals from Oxford. Sometimes there is a guitar leading the song and then another song was lead by organ sounds and drum machines. Over all the Jesse's dark voice. Not the music you like from the first time you listen but the more you listen to them the more they grow.