Birdman's Always Strapped Remix 2

This is one of those bring-out-the-heavyweights-and-make-a-summer-hit songs, or "The G Mix" of Birdman's "Always Strapped," according to the intro. It just seems like hype for a message that's definitely not peace and love, but I still love Lil' Wayne and I dig Rick Ross's style. He wears lots of cool glasses and he's got an amulet that's a portrait of himself. Here he manages to make a baseball cap look dressy and Young Jeezy is bringing back the fat gold chains. Maybe now the ladies need to start wearing dolphins again. Remix Part 1 is more rhythmic and minimalist, which seems more contemporary, in a good way. Plus the video features lots of babes in catsuits. But Lil' Wayne's pants are pulled up.

Metro Station Does a Style Cover

The YouTube embedding code for Metro Station's "Shake It" is "disabled by request" and this probably because SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT put it up there. No big deal. I don't want to talk about the music anyway but rather the styles in the video. It's a real mid-80s melee of scrawny Ramones types (the face piercings are historically inaccurate and so is the vest with nothing under it), Rude Boys and Girls, break dancers in olde skool track suits, Joan Jett lookin' girlies with neck bandannas that are only worn in videos. Wow. Metro Station and their party people are doing a style cover but back in '83 Joan Jett was rocking the look in that special kind of spandex with extra sheen and covering the 1960s "Crimson and Clover" and that I can embed.

Orhan Gencebay in Aski Ben Mi Yarattim

Remember that cool Oran Gencebay clip I posted a couple months ago? Turkish singers are the sultry best! Since I don't understand Turkish (I did however teach myself over 100 words in Turkish during a 3-week visit), I didn't have any hard facts for you about this film or the singer.

Lucky us, though. Soner wrote me with this wealth of information about Gencebay and Aski Ben Mi Yarattim, the film this clip is from. It's super interesting:

Let me give some details about the video you post. It's a scene from the movie Aski Ben Mi Yarattim ("Did I Create The Love?" or "Am I The One Created The Love?"). It was released in 1980.
Here's Orhan Gencebay filmography:
http://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orhan_Gencebay#Filmografi

The redhead in the movie is Mujde Ar. In the movie she is acting a role of a prostitute. The passport you mentioned in your post is actually her authorization licence to prostitute. The movie is about the love between a prostitute (Mujde Ar) who wants to get rid of this job to start a new life, and a singer (Orhan Gencebay) that tries to save her because he loves her.

The song in the scene is Bulamadik ki ("So We Couldn't Find"), claiming that he couldn't find the love and the happiness in his life yet. The song is from the longplay album in 1980 called Aski Ben Yaratmadim.
http://www.diskotek.arkaplan.com.tr/catalog/orhandisko/lp52.jpg

Here's Orhan Gencebay discography:
http://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orhan_Gencebay_diskografisi

Here's the original song Bulamadik Ki in the scene with a cleaner record: http://rapidshare.com/files/228246497/Gencebay-Bulamadik_ki_1980_.rar.html

Çok teşekkür ederim, Soner!

Depeche Mode and K&D - Useless

I never got into Depeche Mode but my sister did. She was also really into the color peach at that time. Then later later later I went through a phase of constantly listening to my coworker Stacy's copy of K&D Sessions while on the job. There's an amazing remix of Useless on there that always made me think I had missed out on the Mode. That guy is a good singer. They are so funnily serious here in this video and I like how the babe mysteriously materializes at the end. But now they've got a new album out and they're supposed to be touring but canceled because Dave Gahan (AKA that guy the good singer) is sick. That's a bummer.



Kruder Dorfmeister - Useless

Bobby Conn and The Chain Played Together a While Back

What's going on? Why hasn't there been a post on here for weeks? No answer.

The last music-y thing I did or listened to was a show at which Bobby Conn and The Chain played. Bobby Conn and Monica Bou Bou experimented with some new songs using laptop backup. I liked this pared-down show with just her violin, his guitar, and their solid singing. The Chain played a good show too. They recently put a page up with some MP3s and have thus entered the realm of the Internet. I think they should use the Thai letter "saw soo" and its accompanying image for a t-shirt or something, because "soo" means chain and Thai letters are cool looking.

Orhan Gencebay: Mar Sur

I love this Orhan Gencebay video. Especially the studio scenes. I'm guessing it must be from an old Turkish movie. I would love to see this film and others like it.

You don't have to understand Turkish to follow the narrative here, or to appreciate how this clip combines music video with film scenes. As the song begins, a lovely redhead irons Orhan Gencebay's shirt with an ecstatic smile. Meanwhile he's shaving around his full mustache. His lady then helps him get dressed, and a shot of a saz foreshadows the coming scene: a recording studio, where Gencebay is now singing the song you've already been listening to. There's something really satisfying about suddenly seeing the string section in the flesh. Some of the violinists are wearing really fresh sunglasses. A guy in the booth conducts with clownish gestures but no one seems to notice him.

At a break in Gencebay's vocals, dialog cuts in. Redheaded lady is wearing a bubblegum pink t-shirt and she talks to a blond friend. She picks up what appears to be her passport and gets a faraway look in her eye. Now cut to Gencebay in an office. He signs a contract. His vocals in the song return, now quieter, so that he can talk to the man behind the desk. Gencebay is handed a stack of lira.

The pretty redhead character is then in an office of her own. Applying for a job? Her hair looks darker. She says "no" to the man who looks over her papers and the passport, or maybe it's a national identity card. Then she says something else and leaves.

The last two scenes, the picnic and the shower, are the best and the main characters are each wistful in his and her own way. I won't spoil it by describing the ending except to say that it looks like Gencebay drinks some raki and the woman stands motionless under a shower head and washes away the day's frustrations - in her clothes.

Dancing in the Western Sahara and Chofo Mazyan Wadna

ยอดรัก สลักใจ Otherwise Known as Yodrak Salakchai

This week MONRAKPLENGTHAI posted a cassette by ยอดรัก สลักใจ (yodrak salakchai). As usual, there's a succint paragraph jam packed with info, the tape cover, track listing in Thai followed by phonetic spelling in Roman letters, and a song to preview. What a fantastically with-it blog! Why can't there be more stuff like it?

รับครึ่งเดียว (rap khrueng dieow), the Yodrak Salakchi song preview at MONRAKPLENGTHAI hints at Afro-pop and American funk. The video below for a later Yodrak Salakchai groove is much more mellow and trance-y. Other videos from the same DVD posted at YouTube star the same cute couple; watch the ones with titles that begin YS (for Yodrak Salakchai) and you'll be treated to a disjointed narrative of their love story.

Gainsbourg Overdose, Part 6: La Marseillaise

This was supposed to be the second installment of my loose translation of Gainsbourg's appearance on Le jeu de la vérité back in 1984. But it didn't work out that way. Because the Serge Gainsbourg obsession is multifaceted and doesn't follow a straight and narrow path.

I knew that Serge Gainsbourg did a reggae album in '79, went to Kingston and recorded with Sly and Robbie, using Bob Marley's backup singers, and that one of the songs he did was his own interpretation of La Marseillaise (the song in this video), which pissed off right-wingers. You probably know that, too. But I didn't know the whole story until I watched this clip from French TV. If you don't know the whole story and don't understand French, here's what happened:

After recording the album, Gainsbourg then toured France with the group from Jamaica. He hadn't been on stage in like 15 years because he had developed stage fright after a shitty tour with French chanteuse Barbara. The tour in '80 did not go smoothly. Gainsbourg and the Jamaicans received a bomb threat at their hotel and concerts were attended by military groups who tried to stop the show. You will see Gainsbourg chewing out these extremists live at a concert in Strasbourg in the clip mentioned above. THEN... a couple years later... Gainsbourg went on to BUY the original copy of La Marseillaise, the French national anthem, at an auction. He paid 130,000 francs for it in the mid-80s. I want to call that the last laugh but it's more complex and poetic than that.

It's hard not to want to be hungover and chain smoking watching this video, but caveat emptor: it doesn't look good on everyone.

Last Summer in Paris with Ludo Pin

If I breathe every three seconds: somehow the start to the chorus just doesn't sound as good in English. Luckily there are the fuzzy, hazy streets of Paris, Benday dots, fast-spinning clocks that make me think of the woman counting the minutes in Louis Chédid's 1984 video for Hold-up, and a trip on the Charles de Gaulle-Étoile Nation line that morphs into a roller coaster ride. And the blipping bass-y synth and a squeaky, trippy Nuthin But A G Thang quote.

LUDO PIN - 3 SECONDES
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