This past Monday (Bastille Day) we went to Chicago to see & hear one of my early influences (Yazoo) perform. The team of Alison Moyet and Vince Clarke have embarked on a "Reconnected" tour after disbanding 25 years ago (bloody hell). It was quite an historic event given Yazoo's short career of 2 years and the major influence on many bands that followed. Vince Clarke, of course, went on to form the hugely successful duo of Erasure. Although Erasure also had a large influence, in my opinion, their songs have never had the depth of Yazoo's material.
To make the concert even more special, my brother was there with me. He (David) and I had a synthpop duo (Studio II) during the late 80s/early 90s and it's fair to say that without Yazoo, we probably never would have existed. I think we covered nearly every Vince Clarke penned song at some point. So, it was major groovy to be sitting next to him as Yazoo took to the stage after all these years. Goosebumps-a-plenty! It has inspired me to seek out and digitize all of the Studio II material and get it online. History is too important to simply sit in boxes in the basement! Watch for synthpop goodness soon.
The concert was excellent and featured many "true to the original" versions of classic Yazoo tracks as well as a few updated (and up-tempo) versions. Alison's voice has never sounded better and she genuinely seemed to be having a great time. Vince Clarke was, well... Vince Clarke. I think I saw him smile once, but he's not the most animated of fellows! The packed house at the Chicago Theatre was extremely enthusiastic, prompting me to ask David, "Where were all these people when we were playing?". In his usual witty way, he responded, "Chicago". :)
Anyway, a fun time was had by all and a much needed boost to the creative juices followed. That is all.
Well, despite HL's efforts to stream the podcast live, we had technical difficulties outside of our own control. Thusly, the podcast will not have a live video stream for this episode. Sorry :/ It's all Leo Laporte's fault! ;)
But, the duo still had lots to talk about. Work on the new album is chugging along nicely, finally! With no release date a of yet, CB & W are working away on brand new tunes. One of which, 'Just Imagine', was just completed and only needs a good mixing. Who knows how many tracks the new album will have. At this point, it's best to just keep on doing what they're doing! OPM's included for the week were Christa's pick of Frisbee, thanks to Grant and his Three From Leith podcast, and War-N's pick was the new album 'Nine Heavens' by Niyaz which is due out next week. All absolutely great stuff!! CB also chatted about the music store located in Louisville, KY called ear-X-tacy. Frisbee sells his cd's, and vinyl, there directly. If you live near the Louisville area, you should go check it out! Also, you can order from them online here!
Until next time, be nice to others more than you think you should! You don't always know the other side of things.
Toodloo!
Other fine examples of good "brick-n-mortar" indie record stores are:
- Shake It Records in Cincinnati, OH
- Amoeba Music in San Francisco/Hollywood, CA
- Rasputin Music in multiple locations in the Bay Area, CA
What song should we perform next time?
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Here's the TWHL theme music, for Jody ;)
Today (Sunday) was spent working on a new song (called “Just Imagine”) that started life as “Futurist Space Car”. We actually played bit of it on TWHL #102.
I spent today cleaning up the arrangement and we just recorded Christa’s final vocals about 30 minutes ago. The song started life as a little drum loop from Matilda (our affectionately named Alesis Micron) and a somber, yet spacey, synth pad. If memory serves correctly, Christa wrote lyrics on the spot for this one and we recorded scratch vocals right away. The lyrics and whole feel of the song speaks of life(?) after we are all gone for this world. Christa’s melody is really beautiful in contrast to the cold music bed. With this in mind, I decided that Christa’s lone voice should be the only real human element to the song. I added some very mechanically played electric piano… playing only the first and fifth of each chord. I’ve always liked the way fifths leave enough space in a chord progression for the melody to really dictate the tone. Is it major or minor? There is also a certain sterility to this method of harmonizing that lends itself well to this song. For a nice lift (but not too much) on the chorus I added some very stylistic TR-808 and CR-78 cymbals. Nothing screams early electronics like these percussive sounds. There’s a 8 bar break between verse and chorus that needed a little something. So I added a very cold sounding CS-80 synth (well, a virtual version of it). The song ends (quite dramatically I think) with just Christa’s voice and the ambient synth pads, so a nice crescendo is needed to build up to this. The crescendo still needs a bit of work. I’m thinking (and Christa agrees) that some strings might fit the bill here. That will add another human element besides the voice I suppose, but what are rules other than things to break?
Sorry if I’ve been a little too music theory/tech geek in my description here. I just wanted to document what we’ve been up to today… in the only language I know. All-in-all… a good day of creative work. It’s been along time since I’ve had such a productive and rewarding day, musically. So I wanted to share.
At last, the (triumphant?) return of Tea with Hungry Lucy! In honor of Memorial Day, Christa and War-N kick off the episode with a live performance of the New Order song "Love Vigilantes" (originally recorded for the "True Faith" album). Some explanation of the unplanned Hiatus follows in amongst CB & W's difficulties with forming simple sentences. War-N talks a bit about the film "A Mighty Heart" and how if affected him and Christa talks about beautiful visual impact of the film "Perfume". Other People's Music chatted about was the song "New Soul" by Yael Naim (from her self-titled album) and the album "Dreaming of Revenge" by Kaki King. War-N learned about Kaki on the excellent podcast "World Cafe: Words and Music (Feed)". The podcast rounds out with "My Beloved" (from the album "To Kill a King"), dedicated this week to our new nephew, Micah.
What Hungry Lucy song would you dedicate to a loved one?
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Human nature, at least many people's, is to always suspect that the grass is greener on the other side. We take the parts of our lives that we don't like and focus on how great life would be if the exact opposite were true. The trouble with that bad habit, is that it never goes away. Life is a compromise. No matter what possessions you have, what job you have or what relationships you have... there will always be a downside. There is a fine line between striving for better and never being happy. It's easy to recognize what is wrong in our lives, but not always so easy to recognize the wonderful experiences and people in our lives. Find what makes you happy in your life and totally dwell on it... go on... just roll around in it! Take all that energy you spend wishing for something more, and bask in everything great you have going on right now.
It's working for me... right now... and I aim to keep it that way.
Signed, one moody bastid ;)
“Sometimes… you just gotta reboot”.
In the 5th installment for Life with Hungry Lucy, Christa and War-N tell us about starting the song “Erase Her” from scratch when it just wasn’t working.
This week, the duo explain their most recent “Life with Hungry Lucy” episode about the new song called “Erase Her”. You may view said video at this link. In their travels of the week, vinyl is rediscovered in a glorious way and new OPM’s are found! CB’s new (but old) finding was Demis Roussos. A lovely large fella with a sweet voice, who (we are happy to learn) is still going strong. War-N’s OPM’s this week are Coldplay and their new free release “Violet Hill” and Clara Rockmore. Clara was THE theremin player of all theremin players! See for yourself down below.
Many other fine tidbits are mentioned. You’ll just have to listen for yourself! You can also go see what Christa Belle is thinking and how War-N is twittering.
Until next week, not everyone is Lily Allen!!
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Clara Rockmore - “The Swan” (Saint-Saëns) - Theremin performance
Demis Roussos - “Forever and Ever”
Tea with Hungry Lucy, Episode 113 ends with a performance of "Shine" (originally from the album, "To Kill a King"). This version is just electric piano, hammered dulcimer and Christa's delicious vocals. Rather un-electronic for Hungry Lucy. Before the performance, though Christa goes on a rant about a newly opened local "restaurant" that the pair visited on their Sunday of attempted creativity boosting. War-N and Christa take a personal trip down memory lane and tell us about the apartment from hell in which they used to live. in the "other people's music" segment, War-N talks about trip-hop pioneer's Portishead and their very challenging, but rather clever new album "Third". CB & War-N also talk about MP3 vs. CD vs. vinyl.
Do you still buy vinyl, or is it ancient history?
Any Twitter-folk out there? Why not follow War-N's ramblings? It's fun. You can point and laugh.
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Portishead - Machine Gun (Live on Jools Holland)
In this week's Tea with Hungry Lucy War-N & Christa share a preview of a new song (working title: Pajamas), likely title "The Best Day of Her Life". We get to hear the original noisy piano recording, and the newly arranged music.
This week's Tea with Hungry Lucy is high on the insanity meter! A mix of emotions this week as Christa and War-N talk about the therapeutic benefits of making music as well as the confidence struggles it can sometimes bring to the surface.
