a record of love: ian brown's solarized

one of my all-times favourite artists is ian brown. ian brown started his career in the 80's as the singer of the groundbreaking mancunian band the stone roses. he started a solo career when the roses split in 1995 and has released four records since, plus one best of cd.

his last regular release solarized is the record this post is going to be about.

let's have a look at the songs one by one:

01 longsight M13

the opener is a love song to ian's home. Longsight, with the ward code (a ward is an electoral district used in local politics, mainly in england) M13, is the district were he grew up. this is were he met the stones roses' guitarist john squire and where they recorded their first, self-titled record. the lyrics praise longsight in this particular part:

let the stars shine on
until the break of dawn
let the stars shine on
and let her move, move like a queen
of Longsight M13

in various interviews, ian brown stated this song is about an inspiring place. he does so with very beautiful words:

got so many dreams
i think my head might explode


02 time is my everything

let the video play while you go on reading. it was shot by ian's wife fabiola quiroz-brown.




as ian brown is father of three sons, this song seems like an anthem for his kids, in which he claims that they are of the upmost importance for him:

time is my everything
for you I'd do anything
under the sun

child, don't you fear anything
for even the greatest men,
shall have to stand in line
i know you're gonna see it in the fullness of time

03 destiny or circumstance

it was when you smiled
and from the corner of your eye
i could see the sunrise shone on for miles

i've seen it all
i've never seen anything
so beautiful as you you're so gracile

this looks like a classical lyric about love, written for someone very special. but ian brown also knows very much how i felt when i saw him performing live:

is it your destiny or circumstance
leads you to the lord of the dance?
i admire your style
love your smile
cross the street
see you using all your guile
so our eyes our eyes would meet
soul arise love your smile
soul arise
love your smile

at least this part was written especially for me ;-)

04 upside down

this track is somewhat of an interlude. it is fairly short and does not have a classical structure with verses and a chorus. it is a very dark track that expresses ian's take on political issues.

a desert rose cascading waterfalls
the sands of time will blow my mind
the real wealth to hold is with your health
you were beside me all around
i know the world is upside down

note the hints on the stone roses, which occur in quite a few of ian brown's songs. here, he talkes about a desert rose and names waterfall, one of the most popular and beautiful tracks of the stone roses.

watch the video and hear how ian's voice has changed over the years. this song was recorded in 1989





05 solarized

first of all, the lyrics:

her heart gets broken
it's something she can't hide
she's cut like a diamond
from a mine as deep as time
the words that she's spoken
have energised my mind
a sheer elevation so like eagles high we'll glide

hot love it smoulders
it's something she can't hide
a manifestation of a force as old as time
now morning has broken
and solarized my eyes
her sheer dispensation
says like eagles high we'll glide

solarized in the sunrise
rise with the sunrise
soul rise in the sunrise
solarized in the sunrise
rise with the sunrise
soul rise in the sunrise
the light that she lives for in the dark she'll always find

not much i can add to this. the last line is like a promise for eternity and words like she's cut like a diamond from a mine as deep as time can only be outdone by what he sings in the next song:

06 the sweet fantastic

you I have found
i hope you'll always be around
and though nothing lasts forever
say you'll always be my pleasure

you I have found
i hope you'll always be around
and if everything lasts forever
say you'll always be my pleasure

the two verses build up a great connection. not only should the loved one always be there although nothing lasts forever, but also if everything lasts forever. this line warms my heart every time i hear it. what's even better than saying: I always want you to be with me? - saying if you're always gonna be there there is nothing greater i could think of.

07 keep what ya got

this track was written by noel gallagher of oasis. it was originally called teotihuacan and included on the soundtrack of the x-files movie, released in 1998. listen to a 30 seconds stream here to compare it with keep what ya got.

when the song was re-recorded, noel stated that he thought 'this song must be sung by ian' everytime he heard it. as an reference to my topic, this is noel showing ian his admiration.









08 home is where the heart is

home is where the heart is
i’m so glad you’re here to stay
and should you find yourself ever drifting away
i made a space my heart where you can stay
i saved a place in my heart where you may wanna lay

looks like a perfect combination of the aforementioned topics: it could be about a very special person, but also about a very special place.

09 one way ticket to paradise

this contains one of my favourite images about how life can be:

threw a dice came up with seven
now i'm on my way to heaven

i got a one way ticket to paradise

10 kiss ya lips (no i.d.)

this is ian's take on a political issue, a hot topic in the uk: the introduction of i.d. cards to stop terrorism and plane hi-jacking. again, very political lyrics, packed into an absolutely dancable cheerful song.

11 happy ever after

the instrumental outro of the album

bonus track: lovebug

this needs no comments, one of the most inventive lyrics about love i've heard so far:

Someone call the doctor, there's a fever going round,
write me a perscription for the cure that can't be found.

Doctor can't prescribe the medicine to pull you through,
it just dont exist cos its the lovebug catching you,
this ailment dont need healing, it wont leave you feeling blue,
its the feeling so contageous,its the lovebug catching you.


Someone call the doctor, there's a fever going round,
write me a prescription for the cure that can't be found,
this ailment dont need healing, it wont leave you feeling blue,
its the feeling so contageous, lovebug catching you.

It's the friend next to your shoulder who will stab you in the back,
pay no heed to enemies who come to you on the attack,
No known antidote nor expert treatment to assist,
here's a bug your system is unable to resist,
it takes mass participation to make every bit correct,
lovebug circulation, yes a medical success,
lovebug antidote immunisation for the best,
here's a bug thats gonna put your system to the test.

david hasselhoff is back!

'the hoff' has released a new single entitled jump in my car. it features a girl group called the hoffettes (haha!)

is the single a smasher, a late summer song so to speak? er...probably not, but the video is quite sarcastic. i didn't know david hasselhoff would make fun of himself like that.

i admit it, i wouldn't say no to a ride in the k.i.t.t. mobile, but the very last scene of the video is a big no-no!

ABBA - My Mama said

My favourate ABBA-Song is "My Mama said" on the "Waterloo"-Album.

This song is much more funk than disco, its very laid back and starts rather minimal but gets more complicated later with small solos and some nice chord-inversions and -progressions. Great breakbeat drums, funky guitar, some hammond licks and yet again: an incredible bassline.
Thats actually the part that brought me closer to ABBA lately, most of their basslines are amazing.

Couldn't find a video- or audiostream, but maybe I didn't look hard enough. Will put more time into that .

abba - two for the price of one

sometimes it's very hard to pick a favourite song of a band you really like. there just seem to be too many that mean so much.

i was played abba tunes when i was still a little baby and they've been kind of like the first group i ever was fan of. back then i only knew about their greatest hits, but recently i started to explore their back catalogue.

apart from all their gold tracks there is one song that strikes me as highly interesting. it is one that sounds higly un-abba-esque, but in fact isn't. it's just that instead of a catchy melody, this one has a catchy bass-line in the chorus. it's called two for the price of one and can be found on abba's last record the visitors.

as it wasn't released as single or anything i didn't really expect to find a stream of it to put here, but surprisingly i found something even better: this is a video of a life performance of the song from a tv show called Dick Cavett meets ABBA. it looks a bit weird because the sounds doesn't match the audio at all, but it's still obvious that it is two for the price of one that was performed. and visuals is not what counts so much in this case. the lyrics are different from the album versions and the vocals of the abba girls are missing, too. nevertheless, it serves the intended purpose. just start the video, close your eyes or browse to another page while listening to this track, and then wait for the bass-line in the chorus.

there is so much more to abba than just dancing queen...

sugarcubes re-union

according to very official sources (www.bjork.com) the sugarcubes are reuniting!

though a new release would certainly whirl up some dust, i believe it's better to feel their magic for just a single night: one the 17th of november 2006 the sugarcubes are performing in, you guessed it, reykjavik.

flight might be a bit to expensive for me, so let's hope for worldwide tv coverage and a live internet broadcast!

tea?
no thanks, i'll just take the sugar!

the animal five aka die dummen schweden

wake me up!

That die dummen schweden party on thursday turned out to be just so fine. thanx to the animal five, who are one of the most outstanding live bands i've ever seen. as they were preparing the stage i anticipated what was yet to come, thinking: 'what a funny looking bunch of guys they are!' and it got even better.
the singer martin von inghardt, a very charismatic man, entered the stage just to jump right back into the audience and get the crowd going. throughout the - sadly very short - set he would be the perfect impersonator of a joker, the lonely bachelor on the couch, the stage diver and the impassionate performer. we witnessed him asserting silence among the crowd just to scream even louder. we enjoyed his oversized smiles and his dedication to the band and songs. he even wandered off stage to give me a long hug - unexpected, but yeah, enjoyable.

luckily i purchased their self-titled ep just before the gig, and it has been on constant replay for three days now. not only are their songs highly electrified, they also got perfect song titles like sonic sea, which fits perfectly into this blog as it is a song about - music!

who was the poor fellow who had to leave his workplace during every single song to fix the monitors and microphone stands on stage? the sound technician, honoured with a song called i love myself for hating you. ;-)

their six songs long set left me extraordinarily happy and wanting more. so, instead of coffee, i'd rather listen to the animal five every morning.

i'm wide awake now.


listen
and watch our for live videos of the gig!

the animal five got no record deal outside sweden!help them and buy the record here or here so they can perform in your town and get the change to get the cd released in other countries, as well!

popkomm

you can tell by the increasing amount of young people with chaotic hairstyles in the street that popkomm is happening this week.
popkomm is europe's biggest musical fair and is always a good opportunity to go to amazing parties. over the last few years popkomm gave me the opportunity to see people like goldie or the stereo mc's perform live.

you can tell by my current chaotic hairstyle that i've been lying in bed all week, feeling sick, and therefor missed most of the popkomm events.


nevertheless i went and saw peter, björn & john last thursday. it was a really nice evening, the guys did their best to entertain the crowd. the continued playing even when the lights went off and sweat dropping from the artist is usually a very good indication of dedication to music.

tonight i am going to take my tired body and mashed brain to a party called die dumme schweden. this is something i've been looking forward to going to for a long time. it's a nice party with five swedish bands (at least two of them i already know i'm going to like) and a dj-set by a musician who has been ever-so inspiring when it comes to good underground music and older stuff.

but more on that later. i hope i won't have an aspirine hangover!

modern r'n'b confusion

over the last two weeks i spent some days working at a different shop than where i usually am. my colleague there is quite into modern r'n'b music - which i have been neglecting ever since. i had to listen to a justin timberlake record three times in a row without realising this was mr even-hardrock-computer-nerds-love-his-music. i found out when i found the cd lying around some days later and thought: 'okay, maybe this is better than what i had to listen to last time!' apparently, it was the same stuff.

my colleague also had a joy denalane record which i confused with mary j. blige. it is quite a shame i didn't know who was singing, because i thought if there is one r'n'b artist i might like, it's mary. but seeing it the other way round there is hope yet, because it was only ms denalane i had to bare.

highly likely, r'n'b will remain a mystery to me, forever.

note: thanx to looza for updating while my pc was blinde. tune in soon again for other concert reviews and a little story about me visiting an official popkomm party.

moving as a musiclover

I am soon moving to a new flat and apart from the usual stress and problems this involves there are rather specific problems related to music.

Some that fall into my mind :

- I hope I can listen to my music loudly in the new flat. I don't plan to reach "clublevel", but once I lived in a flat where the granny below came ringing the door as soon as I put some music on. Which made me wonder, aren't old people supposed to be generally hearing impaired ?

- I have to pack all my technical stuff properly. Lost a turntable once because it got smashed in the process of moving. Also have to make sure no cables disappear.

- 900 vinyl records are frigging heavy and a pain to pack up.

- yet again there will be a long process of adjusting in the new flat, finding the right place for the speakers, putting everything within reach (my amp doesnt have a remote) and the CDs and Records as close to the PC/Turntable as possible or soon my room will become the mess I tend to cause when I can't reach something or put it back without having to move my legs. I am a lazy dude.

A link

For some amazingly beatiful music on myspace check "dox family".

No time for a long post, sorry.

9-11-2001

Today is the Anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, but because this is a music-related blog this ofcourse has something to do with music.

On 9-11-2001 I saw Radiohead in Berlin for the first (and so far only) time live.

I didn't listen to Radiohead in their early and big days, "Creep" was and is a song that does not appeal to me and even "OK Computer" did not spark my interest.

But when "Kid A" was released I was totally stunned. A mix of rock, jazz and electronica I had never heard before. This and "Amnesiac" are still on my Top10 list of records "for the island" and I made all my music-producing-friends at that time listen to both records and most of them were amazed as I was, although none of them listened to any (Indy-)Rock aswell.

I haven't yet listened to "Hail to the Thief" or "Eraser" because I read it's more like the old "Radiohead"-Records. Maybe one day when I am really open for them I will give it a shot.

So, on the morning of 9-11 we prepared to catch a train when an hour before we had to go to the station someone called me up and told me to switch the TV on which I did and so I learned about the attacks that had taken place.
We went to Berlin anyway and the concert was very strange ... the crowd was very quiet, there was not much applause and Thom Yorke started to talk about his feelings after a few songs and it was all a very strange mood. In a way this was the most sad and the most intense concert I ever visited in my whole life.

The next day there was a lot of Fuzz in the Berlin' Newspapers because as it turned out all public events had been cancelled except for some Ice-Skating-Event and the Radiohead-Gig and so the papers started accusing Radiohead for partying after such horrible events, which was as far from the truth as I can imagine.

Also, out of sheer luck two weeks later I found an FTP-Site somewhere on the net which had a bootleg of this exact concert, but somehow I never listened to it more than once because I would like to keep the memory of this evening as the feeling I had without having a sharp reproduction of the music.

and that's where I come in

Hello people, welcome me, I am the new co-author of this blog. I won't reveal yet who I am, maybe tba will wrote more about this later.

Just the facts that are interesting for this blog :

29 years old, spend alot of time listing to music, in the past I had punk/techno/d&b/hiphop-phases, I still listen to alot of musical styles but now my true love belongs to funk/jazz/soul/disco from the 70s, the other thing is house/tech-music that I love to go clubbing to but listen rarely at home (my speakers just dont pack it).

I am doing music for about 15 years myself now, never on a really professional level, but somehow I have to keep doing it to stay sane. Check www.loozabeats.de for some of the music aswell as my myspace-page.

I started DJing a while ago, yet again not really professional, it's just something that I have fun doing, some mixsets are avaiable at www.xstreamist.com/litm.

And I am collecting rare and obscure records from eastern europe, an obsession you can take a look at www.eastern-crates.com.

Gonna make my first contribution to this blog later tonight.

Looza

sonic silence

my computer broke down. no music, no blogging, just the sound of other people typing in this internet cafe where i am right now.

but to quote india.arie, from her song about music:

you're always in my head

steso songs

you'll hardly find recommendations for yet-to-become famous musicians on this blog, because i usually start to like a band after their biggest hit has been out of the 'charts' again for half a year. but this time i'm the early bird who catches the worm.

on myspace i got a request by a singer from malmö who calls herself steso songs. i listened to one song, added her to my friends and found myself still clicking on the same four songs two hours later. try the same.

and visit her website

i hope she will go on making music, i like her stuff.

happy birthday Nina Persson

Today i am celebrating the birthday of my favourite singer, the spectabulous, phantasmagorical, unique and one and only

Nina Persson.

Born on the 6th of september 1974 in swedish jönköping, she joined the band her friends Peter Svensson and Magnus Sveningsson created in 1992. They would soon become successful in sweden with their first album Emmerdale and gain world wide success with the followers Life and First Band On The Moon. i am talking about The Cardigans. i gave my heart to this band in about 1996 and will store them in my heart forever. They are in large parts responsible for my general taste and interest in music and are a constant influence for getting to know other good bands.

Nina Persson is the woman with the most incredible voice ever. one single word from her mouth, spoken or sung, can calm me down, no matter how upset i am.

if you are not familiar with her and the band i suggest you go out and get ALL their records immediately, plus Nina's solo release A Camp and join me in admiring her.

Grattis pa födelsedagen, Nina!

metal means business

had a very interesting conversation with two friends of mine today. we talked about all kinds of music. how guitars should be recorded in the bathtub or an inca monumental (safe bet for good sound i was told). metal festivals in germany and norway was also a topic and the fact that popular metal bands, as crazy as they may appear on stage, are professional businessmen. (you want names?)

metal is one of the few musical styles i dont listen to at all. good recommendations, anyone?

60's u.s. soul documentary

saw a decent documentary about 60's soul and funk record companies like motown or stax. it basically described the different scenes in cities like philadelphia, chicago and memphis. it was great that the artists were presented just the way they were and could talk freely about whatever came to their mind. but the musical parts were way to short and the artist's names were not mentioned. as i am not too familiar with the scene, i'm gonna have a hard time now searching for the songs i liked.

roni size @ maria

one not-so-nonrelevant reason why i moved from boredom to berlin was the idea to be able to see all my favourite artists live. and last night i ticked off another name on my list: roni size. overhearing people i heard it has been ten years since he last came to berlin, so everybody seemed to be quite excited. i went to the venue about half past eleven because the entrance fee would be cheaper up until midnight. however, ten to 12 there was no queue in front of the club, people just walked straight in. my friends were not in sight yet so i decided to wait for them. i just walked up and down the street and when i returned to the club 5 mins later the queue was very long. sort of looked like it was planned that way so people had to pay more.

when i entered the club it was still empty, but the music was awesome. the dj was playing fantastic drum'n'bass and the mc really screamed and shouted.

club was slowly getting full and at 2 o'clock sharp roni size began his dj-set. i was very excited, getting in the mode and danced a little while.

interlude: dancing to drum'n'bass music
when i dance to drum'n'bass music, i have two different ways of moving.
one is jumping around heavily, tossing my legs.
the other one is swaying the hips and upper part of the body.
good drum'n'bass makes me switch between those two,
very good drum'n'bass makes me do both at the same time.

unfortunately i must say that last night i only jumped around. i wasn't satisfied with roni size because he didn't play any of his great hits (which i of course longed to dance to) - except from throwing in parts of brown paper bag once. instead he put on the bassline of the white stripes' seven nation army twice, which made me think he'd been running through his progamme and was starting from the beginning again. sometimes there were long experimental parts and it was impossible to dance, it was merely disturbing sounds.

at the entrance i got a free cd of the dj and mc who performed before roni size appeared, mtc yaw and mc soultrain, which i am listening to right now. i like this stuff much more. last night, mc soultrain seemed like a modern shaman, singing himself and the audience in trance. that's what i realised last night. so even if roni size didnt live up to my expectations i know i should start going to d'n'b parties again. and definitely see goldie and bukem again.

die fantastischen vier @ o2 music flash

>> crappy picture mobiles present:

last night i went to see germany's very first successful hip hop group, die fantastischen vier. the event was promoted by a mobil network company called o2. i knew from previous o2 events that this would be a well-organised concert with the possibility to get guaranteed entrance, nice lanyards to keep as memorabilia, plus the whole thing was free.

die fantastischen vier released their first record, jetzt geht's ab in 1991 and their latest, viel, in 2004. that's why i expected the venue to be quite packed. fortunately the concert was at an outside area, which gave the whole thing a nice festival atmosphere and left enough room for people to stroll around.

i don't own any of the records so i am familiar with their 'hits' only. i ended up knowing about half of the songs they played.

when the concert started i immediately realised, once more, that german lyrics can be quite awkward:

was geht, was geht
ich sag's dir ganz konkret

(i'm not going to translate this... ;-) )

as the concert progressed i enjoyed it more and more and even ended up dancing and screaming. so yeah, i had a time.

in a few days, you'll surely be able to watch a recording of the concert on the o2 webpage, until then check their videos on youtube.com if you like. i recommend sie ist weg, tag am meer and mfg.

tonight will be roni size doing a dj-set, so check back here tomorrow on this!