Sunday, December 13, 2009

2009


Desde hace ya algún tiempo tengo la mala costumbre de hacer el balance del año en función de los shows que pude ver, de los discos que compré (y disfruté) y de los grandes eventos en la música.



Este año, tal vez me sea no necesariamente más difícil pero si comprometedor hacerlo en función de la música. Si comienzo por nombrar el nacimiento de mi adorable Valentina tal vez no haya razón por la cual escribir de otra cosa, sin embargo, siendo este un blog de música, tal vez deba resumir “la hora estelar de mi vida” en las 264 veces que hice sonar “Nuit Blanche” de Vive la fête para dormir a mi princesa.


Si tomo en cuenta ese comienzo tal vez deba darle al 2009 los créditos del año más feliz de mi vida y seguramente lo ha sido. Ahora bien, como mi mala costumbre aun persiste, debo contar lo siguiente:


1) Tricky en La Tulipe el 3 de abril fue un show personal y tan oscuro como la piel del mismo personaje.
2) Depeche Mode en el Centre Bell el 25 de julio fue simplemente monumental, tal vez uno de los mejores que haya visto alguna vez. Sin duda…
3) AC-DC en el Estadio Olímpico el 8 de agosto fue cacofonía pura al mejor estilo demencial de cuando tenía 8
4) Metallica en el Centre Bell el 19 de septiembre fue una buena celebración de mis 36 gracias a un regalo inesperado de amigos dementes
5) Peaches, como Paris…dos veces al año fue suficiente para decir que es el mejor performance en vivo de una artista emergente…Godet lo confirmo en Le Bataclan en Paris hace un par de días. A rising star , quoi!


El año no termina aun y entre buenas y malas noticias siempre hay un momento en el cual debo escudarme en buena música. Hoy no sé si hacerlo en el disco de Beast para darme una razón de ir al show este martes, no sé si Corneille tenga letras que me ayuden a vivir el duelo en un domingo de soledad, frio y tristeza, no sé si sea entonces Invisible Violence de We are Wolves para poder llamar a los vecinos y preguntarles que tal les fue. Lo cierto es que cuando se está lejos recibir llamadas no siempre es agradable.


Al tiempo que mi siempre consentidora abuela, la cual consintió incluso esta demencia (Por favor leer mi primer post), se ha ido y que el balance del año hoy parece gélido como el Yukón, lo único que puedo decir es que me resulta siempre más fácil hablar de música que de la vida misma y su famosa ley.


Todavía quedan 27 días y la verdad que preferiría que fueran bien “normales” pues ya no me interesan las sorpresas (al menos por lo que queda del 2009)!

Thursday, October 22, 2009

NYC

It has been a while since the last time I visited NYC. The last time it was actually in 2002 where Miss Kittin and The Hacker were still beating every single indie bar with electro-pop. From that visit I remember some celebrities named Fern&Gab asking a doorman if the bar was closed and then exclaimed: " It's closed!!!".

We went to vOID and then to some afterhour to dance with Tenaglia. We visited the Beauty Bar, Barmacy (where an angel rescued us from the dark), LAI concert somewhere in SoHo and ate spicy thai food in TriBeCa. The day after we went for dinner at Pastis and saw the Trocadero ballet of Montecarlo in Chelsea. What a week!!! In a previous visit I remember CBGB and Twilo, the same week. Ok. The same week!!! In fact, in NYC everything can happen in a week or even in a day!

Today, I heard the latest single of LCD Soundsystem and reading one of their latest Twitter feeds I realized that I need to go back to New York: "if you're in nyc, come down to brooklyn bowl tonite for dfa cmj thing... holy ghost, shit robot, still going and us dj, yacht live! yikes!!"

If I go back to NYC one of these days, I will certainly try to maximize the experience as I did before. I would like to go to FAO Schwarz with Valentina but I will pursue a gig of James Murphy with any doubt. When I went to his disco party here in Montreal I felt in Brooklyn 1979.

I told him: "I've never heard disco like this"

He replied: "Thanks, I know. It is the New Yorker Style"

Then, my satisfaction quote is: "I was there!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ON1eRJtoOrg






Friday, October 16, 2009

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Perdido

Ayer deambulé en varias tiendas de discos. Buscaba algo que no encontré. Los estantes estan llenos de musica que ya tengo o que simplemente no quiero tener. Encontre nombres tan remotos para mi como The Go Team! en el mismo estante del tan anunciado nuevo disco de The Gossip "Music for men". Tambien encontre estantes llenos con la misma caratula multiplicada por centellos de lentejuela de las medias de Michael Jackson, del guante, de la historia de la nariz que perdio y de los ojos a la Liz Taylor que nunca tuvo. Estantes llenos.

Fue sorprendente tambien ver que la seccion de musica urbana de Archambault perdio casi una pared completa para darle paso a accesorios de Wii y Nintendo DS. Imagino que se hizo un analisis de rentabilidad por seccion para determinar que la musica solo merece un espacio mas pequegno en la tienda de discos. Total, ya no es tan importante.

Senti lo mismo que senti cuando DGeral me dijo exactamente lo siguiente (a proposito de la falta de nueva musica en Esperanto a causa del control de cambio): "No pana, ya no llega nada y no vale la pena traer cosas nuevas. O la gente la baja y la quema o simplemente a Carlos no le conviene porque no es rentable. Yo me voy de aqui...lo que viene es puro reggeton". DGeral no solo se fue de Esperanto, se fue del pais y con toda razon. Ahora yo me pregunto, y yo a donde me voy?

http://www.gossipyouth.com/ca/home

http://www.myspace.com/gtheg

http://www.archambault.ca/archambault-ACH-fr-ct


Nota: Dado el teclado a traves del cual escribo ninguna acentuacion fue respetada.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

30 Years of going back in black!

Time flies! As I turned 36, my daughter turned six months. I realized that time passed in a sec and I have not blogged since May. It has been very difficult to find a moment to document all experiences and feelings lived behind a record spinning around and around. For me, music have been the mean to live sadness and happiness, highs and lows, good memories and bad memories or willingness and static states. Regardless the way I feel, music always represents freedom.

It is already August 2009 and I did not seize when I accomplished some of the milestones in my life. It is like I have jumped in an eternal "benji" and I am in a constant up and down at the fastest pace. I have promised myself to seize and enjoy the moment, take the time to write about the music I love (or hate) and live peacefully. But, time flies and I need more of it to write about, but not to enjoy music.

Tonight, I am going to be among 53 000 people at the Montreal Olympic Stadium. AC-DC will hit Montreal and I will remember how this dementia started back in late 70s. This dementia which represents freedom and joy or the purest enlightment. It has been about 30 years of riff and raffs, drums and lights, screams and claps. It has been about 30 years of passion and endless expenses. It has been a while, a short while.

AC-DC's show could be one of the most expected for me. Tonight, I will feel like I am 8 again, but going back home I will be promptly faced with my current 36!


So, I definetly will live the moment!


p.d: Depeche Mode TOTU's show was one of my best show ever. But unfourtunately, I was WRONG!

Saturday, May 30, 2009

36

Yesterday I turned 36. It is hard to say but is real. While I am facing new realities and I am becoming older, I am just wondering how "mature" should I look like.

Should I stop going for a rock show? Should I stop listening Linkin Park because they are reserved to teenagers? Should I turn and be more interested in Adult Contemporary Music? Should I pay attention to the "Parental Advisory" label? Should I stop going to the "General Admission" area in a Slayer-M. Manson show?

These are only some few questions regarding the way I use to live music, not to mention life as itself!

Maybe, I will never find the answers to those questions but for the moment I prefer to think that I still deserve at least a half of the energy to enjoy the next Metallica show.

Gracias infinitas a Ale & Vero por ese regalo tan especial que seguro disfrutare al maximo...la verdad no me lo esperaba!

Friday, May 22, 2009

Shaved Peaches

Last Monday, we confirmed how time is not something that we can neglect.
Samantha was not there and it seems that Peaches is better when she (Sam) is on stage. Three years ago, the show was incredible and Peaches was about 40. Now that she is surely over 40, and me, I am approaching fast to that complex age, we expected nothing new but energized.

I believe that Peaches show was as good as the new album. Having said that, I can say that it was "ordinaire", almost predictable and hardly relevant.

Now, that I have seen pretty much everybody I like on stage, I must say that Peaches needs to go back to the old school. Bowie, Cooper, Simmons, WOW, Pop (Iggy, not the music), and even Manson's DVDs can help to cure this lack of energy...and please, don't get shaved and shake your tits!

I enjoyed the show though!


PD: By the way, DoD opening act was "penible"...

Friday, May 15, 2009

There is only one Peach with the hole in the middle!

I have never ridden a Harley but I must recognise that some Peaches' songs make me feel that I am riding one. This is the case with Rock Show, Rock 'n Roll, Boys Wanna Be Her, Kick it and the latest Show Stopper.

I have seen Peaches live twice. The first show was in her native TO in May 2004 while I was in the middle of an unexpected travel with unexpected individuals and with an unexpected company. That show made me feel that I was just in front of something unique, as the travel itself.

Peaches (and her native crowd, Torontonians) confirmed me that Glen Benton has still some way to walk through to offer an amazing rock show. Nothing diabolic but sexy, hardcore sexy. Hardcore sensual. Hardcore Peaches!

Two years later I saw her in MTL. The drummer, an incredible tomboy put the show to the top and the crowd, this time a better one (obviously, Montrealers) made me feel I was in the middle of something really special. A real rock show! Only Wendy O. Williams (R.I.P) could outshine her!

Peaches is an excellent performer. She gives the best of herself to offer the best she can get. However, I Feel Cream (her latest album) did not convinced me at the first spin...now she is proud to have no guitar played but in my case I need her in the same insanity in which she created her first album.

On Monday, we will see if she is that hairy as we expect and if Samantha will be there. Something that I know is, that nobody would better fill the opening act as Frigid. Drums of Death, Eagles of Death Metal or what-who ever Death available will never replace the feeling of a real rock show putting those borderline individuals together.

In 2004, I did not expect nothing from the show, nothing from this country, nothing from TO, nothing from nobody...but I expected lots from MTL. Coming back to MTL was so/some special and I will never forget the ride. Not on a Harley but on a mental motorcycle.

But now, I expect something from the show!

http://www.peachesrocks.com/
http://www.plasmatics.com/
http://www.frigidworld.com/
http://www.theunexpectedtravel.com/

Saturday, May 9, 2009

SOTU by DM

It has been already a while that I have been asking myself why I find so exciting go buying a new record. I remember the first K7 that I bought with my very owned budget (it was actually a gift from my grandma Margot who always said yes to my petitions). Creatures of the night by Kiss...I was about eight or nine years old when I started to be interested in insane music and it has never stopped since.

In a electronic era in which iPods and downloading are giving pleasure to lazy folks, I prefer to go shopping to a record store. I used to have a favorite one in my native Caracas (aka Crack-ass) and in Montreal I have some choices but the store is not that important when I find what I am looking for.

Today, my dearest Nabe gave me a present after some petitions. Maybe, the same petitions that my grandma heard many years ago: please let's buy some music! In this case it was the latest and the most complete deLuxe Box Set of Sounds of the Universe by Depeche Mode.

A particular feeling installs when I am at the counter to make slide the debit/credit card (or someone's else). It is like life stops to wait for something that will exceed expectations. In this case, SOTU not only exceeds expectations but creates new ones.

On July 25th, we will be among some folks who will be expecting to see on stage one of the most influencing bands of the modern music. We just can't wait to see some insane music played live and confirm that we are all WRONG!

http://www.depechemode.com/sotu_box_set.html