n°3, 24th of September, 2009
www.awaken.be
[downloadable pdf version here]
Dear Awa-freaks (yeah, your new nickname), it's already the last issue for this month of September. What's up today?
Now that Phil Collins spreads the news that he won't be able to play drums for a while, he can always ask for some overdubs from his good mate Peter Gabriel. Check out our article! By the way, Awaken offers you a new song. Our Japanese friends already know it for one week, now it's time to go further and you, Awa-news readers, can enjoy that rarity! Talking about Japan, what a Thursday night in Ôita can look like? We share memories with you. To celebrate the release of the long-awaited "Les Larmes De Sirius", Mr Qurtis himself agreed to talk to Awa-news. If you don't like this album, or if you like, Awa-news found some more 33t Lp's that might be missing in your room, then gives you a clue to find a good Vietnamese and Japanese translator. And as usual our quotes and past events.
Don't waste time, jump on Awa-news!
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Artists sometimes say very smart sentences, with or without knowing. Here are the three goodies of the week:
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes. (Marcel Proust)
I'll go for things that I know are going to be wrong, with a vengeance. (Neil Young)
When you chase music for money, God walks out of the room. (Quincy Jones)
You know interesting rock'n'roll quotes, or have yours? Send us your quotes here!
What are the hottest news in Awaken's Universe? Awa-news gives you the answer.
An unreleased song for you!
Most of the songs from the infamous Awaken tapes have been completely re-recorded to finally appear on Tales Of acid Ice Cream or Party In Lyceum's Toilets. But for no reason that I knew, a few never made it, including "Misty Window Bees". 17 years after the original take, I eventually did my own version. Cause chances are you won't find the Numb tape so easily...
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You like this new song? Write us here!
Have you noticed? Have you noticed, or not?
What a live album should be... or not, according to Peter Gabriel.
Do you remember the Milli Vanilli scandal, back in 1990? When their producer, Frank Farian, admitted that the two models on the album cover didn't actually sing on the records, the fans were shocked like if a nuclear bomb was falling on their head. Now imagine that an artist admits that his live albums (concerts) are not live anymore, since most of the instruments are played again in the studio, would you accept?
I can imagine how excited must be Peter Gabriel fans when they get their copy of Plays Live. The title is clear and without ambiguity: once you put the record on, you should hear Peter Gabriel playing live. To confirm your feeling, you even hear some applauses. No doubt: this is a concert. Really? Ahem...
Now, more than 25 years later, almost everyone knows that Gabriel's Plays Live should be renamed Plays Studio To Make Believe It's Live, since the live tapes have been heavily doctored in the studio, with musicians playing their parts again and again. Oh, no one should really blame Peter Gabriel for doing such a thing: most of live albums have been corrected in the studio, some just slightly, some completely redone. Sad but true. Kiss' Alive (the word Astudio wasn't sexy enough maybe) or Simple Minds' Live in the city of lights (though the only way to correct Simple Minds' mistakes would be to erase the tapes and disolve them into sulfuric acid before forbidding the group to stay near any musical instrument, but it seems the producers don't share my point of view) are two famous examples of almost fake live recordings.
Mr Gabriel caught recording a """live""" album (laughter)
Back to Mr Gabriel. Plays Live was a step into absurdity, but since then, the wise man went a bit further. Are you sitting comfortably? You'd better be, what you will read might surprise you, to say the least. At the end of the 90's, Genesis, who started to dramatically lose their shine since they fired their excellent singer Ray Wilson, had no choice but to release archive songs to continue to please the fans. Good idea, we finally could hear good recordings of rare tracks and live ones. Also, the greatest thing was to offer a complete show of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, their fabulous concept album from mid-70's. The concert was recorded in 1975 too. But... It seemed that Mr Perfectionist Gabriel (he was Genesis' singer at the time) didn't like his vocals, when he listened to the tapes 20 years later. What to do? Easy: Gabriel in the 90's would overdub a concert made in 75. Ouch!!! Yes, you read correctly. If you listen to the album, you can sometimes hear the voice suddenly stronger, deeper and more mature. It's when overdubs come. The rest of the show, you hear young Gabriel singing. Same with Hackett guitar, he re-did one solo. Shame is: the overdubbed parts sound better than the original ones. Why? Cause Gabriel sings better in 1995 than in 75, and Hackett gained experience too. So the good idea would be that they get back together and play the Lamb for real, now! Instead of those ridiculous and insulting overdubs.
Besides Genesis, what makes musicians so reluctant to release a real live album? Sure, some beautiful voices can easily be out of tune on stage (check YouTube to hear by yourself). It's not a problem when you're in the audience, but once you listen to a live album in your living room, you may want to hear something more... musical, less lively.
Some noises often come from microphones, guitar cables and other unwanted larsen. Some improvisations may also sound uninspired some nights, and the player might want to replay in the studio. A concert is supposed to be a moment that lasts only the time of the show, while a live album lasts forever. Mistakes are not allowed anymore.
On the other hand, some musicians offer bootlegs made by themselves: the concert is directly taken from the mix table. No overdub at all. Raw live. Marillion and Fish are amongst them.
I go for the second solution, without any hesitation. Voices can be out of tune, guitars can miss a solo, keyboards might hit a wrong note, drums can be out signature, I don't mind. I want a live record to be live. Alive. With its good and bad points. I hate overdubs. They suck. It's one step before lips-synch. Shit. Fuck. Vomit. It's a swindle to call "Live" an album that has been redone afterwards. Even if it makes it sound better. That's why I'll never give any money to hear "Plays Live" or "Live In The City Of Lights". Although the latter one, even if it was pure live, I couldn't listen either. I'm simply allergic to Simple Minds. But that's another topic.
Can someone remove the word "Live" please? This is NOT a live album.
Links: Marillion, a band who released a bunch of real live albums. And their ex-singer Fish, who boldly did the same. For the cheaters like Genesis and Gabriel, we don't provide any link. You might as well use Google. Or use your time to discover musicians who don't pretend. Done.
Do you know more fake live albums? Send us your titles here!
Our interview:
Qurtis: Me, an Awaken fan? No, never!
Released a few years ago, Quiet was a good experimental-yet-accessible album. One would have thought it would have been a one-and-only album in Qurtis' dicography, since no sign of new release was seen on their side. No inspiration or extreme perfectionism? But suddenly came the second opus, Les Larmes De Sirius. Mr Qurtis himself replies to our gossippy questions.
-Nice to meet you, Qurtis. Please use three words to introduce yourself.
-Qurtis: Nice to meet you too. Three words: musician, dreamer, eclectism.
-What brought you to become an active musician?
-Qurtis: Loneliness and frustration. In lyceum, I had a lot of friends who were musicians. I didn’t know anything about instruments, so I tried to play drums. It was cool but I didn’t participate in compositions. So, when I left home for studies, I bought a guitar and a synth, learned by myself (I still can’t read a score) and started to record some stuff on a tape player / recorder. But in fact, as far as I remember, I always loved music (my first souvenir: Dark Side of The Moon at the age of three!), so I guess it's a natural continuity.
-You just released a new album, “Les Larmes De Sirius”. It sounds radically different from the previous one, “Quiet”. Was there a conscious decision to explore new horizons, or the result came to you as a surprise?
-Qurtis: Both. Qurtis is a solo project, a playtime, and I try to make something different on each album, and something different from my pop band PolarSun. I try to explore some new musical landscapes I cant explore with the band. So, it was a conscious decision. But when I started this album, I had a different type of music in my head, something more psychedelic. But the songs and the music I wrote at this time needed this treatment. You can't fight about that. When I realized that, we (me and my co-musician Erik Darcy) worked to make this record sound like it had to, and I found the direction of what I wanted to do: an imaginary soundtrack for a imaginary space movie. It combined my passion for sci-fi movies and soundtracks, and can include some "prog music" as well.
-Among your work, what is the piece that you think represents you the most, and why?
-Qurtis: Mare Tranquilitis. I dont know why, but this song came like in a dream, as if it had always been in me. The pulsation of the guitar was the exact pulsation of my heart.
-Any song you’re ashamed of, and why?
-Qurtis: Not really ashamed of, but I don’t like anymore Dame de Coeur on Quiet. I pushed it too hard on the "dance" side.
-If you had a magic wand, in what band would you play right now?
-Qurtis: Mmm, hard to answer... the band who recorded Serge Gainsbourg's "Histoire de Melody Nelson". An unknown band that played a masterpiece!
-What would you say to Awa-news readers who might not know you, to convince them to listen to your albums?
-Qurtis: If you like surprise and don’t want to listen to the same album twice, and if you like electro spacey acoustical landscapes, you're welcome.
-You cite Prince as a major influence. He had a huge success with a music that wasn’t really radio-friendly. In your opinion, why Prince could make it, when lots of experimental artists won’t get any airplay?
-Qurtis: His genius is to combined very experimental elements with pop rock elements. So the songs are strange, but familiar at the same time.
-Last but not least, would you openly admit that you are an Awaken fan?
-Qurtis: No. Never.
Links: http://qurtis.free.fr
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What happened on September some years ago? Awa-news took its time machine...
15/09/1987: Donna Summer releases her album All Systems Go, where she gets back with Harold Faltermeyer, who was part of the Giorgio Moroder team. Fans already know the cover of "Fascination" by Phil Bailey, and "Only The Fool Survives" by Awaken. Yep. Awaken. Check it out.
10/09/1950: Birth of Aerosmith's Joe Perry. Was Keith Richards among the good witches?
20/09/1976: First concert of Siouxie & The Banshees at the 100 Club Punk Festival. Nooo, it is NOT Tokio Hotel.
You know other important dates to remember? Write us here!
Inspiration can hide in the most surprising places:
Curry rice in Ôita
The music of the traffic lights. Have you ever noticed those friendly, funny, cute notes of music telling that the light was green for pedestrians to cross the street? The smell of カレーライス in the corner of the arcades, the lights of the nearest １００円ショップ, the loudspeaker coming from busses about to take passengers. Do you remember? Or, living there, you don’t even notice them anymore?
On the top of that bridge crossing that busy crossroad, I let the night scene burn my memory for ever. I spy the passing strangers, their bags full of whatever you can imagine, I take a picture for my memory, knowing that no camera will ever capture the most precious and stunning sense the streets of Japan can bring: the smell.
Should we be conscious of life passing a little too quickly to really start to enjoy the view of a sunset, between an ocean and a mountain? And those little stones hurting your feet after you have walked much to long? aren’t they wonderful?
I let every detail invade my memory. The monogram telling me the destination of the ワンマン train. The voice endlessly singing “ベップゥゥゥゥゥゥゥ ~ ベップゥゥゥゥゥゥゥ ”. “オォォォォイタァァァ ~ オォォォォイタァァァ”. The train reaches 柳ヶ浦. But that’s another story.
It gets colder, but I still take an ice cream from the vending machine. How ironic, this is Thursday. Magic Thursday in 大分.
They burn the mountain…
It flashes so fast that I hardly distinguish who is who. みのもんた, ドラえもん and ココス mix with each other. シンちゃん or スザンヌ? 『Pressure Study』 or 『London Hearts』? Each flame is a receptor stuck on its very own channel. 『東京フレンドズ』 or 『日本人テスト』?
The music of the traffic light, have you noticed how appealing it is? Let’s cross, let’s be a part of that wonderful crowd. Remember that curry-rice restaurant, here in the arcades? Our first curry-rice.
The crowd. Hundreds of people. Can they smell the curry or are they too focused on their next excuse for the late return home? “ごめんね”.
It’s so easy, everything is here. A kid in a toy market. I want this, I want that. I have this, I have that. Each vibration is a caress. The window shaking under the typhoon? A caress. The earth shaking the wall of the hotel? A caress. Ride the yellow line, it will give you caresses. Many.
Look at that mountain, now. It can’t burn without us.
A blink of an eye and the bus is taking me somewhere else. Why? Do I really leave this paradise? Am I too weak to resist? Or is it my strength to know that I’ll be back there someday. They burn the mountain, and…
Links: Ôita City Official Site
You want to send us some memories? Write us here!
You like Awaken? You *will* like these albums:
DONNA SUMMER, Cats Without Claws (1984)
You know Doraemon, the cat without ears, and Hello Kitty, the cat without mouth? Here come their friends the cats without claws. Donna Summer was known for being the Queen of Disco from 1975 to 1979, teamworking with the hyper-talented Giorgio Moroder, Pete Bellote, Keith Forsey, Harold Faltermeyer, Syvester Levay and other bad cats based in Münich. Then after a splendid album with Quincy "The Dude" Jones, Donna kept on souling with Michael Omartian, the man behind Christopher Cross and Jermaine Jackson, to name a few. After a conventional yet tasty She Works Hard For The Money, Omartian and Summer went a bit deeper in the synthesized dance pop and released that underrated and rather dense vinyl, Cats Without Claws.
Less poppy and even darker than the previous opus, Cats Without Claws will bring a big smile to fans of 80's FM synthesis sounds and other electronic drums. This sounds, let's say this smells 1984. The songwriting is deeper and stronger, tough less diverse, than on the 1983 LP. Musicianship, though not as impressive as on the Quincy Jones 1982 album, is still top-quality, with some cool dudes like Nathan East on bass or Michael Landau on guitar. There are worse ones on earth... The arrangement of the Drifters' "There Goes My Baby" is rather surprising, but the highlights are the vibrant "Supernatural Love", "Cats Without Claws" and its strange atmosphere, an epic piece "Oh Billy Please", or again the calypso-oriented "I'm Free". Excellent stuff. It would be a shame to forget the guitar riff of "Eyes" and the splendid ending, a piano-based acoustic soulful song called "Forgive Me". Donna's voice, always perfect as usual, makes a showcase that one could hardly forget. But the most poignant song is still Donna's self-penned "Maybe It's Over", that shows Summer's unique songwriting skills when she does things on her own. A gem!
Links: http://www.donnasummer.com
A few more treasures in the vinyl world:
Attila, Attila (1970): Yes, that wild roaring wah-wah organ is played by Billy Joel himself. He surely was a really angry young man to provide such a bunch of heavy Hammond-oriented rock. No guitar, no bass, only Billy on organ and bass keyboard, and a drummer, Jon Small. Stunning!
Bee Gees, Trafalgar (1970): A masterpiece from the early days of the Brothers Gibb. Soft and superb arrangements (hat trick to Maurice and his keyboards), inspired songwriting, this kind of concept-album will take you around the battle of Waterloo during 45 minutes. Highlights are Maurice's title track, Barry's "Israel", along with truly moving "Don't Wanna Live Inside Myself" and a magnificient conclusion "Walking Back To Waterloo". The Bee Gees have released an incredible amount of great albums, but this Trafalgar is rather unique. Pure beauty.
Solution, Cordon Bleu (1974): A Dutch quartet led by Willem Ennes (keyboards), Tom Barlage (sax, flute, percussion), Guus Willemse (bass, voice, guitar) and Hans Waterman(drums) were, here produced by Gus Dudgeon (Elton John). Light yet colourful and enjoyable jazz-rock.
You want to send us an album to review? Write us here!
What's hot on the web side? Awa-net surfed for you and found this:
Go deeper into Vietnamese and Japanese with VDICT and WWWJDIC
Holy holy, what do these anagram mean? VDICT and WWWJDIC, doesn't it sound strange? Well, don't you notice something in common? yep: DIC. Like dictionary. Actually, these two sides are efficient and highly recommendable dictionaries, one for Vietnamese, the second for Japanese. Unlike the quick translators (Google, AltaVista), VDICT and WWWJDIC give detailed translations, with clever examples. You can use a word-by-word engine as well as a global translator, covering several languages. A must, knowing that it's free of charge. Put them in your bookmarks right now!
URL: VDICT: http://vdict.com | WWWJDIC: http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/%7Ejwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1C
You want your website to be reviewed in Awanews? Submit it here!
More about 35 years of cute, 9 tips to write a good song, everything about CD Baby, a look into Earth Wind & Fire's best albums, and last but not least: an interview with ex-Awaken singer P'tit Bout! Can you wait? :D
You have a special request on a next issue of Awa-news? Ask us here!
email: awamail(at)hellokitty.com
Awaken main sites: www.awaken.be
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