A trip to Vietnam!

Well, not literally, since really I'm talking about French Indochina, or as the French call it, Indochine. Oh, and it's really the name of the band, not where they come from. And they're French, and don't play oriental-sounding music, so if you came here expecting a Manchurian cover of Smells like Teen Spirit well, I'm sorry to disappoint. Actually, Indochine, despite having a logo which reminds me of a Ku Klux Klan burning crucifix (see above), has been around for years. Formed sometime in 1981 I believe, they for a long time competed with the likes of Noir Desir and Telephone as one of only few decent old French rock bands, since this is after Renault's (yes, that's his real name) prime. And anyway he didn't really do rock. Good God I digress, but the point is they are actually the only ones left really. I mean yeah, you get the newbies like Saez and Matmatah, and the fastfolky music the Tetes Raides make, but Noir Desir's lead singer famously killed some actress a couple of years ago in Cocaine-fuelled craziness, and Telephone just split up in 1986 after their last album...

And yet, Nicola and Stephane Sirkis carry on banging out those tunes until 1999, when Stephane died of Hepatitis. Nicola carried on without him ("Indochine vit, Stephane le voulait", or "indochine lives, Stephane wanted it to be so"), and has since become more of a success than ever - he has since sold millions of the three albums that followed. Does that say anything about his brother? I don't know, since some of the older classics were apparently written by him. It is worth noting also that during the early nineties they were pretty crap.

So what's all the fuss about then? I only have one album, so I can't talk much about the older tracks, Paradize having been released in 2002. But I do have the most famous track of all: "J'ai demande a la lune" (sorry missing accents - can't find how they work on Linux), which frankly was played to death on different radio channels, especially NRJ (which is a play on letters, like NRG would in english). It is about how someone asks the moon if his loved one still wants him. Sounds wierd, but it's a nice and slow song which you'll end up humming all day (or, when climbing up some mountain in the middle of the Lake District when it should probably be the last thing on your mind)

Indochine - J'ai demandé à la Lune

Unfortunately, the other tracks are in M4a format, which will usually only work with iTunes, or on another player if you've got the codecs.

This track is called Marilyn, and no one has ever really been sure if it's about Monroe or Manson, although it is most probably the latter, as it uses a guitar riff not unlike some used by Satan's son. Again, you might find yourself going "oooohooohooohooooooooooooo" randomly in the middle of the day, which can only be a good thing!

Indochine - Marilyn

"Le Grand Secret" was recorded in collaboration with Melissa Auf der Maur, whom I've never heard of before or since but has, to a German-speaker, a hilarious-sounding name (Melissa on the Wall - ok, not that funny). Another much calmer song, I like it because of its piano which acts as a good background sound. Don't worry you probably won't end up singing it though. Classic love song really.

Indochine - Le Grand Secret

Dunkerque. Now there's name for a track eh? Scene of the crushing-defeat-turned-into-heroic-victory-because-sailors-were-told-to-help-and-did in early WWII, it uses cool sounds in the background to make it sound about a million times better than it would without them. Never quite been able to figure out what the track is actually about, but it goes on about normal life kinda-things, saying that "the world is a pervert" as its opening line. As you would.

Indochine - Dunkerque

This is it for a while now - won't be able to post for about 4 or 5 days, but I promise I'll be back! I guess that's why I provided a whopping 4 tracks for you today - to keep you calm.

any queries, comments etc email morrybyte@gmail.com

End of the First week of FYE! Yay!

So here we are: one entire week of Blog. I don't think I'll be posting every day, this system of 1 in 2 seems fine, with the occasional exception to the rule no?

I had a look at the official site, and RADIOHEAD are playing at the Sziget this year, along with Robert Plant! Hah, I can think of one or two people who'll want to change their opinions about that place!
Anyway, this week I thought I'd introduce you to Ska-P. Obviously dramatically different, since it is Ska punk which I saw at Sziget. They're very politically motivated Spaniards, calling for the legalisation of Cannabis and, during the Live, dressing up (see piccy) as "Tio Sam" (uncle sam), showing their bum and getting an entire crowd to show both its middle fingers and shout "Mr Bush: Fuck Off!". Great fun.

The first track is entitled Cannabis and people going utterly mental in scorching hot weather, and at the end of the week I was actually pretty sick of it because it was played every five seconds around the Island in the countless bars and nightclub/ish tents there are.

Ska-P - Cannabis

The second track is McDollar, a funny little song which, predictably, is a bit of an attack on the "American economic invasion", as they put it before they played it. Funny little tune, seems like a bit of a happy one, and is the track which is the closes to Ska there is really.

Ska-P - McDollar

Finally, here is "Planeta Eskoria", which despite my rudementary Spanish and the internet I can't find the sense of. No idea what it means, but hey, these things happen with the music I post here, and it's a much more aggressive song than all the others. Strangely, during one of those breaks where the guitar takes the lead, I get the impression it comes from Inspector Gadget. If you get what I mean, thank God, I'm not actually going insane!

What's that? Oh yeah the song: Ska-P - Planeta Eskoria

Sadly, I found out a couple of weeks that they split up in late 2005 - to be fair, they had been around for ages though. So there you go, that was Ska-P, better Ska punk than Less Than Jake. Which is always good!

UPDATE: Eskoria comes from escoria, which means something along the lines of repugnant/disgusting. So, the name of the track means disgusting/repugnant planet. So there you go!

Young and stupid?

A bit late, but I figured I'd still put it up today:

The first track is by an extremely successful (in France) artist called Damien Saez, who's been around for a couple of years now. I don't actually like very much of his stuff, but for some reason the live version of "Jeune et Con" is, well, good. He got English musicians to come over, according to the DVD on his second album, so strictly speaking this is only half allowed here. But that's good enough for me! Anyway, the song is essentially about the youth being considered young (obviously) and "con" - which basically is, if you haven't somehow learned all of the French ones, a naughty word for stupid. It works well, and I like it, but not on the album, which is strange.

Saez - Jeune Et Con

The other one is by the world-famous, CAPS-locked dEUS, also from Belgium, I figured if I mentioned them in the Ghinzu post I'd have to show you what all the fuss is about. Actually, almost certainly not about this post, because it isn't in their usual style, but for some reason I absolutely love it. Maybe it's the little fart sound he makes, or the drum beat in the background, or the howling, I can't quite put my finger on it (as it so tragically often is with these things). In English, but well worth the small download in my opinion. Don't be discouraged by this song if you don't like this song: they cover all sorts of musical styles, from Jazz to Pop right through to real wierdness - maybe for another time. Anyway, enjoy:

dEUS - Fell Off The Floor Man

See yas all, now up to 36! Woo!

Hungarians ahoy!

21mb have been downloaded from here! Woohoo!

Anyway, today I've got something completely different. This summer I went to the Sziget festival. As well as having a complete wail of a time with one of my bestest friends over there, there were one or two bands (one week, 8 stages, full from 6 - at least midnight), some good, and some pretty awful to say the least, notably Korn - but maybe they aren't that good anyway.

Louise Attaque were there, so I guess I should have mentioned it before, but they were very good. Maybe it was the 5,000-strong French contingent making it more enjoyable to sing old classics, it was wierd. For Lea, everyone in the crowd was putting their arms around their neighbours. The fat bloke I was next to ended up being a bit of a nutter, but that's part of the fun. In fact, I'd say that's the fun. Two Hungarians we met on "Day 0" (you can start camping before the festival actually starts) suggested we go see Quimby and Kispál és a Borz, who are two relatively popular bands and were going to be playing. We figured we would, and they're actually quite good. I reckon the only criticism I've got is that Hungarians seem to have something about singing with huskey voices.

Anyway, I preferred Quimby, they seemed a bit more into their act, with Kispal's performance being far below what I would later hear on the album, although they did strike me as pretty darned good on the day as well.

Quimby - Halleluja (no relation to the Jeff Buckley, Rufus Wainwright, Leonard Cohen song, or whoever it is who wrote that song. The amount of versions of it boggle the mind!)
Kispál és a Borz - ...Ilyesmi

See all 17 of you tomorrow, most probably!

Knife Mania!

I won't be discouraged the lack of traffic, I promise! Anyway, I'm going to add three new tracksw to the tally today, both of them by a superb Belgian band called Ghinzu (after the knives). My initial reaction when I heard them was to think "Muse", but really they've got a style quite to their own. Either way, they got relatively famous both in France and Belgium, who are as some might know Muse-lovers anyway. They sing in English, and some of the lyrics of the album can be a bit kinky. I find them pretty impressive, and I'm reliably informed that they are fan-bloody-tastic live, which all made me wonder why they've barely broken into the mainstream in other countries such as Italy and Germany... I'm guessing there are quite a few bands making relatively similar music, but I still find them special. Also, their drummer was a part of dEUS in their early days (before their first EP), something I only just realised the other day - but according to some, this isn't much of an achievement because everyone in Belgium seems to have been in dEUS at some point or another. Oh.

I unfortunately have never been able to get my hands on their first album (it is out of circulation), but you can listen to the tracks from that one on ghinzu.com . It's good listening, but not as good as "Blow", which I find has a far more advanced blend of music.

The first song was their one and only hit, "Do You Read Me", featured on the CD of Rock Mag (french version of kerrang), and also one of my favourite tracks of all time. It's not your usual indie style, but still listenable by anyone's standards:

Ghinzu - Do You Read Me

Song number two, "Dragster Wave", is much slower in its build up and I find the piano's little solos magnificent. This was actually the first song that I heard of theirs, and it caught my attention instantly! Still haven't understood what it's actually bout though.

Ghinzu - Dragster Wave

Lastly, "Mine" reminds me of an older song but I can't quite put my finger on it - which is why I'm posting it, it might come to someone else, you never know!

Ghinzu - Mine

That is all for today I'm afraid, stay tuned for more though (all 2 of you who have downloaded my other two songs)

Right then, here we go!

My first tracks aren't going to be anything obscure, and in fact I think I'll make the wierd kind of music a rarity, since people are close-minded enough about listening to French music.

I grew up to Louise Attaque, they were special in France because they became what is really an over-night success, and their amazingness spread by word of mouth. By the age of 10, we were jumping about at birthday bashes (called a "Boom" in French - always thought that was apt) to "Je t'emmene au vent". Try picturing kids dancing to this nowadays, especially in England or the States (I guess - never actually been). I can't see it happening to be honest, which is a shame really because it's really good, and really not that long ago. The song's lyrics aren't really that important anyway, and I find that most of Louise Attaque's lyrics are very clever in they always link in to each other.

Louise Attaque - Je T'emmene au vent

Which is where the next song comes in, much calmer and yet just as catchy - this is, along with the other one, the best stuff!

Louise Attaque - Lea

Hello there!

I have decided, in my infinite wisdom, that there is a distinct lack of foreign music around. Now, whilst I may post a song in English if I particularly like it, I'm essentially going to be posting songs from other countries, which may be bloody famous over there, but not here even though it is perfectly acceptable!

It won't be a daily blog, but I'll update it as often as I can