N°92 BOB DYLAN - SHELTER FROM THE STORM

There's tons of material to find about folk singer-songwriter Bob Dylan but since I'm sick for almost a week I'll keep it short. I a way my sickness tights into the title because I'd like to find a real good shelter from this storm ffs. But hey this isn't about me but about the music.

Everyone knows Bob as a folk singer, also as a protest singer. He sang at many marches and conventiosn such as the Martin Luther King speech. If you'd listen to his 'Times They Are A-Changing' album it's clear that Bob as very outspoken opinion on civil rights and other worldly problems. We're talking 1963 then. The next album called 'The Other Side of Bob Dylan' again is a different view on his character not being involved in civil rights but just creating music for his fans. Two different albums, two different characters, both genious.

Sorry, guys I still have little concentration to write much more about Dylan and his music so I'll add some more when he comes back around in the list. Sorry sorry sorry.

Oh and the link is Jerry since this song was used in the Jerry Maguire movie soundtrack. Great huh? I'm off to my couch again. Bye.

N°91 PRIMUS - JERRY WAS A RACE CAR DRIVER

Les Claypool, Larry Lalonde and the returned Jay Lane are currently the three musicians in Primus band. They don’t have a particular style but the’yre definately rock. It all started in 1984 and the center of the band has always been singer Les Claypool and his friend Todd Huth. Since they had no drummer they came up with the idea to use a drum machine composing their songs at first. Later it  appears Primus always has a ‘drummer problem’ since the band would use five drummers throughout their existence of which Jay Lane would return after 22 years of absence. Primus was named Primate first but with a possible legal case above their heads concerning the band’s name they hanged it quickly to Primus. Lane left the band after recording the first demo ‘Sausage’ since his former band finally got hold of a record deal. As said he rejoined Claypool 22 years later. It took them 6 years and a few demo’s before signing for their first album Frizzle Fry. ‘John The Fishermand’ the better known ‘Too Many Puppies’ can be found on this album. A tour was the next step and their careers took off right after.

They signed a bigger label and recorded ‘Sailing The Seas Of Cheese’. The posted song is one of the released singles of their first big album. This is when they got picked up by cartoon makers such as the creators of Beavis and Butthead (for which they wrote a song for the tribute album) and, a few years later, South Park for which they wrote the series title track. More tours followed in the trail of bands such as Anthrax, U2 and Public Enemy. A few more albums would followed the successes and Primus even played at Woodstock ’94 festival.

Even though Lane already left the band in1988 he kept close to the project and in 1994 the original Primus band recorded some songs under the band name Sausage, referring to the first demo they made at the start.

In 1995 Primus released their fourth album, ‘Tales from the Punchbowl’ and the best known song on this album must be ‘Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver’. Again Primus changed drummers for the release of ‘The Brown Album’. It is said that the brown album is a referral to Metallica’s 1991 Black Album but that’s enver confirmed by any of the Primus band members. Primus started touring with punk band Blink182. Their next album featured guest appearances from no less than Fred Durst (Limp Bizkit) and Tom Morelle (Rage Against The Machine) and this album got them to do the 1999-2000 Ozzfest tour. For thsi festival they covered tha Black Sabbath song ‘N.I.B.’. Hereafter Primus’ existance took a three year jump to 2003. They felt like they needed a break and had a long one.

When they got back together in 2003 again they found a new drummer and after releasing a small nameless EP they went on short tours performing nothing but complete albums mixed with the five new singles. They’d tour throughout the twennies without recording new material for a complete decade. 

This new material followed only last year on the album ‘Green Naughahyde’ for which the original 1988 setup got back together to create a complete album for the very first time. I think I’ll try and listen to it soon since I have no idea about the sound of that last album.

The song was an easy choise to tie in the link since Poor Joe from Will Tura was also a race car driver just like Jerry. Joe died but does Jerry die also in this song? Dunno? Listen !

N°90 WILL TURA - ARME JOE

Let’s stick with the name Joe and link it to the person we call in Flanders ‘The King Of The Flemish Chanson’:  Arthur Blanckaert or better known as Will Tura. Will Tura is currently  still active as singer-composer  at the age of 72 and he still performs a few times a week. For those who don’t know Will Tura you might compare him to Tony Bennett or Tom Jones if you’d limit the world to Belgium only.

All together he created over 140 albums between his first in 1963 and his latest ; released in February 2012. This means he has released almost 3 albums per year. This includes collectors editions and compilation albums. To stay in the link I’d like to go back to the very first song I’ve posted by Triggerfinger because they’re planning to make a single together. Triggerfinger as one of the hottest Belgian bands of the moment and Will Tura as one of the big music icons of Belgium. Old meets new. Rock meets chanson. I’m looking forward to it.

Will started his career by covering Nat King Cole and Gilbert Bécaud. At an early age he was given a job as guitar player in a dance orchestra and at the age of seventeen he’d sing fo his first record label. Jacques Kluger saw a raw upcoming talent and untill today Jacques remained his producer and publisher. He and Will are one team and that still pays off.

Were talking 1962 when Will scores his first number one  hit with ‘Eenzaam Zonder Jou’ (Lonely Without You). It would later be chosen as his best song ever and also as best Flemish chanson ever. A landmark in the Flemish music history that is. Will composes all his song himself but the lyrics are mainly written by Nelly Byl. After his first number one hit more would follow. I’m just naming a few: Hopeloos (Hopeless); Blauw (Blue) or the one below Arme Joe (Poor Joe)

Will was chosen to sing ‘Hoop Doet Leven’ (Hope is Alive) at Belgian King Baudouin the First his funeral in 1993. A big honour but also a sad moment. The song would later become a very popular funeral song. Earlier in 1984 Will Tura would travel to Nashville Tennesse to record an Elvis Presley tribute album containing adaptations of The Devil In Disguise and In The Ghetto. It also contains a song Goodbye Elvis.

His songs vary from chansons to popsongs, rock-‘n-roll, country and with his song ‘Moa Vent Toh’ he’d even try a little funky hip  hop. I don’t like that song very much though since I couldn’t handle  a 52 year old artist trying to be young and cool. He created symphonic albums (in 2002 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra) and medley albums. All kinds of musicstyles he tried throughout his career.

Let’s return to 1990 when Noordkaap, a Belgian rockband, covered the song I’m posting when performing at Humo’s Rock Rally Festival. A rock version of a typical Tura song. This initiative was followed by an album called Turalura on which different Belgian artist tributed Will Tura’s songs in their own music style. Amongst the artists were Raymond Van Het Groenewoud, The Scabs, Noordkaap, The Paranoiacs and Soulsister. It was a Will Tura tribute and a celebration of his 50th birthday. Twenty years after the first Turalura cd a second one was recorded to celebrate the 20th birthday of the first Turalura cd and his 70th birthday. This time Daan, Arid, K’s Choice and Triggerfinger would perform his songs.

There’s much, much more to say about him like it seems he’s been married to his Jenny for ever and ever which isn’t always easy in the music industry. His daughter Sandy  ‘Tura’ Blanckaert once had a blossoming media career on television and is married to producer and reporter Luk Alloo…. Etc…

N°89 PJ HARVEY - JOE

As said in the previous post P.J. Harvey used to be Nick Cave's girlfriend and she also participated on his Murder Ballad album. I didn’t want to take Kylie Minogue since that would be too obvious and I like the P.J. Harvey sound more. Grinderman then again was too much the same as The Bad Seeds and I don’t feel like I could link it my few rules considering.

Polly Jean Harvey is British 43-year old singer-songwriter who got early influences in her life from blues, jazz and rockmusic. Her family is probably where she got the vibes since her mother was an organiser of different jazz concerts. This is when she learned to play the sax and she still does play that instrument from time to time on her albums. Her early career started off in different small bands with names as Polekats and The Stone Weaklings but it never really took off untill she founded her own music brand as PJ Harvey with a few friends-musicians.

The first PJ Harvey single is already 21 years old. This single called ‘Dress’ was the start of a first full album in 1992 called ‘Dry’ . She immediately was named as an upcoming talent by the editor of Rolling Stone magazine. You can’t wish for better advertising. Dry has many punkrock and grunge influences but it also scores with Indie-lovers because of the bluesy sound.

She changed record company a year after and created the beautifull album ‘Rid Of Me’ for which she was rewarded as warm-up for the then scheduled U2-tour. More succes would follow with her third album which was nominated by almost all the major music magazines as album of the year. Rolling Stone magazine even nominated PJ as artis of the year. A new star was definately born. From this moment on she tries the experimental side of music which has now become her trademark. ‘To Bring You My Love’; ‘Is This Desire’ and ‘Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea’ should be rated under her experimental music. In between she brings a duet with Nick Cave for is Murder Ballad album. Henry Lee with Nick Cave isn’t her only duet in the nineties. She also has a great song with Radiohead singer Thom Yorke. 

PJ is a gifted musician who learns to play lots of different instruments and on her ‘Uh Huh Her’ albums she plays all but the drums. An intimate solo produced album which is for her a challenge. Crazy enough there’s no title track on this album since she finds it a too powerfull songs to be released. She multi talented and creates another crazy beautifull album with nothing but piano and her voice. ‘White Chalk’ is a piece of nice, crawling under your skin, listening music.

After that it took her four years to create a brand new album but again it was worth the wait. In 2011 was ‘Let England Shake’ released.

I’ve chosen a song from her debut album so you could hear the history her musical style and her voice went through between then and now. I don’t particularly think this is her best album or her best song. I actually picked it a bit random out of the huge amounts of songs she created. The name Joe ties in in different ways to other songs I hope.

N°88 NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS - THE CURSE OF MILLHAVEN

I hardly need to introduce Nick Cave so I’ll keep it short. He’s and Australian musician, author and (occasionally) actor. He was the frotnman for three different Australian bands. In the early eighties he fronted The Birthday Party, a violent gothic but also punky band. After the split he founded Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds together with his friend Mick Harvey, also a memeber of The Birthday Party.

The Bad Seeds evolved to a more alternative rock format and left the earlier gothic edge Cave had. You’ll still find the darkness in the music from time to time, especially when listening to the lyrics on the album Murder Ballads. This is the album which gave us the singles Henry Lee and the duet with Kylie Minogue ‘Where The Wild Roses Grow’. All songs are about death and murder and serial killers. Although the posted song has a happt up-tempo sound it still is a scary and dark story. The latest Bad Seeds album was released in 2008 and named ‘Dig, Lazarus, Dig!’. After that Cave tried to launch a solo career but also came up with a slim fit sizes Bad Seeds band called Grinderman. With that group he released two albums simply called ‘Grinderman’ and ‘Grinderman 2’.

Murder Ballads is the ninth studio album by Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds and was released in 1996 and as said it’s all about crime and murder. If you make the total body count on the album you’ll come up to 65 dead people. Knowing the album contains 10 songs makes it an average of 6,5 killings per song. Quite a nice rate. The Curse of Millhaven must be the worst of ‘em all counting at least 23 bodies. The album contains quite a few duets. We all know the one with Kylie Minogue but also PJ Harvey, who was once Nick Cave’s girlfriend, Shane McGowen and Anita Lane accompagnied Nick Cave on the singing part.

To me it’s one of the best albums on the globe. I love the sounds, the duets, the subjects (evil laughter from myself accompagnies this remarks). It is also the album in which I first discovered Nick Cave’s sounds and I fell for it although I must say that most of the times I like his Grinderman records even more. I’ve also chosen The Curse … since it’s a very up tempo song and it sounds like a big party, which it isn’t, and it has the most body counts. 

A little slip of the curtain for the next link: It’ll be either PJ Harvey, Grinderman or Kylie Minogue. I still have a few days tot hink it over. Now let’s kill some people in a little town called Millhaven.

N°87 JACE EVERETT - BAD THINGS

Jace Everett is quite an unknown American singer and guitar player who normally works as a recording artist for different other musicians. But on his own he also recorded 3 records so far; the first in 2005 which holds the song I’ve posted. The song has something dark and reminded me of the Murder Ballad album by Nick Cave which I like a lot. Bad Things was also chosen by HBO as theme song for the series True Blood. And this is how the link goes from  Fake Blood to True Blood.

Following the succes of the serie Jace started planning a tour throughout the USA, a part of Europe and Australia. He also released two albums within 8 months . ‘Old New Borrowed Blues’ in 2008 and ‘Mr Good Times’ in 2009 with a re-release of the True Blood theme song which was earlier released on his 2005 debut record Jace Everett.

You can’t really put Jace in a single genre since he’s crafting rock-and-roll, rock, instrumental, country and all different kinds of music. He says for himseld “Whatever comes to me I create”. He hasn’t reached the big fame yet but he’s respected as an artist and for sure I know we’ll hear from him again in the future. The only question is with what kinda style song that will be?

Now don’t do too much bad things folks !