This year, the day has also been nominated as Record Store Day (RDS). The actual RDS is the third Saturday of every April but this extra date has been added probably not with any real expectations of a boom in customers but more as an additional reminder that record stores still exist and are worth preserving. They serve a valuable social function that cannot be met by blogs, mail order sites and P2P file sharing. Continue reading
The drum and organ duo Cannibal Movie, from Southern Italy take their name from a series of deliberately bad taste Italian movies from the 1970s and 1980s.
Their creepy music would easily serve as an alternative soundtrack to these low budget cult works, a fact emphasised by the surreal and often gory images projected as they play.
For, make no mistake, here we are talking un-restored video nasties rather than digitally enhanced technicolor with the emphasis is on the impurities and rough around the edges quality of analogue. Continue reading
Casa Del Disco, Corso Mazzini, 38, Faenza, Italy
How many times have you read an article about the future of record stores where someone is quoted as saying something like: ‘I can’t remember the last time I set foot in a record shop’.
Nowadays, even if you craved the hands on experience of browsing through discs you’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere still open. What was once taken for granted as a feature of any High Street has all but disappeared.
Online shopping and the download culture sounded the death knell for megastores. Tower Records ceased trading in 2006, Virgin Megastore / Zavvi group closed in 2009, HMV closures were announced earlier this year. However large these stores were, they just couldn’t hope to compete with the vast range and diversity on offer in cyberspace.
So, are all record stores doomed and if so, does it matter?
My answer to each of these questions would be – ‘No – not yet’ and ‘Yes – most definitely’.
Of course, in London the chances of an independent record store surviving should be higher than in smaller cities since music addicts would still visit a shop like Rough Trade as a kind of pilgrimage; a piece of living history. Stephen Godfroy, the shop’s director says : “Rough Trade will continue to evolve public and trade perception of a ‘record store’ into something relevant and rewarding for any community, breaking rules and expectation along the way. To that end, the future for independent record stores is very bright”
Does this optimism extend to smaller and less fashionable locations?
In the Italian city of Faenza near where I live in Emilia-Romagna, there is a record store with a history of a wholly different nature to that of Rough Trade. It’s called Casa del Disco (The house of discs) and it has been open since 1954.
Three years ago it was on the brink of closure; the owner retired and she was all set to sell up. Her daughter had other ideas. Livia had inherited a passion for music dating back to her grandfather who was a violinist and seller of early sheet music. She decided to take over the shop and, in so doing, rejected those who argued that this was tantamount to commercial suicide. She has proved these naysayers wrong and, while you wouldn’t go as far as to say business is flourishing , it is ticking over very nicely and she remains positive and enthusiastic about the shop’s future. Continue reading
They broke the mould when they made Steve Earle. The last of the hardcore troubadours was the title of a song on his ‘I Feel Alright’ album – one of a set of defiant songs asserting that despite his checkered past he was still standing and still more than capable of writing great songs.
That title was also used for the warts and all biography of the man covering his five wives, recurring drink and drug habits and time in prison. That he’s still alive to tell the tale is a miracle in itself as is the fact that at almost 55 he is still making albums that matter. Continue reading
Hard rock - The Tower of Babel
This becomes tricky when performing in parts of the world where English is a foreign language (EFL).
Ten years of concert going in Emilia Romagna has enabled me to weigh up the pros and cons of the the three chief methods artists adopt to overcome the language barrier in Italy.
These are:
a) The silent way
b) The full immersion method
c) The collaborative approach.
THE SILENT WAY
Many (in my view, too many) artists say nothing or next to nothing during a show, usually in order to preserve an air of mystery. They may introduce band members but even this concession is not for everybody. You won’t hear Bob Dylan sharing anecdotes with the crowd or explaining how he came to write a particular song.
This ‘silent way’ is a big advantage when performing outside your home country but the
downside is that you run a very real risk of creating a negative rapport by appearing grumpy and distant.
Van Morrison is guilty of this even when performing in the UK. I saw him once at an open air festival in Finsbury Park, North London. It was raining heavily and I and the rest of the audience were soaked to the skin by the time he and his band came on stage. Instead of offering words of consolation, he strolled on stage wearing sunglasses and said nothing.
A minimalist approach is better than this level of aloof disinterest. This may consist of little more than ‘hello‘, ‘bye‘ and ‘this song is called …..‘ but even these few brief words can make all the difference. They show that you care.
David Byrne tends to yell ‘Thank You’ at the end of each song in the manner of a shop assistant speaking to a slightly deaf customer.and while this can be repetitive, it is better than nothing.
THE FULL IMMERSION METHOD This is where artists with no knowledge of the audience’s language nevertheless have a compelling desire to forge a non-musical rapport. It basically consists of speaking at a normal speed as if addressing an English speaking audience. I witnessed this in action at a concert in Faenza last year. Will Oldhan – Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy- (an artist you’d lay odds on being a silent way practitioner) was uncharacteristally chatty. This showed he was in a relaxed mood but only the privileged minority had a clue what he was rambling on about.
The communication breakdown became most apparent when he attempted to tell jokes.
The mixed response to these indicate that they more often than no go down like proverbial lead balloons.
In short, the ‘full immersion method’ is an ambitious but high risk strategy and shows where the collaborative approach comes into its own.
THE COLLABORATIVE APPROACH
Some collaboration with the audience is an ideal ice breaker. One way to achieve this is to call for translators. This can be quite an effective ice breaking tool and is one Warren Ellis of The Dirty Three deploys. His habit is to ask for a volunteer to act be an unpaid interpretor for the duration of the show. In his case this proves to be a taxing job since he likes to spin a yarn and doesn’t bother simplifying his language. As a result what usually happens is that the artist, translator, audience (or all three) get bored and the translations fizzle out leaving no alternative but to switch to ‘the full immersion’ method.
In its most refined form the ‘collaborative approach’ consists of artists speaking in a slow, clear manner using simplified language and pausing to check on the level of understanding.
If difficult words or phrases prove to be stumbing blocks a call For translators can ease the pain.
If the artist is bi-lingual but neither language is the native tongue of the audience, using non English words or phrases can be a good practice. Devendra Banhart switches between English and Spanish when singing and speaking which doubles his chances of being understood.
Showing a willingness to learn non English expressions could pay dividends but should be used sparingly. I remember The Delgados referring to an Italian phrase book throughout a concert in Rimini and what started out as mildly amusing soon became tiresome and a little patronising.
In conclusion, I would say that to impress non-English speaking fans, artists in foreign territory have to learn to fine tune their between song patter and tweek their communicative approach.
That includes you, Van!
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