Album_cover_silver_jews

On Silver Jews myspace (here) you can hear their latest album, Lookout mountain, lookout sea. Who are Silver Jews? They are an alt-country band formed in the late '80s by David Berman, Steven Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich; all the three guys played both in the first Pavement and Silver Jews works but later Silver Jews became only a David's project.

David Berman is also a writer and a poet, and his lyrics are always very rich, sometimes in this album he sings like Lou Reed, and you can are also David's wife voice as backing vocals of several songs.

Here you can read a poem taken from Ultramarine, the 1986 collection of poems by Raymond Carver. This is oene of the poems in which there is a moment of peace among the difficulties of life. It’s a “relaxing” poem, different from others which are about the same thing (The possible, Balsa wood). There are also a lot of poems about being everywhere else, as the title suggests. The poem that opens the collection, This morning, has some lines about that: “but for a minute or two I did forget/ myself and everything else. I know I did”.

I wrote an italian translation of this poem, maye someone can find it interesting, maybe not.

The best time of the day

Cool summer nights.

Windows open.

Lamps burning.

Fruit in the bowl.

And your head on my shoulder.

These the happiest moment in the day.

Next to early morning hours,

of course. And the time

just before lunch.

And the afternoon, and

Early evening hours.

But I do love

these summer nights.

Even more, I think,

than those other times.

The work finished for the day.

And no one who can reach us now.

Or never.

Il momento migliore della giornata

Fresche sere estive.

Finestre aperte.

Lampade accese.

Frutta nella cesta.

E la tua testa sulla mia spalla.

Questi, i momenti più felici della giornata.

Accanto alle prime ore del mattino,

ovviamente. E il momento

proprio prima del pranzo.

E il pomeriggio, e le prime ore della sera.

Ma in particolare amo

Queste sere estive.

Anche di più, credo,

di quegli altri momenti.

Il lavoro giornaliero finito.

E nessuno che ci possa raggiungere adesso,

né mai.

On the first of June The Liars played at “Circolo Magnolia” an open-space near the Linate airport, in Milan. The gig was opened by the italian band Fuckvegas who had to wait the last flight of the airport before playing. Their rock was noisy and influenced both by No-Wave and Grunge (for the way they played metal solos with bass and guitar doing the same notes). Their sound was perfect to open for the music of Liars.

The american band began their set without the singer Angus; after a minute of music he entered the stage shaking his hands like a shaman. I can’t write down the entire setlist, the music was astonishing, a tribal (modern) dance with all the musicians (except the drummer) changing their instruments: screams, double drums, distorted guitars and voices took the listener into a rite. Angus talked very much with the public (we where just about 300 people, maybe not more) trying also to say something in italian. After 45 minutes the band left the stage, but the crowd –who was enjoying very much the gig –called them back and they played two other songs: the concert ended with the savage Plaster casts of everything.

During the concert I knew I had to go to the little shop that was near the stage, I wasn’t wrong! There was sold an unreleased 7” split by Liars and No Age, very strange music with alterated voices.

On the first of June The Liars played at “Circolo Magnolia” an open-space near the Linate airport, in Milan. The gig was opened by the italian band Fuckvegas who had to wait the last flight of the airport before playing. Their rock was noisy and influenced both by No-Wave and Grunge (for the way they played metal solos with bass and guitar doing the same notes). Their sound was perfect to open for the music of Liars.

The american band began their set without the singer Angus; after a minute of music he entered the stage shaking his hands like a shaman. I can’t write down the entire setlist, the music was astonishing, a tribal (modern) dance with all the musicians (except the drummer) changing their instruments: screams, double drums, distorted guitars and voices took the listener into a rite. Angus talked very much with the public (we where just about 300 people, maybe not more) trying also to say something in italian. After 45 minutes the band left the stage, but the crowd –who was enjoying very much the gig –called them back and they played two other songs: the concert ended with the savage Plaster casts of everything.

During the concert I knew I had to go to the little shop that was near the stage, I wasn’t wrong! There was sold an unreleased 7” split by Liars and No Age, very strange music with alterated voices.

In the latest months I discovered some music stores on the web (expecially www.amazon.co.uk and www.recordstore.co.uk). Searching an album or a single there is like a drug!  It's so strange that I often pay less buying a cd in the UK (with its shipping costs) than buying the same item in a shop here in Italy...a lot of cds i found had never been released in my country. Internet shopping: what a bliss!!!

Hello! It's been a long time since I wrote here the latest post! I had no time (or maybe I had no wish...) to write something in english.

I saw on April 24th The Gutter Twins live in Milan; Mark Lanegan and Greg Dulli are two different kinds of musicians but they complete each other: while Mark stood in front of the microphone without opening eyes or smiling (he just drunk something from a little bottle few times) and seemed to be in another dimension, Greg joked with the audience talking for some moments in italian (he is a friend of Manuel Agnelli, the singer of italian rock band Afterhours and he played guitar in some of their albums). Great concert, in the first part the band played songs from their debut album Saturnalia and in the encores they played songs from Mark Lanegan's and Twilight Singers (another band formed by Greg Dulli after the broke up of Afghan Whigs) career.

Hello everybody, it's been a long time since I wrote here the latest time...

I just want to talk about the movies of Paolo Virzì, maybe the best italian director nowadays. I don't know whether his movies are popoular out of Italy. He describes the italian society with its problems with the style of the best bitter italian comedy, he is influenced expecially by the works of Federico Fellini. Here there is his imdb page, I hope you enjoy his works! 

Few days ago Art Brut and Emi split; maybe the decision has been taken after E.M.I. released the single "Pump up the volume" only in download format without having talked with the band. 

I guess that they'll find easily another label. Here you can read the news as reported in their official website

The show that Art Brut performed last night in Torino was absolutely amazing. It was the fourth time I saw them live and every time they surprise me with their humor and rock and roll. As Eddie Argos reminds to the public after the first song (Pump up the volume), the band played live in Torino last summer in the Traffic Free Festival. They opened for the Coral and Arctic Monkeys and a lot of people were impressed by their performance; I think that a lot of the people who were in the Hiroshima Mon Amour saw that concert. The audience was not so numerous but attended the show in the best way. Before Art Brut went on stage I saw Eddie Argos between the audience and I asked him to play These animal menswe@r, a b-side they’ve never played in Italy (although in their concerts around the world it’s always in their set); I was very happy when the band finally played that song. An italian band, Tre Allegri Ragazzi Morti, last year recorded an italian version of My little brother (Mio fratellino ha scoperto il rock and roll; you can see a live version of the song here) and Eddie Argos reminded it (although he said he prefers their own version!), then they played a new song which seemed ironic, as you can understand from the title: Art Brut vs Satan.

They played a lot and Eddie Argos went down in the crowd twice (the first time at the end of Modern Art, as usual, and the second time at the end of Bad Weekend). Here I write down the setlist, but the songs are not in the right order.

Pump up the volume

Bang bang rock & roll

Direct hit

St. Pauli

I will survive

Post soothing out

Blame it on the trains

My little brother

A.B. vs Satan

Emily Kane

These animal menswe@r

Modern art

Rusted guns of Milan

18.000 lira

Bad weekend

Moving to L.A.

Encores:

Nag nag nag nag

Good weekend

I found via emule the rock documentaries “seven ages of rock” produced by BBC. I just saw the one about english indie (“What the world is waiting for: indie 1980-2007). I was astonished, it scans with precision the scene focusing expecially on few bands (The Smiths, Stone roses, Oasis, Libertines) and it talks about them without any kind of censure. Italian public television could never produce a program where is said that ecstasy and the new drugs of the late eighties changed both music and its public, a program with that numer of fuck!

Maybe it’s because we don’t have the english musical culture, but I can’t imagine some of our journalists criticize the top-selling pop-rock singers and bands defining them harmless. I’m downloading also the other documentaries, I hope they’re good as this one.