When less is more: Covers by Floor Jansen and Johnny Cash

 

 

 

Floor Jansen:  “Alone” (Heart)

Ok, it’s hard to compare these, since the arrangements are so different.  The original is wonderful.  This is stripped down and raw.  Love them both.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fu-yP6q6Gk

 

Johnny Cash:  “Hurt” (Nine Inch Nails)

For me this is a slam dunk.  It’s the last thing Cash ever released, and perhaps the most devastating.  The woman who appears briefly in the video is his wife, fellow recording star June Carter Cash. She died shortly after this was recorded, and he died four months after that. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AHCfZTRGiI

 

 

Women's History Month and the fight for Ukraine

 

I discovered Jinjer long before it became apparent that Ukraine might be facing a fight for survival. They quickly became one of my favorite groups of all time.  They are wildly creative, rule-breaking musicians.  They blend rock, jazz, metal and classical elements, into something that defies any concept of genre.  Last but certainly not least, they are led by the beautiful, incomparable Tatiana Shmailyuk.

 

Here is the most recent music video they released, and it’s a bit eerie how prescient it feels now:  

“Vortex”   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiaOSGZTwtY

 

If you want to see more,  I posted about them a few months ago:

https://zapatosjam.blogspot.com/2021/08/favorite-new-artists-my-turn-jinjer.html

International Women’s Week (7): More sad news, in a month filled with sadness

 

 

If you have been following this blog, you know that I consider Patricia Janečková one of the great emerging talents of classical singing.  She has the purity of tone of a young singer (she is only 23, which is training-wheels age for opera singers) and the expressive range of someone much more mature.  Many fans consider her one of opera’s brightest hopes in an era of declining support for the art form.

 

Janečková just announced her diagnosis with breast cancer, and has cancelled her performances for 2022.  The prognosis for young women diagnosed with breast cancer is significantly worse than for older women.  We do not know any details about her case, and can only hope and pray that she survives and recovers.

 

Here is something she recorded in late 2021.  This is my favorite of the “big three” Ave Marias (Gounod/Bach, Vavilov and Schubert).  Janečková and Vilém Veverka (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vil%C3%A9m_Veverka; oboe) turn in a magical, haunting performance. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQsVxuRR2EU

International Women’s Week (6): In a world of Taylor Swifts, dare to be a Lzzy Hale!

 

 

Suzi Quatro.  Joan Jett.  Chrissie Hynde.  Patti Smith.  The Wilson Sisters.  Tina Turner.  Pat Benatar.  Tina Weymouth.  Women in rock had a moment in the late 70’s and early 80’s.  And then, at least in the U.S., the moment ended. Most American female rockers today are in cover bands, like Zeparella, who just do Led Zeppelin covers.  But out of a small town in Pennsylvania come Halestorm, founded and led by Lzzy Hale, who writes original material, sings, plays multiple instruments and generally kicks a**.

 

“I Miss the Misery”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpJAmlnBxoA

 

“Love Bites (So do I)”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awz0Qf7uPSw

 

 

International Women's Week (5): Now, THIS is courage!

 

Consider our culture of narcissism, in which music has to be all about emotional confession, and picking at the scabs of one’s teenage traumas is considered courageous.  Now imagine a group of teenaged girls in a conservative Muslim village in Indonesia, starting a rock group in the face of opposition from their parents and death threats from the conservative cultural police.  That, to me, is actual courage. That is Voice of Baceprot. 

 

They started off as junior high-schoolers, performing covers of well-known western rock bands, and meanwhile worked at writing their own music.  They are now releasing their original music, have gone viral on youtube, and are starting to tour internationally. 

 

They consider themselves faithful Muslims, and wear hijab on stage (with some enhancements, hence “the costumes”).  They still get opposition and threats from various people angry that girls are playing rowdy music and speaking their mind, but they are not backing down.  Even the name of the band is defiant: “Baceprot” means “noisy” or “loud”.

 

Personnel:

 

Firdda Marsya Kurnia (vocals and guitar)

Widi Rahmawati (bass, vocals)

Euis Siti Aisyah (drums)

 

They are largely self-taught.  Rahmawati in particular is emerging as a world-class bass player.

 

“God Allow me (Please) to Play Music” is about people who use religion as an excuse to persecute artists:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPVo_QyS0Hw

 

“Not Public Property”  A song about self-ownership, which is still controversial even in the good ol’ USA:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjmcZfOlopU

 

“School Revolution”, their original breakout song, is about having the right to have ones’ own thoughts, free of judgement from society:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aZX-C8HKJc

International Women's Day: The greatest classic rock band you’ve probably never heard of

Show-Ya were founded in 1981, locked in their lineup in 1982, and are still touring with that lineup today (for a few years in the 1990s, they had a different lead singer). They were inspired by bands like the Beatles, Stones, Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin, whose tours of Japan in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s triggered the birth of Japanese rock music.  The big door-openers for them, however, were the Runaways, an American all-female hard rock band that never made it big in the U.S. but were received with Beatlemania-like excitement in Japan.  Show-Ya’s early work was mostly covers of the aforementioned bands as well as others including KISS and AC/DC.  In the mid-1980’s they began releasing and performing their own material, and never looked back.

 

Lineup: 

Miki Nakamura (keyboards) 9/27/1961

Miki “Sun-Go” Igarashi (guitars) 11/21/1962

Keiko Terada (vocals) 7/27/1963

Satomi Senba (bass) 8/28/1963

Miki Tsunoda (drums) 12/7/1963

 

Terada has one of the best rock voices I’ve ever heard, a sort of husky version of Pat Benatar, with hints of Tina Turner.  Sun-Go is a true guitar hero who can play heart-wrenching blues and yet go toe-to-toe with the great shredders of the 80’s and 90’s.  The fact that Show-Ya were not bigger in the U.S. is an indictment of the U.S. music establishment, which repeatedly turned down opportunities to promote them here.  Instead, we got BTO, Foreigner, Bob Seger and Kansas.  Shame on us.

 

The following are roughly chronological:

 

“Still be Hanging On” (live in L.A., 1988, their first US appearance). This was written by Rick Neilsen of Cheap Trick but never released.  He gave it to Show-Ya and they made it their own:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyNI9TSZv8c

 

私は嵐 “Watashi Wa Arashi” (“I Am the Storm”) 2005 live concert. This was the biggest hit from their 1989 album Outerlimits.  You'll hear a strong Deep Purple vibe.  It was a daring song for the times—she is essentially daring a man to have the courage to get romantic with her.  As you watch these women rock, keep in mind that they are all in their mid-40s: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ_5Gv3vFjQ

“Cry for Freedom” (2008) They have been sponsoring an annual rock festival (NAONのYAON) just for female rock musicians, and mentored many of the bands that are emerging now. This is from their headlining appearance at the 2008 edition.  Classic rock ballad, with an exquisite solo by Sun-Go:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS-SdwC-bHE

 

“One Way Heart” (mid 2010’s) Straight-up rocker; Sun-Go tears it up on lead:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KCATewd2zM

 

“Look At Me” (from their live appearance at NAONのYAON 2021) The live audience was cancelled at the last minute because of COVID, so it was live-streamed instead.  They still pull out all the stops:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUzOGHtUC0M