Happy Lunar New Year (moar podcastin')

[petronia]

102.3FM Radio Centre-Ville Chinese-language music show: Special of the Day (Tu 10:30-11:30PM)

Episode 3: February 9 - No, for reals, Damon Albarn's Chinese New Year
[My part starts about 35 minutes in]
right click to download

Tracklisting (erm I'll get hold of Simon's part - there's Bjork, Sheryl Crow and Loreena McKennitt in there):

Gorillaz, "Dirty Harry (Schtung Chinese New Year Remix)" (3:53)
Blur feat. Françoise Hardy, "To The End (La Comédie)" (~4:00)
Damon Albarn, "Niger" (~2:30)
Monkey, "Monkey's World" (~1:30)
Gorillaz feat. Mos Def and Bobby Womack, "Stylo" (~2:00)
Gorillaz, "Hong Kong" (7:15)


In about six hours I'll have to crawl out of bed to get to the Chinese radio team's special New Year live broadcast from the Ruby Rouge in Chinatown. XD; If you're in town and feel like heading on down, we're giving out food and prizes until noon. If you're not in town and wouldn't rather stream Faye Wong's CCTV performance (she's alive!) or something, this link may work: http://radiocen.streaming.webboreal.com/radiocen.m3u

Comments

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

R says, about "Hong Kong":

there aren't really that many junk boats
it's more like a cultural relic thing
they're far less common than English black cabs
and I don't know what they're talking about electric fences and guns
this isn't North Korea
I also don't remember a street cleaning machine
but it could just be me blocking it out of habit

I kind of like it though. ^^ And Dirty Harry and To the End - though putting Francoise Hardy vocals next to Damon Albarn vocals just reinforces how weak his voice is.

Happy New Year!

I'm two episodes behind

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I've never been to Hong Kong. There are definitely more electric fences and guns present in mainland China than eg. in Canada, but ppl who live there don't pay these things much attention. There are street cleaning machines in Montreal, I wouldn't find them particularly notable if I spotted them anywhere else. XD;

Anyway what I like about it the lyrics (what I really like about this song is the music) is precisely that touristy feel of passing through a place and picking up fragmented/stereotypical images? And then making it all a metaphor for your own psychological state. XD I do it myself a lot.

I picked that version of "To The End" because I needed French content for plaus-deni (even though it's not Can-con), and because it allowed me to use Alex James' cheese anecdote!

Re: I'm two episodes behind

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

R thinks that every Western movie set in "futuristic Tokyo" should really be set in Hong Kong, and that only Ghost in the Shell got it right. But I'll stop quoting her XD.

There are street cleaning machines in New York, too, but you only see them at like four in the morning. Maybe that's when Damon Albarn was out wandering the city (jet lag?).

You like the super Oriental instrumentation? Or the effects which make it sound like Damon Albarn is singing underwater?

Cheese anecdote?

back to LJ

[petronia.livejournal.com]

The Tokyo Chiba City in Neuromancer is actually Vancouver's Chinatown (that being where Gibson lives), and everyone else took their cue from him.

Makes sense, it's a very late night mood IMO... I like how the guzheng is playing a classical Chinese melody on top of which Damon Albarn is singing a vocal melody that's uncompromisingly Western (more Tin Pan Alley than bluesy), and yet it works. Since I have no musical theory to speak of I don't know the technical reason why it works; it's like the sonic equivalent of one of those wooden puzzles with interlinking bits you turn around and around in your hands. Honestly I just find it a really beautiful song.

[supplanter.livejournal.com]

(So behind....)

Do you speak Cantonese as well?  Is that you in the short intro segment at the beginning (at 4:45)?  Hm, Simon does much more tongue-curling in Mandarin than you (or me. orz)  I remember my dad (from northern mainland, though he grew up in Taiwan too) trying to teach me how to pronounce things that way... and more recently the Chinese teacher in Japan.  LOST CAUSE.

The Dirty Harry remix seems so intuitive, somehow. XD