Freedom Now: Sounds of Portugal - Pt.2

Freedom Now: Sounds of Portugal is the latest in our series of mixtapes, and it can be downloaded for free here. The collection draws heavily on the folk songs or canção de intervenção that were part of the protest movement against the totalitarian regime in Portugal, and the performers were an important part of the resistance that led to The Carnation Revolution on 24 April 1974.
The whole issue of protest songs, and the question about whether music can actually change anything, can be debated eternally. But at a time when parts of the world are in turmoil as people rise up against long-standing authoritarian regimes, The Carnation Revolution seems strangely topical. And pop songs really did play a part in that particular 'revolution'. Two songs in particular were to play a part in those momentous events, acting as secret signals. The first was the broadcast of E Depois do Adeus by Paulo de Carvalho, Portugal's entry in the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest. This was a signal to alert the left-leaning rebel officers within the military that the coup was to begin.
Is it ironic that it was to be a seemingly innocuous pop song that would be the trigger for momentous events, or is it appropriate? After all, what did troops sing when they fought fascists in WW2?
Paulo de Carvalho had been in the '60s a member of the Portuguese beat group Os Sheiks, who produced some great recordings such as Missing You. Revolutionary stuff in its way, but it is this song that has a special place in Portuguese history ...
The other song that sparked The Carnation Revolution is Grândola, Vila Morena by Jose Afonso (or Zeca Afonso, as he is also known). On April 25, 1974, at 12:20am the song was broadcast on Portuguese radio as a signal for the start of the revolution that overthrew the authoritarian regime. The coup itself was relatively peaceful, and against advice many ordinary people poured onto the streets of Lisbon to show support to the officers leading the overthrow. Carnations were taken from the flower markets and used as a symbol of victory and peace, hence the name.
The Jose Afonso song was an appropriate one, as it had been banned by the Estado Novo regime for what it saw as communist associations. In other words, it was a perfect choice for the officers to use as a trigger for action against the old regime.
Jose Afonso was a key figure in the protest song movement for many years before The Carnation Revolution and an inspiring figure for many who sought to bring about the end of an unpopular right wing regime. I am no expert on the music of Jose Afonso but what I've heard spectacularly transcends the stereotype of earnest protest song. The Coro dos Tribunais and Eu Vou Ser Como A Toupeira LPs from the early '70s, for example, are fantastic and feature some wonderfully inventive songs that fit very nicely alongside some of the Brazilian records of the same era by the likes of Edu Lobo and Chico Buarque.
The song itself, Grândola, Vila Morena, has understandably taken on a life of its own. It was later covered by Charlie Haden and Carla Bley on the 1983 LP The Ballad of the Fallen. The wonderful fado singer Amalia Rodrigues also recorded a very moving version. But here's the Jose Afonso one ...

Freedom Now: Sounds of Portugal

Freedom Now: Sounds of Portugal is the latest in our series of mixtapes, and it can be downloaded for free here. The collection draws heavily on the folk songs or canção de intervenção that were part of the protest movement against the totalitarian regime in Portugal, and the performers were an important part of the resistance that led to The Carnation Revolution on 24 April 1974. The folk music itself featured here (from before the revolution and after) is incredibly inventive and seems to absorb all sorts of influences, such as French, Brazilian and African popular song. There's plenty of pop included in this mix, too, featuring some of the artists included in the Portuguese sequences here. Special thanks, as ever, go to Per-Christian Hille for the fantastic cover.

Skimming Stones - the confession pt.2

If I had been really clever when putting together Skimming Stones, the special issue of Your Heart Out which can be downloaded for free here, and mentioned the great lost pop book Signed Sealed And Delivered by Sue Steward and Sheryl Garrett, which was published by Pluto Press in 1984 I could have gone on and made some interesting connections. Pluto Press as a publishing house is rooted in grassroots left-wing politics, and in its ‘70s heyday Michael and Nina Kidron were at the helm. One of their sons, Adam, would for a time practically be the in-house producer for Rough Trade records. Intriguingly the Kidron connection has not really been explored anywhere in detail (or indeed any parallels between organisations such as Rough Trade and Pluto Press). Simon Reynolds’ Ripping Yarns fail to mention Adam. And Neil (C86 – oh the shame of it) Taylor’s surprisingly readable oral history of the Rough Trade label, Document And Eyewitness, only has passing mentions to Adam. And, boy, do Green and The Smiths come across as buffoons, but that’s one of many digressions I could make (such as who wants to read about the later years?).
Ironically, it’s now 30 years since the NME/Rough Trade cassette C81 appeared, and it was (and remains) a thrillingly exciting and beautiful thing. Adam Kidron is in many ways a ghostly presence behind much of the music on that cassette. He was, after all, engineer or producer on records as wonderful as The Raincoats’ Odyshape, Robert Wyatt’s Nothing Can Stop Us, Pere Ubu’s Songs of the Bailing Man, Zounds’ The Curse Of, Panther Burns’ Blow Your Top, David Thomas’ The Sound of the Sand, and titles by Essential Logic, Aztec Camera, and Red Crayola. He was also at the controls for three records which as a kid really were not the records I was hoping for: Scritti’s Songs To Remember, the OJs’ You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever, and Delta 5’s See The Whirl.
And yet, for all that, for someone involved with several of the best records ever, I know very little about Adam’s way of working and thinking. I suspect he was keen to take underground pop into territories more usually associated with soul and reggae. But I have little to back that up. Most mentions on the internet are about Adam’s later entrepreneurial activities, but there is a recent revealing passage on his own blog where he ponders: “Compounding the industry’s problems is that music is not as essential it was. In London, in the late 70’s, it was the primary expression of our tribal and life-style affiliations. ‘Soul boys’ listened to R&B, ‘skinheads’ to ska, ‘punks’ to near-music, ‘metal-heads’ to hard rock, and every weekend I would hang out at import shops listening to the latest reggae pre-release, before taking the best home and spinning them in solitude, in Hi-Fi, on my stereo system! I don’t know anybody who listens to music like that anymore, certainly not my daughters or their friends, who graze it while eating, reading and banging out blogs. Music, once a recreational activity, has become the soundtrack to our lives, and the consequence of its new role is that we are never going to pay premium for it again.”
Ironically for someone who worked as an engineer on James Blood Ulmer’s fantastic LP Are You Glad To Be In America? Adam much later created a right old rumpus when, as a leading reggaeton promoter, in 2006 he was involved in the recording of a Spanish version of the American national anthem to promote immigrants’ rights. The Guardian when reporting it missed the opportunity to mention his Rough Trade connections.
Amusingly Adam’s Wikipedia entry refers readers to an old article I wrote as a tribute to Lizzy Mercier Descloux. The old Rough Trade distribution network’s publication Masterbag in a July 1982 issue mentions, under the heading of Funky Stuff, how “after completing his own LP Green of Scritti Politti is taking a break in Paris to play guitar on the new album by French funk singer, Lizzy Mercier Descloux. The album is to be produced by Adam Kidron (who also worked on Scritti Politti’s album!). Angus Kaye of Aswad will be drumming.” Well, it didn’t quite work out that way, but Adam did fall in love with Lizzy and join her and Michel Esteban on their African and Brazilian adventures. Here’s something for the soul ...

Skimming Stones - the confession

If I had been really clever when putting together Skimming Stones, the special issue of Your Heart Out which can be downloaded for free here,I would have right at the heart of it the 1984 Sue Steward/Sheryl Garratt book, Signed Sealed And Delivered: True Life Stories of Women in Pop. Alas, I only stumbled across a copy after I'd published that edition of YHO, and only then it was pure chance after taking a wrong-turning down a library aisle of forgotten stock while looking for something else completely different. I haven't stopped kicking myself yet, because (ironically) I do recall borrowing a copy from a library when it was first published. I, however, haven't seen a copy in 25-odd years nor have I seen it mentioned in the big boys' bibliographies.
With the benefit of hindsight, SS&D actually comes across now as one of the greatest pop books ever. It tells its stories well, and the discography is remarkable and probably the coolest ever. So many of the people referred to in YHO's ackpages are mentioned: Ranking Ann, Betty Carter, Adele Bertei, Delta 5, ESG, Viv Goldman, Marcia Griffiths, Nazia Hassan, Annette Peacock, Flora Purim, Sylvia Robinson, Caroll Thompson, Weekend, Lotti Golden & Warp 9. Such great taste is to be expected given its authors. Sue Steward, for example, has special importance in British popular culture for her determined work in broadening musical horizons. And I'm wincing slightly at the description of Collusion as an "irregular music magazine". Oh well.
It has to be said SS&D also looks fantastic. It contains many great photos, from the likes of Val Wilmer and David Corio, and in particular Kerstin Rodgers and Annie (Anna) Arnone. The shots included of the Raincoats and Slits are among the best that have been published. But more pertinently for YHO there are brilliant live pictures of and references to the reggae outfits Abacush and African Woman (aka Akabu). Grrr. What a missed opportunity. Could've looked really clever there. And the cover star is Annie Whitehead, who around the time of publication was playing with Working Week: "It's going to get harder the papers say ..."

Skimming Stones ... twelve times

Skimming Stones, the special issue of Your Heart Out which can be downloaded for free here, concludes with a mention of the record Archie Pool's R.A.P.P. Presents Wicked City, which was produced by Dennis Bovell and released on Dick O'Dell's Y label. It's not the first time it's been mentioned wistfully in the back pages of YHO, and who knows with a birthday looming in a few days time perhaps someone will take a hint? Hmmm. I can't add much about the record. R.A.P.P. I believe refers to Radical Alliance of (Black) Poets & Players. Archie himself is an actor. He played Dreadhead in Babylon. And Stephen Bourne's excellent book Black In The British Frame refers to Archie appearing in a couple of Horace Ové films: one being, A Hole In Babylon, for the BBC's Play For Today in 1979 about the 1975 Spaghetti House seige, and the other being the 1987 Channel 4 comedy drama Playing Away, written by Caryl Phillips, about a cricket team from Brixton playing a friendly match in a well-to-do Suffolk village. Another of the featured vocalists on the LP, Cassie McFarlane, is also mentioned in the book for her part in the 1981 film Burning An Illusion.
The Wicked City LP (from 1982)features an all-star cast of backing musicians, and a sleeve by Tessa Pollitt. A couple of tracks, thankfully , have appeared on YouTube (god bless the posters). But I am still yearning to hear the 12 minute Court Room drama and the closing Blues Party.

Skimming Stones ... eleven times

Nick Plytas is one of the stars of Skimming Stones, the special issue of Your Heart Out which can be downloaded for free here, for the essential role he has played in the making of many an On-U Sound release. It, however, is acknowledged that I have no idea how he came to be part of the set-up. It is, after all, a bit of a sideways step from the pub rock-not-pub rock of Roogalator - or is it? There is also a bit of a confession within the pages of this edition of YHO, which is that I have on occasions got my Nick Plytas mixed up with my Nick Straker. Nick Straker was an old school friend of Dennis Bovell, and played in the early line-up of Matumbi. Sometime later Nick pretty much accidentally became a pop star when his track A Walk In The Park became a disco smash. Again, a little further down the road, he found himself on the ultra-cool Prelude label with his song A Little Bit of Jazz a perennial Paradise Garage favourite. Nick, however, wasn't comfortable with being a star and prefered playing in Dennis Bovell's Dub Band ...

Skimming Stones ... ten times

Skimming Stones, the special issue of Your Heart Out which can be downloaded for free here, mentions the strange world of Lightning Records. Along with its reggae re-leases Lightning also somehow managed to pick up on the two early Snatch singles. The second of which, the high art Girl Group update, All I Want/When I'm Bored, was even a minor hit. That may have had a lot to do with the incredibly elaborate and oh so glamorous cover photos of Patti Paladin and Judy Nylon. The pair's work is ridiculously undervalued, and they have recorded too little. Judy did at least go on to make the astonishing Pal Judy LP with Adrian Sherwood for On-U Sound, which features Live In A Lift, one of the most beautiful dub lovers tracks. Play this next to the YHO-featured Can't Take My Eyes Off You by Fitzroy Henry, and you have the perfect sequence. Patti and Judy were well-connected, and Judy for example worked with Eno pre-punk. She is seen here with Polly Eltes (who later sang with Jah Wobble and with Michael Karoli) in a piece of promo-film, recently salvaged, for China My China ...