Tag Archives: music

Let it be more Beatles: some notes on the ‘Get Back’ documentary

Leave a reply

I recently finished watching the full Get Back documentary, directed and produced by Peter Jackson and released as a miniseries in 3 episodes. With a total running time of nearly 8 hours it may seem a daunting task at first, but true Beatles fans will most likely be craving for more once the viewing is over.

Although it draws material from the 1970 Let It Be documentary, Get Back is a far cry from Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s earlier film. Meticulously going through 60 hours of film footage and over 150 hours of audio, Jackson and his team have produced an impressive work that accurately captures the subtleties and nuances of the band’s inner relations and tensions, their interaction with friends and collaborators, as well as the broader cultural climate of the era.

A fly on the studio wall

Following the band through 3 consecutive weeks in January 1969, we are literally being transferred inside the studio with the Beatles, following every little chat between the band members and seeing them unravel their musical and creative ideas. The experience is truly astonishing and, for once, exactly what the film’s trailer promises: unprecedented access to the most intimate footage ever shot of the band.

We get to hear Lennon’s hilarious quips and witticisms, see McCartney doing an impersonation of Elvis, or watch Yoko Ono and Linda Eastman chatting casually in the background. More intriguingly, we overhear the conservation between Lennon and McCartney as they are trying to handle a sudden crisis (caused by Harrison’s temporary resignation) via a hidden microphone planted inside a flower pot. Reality TV has rarely been more culturally meaningful or historically informative.

Breaking up can be fun

As the film goes on, we are gradually being immersed in the developments during the band’s fateful final period. And it’s actually a lively and rather joyous picture full of excitement, sparkly music, contagious laughs and that unmistakable Beatles humor, tied to their innate ability of having fun at all times while simultaneously making fun of pretty much everything – especially of themselves.

So, even though the band’s imminent break up is kind of hanging over Apple Corps headquarters like a specter, the boys are still having a great time and some magical moments are born despite, or -more likely- because of, the underlying tension. We watch them as they literally give birth to some of their finest music, going through sketches of songs like Across the Universe, Get Back, I Me Mine and I Got a Feeling (or ”I got a hard-on” as Lennon jokes), in between endless jams, impromptus, and casual conversations over tea and toast.

A particularly revealing moment comes up when keyboardist Billy Preston comes in and starts jamming with the band in the studio. Seeing the refreshing effect his presence brings to the band’s playing and overall vibes, Lennon says: ”I’d just like him in our band, actually. I’d like a fifth Beatle.” In what closely resembles a family discussion about adoption, Harrison agrees: ”We can do that.” McCartney, however, is quick to end the enthusiasm about getting extra band members: ”I just don’t, cause it’s just bad enough with four” (for a small taste of alternate music history, just listen to the amazing performance of Without a Song by Preston and the band during the end titles of the second episode).

To the (roof)toppermost of the poppermost

Along with a priceless view and uncensored access to the Beatles at work during their final days, the film also offers a unique glimpse of swinging London and the surrounding cultural milieu. We see the band discussing daily news, newspaper articles (often about themselves) and contemporary TV programs, while in the last episode the camera moves out of the studio and on to the rooftop that is about to become the stage for the band’s last public performance.

The film culminates with the famous rooftop concert, a show largely spontaneous and improvised, as can be seen by the band’s relaxed and playful attitude. With the blue-gray London skyline as a backdrop, the Beatles go through some of their new songs for an invisible audience, as people start gathering down the street and around the neighboring rooftops, unaware they are witnessing a landmark event in 20th-century cultural history.

The Beatles rooftop concert (Evening Standard, Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

It is hard to miss the irony of the band singing ”Get Back” almost at the face of the police officers who are sent to restore order, ultimately stopping the performance due to complaints for ”breach of the peace”. Indeed, the Beatles had been disturbing musical peace from their early beginnings in Liverpool and Hamburg right up to their final public concert in the heart of London – a fitting epilogue to the band’s cataclysmic career that encapsulates some of the essential traits that made them great: their unique chemistry and charisma on (and off) stage, their unpredictability and unhindered creative spark, and of course an overwhelming sense of the sheer, pure joy of music making.

Advertisement

Music of splendid isolation

Leave a reply

Depending on external conditions, as well as one’s state of mind, listening to music can be a very intimate, self-reflective process. Some pieces of music, partly due to their esoteric nature, work especially well when experienced in private and attentively, with as little distraction as possible.

Below is a list of such works that are very dear to me personally, works I often turn to when seeking comfort and consolation – things particularly precious in days of self-isolation and “social distancing”…

Federico Mompou РM̼sica Callada (Silent Music)

Grandson of a bell maker, Catalan composer Federico Mompou was fond of imitating the meditative sound of bells, something that can be heard in his masterful Musica Callada, a collection of 28 miniature pieces for piano based on the mystical poetry of Saint John of the Cross. Mompou’s magnum opus, this enigmatic work is reminiscent of Eric Satie in its crystalline simplicity and serene beauty.

Max Richter – The Blue Notebooks

Featuring readings from Kafka’s fragmented The Blue Octavo Notebooks and recorded in the aftermath of the protests against the 2003 invasion of Iraq, The Blue Notebooks was described by Richter as “a protest album” and a “meditation on violence”. A work fragile yet powerful and moving, it invites to confront our innermost feelings, doubts, and thoughts.

Arvo Pärt – Spiegel im Spiegel

A magnificent example of Pärt’s uniquely evocative style, Spiegel im Spiegel, like much of his music, seems somehow to make time stand still, offering us a glimpse of the eternal.

George Gurdjieff – Sacred Hymns

Written by Greek-Armenian mystic and philosopher George Gurdjieff in collaboration with Russian composer Thomas de Hartmann, this genuinely spiritual music is better understood as part of Gurdjieff’s greater philosophical system, known as the Fourth Way or “The Work”. According to Gurdjieff’s teachings, musical structures parallel cosmic structures, music being thus able to to significantly affect and benefit individuals.

Keith Jarrett РThe K̦ln and Vienna Concerts

Both of Jarrett’s great recitals (called simply The Köln Concert and Vienna Concert) are wonderful examples of his masterful improvisational skills. Moreover, one gets the impression that during these intriguing performances Jarrett is completely surrendered to the music, inviting us to follow him in his daring excursions as active listeners.  As Jarrett himself (who has also made an excellent recording of Gurdjieff’s music) has claimed, his goal when improvising is to “wake up” and keep listeners “alert”.

In Memoriam: Yiannis Spathas (1950-2019)

Leave a reply

A true hero and source of constant inspiration for generations of Greek musicians, Yiannis Spathas was one of the leading electric guitarists in Greece emerging in the late 1960s. Founding member of the legendary Socrates Drank the Conium, he was the driving force behind the band’s electrifying sound and a guitar virtuoso who managed to create a unique and original blend stemming from rock, blues, and traditional Greek music.

Born in 1950 in Paxos in the Ionian Islands, Spathas grew up in Piraeus, where he formed the band Persons (1966-1969) with Antonis Tourkogiorgis and Ilias Asvestopoulos. Together with Tourkogiorgis, they would soon after create Socrates, one of the the most emblematic Greek rock bands of the 1970s and early 1980s.

An early shot of Socrates Drank The Conium [left to right: Elias Boukouvalas, Antonis Tourkogiorgis, Yiannis Spathas]

As the lead guitarist of Socrates, Spathas developed an exceptional guitar technique and created a highly idiosyncratic style that brought together influences from artists like Jimi Hendrix, Ten Years After, John Mayall as well as traditional Greek music, which proved a deep and enduring influence on Spathas, both as performer and composer (according to Spathas, two of his greatest influences were Jimi Hendrix and Greek clarinet player Tassos Chalkias).

Spathas’s guitar playing in Mountains (from the celebrated album Phos, on which the band collaborated with Vangelis Papathanassiou) continues to serve as a testament to his masterful technique and profound musicality.

Following the break-up of Socrates, Spathas pursued a long and successful career as composer, arranger and session guitarist, collaborating with famous Greek artists such as Mikis Theodorakis, Vasilis Lekkas and Haris Alexiou. In 1999 he released the album Street Secrets, featuring several instrumental pieces where Spathas displays his virtuosity and compositional skills, as well as the excellent piece Half the Way with vocals by Haris Alexiou.

Spathas’s legacy as guitarist, arranger and composer remains varied and significant; his virtuoso guitar skills, iconic compositions such as Mountains and Starvation, as well as his overall contribution to modern Greek popular music are all facets of his immense talent and generous spirit.

Yiannis Spathas may not be with us, but there is little doubt his music and spirit will live on. The following words by Rainer Maria Rilke (written about the death of Socrates) may also serve as a fitting eulogy for the great musician:

His soul was thirsty for music. And with such premonition he put his lips, dry from the wind of words, on the cup of sounds. And perhaps the strength with which he faced death did not come from his past life and work,  but from that new anticipation; he thus marched towards death as if a new day was about to dawn with the feeling that would be the day of music.

Yiannis Spathas (1950-2019)

Psychedelic geometry: Kikagaku Moyo in concert

1 Reply

A few years ago in Tokyo, following an intensive all-night jam, various patterns of geometric nature began to form on the back of Go Kurosawa’s eyelids. That’s what gave the young drummer the idea for a band name: Kikagaku Moyo, Japanese for “geometric patterns”.

The Tokyo-based psychedelic band, originally formed by Go Kurosawa (drums/vocals) and Tomo Katsurada (guitar/vocals) in the summer of 2012, gradually morphed into its current extended line-up, which includes three more members: Daoud Popal (guitar), Kotsu Guy (bass), and Go’s brother Ryu (sitar), who joined the band after studying with acclaimed classical sitar player Manilal Nag in India.

The band recently released its fourth album Masana Temples, recorded in Lisbon and produced by jazz musician Bruno Pernadas, in a conscious effort on behalf of the group to work with someone from a different background and challenge their own perceptions and ideas about psychedelic music.

An exotic -and at times explosive- blend of krautrock, folk, and Indian music, Kikagaku Moyo’s largely Improvisational music is an attempt to liberate both mind and body and create a “bridge between the supernatural and the present”.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

In their highly energetic live performance in Athens (which took place just a few weeks after another excellent concert by fellow Tokyo post-rockers MONO), the band brought successfully together all these diverse elements, rewarding their Greek fans through creating their very own kind of peculiar psychedelic geometry.

Underwater checkMAtE: electronic sounds from Thessaloniki

Leave a reply

Edgy meetings

Originally formed in 2011 by Adam Siagas (live electronics) and Thomas Kostoulas (drums), M.A.t.E [Meetings Along the Edge] have been established as one of the foremost electronic ensembles originating from Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city and a historically vibrant musical  and cultural hub.

M.A.t.E’s line-up took its definitive form when vocalist Maria-Elisavet Kotini joined the band during the recording of their self-titled debut. A follow-up album called Transitions was released In March 2016. As already signified by the band’s name, their music represents a meeting point of several diverse influences, styles and genres, ranging from drum’n’bass and dubstep to trip hop and electronica.

An eclectic and sonically rich album, Transitions stands at the crossroads between analog and digital, acoustic and electronic, while also balancing between Western tech frenzy and Eastern meditative sounds (see, for example, the Indian influences in Surya).

Along with drums, synthesizers, samples and Maria-Elisavet’s enchanting presence,  M.A.t.E also enhance their live performances with visuals in order to engage audiences and create a more interactive atmosphere. Their strong visual identity is also apparent in their excellent video clips, such as the video for RedruM (directed by Sideris Nanoudis), where sound and image blend artfully to tell a story in a powerful, engaging way.

Along the edge and underwater

Also hailing from Thessaloniki, electro-acoustic duo Underwater Chess (PP Рguitars, bass, cymbals, programming / MV Рviolins, vocals) started out in the early 2000s by playing covers from artists such as Butthole Surfers and Bj̦rk, but soon turned to improvisation and began developing their own distinctive sound.

Following their debut In Joy Your Fear (2011), a kind of sonic collage of various improvisational recordings, their latest album Seriality (released early last year) is in many ways a remarkable achievement. A unique amalgam of electronic, ambient, rock, and dance elements, their sound is characterized by atmospheric and recurring motifs, rich dynamics, and rhytmic intensity.

Featuring imaginative guitars, loops, violin and vocal parts, Seriality is an impressive record not only musically but also in terms of production. Even from a simple hearing, it becomes apparent that a lot of time and effort have been devoted to the programming, mixing and sound engineering in order to produce such a well-polished and carefully crafted record.

Perhaps it is only natural that in a city like Thessaloniki, standing along the edge and next to the water, bands with fresh ideas and edgy sound constantly emerge, competing with each other like in a game οf musical chess – where, of course, there can only be one winner: music lovers, both from their hometown and beyond!