Le blog du Baron

MORE ON SANDI THOM

Like many people I was impressed by webcasting-basement-gigs-Cindirella, Sandi Thom. 

Well, Garagespin  have more details about the real story here.

I guess that in a way, luck never happens just by ... luck !

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SIGNING UP MAKES A DIFFERENCE: VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

Terrific advertising for Amnesty in the French press these days:

It got me to have a look at their French website (showing that good advertising does sometimes work !). I noticed that Amnesty are running an internet campaign to push the French government to take measures and reduce violence against women. This is something I care strongly about so I signed up like almost 15,000 people.

You can do the same here.

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ANOTHER UNHAPPY BIRTHDAY

Today, it is 20 years since reactor No.4 of the nuclear power station of Tchernobyl exploded. The level of radioactivity generated by the blast was the equivalent of 200 times Hiroshima. 160,000 km2 were contaminated and 350,000 persons had to be evacuated. After all these years, it is still not clear how many people died in relation to the accident, with the UN talking about 4,000 victims and some NGOs estimating 60,000 casualties ...

Here are a few photos from the book of reporter Igor Kostine, "Tchernobyl. confession d'un reporter" which has just been published:

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A WEBBY FOR BECKY ?

Absolutely brilliant website from Beck - here.

I'm not really surprised to read in the news that it has been nominated for a Webby award ("The leading international award honoring excellence in Web design, creativity, usability and functionality").

And browsing down the list of nominees, I spotted that Prince was also nominated although in a different category.

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MARILYN MANSION'S WEB NIGHTMARES

A couple of great interviews in the French fashion magazine Numero. First one was of Brian Eno, who has still quite a few things to say as a rock survivor and a young father.

Second one was by rock & roll Antichrist himself, Marilyn Manson. I have to say it is not the first time I find myself thinking that this guy is extremely intelligent (in addition to being scary at times).

He is for instance quite a gifted paintor - the illustration for this post is one of his - and of course, his plan to direct a feature movie have been widely reported. He also talked of his forthcoming new website - in the meantime, check this out.

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ABOUT A ROCK SONG

An interesting mix of genres. Nick Hornby, famous for writing novels like "High fidelity" and "About a boy", also published in 2002 "Songbook", a serie of short essays on his favourite rock and pop tracks. Since 2005, he has combined reading performances about the music he grew up listening to in the 70s with cover versions of each song played live by his favourite band, Marah.

The podcast is available here.

Nostalgia, here we come.

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LENNON ON A BRIDGE

Since I had a meeting with my agent Friday (quite a character, I do have to post on him some day), La Contessa and I jumped on the opportunity to spend part of the week-end in Paris.

We got to meet up with my great friend Ouriel a few hours before he flew back to Tel-Aviv, went to see the Lennon exhibition at the Cite de la Musique and eventually, had a picnic with a few friends on the Pont des Arts, in the middle of the Seine and just a 100 meter away from the Louvre.

How does the song go already ? "I love Paris in the springtime" ...

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RISING FROM THE FLAMES (2)

Back to our new track, Firebird. We left things a couple of weeks ago at quite an early stage: guitar melody and some  ideas about the structure of the song. Next comes the real song backbone: drums and bass.

I generally start with the drums, moving from a fairly simple pattern and adding up more frills over time. Obviously, the first ideas are not always the right ones and things will sometimes go quite a long way before falling into place. Here are the drums in the uptempo part of the song:

Once the drums are more or less set, I then record the bass to put together the rytmic section. Same drum part as previously, this time with the bassline:

More to come soon; watch that space !

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FASHION WITH A PURPOSE

Casa Palabre is an association based in Paris which aims at developping projects for and with young people from the capital. In 2001, they organized a fashion show with the support of some famous names such as Agnes B or Castelbajac; these gave away clothes for the show, which were then sold afterwards to raise money for the association.

The 5th edition is taking place this Sunday at 18 h at the Carreau du temple (2 rue Eugene Spuller, Paris 3) and the funds collected will be used to create a public library in Dakar.

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GORILLAZ ON MSN

The DVD of "Demon Days live", Gorillaz's concert at the Manchester Opera House, is now out.

For this  occasion, a number of video extracts from a similar concert at the NYC Appolo Theater are available for free (in return for advertsing at the beginning of each clip) on msn.music.

Neat stuff.

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