Griff says: A Russia and a push and the land is ours

I don't think that anyone can have failed to notice events in Russia this week. An estimated 50,000 people have gathered in Moscow, with a further 10,000 in St Petersburg (pictured), to protest against what appears to be widespread fraud in last Sunday's elections. The authorities have responded in typical fashion and the media reports that there have been more than 1,000 arrests. Undaunted by this, the protestors have pledged to take to the streets again on December 24 and continue to insist that the election results should be annulled. They also want; the resignation of the head of the election commission, an official investigation into vote fraud, democratic and open elections and registration of opposition parties. The Streetlamp salutes them and wishes them success!



Thus, while our eyes are turned to the East in hope and admiration, now seems a good time to bring a couple of Russian cultural artefacts to your attention.

The first sees the Streetlamp take another of its very occasional forays into the interface between the worlds of gaming and art (see 'here' for previous) in the shape of stark, homeless-themed game Ulitsa Dimitrova.
Designed by German game designer Lea Schonfelder, Ulitsa Dimitrova is really more of a political, arts-project than a game. The central character, whom the player controls, is Pjotr - a chain-smoking street-child in St. Petersburg. Pjotr steals glue and trades it to his glue-sniffing friend for cigarettes. His mother is a prostitute, who in exchange for stolen vodka gives him money, which he also uses to buy cigarettes. The player soon finds himself trapped in a world of ever-dimishing returns; he can beg for money, steal, vandalize Mercedes cars and trade their emblems (for cigarettes, naturally) but any sense of achievement or hope is soon inexorably reduced to zero.


You see, Ulitsa Dimitrova has been deliberately designed to ensure that progress isn't an option. Pjotr is condemned to endlessly repeat the daily soul-sapping grind or to lie down in the street and be gradually covered by the falling snow. Thus, if the player stops playing, Pjotr will freeze to death. As harsh as that sounds, it is, unfortunately, real life for millions of street children. When you play this beautifully illustrated game you are placed, for just a very short time, into Pjotr's shoes, and the experiences you have, and the emotions you experience through him, will live with you for considerably longer. Do then, please, go ahead and experience this paradoxically simple and sophisticated game for yourself, as this is gaming constructed to be both art and social commentary. The game can be downloaded for free 'here'.

If you need further convincing, then have a look at this short youtube presentation:






Rather serendipitously, I've also recently come across an indie-pop band from St. Petersburg, Russia who seem to have the theme of childhood running through their work. Called ЧАЙЛДИШ (Childish) the line-up is as follows:

Andy Rozberg: voice, guitar, harmonica
Alexei Belyaev: bass guitar, double bass
Nikolai Novikov: guitar
Andrew Heller: drums, glockenspiel


They've just released their first recording, in the shape of a gentle and wistful five-song EP (also called ЧАЙЛДИШ), which can be freely downloaded from their bandcamp page. They say (if my translation is correct) that the songs are:

"for those who still believe in those things we were taught in the books that we read in childhood, and who like the music that we listened to in our youth. These are the delicate hymns to our fears and dreams. This is our quiet manifesto."

I'm embedding the first track, Свидетели (Witnesses), below for your listening pleasure.





Enjoy,

Griff
xx

~Winter Wassailing~#19: 'Santa, If You Do Exist'

I'm afraid it's a bit of a short Wassail tonight, not because of any lack of quality in the music, but purely down to there not being much for me to go on, nor indeed much to share with you. Tonight we feature another song that was sent to our e-mail address, and once again, rather surprisingly, we REALLY enjoyed it. So....despite a lack of info to impart with you tonight, I'm still going to crack on with it.....

Tonight's Christmas song is called 'Santa, If You Do Exist' and is by a Brooklyn based composer called Jeremy Coleman who plies his trade under the moniker of Jmo. The song in question is a rather jaunty little Indie-pop ditty with rather a touching message. It's all about the negativity and crushing disappointment of adult life, yet how at this time of year the belief in Santa Claus and therefore the Christmas spirit in general can break through all the pessimism and broken dreams. Jeremy admits himself that the song is shot through with a certain 'Jewish cynicism', but I still think it's one of the best Festive songs I've heard in a long time, and one whose message I give in to.

Sadly, no video accompanies the song, neither can it be downloaded; but you can stream the song here

Looking further into Jeremy's musical output, I discovered that he is a member of an Indiepop quartet called Murder Mystery who have some rather splendid tunes out there.
Take for example this fine song called 'I Am(If You Are)' which, if you liked our Blogs on 8-Bit Music, Kraftwerk or Evening Lights then I'm sure you're going to love this:


Murder Mystery have a really cool website where you can download the song featured above for free, as well as a whole raft of other songs if that's piqued your interest. You can find their website http://www.murdermysterymusic.com/
It's one of the cool things I love doing about this Blog; you set out to write about a particular song or artist and you stumble upon a new favourite band complete with a whole caboodle of free songs.
Hurrah!!

The Christmas spirit is most definitely alive!!

~Gordon~

Griff says: The transmission of affect - Mellow Dramatic Avenue

Just over a year ago you may remember me writing about 'Through the woods, divided', the sixth album by melancholic, Swedish, post-rockers Mellow Dramatic Avenue (see 'here'). If you do, you'll also remember me praising this band for their introspective, down-tempo style, which I described as, "perfect listening for a dark, rainy evening". Well, tonight it's snowing here in Scotland rather than raining, but you'll still be pleased to hear that Mellow Dramatic Avenue have released a new suite of moody and nocturnal songs, just in time to play us through those long, dark winter's nights ahead.



Named Transmission, it is the seventh album from the band and, as usual, it's released on their own Kakadua Partnership label . It contains ten songs and was recorded during 2011 in Studio Rönnehill in the countryside in the South of Sweden. Large parts of the songs were recorded live in the studio, a technique the band adopted to try to capture and preserve feeling and atmosphere within the music. Also worth mentioning is the fact that the songs were recorded in the exact order that they can be heard on the record.

Transmission will be officially released in January 2012, but is now pre-released for your immediate listening pleasure. As with all their output, the band have made the album available as a free MP3 download on;
bandcamp
soundcloud, and
last.fm

To give you a little taster, I'm embedding Track 1, 'You Called The Light' and Track 10, 'Broken Down Nightingale' below:








Enjoy.

Griff
xx

~Winter Wassailing~#18: The Greedy Bastards

1979 was a weird year for the Sex Pistols, or at least what remained of the Sex Pistols. Glen Matlock was long gone, John Lydon had quit, and Sid Vicious recorded some Eddie Cochran covers with Steve Jones and Paul Cook before he succumbed to his own squalid death in rather unpleasant circumstances.
Cook and Jones were left to carry the weight of the name and of the reputation of the band. In 1979 they found themselves performing with some rather odd lead vocalists, which included Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs, and Eddie Tudorpole who would later find success with his own Tenpole Tudor, as well as becoming a successful actor and presenter of TV's The Crystal Maze.

1979 also saw Cook and Jones become embroiled in the recording of the soundtrack for 'The Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle' (in which they also appeared), Malcolm McLaren's bizarre vision of the Sex Pistols story, which included copious nudity, images of domination and bondage, and under-age girls. They found themselves re-recording guitar and drum parts for old Pistols demos (with Lydon on vocals) so that they could be used in the film, as well as recording all new songs like the title track, Silly Thing, Lonely Boy and erm, Frigging In The Rigging.
After becoming disillusioned with the rotting corpse that the Sex Pistols had become, Paul and Steve began looking for other projects. They would eventually form their own band The Professionals and in turn would join with Paul Simonon of The Clash to appear in the movie 'Ladies & Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains'.
In between all that though they linked up with leather kecked rock god Phil Lynott, of Thin Lizzy, who was a fan of the Pistols.
On the 29th of July 1978, Paul Cook, Steve Jones, Phil Lynott, Gary Moore, Chris Downey, Scott Gorham (the last three all of Thin Lizzy), Jimmy Bain (of Rainbow), and Chris Spedding (long time Pistols cohort) took to the stage of the Electric Ballroom to play a set of Pistols and Lizzy songs under the moniker of The Greedy Bastards.
The Greedy Bastards would return in December of that year without Bain and Spedding, but this time featuring one Bob Geldof!
A year later, in December of 1979, the only fruits of the Pistols/Lizzy concoction were released; a Christmas song under the title of a 'A Merry Jingle', which charted but only reached the disappointing position of Number 28, surprising when you consider the fanbase for both the Pistols and Thin Lizzy!
On the 20th of December 1979, the band, now tastefully re-dubbed The Greedies appeared on Top Of The Pops:


And then, on New Year's Eve, they turned up on Kenny Everett's Hogmanay show:


Paul Cook and Steve Jones were probably wise, and relieved, to leave behind the baggage of the Sex Pistols at that rather crazy and unsavoury time in the band's history, and nearly everything they did immediately post-Pistols is worth checking out.
The late, great Phil Lynott was one of the few pre-Punk rock stars that the Punks actually adopted as a hero figure, and he and his fine band certainly brighten up those mawkish 1976 Top Of The Pops that are being re-shown at the moment.
Not the greatest Christmas song of all time then by any stretch, but an intriguing time capsule of when two of the best bands of the late 1970s collided.

~Gordon~