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In the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004, dir. Michel Gondry), Clementine, character of actress Kate Winslet, comments that she would like to have the job of naming hair dyes. “The job is taken!”, she complains.

I remembered the scene while choosing lipstick colors on sale. Among the nude tones alone, the variety was impressive: cookie nude, (just) nude, nude matte and my favourite one, naked nude. What could be this colour, so mysterious that needed two synonymous words to be described?

Of course, the marketing worked for me and I bought the naked nude lipstick. Given the package received and the pale beige color of the lipstick, this naked nude was nowhere near as glamorous and daring as its name promised. The job is definitely taken, dear Clem!

I have been thinking a lot about the current mainstream pop and I could not help thinking that if I had to add a colour to the scene, naked nude would be a great option. There is a lot of glamour and eccentric names written in capital letters, a lot of pleonasm in the song lyrics, a lot of repetition in the costumes, wigs, and stage mannerisms.

No doubt the result is very colorful and noisy, but at the same time pasteurized and the result sounds as stimulating as a pale beige palette. I do not agree with the theory tahys says this happens because people happen to like the same things. My point is that in order to like or dislike something, first of all, I must be aware that that thing exists.

And here is the problem: always playing the same songs (whether new releases or oldies), radio stations make it very difficult for you to get to know a whole new world of wonderful independent music, which by the way, will not reach the top spots on streaming platforms, because the algorithms suggest… guess what? Mainstream themes!

And what would be the way to break this vicious cycle? Sincerely? I do not know. The mainstream scene is a million-dollar business, which involves many things beyond music. There is always something to do though, and no matter where you are, there is certainly an independent local scene, no matter how small. A local scene that you can strengthen, whether by promoting or attending events.

After all, expanding your taste beyond the “top hit” lists is also up to you.

Be seeing you!

G.F.

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Do you know when several small problems add up to the stress of the end of the year and you think you simply will not be able to handle all your tasks? When this happens to me, I feel at odds with all of humanity. In order not to spread even more bad mood around or at least, to be a feisty gal, but with fabulous skin, earlier this week I decided to make an appointment with a beautician for a facial.

The lady on the other side of the phone asked me to arrive at nine o’clock in the morning. I took the task so seriously that I actually arrived ten minutes early. Long story short, I left there at noon.

You might be wondering what kind of facial cleansing lasts three hours. I do not know either, because what I had was standard procedure. The rest of the time was filled with conversation. Not necessarily with me and always on her part.

Frankly, I cannot blame her. Apparently everyone is dying to talk. And talk a lot. Could it still be a remnant of the trauma of mandatory isolation during the Covid-19 pandemic? Were we like this before 2020? Or maybe, and that is personal guess, it is a mix of things with a pinch of anxiety generated by the indiscriminate use of cell phones and exposure to the internet?

The fact is that I left my self-care moment feeling completely exhausted. No kidding: exhausted. All that talking about different topics, without getting anywhere, highly reactive and with a slightly resentful tone made me physically tired.

As everything in life has different aspects, the positive side of this peculiar experience was that it made me question not only the repetitive mental behavior that I had been stuck in for the last few weeks, but it also made me reevaluate my situation.

While waiting for the creams to act on my face, some thoughts arose:

  1. Maybe I am not as bitter towards he world, as I thought I was
  2. Maybe my bad mood is actually below average
  3. Maybe, despite all the problems, I am okay.

Being okay, meaning feeling fine just the way you are, can be revolutionary. After all, well-being has a lot to do with completeness, self-satisfaction and other items that, despite of what the huge wellness lobby out there keep telling us, cannot be purchaised.

Speaking from the perspective of music creation, much of what is produced in terms of entertainment is linked to the idea that a film, a play, a book etc. has the primary obligation to awaken positive sensations and make you feel happy.

I completely disagree with this premise. Just as my three-hour facial was not exactly a walk in the park, but it achieved its goal, the transformation caused by art can come in many ways, through various sensations, and perhaps many of them are not directly linked to a feeling of well-being.

Subjecting creation to the rules dictated by entertainment industry is a gross reduction of the potential of art. Perhaps it is even a subversion of its primary role, which is to move people, to change a state of mind, a way of thinking, of perceiving ourselves on society.

Will you let your world shine beuatifully, just like a post-facial skin?

Be seeing you!

G. F.

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Jazzkantine is is a musical collective founded in 1993 in Braunschweig, Germany. Their first album, Jazzkantine , released in October 1994 won the “Echo Award” in 1996, the most important award for German music.I first heard them during dinner at the home of a member of another German band, TreSimul, quite sucessfull during the late 1990´s. It was love at first heard.

Just like Nouvelle Cuisine, Jazzkantine also uses gastronomic analogies to describe the sound proposal of Matthias Lanzer, owner of the Rap Nation label. The team includes rappers Aleksey, Cappuccino and Tachiles, and producers Ole Sander (DJ) and Christian Eitner (bassist). The result can be defined as a mix of fusion, jazz, funk and German rap. Their albums also featured partnerships with international jazz musicians.

In addition to their first album, I also have their follow-up work, Heiss und Fettig (1995). Awesome music, the kind that you have to check out, trust me.

It is noteworthy that as of 2016, the titles of the Jazzkantine albums no longer contain references to gastronomy, and their latest release, Discotheque (2022), moves even further towards a change of direction. The group embodied one of the strongest trends of the time in the world of music: collective projects, but as many similar projects, they needed to readapt with the arrival of the self-centered 2000s.

I am not talking here about the transition from physical music to digital format, but rather about something that has become a kind of collective mentality, consolidated through the expansion of the tools provided by the internet to produce and consume music.

Dazzled by the idea that we were now all living in a new era of equal conditions of production and dissemination, the musical community moved away from the modus operandi that characterized the collectives and embarked on projects that, although musically increasingly similar to each other, are now sold as “unique experiences”.

Well, it is (past) time to admit that the golden days of no gatekeepers (if they ever existed) are gone. Even if a few names raised and nourished their audiences on the early days of social networks by keeping a rather quantitative than qualitative production, these same names had to turn to some kind of “paid content” strategy in order to have their material visible.

After all, the gatekeepers have not disappeared! They just outsourced the service, and since then, they are stronger than ever. Our entire focus now is trying to understand and to please this new entity: the “almighty” algorithm.

Maybe that is why we no longer have time to collectively appreciate the fine products servend on the jazz canteens.

Be seeing you!

G.F.

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This morning I read another report about the sphere inaugurated in Las Vegas with a concert by the band U2. Feedback on the show has been very positive and everyone seems quite impressed with the tons of LED lights and the (poor words, so worn out) immersive experience.

I wonder if these people have ever been to a planetarium in their lives. I remember memorable shows at fantastic planetariums in Osnabrück, Germany and Lisbon, Portugal. And we are talking about the 1990s and 2000s!

Honestly, I am surprised (in a negative way) by the collective mesmerization, in the worst sense of the word, with inventions that, honestly, are nothing new (the true global cult of cars, so harmful to the environment, comes to mind).

It seems that everything that has been done before social media simply never existed. I would say there is a tendence of treating “old” (pre-social media) events as new stuff, or even worse, sometimes they are considered revolutionary, disruptive etc. The very word “experience” has reached a level of overuse by publicity pieces, that it no longer inspires the slightest confidence.

Thge point here is not to question the quality, much less the merit of the band U2 (who, in fact, neither asked nor need my opinion).The reflection I would like to bring today has to do with the widespread use of pyrotechnics in the most diverse musical events.

How much of our already weakened attention can withstand yet another bomb of visual stimuli and still reserve some attention for the music?

Among the artists you know with astronomical numbers of followers, how many people they brought to the stage on their last performance? Hard to rememeber, right? No wonder, with screens that go up and down, dancers with vibrant choreography and costume changes, musicians are just a tiny detail.

I cannot help but thinking that the sparkling lights are taking a place that should be occupied by the music/musicians.. That is, when we are lucky enough to have musicians on stage.

Currently, not only many festivals host attractions whose performances are based on pre-recorded beats, they also consider lip-sync part of the show. And I am not talking about kind-of-hidden-pro-tools-lip-sync”. I am talking about headline performers who would shameless scream words (“Jump”, “Make some noise”) in their mics, while their pre-recorded song goes on.

I am ready to hear any arguments in favor of these resources, I honestly am. However, I fear that any theoretical contortionism will end in some sort of an absolute defense of the concept of entertainment, which I am not opposed to either.

Previously this year, I discussed the difference between large and small concerts, and I am perfectly convinced that there is an audience for everyone. I do not see entertainment as a problem, not at all. The problem is, when there is nothing but entertainment.

Particularly in relation to music, the problem ist that music production has to be reduced to mere entertainment. This is indeed sad, because it means a loss, a decline in its status a form of art. Have you ever heard someone making a comment like: “Well, I did not like that film/exposition, play, because it is sad and I go out to be happy”? I have the impression that this sort of weird reasoning had spread itself throughout society.

Do you know what would really impress me? That people would no longer be hungry and that, at night, everyone would have a shelter. Other than that, honey, there is no sphere giant enough to impress me, and all I can think of all the buzz is: it has been done, babe.

Be seeing you!

G. F.

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The flu I had last week caused a sinus attack so acute that I lost my sense of smell for a couple of days. It was a very terrifying experience, if you ask me.

Firstly because it was the first time it happened to me, but also because my sense of smell is very keen, which means (and this became even more evident during those strange days) that I guide myself in many actions throughout the day based, in large part, on the smell of things.

Suddenly, I fet as if the world had become a place without smells, the good and the bad ones. From cooking to deciding whether or not to wash a piece of clothing, everything became a little more complicated without being able to rely on the smell of things.

In addition to these serious aspects, there was also the irony that I had just bought a new perfume. And this is not something common for me. I have so much trouble finding a fragrance that I like and that is not too strong and cloying for my in normal conditions extemely sensitive nostrils, that I usually end up going back to lavenders no perfum at all.

Well, and then just when I had mad up my mind and decided to give a new fragrance a chance… I cannot smell it. Perfect timing, at least from the for comic relief point of view.

Without the alternative of enjoying my recent purchase with my sense of smell, I turned to the aesthetic side, that is, the perfume bottle. Some context: I had purchased the fragrance without seeing the bottle, based on the experience of a free sample, one of those that comes in a small 4 ml bottle, and the first thing that occurred to me, was that the team responsible for the design had done a really lousy job.

Without the distraction of the fragrance, it was clear that the shape and colors of the bottle were not only ugly, but also did not communicate well with the name of the perfume, as they did not convey at all the idea of “illuminating” suggested by the name of the fragrance.

Photos and description of the olfactory family of the perfume are great tools, but the design of the bottle can be the decisive element in the purchase, which leads us to a reflection: am I taking care of the bottles of the products I sell?

I know it is hard to thinnk about music productions as “products”, but let us play the marketing game for a moment, shall we? Now, take deep breathe and think about your next project as if it was the launch of a new fragrance: what would you say about your bottle? Is it communicating your message the way you want it?

Think about it and do not forget to smell the roses, along the way.

Be seeing you!

G.F.