Thursday, 13 August 2015
Sunday, 2 August 2015
Phoenix from the Flames
Continued from blog 13 - Homeward Bound...
... Although one of the symbols for Redskin was an Eagle, we could really say we were the legendary Phoenix that is constantly reborn from the flames. Admired by some, annoying in others point of view, we persistently pursued making our music without substituting the band members and being true to our artistic intentions even if we were living in separate countries or had to learn how to play an instrument or sing.
As Redskin we composed a great number of songs, many never got to be recorded, some of my favourites were: Heartbreaker, Psalm, Seedless Grapes in the Morning, Grandfather, Premonitions, What's left to be done, Chart Song, Echoes in a Tunnel, Eerie, The Head that Bangs the Drums, Magdalena, even though none of us can remember now what this song sounded like, The Right Time, Hollow Man, Sugar Cane, Two Reasons, You're like no other, Manor House and Bath Houses.
In 1994 we recorded a demo at KKO studio with Heartbreaker, Psalm and Seedless Grapes in the Morning, this time on a CD instead of a cassette tape, and started contacting again record companies using our old list, now even more out-of-date, and some new contacts that Tayo managed to fish from the slow Internet, by today terms, in his home computer, a luxury at the time, as very few people had them. Many came back as non-existent addresses and the usual sorry-we-are not-hiring-at-the-moment or we-don't-listen-to-demos.
Another Celestine Prophecy moment in my life was when in August 1994 I met my English Husband, Mark Taylor, just by chance, in my own home actually! He had a Passion for everything Brazilian since the 70's, as a DJ and avid record collector of Brazilian Jazz and Bossa Nova, Funk, Soul and new Beats. He hosts today a radio show called Happy Jazz and also has his own work re-editing tracks which is called La Homage. We were originally friends, as he came over my place as the boyfriend of one of the girls who played basketball with my Sister-in-Law, as my house was again, as in old gigging days, the meeting point after practice and matches. Before going to Brazil for the first time in January that year he had got from his Aunt a contact number from an acquaintance of hers, a British woman who now lived in Brazil and had a flat to rent for tourists, which was walking distance from my flat. He then had befriended the Housekeeper's daughter who also played in the basketball team and that's how he got to date one of the girls. For me it was love at first sight, an Englishman, handsome, into music and at my doorstep, could it be the old saying, when you wish so hard for something it does happen? Nothing happened between us and I sadly said goodbye to him thinking I would never see him again. A couple of weeks later I received a postcard thanking my Brother, Sister-in-law and myself for the hospitality, but with a special thanks to myself for helping him finding records and meeting Brazilian musicians. I replied and we started writing to each other regularly. In December 1994, when I announced I was going to spend Xmas and New Year with my Sister-in-Law's family in Spain and visit my friends in London, he invited me to visit him where he lived at the time in Amsterdam, but I couldn't make it and he offered then to meet me in London for a week when he could stay at a friend's house. We started dating in January 1995 here in London and have been together ever since. At the time however, after a week of a dream, I had to go back to Brazil wondering if that is what was going to be, a fleeting dream. I started working like crazy to save money to go back to him and in the meantime kept in touch through letters and once a week phone calls, as it was so expensive in those times. No such a thing as Internet at home or cheap/free phone calls abroad in those days. There was however something very romantic about waiting for the post and opening a letter from your loved one so far away. At difficult times it is looking back at the days when we couldn't be together that our relationship finds its strength from, pretty much like our music work to be honest. I now managed to get myself both a band and a boyfriend no one thought really existed, but meant everything to me.
As Redskin we composed a great number of songs, many never got to be recorded, some of my favourites were: Heartbreaker, Psalm, Seedless Grapes in the Morning, Grandfather, Premonitions, What's left to be done, Chart Song, Echoes in a Tunnel, Eerie, The Head that Bangs the Drums, Magdalena, even though none of us can remember now what this song sounded like, The Right Time, Hollow Man, Sugar Cane, Two Reasons, You're like no other, Manor House and Bath Houses.
In 1994 we recorded a demo at KKO studio with Heartbreaker, Psalm and Seedless Grapes in the Morning, this time on a CD instead of a cassette tape, and started contacting again record companies using our old list, now even more out-of-date, and some new contacts that Tayo managed to fish from the slow Internet, by today terms, in his home computer, a luxury at the time, as very few people had them. Many came back as non-existent addresses and the usual sorry-we-are not-hiring-at-the-moment or we-don't-listen-to-demos.
Another Celestine Prophecy moment in my life was when in August 1994 I met my English Husband, Mark Taylor, just by chance, in my own home actually! He had a Passion for everything Brazilian since the 70's, as a DJ and avid record collector of Brazilian Jazz and Bossa Nova, Funk, Soul and new Beats. He hosts today a radio show called Happy Jazz and also has his own work re-editing tracks which is called La Homage. We were originally friends, as he came over my place as the boyfriend of one of the girls who played basketball with my Sister-in-Law, as my house was again, as in old gigging days, the meeting point after practice and matches. Before going to Brazil for the first time in January that year he had got from his Aunt a contact number from an acquaintance of hers, a British woman who now lived in Brazil and had a flat to rent for tourists, which was walking distance from my flat. He then had befriended the Housekeeper's daughter who also played in the basketball team and that's how he got to date one of the girls. For me it was love at first sight, an Englishman, handsome, into music and at my doorstep, could it be the old saying, when you wish so hard for something it does happen? Nothing happened between us and I sadly said goodbye to him thinking I would never see him again. A couple of weeks later I received a postcard thanking my Brother, Sister-in-law and myself for the hospitality, but with a special thanks to myself for helping him finding records and meeting Brazilian musicians. I replied and we started writing to each other regularly. In December 1994, when I announced I was going to spend Xmas and New Year with my Sister-in-Law's family in Spain and visit my friends in London, he invited me to visit him where he lived at the time in Amsterdam, but I couldn't make it and he offered then to meet me in London for a week when he could stay at a friend's house. We started dating in January 1995 here in London and have been together ever since. At the time however, after a week of a dream, I had to go back to Brazil wondering if that is what was going to be, a fleeting dream. I started working like crazy to save money to go back to him and in the meantime kept in touch through letters and once a week phone calls, as it was so expensive in those times. No such a thing as Internet at home or cheap/free phone calls abroad in those days. There was however something very romantic about waiting for the post and opening a letter from your loved one so far away. At difficult times it is looking back at the days when we couldn't be together that our relationship finds its strength from, pretty much like our music work to be honest. I now managed to get myself both a band and a boyfriend no one thought really existed, but meant everything to me.
In March that year we received a letter from Flat Records , from Surrey, inviting us to be part of their Artist Development Plan, as they had listened to our demo and they thought we had potential. Flat Records was founded and managed by Richard Coppen, who had achieved some success with bands we had never heard about called Tenpole Tudor, Pearl Harbour and King Kurt. The Label profile sounded good, they wanted to find raw talent before anyone else, if it was weird they would sign it! We thought we fit the bill and started to make plans to go back to England to follow their so-called Artist Development Plan, in which they promised a marketing plan, photo sessions and a working demo for a price they claimed to be a real bargain and a promise of being signed by themselves if while working with us they thought we were to their liking. We thought we had nothing to loose as it would give us an opportunity to request an artist visa to go back to England, I would be closer to my boyfriend, and if they didn't like us at least we would have a material of a professional caliber to use to look for other companies. If worst came to the worst it would at least be an excuse to go back to England as there was nothing happening music wise in Brazil for our type of music anyway. Still, it would take another year for Paulo's visa to come through
Paulo left Brazil before me, this time as an EU Member Partner, so much easier visa wise and I stayed behind working 13 hours a day teaching at an English school and 5 hours a night at home doing translations to finance my new venture. In July 1995 I left Brazil again, this time I had no idea it was going to be for good.
In October 1995 Tayo managed to get a transfer to work at Erickson in England and for the first time in nearly six years we were all together in the same country again, but not for long, my visa finished in 1996 and having received an invitation from my boyfriend to live in Amsterdam with him after, although dating for over a year, having been physically together only 8 times, but the thought of being far away from him in Brazil again was unbearable and I accepted it, which turned out to be the right choice as I would in 1998 become Mrs Simone Taylor.
After having been finally all together in one country now Paulo and Tayo were left in England and I was in Holland, but soon we would be each in a different country as Tayo got transferred back to Sweden again before we managed to join Flat Records Development Programme...
...To be continued
Pictures: 1 - Seymour Nurse, 2 - Unknown, 3 - Simone Taylor
But All She Wanted Was to Dance
... Continued from blog 10 A very Rough Trade this music business...
...I he
ar a lot of stories of bands that lost members and then auditioned for new ones to replace them. Although this was never discussed between us, we all always shared this strange silent pact of being an entity, like being one person. When we lost Sergio it was like if this "Person" a.k.a. our music, lost a member and somehow it seemed clear to us that we had to keep walking without him but not replace him. We did replace Sergio by a Japanese chap full of buttons and an AC Plug, he was obedient, never went to Greece without our consent (sorry Sergio had to have a dig but we still love you), nor to Japan for that matter, mind you he wasn't as talented but did his job and evolved with us as technology did.
Another obvious conclusion was that unfortunately Felix Fritz music died with it, at least with the limitations which drum machines offered at the time, there was no way we could make the same type of music we did before. Paulo then had a fantastic idea. At the time we were really enjoying the California Soul of the late 60's Love and Arthur Lee, also Nicky Drake from England and Paulo had an eternal question: " If all bands have at least one acoustic track that is absolutely amazing why don't they make all tracks like that?" I think the nearest a band has done in that respect was Led Zeppelin's 3rd Album, almost an entire album with acoustic tracks but why a Rock band couldn't just do the songs that we loved and not just one or two tracks, unless of course it was a folk band, but that's not exactly the same thing. So he came up with the opposite approach to Felix Fritz, if Felix Fritz made Brazilian music mixed with Rock using Rock instruments we were going to now make Rock music using acoustic Brazilian instruments typical of samba and other Brazilian rhythms and so we did using Viola Caipira, a 10 string guitar, Cavaquinho, a Brazilian ukulele and bandolim, a Brazilian mandolin, among others.
Now how to call this new born child? As a joke to Virgin Record's answer to hiring us, we called it Dancyn' Days out of one of Led Zeppelin's songs, which is not a dance track at all.
Dancyn' Days songs couldn't be more different than Felix Fritz, Using a drum machine, no keyboards and loads of acoustic string instruments we sounded very different indeed. This band marks the beginning of my career as a do it all person, first a roadie, then keyboard player and now Ba
ss player of all things, unlike Paulo I had never studied the guitar and had to get a crash course on Bass, the enormous folk acoustic bass as you can see in the picture was bigger than me and my fingers were sore. I don't think I would be able to play anything else rather than our songs painstakingly memorized, I was having panic attacks to think I would have to gig one day playing bass. Would I ever be able to get used to it, and yet they never thought of replacing me, amazing, that's what we were like.
Amongst Dancyn' Days songs there were Rough, Song for a Married Girl, Up in Smoke, Islands, the only song I've ever written or started from scratch on the bass, Dreams and Lies and Victoria.
With Dancyn' Days we started using false names that were more English sounding, except Brent who didn't need it but actually started being called by his nickname "Play". Our Press releases were also getting better thanks to the advent of early Mac Home computers, for which Brent was an avid user.
...I he
ar a lot of stories of bands that lost members and then auditioned for new ones to replace them. Although this was never discussed between us, we all always shared this strange silent pact of being an entity, like being one person. When we lost Sergio it was like if this "Person" a.k.a. our music, lost a member and somehow it seemed clear to us that we had to keep walking without him but not replace him. We did replace Sergio by a Japanese chap full of buttons and an AC Plug, he was obedient, never went to Greece without our consent (sorry Sergio had to have a dig but we still love you), nor to Japan for that matter, mind you he wasn't as talented but did his job and evolved with us as technology did.Another obvious conclusion was that unfortunately Felix Fritz music died with it, at least with the limitations which drum machines offered at the time, there was no way we could make the same type of music we did before. Paulo then had a fantastic idea. At the time we were really enjoying the California Soul of the late 60's Love and Arthur Lee, also Nicky Drake from England and Paulo had an eternal question: " If all bands have at least one acoustic track that is absolutely amazing why don't they make all tracks like that?" I think the nearest a band has done in that respect was Led Zeppelin's 3rd Album, almost an entire album with acoustic tracks but why a Rock band couldn't just do the songs that we loved and not just one or two tracks, unless of course it was a folk band, but that's not exactly the same thing. So he came up with the opposite approach to Felix Fritz, if Felix Fritz made Brazilian music mixed with Rock using Rock instruments we were going to now make Rock music using acoustic Brazilian instruments typical of samba and other Brazilian rhythms and so we did using Viola Caipira, a 10 string guitar, Cavaquinho, a Brazilian ukulele and bandolim, a Brazilian mandolin, among others.
Now how to call this new born child? As a joke to Virgin Record's answer to hiring us, we called it Dancyn' Days out of one of Led Zeppelin's songs, which is not a dance track at all.
Dancyn' Days songs couldn't be more different than Felix Fritz, Using a drum machine, no keyboards and loads of acoustic string instruments we sounded very different indeed. This band marks the beginning of my career as a do it all person, first a roadie, then keyboard player and now Ba
ss player of all things, unlike Paulo I had never studied the guitar and had to get a crash course on Bass, the enormous folk acoustic bass as you can see in the picture was bigger than me and my fingers were sore. I don't think I would be able to play anything else rather than our songs painstakingly memorized, I was having panic attacks to think I would have to gig one day playing bass. Would I ever be able to get used to it, and yet they never thought of replacing me, amazing, that's what we were like.Amongst Dancyn' Days songs there were Rough, Song for a Married Girl, Up in Smoke, Islands, the only song I've ever written or started from scratch on the bass, Dreams and Lies and Victoria.
With Dancyn' Days we started using false names that were more English sounding, except Brent who didn't need it but actually started being called by his nickname "Play". Our Press releases were also getting better thanks to the advent of early Mac Home computers, for which Brent was an avid user.
We had great fun as Dancyn' Days but we never got to play any gigs or do any sort of promotion except sending demos to record companies as our archenemy, The British Immigration, was about to strike again, this time on all of us, except Brent who was British, thanks to our elected new President in Brazil Mr Collor...
...To be continued
Pictures: 1 - Brent Hieatt, 2,3 and 4 - Unknown
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