What is success?

Whenever I wish upon a star, a fountain or the candles of a birthday cake I think I am not alone in wishing for the health of loved ones and our planet, but we all have little personal wishes and secret desires and as an artist a favourite wish throughout the years was to be successful with our music.

As the years went by and the recognizable success did not match our expectations I caught myself considering the definition of the word success. What is to be successful in music? If you write the most beautiful song ever and nobody hears it, is it still a success?

Humans have always had a struggle in their hands to value art. We can understand exchanging currency for food and even currency for currency, but what is the value of art? We seem to shuffle into considering some pieces of art of a priceless value while others of no value at all. You might find a piece of classical music beautifully executed is worth less than something concocted at a basement with a computer or a blue ball on top of an unmade bed is more valuable than a watercolour.

There is also the issue of a doctor or a teacher going to school, training to exercise their profession and eventually working in their trade while a musician or an actor might find themselves to the mercy of some abstract quantification of success and never being able to make a living from their trade.

What to say of artists like Nick Drake, my favourite ever, who acquired cult status after his death but did not enjoy such recognition in his lifetime? If he had not found such status would his music be any less divine? Alzo Fronte who found some cult status later in life, being discovered by the Japanese and having a heart attack before he could finally enjoy the fruits of his work. I sometimes think I shouldn't wish for any recognition anymore as that would probably be my fate at my age!

Bearing on being cliché and complaining about contemporary music and the music business and its lack of originality and talent as well as standardization at a massive scale, I often ask myself such questions as what level of recognition and success would make me happy? What would make me retire from this life feeling gratified with what I have achieved, and the more I ask the more I get the feeling that the answer is being content with what I produce regardless of any other factor. I am a dreamer and I like to believe that somewhere in the Universe there is some sort of bonus points you accumulate for being charitable, good to others, to your planet and producing beautiful art it does not matter by what means, being music quite high there in the scale.

I hate the fact that Lewis Taylor decided to be a plumber but his music has touched me and that matters, for me he is highly successful. When I listen to the Plain Healers from New Jersey, in my world they are as successful as Led Zeppelin because their music has touched me just the same.

Success is creation, when a song or a piece of art is created it is successful. It matters not who has listened.

Rio 2016 is here!

So another Olympic Games is upon us! Very strange to have two consecutive games one in my current home and then another in my home town. 

Loosh has always had a strong association with sport, we just love following all sorts of sports and we will be certainly following these games despite getting homesick with the transmissions. 

I just hope everybody will enjoy a safe and happy time. It would be not just horrible but contradicting to the true Olympic spirit to destroy such a beautiful event that is so inspirational.

We will be also looking forward to watching the Paralympic games as Brazil, against all odds is just so good at them. 

I also hope my Country finds peace and prosperity in the never ending changing political process as despite the horror stories of corrupt politicians it is still our Country and it is still amazing.

Happy Games everyone!

In 1985, two friends, a piano and an acoustic guitar, that corner, Colonia Penal

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.

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 hear 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 Bass 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

Happy 26th Anniversary Loosh

Top 5's

As my autism goes I love to make lists and my favourite kind of list is top 5's just like the bloke in Hi Fidelity! These are mine Loosh's singer it does not represent the taste of the whole band, now show us yours! Perhaps you could give us your top 5 Loosh songs?

Artists

Nick Drake

Alzo Forte

Joe and Bing

David Bowie

Burt Bacharach

Groups

Led Zeppelin

Love

Pink Floyd

R.E.M.

The Police

Songs

Fruit Tree - Nick Drake

Rain Song - Led Zeppelin

Eat Yourself - Goldfrapp

Smells like Teen Spirit - Nirvana

Some People - Alzo

Albums

1. Five leaves left - Nick Drake


2. Led Zeppelin III


3. Forever Changes - Love


4. Best of Friends - Joe and Bing


5. Looking for you - Alzo

Singers

1. Eddie Vedder - Pearl Jam


2. Morrissey


3. Elizabeth Frazer - Cocteau Twins


4. Alison Goldfrapp


5. Natalie Merchant - 10.000 Maniacs

Soundtracks

1. Rumble Fish - Stewart Copeland


2. Get Carter - Roy Budd


3. Ascenseur pour l'échafaud - Miles Davies


4. The Thomas Crown Affair - Michel Legrand


5. Midnight Cowboy - John Barry

Films

1. Once upon a time in America - Sergio Leone


2. Rumble Fish - Francis Ford Coppola


3. Ascenseur pour l'échafaud - Louis Malle


4. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy - Peter Jackson


5. Star Wars Trilogies - George Lucas

TV Series

1. 24


2. Mad Men


3. Downton Abbey


4. Lark Rise to Candleford


5. Jeeves and Wooster

Animation

1. Toy Story Trilogy


2. Up


3. The Corpse Bride


4. The Simpsons


5. Futurama

Actors

1. Kevin Spacey


2. Jeffrey Rush


3. Ralph Fiennes


4. Robert de Niro


5. Al Pacino

Actresses

1. Jodie Foster


2. Meryl Streep


3. Helen Hunt


4. Judy Dench


5. Helen Mirren

And it all finishes on Ash Wednesday

Happy Carnival everyone

Islands. Music by Loosh + Hieatt. Lyrics by Kat Stoopid

Happy New Year/Feliz Ano Novo

Back to work

I just wanted to thank everybody who prayed for our Dad, he is back home after 5 weeks in hospital and emotional of all the support everybody showed from all around the world.

We are now back to working on some new songs, Horses, the first song we record with my own lyrics, which I wrote when I read "Bury my heart at wounded knee" many years ago and brings back the Indian theme. It also counts with the collaboration of Pity Gomes singing as a backing vocal a sacred chant to evoke light from a Brazilian Ayuaska shamanic ritual.

We are also working on a cover from a very cult obscure 60's/70's artist that I love, that I hope you will enjoy, as well as a song for autism charity with lyrics I wrote based on the Option Process, the philosophy behind the Son-Rise Program, the Program I have been homeschooling my autistic son for the last 5 years with great success.

Watch this space!

For more info on the Son-Rise Program visit http://www.son-rise.org

For Max

Max, as we call my Dad, has always believed in us. He not only bought all our instruments, he went to all the gigs he could go to, he listens to our music, he loves our music.
Max came from a very poor background, he lost his Mom at 6 years old and was abandoned by his Father at the age of 11 to fend for himself. His first job was to sell bananas in the streets of Duque de Caxias, our home town in the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro. He was helped by a mechanic who felt sorry for him, for even though he was 11 he looked like he was about 7 or 8 because of malnutrition. The guy let him stay at his Garage and so he learnt everything about cars, one of his biggest passions, after Flamengo, one of the biggest Brazilian Football teams. He played football very well and it was playing alongside my uncle that he met my Mum at the tender age of 16, she was only 13. At first she didn't want anything to do with him as she wanted to be an artist and a singer but as persistant as he was he kept saying he was one day going to marry her until she fell for his Italian looking charm. My Dad was always a fighter, he was determined to give my Brother and I everything he never had as a child and so he did, not just to us but to all our friends. Everybody who knows him knows his joy is to give, for nothing in return.

Friends who shared the stage with us know we would always gather at our place for eating and drinking at any time of day or night. He famously bought a bakery display of sweets with 20 containers which decorated our kitchen and was always full. All friends loved to come in and just open the containers satisfying a hidden childhood dream in everyone, eating as many as you wanted.

After working for nearly 50 years he retired and enjoyed some time off with us in Europe when he received a letter from the Brazilian Government that his pension would be cut because there was fraud in the department that issued it. He has been fighting for the last three years to prove his innocence and have his deserved pension back and in the meantime to survive he sells with my Mum sugar cane juice and pastries at a street market, they work really hard and do not have much but never lost their giving personality, they find joy in giving.

I don't believe my Dad ever thought or desired that we were commercially successful, I think in his mind he would provide for us forever, that's what he would have wanted, he is ashamed of taking anything from us but I am absolutely certain he would love for our music to be recognized, to be listened to, for every body's music to be listened to. You could always see him with tears in his eyes when he saw some story of musicians or artists who never made it in life but suddenly got a later break or something of the sort. Perhaps his own story would have made him sensitive to the hardships of life.

As Max is recovering in hospital we would like to play a song we made for him called Sugar Cane, just like he is, so sweet!

Sugar Cane (Willesden Green) by Loosh

Come back to us safe and sound Max, we love you!

Paulo, Simone and Tayo (sign your name below) Your children on children's day

The 7 luckiest moments in our history in no particular order

After the 13 unluckiest moments now the 7 luckiest ones, not that we had more unlucky ones but just to keep in with the tradition of the numbers, after all we love the number 7!

1 - It has to be to start with the day Tayo came to visit us in our flat in Niteroi and the whole musical adventure started

2 - Our first Gig, seeing all the familiar and unfamiliar faces watching us, listening to our songs and applauding our work, a very unforgettable feeling

3 - When our song "Primeira Pessoa" was played for the first time in a mainstream radio from Rio without our knowledge and caught unexpected on the car radio

4 - The rehearsal when the boys had the idea of making a mixture of Brazilian and Indie, the style that still remains with us today

5 - Our Gig at "Circo Voador" in Rio opening for a signed bigger band, Picassos Falsos, which counted with 1.500 people. Our songs were very well received

6 - Our Gig at the Fulham Greyhound in London, a really cult place at the time, also a great reception

7 - Rough Trade Records, one of our favourites having an interest in us, even if their financial difficulties at the time didn't allow for us to be signed, it was the recognition that we were good (and weird) enough for them that was priceless

The 13 Most Unlucky Moments in our History in no particular order

1 – We did an awful lot of work to promote a 3 day gig for 6 new bands at the UFF Student Union in Niteroi, Rio de Janeiro, and the day we played it rained cats and dogs, the streets were flooded and 3 people showed up for the gig. Still it was great to share the stage with our friends from Eterno Grito.

2 – When leaving the Robin Hood Pub, in Rio de Janeiro, after a gig, under loads of rain, the road was slippery and the guys crashed their car. They had to wait for hours for help and ended up having to walk miles soaking wet but thankfully no one was seriously hurt!

3 – After three successful gigs at the Rock Garden in London Paulo decided to go see the Manager to request a weekend date. The Manager answered he was sorry but the weekend was for Indie music only. Paulo said that we were Indie to which the Manager replied: "Yeah right, you and Carmen Miranda!"

4 – We decided to have a drink after our rehearsal in Botafogo, Rio de Janeiro. When we came back we found someone had broken into our car. We could actually see the thieves as they run away carrying our keyboards. All the sounds I used for the songs were programmed by myself so none of the songs sounded the same again.

5 – We went on stage at a piano bar in Rio and there were 2 people for an audience, not counting the waiters of course. Tayo was drunk and insisted on playing the piano. Paulo just wanted the set to end. Incredibly enough one of the two people we had never seen before. Years later this person bumped into Brent in the street and mentioned he really enjoyed the gig!

6 – After finishing the sound check for a gig in Rio, Paulo popped out for a drink and found Herbert Viana in the queue at the venue ticket box set. He was a famous Brazilian front man to a Brazilian band called Paralamas do Sucesso who were also embarking in the same Brazilian rock style we were at the time and it would be a great promotion for us if a more famous musician enjoyed our work. Paulo spent the whole night looking for him amongst the faces in the public but he didn't think he was in.

7 – We got on stage at a funk club in the suburbs of Rio. The place was packed but the crowd was motionless as soon as we started playing, as they realised we did not play “reggaeton”. I think out of a full club there were two people clapping at the end with the rest of the crowd eyeing them in anger, I feared for my life honestly!

8 - Sergio got run over and broke his femur in 3 different places requiring several operations in 1988.

9 - Rough Trade Records got interested in our work just before it went bankrupt in 1991.

10 - We actually won a competition of best band at the Robin Hood Pub and a recording but the prize was never given out.

11 - We got a review from a demo section on NME Magazine with a really grumpy cow whose only purpose was to put down unsigned bands in the best way she could. Thankfully some links to our tracks were also published along with the review and we got some fans who decided not to trust her and listened to the tracks.

12 - While returning from a rehearsal in Rio Paulo and I got stuck in a tunnel during a shoot out between Police and robbers. The longest few minutes of my life. When they were gone we got up from the bottom of the car where we had been ducking down and checked out for any blood, thank God all still tucked in carefully into our veins!

13 - We are still unsigned, but many people say they appreciate our music, now this bit is up to you to change, forward this blog to your friends and spread our songs, our music is our life, we would love to see it grow and see it loved.

There's no luck, there's no chance everything turns out the way it was meant to be

I think the Mill fans the creator when he throws his dice every night after midnight

Happy 25th Anniversary!!!

It's today!! Friday the 13th August 2010 our 25th anniversary.

To celebrate we are launching this podcast with 7 lucky songs each one of them a remake Loosh style for the 7 different stages of our career. We are not going to charge you to download our tracks but would you consider donating $1, that's it, just one American Dollar to the Autism Treatment Center of America - Home of the Son-Rise Program?

I have myself been running a Son-Rise Program for my autistic son for the last five years with amazing results. If you donate for our songs, as a present for us, just one dollar and invite all your friends to do the same we could together help the Autism Treatment Center of America to donate scholarships for more families like mine.

Make Friday the 13th a lucky day for autism:

http://www.autismtreatmentcenter.org/document.php?documentid=52&sectionid=7

"The Autism Treatment Center of America™ is the worldwide teaching center for The Son-Rise Program® , a powerful, effective and totally unique treatment for children and adults challenged by Autism, Autism Spectrum Disorders, Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD), Asperger's Syndrome , and other developmental difficulties. Our team of committed teachers combines Autism strategies, support and education that combines over 100 years of “real life” experience working with children using The Son-Rise Program®. Over the last 27 years we have worked with more than 22,000 parents and professionals from around the world teaching them a system of treatment and education. We do not put limits on the possibilities for your child. We can help you to bring your child as far across the bridge from Autism to recovery as possible. For some, this means complete recovery. For others, this means improvements in their child's development, human connection, communication, skill acquisition and quality of life far beyond what most would have ever predicted."Autism Treatment Center of America
2080 S. Undermountain Road Sheffield MA
01257413-2292100

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1 - Dreams and Lies is a Loosh song
2 - Seedless Grapes in the Morning is an original recording by Seven Miles High
3 - Victoria She Was is a remake Forro (North Eastern Brazilian) style representing Dancyn Days
4 - King's Road to Rio is a remake of Rio Sightseeing representing Felix Fritz
5 - Tres Mulheres is sang in Portuguese and is representing Kaddish
6 - Mess is a remake of Cleopatra Morreu and is representing Kafka
7 - Procissao is sang in Portuguese and is representing Colonia Penal

Thank you so much for celebrating our anniversary by listening to our tracks and helping a great cause. Enjoy the tracks!

Luz Taylor

Picture Albums - England

If you have any pictures to add message me here please.

Felix Fritz

Dancyn Days

Zen Arcade/Secen Miles High

Loosh

Picture albums - Brazil

These are all the pictures that we could find if you have any pictures to share from the time please let me know through a comment on this blog.

From the beginning

Colonia Penal and Kafka

Kaddish

Redskins/Zen Arcade

Videos

Tayo A.K.A. Kat Stoopid is the author of the Four videos we've made.

Dreams and Lies is a montage of some very old obscure version of The Wizard of Oz which coincidentally fits if not metaphorically, literally to what the lyrics say

Dreams and Lies


Loosh (Luz) MySpace Music Videos

Bath Houses features a very snowy home video and some clever drawing montages emphasizing my favourite part of the lyrics: The Holy Spirit, Whole in Spirit, Spirit with the hole, I'm just the hole.


Bath Houses


Loosh (Luz) MySpace Music Videos
Maria Del Mar was a video created to celebrate Iemanja's Day on the 2nd of February, it talks about Iemanja the Goddess of the Sea who is part of Afro-Brazilian religions and of Brazilian Folklore.

And finally Quarta Feira de Cinzas which means Ash Wednesday, originally made in Portuguese, was launched on Ash Wednesday, the last day of Carnival in Rio, 2010 displaying real Carnival scenes when Tayo and his family and friends paraded with one of the Samba schools in Rio and also the sinking of a ship, which for those thinking, why, it is because of a play with words in Portuguese in the chorus: "So sobrou voce" means "you were the only one left" while "sosobrou" means "sank".



We intend to launch more videos, follow us on Facebook or one of the links on the right hand side of this blog and we will keep you updated with any new releases.

Something I've Lost

Our second album was called Something I've Lost and it features 3 women on the sleeve perhaps as a reference to the song "Tres Mulheres" which in Portuguese means "Three Women"

Track List:

1. Eerie - Originally called Spirit of the Rattlesnake, it possibly talks about Tayo's connection with Brazilian Indians in his distant family, a very fine example of Brazilian Indie music

2. The Girl from Sacramento - Written after Tayo's trip to Japan and the realization that our Portuguese version of "isn't it?" or "né?" is exactly the same in Japanese. A fine Bossa Nova in homage of the people who love Brazilian music like any other.

3. Procissão - Written in Portuguese, one of our first songs from Colonia Penal times, although the vocal melody from Brent Hieatt was kept almost intact with some minor changes, the song under Loosh was completely changed from a dark post punk rendition to a great Samba Indie version

4. Springtime - Springtime was originally written in Portuguese with the title "March of the flowers" and was cleverly translated into English

5. Bath Houses - A beautiful acoustic song it features my favourite lyrics: "The Holy Spirit, whole in spirit, spirit with the hole, I'm just the hole.

6. Song for a Married Girl - Speculation has it that Tayo has written this one to his Mother but no one will ever know, he doesn't discuss the meaning of his lyrics, when I sing them I give them the meaning it has to me. Although sang in English it features some chorus vocals in Portuguese.

7. Maria Del Mar - It talks about the weird fact that I hated having my hair cut (probably an autistic sensory issue I wasn't aware of) and actually got physically ill when I did it. It's a Homage to the Goddess of the sea Iemanja to whom Brazilians offer flowers on New Years Day. She supposedly gives voice to female singers. It features an extract of a popular song to Iemanja sang in rituals of Afro-Brazilian religions.

8. Tomorrow - Sounds almost a bit Spanish I wonder if it is a homage to Paulo's Spanish Citizenship and love for the Country.

9. The Head that bangs the Drums - One of my favourite songs it has many vocal layers in English and Portuguese and a very onomatopoeic chorus I invented which actually makes sense "O paradeiro do pandeiro, o paradeiro do pandeiro do Para" sounds like scatting when sang but it means where's the tamborine from Para? (A State in Brazil), well I said it made sense not that it was meaningful, but it sounds good.

10. Tres Mulheres - From Kafka times, it is sang in Portuguese, it features a very uptempo jazzy piano and rhythm.

11. August - The month of our anniversary also a month of loss for Tayo, a beautiful slow samba.

12. Emptyness - One of the songs from the titles I gave to Tayo to write about, a beautiful acoustic rendition from Seven Miles High times.

Loosh is an unsigned band
All our work is only available as download
This album is available for download by request
If you are a publisher or label and would like to publish our songs please contact Simone Taylor

msttaylor@virginmedia.com

First Station

The first album we recorded as Loosh was called First Station after the name given by Cartola, one of Tayo's favourite Brazilian composers, to the Samba school he was the Patron for, Mangueira. He called the Samba School First Station (Estação Primeira de Mangueira) because Mangueira was situated at the first stop from the train taken at Central do Brasil, famous for the Film with the same name.

List of tracks:

1. Magda K - The meaning of the title only Tayo knows. It was originally written by Kaddish and completely changed in its new arrangement. It resembles a patchwork quilt with its mixture of lyrics in English, Portuguese and nonsense scatting in a trip-hop style with dreamy keyboards. It was once called Fox and Hounds but as I mentioned earlier Tayo prefers that the title of the song does not appear on the lyrics.

2 - Dreams and Lies - Originally from Dancyn' Days, the vocal melody of the new version was changed so much that we really attribute it to Loosh. It's my favourite song in a California Soul/Bossa Nova style beginning with the sampled sound of our beautiful sea and seagulls. It was the first song to get a video made for it.

3 - Joker of Hearts - The title was translated from Portuguese "Coringa de Copas" which rendered its short introduction in Portuguese as a homage when I mix the word Copas with Copacabana. It was conceived as a Brazilian Disco track with the dance floor in mind. It marks the first time I made the vocal melody instead of Paulo.

4 - Kings Road to Rio - It's a mash-up from the song originally from Kaddish called Rio Sightseeing and the lyrics from Kings Road never recorded before. It features the sample of Cartola's voice stating he was born in Rio de Janeiro. It has a reggae feel to it or what is called in Brazil Samba -Reggae. I added an extra English/Portuguese part to it that resembles a lot of the homage music made for Rio de Janeiro by foreign artists in the 70's and 80's.

5 - Sleepiness Inside - One of the songs written at the time I gave titles for Tayo to write lyrics from, during Zen Arcade/Seven Miles High times it has a Northeastern folk tone to it played in a 10-string guitar aided by a squeezebox sound.

6 - Mess - It features the song and schizophrenic guitars from Cleopatra Morreu, a song from Kaddish times, a samba rhythm, Brazilian percussion but lyrics and melody from another song never recorded before. It also features a very Morrisey type of singing chorus and the chorus in Portuguese from Cleopatra Morreu in Vocoder style, perhaps the title makes sense but just like a teenager bedroom it is a mess that does make sense to its owner.

7 - Umba Neme - Originally from Kaddish it features a Berimbau, instrument from the Martial Art Capoeira and the African like sounds typical from the state of Bahia and words in Yoruba. It's one of the most nonsense lyrics we have, featuring words mainly for its sonority. "Neme" is a word created by our circle of friends in the 80's which is a contraction of "Não é mesmo?" which works as the English slang "innit?"

8 - Islands - Originally written by Dancyn' Days is the only song I have ever written from scratch on the bass, with Loosh it was incorporated into a Samba School "Batucada".

9 - The Right Time - Also from Seven Miles High it wasn't changed much from its original acoustic guitar voice and percussion format, a beautiful acoustic song.

10 - Again - Another one from Seven Miles High Times, it had a beautiful "Cuica" incorporated in its 60's dreamy layers of guitars and keyboards.

11 - Construction - A mix of samba and contemporary trip-hop and dance music, an instrumental featuring again Cartola stating he was born in Rio de Janeiro and more extracts of his interview.

12 - Victoria She was - From Dancyn' Days, originally almost a punk rendition, under Loosh a true homage to North Eastern music or Forro mixed with schizophrenic guitars. One of the songs that most exemplify our aim as Kaddish/Felix Fritz/Loosh of being a true Brazilian Indie Band.

Loosh is an unsigned band

All our work is only available as download

This album is available for download by request

If you are a publisher or label and would like to publish our songs please contact Simone Taylor

msttaylor@virginmedia.com

Camera, Loosh, Action

Continued from blog 18 - Going back to our roots...

Loosh, the English pronunciation of Luz, which means light in Portuguese, also our surname, well, Paulo and mine, is our current musical venture. Loosh still carries the same core proposition as Kaddish did, the one Tayo mentioned in his interview - We make Brazilian Rock, not rock sang in Portuguese.

Loosh differs from Kaddish however in a great number of aspects, we are older (some say too old :oP), more mature and have been exposed to different styles of both Brazilian and Indie Music that we hadn't been at Kaddish times. Although Tayo's lyrics were surprisingly mature for a teenager in Colonia Penal Times it was really while leaving in Europe that he developed into a writing machine, writing in English with the same power as in his native Portuguese. Between Paulo and Tayo they have so many songs/lyrics it could fill enough singles that lined up would circle the globe.

At first, when Tayo started to write in English, he invented that his lyrics were donated to us by a Welsh Poet who wished to stay anonymous, which we nicknamed James Eliot. Surprisingly, since no one knew Tayo was writing the lyrics we never received any criticism of any "mistakes" or misspellings. It's amazing how people will find nothing to criticize about when they are not looking for mistakes. We also noticed when we just presented people our music amongst other people's music nobody noticed any difference in relation to my voice, but tell them I am Brazilian and they will instantly look for an accent to comment on. If Goldfrapp's singer were foreign everybody would criticize the way she doesn't pronounce words very well or how the lyrics are unintelligible, the same goes for Liz Frazer who would be accused of making up words because she forgot the lyrics, or something of the sort, but since they are British it's all artistic and beautiful. For some reason I do not know, maybe I was English in another reincarnation and have some left over nationalist pride in my subconscious, who knows, but if you want to infuriate me, tell me my accent is strong, I think I would get less cross if you said I sang out of tune!

Although we've written many songs under the Loosh title we also decided to revisit songs from our career since Colonia Penal times, rescuing them from obscurity and giving them new clothing. Some of them assumed a completely new format such as the song Procissão, while some others were mashed up together like Rio Sightseeing and King's Road to become From King's Road to Rio and we also made up a few cover versions all following our must be rule for cover making:
There's no point in making a cover exactly the same as the original. We always made sure we put our stamp on a song, in some cases, as the cover of Welcome to the Machine from Pink Floyd, our stamp is a freak Brazilian voiced beat box for drums, sounds crazy but sounds good.


Welcome to the Machine (Pink Floyd cover) by Loosh

Other covers include Bed of Nails from Husker Du, Leave Me Alone from New Order in Bossa Nova style, Lady Stardust from David Bowie and That's the Way from Led Zeppelin in Forro style.

We went back to our Brazilian Roots because since I listened to a lot of Brazilian Jazz at home because of my DJ Husband I couldn't help singing in that style, but it so happens that at the moment he is really into Folk, California Soul artists like Alzo, Alicia May or modern ones like Jonathan Jeremiah and Jon Allan so you never know we might just become Seven Miles High again!

It has been a great journey to write, almost every day in 19 days what took 25 years of my life. I hope you have laughed, cried and enjoyed our story, but stay put as for the next 6 blogs until our anniversary on Friday the 13th August we will discuss all the songs from our first and second albums, our new songs, our videos, there will be a photo gallery and finally an anniversary surprise. Thank you for listening, we apologize for any inconvenience caused (I've learnt to say this at the end of every statement since living in Britain), we can guarantee no animals were harmed during the production of this blog, although the squirrel in the garden did go nuts a couple of days without nuts, and this blog does contain Brazil nuts.

...To be continued in real life, real time

Pictures: 1 - Nuria Sanchez, 2 - Unknown, 3 - Katia Haider, 4 - Simone Taylor

Going Back to our Roots

Continued from Blog 17 - Virtually Speaking...

... The Year 2000, a New Year, Decade, Century, Millennium, when washing my feet at Copacabana Beach at midnight Kissing my Husband and worrying about Y2K, that never really happened, I never anticipated so many changes the decade would bring, 9-11, Barack Obama, my son, who was diagnosed autistic at 3 years old, still so many wars and more recession.

Some great change was about to hit our music too. While I was with Paulo rehearsing we wrote many songs but when back home I would listen to a lot of Brazilian Jazz from my DJ Husband whose music choice was influencing me without my knowledge. More and more we started to notice my singing sounded more like Bebel Gilberto than Natalie Merchant, more and more people would comment on the sites we had our music on, about my "Bossa Nova Style of singing". Without noticing we started to slip into our Felix Fritz roots again.

When that natural inclination of being Brazilian came through our work we decided to leave Seven Miles High aside as an alternate work for the boys, perhaps they could look for another singer for it and invest in working on what I did best, singing Bossa Nova style on top of a Brazilian Indie mixture such as in Felix Fritz times but a bit more sophisticated with a tinge of jazzy chords not to mention technology now permitted us programming perfectly sampled sounds of drums and percussion.

And so was born LUZ, we chose our surname, Paulo and mine, because it means light in Portuguese, we are known by it and we liked the sound of it and although it excluded Tayo, by this time we were almost like siblings anyway he didn't mind.

We kept it that way for a while until non-Brazilians started giving all sorts of pronunciation to the name and we decided to give them a hand and spell it as it is pronounced in English LOOSH. As you've probably guessed there is at least another one out there that we know of, in California I think, and yes they have more hits on myspace than we do. Can somebody go visit that site and raise those hits for us, this is getting annoying. No we are not going to change name again, we've changed more times than Madonna changes clothes in her gigs, perhaps not that many, but enough is enough. Let's race it and see who gets famous first, no don't count the myspace page, that's not fair! I think even my Husband has more hits on myspace than us, does anyone visit that damn page?

Now the journey really starts for we've seen the light...

...to be continued

Pictures: 1 - Croydon Advertiser, 2 - Soter França, 3 - Paulo Nunes

Virtually Speaking...

Continued from blog 16 - 7 and 7 is...

... Now as 7 Miles High playing gigs had become a thing of the past, being our last gig one of the Park Royal ones back in 1990, almost a decade before and still with the 5 member formation. As a singer I had never stepped on stage. We are not exactly against gigs but I think the world should rethink music formats and mediums. If you take acting for example, Cinema, Theatre and Television are completely different mediums. I happen to like the three of them but they are generally accepted by everyone individually in their own right. Some stories will be better portrayed in the Cinema while others will have the Theatre as their best vehicle. There's music that only sounds good recorded. I absolutely love New Order, but they definitely don't sound as good live. I think The Stone Roses are one of the best bands ever to grace the face of the Earth but Ian Brown did sing completely out of tune in a gig Tayo watched. People expect all bands to play live, but if you have a studio work, layers upon layers of music played by the same person all you are going to get on stage is recorded music with the singer singing on top, which is not the same as a live band. Why can't people accept that a band exists just as a studio work? In the digital era where people date online, shop online do everything online, why do bands need to play live to exist? This is the question we asked ourselves as for us it was not just a matter of personal preference but inability to live in the same country. so in 1999 at the dawn of the new Millennium we totally embraced the world phenomenon called the Internet.



We were already on many sites it had been a long time thanks to Tayo early use of computers and computer programming. Sites did not have easy access to bands, if you wanted to have a page on a site you had to write it in html and not everybody could do it. In 1999 I bought my first home computer and started creating a community for Seven Miles High in several sites mainly on the site, not so popular nowadays, mp3.com



It was on mp3.com that I met fellow band The Plain Healers from New Jersey which has amazing songwriting and lyrics. We found a great parallel with our stories and recently Tayo even played as a guest in one of their gigs playing sitar of all things.

During our Internet years we generated loads of traffic to our pages and sites and won popularity contests such as the Burbs soundroom. It was gratifying to be able to be listened to in several parts of the world and have messages being sent to us from Canada, United States, Japan or China, Countries we would never be able to reach in our unsigned situation. Now we could just record our songs and put them online and people all over the world could listen to them.


What at first was a novelty then became Record Companies and musicians nightmare as now no one pays for listening to music anymore. What helped us also now limits our ability to earn a living as a musician, a tricky question that the world is trying to answer inventing different formats and ways of preventing people from pirating tracks but so far it seems music is free to the world to listen to.

This format remains with us today as only after a few years Paulo and I were together in England our famous recession hit again and he got transferred to Madrid so now we are still in three different countries, at first myself in England, Paulo in Spain and Tayo in Sweden but Tayo got transferred to America and has been there for the last 2 years. Even though we wouldn't change format there was still one more change up our sleeve, we decided to go back to our roots...

...To be continued

Seven Miles High Logo by Soter França

7 and 7 is

Continued from blog 15 - One of Us is in the Wrong Place...

...There was always the number 7 story. One of those stories that you don't want to cling to, half of you not wanting to sound like a superstitious fool and half of you in fear of a disappointment so what you do is you entirely believe in it! Isn't that always the case? Tell me what you have to lose? If you end up with nothing you will be no worse than what you had to start with, it's the Dr. Pepper principle of blind faith, what's the worst that could happen? Although if you do ask that question you will find that there's always a "worse" so you better be grateful for what you have now.

In my native Brazil you don't need to go to a seance or consult a fortune-teller to know about your future, your own friends, anybody, will volunteer information you haven't even asked. The Spiritualist faith or philosophy is the second faith in the country after Christianism and it takes all forms from Kardecism, the ones who simply study and follow the studies of Allan Kardec, a French philosopher who communicated with spirits, the many forms of African religions, brought to Brazil by African slaves in the 19th Century, such as Candomble and Umbanda and even the Shamanism of Brazilian Indians. One could say Brazilians are very superstitious, but in my opinion Brazilians just have a lot of faith, which I think comes from that feeling of what the heck, what have I got to lose? Poverty has this freedom, when you have nothing, you have nothing to lose so you might as well believe in the impossible.

I have had many things said about my future. I don't happen to believe in a set future, I think you make your own future, there's free will, but I think there's a plan. We mere mortals have a plan for everything, for building a house, my to do list for today, now if I am going to do everything in that list, that's another question, that's when my free will comes in, but there's a list. So I believe in a list for our lives and that some people have the power to hack into that list and reveal some items of it for you. Everything that was volunteered about my future came true, although it is always volunteered in a riddle form so you only come to think of it when it actually happens. One of the most remarkable predictions was about my husband. I used to date a Welsh man when I first lived in England, we split up, or in his words, we had never actually dated as such, (men!) just before I returned to Brazil in 1992. While I was still here I was told this message "Don't cry, go back home because your English man is going to knock on your door". Although my ex-never-been-boyfriend was Welsh, I thought well, spirits can't be that specific geographically so I thought they were talking about him. He did go and visit me in Brazil in January 1994 but it was a total disaster, but in August that same year my English Husband did knock on my door, I met him inside my house, amazing. Another incredible prediction was that I was told I would have a son that spoke in a very distinctive incomprehensible way, which I thought referred to the fact that my son would be foreign, English, but in fact my son is 8 years old and he can't speak yet for he is severely autistic. What he says is in fact distinctive and incomprehensible, not only to Brazilians, but to anyone. I won't list every prediction that went right in my life but the one that has never come true, the number 7 story. I was told that we would be successful in our music venture after the number 7. Now what does that mean? 7 years? When we have 7 members? 7 records? After 7 World Wars? Whatever it was it seemed we were in it for the long haul!

When I was debating the name Zen Arcade this story came to my mind and I thought, ok we have been waiting for a long time anyway so why not give destiny a hand and name our band something with the number 7? We had also received a really sympathetic answer back from an independent label who seemed to have enjoyed our work, but couldn't afford hiring anyone at that moment. Among many compliments they did suggest that having your band named after someone Else's record or song is quite misleading. I thought that was my cue to intensify my demands to change our name and since naming after another band's song or album was not in I suggested 7 Miles High, after the Byrds' song 8 Miles High, which also sort of fit with our record of being an "almost" band, always "almost" there but not quite.

The name was catchy and people seemed to like it, but guess what, there was another, perhaps the reason behind calling themselves 7 Miles High wasn't as Paranormal as ours, but still there they were, but this time we just ignored them!

After our disappointing deal with Flat Records in 1997 we decided we should really try to be together as although technology was evolving and we were more and more able to make tracks nobody believed were home made or that we were in different places, at times it started to really feel as if our band didn't exist. I started to influence my English boyfriend, who I lived with in Holland, to move to Britain where Paulo was. Even though Tayo was in Sweden, if at least we were together we could do a bit more. Tayo was always proficient with computers but Paulo and I always struggled and we thought we could do more live. I got married in 1998 but still had to wait until 1999 to get my visa and move back to London where I live until today.

During this period when Paulo and I lived less than a mile from each other we rediscovered the joy of playing together and I discovered the joy of making music, as so far I would only sing what I was told to do as Paulo would write the music and voice melody to Tayo's lyrics, but this time I took the challenge of fitting Tayo's lyrics into Paulo's songs and I really enjoyed doing so.

We've written many beautiful songs at this time following a funny method, I would think of song titles, send them to Tayo then he would write lyrics for those titles. Sometimes what I would have thought a title meant was completely different from what he came up with. We have recently as a challenge done just the other way round when I got to write my first set of lyrics to titles he volunteered to me for his solo work Xingu.

It was also at this time that a revolution took hold of the world and we were one of the first bands to jump on it, The World Wide Web...

To be continued...

Pictures: 1 - Soter França, 2 and 3 - Paulo Nunes