Marissa Nadler

At this agency I work for, we book an artist called Marissa Nadler. I recently saw her play a solo set at our Autumn Falls festival at the Botanique in Brussels and was impressed by her songs, her sound, as well as her amazing voice. My taste in voices usually reflects my personality: kinda chill mostly. But from time to time some of those “other” voices manage to slip through the cracks. I’m thinking Robert Smith, I’m thinking Tanya Donnelly, I’m thinking Marissa Nadler. The eeriness in her music perfectly counterbalances the sunny situation I've currently immersed myself in: early afternoon shower, switching off the spray and hearing that haunting voice resonate through a cool hotel room (I'm currently on holiday if you hadn't figured out). As of now she’s one of those rare artists welcome to shine a light in the darker regions of my soul. A nice anecdote about her is from a friend who went up to her after one of her shows telling her she had been playing her music while giving birth for the first time. Instead of simply thanking her for the compliment Marissa, startled, briefly replied: “Poor child” Not as a joke but honestly expressing compassion. That unambiguous earnestness sorta sums up her music for me. 

Fly, my pretty, fly!

Ok so the bird’s been released. The video for my song ‘I’m A Bird’ that is. Finally! 

I woke up one fine April morning with the idea of visually combining lyrics, content and instrumentation for that song. We’re seven months later now. What took so long? I remember sitting in my living room together with my songwriting pal Jo on a mid-Spring Friday and Saturday eve taking pictures of shiny colorful letters meticulously placed on the back of a black t-shirt to the tones of some Spanish guy and his favorite eighties tunes and drinks. 

The next day my bass player friend Stoffel patiently shot one hot day’s worth of footage in that same living room of me playing all sorts of orthodox and less orthodox instruments featured in the song, while also being careful not to include my weary eyes. 

As a rookie, I took a moderately successful stab at quickly editing all of this. I edited at my desk, in bed, on trains, at a friend's place, in a crowded Barcelona flat during Primavera, kinda anywhere really. 

After that, it was time to get reacquainted with a childhood buddy Julian, who can do some of the meanest Robert Crumbesque animations I know of. He firmly refused all possible sort of compensation. Except for having his drawing sessions accompanied by a nice bottle of white wine. Or two! Three? I don’t remember.. Anyway, all of this was very promising until some very tragic personal stuff got in the way. Everything got postponed until suddenly I realized Summer had passed me by again and I was still at square one. 

I got in touch with some cartoonists to fill my friend’s huge shoes and ended up getting recommended to Evelien, someone I knew very well and whose work I’ve always loved but whom initially honestly didn't even come to mind. Funny how these things go, especially considering the way it turned out. She walked into that same hot living room, end of September now. Along with my pal Cedric we taped my uncle's tripod carrying my friend David's camera on top of my desk, aimed some powerful lights at the white ceiling and pushed record so Evelien, sitting at the desk, could do her thang. While lying down in my lazy couch, giving scarce instructions, I could monitor Evelien’s progressions on my flat screen tv and got really enthusiastic about what I saw. After some trials and errors on Saturday we wrapped everything up by 5pm on Sunday. 

I got in touch with the nicest folks at Villabasta who agreed to help out editing. Tom, this dude that edited, was very skilled and amazingly quick at executing whatever I was hinting at. After a couple of days of editing we came to the best possible compromise and here it is. All ready, for your viewing pleasure. So fly, my pretty, fly!

Generational gaps

So later on tonight, joined by my good songwriter friend Frank, I will be doing my first little acoustic radio session leading up to promoting my upcoming debut E.P. The people at Maxha radio set up a stage and invited me to afterwards join in on a jam session made up of students enrolled at the local rock and pop music academy. I politely declined. Sincerely, still not having bothered to try and master the most primal of blues scales, I see myself as the person least fit for teaming up with a bunch of young, talented and eager musicians going on a jam bender. However paradoxical, I'm sure Frank will feel exactly the same. 

Another thing is that this session triggers the fact of me being really curious about how my music will go down with a younger generation. A generation of music lovers whose passion got sparked via a standard internet connection and a network of peers, granting them access to an all-extensive audiovisual music library. I’m sure there’s going to be overlaps in taste but obviously our backgrounds will rightfully be substantially different. Nevertheless, I’m curious about whether our views on what relevant new music entails, correspond. I’ve always loved a good combination of melody, songs and contemporary lyrics with an interesting subject or angle. I truly do believe this should bridge any generational gap. I sure do hope so. And if not, I’ll work on it. And I will let you read about it. Here. At the ordinary life of marco z. As always. Bridging our generational gaps. 

trademark tom morgan

Ok so why not admit it up front? The Lemonheads, era 1992-1994, completely changed my life. Seeing an utterly stoned out of his brains but charmingly cheerful Evan Dando play that 2 minutes love ditty ‘Into Your Arms’ at Ray Cokes’ MTV’s Most Wanted with an old acoustic guitar holding only five strings, in the midst of grunge rock nirvana, was as revelational to me as what it must have been like to American kids in the sixties seeing the Beatles play the Ed Sullivan Show.

What I didn’t know back then was that ‘Into Your Arms’ was written by the band’s Ozzie bass player Nic Dalton and his sometime girlfriend Robyn St Claire. Nic Dalton also had his own Sydney record label, called Half A Cow. Among many great bands, it harboured Smudge, which was fronted by a lanky type singer-songwriter Tom Morgan. When the equally lanky type singer-songwriter Evan Dando and Tom Morgan met, an almost instantaneous golden songwriting partnership came to being, resulting in Morgan contributing to about half the songs on The Lemonheads’ two most successful records and eventually giving the band the stylistic consistency and direction they so desperately needed to break through.

Fast forward to September 2011 when Lou Barlow’s Sebadoh came back to Sydney. Smudge were invited to open and moshcam.com recorded their whole show. Admittedly, watching this footage made me realize how much they stand out against temporary bands in terms of sloppiness. As a longtime fan I also could have done less with hearing mediocre renditions of all but mediocre songs. But nearing the end of the set their new(ish) song ‘Mess With The Bull’ finally gave me crystal clear confirmation that my ongoing teenage crush on this band was completely justified. Not just because they had the coolest drummer chick in the world. Not just because they came from a sunshine paradise populated by people speaking the funniest sounding English accent in the world. But because when I hear this new song in all its freshness I realize that their chief songwriter is one of those few people that actually sets the virtual bar whenever I myself am trying desperately hard to add melody, not too obvious chord progressions and the odd killer line together. And whenever I see such a thing happen on stage, who am I to judge about sloppiness, overly clean guitars and mediocre renditions?

MESS WITH THE BULL/SMUDGE

marco z's ticket into blogging

well i never thought i would get into this blogging gig but here i am. if you must now, this is how i got my ticket in.

i recently finished editing a video for my upcoming debut single/e.p. 'i'm a bird' i am set on spreading around the web and i was told to check out blogs to get some exposure. since i've never been too much involved in these things (mainly because of the sheer quantity of them and my primal fear of getting "lost") i assumed this would become nothing less than a cynical affair where i would need to shamelessly surrender to unilateral self-promotion. little did i know that these past three days of "research" have been my personal pop musical renaissance discovering and rediscovering all the stuff i loved as a teenager and which i had assumed would forever stay out of my focus. up until the wee hours i got pleasantly entangled into a web spun by guys and girls putting hours of work and dedication into sharing whatever they consider their lives are worth living for. all this has given me the urge to try and give something back that will hopefully give anyone (even if it's just one single person) a hint of the same sensation i'm currently going through. it's not going to be completely similar i'm sure - i'm really set on getting my own music out there too - however i do like sharing whatever i think is worthwhile noticing and i do like writing. add to that my current state of self-confidence and you've got yourself marco z's ticket into blogging right here.