(the long awaited) Artist of the Week VII

It’s back!! Finally.. I bet you thought you would never see another TES Artist of the Week but at long last we’ve gotten our act together. Sorry about the delays and hope you enjoy:

“Él soñaba sobre el tiempo   (He was dreaming over time)

Flotando como un velero      (Floating like a sailboat)

Nadie puede abrir semillas  (No one can crack open seeds)

En el corazón del sueño”      (In the heart of this dream)

This week’s Artist of the Week comes all the way from the south of Spain. A singer with an incomparable voice, a true master and innovator of his craft, he is credited with transforming and reviving a genre, flamenco, that appeared to be in serious danger of dying out near the end of the twentieth century. While some purists criticized him for his revolutionary style, mixing his music with elements of jazz and rock, at his death he was widely celebrated as a beloved figure within the Spanish Romani community. Struck down by pulmonary cancer due to years of aggressive smoking and recreational drug use at the relatively young age of 41, the news of his death came as a shock to many of his fans.

It’s been a full five years since I first heard one of his recordings and it still gives me goose bumps. Listening to his music, it’s hard not to feel yourself pulled into another world. A world of swirling beautiful colors and intense emotions. A world of confident swaying bodies in motion. And above all else, a world of survivors. The Romani people have suffered much throughout their history and yet they still continue strong and proud in their traditions, history and way of life. They are still able to produce music full of grace, power and soul, qualities our current Artist of the Week possesses in abundance. That is why I am proud to present without further ado the one and only: Camarón de la Isla.

- Carlos de la Gringa

TES Artist of the Week VI

Once upon a time, I was reading a book, a collection of short stories. I didn’t know who the author was, but the title and the cover looked promising. In the first short story, a little girl says, “I like you Bukowski. Tell me a story!”

“Well, all right. Jump here on my legs. So… There is this little girl. Alone. In a forest. With an old man…”

The mother comes over, “Bukowski!!! Hands off of my daughter, you pervert!”

All the other stories are about this author who pretends that he is constantly writing in his smoky apartment. The protagonist turns out to be a drunken womanizer, involved in the most terribly sordid love affairs with fat women, middle-aged hags and young prostitutes. This lazy guy, who find himself in the midst of all these crazy adventures, gambles on horse races and spends his money as fast as he can drink it. It soon becomes hard to believe that the “unknown” writer, Henry Chanaski, protagonist of all the stories, is anyone other than Bukowski himself.

So you’re probably wondering what’s so interesting about this guy? Well, it’s amazing how his brilliant short stories are capable of teaching the fundamental truths of everyday life through the tales of the scum of the earth.

I know that I’m a little bit late with this, but nevertheless I am pleased to present as the 6^th TES Artist of the Week, American poet, novelist, and short story writer, Charles Bukowski! As an active writer during the second part of the twentieth century, Bukowski was particularly famous for his satirical poetry and his peculiar style of short stories. He rose to international fame quickly and nowadays is considered a pillar of postmodern literature. Sad as it is to say of an author of his caliber, however, he was never able to achieve the same level of recognition in his own country, most likely a result of working for underground magazines. It should also be mentioned that he was especially critical of the lingering influences of Puritanism in American society.

He has always been a great inspiration for us, here at Tales of Extraordinary Sanity, who are trying to achieve a fraction of what he did during his lifetime. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, I give you, Charles Bukowski!

- Simone la Cuercha 

Ed. If you would like to read some of Charles Bukowski’s writings, look here.

TES Artist of the week IV: Fred Buscaglione

She is beautiful. Tonight I’m seeing in black and white. I jump out of my favorite café to smoke a cigarette and she’s there, walking towards me on the pavement. My jaw drops. She notices but ignores me and keeps walking. As she passes under the street light between us, all I can see is this amazing chick in a red dress, swiftly moving like a gazelle on high heels. When she passes by, I notice her long legs and her short skirt. “Ehi piccola, dai non far la stupida, sai io sono volubile, se non mi baci perdi un’occasion”. [Hey baby, come on, don’t be stupid, you know that I could easily change my mind, if you don’t kiss me now, you’ll lose your chance!]

Well this is not one of Mike’s late night adventures. Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to present to you as TES’s fourth Artist of the Week, the most Italian, the most macho, the most misogynous, the one and only Fred Buscaglione!

As if he came out of a noir movie, Fred Buscaglione, an Italian singer, dedicated his entire career to performing Fox Trots and Charlestons, recording hits like “Eri Piccola Così” and “Che bambola”. Why, you may ask, did I pick him? Because Fred is more than just a clown trying to act like a Guido mobster, with a tuxedo, a thin mustache and an ever lit cigarette in his mouth. Fred Buscaglione also sings. He always sings about meeting beautiful women, but his true talent lies not in what he sings about, but how. He chooses the politically incorrect way to tell his stories, always from the macho point of view – the point of view of the man who arrogantly and slickly treats women like objects. He is a real throwback to figures like John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart. Definitely a blast from the past. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado: Fred Buscaglione!

- Simone la Cuercha

TES Artist of the Week III

“Así que mala mia si me pongo perverso

Pero es que tu me tienes escupiendo versos”

-Calle 13, “Tango del Pecado”

For our third Artist of the Week here at TES, we’ve decided to honor one of our favorite rappers in the game today.  One of the crudest, rudest, smartest (he has a master’s!), most controversial and most creative rappers that I’ve ever heard.  And he does it all in Spanish!

He is the writer and lead singer for rap/reggaetón/electronica /cumbia/batucada/etc. group Calle 13, which has recorded four albums so far, filmed one documentary and won countless musical awards.  They are also a group known for making people mad: already having criticized the FBI, the Puerto Rican police forces, the mayor of San Juan: Jorge Santini, and more than half the reggaetón industry, having recorded a music video with significant nudity and having had several songs banned from the airways.

When I first heard the group my freshman year of college, their music took me by surprise.  I expected typical reggaetón with its energetic beat and its vulgar lyrics. While it definitely provided that, when I listened closely to the lyrics, I realized they were a lot more offensive than I had imagined; they were also clever, funny, thought provoking and honest – something not found in most music of any genre these days.  While I disagreed and still disagree with many of his views, I came to find that I still agreed with at least the spirit of a lot of what he was saying.

For challenging us to think differently about issues such as poverty, violence, drug trafficking, sexuality, Latin American identity and Latin American – US relations, we are proud to name René Pérez Joglar aka Residente as the third TES Artist of the Week.

-Carlos de la Gringa

TES Artist of the Week II

For the TES Artist of this week, I decided to pick one of my personal idols. I needed a break from talking about the realities of everyday life, sexual perversions, drugs – wait a sec, I’ve never said anything about drugs – and complaining about the government. In other words: talking about nothing.

For this week’s selection we’ve decided to pick a great comedian and satirist, a standup comic that never was afraid to tell his jokes, an actor that never was afraid to say his lines no matter whom he pissed off. A bastard that practiced the same life that he preached.

I first heard of him my sophomore year in college. One of my best friends, who was in love with the band Tool, yelled at me, “You’ve never heard of Bill Hicks?!?” and spammed me with YouTube links, which he pressured me to watch. My English at that time was a bad imitation of a language passing through a grater – yes, it was even worse back then – so I hardly understood what I was staring at. But finally I got my hands on a video with subtitles. And that’s when I finally met Bill Hicks.

My life since that moment has been exactly the same. But by listening to bad jokes about religion, the sexual preferences of the Pope, drug use and the Puritan side of America, I learned a lot. And not just about my sexual preferences. I learned that if you have something bad to say, something that will humiliate many people and will offend and disgust others – but it’s the truth –you don’t have to feel guilty for speaking up because you are being just.

“If the king is naked, the king is naked” Don’t waste time beating around the bush.

With no further ado, the least politically correct magazine ever, Tales of Extraordinary Sanity proudly presents our second artist of the week: Bill Hicks.

- Simone la Cuercha

TES Artist of the Week I – Bezerra da Silva

That’s right. We have an “artist of the week” column. Got a problem with that? Read no further. Is it going to be pretentious? Absolutely! But don’t worry about it; we know more than you. So sit down, be quiet and you just might learn something. (Didn’t your mother ever tell you to respect your elders?)

As the first ever TES Artist of the Week, we’ve chosen Bezerra da Silva (beh-ZEH-huh dah SEEW-vah), a Brazilian musician of samba. Da Silva (1927 – 2005) was born in Recife, Pernambuco (in the northeast of Brazil). At a young age he moved to Rio de Janeiro where he would spend the rest of his life. Overcoming extreme poverty, he achieved enormous success as a singer, guitarist, percussionist and composer, recording more than thirty different albums.

Da Silva’s music depicts the difficult life of the inhabitants of favelas (Brazilian shantytowns), discussing criminality, illicit drugs, snitching, political corruption, police brutality, and discrimination with an ever ironic and humorous tone. His lyrics neither glamorize a marginal lifestyle nor condemn it. They simply portray the realities faced by the poorest members of Brazilian society. However, the songs do praise the malandro, a figure traditionally associated with con-artists and gangsters. According to Da Silva, a malandro is a smart but poor person, who makes the most of what life has given him, even if this means occasionally deceiving others. In this sense, whether someone would be considered intelligent or a malandro is solely a question of economics, not ethics.

In recognition of his consistent combination of brutal honesty, pointed sarcasm, and unsettling moral ambiguity, all set to a lively samba beat, we here at Tales of Extraordinary Sanity are proud to name Bezerra da Silva as our first artist of the week.

Where you should start:

• “Malandragem Dá um Tempo”

• “Candidato Caô Caô”

• “Seqüestraram Minha Sogra”

• “Pai Véio 17”

- Carlos de la Gringa

-Ed. There are currently no good translations into English of these songs. However, we will keep you posted if we find any or if we decide to do some ourselves.