Manu Chao is pretty damn good. Pretty damn good stuff there.

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I got turned onto Manu Chao back in 01 while staying at a friends house, MTV Espanol was playing like 5 hours of just him for some reason and I had the good fortune to find it whilst flipping around. Since then I bought 2 of his albums, lost them, and turned 23, 24 and 25 years old. A friend of mine (the griend I was staying with way back when) came up here (to the DC/Balto) from Georgia for the week and refreshed my memory about M.C.

Which brings us back to my initial statement: Manu Chao is pretty damn good.

He doesn't quite make it into the "Just fucking kicks ass" category like ZZ Top, but he's pretty damn good.

For Xmas my wife bought me one of those headstock-painted black w/ a mirror-chrome pickguard Squier Telecasters. But I convinced her not to wrap it up and make me wait to enjoy it until Xmas. So I restrung and intonated it and it is awesome.

― Helltime, Sunday, 21 November 2004 07:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Friend, not griend. What the fuck is a griend? You replace any letter in any word with a "G" and it just don't sound right. Like, if "lunch" was called "gunch".. I'd fuckin skip that meal.

― helltime, Sunday, 21 November 2004 07:08 (twenty-one years ago)

didn't like RADIO BEMBA SOUND SYSTEM LIVE at first, but now I see

― don, Sunday, 21 November 2004 07:40 (twenty-one years ago)

is it impossible to dislike "me gustas tu" ? it might be.

― astroblaster (astroblaster), Monday, 22 November 2004 00:46 (twenty-one years ago)

can we S/D on here too please?

― astroblaster (astroblaster), Monday, 22 November 2004 00:48 (twenty-one years ago)

What's the track that DJ /rupture sampled on "rumbo babylon"? I like that one. It's on the same album as "King of bongo"...

― Jacob (Jacob), Monday, 22 November 2004 03:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Any sample Manu Chao songs online anywhere?

― Mickey, Monday, 22 November 2004 04:42 (twenty-one years ago)

I thoroughly recommend his first album, "Clandestino" especially for your next party. That said, it's a great chill-out, groovy dub listen too, which probably indicates the scope of the album. To me it's a tequila drinking / pot smoking kind of record, but you might equally enjoy it as a dinner making album. Or for jogging. Or gardening. Um, anyways...heard some later stuff and wasn't as moved/impressed.

Here's the AMG review:

CLANDESTINO (1998)

The first solo album released by the former frontman of Mano Negra, Clandestino is an enchanting trip through Latin-flavored worldbeat rock, reliant on a potpourri of musical styles from traditional Latin and salsa to dub to rock & roll to French pop to experimental rock to techno. Chao's voice tends to be a bit nasally, but the best songs ("Mentira," "Mama Call," and the silly novelty "Bongo Bong") here benefit from his infectious, freewheeling delivery which incorporates balladry, chorus vocals, rapping, and tossed-off spoken-word passages. Just about every track has odd sampled bits from what sound like pirate radio-station broadcasts (a possible link to the title). There are so many great ideas on this record that it's difficult to digest in one listen, but multiple plays reveal the great depth of Manu Chao's artistry.

― Piers (piers), Monday, 22 November 2004 05:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Clandestino is an awesome, unique record which it is almost impossible not to like. The second album, Proxima estacion: Esperanza blows by virtue of being a fairly vapid retread of the first, certainly not worth three years wait or whatever. Never heard the live one. I've been told that the first album gets its unique sound because most of the tunes originally featured banging 4-4 dance beats which M. Chao later dropped. Dunno if this is true, mind.

― myopic_void (myopic_void), Monday, 22 November 2004 14:53 (twenty-one years ago)

"Proxima" is a retread, but not so much worse than the first one--I think you have to believe in the myth of progress to conclude that it "blows," when it sounds so much like the thing you love (to the point of repeating certain riffs/loops). But the live one ("Radio Bemba") truly blows.

― nono, Monday, 22 November 2004 16:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Begs2Differ and Nickalicious to thread!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 22 November 2004 16:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Mano Negra, "Mala Vida"

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Monday, 22 November 2004 16:56 (twenty-one years ago)

I've grown to become a huge fan of this man in the short time since I've heard him. I think Proxima... is actually just as excellent an album as Clandestino; it's very similar stylistically, yes, but it has such a different theme (it's more emotion than movement-of-Jah-people oriented, IMHO). I will say though that Radio Bemba Sound System Live isn't that great a recording, though, particularly compared to that 5-17-02 Moscow show that was/might-still-be circulating on SLSK (with far superior performances & energy & sound quality, plus the version I got of it is THIRTY-TWO tracks deep).

Also found on SLSK: some live Manu Chao/Tonino Carotone(?) live recording that sounds A) like it was recorded in a living room at a party, B) phenomenal.

The motherfucker makes me want to learn Spanish & French in the worst of ways.

I was wondering something though yesterday: is Manu Chao Basque?

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 22 November 2004 17:04 (twenty-one years ago)

After hearing "Bongo Bong" ripped to fucking punk rock shreds live though, it's hard to go back to that borderline-early-TMBG production version on Clandestino.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 22 November 2004 17:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Songs I recommend: "Desaparacido", "Merry Blues", "Denia", "Mala Vida".

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 22 November 2004 17:07 (twenty-one years ago)

All of Clandestino is absolutely essential, a joyful and heady global fish fry.

― mcd (mcd), Monday, 22 November 2004 17:12 (twenty-one years ago)

The way I remember Proxima... is that half the tracks turned out to be only a minute long, or were 'Bongo Bong' or 'Me Gustas Tu' with different words over the top.

― The Horse of Babylon (the pirate king), Monday, 22 November 2004 17:18 (twenty-one years ago)

he's not basque, he's french, son of a spanish father (not basque either, but from galicia - northwest of spain).
tonino carotone is basque (weel, from navarra) and shares aesthetics and scenes, but is very far from the quality shown by chao.

― joan vich (joan vich), Monday, 22 November 2004 17:26 (twenty-one years ago)

...a joyful and heady global fish fry. It sounds joyful, but pretty much the musicbox/dancehall sliceups describe scenes of third world immigrant misery, anomie and impending collapse. Patchamama te vamos a matar.

I really like that album. The way the same melodies and phrases keep recycling makes it dreamlike for me.

I like it so much that I haven't listened to anything else by him, I'm afraid I'll just be disappointed.

― Hunter (Hunter), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 03:37 (twenty-one years ago)

but pretty much the musicbox/dancehall sliceups describe scenes of third world immigrant misery, anomie and impending collapse.

True, but like Bob Marley songs, they're full of hope and are funky enough to move the party. Populist.

― mcd (mcd), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 03:58 (twenty-one years ago)

... is basque (weel, from navarra) and shares aesthetics and scenes

Fermin Muguruza is basque too, and somewhat similar

― bulbs (bulbs), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 04:03 (twenty-one years ago)

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