holy smokes. here is my vote for the #1 croatian female vocal of all time (sorry, neda ukraden). a little back story if i may.....
the band novi fosili form in zagreb, 1969. they bust out with their breakthrough hit 'leptiri' in 1972.
the boys are stoked, but it's a minor hit and the fame soon fades away. they go back to playing weddings and start talking about maybe getting real jobs. then comes rajko dujmi. a smooth talker from the old school with some composing chops. he takes control as the main songwriter and writes what will soon be hailed as the greatest crotian pop songs ever written. but the problem is that they are fugly dudes. they'll never get on t.v.
in walks durdica barlovic, problem solved. she takes the songs and makes them hers, knocking them dead at the split '77 music festival with a little know hit called 'diridonda'. look at her........ and then look at them.......... good call boys. the guy on the right thinks that this is some kind of joke. get your head out of your ass. this is the big time. split '77!
after that night, everything changed. she murphed the industry that night. every major player in the game was at the show that night. oliver, kruno, arsen, dani, dzo, buco, tomislav, ect...... and she told them all what the next 20 years were going to sound like. abba.
some say that the band abba bit their shit, and i would agree. people still refer to abba as "the swedish novi fosili", and for good reason. have a listen for yourself.
here is durdica barlovic and the novi fosili playing one of my top five novi fosili classics of all time, 'najdraze moje'.
me and carlos were in the studio the other day and i was playing this song over the speakers while i was setting up. he asked me what instrument was making that sound. i said it was the guitar. i was wrong. it's the dulcimer and i'm in shock. how does she play every instrument with so much style? and she has perfect pitch? crap.
i think everybody should own this record, even if you hate it, you will one day love it.
every time i go shopping for records i see melanie. who are you melanie? i'm not sure what a pretty girl like you is doing all the way over here in the folk bin, but you better get back to pop vocal or wherever you came from.
but, tonight i got schooled. melanie is not only a babe, but she also farted this song out in 1971 and won me over.
i didn't think she'd be so rough. she has the voice of a woman and yet a child. like a ladyboy.
i was expecting to see a movie about how a piano is made, but instead i want to become a better person. this movie is called 'note by note.' nexflix brought it to my door, i watched it in the bathtub and now i'm writing about it here. the film goes through the process of making a concert grand which takes about one year and it is totally hand crafted. you meet the people behind the company and you meet the dorks who play and buy these $100,000 piano's. the movie is much better than the trailer.
when i started doing novi split records, i soon realized that the one thing bringing me down was my drumming, so i got into the habit of sampling. i would, and still do, buy a breakbeat record every time i go down to amoeba. and my favorite one to pull from after all these years is still from the bernard purdie collection. he invented a beat known as the 'pretty purdie shuffle.' you might know it from a little song called 'peg' by steely dan. it sounds simple and light but i've been trying to learn it for years and i have no idea how to pull it off. the first thing i do when i meet a drummer is ask them to show it to me. but these newfangled drummers aren't interested in no purdie shuffle. what a shame, imagine any band you like and then replace all their drums with the shuffle and now were talking. every cool old record i buy that speaks to me seems to have the guy playing on it. heres a little crash course.....
when you're at work and you tell people you play music, dudes always want to ask you about shit that don't matter. and the classic one is, "ok dude. best drummer of all time." and it's always the same. metal dudes will say a million dudes from a million death metal bands. the blues hammer types love john bonham from led zeppelin. dorks love neil peart of rush. drum students love steve gadd. jazz dudes love buddy rich. and dudes who shop at thrift stores will take ringo starr. i'm a pretty purdy man. here is a drum solo from some kind of drum clinic he did in japan. feel the lightness. notice the feel. watch as he uses a china with style and class.
and for anyone who wants to know how to play the shuffle. here is my man explaining the roots of it. this video is awesome.
thank you bernard for playing on all my records and never knowing about it.
some pictures of the ghetto rosette i've made for the seagull. i've created it with a sharpie. it seems to suit this one. i sanded down the top so much that i couldn't actually engrave the rosette. it's actually so thin now that i think it might break if i strum too hard. i'm going to have to replace the top, but not until i break it first. i messed up big time but i learned a great lesson. so here's how it's going to look for now.
happy new year people. i'm trying to get productive this year. the first thing we did was celebrate the 10th year anniversary of sunset alliance records.
