The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper: Line Out: Eurovision

Reviewed in French, Translated in Google

Emily Nokes — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 19:14:27 -0800

A based on a French review of Wimps' new album Repeat, ran through Google Translate, the ultimate in accuracy. Amusez-vous bien!

"Seattle has given birth to a new runt, Wimps."

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Time for Another White Hot Friday Night Line Out Giveaway!!!

Anna Minard — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 18:24:55 -0700

Woohoo! We were not actually kidding last week when we sort of implied that this might be a regular thing, where we go through our purses/desks/shorts pockets on Friday night and find you cool treasures, then ask you a dumb question so you can WIN THE PRIZE!!! Dedicated to you Line Outers who work late at a desk on Friday nights, or who read the blog on the weekend. Go you!

Also, a bit of Housekeeping: Hey there, last week's winner, carnivorous chicken, wanna contact us to pick up your stuff? Just like Santa, we love giving you free stuff, if you sit on our laps and stay on your very best behavior! Those fries aren't gonna eat themselves!

This week's prize package only contains two items, but one of them is HOT HOT HOT enough to put behind a jump, because BOOBZ. You're welcome! The prize package contains:

ONE (1) pack of glue-on fake nails, French Manicure-style. Oooh, classy! Says music editor Emily Nokes, "Those nails have touched Gary Smith's torso." It's true!

and ONE (1) very special, Spanish-language, lesbian edition card game called, appropriately, "¡SEXO!"

Redeem your prize by leaving the answer to this question, which honors our spirit animal Alanis Morissette, in comments (we'll alert the winner here in comments on Monday, when we sober up again):

What fellow '90s icons played guitar and bass on Alanis Morissette's best-karaoke-song-ever hit "You Oughta Know"?

PRIZE PACKAGE PIC...

GILLIAN ANDERSON
WHITE HOT! Win it!

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"Do You Like Music? Do You Like Performance? Are You Easily Influenced By Powerful, Gorgeous, Intelligent People?"

Bree McKenna — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 13:46:57 -0700

Attention, Implied Violence fans! Genius Award Winner and performance savant Mandie O'Connell (formerly one of the big cheeses behind the wildly successful Seattle-based experimental theater company Implied Violence) has just formed a new project out of Berlin called La Mission.

La Mission is a record label, a performance group, a cult, a community, a situationist art gang, and an awesome way to spend your time (and some of your money). In 2012 and 2013, La Mission will release five records by Beaner (cult leader/garbage mill/El Jefe). These releases will be celebrated with an experimental performance by Mandie O’Connell/Knuckle Cartel (co-cult leader/Headmistress/Naked Mennonite) and are accompanied by a satirical cult tract/hymn book edited by ethno-musicologist and PhD (the Techno Doctor) Luis Manuel-Garcia.

If you watch the "Sophisticated Booty Call" video above, you will find that they are currently crowd-sourcing for the physical releases and live performances that will accompany their initial debut. (For a mere $7, you get inducted in with a brand new cult membership card and La Mission's Digital Theme Song download. With a contribution of more than 5K, they fly to your location and throw you a private secret society/cult coming-of-age initiation fest with your closest friends, and provide a L.M. themed Quinceañera dress or yarmulke-n-tallit.)

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Frizzelle Left M83 Singing Two Songs

Trent Moorman — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 13:01:00 -0800

Christopher Frizzelle emerged from the M83 show Sunday night at Neumos singing two songs. Out loud. Loudly.

What do you think they were?

[Guess before you look!]

If you guessed "Under the Bridge" by Red Hot Chili Peppers and "What's Up" by 4 Non Blondes, you would be correct. Christopher was on fire. Swelling within the power of his song-singing.

How does that even happen? M83 into Chili Peppers and 4 Non-Blondes.

Here's the Igor Presnyakov version of "Under the Bridge."

And now, I will open Jean Genet's Funeral Rites to a random page and write what I see (thank you to Swan Weaver for the Genet book):

He felt his barefootedness on the iron of the balcony. His stomach was rumbling. The bareness of his feet and their delicacy and the flesh of his arms made the German soldiers green with jealousy as they watched him, made them think of an animal with an extremely fragile body that emerges from a few holes in its protective shell. He was in Ménilmontant, on the hill, not far from his own street, entwined from his belt to his neck in the mutely glittering coils that the Fritzes made him wear. When they left the cellar of the house, which until the insurrection had been used as barracks by the decimated platoon, the Boche sergeant had decided that the militiaman would not do any shooting. They wrapped him in bullets. His bare arms and legs were suddenly clad with sovereign gentleness and elegance, that is, the elegance and gentleness of a sovereign when he emerges for a moment from armor that is only slightly more glittering than his majesty. He insisted on keeping his machine gun. - pg. 88

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Pomplamoose Haiku Contest Finalist RUNOFF.

Grant Brissey — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 11:08:32 -0700

Poll ends at 11:45 am.

Pomplamoose: about
As indie and handmade as
Etsy resellers.

Man in LoveLab box
Is staring at breasts in the
LustLab box. Pervert.

Winner gets tickets to some hot-shit show (some hot-shit shows excluded), and runner up gets a used yarmulke and a bottle of hand sanitizer!

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Les Bonnes Femmes

Kathy Fennessy — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 08:53:39 -0700

C'est Chic: French Girl Singers of the 1960s, Ace International

Ace International
Eurovision winner France Gall

Since my French music collection consists primarily of "male singers of the 1960s"—Serge Gainsbourg, Jacques Dutronc, etc.—this 24-track yé-yé compilation helps to even things out. I've got a Jane Birkin record and an Anna Karina set, but I don't own any albums by France Gall or François Hardy (though a fellow Gallic enthusiast compiled cassettes of their material for me several years ago).

This finger-snapping compilation includes every lady mentioned above, except for Birkin, but then she's well represented on a rash of Gainsbourg releases, as well as plenty of solo efforts, one of which was recently reissued by Light in the Attic.

If you want to nitpick, Sylvie Vartan also counts as an oversight, except she shows up on another of my French comps, 2003's semi-legit Pop! Pop! Pigalle!, which covers the 1960s and '70s, but doesn't duplicate any of the same songs.

Sounds like Gainsbourg’s response to "Wild Thing."

Of the other big names, C'est Chic includes Brigitte Bardot ("Ne Me Laisse pas L'Aimer"), who previously found a place in my stacks through her collaborations with Gainsbourg, while Britain's Petula Clark makes the cut with "Donne Moi."

That leaves 15 acts with which I'm not familiar: Jacqueline Taïeb, Arlette Zola, Charlotte Leslie, Christie Laume, Ria Bartok, Marie Laforet, Annie Philippe, Jocelyne, Alice Dona, Louise Cordet, Les Gam's [sic] with Annie Markan, Sheila, Les Surfs, Michele Torr, and Liz Brady. Granted, I am familiar with Laforet's most famous film role: as the female lead in 1960's Plein Soleil with Alain Delon.

Naturally, Gainsbourg has a few fingerprints on this thing. He wrote the Karina and Torr tracks ("Roller Girl" and "Non, a Tous les Garcons") and one of the two Gall numbers ("Laisser Tomber les Filles" with Alain Goraguer and his Orchestra).

As Malcolm Baumgart and Mick Patrick write in the 24-page booklet, "The very James Bond sounding 'Laisser Tomber les Filles' was a summer-time smash in 1964. If it sounds familiar, you may have heard it on a Tarantino soundtrack translated as 'Chick Habit' by April March." (They’re referring to Deathproof.)

As for "Roller Girl," they note that it comes from Gainsbourg's 1967 made-for-television musical Anna and describe the song as "striking, almost punkish."

In addition, Gerry Goffin and Carole King co-wrote Bartok's "Tu la Revois" and Sonny Bono co-wrote Sheila's "La Meme Heure." In the US, the Tokens, of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" fame, had a top 5 hit with the Goffin/King composition—in English, "He's in Town"—while the Rockin' Berries did the same in the UK.

The booklet also provides cover art and refreshingly unbiased biographies. About Bardot, for instance, they write, "The 67-year-old animal rights activist has attracted a certain notoriety for a string of anti-Islamic diatribes, which have earned her five convictions for inciting racial hatred." It seems fitting then for her to end up on a release that includes Malagasy sextet Les Surfs and Tunisian-born singers Taïeb, Jocelyne (Jocelyne Esther Journo), and Leslie (Rosetta Aiello).

Most of these ladies are still going strong. Sadly, Ria Bartok perished in a fire at the age of 27, while Jocelyne was killed in a motorcycle accident at 20.

C'est Chic is out now. According to Ace International, "The compilers are currently immersed in the recordings of the yé-yé girls of Italy and Spain."

Meanwhile, singer/actress Jane Birkin pays tribute to her ex-husband, Serge Gainsbourg, at the Neptune Theatre on Tuesday, 11/29 (8pm, $34 adv).

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Gay Pride Weekend Reminds Me Of Forgettable Late 90s Euro-Dance Trax

Travis Ritter — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 14:07:28 -0700

You know you want it.

Maybe it's all the rainbow flags flying on Capitol Hill businesses, churches, and homes, or that one clothing shop on Broadway that pumps dance music out into the street, or the influx of fresh-faced, scantily clad gay men walking around that makes me think of the words "Eiffel 65" or "Toy Box"? I don't know what it is. BUT IT'S ALL I CAN THINK ABOUT RIGHT NOW! (And no, I didn't just do poppers.)

And that's just the beginning. More vidz after the jump.

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While Other Crap Was Happening This Weekend...

Terry Miller — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 19:48:18 -0700

The world's most important contest EVER (!!!!) was taking place. The winner of the Eurovision Song Contest final is ....

GERMANY!!! (with a Eurovision record of 246 points!)

...with a terrible song in which a girl (Lena) tries to sing in English, but comes off sounding retarded.

Our Eurovision Song Contest Griet Verlinde would have been running play by play this year, except for the fact SHE'S HAVING A BABY!!

Of Germany she quickly wrote:

Ooh, Germany is sending a Lily Allen album track, I’m not sure if it stands out enough to make an impact but I quite like it. Happy, strange accent (that’s not a German accent surely?) and a girl with clothes on! Extra points for putting on clothes, Lena!

Congratulations Griet! (...um... and Germany, I guess.)

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Eurovision 2009!

Terry Miller — Thu, 14 May 2009 17:39:21 -0700

It's on bitches!!! And this year it's being held in RUSSIA!!!!

Even though we no longer have our European correspondent, Griet (bad economy and all that.....), working for us in Belgium, she is writing about the whole crazy car-wreck-like thing on her special Eurovision blog.

Find out which country has:

Stiltwalkers who play helicopter with each other, costumes designed by the colourblind, a lead singer in a knight’s costume with cape (yes, I’m absolutely serious here), a man dressed in just ribbons, a mullet brought to a new dimension and basically a riddle to find out how all these costumes and themes are connected. Add a falsetto to that, mega-wind machine action and the unprecedented lyrical quality of “gimme gimme your touch, showme showme your love” and by god, you have a winner.

And why this controversial commie-tastic song, with lyrics like "Red means love", is going to win the whole contest! (IMHO)

Eurovision. American Idol, eat shit and die.

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Twinkovision!

Dan Savage — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:54:08 -0700

A singing violinist from Norway is the current favorite to win this year's Eurovision song contest...

I can't wait to hear his cover of "Devil Went Down to Georgia."

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