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Day 46 of the Covid19 quarantine:
“King of Bongo”, by Mano Negra and Manu Chao, performed by Piet Maris
Piet has some realy fond memories of this album and Manu Chao:
"'King of Bongo', a solo version... Youth heroes, you know the phenomenon? :) I remember the release of 'King of Bongo' the album by Mano Negra as it was yesterday... What a blast: Bring the Fire! King of Bongo! Don't Want You No More! Le bruit du frigo! Letter To The Censors (concurrency for Ace of Spades!) El Jako! It's My Heart! Mad Man's Dead! Out of Time Man! Madam Oscar! Welcome In Occident! Furious Fiesta! The Fool! Paris la nuit! (when I think of it, I could cover quite some more from this album!)... Good Times... Happily revived afterwards with Manu Chao (he made a new version of King of Bongo), of whom I was so honoured to play as support act with Jaune Toujours in 2003 at Les Halles de Schaerbeek for the protest movement Nunca Mais (against the reign of the Spanish government then, who mismanaged the catastrophe with an oli tanker which polluted the Gallician coast) to go out with him afterwards in Brussels... "
Day 45 of the Covid19 quarantine: Jaune Toujours 'Voor Wat Het Is', from the album Brusk (2000).
Long time, this one... Such a long time ago, that we can even remember Radio 1 playing it, in rotation! :) The lyrics were inspired on a friend of Piet, a guitar player from a Belgian band, who were really making it at the time he wrote the song, but whom he visited in his last days, before he lost his battle against cancer... Musically Piet was inspired by some of his musical heroes back then, Lo'Jo Triban & Les Négresses Vertes... Long time...❤️
Listen to the original studio version from the album BRUSK (2000) on Bandcamp
Day 44 of the Covid19 quarantine:
“Superheld // Super-héro”, by Ik en den Theo / Moi et le Theo, performed by Piet Maris.
Ik zonder/sans den Theo: ’Superheld / Superhéro' from the album Ik en den Theo / Moi et le Theo (2011). Here mixed up in both Dutch and French, as they often do on their live (and pretty wild :) ) kids concerts (on the album, we have a version in Dutch and one in French). For all superheroes of yesterday, today and tomorrow!
Listen to the original studio version
-> in DUTCH
-> in FRENCH
Day 43 of the Covid19 quarantine:
“Question Réponse”, by Jaune Toujours from the album EUROPEANA (2018), performed by Piet Maris
Listen to the original studio version from the album Europeana on Bandcamp
"Si on se saluait comme les motards, peut-être ça aiderait les grognards / Et si on reparait nos rêves cassés, on pourrait continuer à les rêver / Et si on vivait sans papiers, on n’aurait pas besoin de les montrer”
Day 42 of the Covid19 quarantine:
Jaune Toujours ‘C’est parti’ (à la rencontre des gens perdus) from the album ROUTES (2013).
The original recording has a nice trombone solo on it, played by Martial from the Gangbé Brass Band from Benin. This is socially committed feelgood New Orleans.
Jaune Toujours used the song to support “Time To Go” one of the actions by Vrede vzw to get nuclear weapons (imposed by the Nato) out of Belgium and we made a clip out of it to show the world what really happened at the Belgian national anti austerity manifestation of november ’14 (hundreds of thousands of protesters, that was what mattered instead of those handful of provocateurs who made it to the world news)
C’est Parti, the clip on Youtube
Time to Go on Youtube
Listen to the original studio version from the album Routes on Bandcamp
Day 41 of the Covid19 quarantine:
“Kaskere ola duj tshavore”, a Roma traditional, performed by Piet Maris from the album Antikrisis (2008).
The Roma traditional repertoire where this song comes from is pretty straightforward, most of the songs are in 4/4 actually (or without rythm in the “halgads” the slow ballads, very slow and sad) - Piet even remembers from his first visits mid 90’s to the small village of Rakusy, at the feet of the high Tatra mountains, at the Slowakian-Polish border, when he played a waltz, 3/4, it was perceived as pretty exotic… For this song, to open up the borders a bit more, we turned its 4/4 into 7/8, kind of moving over to the balkans...
Listen to the original studio version from the album Antikrisis by Mec Yek on Bandcamp
*
What are those two children doing
at the riverside
without a mother or a father
*
What can a band possibly do during this Covid-19 lockdown period, when all concerts are canceled, to make themselves useful?
Play a concert where social distancing can be respected and where the audience is really in need of some diversion.
The residents with disabilities at Zonnelied vzw can not receive visitors just yet, so in order to cheer them up a little, their caretakers asked Jaune Toujours if they would consider playing a concert in their front yard.
The members of Jaune Toujours jumped at the opportunity to play live together again and thus everyone had as pleasant an afternoon as possible in these times of restrictions.
What can a band possibly do during this Covid-19 lockdown period, when all concerts are canceled, to make themselves useful?
Play a concert where social distancing can be respected and where the audience is really in need of some diversion.
The residents with disabilities at Zonnelied vzw can not receive visitors just yet, so in order to cheer them up a little, their caretakers asked Jaune Toujours if they would consider playing a concert in their front yard.
The members of Jaune Toujours jumped at the opportunity to play live together again and thus everyone had as pleasant an afternoon as possible in these times of restrictions.
Day 40 of the Covid19 quarantine:
Jaune Toujours ‘Réfugiés sans Frontières’ from the album Barricade (2004).
These days, the lobby is on, putting pressure to start up the schools, the economy etc. (Arts coming in the last place, I guess). But if we have to bring in one reality in the first place, it’s this one: refugees, asylum seekers, newcomers, people without a roof above their head, these are the people who ar probably hit the hardest in this crisis.
Let’s put things right at last: Niemand is illegaal . No one is illegal . Personne n'est illegal
Listen to the studio version from the album Barricade on Bandcamp
Jaune Toujours ‘Mr. Theo’ from their first EP 0 (1998), lateron compiled on the collector’s album 20sth (2016). Piet's father used to run a thrift store, he invented that concept even before ‘Troc’ or ‘Kringwinkel’ existed. And he made a good living out of it for his family. As the store was situated on the illustrious “chaussée de Ninove” = "chaussée de Bruxelles”, he had all sorts of customers, from Ninove, from Brussels, and from elsewhere. One of them was a very kind asylum seeker, who really liked to pass by and have a chat with him. Until one day, he received orders to leave this country… Before obeying, he went to my father’s, to take a picture with him, a polaroid selfie, to be able to show “over there” that there were real good people in Belgium… Mr. Theo… As we’re not able to visit you these days: high five from Brussels!
Listen to the original studio version from the very first EP "O" HERE