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The Swiss-Irish Turntablist

19th April 2020 by David Glaser Leave a Comment

Introducing DJ Billy to the world is a fun game to play, so much to say about this real music lover whom I first met on the marché de la Palud in Lausanne, thirteen years ago, on a sunny Saturday morning. Billy was selling music related t-shirts of his own making with his stand squeezed between a flowers merchant and an organic veggie dealer. Billy is a Swiss DJ from Ireland, a music reviewer, a funny man to have a chat with and a pint “emptier” at every good beergarden near you. To describe Brendan Flynn (his real name), I would say that he always chased the good bands that make him happy in Dublin, London, Zurich or Lausanne for a professional reason or just for the sake of it. We share a passion for New Order, Ride and The Smiths, three names ringing the bell for every Anglo-Irish indie kids who grew up at the end of last century. Pure music love, no need to make money out of it, his passion does not pay the bills! For the music signature, Brendan chose the familiar Billy (say “Belly” to sound more Irish). Billy for the DJ’s name on the bill sounds more efficient and the man is now a well-known Lausanne turntablist – among a group of expats I belong to – that is giving on a regular basis great sensations to the people in different regional pubs, private parties and Bar-Mitzvahs. Billy will also soon be a new contributor with The Swiss Music Show. Welcome to the Swiss Music Show! But before you get to know the man’s music reviews in Switzerland (his article on deck is a gig review + an interview with the French electro duo Scratch Massive, patience, it is coming up in a few days), let’s discover Brendan’s universe. The writer and Swiss resident for more that fifteen years is married to a Swiss woman and is also a swiss music lover, with a lot of good jokes and anecdotes about the indie pop music scene in Albion, let’s find out about the man and his good words. Beware, explicit lyrics have not been censored in the interview, keep the kids away.

Brendan Flynn, the one and only Swiss-Irish DJ. — Brendan Flynn, aka DJ Billy, home in Lausanne, rue de l’Ale.

The Swiss Music Show: What is your style like when you spin records?

Brendan Flynn: I have a strange style when I’m playing. I like to go along the vibe with the music and I have an eclectic taste in music. I tend to go with how myself and the crowd feel and I love to play obscure music as my Guinness count goes up.

Who are the people you play music too?

I love to play to people who truly hear the hooks and drops and understand the lyrics’ place within the music! Oh and drunk or stoned funny people who enjoy themselves!

Where are you from and why did you choose Lausanne to live?

I’m actually from a very rough housing estate in Dublin and grew up with punks, skinheads, metal heads and lads in tracksuits. My area was filled up with burnt stolen cars driven by junkies for the buzz. But music was the one thing that glued all these people together. That and actual glue in a bag! I came to Lausanne via London where I met my Swiss Jura wife in a goth/industrial nightclub in Camden Town on a Friday night. She couldn’t speak much English and me much French but 24 years later she speaks better English than me.

Can a DJ can survive with his earnings outside of a quarantine situation?

Not really but earnings are just a way to buy a few pints and a bit of bread and cheese. I just love playing music and if others get a blast from it that’s what really gives me the bumps.

What’s your relationship to Swiss music, what are your favourite Swiss
tunes?

It took me a while here to really appreciate Swiss music. It’s a different scene from the UK or Ireland as Swiss German bands tend to sound more Germanic and edgy, whereas Swiss French usually tend to be like what goes on in France and be more rap or old French crooner style. But more and more new Swiss bands are taking the zoned mentality off and going for it. I worked at les Docks a few years ago for 10 months doing free Wednesday night bands on a 500 CHF budget that helped me get a good look at some Swiss bands out there. There are some really quirky bands around which I booked and I loved the experience. It was different from the bands I had promoted before in Ireland and the UK. I loved the Peacocks, Favez and The Young Gods which I met in London in the early 90’s. I got to chat with them before the gig and ended up fairly drunk and allowed on stage to fling my long dreads around on stage alongside a girl wearing a cat suit with a tail. Embarrassingly it was all caught on tape.

Do you play a lot of Swiss music in your mix?

I try to if I really like the tune. I tend to probably play more French or German stuff. I love to also play quirky Japanese garage music and general quirky stuff like Tijuana Taxi etc.

What is your opinion over the music nights in clubs in Romandie and
elsewhere in Switzerland?

I think sometimes in Romandie they can be a bit restrictive in musical styles allowed to play and the 100 decibel law is a bit Boo! Spoilsport. It really boils down to the Canton, as some are more open-minded and some old school boring farts.

What is the first song you will play after the confinement?

Has to be Always look on the bright side of life by Monty Python!

Would you be ok to play for a mobster or in a Donald Trump’s hotel?

Yeah. Why not? Even mobsters need a little Marvin Gaye to chill.

Interview by David Glaser

FCMA cares for musicians

15th April 2020 by David Glaser Leave a Comment

Have you ever heard of the FCMA (it stands for Fondation pour la chanson et les musiques actuelles)? No? Not a problem, I am going to try to make a little presentation with the help of its director Albane Schlechten who happily took my call just before the COVID19 locked all of us home. Why do I want to talk about the FCMA? Because they rock, they do an amazing job for the sake of Swiss music in Switzerland but also on a global level.

The FCMA and its partner the Swiss Music Export office in the german speaking zone of the country have managed to plug the Swiss music bands on most of the European taste-making festivals like Groningen’s Eurosonic and les Transmusicales de Rennes. In 23 years, the FCMA has also helped hundreds of bands, solo artists and music professionals in shaping their carreers, choosing a manager or defining a media strategy to reach their audience.

More than twenty years ago, the Foundation was born in Nyon, inside the Paléo Festival organisation. The aim was to offer the youngest artists and bands from the chanson. rock and hip-hop scenes emerging scene in Romandie. It started off as a platform that provides professional tips and contacts to break through, it became a central actor to help the musicians to make the best out of their craft by linking them to professionals in rights management, production companies, music programmers in clubs and radio stations.

Behind this project, Daniel Rossellat and Jacques Monnier, the founders of Paléo who are preparing themselves this year to organize a Paléo festival edition that is healthy for everybody if the Swiss Federal Council allows them to operate this Thursday. Along with the famous duo, a group of political and music actors like the Mayor of Geneva Alain Vaissade and the music programmer and director of the late-Dolce Vita in Lausanne Marc Ridet were important in launching the Foundation. Marc Ridet became the boss of the organization and ruled it for 20 years. Albane Schlechten replaced him when Marc retired late 2017. How are things now in Nyon at the FCMA, Albane tells us all (the interview took place the 9th of march)

Hi Albane, how are you coping with the whole coronavirus outbreak and its repercussions on the music industry? Is the FCMA financially safe?

The FCMA does not have any financial losses really, for now. The situation is in fact difficult. We are navigating in uncharted territories. We are reallocating budgets, cancelling trips without insurances to help us on that matter. We are monitoring the situation, on a short-term basis. We are confident that the crisis will come to an end.

Could you tell me more about your promotion campaigns inside and outside of Switzerland in 2019 and early 2020 before the outbreak?

We developed the Eurosonic Project, the most important festival for new talents with a significant number of showcases offered to the media partners of the festival and also bookers and programmers in clubs all around Europe. A lot of the summer festival programming work starts there at the Eurosonic Festival in Groningen (Netherlands). It is also a big opportunity to reach a bigger selection of the media outlets that play and curate music. We came there with a “Focus on Switzerland”, with 22 artists, in many different genres, among them L’Eclair, an instrumental jazz-dub-synth pop combo from Geneva which released their music on Bongo Jo records. And there was Emilie Zoé. She attracted a huge amount of interest from medias from everywhere. Emilie’s presence was highlighted in the different reports given away to the press, she has been selected by the music programmers to appear as the “flagship” of the swiss scene.

Who else stood out according to the medias and the programmers?

Emilie Zoé was of course not the only one to stand out these last months. Camilla Sparksss, the project of Barbara Lehnoff the bass-player of the ticinese band Peter Kernel. Her performance at the Swiss Music Export event at the Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg last september was really appreciated along with the electro artist La Colère.

What kind of partnership did you create with the artists and the Swiss music professionals?

We have established a real relationship with these artists, we are tracing a path together with the help of the Foundation. We also gather forces from everywhere in the country for that Swiss Focus, whether it is institutionnal or mediawise. For instance, the EBU (the European Broadcasting Union based in Geneva) is a partner at the Eurosonic festival. They team up with the Swiss public radio stations like Couleur 3 or SRF 3 to produce a quality coverage of our artists’ presence.

Who are the other artists that you helped develop outside Switzerland?

Marius Baer, Muthoni Drummer Queen. Pascal Gamboni (an artist supported by the Radio Televilisiun Svizra Rumantsch)… and many more. First means to measure the efficiency of the Eurosonic Focus Switzerland scene, is KT Gorique gonna be more programmed elsewhere. It seems so because the Wallis female rapper and Camilla Sparksss were lined up for “The Great Escape” in Brighton (which had have to take place right now).

Some Swiss bands found bookers in England and Germany to book them on domestic tours. These guys hear songs from our artists and if they are convinced, they want to see them live, simple as that.

Could you describe your strategy to break those artists elesewhere?

We have a strategy in two different levels, the first. As we have a diverse and independent scene, we work artist by artist, we interact with the medias that we know and the labels, we will talk about some artists linked to us to the appropriate media or label. We target the right networks, the right actors. We work on the globality of the Swiss scene. One of our media partners is MX3, a platform that gathers all the music and the biographic facts to help programmers and journalists to get to know more about Swiss music in rock, electro, hip-hop and chanson. Their platform is linking up our four linguistic regions with the help of the public radio stations. We exchanged with the people of the radio station 3FM is the Netherlands, BBC Music Introducing or the Belgian broadcasting company RTBF in the French-speaking region, they are interested by what MX3 does.

MX3, this seems to be a dream tool for artists, why is it not more pushed forward?

It is a public financed platform, it is not a big platform like Spotify, you need people to work for it, to manage its content, promote it, you have to be very pushy with communication, produce new contents and to be on the look out for new talents, the Radio Télévision Suisse and MX3 are doing a great job to promote our Swiss artists, with special shows on the radios, with sessions in the Studio 15 in Lausanne. The collaboration with the Swiss media is really good.

Who are the financial actors that inject money in the FCMA?

Paléo, the cantons, the munipalities, some of the municipalities have clubs, some others have none. Every other year, cities like Neuchâtel, Geneva or Lausanne contribute, we also get subsidies by the Lotterie romande, Fondation Pro Helvetia and Fondation Suisa. We have a trustworthy relationship with the cantons, we meet with their representatives to discuss the money question, but we were certainly not at risk these last two years.

What is your aim for the following years?

The market is getting more complicated each year. Our means to help artist break through are still not enough, we would like to enforce more self-sustainable strategies.

By David Glaser

FCMA on line on this website.

HERE’S A SELECTION OF SWISS SONGS FROM ROMANDIE’S SCENE

Los Orioles “Le Loup” and “Safari Ghetto”

Buvette “Last Dance”

KT GORIQUE “Airforce”

Stress “Terre Brûlée”

Slimka “Kanté”

WHITEVAL, A ONE-GIRL BAND FROM NYON

25th March 2020 by David Glaser Leave a Comment

You don’t know her yet but she’s going to be closer to your ears little by little before the summer. Whiteval is a musician from the region of Nyon. She is experienced, Recently, she decided to write a piece of rock music as she wanted to open a new chapter in her life. The result is striking. An almost three-minute long piece called “She was a animal”. A radio hit already on heavy rotation on Radio Chablais (Monthey, Wallis) and on the rock programmes of the RTS youth powerhouse Couleur3. Well done!

Hello Whiteval, can you introduce yourself?

I am Whiteval, an alternative rock singer-guitarist and songwriter from the Nyon area in Switzerland. I am an independent musician in the music business and I publish my songs independently for now, on my website and other online music stores.

What is your musical education? Why have you been attracted to music?

My mother must have noticed my interest in music, since I spent a lot of time playing on a little Bontempi chord organ toy. I really loved this thing! So shepushed me to take either piano or guitar lesson, and I chose to learn how to play the guitar with nohesitation. I started those lessons when I was eight, at first in an academic way through a conservatory of music. Then with two independent electric guitar teachers who not only taught me more about guitar techniques but also about music theory, and also encouraged to develop my songwriting skills.

What were your first bands like? How did the public welcome your songs and your gigs?

I formed my first band at 13 with my neighbours and a friend. The drums were iron cookie boxes that we used to hit hard for hours in my room, at the expense of my mother’s nerves. She must have regretted encouraging me on that path at this time. Then came my second band and my first show at 15 with my best friend, at my high school in Nyon.

I started music professionally at 19 after having graduated and put a band together based on my songs. My early musical style was rather eccentric and generated either very positive or definitely negative reactions. I moved on to a progressive rock band ( also with my best friend) that enjoyed a reasonable amount of success at the time. The musical style was a bit difficult to access but people loved us live very much.

Today you do everything on your own, is that more convenient?

After giving a lot in group experiences, I realised that my path was to be a solo artist, which was my intention at the beginning of my career. As I am a multi-instrumentalist (vocal-guitar-bass-drums-piano) and self-taught in sound recording, I can do everything on my own. There are advantages of working that way, like the flexibility of doing what I want, when I want without depending on other people’s availabilities. Financially, I also don’t have to pay session musicians.

I also love to come up with my own arrangements, I hear them in my head and it goes faster to play them myself in the moment, when inspiration hits. Negatively, the workload is big and one can feel lonely at times. It is definitely great fun to collaborate, and I have beautiful memories, but the universe has shown me through experience that it was not my path to succeed in a group situation.

Managing to make a living from one’s music has become an even greater fight since the arrival of streaming, what are your choices so that this economy can be sustainable?

I still have a hard time positioning myself on that subject, I’m still reflecting about it. I admit being reticent to upload my music without further thinking on the big mass streaming platforms, because of the scandalously low way in which artists are paid. This question is particularly relevant in March 2020, at the time that I am answering it, with the consequences present and future on musicians due to the Coronavirus pandemic COVID-19. The big winner of the streaming game is the user, even before big labels who are the second big beneficiaries of this system. Big record labels generate huge quantities of streams by investing important budgets for their artist’s promotion, which allows to compensate more or less the laughable income of a stream. On their part, users have access to millions of songs for a negligible price. It’s a tempting offer and it is so convenient to have all this music centralised on one application. By itself I would find the idea great, if it were not for the fact that people do not realise the financial dynamic behind the purchase of a subscription.

They don’t realise the consequences on music and their creators if we continue to function following only that model. There is the argument that artists must use these services to build a following who might come to their shows. However I feel that proportionally few people convert their listening in concert tickets, and even if it were the other way around, it wouldn’t change the fact that in order to compensate the loss on music sales, tickets’ prices are increasing more and more and we might end up with society in which going to a rock show is a luxury, for the wealthy or extremely well-off. Is this really what we want? The price of subscriptions will not change, so I think that the solution resides in informing as much a possible. Many people who are using the big streaming platforms adore music and respect artists, but are not aware of the economical reality behind it. When one really loves music, a streaming subscription is not nough. One must find their own rules, for instance buy the song (on the artist’s website preferably) if you listen to it more than five times, and having the awareness of converting at least once a month all this streaming bonanza into an album orsingle purchase, depending on your budget.

There are excellent online music store like Bandcamp, which is my favorite outside of my website, whose 15% share on sales is ethical for musicians. You can also find plenty of independent and original artists there, for those who like to discover other things.We should be able to merge fairly the different ways of enjoying music. The old“paying” way and the new way in which most people, especially younger generations, are influenced to think that music has become virtually free. As an artist, I feel pushed to be a part of a greedy system that seriously devalues our profession and that leads society, gently and treacherously, towards a cultural impoverishment, since artists with innovative ideas that are not calibrated by mass marketing have a really hard time surviving, not having the promotion budget of a big label in order to generate very high volumes of streams and thrive.

To me the solution comes from the individual, through the evolution of consciousness of the user by being informed and enlightened. May people share their music consumption between streaming and buying. May parents and grandparents teach their young the value of paying for music and not only a streaming subscription, surely at a bargain price, but unfair for creators. As far as I’m concerned, Whiteval is not available on big mass streaming platforms for now, but I don’t know if I’m going to be able to continue like that for long.

I am trying to find a fair balance, and I’m still searching how I’m going to approach this. I can however conceive to occasionally upload a song for streaming that would have a particular emotional or spiritual reach, so as to benefit as many people as possible, which would justify the sacrifice of my revenues on that song. But it would be my decision, on my own terms, which makes all the difference.

Can you tell us more about your last single “She was an animal”, what is the song about?

“She was an animal” is a true story of a somehow cold person, but who burns with inner passion and longs to connect intensely with another. Faced with this contradiction she turns to telepathy and manages to psychically contact the object of her desire. It is mostly a light song that doesn’t take itself too seriously with its upbeat tempo and driving chorus, but it still raises the question of the existence of telepathy in itself, as well as a fantasy’s effect on the person it is directed to. For those who want to know more, I speak more in detail about what inspired the lyrics of this song on my blog https://whiteval.com/blog. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Swiss radio Couleur 3 who recently played my song on the waves, as well as Radio Chablais who plays it on their playlist these days too.

How do you manage to get in touch with live venues, festivals and the media, this all on your own?

I need to delegate this part of the job. I am producing my own recordings, but I’m looking for a booking agent and financing to pay my future live musicians, as well as a PR for the medias. Any advice from competent and benevolent people is welcome.

Interview by David Glaser

Whiteval’s music can be found on the web and you can contact Whiteval at:

www.whiteval.com

www.whiteval.bandcamp.com

www.instagram.com/whiteval

www.facebook.com/whiteval

Conversation with Jalen N’Gonda at Le Montreux Palace

21st March 2020 by David Glaser Leave a Comment

Long time, no see, Catherine Nelson-Pollard and I were a bit busy these past two years and the Swiss Music Show was on pause for far too long. Many apologies.

Back to the music in this uncertain times. The music of the Swiss different linguistic regions is amazingly vivid with hundreds of new names in different genres: Emilie Zoé and L’Eclair in Romandie, Camilla Sparksss (out of the Ticinese band Peter Kernel) and Marius Bear from Zurich to name only a few.

But let’s talk about Jazz and Blues in Switzerland with our special guest Jalen N’Gonda, invited the 7th of March in Montreux to perform a very special show at Fairmont Le Montreux Palace.

Le Montreux Palace is a very musical place, a historical central spot where magic happens. A special haven where the Montreux Jazz Festival artists and a “happy few” would meet by the piano of the hotel bar, late at night until dawn.

So on the eve of the final leg of the Fairmont world tour, I got to meet with two wonderful artists from North-America, two young prospects on the Jazz-R&B and Pop scene: Bobby Bazini and Jalen N’Gonda.

Today for the Swiss Music Show, I dig deeply into Jalen’s rich selection of inspirations: Marvin, Stevie, Aretha… pretty much everything that the Tamla Motown record company delivered years after years, starting from the 60’s.

Jalen is a young musician from Maryland who grew up going out dancing in jazz and R&B joints in Washington DC, a huge place for jazz and black music, DC being a famous city for its own local music fashions like Go Go music. He relocated in England where he currently studies music and crafts his art.

Interview in two parts, the first one being about the importance of being raised near Washington DC.

Second part of my interview with Jalen N’Gonda, we talk about his heroes, a long list of jazz masters and his current musical projects.

If you want to know more about Jalen N’Gonda’s music, go to his website ny clicking on this link.

Jalen N’Gonda at the Fairmont Le Montreux Palace, March the 7th, 2020 (Marino Trevisano)

David Glaser

A Mixture of Swiss Music to end 2017

23rd December 2017 by Catherine Leave a Comment

On the December 2017 Swiss Music Show, David and Catherine picked six tracks to play and discuss. It’s an eclectic choice with new music from Grandbrothers, to Eliana Burki, a Swiss artist that has been around for a while.

Other bands and artists mentioned are the following: Mister Milano, Fai Baba, Vendredi Sur Mer, and Cilia Hunch.

These picks make for an interesting discussion as Catherine and David don’t always agree with each others’ choices!