‘It needs to be loud’: Jozef Van Wissem’s one-man mission to make the lute rock again

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The Dutch ex-punk and Jim Jarmusch bandmate talks about his passion to free up a hidebound repertoire and make its strings ‘a real pop instrument’ Nobody can accuse Jozef Van Wissem of doing things by halves. The musician, very likely the world’s most notorious contemporary lutenist, owns a sonic arsenal of eight of the string instruments: some bespoke, and all boasting remarkable features. With them he has created a huge body of work, nearly 50 titles to date. Another album, This Is My Blood is released this May. Each Easter, Van Wissem settles down to compose a new record. He finds the peace of Warsaw, where everyone has “gone away for the holidays”, more amenable for work than “noisy” Rotterdam, where he also has a flat. Continue reading... from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/lIktvjD via IFTTT
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Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars review Bowie bids farewell to an icon in legendary gig

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DA Pennebaker’s documentary offers moving moments and raw immediacy as the musician takes on his final performance as Ziggy Stardust

DA Pennebaker’s record of David Bowie’s final concert on the Ziggy Stardust tour at London’s Hammersmith Odeon in 1973 (Bowie is part of the reason we will never be reconciled to saying “Eventim Apollo”) is rereleased after a restoration. It was the legendary “all killer no filler” gig at which, in the presence of the Spiders from Mars – Mick Ronson (guitar), Trevor Bolder (bass), Mick Woodmansey (drums) – he retired his Ziggy Stardust persona, announcing to a stunned crowd that it was the last time he would ever play (as Ziggy).

The show itself, in which Bowie and band members appear starkly key-lit in darkness, with the crowd glimpsed briefly and almost stroboscopically, looks intriguingly intimate, like something at a much smaller club venue. The concert is straightforward and almost minimalist in its staging and Bowie’s cheeky theatrical genius and rackety exotica has something panto about it. Often, the piano and sax lines in Changes give the event a Vegas-residency feel, although no Vegas residency, even in 1973, would be so austerely presented. (Aladdin Sane is incidentally, along with “the Beatles”, a phrase which has transcended its own wordplay origins.)

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