Manolo’s Shoe Blog

Manolo says, even during the practice sessions, this disaster known as the Eurovision lays waste to the very essence of European culture, taking the grand and dignified traditions of the Continent and reducing them to…

…breathy Belgian vixens suggestively acting out scenes of proto-freudian lust…

…Deutscher Cowboys yodelling Wagner’s Grand Ole Oprys…

…Poles paying tribute to their national hero Wladziu Valentino Liberace!

One shudders to think what horrors await us in the coming days.

Manolo says, the Manolo he cannot tell you how many dozens of his internet friends have sent him links to this video.

It is the very reason music and video and music videos were invented. Genius!

Manolo says, here are three more recommendations from the Manolo to help those who must find the gifts of the last minute.

Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet

On the face, the concept it is most simple: the minimalist composer Gavin Bryars found the audio loop of homeless street person singing the repetative jingle and to this he added the music. But this description, in no way does it fully convey the emotional power of this composition. It is, in the opinion of the Manolo, perhaps the single most affecting piece of music composed in the past fifty years.

The Next Hundred Years

The Ted Hawkins, he is the absolutely best soul singer of whom you have never heard. His voice, it is so good, so very good. so soulful, so very soulful.

Very Best Of

Simply Masterful!

(If you do not believe the Manolo you must read the Amazon reviews, they are unanimous in their fulsome praise of this majesterial body of work.)

Manolo says, here are four more recommendation from the music files of the Manolo, perfect for giving to those you love.

Tanto Tempo

The Babel, she has such the lovely voice, and the rhythms they are so smooth and warm, like the pieces of polished tropical wood. It is in the humble opinion of the Manolo the perfect Bossa Nova, something that would allow you to sit back, close your eyes, and pretend that you are elsewhere.

Continental Drifter

Every since he first heard the Stand Back, many of the years ago, the Manolo he has been the devotee of the Charlie Musselwhite, the powerful bluesman and blower of the harp from the Chicago. So, you can imagine the joy of the Manolo when he heard that the Charlie he had recorded the album with the Eliades Ochoa and his band, Cuarteto Patria. The Manolo he loves this record so much that he has had to buy the second copy, so that he is never far from it. Sabroso!

dwightyoakamacoustic.net

This it is just the Dwight Yoakam, the acoustic guitar, and his masterful songbook. It is really how this music it was meant to be heard. Quiet, and yet it is also intensely personal and powerful.

19 Dias Y 500 Noches

If you not heard the odd, harsh, gravelly, eccentrically beautiful, chain-smoker’s voice of the Joaquin Sabina, you have not heard one of the treasures of the Spanish pop music. If you have not listened to the funny, rude, ridiculous, sublime lyrics of the songs of the Jaoquin Sabina you have not encountered one of the treasures of the modern Spanish poetry.

Manolo says, the secret to giving the good music is to give something unexpected, something unusual, something astounding, but also something that you know the recepient cannot but love. Here are four albums that the Manolo believes meets these standards.

Facing Future

The late Israel Kamakawiwo’ole he had the voice of the angels, and when you hear him, with only the ukulele for the accompaniment , you will never hear the Hawai’ian music the same way. There is the sweetness and honesty to the voice that not the thousand Don Hos can replicate.

Tholonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall

Here is the newly discovered classic, one that the Manolo immediately added to his collection.

Ayre

This it is so wonderfully exotic, and yet so familiar at the same time that the Manolo he is entranced by this work, and listens to it more frequently than is probably healthful.

The Wild Tchoupitoulas

This it is the real New Orleans music, the Meters and the Nevilles getting together to stomp out the most danceable music the Manolo has ever heard. In the year with the New Orleans was greviously injured, what better way is there to celebrate the beating heart that survives at the center of the great city than by dancing?

Manolo says, it is the Tuesday, time for What the Manolo is…

Reading…

Listening to…

Reading…

Watching…

Several of the internet friends of the Manolo they were surprised in the last week when the Manolo noted that he was listening to the Outkast.

“Manolo,” they said, “how can such the cultured person as you listen to the music of the rap, and the hop and the hip?”

To this the Manolo he cannot but reply that the Manolo likes what the Manolo likes, and that he has learned, over the years, to not fight himself with regard to his artistic tastes.

For the example, in addition to the Outkast, the Manolo he is also the fan of the Ludacris (The Ludacris, he makes the Manolo laugh.) And, on the occasion the Manolo he has also been known to kick it in the manner of the old school with Boys of Beastlyness and the Enemy of the Public.

Yet, at the same of the times, the Manolo he is also the fan of the opera, and the blues, and the classic country and the western, and of the newer genre of the alt country, and the rock and the roll, and the broadway show music, among the many other things.

The lesson, it is that one should not be ashamed of what one likes. Indeed, one should celebrate what one believes is truly good, even if others they do not always agree.

Manolo says, and so it ends. Not with the bang, but with the big-haired Greek girl and her shaky-shaky doing the Zorba dance of victory.

Now, the ravaged continent is at the last free to pick up the pieces and begin the process of the rebuilding.

P.S. The Manolo’s internet friend the Texpatriate, she has blogged about the whole horrific event!

Manolo says, Ayyyyyyy! The angry God he continues to punish his wayward children by visiting upon them the horrors of the Eurosvision Song Contest.

Today’s carnage?

…twirling skirts and pudgy backup dancers..

…the Turks…

…Ukrainian rappers, who look like your grocer…

…”artistic” Greek choreography…

…Red Hot Granny and the Chili Peppers!

*sob*

Manolo says, ayyyyy! Day two of the Eurovision Song Contest and already it worse than the ten plagues that the angry Yahweh meted out to the unjust Pharoah and the Egyptians. Look at the comparison.

First Plague…Danish pop doofuses

Second plague…the vocal stylings of Croatia’s own Boris and the Belly Buttons.

Third… Norwegian Village People glam rockers.

Number four…Andorra?

Five… caterwauling Portagees!

Ayyyyy! What awaits us as we sink through the inky depths of Hell. The locusts, and the frogs, and the boils, they are nothing compared to this!