Category: Music

Grand Corps Sick: from slam to big screen

Fabien Marsaud’s name may not tell you much. And for good reason, this name is hidden behind that of Grand Corps Malade, the slammer to the five albums, but also the co-director of the film “Patients” presented in preview at the Festival of Film of Love which takes place until Friday at Mons, Belgium.

Victim of a sports accident at the age of 20, Fabien Marsaud finds himself quadriplegic incomplete, forcing him to review the copy of his life. For him, 1997 will be the year of change, of a new beginning. He will swap the basketball against the ballpoint pen. A conversion he will undertake successfully. He will now be called Grand Corps Malade.

His handicap, Fabien spoke in his slam “The Sixth Sense”. But in 2012, he wants to talk more about it through his book “Patients”, which now enjoys a cinematographic adaptation. The talent of Grand Corps Malade is reflected through the writing of the script and its co-realization with its longtime accomplice Medhi Idir. With modesty and strength, the duo of directors moved all the festival-goers of the Festival of the Film of Love of Mons where it was presented in preview [ . . . ]

Full Interview: Grand Corps Sick: from slam to big screen [interview]

Mathieu Saïkaly knows how to heal folk 

To the right, to the left, to the right, it is necessary to follow the Saïkaly … Whether in interview or at the level of his career, Saïkaly runs to lose breath and wins everything in its path. Remember Bip Beep & The Coyote? Well, it’s the same thing. After winning the Prix du public d’Avignon Off 2015 for his performance in Les Garçons Manqués (with the writer Nicolas Rey), Saïkaly publishes his first album today. A Million Particles is a seductive disc that takes its time. A true parenthesis in the rhythm of his unrestrained life, he distilled a certain idea of the folk on which the ghost of Elliott Smith hovers [ . . . ]

Read Full Interview: Mathieu Saïkaly knows how to heal folk (Interviews) | Soul Kitchen

Under the Covers

By Michael Stevenson

Occasionally an artist remakes a classic film or an iconic song, and the effort makes me wonder, “why bother in the first place?” I’ve always felt that it makes more sense to remake lousy movies or records, and try to make these into something halfway decent.

Why remake a masterpiece such as Hitchcock’s Psycho, or James Ivory’s A Room With a View? Wouldn’t it be better to remake Cameron Crowe’s recent films  – Elizabethtown, We Bought a Zoo, and Aloha – and make these something watchable?  And why would a singer make a record titled “[insert name here] Sings Frank Sinatra” or “[insert name here] Sings Patsy Cline”?

Sometimes the Cover or Remake Works

Philip Kaufman’s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers was superior to the 1956 original, as was Coen Brothers’ version of True Grit. The Wizard of Oz that we all know and love (1939) was actually a remake of a 1925 bomb. As for music, the late Joe Cocker recorded a song off the Beatles’ Sgt. Peppers, and made it his own. The Beatles themselves forever swiped “Twist and Shout” from the Isley Bothers.

Forgive my Rachel Maddow-like preamble, but I now present Rodolphe Burger’s cover of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” – a ballsy and brilliant remake of one of the most iconic songs belonging to a true American music legend.

Give it a listen and tell me – what do you think