Lobão: a ovelha negra da música brasileira

http://ultimosegundo.ig.com.br/cultura/musica/lobao+a+ovelha+negra+da+musica+brasileira/n1237997881148.html

Lobão: "É um momento ridículo, uma "lucianohuckzação" do Brasil"

O músico soltou o verbo para o iG Gente em seu camarim, depois do show no desfile da Reserva

Lobão acabou roubando a cena com seu show na passarela da Reserva, que fechou o quarto dia da SPFW, nessa segunda-feira (31), na Bienal. Fato surpreendente, já que o desfile da marca carioca é um dos mais aguardados da semana de moda paulistana. O músico lançou mão de um rock pesado e empolgante, causando furor na plateia. O tema da coleção de inverno da marca de moda masculina é Décadence avec Élégance, nome de uma música que Lobão compõs nos anos 80. Ele explica: “O rock tem uma elegância decadente. O que é legal do rock é uma guitarra toda arrebentada, velha, de 1957, assim como um jeans velho e desbotado. Esse é um conceito que causa um fascínio, porque a coisa funciona e aparentemente ela está meio desgrenhada”.

Para ele, a decadência é algo sublime. “Você vê as modelos, todo mundo meio drogado, meio com olheira, é charmoso. A decadência advinda de se jogar na vida, isso é uma coisa que fascina as pessoas. Porque a maioria das pessoas não se arrisca, nem admite a decadência. A decadência admitida se torna divina”. iG Gente bateu um papo com ele, que acaba de lançar sua primeira a autobiografia, “50 anos a mil”. O músico ficou bem satisfeito com o livro, que teve recordes de vendas: “Eu li e já reli várias vezes e não tive vergonha de mim. Isso é um bom termômetro porque eu sou muito duro comigo”, disse. Confira a conversa e a galeria de fotos:

Élégance avec décadence
"Élégance é Deus, élégance é a natureza humana, a elegância que mostra a nossa possibilidade de ser mais evoluído. Porque élégance envolve delicadeza, senso estético, ritmo e um senso de eternidade. A decadência quando é ousada e explícita, é divina também. Tem a decadência ascendente e essa é inadmissível, o resto está tudo certo".

Nem sempre se vê"Nem sempre vejo altos filmes e altos livros. Está faltando ler, estou cheio de livros na minha prateleira, filmes que eu não estou vendo. Estou numa fase obsessiva com a minha guitarra e eu não vejo nada".

Blá Blá Blá"O Brasil está muito alegrinho, essa alegria politicamente correta, eesa coisa teletubbie, é de uma violência pra mim. Nada mais violento que você se higienizar socialmente, o Brasil está sofrendo uma fase de higienização social da pior espécie. Isso é um blábláblá. Todo mundo elogia todo mundo, isso pra mim é uma claustrofobia, o pior tipo de violência. O nosso País vive um momento muito ridículo, uma 'lucianohuckzação' do Brasil".

Não dá para controlar"Não dá para controlar a ejaculação precoce!"

“O Rio é o túmulo do rock”

http://revistaquem.globo.com/Revista/Quem/0,,EMI9112-8219,00-O+RIO+E+O+TUMULO+DO+ROCK.html

Recém-instalado em São Paulo, o cantor, de 50 anos, continua irreverente: desanca a bossa nova, defende as drogas e desconfia do sistema. E surpreende com um lado soft: quer se reaproximar da filha e adotar uma criança

Há 21 anos, João Luís Woerdenbag Filho, o Lobão, deixava a cela de número 11 da Polinter, local onde ficou preso por quase três meses, após ter sido flagrado com um papelote de cocaína, no Aeroporto do Galeão, no Rio de Janeiro. Dono de uma extensa ficha criminal, com 132 processos judiciais e mais de 20 prisões, Lobão virou mascote do Comando Vermelho e “dava assessoria de logística aos traficantes da cadeia”, conforme ele mesmo relata.

Hoje, aos 50 anos, o músico ícone da geração rock-’n’-roll da década de 80, trocou o Rio pela capital paulista: “Se São Paulo é o túmulo do samba, o Rio é o túmulo do rock”, diz. No novo endereço, comanda o programa Debate MTV e grava nova atração, com estréia prevista para o próximo dia 18, batizada de Código MTV: a cada semana, Lobão abrirá espaço para duas novas bandas com estilos parecidos mostrarem suas músicas.

Em seu estúdio particular, entre violas, bandolins e violões e às voltas com o movimento sorrateiro de um de seus três gatos, chamado Maria Bonita, o músico conversou com a reportagem de QUEM. Educado e gentil, Lobão destoa, no trato, da imagem do artista polêmico e sem papas na língua. Mas não perde a ocasião: nesta entrevista, critica a bossa nova, fala de drogas, da relação distante com sua única filha, Júlia, de 19 anos, e relembra com certo saudosismo dos tempos de cadeia.

QUEM: Como um carioca como você vive em São Paulo?
LOBÃO: Estou amando. Quando comecei a carreira, no ano de 75, 76, tocando bateria na banda Vímana, numa peça da Marília Pêra, fiquei aqui uns três meses. Mas eu sempre morei no Rio. Estou me sentindo muito em casa, mesmo porque, na verdade, eu já vinha ficando aqui desde 2005, na época do programa Saca-Rolha.

QUEM: E por que saiu do Rio?
L: O principal fator foi ter sentido que a cidade perdeu o tono do rock-’n’- roll. O cenário do rock e tudo que se refere ao gênero estão em São Paulo. Se São Paulo é o túmulo do samba, o Rio é o túmulo do rock (risos).

QUEM: O Rio é também o berço da bossa nova, que agora está fazendo 50 anos. Você curte o gênero?
L: Da minha geração, talvez eu seja o artista que mais teve influência da bossa nova. Acho que a bossa nova é uma língua morta. Eu não acredito na alegria de ninguém que vivencie esse tipo de música e também não posso acreditar que uma pessoa que tem aparelhos sensoriais em algum estado razoável possa achar que aquilo é interessante. Alguma coisa está errada nisso tudo. E, convenhamos, é música de elevador (risos).

QUEM: Em uma entrevista dada em 2002, sobre a volta de bandas da década de 80, você disse que nunca viu alguém se dar bem depois de gravar um acústico da MTV – mas seu disco lhe rendeu o Grammy Latino 2007. Não é uma contradição?
L: Eu sempre falei uma coisa, e é verdade. A única banda que realmente se deu bem, que aproveitou o acústico e se reinventou, foi o Capital Inicial. Se você verificar todos que fizeram o acústico, como o Lulu, os Paralamas, os Titãs, eles alavancaram a carreira, só que no disco seguinte não acontecia nada. Eu sempre falei que o som produzido pelos violões em um acústico tinha som de pato. Até três anos atrás, o processo de gravação era tosco demais. Antes de fazer o acústico, pesquisei pela internet e vi que tinha um equipamento, por sinal muito baratinho, capaz de dar um puta som legal. E pensei: por que não fazer agora um acústico? Vão achar que eu sou contraditório, coisa e tal. Mas houve um fator novo que contribuiu para a criação desse disco. Talvez por isso ele tenha sido tão premiado.

QUEM: Mas quanto vendeu?
L: Muito pouco. Eu nunca vendi discos. Infelizmente, vendi mais discos na época em que estive preso. Vida Bandida vendeu 350 mil cópias – a expectativa era de 2 milhões. Me Chama vendeu 20 mil cópias – esse acústico foi o pior de todos os acústicos da MTV: 20 mil cópias entre CD e DVD. Em termos de vendas, foi um desastre total.

QUEM: Você se rendeu ao sistema?
L: Não. Eu continuo independente. O contrato que tenho atualmente com a Sony/BMG tem uma parceria com o meu selo, Universo Paralelo. A gravadora me deu liberdade de fazer o que eu quero e eu estou fazendo. Isso é o que importa.

Continuo tendo a mesma postura quanto a liberação das drogas. Maconha, para mim, é como se fosse cigarro. Eu acabo de comer e acendo um.

QUEM: Por falar em Vida Bandida, todas as suas prisões tinham a ver com apologia, uso e porte de drogas. Vinte e um anos depois de sua última prisão, qual sua opinião sobre as drogas?
L: Eu não mudei nada. Eu tenho 50 anos e estou a mesma coisa. Continuo tendo a mesma postura quanto a liberação das drogas. Se fossem liberadas, seriam menos perigosas. Você poderia comprar cocaína de grande qualidade, e as pessoas não cheirariam maisena, vidro moído, mármore... Maconha, para mim, é como se fosse cigarro. Eu acabo de comer e acendo um. Eu gosto de fumar.

QUEM: Hoje está com 50 anos. Você se considera um sobrevivente?
L: Eu sou um cara de 50 anos que já era para ter morrido há pelo menos uns 40 (risos). Eu tenho um histórico de sobrevivência. Aos 2 anos de idade, eu era o xodó do dr. Rinaldo de Lamare (pediatra autor do best-seller A Vida do Bebê), por ter tido necrose, na época uma doença incurável. Sobrevivi a minha geração, que morreu toda de Aids. Todos os meus amigos, o Júlio Barroso (da Gang 90), o Renato Russo, Cazuza. Tive medo, não sabíamos de onde vinha a doença, era um terror constante. Para ser sincero, parece que ainda está tudo por fazer. Eu penso que o grosso do meu trabalho ainda não foi posto para fora. Eu tenho feito, hoje, 20% do que quero fazer. Me sinto ainda um garotão.

QUEM: Você vem acompanhando a trajetória da cantora Amy Winehouse? Você acha que ela usa drogas recreativamente ou para se autodestruir?
L: Eu amo a Amy. Acho ela sensacional! Por mais enganada que esteja, com certeza ela deve estar passando por um processo de esclarecimento pessoal muito grande. Ela caminha para esse tipo de martírio midiático. É do tipo arquétipo sofredor. Com certeza, Jimi Hendrix seria um sacristão perto dela. A história da maioria desses gênios é dramática, se não trágica.

QUEM: Você está casado há 17 anos com a empresária Regina Lopes. Não quiseram ter filhos?
L: Não. Eu tenho vários enteados e uma filha também. A Regina tem muita vontade de adotar, pode ser que no futuro aconteça. Ela sempre fala “um dia desses, quando a gente tiver a nossa vida mais tranqüila, vamos adotar”. Se ela quiser, de repente, acho que é uma coisa necessária. Se tivermos condições de vida para dar a uma criança que já exista, para que colocar mais gente no mundo? Se eu puder, a médio prazo, pode rolar, sim.

QUEM: Você tem uma filha, chamada Júlia, com a atriz Danielle Daumerie, que aparece nua na capa do disco O Rock Errou, de 1986. É uma relação conturbada?
L: A Júlia está com 19 anos. Eu sou um caso típico de pais separados, em que houve uma briga, a mãe monopolizou a filha, e eu fiquei meio de fora. Eu não tenho muita vivência com ela, gostaria muito. Lutei pela guarda, mas o roqueiro, o drogado... – as pessoas achavam que eu não estava apto para isso. Eu espero que um dia a gente se acerte. Eu gosto muito dela. Ela está uma menina bonita, fazendo faculdade de moda no Rio de Janeiro. Nos falamos esporadicamente, mas não há uma intimidade maior porque não tivemos possibilidade de isso acontecer.

QUEM: “Me chama” foi a música mais tocada na década de 80. Cansa ter que tocá-la ainda hoje?
L: Quando me cansa, eu paro. Às vezes passo um bom tempo sem cantá-la.

QUEM: E quando te pedem para tocar uma determinada música?
L: Eu faço questão de não tocar. Caetano faz isso também. Alguém pede a ele: “Toca ‘Leãozinho’”. Ele diz: “Ia tocar, não toco mais”. Para um artista de verdade, isso é uma ofensa. Isso só se faz com cantor de churrascaria.

stephen malkmus

he's in this band, pavement

stephen malkmus tells all
interview by gail

chickfactor: I hear that you're the international karaoke king.
stephen: who told you that?
cf: it's all over the internet.
stephen: that I did karaoke?
cf: no, I'm lying. I interviewed janet for this issue, and she's a big karaoke nut.
stephen: yeah, she's into it. I would never normally do —I¹ve never done karaoke except for the day before yesterday in new york. my voice is totally gone. I tried to do changes [sings "ch-ch-ch-ch-changes’" in a high voice]. I'm antikaraoke. I don't like it myself. I'm telling you the truth. I don't like to sing. I hate singing. I only sing because no one else does in our band. I like playing guitar and writing songs.
cf: do you guys play golf?
stephen: no, scott does. I watch it somewhat. it's a sport for old rich men. young rich men.
cf: are you a gambling man?
stephen: I like to gamble. horses.
cf: how's your horse, speedy service?
stephen: he's in pasture right now, relaxing.
cf: did you ever say you were going to play that bowlie thing?
stephen: no. we never did.
cf: are you going to play the next one?
stephen: they invited us. I would except, quite frankly, I don't like traveling to england anymore.
cf: how come?
stephen: I'm just sick of traveling. I'd rather be at home. we've already been there too much for promotion. I wouldn't go there just to play bowlie weekender, no matter how great it was. we have to go to this glastonbury thing, I don't want to go at all. it's going to be totally stupid, just idiotic stupid shit. really irritates me. I don't care. I'm happy to tour in america. I like it a lot more than going there now. the first few times you go there, it¹s really fun. but now, it's just the same places, no one speaks your language. I'll be glad to go to Italy.
cf: where's pavement most famous?
stephen: here and san francisco. maybe I guess in england but everyone's famous in england. they have so much media, that to be famous in england is a really low accomplishment as far as I'm concerned. I don't care about the english. I like english people and I have a good time there but I really don't care about being a popular band in england. it's a small island. I¹d rather be popular here.
cf: what's in your rider?
stephen: beer, coke, vodka, a deli tray, batteries and a newspaper. those are the extravagant things.
cf: towels?
stephen: we've got lots of towels. I use them to blow my nose.
cf: what's your typical fan look like?
stephen: probably young and 65% male, 35% female. I don't know.
cf: college kids?
stephen: probably kind of like you but ten years younger, eight years younger.
cf: have you ever gotten a good present from a fan?
stephen: got this weird thing [a wallet type thing with hand embroidery], I still have it in my pocket. I don't know if it¹s a good present but it's kind of cryptic. it's probably from a young girl. nothing too special. lots of nice cds. all the japanese girls are giving me t-shirts or nice shirts and nice stuff. japanese people really are great gift givers.
cf: can you cook?
stephen: not really. I'd like to say I can but uh!
cf: do you have a specialty?
stephen: no, I can cook for myself. I can follow recipes. I'm not afraid to try things. I can make like ratatouille. I would like to. my mom's bought me all these skillets and they're really nice. it's a hint. she wants me to get married and settle down.
cf: has anyone ever written a song about you?
stephen: not that I know of. oh yes, some young kids have given me tapes: [sings] "steve malkmus! steve malkmus!"
cf: who's the biggest fashion plate in portland?
stephen: nobody on the rock scene, that's for sure. what a miserableŠ.
cf: everyone wears tevas and polarfleece?
stephen: people in bands just wear whatever, really drab, uninventive clothes. there are some people I guess that do kinda, maybe that luke hollywood guy, he dresses funny. I've really never seen anybody step out on a limb in any way there. it's an extremely repressed place.
cf: is it boring to live there?
stephen: yes, very. it's incredibly boring.
cf: it's pretty. I can see why you'd move there.
stephen: I don't mind that it's boring, but it's one of the dullest places I've ever been.
cf: where would you take someone if they came there for the day?
stephen: the bookstore, which I love. see, I like boring places, it's fine with me, but it's incredibly dull and people are not very outgoing. higgins is a nice northwestern style restaurant. I don't know where else really. good question. movie theater.
cf: what are you addicted to?
stephen: reading. cigarettes occasionally. that's about it. I have lots of other things that I love but I'm not addicted to them.
cf: who's the worst band that's opened for you?
stephen: tie between the verve and L7.
cf: got any tour horror stories?
stephen: we've been strip-searched and all that in sweden with gary.
cf: what was your first gig?
stephen: maybe d.o.a. if you don't count elton john or like neil diamond.
cf: that counts.
stephen: I probably fell asleep at that show.
cf: you were a big elton john fan?
stephen: yeah.
cf: me too. what's the worst job you've had?
stephen: one time I painted address numbers on curbs for pennies. really sucked.
cf: what do you read?
stephen: I like to read books exclusively. I don't read newspapers or magazines cause I like really to escape. books are a total escape. they don't make me depressed cause reading the newspaper makes me sad and afraid of dying or something. so I like to read books, novels.
cf: if you could pick someone to do a pavement tribute record, who would it be?
stephen: maybe the thinking fellers or boss hog.
cf: someone told me that david berman and [uva homie] rob chamberlain were like the deathrock milli vanilli in college.
stephen: yeah, sort of. they were kind of gothic.
cf: were you deathrock too?
stephen: no, I thought they were these scuzzy people that weren't nice because of the way they dressed. I was afraid of them.
cf: did you like living in charlottesville?
stephen: it was okay. other people had more fun than me. to me it just passed right by. I didn¹t really have much fun. I couldn’t wait to leave. that being said, I had a good enough time while I was there. but I was always thinking, god, I can't wait till the next stage of my life. high school was the same way. I totally expected to have no ties with anybody from that school when I left. then I met bob and david at the end of it. it was better then. my class sucked. they're a year younger than me, all those guys.
cf: what's your favorite bar?
stephen: I'm not a big bar fan in general. I only go cause other people go, to be social.
cf: rather hang out at someone's house?
stephen: anywhere but a bar. I hate bars.
cf: [gen x novelist] rob bingham's house?
stephen: I like that. I'll just stay in there all the time whenever I'm here. I'm totally happy to be there. I never go anywhere.
cf: what's the biggest misconception about you?
stephen: I have no idea because I don't know how people conceive me. maybe they think that we're...I don't know.
cf: smirky smartasses?
stephen: yeah, I guess so. we're no more smirky smartass than anyone else with a brain should be. a couple times we've been sort of cranky...right now I am relatively cranky and my voice is fucked...so maybe we come across as brats occasionally. we're really not. we just have a wide variety of feelings like everybody.
cf: do you like being a rock star?
stephen: I don't feel like a rock star at all. I don't get benefits.
cf: three nights sold out in new york city.
stephen: we get no benefits from it except we get to employ all these really nice people and hang out with them and our band and see some of our friends. other than that, I must say, I probably wouldn't be here right now if it was going to be a grinding tour like it was 8 years ago. so I'm glad that it's at this comfort level cause I wouldn't go on. I'd just do something else. cause it's just too hard. I'd still play music.
cf: do you read your press?
stephen: no, not at all. I used to, slanted and enchanted and crooked rain. sometimes local things in towns I¹ll just read the little thing. I feel bad now because some of the people I did interviews with are really nice and they'll be like, "did you read the piece?" and I had to say no. I haven't even seen any of our videos. I don't watch any of our videos since...rattled.
cf: you just don't care.
stephen: I care. I just don't want to know about it. it seems that media corrupts. I'd like to think that I don't know anything about what people are saying because it would bring me down more than up. it wouldn't make me feel better, it could only make me feel worse.
cf: even if they like it?
stephen: yeah, no, because I would just think, oh next time they're not going to. everything seems to be cyclical with our band. people make decisions about whether they like it or dislike it before they listen to it. I guess we have to deal with our history of our group, which I don't think we deal with. we're just like, we feel like making an album now and someone reviews it they're thinking about other things that got said about the band, you know, making a party line. by wowee zowee, I got tired of that. that being said, I'm glad we get a lot of press. I'm glad that [publicist] nils works hard to get it and my parents get to see it. it makes them proud of me and all my friends are like "whoa, you guys are really big," even if we're not. our press makes it seem like we're big.
cf: do you do product endorsements?
stephen: no, we've got the converse all the bands get but I don't wear them.
cf: what was your first guitar?
stephen: hollow-body wooden soft-string thing my grandma gave me.
cf: what was the first song you wrote? what was it called? what was it about?
stephen: it was called "psychopath," it was a punkrock song. I was like 14. [sings] "I am a psychopath! I'm fucking weird!" that's how it went. "better stay away man! they said they'd keep me in for 20 years or until my mind clears!" I can't remember the rest, but it's like "I will kill you" and stuff. it's like the adolescents or the offspring. I basically sounded like the offspring when I was 12.
cf: whose stagewear do you covet?
stephen: kim gordon seems to have a lot of nice designer dresses.
cf: and you wish you had them?
stephen: well, yeah, I'd like to have some nice ready-to-wear clothing, I just like to have it in my house rather than some other indie-rock guy's leather jacket.
cf: do you get writer's block?
stephen: yeah, for lyrics. songs, not really.
cf: do you carry a notebook around?
stephen: no, I'm not interested in writing down my thoughts. I thought I should. it might make the lyrics better. david does that. he's more of a word person. I'm not a word person. I just do it. I'm just getting by.
cf: you don't think your lyrics are good?
stephen: I think they're good just in relationship to other people's. they're good for what they are. I don't think they're particularly great. but they don't aim that high. they achieve what they are meant to achieve. I think the tone of voice is authentic and all that, but I don't think they're particularly deep or clever. there just wasn't that much time spent on them. I can't stand behind them too strongly.
cf: who's your favorite lyricist?
stephen: I say I like david [berman] a lot because he's my friend. neil young was good and captain beefheart. I like nonsense too. maybe john lennon was good. I don't care about lyrics at all, that's the problem. they've never done anything for me. I like some lines but I don't think about what they mean. I just sing along with them.
cf: what guitarists are you fond of?
stephen: I guess I like hendrix, the guy from the ground hogs, blues guys maybe. richard thompson is pretty cool. I don't really listen to solos, I kinda like rhythm guitars more, even though I play a lot of solos live. I'm trying to have something happen up there.
cf: what pop-culture phenomenon is annoying the hell out of you?
stephen: all television, any popular movie, all of it. it's all terrible. it's all embarrassingly...they're just out to get your money. it bothers me when things are all commercial. when that's their only reason for existing. I don't really like things like that. I know other people do, they can comment on how interesting it is. to me it just seems evil.
cf: do you listen to american bands?
stephen: I want to. but then I find myself somehow being influenced by english things and it really makes me sick. I don't want to allow them to have any more than they already have. they have so much impact on music and it's just not fair. and they're so snooty about it too. do you like english music?
cf: I'm afraid I do. I like tons of it.
stephen: I do too. it makes me mad. it's really frustrating. I want america to rise up.
cf: do you like to look at art in museums?
stephen: sometimes. I used to like to do it more.
cf: do you have any art in your house?
stephen: well, my grandmother was a great artist. I have mostly just her stuff.
cf: what kind of stuff did she do?
stephen: she does everything. sculptures, painting, cut-ups. she was a really talented woman. she was a great person. I probably don't have as much as I'd like. my apartment's too small.
cf: besides reading, what else do you like to do when you're not playing music?
stephen: I like to go hiking. go out in the nature for the day. I do go out to the golf driving range and hit golfballs but I don't like to play on the course. I like to buy books and play guitar and travel around and go see my friends and parents. they're really nice people too. I've got to call my dad this evening [father's day].
cf: do you think it's a good idea to meet your heroes?
stephen: um, I don't think it should really matter too much. obviously they might let you down somewhat if you expect them to be really charismatic or excited to meet you because they probably have their own problems.
cf: had any celebrity brushes lately?
stephen: not really. I don't have any celebrities I'd want to meet. there's no one that could star-strike me I don't think. courtney love had some kind of like I don't know what she was doing but she was like "look at me." that didn't effect me either. she was just trying to direct all the attention toward her. I've never been around any other stars like that. they're all just normal. CF

The Spin Interview: Cat Power

The artist also known as Chan Marshall is ready to sing the blues away.

hat follows is an unabridged version of the Cat Power interview that appears in our December issue. Chan Marshall does not look troubled. On this late September afternoon, the fresh-faced and ponytailed 34-year-old singer, better known as Cat Power, perches on a windowsill outside Manhattan's Mercer Hotel, humming little ditties. Petting homely poodles. Whistling at attractive businessmen who pass by on the sidewalk. Having recently rereleased her gorgeous Memphis soul album, The Greatest, she's got a newly confident swagger and ten American dreams' worth of plans, including two upcoming albums, a book she wants to write about Africa, her role as the new face of Chanel jewelry, and an acting career she'd like to launch. Strange that this is the same Marshall who, after The Greatest debuted last January, canceled a tour and admitted herself to Miami's Mount Sinai Medical Center -- the result of a breakdown. Then again, maybe this is exactly how someone who survived psychiatric treatment should look. Happy. And lucky.

Spin: What was the first song you ever wrote?
Chan Marshall: In fourth grade, I lived by this tobacco field on the edge of a town called McLeansville, North Carolina, and I had this neighbor who had a piano. I'd only seen pianos in church or in my dad's apartment, and I was never allowed to touch instruments. I grew up in a house that had alcoholism problems, and there are different codes of living when you grow up like that. I didn't go to other people's houses much. So one day my neighbor's parents weren't home, and she was watching TV, so I snuck into her den and I played this song that's very similar to a song I have called "Norma Jean." Back then I called it "Windows." That song -- I felt like I had a secret, like I had made a life for myself.

You've said you've been drinking since you were very young. What started it?
People who drink habitually don't realize they're doing it, because it was part of their upbringing. Everybody from my immediate family to my grandparents to my great-grandparents -- there were always severe alcoholic and psychological problems. If your parents gave you fire to play with when you were two, you'd be standing in fire by the time you were an adult. [Before my most recent hospital stay] I was drinking from the time I woke up in the morning until the time I went to bed.

You recently spent a week at the hospital. What made you decide to check yourself in?
It wasn't for drinking -- this was for a reaction to drinking. This was the third time I've been in the hospital. I never really connected the dots. I never really thought, "When something bad happens, you go to the bar and turn off your emotions." I never realized that I'd gotten to the point of such depression. So that's why I can't drink anymore. I need to be able to face things.

It's been reported that you've had seven drinks in seven months. That's not sobriety.
Well, yeah, once a month. I call myself sober because if there's something special, like my friend's birthday in Miami, I'll have half a tablespoon [of vodka] with pineapple juice. That's what I call a drink.

Have you ever thought about going to Alcoholics Anonymous?
No. It wasn't that I was an alcoholic. It was that I was on tour for so long and that I lost the love of my life in 1998 to another woman. He was the first person who loved me who I loved. I never saw or heard from him again until last night. He has a girlfriend now -- his mom told me, she came to my show in Atlanta. That was the second time I checked myself into the hospital, when I found out that he was with somebody else. I mean, he was living with her. We were done and I didn't know about it.

How were you able to get out of the hospital that time?
I had to go on tour the next week. That's when the drinking started. I had a bottle of scotch backstage at that point. A year later, my rider had a bottle of scotch and a case of beer for every show.

How much were you drinking every day at your worst?
Well, it was always a fifth of Scotch. And then it was a fifth of Scotch and two Xanax. But that was normal. I mean, fuck man, there are 21-year-olds who go to NYU who probably drink like that five nights a week.

What was happening in your life before you went to the hospital this time?
I had holed up in this apartment in Miami for a full year and didn't have any contact with people. My phone was always on silent. Some weeks it was just turned off. I really wanted to die. When you're that depressed, it's not even "depressed" anymore. You've just given up. There's nothing inside you that's good.

How did you finally get out of the house?
My friend Susanna flew down to Miami from New York. I hadn't talked to her in about a year. She just had a bad feeling. She kept asking people, "Have you talked to Chan?" Susanna got there and I was so happy to see her because I'd been...well, you know, my grandmother was very religious growing up and she taught me from a very young age that Satan is bad and God is good. But you tell a child about Satan and demons and saints and angels, and with a child's imagination, it just becomes a part of your mind. As an adult, you have to really remember that it's all just folk tales. Like werewolves, that kind of thing. How did you react when she told you that you were going to the hospital?
I didn't understand why we were going. I thought she wasn't feeling well. She was crying in the cab, holding my hand. And I was thinking, "God, she must be in so much pain."

What happened while you were there?
Well, six months earlier I had this dream about Johnny Cash. He slid into a booth beside me and he was like, "June and I, we've birthed a new child. And its name is Acanthus." Anyway, I was filled with this really happy feeling of exultation. I just felt like I'd been touched, you know? Like I wasn't alone. So I was in this store one day and there was this ring there with this leaf on it. I asked the woman what the leaf was and she said it was acanthus. So I was like, cool, I'll take it. When Susanna came, she took my ring because she was like, "They probably aren't going to [let you take it into the hospital]."

The doctor said I had a psychotic break because I was suffering severe, massive depression and overwhelming stress. I basically lay in bed for the first three days and refused to talk or eat or open my eyes. If someone came around, I would try to blink really quickly. I wasn't looking at people because I didn't want to take their pills. I was afraid that I would never leave that place. I was afraid that I would be drugged and I would never be able to say, Help! Susanna was holding my hand. She said, "Chan, I have to leave, but I'm thinking about you and I'm literally twenty blocks from you. I'm going to come see you tomorrow and everything's gonna be fine."

On the fourth day, I woke up and I was like, "Shit, Susanna is not coming back. Maybe Susanna is just part of your split personality. Maybe everyone's part of your split personality. Maybe your mom doesn't exist. Maybe you aren't you. Maybe you're really 75 years old and you're homeless with cancer and you're on a respirator, and when you open your eyes, you're going to see that you're dying." So I got out of bed and went right up to the mirror. At this point, I was raw. I hadn't seen myself. I hadn't brushed my hair. I wondered [if I looked in the mirror], would it be me? And I looked. And I looked like me. Like the inside of me. Like a little kid. When I saw my face, all I wanted to do was protect that person. And I realized, "What are you doing here?"

So I was like, "What would a sane person do?" I brushed my teeth and I combed my hair. Susanna had brought a few cosmetics and new fresh clothes, so I put them on and I felt clean. I had not gone outside my room yet. But I went out the door and I went down the hall, where all the people had gathered to watch TV. I had heard everyone outside my door saying their names and asking for their medication. So I acted like everyone else, like I was supposed to act. I went up to the counter and I was like, "I think I'm supposed to ask for medication?" And that was it. That was the day.

On the fifth day, it was easier. And on the sixth day the doctor came in and said, "How are you today Chan?" And I'd say, "I'm fine." So the doctor says, "Chan, are you having any strange thoughts?" And I was like, "On a scale of one to ten, being in here, I'm at a four. But definitely not at a ten, like I was when I first came in here." And he was like, "Okay, are you hearing voices?" And I was like, "No, not at all. Just my voice."

Had you been hearing voices before you went to the hospital?
I wasn't hearing voices. I was having visions.

What kind of visions?
My window got blown out, so there was a sheet of wood over it. There were little dark knots on the wood and it looked like the desert. I could hear the wind behind it -- whooooooo -- blowing across the desert. And where those knots were, the desert was exposing this huge, massive civilization. All these super ornate, shiny, pointy buildings. It was this Arabic type of place, like the Sahara 5000 years ago. These other knots started moving. It was very hallucinatory. All that sand was representative of time. I felt like I was going back in time.

It's embarrassing to admit things like this. What I thought was a vision was obviously just my mind. And since I hadn't slept in seven days, my mind was out the window.

How do you feel now?
Oh man, I'm just so happy to be alive. I've always been like that when I was little. I feel lucky. I feel blessed. So grateful and thankful to myself that I didn't fall for any tricks and I didn't fuck up and I didn't become a junkie and I didn't jump out a window and I didn't fall prey to those traps because I had self-preservation. I don't come from money or an educated family background or any sort of supportive family life, so all of my choices are made on my own. This was the first time that I ever let myself be taken care of against my will. That's such a weird concept.

How do you respond to people who say you're intentionally cultivating a "crazy artist" mythology around yourself?
It makes me laugh. I wish that I could be that conniving!

You have a reputation for unusual behavior during live shows: starting and stopping songs, talking as if you're in a trance, apologizing repeatedly. Where does that come from?
Say you're typing a poem and there's something wrong with the E key -- it looks like an R or a Q. And you're like, fuck, and you pull the paper out. That's what playing is like for me. There's just something wrong -- the sound, the lights, someone looking at me, maybe the piano's out of tune -- that's why I stop and start. I want to make it perfect. It's not like I'm trying to torture people. I don't care if I've got a booger up my nose or my head's on fire; it's not about me. It's about the song.

Do you have stage fright?
It makes my heart beat faster just thinking about it -- all the people and the lights. I don't appear shy, but I'm a very sensitive person.

Do you have to play live? Is that part of your contract?
No not at all. I wanted to.

You enjoy playing live? You don't always seem to enjoy it.
That's the thing about me. People think, Oh she's crazy -- she doesn't like to play. But that's not it. It's like tapping into some communal vein. There's always one person who talks to you after you go through this physical, emotional, spiritual, psychological experience. It's a dualship, a communication between the listener and me, even though you're not talking to each other or looking at each other, there's this space that starts living. This space in the universe that we all share, and it opens up, and then we forget we're in a bar. It's like looking at a painting or watching a horse run. It's that thing that keeps us liking life.

You recorded The Greatest in Memphis. What was it like to work with soul legends like Mabon "Teenie" Hodges?
The recording process was intense -- you know, white girl from Georgia asking these legendary musicians if they'd be interested in recording "Try Me," by James Brown. Teenie would be like, "Now what key is the song in?" And I'd be like, "I don't know anything about keys." And he'd be like, "Okay, just play it." I'd play and he'd mark down the Nashville numbers system -- that's the way poor people learn to play because [takes on a deep-South accent] they don't have no con-serrr-va-tory. And Teenie would be like, "See that note you played? That's the key. It's always gonna come back to that note."

Teenie taught you music theory?
Yeah, but I didn't really need to know any of that. [Laughs] You know the dude in Africa with a wash bin? He doesn't need to know. That Chinese guy in the subway with the instrument with one string? Do you think he's studying music theory?

Your next record will be another covers album. Whose songs will you be doing?
Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Cole Porter. I'm going to record it in Mexico City in January, release it next summer. Then I'll have time to audition for Saturday Night Live.

You want to join the cast of Saturday Night Live?
Yeah. I met Molly Shannon when I was playing a show in Brooklyn. I didn't know what to say, so I said [imitates Shannon's voice from her SNL cheerleader skit], "I love it! I love it!" She didn't laugh. I think she was embarrassed. But four years later, I saw her again and told her this story about my friends getting handcuffed, and Molly was laughing. She was like, "Oh my God, have you ever thought about acting?" So I might ask her to forward my audition tape.

When you look at all the albums you've made over the past decade, what's the most significant change you hear musically?
The biggest change is probably something you can't hear on the albums -- it's something that happens live. When I was six, I was singing [Kenny Rogers'] "The Gambler" onto a cassette for my grandmother. Now when I'm onstage, I'm singing the same way, singing from happiness. My songs always sounded triumphant to me, but they never sounded triumphant to other people because I was always insecure about my abilities. I caught so much bullshit from sound guys for years. With The Greatest, this is the first time I've ever been able to play live and have it sound like it did on the album. This Memphis group is the first band I've recorded with that has practiced. Having all the songs in key has liberated my singing for the first time.

Can you tell me about Sun, the album that's due after your next covers album?
It will come out in spring of 2008. I'm producing it. One song is called "Leopard," I used to sing it when I was 26. There's another song, a spiritual song called "Mountaintops." And there's a really sweet song called "Funny Things" that's like a little kid's tap-dance song about having special secret thoughts: "Funny things in your dreams/Can you whisper talk to me?" And then there's "Silent Machine," which I actually wrote a long time ago. There's another song called "Oh Time." It's about my ex and it's about forgiveness. My friend Susanna always cries when I play it.

How does it go?
"A ticket to Atlanta / Family knows another now / A ticket from Atlanta / Family knows, another shot down / You win / I give in / I forgive you / Oh time, the great healer / Oh time, the great healer."

That's beautiful.
You know Cat Power -- she tends to write pretty personal songs. The myth! The mystery! [Laughs] That's why I've always done interviews: to show there's no mystery at all. When I was 21, I wanted to do interviews because I wanted to save the world. I still do. But half the time I'm still trying to save myself first.

http://www.spinmag.com/

Fight! Fight! Kim Deal Calls Stephen Malkmus A "Bitch"

4/1/2008 By Cam Lindsay

Consider the gloves officially off in the trash-talking ring of '90s indie rock. A beef has recently been raised by Breeders/Pixies alt-rock goddess Kim Deal regarding some apparent "bitchy" comments made last decade by Stephen Malkmus. (Ooh, I smell many a blogs posting Pavement vs. Pixies and/or the Breeders threads!)

In this week's issue of Time Out New York, Deal was asked about her 1993 hit "Cannonball," which brought up the Jicks' front-man's supposed grudge. The interview portion reads:

“Cannonball” was a big crossover hit. Ever get sick of it? No. That used to be a popular stance for indie-rockers to take. If somebody actually liked one of their songs, then they would hate the song. I was never like that.

Did the success of that song cause any jealousy among your indie-rock peers? You know, [Pavement’s Stephen] Malkmus is being a bit of a bitch in interviews recently. One thing he said last summer referred to me as “trashy mouth.” And he just did this article in Spin where he alluded to me unpleasantly, saying [something like], “You know, I always thought that Pavement could have had one of those big hits in the early ’90s with ‘Cut Your Hair,’ but I guess people preferred ‘Cannonball.’ ”

Are you a fan of his music? Yeah, I liked Pavement. But if he keeps fucking smacking his mouth off about me, I’m going to end up not being able to listen to any of their fucking records again. Anyway, I thought, God, man, “Cut Your Hair” isn’t as good of a song as “Cannonball,” so fuck you. How’s that? Your song was just a’ight, dawg.

Ouch! Ending with a Randy Jackson diss. That is harsh. No response yet from Malkmus, but if we can judge his actions by what his past has shown us with the handling of his beefs with Stone Temple Pilots and Smashing Pumpkins, we should get a nice new ditty out it.

So Extra: Bonde do Role Extended Interview

http://www.thefader.com/2007/08/17/so-extra-bonde-do-role-extended-interview/

It is long-established policy here at The FADER that you got to come back on snark, so when we read the back-handed compliments about our ‘purty pitchers’ and quote-deficient writing in this Idolator review of our life’s work, we were already raising up on fools. But then we read this about Eddie STATS Houghton’s Bonde do Role cover piece…

However, Houghton doesn’t seem to have elicited much participation, interview-wise, from BdR themselves. He presents two fragments from conversations with the evidently easily distracted band. He also notes that Marina Vello flashes her bra onstage–but does not every Brazilian female between the ages of 15 and 35 do the same? So, while there’s color aplenty in the piece, there’s little evidence that substantial conversation between interviewer and cover subject took place. Lots of artsy pictures of the band horsing around, though!

…and we knew they had us right where we wanted them. OK maybe not but anyway it makes a good excuse to release the transcriptual beast, and post the full interview online so you the peoples can judge for yourself. So here it is: the family jewels, 4000-odd words of anti-snarking device, minus long asides on Shakira, Diplo’s obsession with Paraguay, ex-boy/girlfriends & family stuff which you wouldn’t be interested in anyway and our personal defense of Marina’s honor (We’ll leave that in her mom’s capable hands). Eat your heart out, rock critics.

How did you meet?

Marina: They were roommates because they were both DJs in Curitiba.

Gorky: Actually I used to hate Pedro in the beginning before I met him, because…

Pedro: Because I had all the good records.

G: Because he had the pick-ups and a good mixer and good records but he just wouldn’t mix the records at all! And I was like “Fuck that guy! Why doesn’t he like practice… to play like a DJ?”

P: The thing is I knew how to, I just didn’t want to …he actually asked me like “Why don’t you do that?” and I was like I don’t know I just want to party, I don’t want to be paying attention.

M: And then he fell in love with Pedro…

What was the scene in Curitiba like?

M: There would be nothing happening.

P: But those balls.

Funk balls?

G: No. I don’t know what you call them, you know those balls like in Western movies?

Tumbleweeds?

A: Yeah those!

So what was the motivation for DJing?

P: Cause at least for me I used to think these people don’t go out cause there’s nothing happening, then I realized it wasn’t the lack of things happening it was the lack of people to support whatever was happening.

M: Always complaining that nothing’s happening but they only go places they can go for free like: my friend is doing something so I don’t have to pay. It’s like such a small mentality because if you pay, next week it would get better. You guys used to do this party that was house-full, like 300 people…I used to work as waitress in this party.

P: No we never had that many people!

M: Yeah! I know because I worked there!

P: Maybe over the whole night, on our best night. Not 300 people at like, the same time.

So how did you become roomies?

P: I was doing an internship at a studio to learn software, I wanted to move in with someone who made beats…

G: The thing is when we started doing music it was nothing like we make today nothing, nothing. Since we both like electro rock we tried to make the same music that we used to DJ, it was like this crappy electro-rock band…

P: It wasn’t that bad

G: It wasn’t that bad, it was just five years late…

P: Back then it wasn’t five years late.

M: It was only two years late…

P: It wasn’t bad but there was nothing special about it, it was just regular stuff.

So were you playing different, non-regular stuff as DJs?

P: He was.

G: Baile funk. I started mixing electro rock with like bootlegs and stuff because…to this day 2Many DJs is my favorite…

M: 2 Many DJs changed Gorky’s life…changed everything!

G: With the whole culture of doing bootlegs and mash ups like back in 2002 the main thing is getting really well known songs and then mix it up with something unusual so: what can I use that’s completely unusual? Baile funk! I was raised in Rio, lived in Rio almost my entire life…I moved to Rio at 6 months old and lived there til I was 7, then from age 15 to 21. I started doing bootlegs cause the bpms for Baile funk are similar to electro’s: 127, 130 bpms. So I said, no let’s make some stuff. The first one is on my myspace, I did a bootleg remix of Tira Camisa, that’s the first track I used the tamborzao. (Before) I wouldn’t dare play (Baile funk) but around 2004 I started playing like I did yesterday (At Vegas in Sao Paulo). In Curitiba, half the people loved it like “yeah!” but half the people just walked straight out like “I fuckin hate you!”

M: I was one who loved it.

G: No she was one of those people who was really mad when I played that!

M: No….yeah, yeah, yeah! No, but I was the girl who used to go to parties that Gorky used to DJ, its true.

(Gorky blushing)

G: So which story do you want to tell the Diplo one or the other one? This is like the parallel story: I’ve been doing this DJ thing to baille tracks and around February or March 2005, Diplo came for the first time and did a secret show at Milo’s Garage, like a really small place. And the next day all people could say was “Oh Diplo was so good! He was mixing Baile funk with Daft Punk” and I was like “Fuck him, I’ve been doing this for two years and just because some guy from America comes here and does this secret gig…” I was really jealous, like “Fuck everyone! I’ve been doing this, why can’t I get recognized for doing this before?” I got so mad and at the same time I was already roommates with Pedro so we just got a bunch of Daft Punk samples and got a tambarzao loop and I was like ok let me do a track mixing baile funk with Daft Punk. Pedro was like “So can you help me out with this (other project)?” and I was like “No, if you record vocals for this track for me, I’ll help you out with the thing you want to do, so he got to back to me…”

P: I was like yeah I’ll do the lyrics but if its gonna have my voice in it, it’s gonna have your voice as well. Gorky’s voice is so beautiful.

M: The best voice since Kenny G…wait, he doesn’t sing! Best voice since Prince!

P: The track, it’s about a Brazilian guy who go to France and rip off Daft Punk so it was like people going to Brazil and ripping off Baile funk, it was us going to France and rip Daft Punk an make a punk song…”Melo do Roboroque.”

G: Just a joke…I was like I’m not gonna sing on this track (speaking for Pedro) “Ah, me neither” so we thought maybe we should ask someone to sing.

P: Thank god we did that, because I listened to the Roboroque version a couple days ago and it was so bad, I’m really happy we got someone else to sing.

M: Oh, I’m just “someone else,” that’s it?

P: Our voices were so bad, I can’t actually believe how my voice was that high, I don’t think I can do that anymore, I got hormones.

M: I was not really into electronic music but…

P: We recorded her a CD with all the music for our electro project and we still had room on the CD so we put that (Roboroque) song on the CD and when she came back, like three months later…

M: I broke my nose! And it was one month later! The same night we were introduced: “Hi, this is my friend Pedro” I was like “we know each other, we went to the same high school”–I still remember the prefect of my school telling me “Finally, I’m getting rid of all the rotten apples in the school!”

P: He was talking about me and her.

M: We had the reputation as the bad-ass kids. So the fight: when I’m arguing I can say really mean things and get really close to them and I said something to this girl in front of everyone in the middle of the party but then the music stopped and I just shouted to her: “I know that you make an abortion and you make your boyfriend pay but you are not pregnant of your boyfriend!” I knew this gossip and I just said that to her and she was like “so come here” and I thought she was about to say something in my ear…

P: Right!

M: Cause I’m a little bit drunk and she had this big ring on her hand and she was like pow! That was the second time I broke my nose, (the first time) the Doctor said its never going to be the same again, so be really careful. It was like a Tarantino movie you know, lots of blood was going out of me, terrible…! I used to work at this club as a waitress sometimes and still when I was cleaning at the end of the night I could see like stains of my blood, ‘til nowadays I see it. And that’s it: one month before doing anything. I listened to the track, it was nice but like they said it was nothing special, but the Baile funk track with Daft Punk was fuckin amazing! My Mom was like: “I don’t know you anymore. You’re a riot grrl, you’re supposed to be a feminist! How can you talk about sex and girls being fucked if you are a feminist?” The first rehearsal we got drunk and did another funk song, the one with the Darkness sample.

P: Gorky played in another city and the guys went crazy so he gave them the CD and was like “This is my new band” and got booked for doing this anniversary party on a yacht in Florianopolis…

(extended argument about the chronology of their first gig)

P: Anyway, we freaked out. The power drums from rock are really easy to resample and fit really well with baille funk so we went to this place near our house called Role do Lunches where they play this really bad 80s station all day, classic rock, listening, saying what we’re gonna sample. We went home, download everything, record in ten days or so then we went to the beach for this 700 people yacht party…! We put it on myspace and (DJ Fredi) Chernobyl really liked it, offered to re-record the songs and he sent mixtapes all over to everyone, everyone, everyone. Next thing we knew our friends were telling us that Diplo is back in Brazil and he’s playing our song but he didn’t know what it was…

M: Then we called Fredi because his last gig was supposed to be in Port Allegre which is Fredi’s city and we were like “Fredi can you give him this CD please? Cause he’s playing our track but its good for him to have other tracks like that….”

G: Of course we want Diplo playing our songs.

M: Fredi was s’posed to take care of Diplo in Port Allegre so they started chatting and Diplo’s first question was like “Who are these guys who sample Alice In Chains?” and he’s like the CD’s in my hand so… y’know? One week later Diplo’s writing us on myspace like “Yo I have this new label, you guys want to join?” and it was like whaaat?

M: We didn’t have another gig after that one, our second gig was the day we met Diplo at Milo’s. It was so bad, this show, but it was really funny. Really, really funny.

Did you tell Diplo that you hated him?

G: We waited to sign to Domino! No, we waited a few months, then like, “So… did you know we started the band because we used to hate you?” But he was a really good DJ, I was a big fan of the Fabric CD…

M: It was just because Gorky was jealous.

So you hated Pedro and then formed a band with him, then you hated Diplo and signed to his label. Who do you hate now?

G: I don’t know who else to hate.

M: We don’t hate anyone, we love everyone.

G: Yeah, that’s the problem. Domino was a joke between us like: “If we get really famous….” I did a mixtape that sampled Franz Ferdinand and next thing, there you go: Domino. The other (coincidence) with Domino is after we started to get interviews they always compared us to the Arctic Monkeys because of the internet, the myspace thing….saying that were like the Brazilian Arctic Monkeys because were the biggest Brazilian band on myspace. There’s also CSS,but we toured before CSS, got a deal before CSS.

P: The thing is we had no record because we had so many samples, it was a nightmare to put out. We were signed to Domino/Mad Decent but we had no record, meanwhile CSS was getting huge and we were still doing our record.

M: So then Diplo says “I have this tour in Europe in May…” and we’re like “Sure we’d love to!” This is not something that happens to bands in Brazil, so we’re thinking “Sure, he thinks we’re gonna pay for our own tickets.”

P: It was really strange. My mom turned to me and said “Are you sure this guy don’t want you to fly drugs to Europe or something? You have this band for like 6 months and he wants to tour?” There was something wrong about that. Then we did the Rolling Stone issue so we started to believe it but meanwhile to our relatives he’s just this foreign guy who wants to sell us into slavery, actually.

M: My mom got really mad: “You’re quitting university? This is not a band, you just like say bullshit on these lyrics! I’m not going to support you!” I’m like “Ok mom, but I’m going, I am 20 so you can’t do anything to me.

P: We had four shows in Brazil and then we did eleven in Europe.

G: I gotta say that for Troca Brahma (show at Gloria in Sao Paolo), this is the first time we rehearse ever.

M: The only time we rehearse is when we invite our friends and show to them, so funny! We weren’t worried about rehearsing music we were rehearsing dancing…the costumes we went to buy.

G: Yeah we spent like 30 Reais on clothes, Pedro was wearing like an Indian…

Like with feathers and shit?

G: No like a native Brazilian, with flip-flops. In Brazil, Indians are usually naked so when they show them on TV, they just give them some track shorts and some flipflops, that’s what we call dressing like an Indian. Marina was house-cleaner, I was kind of a mafia thing. I had a president mask for one track but I was a poor pimp kinda guy, anything related to poorness.

M: We wanted to do something really, really stigmatized.

P: Milo’s is for cool kids, the “Oh, I know what’s cool” kids.

So if that show was a disaster what was your favorite show?

P: The American tour: yay! We’re gonna have a tour bus! For me it was the best tour of my life so far. Amazing; across America, we had a bus! Got drunk every night…

M: (On that tour) I broke my arm in a stage dive at Pitchfork festival. Every year I broke some stuff, I hope I don’t break something this year…in Montreal Lawrence from Domino saw us and liked the show, every gig there was someone from Domino.

G: I just thought of who I hate: I hate Madonna. I hate Brian Wilson.

M: Look at the video of me breaking my arm! This guy tried to pick me up from (the floor) by my arm…!

P: At the moment I saw she had dislocated it, you could see the bone. Look at the x-ray…

G: Then she sold the x-rays on e-bay.

P: The singer from CSS sang her songs after that, they knew all the songs.

G: So after that we were recording the record but Diplo and us held the LP back.

P: We would always say: “It’s alright…but I wouldn’t pay for it.” Marina do Bairro was too rock, too heavy. We tried to do a queefing song but Diplo said “No, this is stupid. Nobody’s gonna dance to a song where people are saying ‘I’m queefing for jerky beef.’

M: It was ssssooo good, the song.

G: It was ssssooo bad.

P: It was terrible, but we knew it. But we told Diplo we think this is a tune that is amazing and he got so mad; he got really mad with that.

P: Us and Diplo is more like…we’re a younger brother to him.

M: The joke is I always block him on iChat. We talk everyday and when he starts bothering me I just block him and he’s like “You’re blocking me! I know you’re there!”

P: He’s been telling us we have to wear uniforms since we signed to Mad Decent then we did at Skol Beats (the other night). Whenever Diplo see these pics I can totally see like a tear coming out of his eye…

G: Marina and Pedro are almost like my brother and sister nowadays we live everyday with each other.

M: We can hate each other, but for like five minutes. If I hear somebody saying bullshit about Gorky or Pedro I get really mad with those people. I can hate them but no one else can, like I hate my mom when I was a teenager but if someone say any bullshit about my mother, its fighting words.

Q: So what was Diplo being a big brother about? He thought the stuff you were doing was too much rock?

P: Yeah, he was right about it.

Do you want to do more rock stuff?

P: I don’t really know what we want to do. We used to have an electro project I had three or four different projects, Gorky had three or four, he used to have a bossa nova band.

M: Pedro was in a hardcore band, then hard techno, Gorky was in a bossa nova band, then an Oasis cover band. I used to have punk rock bands, I was a riot grrrl then I got really mad at it. I was like this is bullshit, I stopped playing guitar, I don’t want to do this anymore! Ohmigod I have to relearn how to play…no, I want to have a band where I only sing, so I can drink and smoke on stage. That was my thought: I don’t want to hold guitars, I don’t want to carry equipment; this is so like, boring.

G: Our equipment is like two CDs.

P: It’s great when people freak out, like “Where the fuck are you? You guys have to load in!” We get there and we’re like “Alright here’s our two CDs. Enjoy.” They tell us to be there two hours in advance for loading equipment and our tour manager’s like, “They don’t have any equipment!”

(About this time Marina gets Diplo on video chat and the conversation stops while the three make fun of his brand new baldy haircut and he makes “whatever’ faces in return.)

So is your musical direction tied to what’s going on in baile funk?

G: Baile funk’s been the same for 6 or 7 years now, especially after the “Tamberzao” loop came out. Even the samples; “Tamberzao” was the first big change after 15 years, before the “Tamberzao” loop is was all about ripping off Volt Mix and Miami bass stuff and um… after that, all the songs are completely the same and all use the Rocky sample. They all do the same thing, if we’re gonna do something with baile we try to do something that hasn’t been done before. All our influences together, to make something more fresh every time.

P: We’re all about having fun. For instance we have a kazoo part here it has nothing to do with baile funk, we have some axe (like the deodorant!) from Bahia on “Tieta”… Axe is a samba beat, real happy carnival music from Northeastern Bahia. They have their own short guitar, Bahian guitar, so we emulate that sound with a regular guitar. That’s like the classic one, there are 20 different tracks with the same chords, we can name five right now and they were all hits.

P: We use baile funk a lot because it’s a huge influence for us but we’ve done it before with the samples, we wanted to see how good we could do it without sampling, y’know, still trying to keep people the same way we did before.

G: Recognizable samples, “Oh it’s the Europe sample, they did something to that.” We were trying to get the same thing; “ I think I knew that, who do you guys sample?” Whenever someone asks me, I feel like I did a good job because there’s no sampling here, but we wanted people to feel like there was. The things we recorded, we would cut them and sample the things we recorded, like guitar or whatever.

P: By the way, Sony if you want to sponsor us, I use a Sony Vaio. We wanted to do some Iron Maiden thing on “Danca do Zumbi” so Fredi Chernobyl played that and we chopped it up. Gorky knows how to play some guitar, sometime we had done the melody on our computer with synths and everything and needed someone to replay it.

G: “Divina Gosa” is produced by Radioclit, that kuduro, which means “hard ass” in Angolan Portuguese. “Quero Ti Amar” is funk melody, what you guys call freestyle.

What are some of your other musical influences?

P: I like really old school samba, not modern but old stuff, like Bezerra Desilva, he’s all about weed, he’s like 90 years old and cheating on his wife. Totally hard core, its amazing. Daft Punk, Jason Forrest, the way we chop stuff…2Many DJs for the way Gorky spins….

G: Brian Wilson is my biggest idol, but it’s impossible to recreate his sound. Timbaland has the same creative way of doing things. Old samba like Batacinha, Paulinho de Viola– those are my personal influences, not necessarily influnces on Bonde.

P: That’s not old school samba (brief argument on what constitutes “old school’ samba follows).

M: My favorite band is Hole, riot grrrl stuff…

So how do you go about writing a song?

P: Someone tells us something we think is really nice or funny, we do a song about that. Specifically “Tieta” is from something Gorky told me…

G: Especially here in Brazil, straight guys prefer to have gay sex than no sex, the chorus is: “It’s worth way more, two asses than one pussy.”

P: Having sex is more important than being straight.

G: Usually when you pick up straight guys it’s like “Yeah I like to fuck blabla bla… but I’m not gay!” That happens a lot in Brazil.

P: Especially within the gay community ‘cause there’s prejudice about being gay so even though they like anal sex, they would say they don’t.

G: Like our tour manager says: “There’s no bottoms in Brazil, there’s only liberal tops.”

P: Like on a really hot day he’d like to be sitting on a couch with no pants on and have two girls just blowing on his balls, so we write a song about that. “Tieta” is a book that became a soap opera about this woman who will have sex with anyone….she’s from the northeast and she comes to Sao Paulo, and when she comes back she’s really rich and owns a whorehouse in the end. We sampled the soap opera for the track. We see sex in everything…like “sausages for breakfast.” Our lyrics throw people off because the way we do it, we have bad taste. We say like “I ate your chocolate.” “Blow on my balls” became a slang…release the chicken, the female chicken (Salto O Frango) means “come out of the closet” but when we say it with an “o” –then it’s nonsense, related to: have fun, forget about everything, get loose, get crazy.

G: It’s something my mom would say, like “letting your hair down.”

P: The song is very ironic, we’re saying “We’re so good, and so hot…”

G: …Release the chicken and come with us.

Uma Biografia Alucinada da Rainha do Rock Rita Lee

http://publifolha.folha.com.br/catalogo/livros/145029/

Censurado!

Está virando rotina. Mais uma biografia censurada no Brasil. Enquanto a lei que permite tal acontecimento não for revista, outros casos ainda podem acontecer. A própria editora que agora entrou com a ação para recolhimento de mais um livro, semanas depois se viu às voltas com um pedido de recolhimento de outro, no caso uma autobiografia que ofenderia a honra de uma terceira pessoa. A lei mencionada é a de número 10.406, de 2002, cujo artigo 20 dá brecha para que biografados e herdeiros consigam na Justiça impedir a circulação de biografias não autorizadas. Há inclusive um projeto de lei do deputado Antônio Palloci (PT-SP) a respeito em discussão para alterar o artigo acima citado, com um parágrafo que liberaria a divulgação de “informações biográficas sobre pessoas de notoriedade pública”. Biógrafos poderiam, assim, trabalhar sem a bênção do biografado ou de seus herdeiros – que ainda teriam resguardado o recurso à Justiça em casos de calúnia ou difamação.

Por ora, a situação é outra.

Depois da biografia a respeito do maior ídolo da música popular no Brasil, Roberto Carlos em detalhes (Planeta, 2006), de Paulo César Araújo – e de outras situações embaraçosas, como o caso da vida de Garrincha, Estrela solitária (Companhia das Letras, 1995), narrada por Ruy Castro –, agora a censura recai sobre a biografia a respeito João Guimarães Rosa, Sinfonia Minas Gerais: a vida e a literatura de João Guimarães Rosa (LGE, 2008), de Alaor Barbosa. E a ameaça ronda ainda a autobiografia de André Midani, Música, ídolos e poder. Do vinil ao download, sobre os anos à frente das principais gravadoras como executivo, esta publicada pela Nova Fronteira, editora que conseguiu o recolhimento do livro a respeito do mineiro, ao lado de outro processo movido pela filha do escritor, Vilma Guimarães Rosa.

Em setembro, o juiz Marcelo Almeida de Moraes Marinho, da 24º Vara Cível do Rio de Janeiro, ordenou o recolhimento das livrarias brasileiras de todos os exemplares de Sinfonia Minas Gerais. Segundo a Folha de S. Paulo (somente para assinantes), em 11 de outubro deste ano, “o juiz aceitou a argumentação de plágio e lesão de direitos autorais, contida no processo movido no primeiro semestre, por parte de Vilma Guimarães Rosa, que detém os direitos da obra de seu pai, e da editora Nova Fronteira, que publica parte dos títulos do escritor. Segundo o processo, além de ser uma biografia não-autorizada pela família, o livro de Barbosa contém erros históricos e traz 102 citações de Relembramentos, livro publicado originalmente em 1983 por Vilma”.

O diretor-executivo da Nova Fronteira, Mauro Palermo, esclarece que algumas notícias equivocadas circularam a respeito. Na verdade, trata-se de dois processos separados, um movido pela família de Rosa, outro pela editora. “No nosso caso, processamos porque o doutor Alaor Barbosa utilizou como base de sua biografia parcela muito grande, bem acima do bom senso, de um livro editado pela Nova Fronteira, Relembramentos, de Vilma Guimarães Rosa, relançado em 2008. A editora reclamou judicialmente deste excesso de extratos retirados de um segundo livro. Segundo o juiz, seria plágio. Ele inclusive se impressionou com a quantidade extrema utilizada. O outro processo, movido pela família de Guimarães Rosa, reclama que o doutor Alaor Barbosa não pediu autorização para escrever a respeito do escritor.” Sobre este outro processo, Palermo diz não poder se pronunciar.

Palermo reforça a distinção entre os processos: “São reclamações distintas, pelo teor de cada uma delas. Não há base jurídica que faça da Nova Fronteira a ‘dona’ da biografia de um autor publicado por ela. Se entrássemos com este argumento, perderíamos. Como foi a família que fez esta reclamação, o juiz deferiu o pedido”. Barbosa, porém, afirma o contrário: "Não existem dois processos contra o meu livro, ao contrário do que afirma o representante da Editora Nova Fronteira: existe uma única ação, proposta por esta editora e uma das filhas de João Guimarães Rosa. Uma única petição inicial, uma única ação, um único processo".

A advogada de Vilma, Suzana Paola Barbagelata Kleber, foi procurada para falar sobre o processo, e assim se manifestou: “Não tenho nada a acrescentar. Tudo o que falei foi deturpado, não quero dar prosseguimento”. Acrescentou ainda que, segundo a lei, não poderia falar. Questionada então porque havia conversado com outros jornalistas, disse que foi levada a fazê-lo. Informou que todas as informações estão no processo, que é público, de número 2008.001.177.396-5, na 24º. Vara da Comarca da Capital, Estado do Rio de Janeiro. E nos sugeriu procurar diretamente a sua cliente.

O Portal Literal procurou Vilma Guimarães Rosa, mas ela se encontra fora do país, e só retorna no fim do mês, quando voltaremos a procurá-la. Entre as perguntas que gostaríamos de fazer, estão estas: 1) Um dos argumentos para o pedido de recolhimento do livro é o fato de ser uma biografia não-autorizada. Porém, trata-se de algo garantido pela Constituição e pelo artigo 20 do Código Civil. Quais os demais argumentos?; 2) Para a senhora, “o que se pretende é mostrar que a biografia não está à altura de Guimarães Rosa”. Porém, qualidade estética nunca foi critério para a censura, não?; 3) Sobre o fato de colocar a família como única dona e herdeira da obra de Rosa, como se a memória e a vida do escritor de Cordisburgo fosse de sua propriedade, além de preocupante, não seria arrogante?

Segundo Alaor Barbosa, todas as citações foram creditadas, e a lei não fala em limite para elas. Sobre autorização para se escrever uma biografia, o Código Civil não as exige. “Acho que o projeto de lei Antônio Palocci torna mais explícito o que já está contido no Código Civil de 2002. O art. 20 do Código Civil não fala em biografias, e sim em "divulgação de escritos"; e não exige autorização prévia para se escrever e publicar textos. E se exigisse seria inconstitucional, ferindo o inciso IX do art. 5º da Constituição Federal de 1988”, diz o autor da biografia, que é advogado. Sobre o recolhimento do livro, Barbosa acrescenta: "não existe no direito brasileiro uma única norma que autorize proibição ou apreensão de livro. Vigora, nesta matéria, soberano e absoluto, o mesmo inciso IX do art. 5º da Constituição Federal, em consonância com numerosas declarações internacionais de direitos fundamentais".

Além de inconstitucional, seria lamentável e patético se só pudéssemos ler biografias autorizadas, a tecer loas e elogios sem fim aos biografados. Contanto que respeite a honra, sem caluniar, difamar ou injuriar, questões previstas na lei e passíveis de punição, não teria porque não termos o direito de falar e escrever, sobretudo a respeito de pessoas públicas.

O livro é um projeto antigo do também escritor. Já havia publicado um livro que focava no mais importante obra de Rosa, o clássico Grande sertão: veredas. Depois de 20 anos de pesquisas e andanças pelo sertão mineiro que motivou o escritor, à procura das personas que inspiraram seus personagens, e da leitura da alentada bibliografia sobre ele, Barbosa decidiu retomar o livro que havia publicado nos anos 1980 para tratar agora de toda sua obra e vida. Além disso, ele afirma ter conhecido Guimarães Rosa, com quem se encontrou algumas vezes no Itamaraty, onde Rosa trabalhou como diplomata. Mas frisa que essa amizade tratava única e exclusivamente de assuntos literários, e nunca chegou ao plano pessoal, de uma intimidade maior.

O biógrafo alega ter procurado a filha do escritor quando estava escrevendo a obra, que não o atendeu e duvida inclusive desse contato entre os dois. Na mesma matéria da Folha acima citada, Vilma Guimarães Rosa disse que Barbosa fugiu dela e colocou em dúvida esta proximidade com seu pai. “É mentira dele, ele nunca me procurou. Eu soube que ele estava me plagiando, ele fugiu de mim e mandou o livro já pronto com uma dedicatória cínica. E ele nunca foi amigo do meu pai. É o tipo de pessoa que quer se dizer amigo de gente importante. Foi um vigarista mesmo e fez isso para ganhar dinheiro”, afirmou ao jornal.

Barbosa defende-se: “Guimarães Rosa conversava a sério, sempre muito a sério, comigo, sobre literatura, sobre a vida, sobre questões sociais e políticas – mas filosoficamente, sem falar de casos concretos –, sobre si e seu método de trabalho, etc.” E afirma ter ciência do tipo de relação que mantinha com o mineiro de Cordisburgo. “Eu sentia, mais do que pensava, que a amizade dele a mim não era senão uma amizade literária. Durante os nossos diálogos, ele nada ficou sabendo – eis um exemplo – sobre minha família: meus pais, meus irmãos, minha gente. Ele nunca demonstrou interesse em saber alguma coisa da minha vida de jornalista e estudante de Direito. Nunca me perguntou sobre Goiás, sobre Morrinhos, sobre minha história, sobre as condições em que eu travava dura luta pela sobrevivência e pela ascensão no Rio de Janeiro. Nunca demonstrou interesse por meus projetos de vida e mesmo de criação literária. Nunca me perguntou se eu estava escrevendo ou que livros andava eu lendo. Ele não falava comigo de livros e de escritores.” E também não cobrou mais que isso dessa relação: “Nunca, no meu íntimo, cobrei ou esperei dele uma atitude de ampliação das nossas relações pessoais para além dos nossos diálogos – privilegiadamente longos – no Itamaraty. Esses diálogos, de resto, me bastavam. Eu o visitava, ele me recebia bem e conversava comigo, eu ia embora, e pronto”.

Na pesquisa que realizou nas cidades por onde passou Guimarães Rosa, Alaor encontrou-se com alguns daqueles que viriam a inspirar o autor de Sagarana. “Conversei com Manuelzão durante um total de oito horas descontínuas. Me hospedei na casa, improvisada pensão, de uma sobrinha dele, que eu soube, anos depois, ser a casa onde o personagem Soropita ouvia rádio. Pedi a ele que me levasse à Fazenda da Sirga, de onde partiu, em maio de 1952, a boiada que ele, Manuelzão, mais o Zito, e com João Guimarães Rosa misturado com os peões da comitiva, tocaram até à estação da estrada-de-ferro de Araçaí. Algumas ótimas fotografias bati de Manuelzão em Andrequicé e na estrada que levara à Fazenda da Sirga. Infelizmente ele morreu não muito tempo depois. Localizei em Três Marias, a casa do Zito (de quem me falara Manuelzão), o e visitei.”

Junto com as pesquisas de campo, que classifica de “sociológicas”, Barbosa reuniu um acervo fotográfico do sertão de Minas e seus habitantes, cenário inspirador da obra de Guimarães Rosa. Entre as localidades, Cordisburgo, Itaguara, Curvelo, Corinto, Andrequicé, Três Marias, Pirapora, Paredão de Minas, Montes Claros, São Francisco, Itacarambi, Januária, Itacambira, Peçanha, Itabira, São João Del Rei e Três Corações.

O autor da biografia censurada acredita que seu trabalho realiza um estudo abrangente sobre o conjunto da obra de Guimarães Rosa, algo inédito até, então. “Existem em grande número estudos sobre a obra de Guimarães Rosa, mas todos parciais: ora sobre um aspecto ou um filão temático, ora sobre outro aspecto. Um estudo unitário, abrangente, sobre o conjunto da obra, ainda não existia. Este meu, ao que sei, é o primeiro.”

Tem havido reações contrárias à censura, por parte de escritores, como Cláudio Willer, Manoel Hygino dos Santos, Enéas Athanázio, Eurico Barbosa, Ricardo Lísias, Ronaldo Cagiano e Evandro Ferreira, além de entidades de escritores, como a União Brasileira de Escritores (UBE), a Associação Nacional de Escritores (ANE), a Academia Goiana de Letras, o Sindicato dos Escritores do Distrito Federal (SEDF), e políticos, entre eles, o deputado federal Pedro Wilson (PT-GO), que discursou sobre o assunto na Câmara dos Deputados. “Duas câmaras de vereadores, de Morrinhos, minha terra, e de Goiânia, aprovaram moções de condenação à proibição e de apoio ao meu livro. A repulsa à proibição do meu livro é unânime, generalizada, ubíqua, enérgica. A Nação está viva.”, afirma Barbosa.

Em artigo intitulado “Em defesa das biografias” e publicado no site da UBE, Cláudio Willer critica duramente a decisão e o cerceamento à liberdade de expressão: “A argumentação de Vilma Guimarães Rosa, fundamentando sua ação, trata de supostas incorreções na biografia por Alaor Barbosa. Mover ação por isso é idiossincrático e contraproducente. Trata-se de assunto para a crítica literária, e não para o judiciário. Agora, temos o juiz dublê de crítico literário: dupla usurpação, do nosso direito à leitura, do nosso direito ao julgamento. O certo, na hipótese de haver mesmo tais erros e imprecisões, teria sido convocar algum dentre os nossos bons especialistas em Guimarães Rosa, pedir-lhe um parecer, e divulgá-lo. [...] Tutela antecipada, o nome da medida que retirou esta obra de Alaor Barbosa de circulação: que termo antipático. Recuso-me a ser tutelado. Não precisa: sou adulto, minhas faculdades mentais estão em perfeito estado. É isso o que a censura faz: equipara leitores e espectadores a um bando de retardados, incapazes de discernir, negando-lhes a capacidade de julgar ao subtrair-lhes o acesso à informação. Censura, em qualquer uma de suas modalidades, é um múltiplo desrespeito: à obra, a seu autor, ao leitor, à sociedade toda”.

Quanto à possibilidade de liberação do livro, Barbosa confia em que a justiça terminará por decidir nesse sentido. “Não há como não fazê-lo. Basta o juiz do processo ler meu livro e atentar na letra da lei constitucional e da lei civil”, acredita ele.


Disputa familiar

O caso do espólio de João Guimarães Rosa já rendeu uma bela reportagem de Cassiano Elek Machado, publicada na revista Piauí em dezembro de 2006. Ela trata particularmente do diário escrito por Guimarães Rosa em 1939, quando o então diplomata morava em Hamburgo, Alemanha, onde servia como cônsul-adjunto. O volume com 208 páginas, guarda comentários e observações sobre o país que iria passar por profundas transformações em muito breve com o início da II Guerra Mundial ainda em agosto, além de poemas que Rosa, aos 31 anos, cometia e comentários sobre Machado de Assis.

O diário, que seguiu uma tortuosa trajetória até a Biblioteca Central da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), continua inédito até hoje. Longe de abordar a vida privada e íntima do escritor, ele é importante para se conhecer um pouco mais desta persona pública que é Guimarães Rosa. Em entrevista à reportagem de Piauí, Eneida de Souza, professora emérita de literatura brasileira da UFMG, e uma das poucas a conhecer o diário, afirmou: “O diário é de importância crucial para a compreensão da biografia e do processo de criação literária de Guimarães Rosa, além de ser muito esclarecedor sobre o cotidiano de um diplomata brasileiro na Alemanha, durante a II Guerra”.

O que o impede de ser publicado são as brigas familiares em torno do espólio de Rosa, e uma leitura atenta da reportagem de Elek Machado se faz necessária para um melhor entendimento dessa via-crúcis. Resumidamente, podemos dizer que a idéia da edição deste diário partiu, no ano de 2001, da editora que publica Guimarães Rosa desde 1984, a Nova Fronteira. Quando foi noticiada na imprensa a edição do diário, a família procurou os pesquisadores da UFMG – além de Eneida, Reinaldo Marques – que estavam preparando o texto para publicação. À Piauí, Marques disse o seguinte: “A família ficou preocupada e mandou recado, dizendo que deveríamos parar com o trabalho”.

O espólio de Guimarães Rosa pertence a suas duas filhas com Lygia Cabral Penna, Vilma e Agnes, além de sua segunda mulher, Aracy, com quem Rosa viveu até falecer, em 1967. Aracy teve um filho de um casamento anterior, que lhe deu um neto, Eduardo Carvalho Tess Filho, atual administrador de seus direitos. Segundo o neto, o testamento determinava que metade dos direitos autorais da obra de Rosa fosse para Aracy. À Piauí, Tess afirma que o “comportamento das filhas” foi determinante para que o inventário se estendesse por um período “longo e desagradável”. Por conta disso, sua avó dividiu tudo por três. “Naquele momento, definiu-se que qualquer publicação ou comercialização, qualquer licença ou autorização que envolvesse a obra de Rosa teria de receber a permissão do trio. Com uma única exceção: por terem sido doados em vida a Aracy, os direitos de Grande sertão não entrariam no bolo”, escreve Elek Machado na reportagem.

Segundo Vilma, na mesma matéria, não é bem assim: “Para publicar algo de papai, é preciso pedir autorização à minha irmã e a mim”. O objetivo, alcançado mais uma vez com o recolhimento da biografia de Alaor Barbosa, é dificultar a vida dos pesquisadores. Ainda na reportagem citada, ela afirma: “Não existem biografias dele e não damos licença para ninguém. Muita gente quer fazer sensacionalismo, quer ganhar dinheiro à custa de gente famosa. Quem quiser saber de meu pai que leia o meu livro e está muito bom.”


Na própria carne

O caso mencionado no primeiro parágrafo diz respeito à autobiografia de André Midani, Música, ídolos e poder – Do vinil ao download, lançado pela Nova Fronteira, mesma editora que conseguiu censurar a biografia sobre Guimarães. Segundo o jornal O Globo, em matéria publicada no dia 4 de novembro, “a família do nonagenário Enrique Lebendiger, ex-dono da RGE, exige que o livro de Midani também seja recolhido, por o autor dizer que Lebendiger ‘era figura exótica que não tinha capacidade nem seriedade profissional para acompanhar a carreira de um profissional do calibre de Chico Buarque’”.

A editora propôs então um acordo à família de Lebendiger, onde promete retirar o trecho em reedições futuras da obra, que teve tiragem de 30 mil exemplares, bem acima da média das tiragens nacionais, sempre abaixo dos 10 mil. A obra, que trata da carreira de Midani como executivo de grandes gravadoras multinacionais como a Odeon e a Phonogram, já vendeu 20 mil exemplares.

“A Nova Fronteira e o autor nunca tiveram a intenção de causar prejuízo à família Lebendiger. Sugerimos que o trecho fosse retirado nas futuras edições da obra. Até onde eu sei, a família não aceitou a sugestão e pede o recolhimento do livro”, afirma Mauro Palermo, diretor-executivo da Nova Fronteira.

E por que não utilizar a mesma solução para o caso da biografia de Guimarães Rosa? “O doutor Alaor Barbosa não fez essa proposta [de retirar os trechos excessivamente utilizados, segundo a Nova Fronteira e o juiz Marcelo Almeida de Moraes Marinho, que ordenou o recolhimento do livro]. Mas caso fizesse, a Nova Fronteira deixaria de ter razão para processá-lo. Mas essa proposta nunca foi feita. Em relação à família, não sei o que ela pensa a respeito”, diz Palermo.


> Leia mais sobre Guimarães Rosa:

> Brinquedos de Guimarães Rosa

> Assista a trechos dos documentários de David Neves e Fernando Sabino sobre os escritores brasileiros, entre eles Guimarães Rosa

Notícia da Folha Ilustrada, em 21.11.1967.

“Guimarães Rosa morre após entrar na ABL”

Samuel Rosa alfineta nova geração do pop rock

Com 17 anos de carreira, os mineiros do Skank lançam seu décimo CD, chamado Estandarte. O novo álbum marca o reencontro da banda com o Dudu Marote, que produziu os CDs Calango, de 1994, e O Samba Poconé, de 1996. No entanto, ao invés de buscar as referências deste passado, a parceria proporcionou um novo olhar do Skank sobre a própria música.

» Assine Sonora e ouça músicas
» Confira letras de músicas
» Aprenda a tocar hits

Em entrevista ao Terra, o vocalista Samuel Rosa explicou como a sonoridade do grupo se encontrou com as influências na música eletrônica de Dudu formando essa "combinação estranha" e a expectativa dos fãs da banda, que, segundo o músico, já esperam mudanças.
Além disso, Samuel ainda comentou sobre a atual cena da música brasileira e criticou a falta de empenho dos grupos novos de se focarem no mainstream para divulgar suas composições. "Será que não estamos perdendo novos Cazuzas e Renatos Russos? Essa geração nova joga por terra um legado muito importante, que é a capacidade do pop rock de ser uma música de massa".
Confira a entrevista na íntegra:

Terra - Vocês gravaram esse disco alternado com shows ao invés de ficarem trancados no estúdio. Até onde isso influiu?
Samuel Rosa - Esse consegue ser o disco do Skank mais próximo do palco, de todos que fizemos. Mais de estrada mesmo. Mais pelo fato de ter ficado um bom tempo, no início do trabalho, fazendo som no estúdio. É incrível o que o tempo junto pode fazer uma banda. A gente não tem uma coisa muito rigorosa, mexe nas músicas. E, é até engraçado isso, nosso engenheiro de som falou: 'por que não começam o disco assim?', quando viu a gente tocando no aniversário da minha mulher em um bar em Belo Horizonte, fazendo uma reedição da nossa banda de covers.

Terra - E como foi o reencontro com Dudu Marote, que produziu os álbuns Calango e O Samba Poconé?
Samuel Rosa - A gente foi falar com ele só no final do ano passado. Como foi em cima da hora, ele disse que estava muito a fim. O Dudu é produtor, produtor mesmo, quer mexer em tudo, confronta. Igual quando o Luxemburgo fala que zagueiro é zagueiro mesmo. A gente tinha uma expectativa e apostava em um resultado bacana. Esse disco tem esses encontros com melodias e elementos eletrônicos, essas duas coisas andando juntas, é peculiar. Falei: 'Pronto, dessa estranha combinação vai sair o novo álbum do Skank'.
Terra - Sobre a cena musical brasileira, que vive um momento de incerteza, vocês sentem mais pressão na hora de entrar no estúdio ou há uma tranqüilidade de saber da história da banda?
Samuel Rosa - Que bom que o Skank é uma exceção. Uma das poucas bandas da nossa geração que não acabou. A gente consegue hoje usufruir dessa história que a gente construiu. Hoje essa história já responde por nós, goste dela ou não. A gente consegue ter uma liberdade na medida certa. Ser inventivo, se questionar, ter uma inquietação, o que é benéfico para o disco. Há uma certa expectativa, até mesmo os fãs dos Skank que já esperam uma grande mudança no novo álbum. É possível não ficar se repetindo o tempo inteiro.

Terra - O que você acha que pode acontecer com essa cena atual, que ainda tenta mostrar firmeza para formar um movimento sólido?
Samuel Rosa - O Skank vem de um período que as bandas acumulavam hits, boas vendas, por se tratar de um período mais favorável. Mas sinto que tínhamos uma importância maior na vida das pessoas. Hoje menos. Essa geração nova joga por terra um legado muito importante, que é a capacidade do pop rock de ser uma música de massa, hoje não sinto mais isso. Quando uma banda ganhava um VMB, fosse o Skank ou Raimundos, podia saber que o Brasil inteiro tava cantando a música, o taxista, engenheiro, o médico. Hoje é mais segmentado. Será que vão ter bandas que vão acumular hits e tocar por quinze anos? Talvez a gente não vá ter isso mais. Achava o rock mais adulto, mais maduro. Cazuza, Renato Russo. Acho que tem um discurso de garoto novinho. Mas também, se não for eles pra fazer música pra essa geração, quem vai fazer?

Terra - E o circuito independente?
Samuel Rosa - Essa cena tem criado um corpo legal pra caramba. Eu vejo o quanto esse circuito está organizado, sofisticado e com boas idéias. Só que ao mesmo tempo, não vejo ambição dessa rapaziada de chegar ao mainstream e fazer música pra muita gente, encher a geladeira da casa com a música dele. Alguns chegam até o extremo de cantar em inglês, fica mais restritivo ainda. Que brincadeira é essa? Por que esse pessoal foge da briga boa? Fazer rock em português pra massa. Talvez não queiram arcar com as conseqüências do sucesso. Será que não estamos perdendo novos Cazuzas ou novos Renatos Russos?

Terra - Voltando ao CD, como vocês chegaram na arte do álbum, assinada por Rafael Silveira, e como chegaram nesse conceito?
Samuel Rosa - As outras capas sempre foram estampas, que já existiam, e fomos escolhendo e pedindo permissão, tinha todo aquele protocolo de enviar o disco e eles queriam saber a perspectiva de venda e tal. Acabou sendo uma característica das capas do Skank. A gente descobriu o Rafael através de um livro que ele lançou no ano passado, o cara é genial. Fomos atrás e o convidamos. A gente pôde enviar o álbum pra ele pintar uma tela pra cada música, e elas existem, queremos até fazer uma exposição. No geral, é a capa que tem mais chamado atenção.

http://musica.terra.com.br/interna/0,,OI3226547-EI1267,00-Samuel+Rosa+alfineta+nova+geracao+do+pop+rock.html

Skank manda tudo à porra nenhuma

http://www.pilulapop.com.br/ressonancia.php?id=62

Amy

http://igpop.ig.com.br/externo/2008/09/10/ay_winehouse_fala_sobre_musica_e_a_vida_de_popstar_1743028.html