New Youtube Serotonin Sounds / Vai Uma Gasosa Channel

Yesterday, Serotonin Sounds in collaboration with Vai Uma Gasosa launched a new youtube channel. We'll try to upload videos of various concerts weekly. This new youtube channel is now the official Youtube Channel that I'll use, but you can still check some other videos on my older Youtube JoaoPQ Channel.
The first videos we uploaded are some various songs, almost the whole concert, that Faust gave here in Lisbon at Teatro Maria Matos.
Check one of the highlights of this gig, below, featured on Serotonin Sounds / Vai Uma Gasosa Channel (it even includes a random cowboy that was part of the crowd and started dancing around!):

[gig reviews] PAUS live at Fnac do Chiado in Lisbon, 21st June 2010

The gig started with an unforeseen situation: the band didn't have their EP there [the gig's aim was to present it], because Fnac had some problems and couldn't make it on time.
With that fact put aside, the gig went well. Joaquim and Hélio sure know how to play drums and are most of the time well synchronized. I also like the concept of the "siamese drums".
Makoto Yagyu played bass most of the time and on one or two occasions, he played synth. João "Shela" fills the air with his sort of "new age-ish" synths. The 4 band members make music that isn't very easily labeled.
However, most of the crowd enjoyed the gig and the band set the volume higher, to "provoke" Fnac, since they didn't behave very well.
Unfortunately, I didn't film because I left the camera's batteries at home [shame on me].
Here it is the band's myspace.

[upcoming gigs] Out Jazz

If you enjoy jazz and open spaces, grab your bag, put some drinks into it and go to the gardens and other spots where these events will be held. One of the most relaxing musical events occuring in Lisbon, enjoy burning time this weekend and other days of your summer with Out Jazz.
Information in portuguese:
"O Out Jazz chega à sua quarta edição mostrando que veio para ficar. Durante cinco meses o jazz vai ocupar cinco jardins de Lisboa, num ambiente de plena harmonia entre a natureza e as notas musicais. Todos os domingos, de Maio a Setembro, das 17h ao anoitecer, grupos de jazz e um dj vão animar os transeuntes."

Visit the official website right here.

[gig reviews] No Age live at Galeria Zé dos Bois, 27th May 2010

In 2008 I couldn't attend No Age's gig at the same place, Galeria Zé dos Bois. This time I proudly bought a ticket to this band's show. I can assure you they're really good live.
The setlist was cool, ranging from tunes of Weirdo Rippers, Nouns and their most recent EP.
I even got the chance to crowdsurf! Also, Randy gave to me and to my friends his guitar and we started playing it like crazy, while he was jamming with the pedals simultaneously: awesome.
Here are some videos so that you can see how good it was:

Eraser, live



Me and my friends playing with Randal's guitar, live



Everybody's Down, live

[upcoming gigs] 1º Festival Rock in Benfica

This Saturday [5th June 2010] will be held at Benfica, in Lisbon, a festival of experimental rock music. A band of some friends of mine will play there, Mamute. You can find more info about this here.

[gig reviews] Owen Pallett at Teatro Maria Matos, 11th March 2010

A great musician, that currently got the media attention due to his latest release (entitled "Heartland"), Owen Pallett is Final Fantasy. He had to change the well-known musical project's name to his own name since it had copyright issues (the game Final Fantasy didn't allow him to keep going with that name).
I got the chance (for only 5 euros!!) to see him perform at Teatro Municipal Maria Matos (located in Lisbon, Portugal).
He had a great setlist ranging from Heartland themes to old ones (like "This lamb sells condos").
I filmed almost the entire concert by the way. I still haven't had enough time to post all the videos, but here are some: part 1, part 2, part 4, part 5, part 9.
Here are some photos of the gig I found on another portuguese music blog.

[gig reviews] Panda Bear at Lux Frágil in Lisbon, 13 February

Last night, I got the opportunity to see the "second round" (because Noah played the night before at the same place, which was Lux, a disco in Lisbon) of Panda Bear's show.
I got really surprised with the songs that'll probably be on his upcoming album, "Tomboy". I don't know their names, unfortunately, so it'll be a bit more difficult to review this gig.
One thing that I've noticed is that this time, Noah Lennox gives even more use to loops and adds more distortion and reverbs to his sounds and beats. The fourth song he played, with his guitar, had an awesome distortion and it somewhat reminded me of Sun Araw's hypnagogic pop.
The first song, was slow and was a perfect intro to his gig: with a mind-warping loop, that slowly grew, backed up by the Danny Perez' awesome video work, felt smooth like hot butter. Then Panda Bear's voice appeared and the music got even better. After 5 minutes, a beat echoed and looped until the music ended.
Below, I've filmed the performance of this song:



Moreover, the second song is also original and more energetic, I'd say: more vocals, a faster bpm (although always kind of slow in its entegrity) and with more defined and distorted guitars.


This is the third song:

[upcoming bands] Mob of God

Fortunately, I got to know this band because one of the members sent me a message over on youtube, saying that he saw a comment I made on a Gogol Bordello video and thought I got a fine musical taste.
Mob of God are a portuguese band that fuses genres like alternative rock, jazz and metal (awkward, isn't it?). They also like Fado (a portuguese traditional musical genre).
The band members are: M.ª João Oliveira on lead vocals; Nuno Tavares on guitar andvocals; Ricardo Penedo on keyboards; Pedro Torradas playing bass; Bruno Gaspar on drums.
Their influences are, according to what they've written on their myspace page: " The flavors of our world - the grunge scene, the metal scene, the blues meet jazz and soul, the 60's, the 70's and early 90's plus world music". Bands that to me they resemble sometimes are: Doors (specially on keyboards and ocasionally on guitars), Jefferson Airplane (specially on vocals) and Shocking Blue (particularly on vocals and kind of similar to the guitars Shocking Blue played on some songs).
Their myspace can be accessed here. To download some songs they offer for free, click here.


Below is a video of one of their songs entitled "Lion of Judah":

[gig reviews] Jandek at Teatro Maria Matos

Jandek...To many an iconic figure that fights for anonymity, Jandek decided to perform not long ago. He started his musical career around 1978. He has only given one interview which I think he was somewhat forced to. His work is usually labeled as "outsider music".
It's funny that only in 2004 Jandek started playing live. I'm proud I still got a chance to see him live. His music is enigmatic and depicts many times his aging, as I can see, it's like a introspective diary, his whole works, since the photos he used in his albums, to the lyrics.

This time, the musician has chosen 3 more musicians to play with. They were: Sei Miguel (trompetist, composer, a dedicated jazz musician), André Abel (guitarrist of the well-known portuguese band Tropa Macaca and also co-creator of an uprising portuguese experimental band entitled Aquaparque) and finally, Peter Baastien (saxofonist, percussionist and european free spirit, that contributed to the birth of the free jazz movement in Netherlands in the 60's, played with the best bands of the Dakar dance in the 70's and plays for around 40 years, although he hasn't released any record- just like if it was an inversed Jandek situation).
The concert had a good sound. Jandek was the last musician to enter the stage, if I remember.

[gig reviews] Scout Niblett at ZDB, 16th December of 2009

Last year, Emma [the singer's real name] played at the same place, which is Galeria Zé dos Bois, in Lisbon, Portugal. This time, she seemed more confident, however always giving herself, emotionally. Slow, but intense, is the best definition you can obtain from seeing Scout Niblett's gigs.
The setlist included various songs, including ones from her upcoming album, I think.
She played the song "My Beloved".
Below, I'll leave videos I recorded:

Here are the links to part 2, part 3 (the song "My Beloved") and part 4. I'll upload more as time passes by.

Blog of the Week at Cotonete

Serotonin Sounds was elected "Blog of the Week" by Cotonete, a famous portuguese website that strongly promotes music in many ways.
You can see the "Blog of the Week" section by clicking in this link.
Later, this month, my blog will be on a poll entitled "Golden Blog", that features the blogs elected during the weeks of December.
Once again, thank you Cotonete!...

[upcoming bands] Youthless

Alex, from this duo named Youthless said in Muso's guide: "Youthless is Sab and I. I play drums and sing and sometimes I play synth lines with my free hand. Sab sings and plays bass through two amps which he alternates between using a footswitch. We also use a bunch of weird FX boxes and other toys. It’s a bit of a strange set up but somehow, amidst all the confusion, we manage to bang out some rockin’ tunes."
Like they've said in some interviews, they don't like to be labeled, since it doesn't give them that much freedom to record whatever they want.
They're a great promise and are going to launch this month, October this is, a new single through Enchufada records.
You can hear next [click on them] the following Youthless' songs: "Golden Age" and "Blondie".

Below is a videoclip of their song entitled "Monsta":

Panda Bear "Young Prayer"

Panda Bear is Noah Lennox (who also plays in Animal Collective and Jane).
Young Prayer is Noah's second solo album. It's been evaluated by many critics as an excellent album. I personally like it, because of its sincerity manifested along most of the songs. Oh, it's also relevant to say that these songs don't have any titles: they're all untitled. I really like the first untitled song, starting with Noah singing and then we can hear (like in all songs) a great acoustic guitar.

I'll leave you here the track 3:

Telepathe in Portugal pt1

Telepathe visited Portugal some days ago: they arrived here on 18th and went to Milan 21th July (at least I think so). I got to see two shows out of three shows they gave here. The first one I saw was in Lisbon (18th July) and the other one was in Coimbra (20th July). I'm editing some video series of these shows. Currently, there's only on youtube the gig they gave in Lisbon, at Galeria ZDB. You can watch pt1, pt2, pt3 and pt4.
I'll try to edit the Coimbra series of videos as soon as I can though.


I got the opportunity to take a picture with them. They're seriously (and probably) the nicest people I've met in a band.

Feromona's "Bisturi"

Feromona are a portuguese band that it seems rather difficult to label. Their mellow sounds can convert in a second to an eccentric paraphernalia of grunge influenced music. Their lyrics are marvelous, a picture of one's romantic experiences perhaps, adding disillusioned emotions here and there.
"Bisturi" (translated to "Scalpel", in English) depicts the band's typical tunes.

According to my interpretation, this video talks about a teenager's troubles and how one's mistakes can turn into a giant snowball. It's a cliche theme, you know, but it isn't that much of common since it relates a portuguese teen, not Bart Simpson's routine.