Lюк | Lemon

Listen to tune from this CD

Get it all here.

Over the years I've developed a fairly good spidey-sense when it comes to plucking fab CDs from bodega stacks. Except for Russian pop. I have found almost nothing I would consider really worth saving in any of the Brighton Beach stores ... except for this rather spectacular CD of pop-electronica, which I found several years ago.

I know little about the group other than that, less than two months after the performance captured on the video below, they disbanded. They've got at least a couple other CDs out there, which I'll keep my eyes open for. If, that is, I ever make it back to Brighton Beach ...

Zhou Xuan | Golden Melodies (2 CD set)

Listen to a fabulous track from CD 2 of this collection

Download CD 1 here.

Download CD 2 here.

I found this amazing 2-CD set at the Flushing Mall in Queens in a smallish DVD/CD shop that I used to frequent for its Hong Kong films. They've since decimated their HK film selection and replaced them with Hollywood blockbusters. I had no idea who the singer was, but the photo looked sufficiently old to lead me to suspect this might be something in the Shanghai Lounge Divas realm. I was right: The singer, Zhou Xuan is included in that mix, though it's doubtful she ever sang in a lounge, at least not after becoming a superstar actress in the late 1930s.

Born Su Pu (蘇璞) on August 1, 1918, Zhou Xuan (周璇) was sold by a family member when she was three years old and later adopted by the Zhou family, who gave her her last name. Her first name, Xuan, which she took on herself when she began performing as a teenager, means "jade." Her performance in Street Angel in 1937 made her an overnight star. (It's on DVD with English subtitles; you should be able to either Netflix it or find it in your local Chinatown.)

Though she recorded one of the most famous songs of the era ("Shanghai Nights"), her life was not improved by stardom. She suffered numerous breakdowns, was institutionalized for brief periods, and finally, at age 39, died in a mental asylum.

A scene from Street Angel, including her infinitely popular song, "Wandering Songstress" (which begins about a minute or so into this clip):

Various Artists | Kabylie Chantee

Listen to an insanely fabulous track from this CD

Download the whole CD here.

For a guy whose last name conjures up horrifying visions of torture, torment, agony, anguish, nightmare, misery, suffering and pain, Richard Hell is probably one of the sweetest people I've ever met. I can't remember exactly how we got in touch, although I think it had to do with a fake interview with John Ashbery that I ran in an issue of Readme, an online literary arts journal I edited from 1999-2001.

Whatever the case, we wound up having brunch--yes, brunch--a couple of times in the East Village in the mid-2000s. Richard claimed to be a fan of my comics; I said nothing about how I had always considered him one of the greatest people on earth for having come up with what I still think is the single greatest title of a pop song, ever: "Love Comes in Spurts." Or for having practically single-handedly inventing the whole punk-DIY aesthetic; I mean, I think that had everything to do with my having been an "artist" in the first place.

After we hung out, we exchanged CDs and tapes. He sent me a CD of TIME (his greatest hits along with a live CD) and I sent him a cassette tape of a bunch of music I'd found in bodegas--including some of the stuff I've posted here over the last year or so. Including, significantly, to me, the song you'll hear in the sample above.

I was convinced--*convinced*--that he was going to be bowled over by the raw pop power of that Kabylie song, and write me back, singing my praises as the Greatest Digger On Earth..("OMG! Where did you *find* this gem of etc. etc. etc.?!?") Well, that's not exactly what happened. But I've always remembered his response, which I think was one of the greatest tossed-off bits of philosophy I've ever read: To paraphrase (since I no longer have the e-mail), he basically said that it was incredible to imagine all of us, all over the world, walking around with each of our unique "life-soundtracks" going on in our heads. Something like that, but far more eloquently, if off-the-cuffedly--put.

It was a kind way of saying that my soundtrack wasn't his. But that he certainly respected that I had one. And that it was, finally, so different from his own. Or anyone's.

I admit, part of me was a bit disappointed that he didn't thrill to the Kabylie pop as I did, and still do. Pop music is such that, one wants to know others are not just listening to what you're listening to, but mesmerized by it. It isn't an art of intimacy.

So I offer it to you, anonymous reader and potential downloader. What do you think? I'm now getting dozens of visitors here every day, and it looks like I'm going to have to upgrade my Divshare account for the second time this month, so apparently a lot of you are at least checking this stuff out. But hardly anyone comments. What are you liking? What are you disliking? What do you want to hear more of? Let me know ...

As for this CD, I know almost next to nothing about it, other than I got it at Princess Music & Electronics in Bay Ridge, which closed sometime last summer. And that it remains one of my all-time favorite pop CDs, ever.

O.P. Nayyar | Mr & Mrs 55 + Aar Paar

Listen to "Kabhi Aar Kabhi Paar"

Get the whole thang here.

No idea where I got this. I have hundreds of Bollywood soundtracks, mostly from Jackson Heights, Queens, although I picked up a few on Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn and in Edison, New Jersey.

This, without question, is one of my favorites. O.P. Nayyar was the only successful Bollywood composer who never, ever worked with Lata Mangeshkar; it's said he was largely responsible for giving Geeta Dutt, Mohamad Rafi and, especially, Lata's sister, Asha Bhosle, their careers. Whatever the case, he wrote some of the hottest pop music, from any culture, throughout the 50s, 60s and early 70s.

"Mr. & Mrs. 55" is not my favorite Guru Dutt movie, but it's pretty great, and features, in addition to the fabulous Madhubala as a feminist, Dutt himself as a cartoonist. (In one of the most famous exchanges from the film, a new acquaintance asks: "Tum communist?" (("Are you a communist?")) "Ji nahin. Cartoonist." (("No. Cartoonist.")))

"Aar Paar," a far less interesting film, does however feature what I believe is the single most remixed song of all time, and this from the most remix happy culture on earth: Shamshad Begum singing "Kabhi Aar Kabhi Paar."

A song from "Mr & Mrs 55":

Rebecca Pan | My Dream My Way My Indie Music

My Little Airport singing "I Wonder Why"


The Pancakes singing "Magica Luna"


Ketchup singing "Solid Gold Rickshaw"

Grab the whole thing here.

Like all tribute albums, this one is decidedly uneven. But the great stuff is pretty incredible.

Nearly a dozen independent Hong Kong bands cover songs originally recorded by Rebecca Pan aka Pan Wan Ching--Rebecca Pan sings on a couple of tracks as well. Pan, who was born in Shanghai, became a superstar in Hong Kong in the 50s and 60s, singing a variety of pop music in Chinese, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Thai, and more.

This CD, which I found in a store on the corner of Canal and Bowery, was my gateway to the world of indy Hong Kong music; after hearing it I searched everywhere for CDs by Ketchup, My Little Airport and, especially, The Pancakes--all of which I found at P-Tunes & Video, the store on Chrystie featured in the header image at the top of this blog.

The CD comes with an 88-page booklet, which includes lyrics, a narrative about the project, old clippings of Rebecca Pan and photos of the artists on the CD, including Pan, in the recording studio and hanging out together. Surprisingly, a number of the artists claimed to have never heard of Pan before the project--especially since they're essentially carrying on a tradition she was a huge figure in--that of Hong Kong artists covering or at least being inspired by pop music from around the world.

Cheba Maria | Ould Bladi

Listen to "Casablanca"

Download the whole CD here.

Found at Princess Music in Bay Ridge on what was likely one of the last days they were open. A totally great find.

Cheba Maria was born and raised in Casablanca and moved to France in 1998, where she's now apparently a fairly big rai star. Rai is the ultimate hybrid pop, incorporating anything and everything into its wake. Well, okay, not everything. But, still.

A video:

Mix CD of Asian Rock + Hip Hop 2000-2010

Get the mix CD, including 38 rockin' tracks, here.

While hanging out with friends in Brooklyn last weekend, someone began to mourn the demise of rock. I countered that rock wasn't dead; it just moved east. I promised to make my friend a mix CD of some of the best rock and hip hop recorded in Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, etc., with a few tracks recorded in the U.S. thrown in for good measure. This is that CD.

Enjoy!

Ibrahim Tatlises | Haydi Söyle

"Saza Niye Gelmedin"

Get the whole CD here.

Apparently, in March, the great Kurdish Turkish singer/actor Ibrahim Tatlises was shot in the head. He is reportedly recovering and may lose the use of one half of his body.

Randomly discovering Tatlises' Haydi Söyle in the 90s completely changed my life; this blog, among other things, is very much a direct result of that. Here, in fact, is the first posting to BodegaPop, sometime last year (before I learned how to zip whole CDs for downloading):

In the mid 1990s I was living on Grand Avenue near the corner of Snelling Avenue in St. Paul, Minn. My (now ex-) wife, Marta, and I had moved there from San Francisco in 1991 following a near-death experience on the 2 or 3 train while on our honeymoon in New York City. We were in our late 20s.

That move had been the worst mistake either I or Marta had ever made. We were both California born and raised, we loved the Bay Area, we knew nothing of the American Midwest, had no particular interest in it, but moved rather abruptly when our post-traumatic stress symptoms refused to subside six months after our Brooklyn subway fire experience. We convinced ourselves that moving to a boring, medium-sized city in the middle of nowhere would be the late 20th century American equivalent to taking a European spa after having been diagnosed with tuberculosis.

Other than a handful of truly life-saving friends, I hated the Twin Cities. But I somehow convinced myself that I was there for the long haul, and immersed myself in the local culture--at least that portion of which I could stomach. Basically, the music scene. The Replacements had broken up by then and the bands that followed in their wake--Babes in Toyland, The Gear Daddies, Trip Shakespeare, The Tropicals--weren't great, but sufficed, at least so long as I kept my horizons limited to a radius of 50 miles, give or take, either side of the Mississippi.



One day in the late summer or early fall of 1994 I made a trip I often made, the 15-20 minute walk from my apartment on Grand Avenue around the corner and down Snelling to Cheapo Records and Tapes (now Cheapo Discs). I loved Cheapo. It was, at least at the time, cheap. You could get pretty much any used cassette tape you wanted (I hadn't yet made the switch to CDs) for a couple of bucks. And Cheapo tended to have close to everything.

On this particular day, for whatever reason, I couldn't find a single tape I wanted or didn't already have. Nothing spoke to me. Until--eh, what?--my eyes rested on the cover of a very light blue cassette sporting the image of a middle eastern-looking guy with a big black mustache smiling confidently into the camera. "Ibrahim Tatlises" read the semi-florid script in reverse-out white over his head. I had no idea what language the title ("Haydi Söyle") was in. The red price tag read "$1." Fuck it, I thought. I pulled it from the shelf and walked over to the register.

At home, I popped the cassette into my ghetto blaster, hit PLAY and pretty much resolved to (a) never, ever, EVER again settle for lame American pop music and (b) to move out of the Twin Cities at the earliest possible convenience (another three years, as it turned out, for New York).



An incredible performance on TV from around the time of Haydi Söyle's release

Postscript
Ibrahim Tatlises, though I didn't know it then, is a Kurdish/Turkish superstar. A film actor and arabesque singer, his down-and-out roots (his family was homeless when he was born in 1952) are part of the semiotics of his mystique.

After a few years of living in Brooklyn I discovered Uludag Video (1922 Avenue W, Brooklyn), where I picked up numerous CDs by Tatlises, including Haydi Söyle, so I could finally listen to it in my iPod. Alas, the last time I stopped in, late last fall, I was informed that they can no longer afford to carry CDs and are concentrating now solely on pirated DVDs of Turkish films.

Fatima Tihihit

Listen to a track from this CD.

Download the whole CD here.

Found in a little CD/cassette shop in Marrakesh a block or two south of Place Jemaa el Fna.

Leila Mourad | Sanatain Wana Ahail Feek

Listen to an incredible track from this CD

Download the whole thing here.

There was a time when it looked like Leila Mourad was on her way to become the most famous Egyptian singer of all time. She was, in fact, selected as the official singer of the Egyptian revolution in the early 50s--but rumors about her having visited Israel effectively put an end to her career. Born Jewish, she converted to Islam and, though she was well-loved in Egypt, she simply slipped out of the limelight, never to sing publicly again.

I honestly don't recall where I found this CD, although I assume it was either in Bay Ridge or on Court Street in Brooklyn. I may be in the minority, but I love her voice--which is among the most expressive I've ever heard--even more than that of the far more famous Oum Kalsoum.

Here she is in all her glory:

Carlinhos Brown | e Carlito Marron

Listen to a sample from the CD

Download the whole kit & kaboodle here.

Someone once described Portuguese as the ultimate WTF language: It sounds, especially to anyone familiar with romance languages, both hauntingly familiar and totally not like anything else on the planet.

That's kind of true of the music of Brazil. Let's face it, as a nation-state or whatever, Brazil kicks extreme pop music ass. I still love it, even after suffering through Caetano Veloso's insanely pompous and self-congratulatory autobiography, which, if you've read it, you know is saying a lot.

Carlinhos Brown has, as it turns out, played with Veloso. And made something of a name for himself, though I think more as a producer than an artist in his own right. I found this fabulous CD a month or two ago on Steinway Street in Queens at a little Brazilian bodega--the only Brazilian bodega, in fact, I've ever found in NYC.

Enjoy!

Karen Gevorkian | Inchou

Listen to a sample from this CD

Download the whole thing here.

I wonder if "it sounds sort of like Arabic pop" might not be the "tastes like chicken" of international popular music. That said, there's more to this CD than twisty Casio-inflected maqams and husky, soulful-sincere crooning. I love how one minute, it feels like you're seemingly picking up Lebanon, the next it's Algeria, the next it's The Country Whose Name Shall Not Be Mentioned in This Post. Oh, and disco.

Found in the stacks of what I believe is the largest Russian music, movie and book emporium in the New York City area, St. Petersburg on Brighton Beach Avenue in Brooklyn. I love the clerks at that place. They're all young Russian girls, blond (real or bottled), and extremely bitchy, almost as though this might be an S&M supply warehouse.

When I brought this up to the counter, the young woman who rang it up said something to me in Russian, and when I said, in English, "Oh, um ..." she hissed through her teeth, chucked the CD into a yellow plastic bag, and dropped it on the counter before staring just inches above my head and saying, almost robotically, "Ten Dohlahrz."

I happily fished the appropiate bill from my wallet as she slowly seethed behind the counter, making each second seem like hours.

"Here," I offered.

She rolled her eyes, snapping the bill from my fingers.

"Thanks," I said.

"Who eez nezhxt?" she asked ... though, as I turned and walked out of the store, there was no one waiting in line behind me.

Do you like music videos with women in gold dresses and rather large men with soulful singing voices? Check this out:

Juarez Villamar Sisters | una tumba para los dos

Listen to a sample song

Download the whole CD here.

I found this incredible gem in a bodega in east Jackson Heights, in what I believe was an Ecuadoran bodega, although it's been a few years, so perhaps it was Columbian or Mexican. I have found nothing other than a few YouTube videos featuring the Juarez Villamar sisters, so if you have any info, it would be greatly appreciated.

I don't really know Spanish, but the title seems to be "A Tomb for the Two." Gack. Is it really that morbid? I'll say this much, it's intensely beautiful, one of my favorite CDs of all time, not to mention that it sports one of the grooviest covers to boot. Here's a video of the sisters to enjoy while you download:

Stelios Kazantzidis | Asteria Tou Ellinikou Tragoudiou

Listen to a sample from the CD

Download the whole CD here.

There is, a couple of blocks away from me, on 31st Street in Astoria, under the N/Q el, what feels like the Tower Records of Greek music. Now, you know I love music, especially pop music, especially-especially old pop music, from around the world. But I'm also, let's face it, not rich. I'm used to spending between $1-$10 maximum for prerecorded entertainment, especially that of a musical nature ... and there is nothing in this store less than, like, $25.

That said, you know those cartoons where the person's head is replaced by a big lollypop? Or sucker? Well, yes, in situations wherein I'm confrontred with aisles and aisles of prerecorded product, especially that of a musical nature from other countries, that cartoon sucker-head is me.

Oh, god. Was it, like, Christmas Eve when I got this? I know it was cold and dark and depressing and there was some sort of holiday that I really had nothing to do with, but should have. And that this place was empty. Except for me. I spent hours combing through the stacks and plucked out two items, this CD and another, which perhaps I'll upload another day.

Stylianos "Stelios" Kazantzidis (Aug 29, 1931–Sept 14, 2001) was one of Greece's most popular Laïkó singers. Much of his music was included in films. And that is where my "knowledge" of him begins and ends. Well, other than the extreme kick-ass nature of the pop music he recorded. Which, if you weren't familiar with it before, you will be now.

Typically, when I'm buying music from a place like this, I'll either get extreme attitude from the person working the register, or a host of questions: "You speak [language of music]? You like [country of origin] music?"

That night, perhaps because it was Christmas Eve and I was the sole customer at this caverous CD warehouse, I got nothing but a knowing nod. Of course I was buying this CD, the clerk seemed to be saying. That, and, in what I can only assume was Greek, a "Merry Christmas, loser."

Here's a video to watch while you're downloading: