JAY-JAY JOHANSON "TRAVELLING LIGHT 1996-2000"

I've been on the road, I've been on vacation
I've been traveling light to reach my final destination
Now I'm coming home

So tell the girls that I am back in town, you'd better tell them to beware
Where they may go or they might try to hide, I follow on and I'll be there

So tell the girls that I am back in town, and if it's true I do not know
That every girl around had missed me since I decided to go

I could be your friend, I could be your stranger
I could be the one your mother said would be your danger
Now it's up to you

So tell the girls that I am back in town, you'd better tell them to beware
Where they may go or they might try to hide, I follow on and I'll be there

So tell the girls that I am back in town and if it's true I do not know
That every girl around had missed me since I decided to go

[excerpt from the lyrics of "So Tell the Girls That I'm Back in Town" by Jay-Jay Johanson, 1996]



Jay-Jay Johanson is one of my heroes. Yes, no less than that. So, what can I add? I remember the very first time I watched the promotional clip for his first single "It Hurts Me So" back in 1996: what a coloured and strong voice in such a pale and frail body!

The lyrics and general atmosphere of the song have instantly entrapped me in melancholy and I never recovered since then... No, seriously, I have thought about it many times and now I would like to publicly state that, in this life, Jay-Jay Johanson is the only worthy artist that I discovered stumbling by chance upon MTV at 3:00 a.m., really! Since then I enjoyed each and every album he has made and I never get tired of listening to them.

A few years ago, in the early days of the blog, I already dedicated a few posts to Jay-Jay and you can find them here. The collection of edits, remixes, live recordings, rare tracks, etc. that I'm delighted to feature in this post covers the years 1996-2000 or, if you prefer, his first three albums, namely "Whiskey", "Tattoo" and "Poison". Each of these releases is a trip hop M-A-S-T-E-R-P-I-E-C-E that can easily stand between Portishead's first two albums without being ashamed.

Jay-Jay Johanson at home in Stockholm, 1997

In his twenty-year career, Jay-Jay Johanson has released ten albums and is currently working on his eleventh full-lenght release that will be released sometimes in mid/late 2017. His latest available offering is entitled "Opium" and was released in 2015 on Kwaidan Records. Needless to say that it is another fine example of his great art and I strongly encourage you to check it out, you won't regret it.

The following review of "Opium" was written by French journalist Pierre Siankowski; it fairly summarize Jay-Jay's distinctive features and was used as the album's official press-release:

«It was in 1996 that Jay-Jay Johanson, a young man from a cold climate, fascinated by the Bristol sound they called trip-hop and Portishead in particular, first tapped delicately on our eardrums. The intoxicating album that definitively put this rare and elegant Swede on the map was called "Whiskey". It was the beginning of an enthralling adventure. In only a few songs he revealed a family tree that spread its roots far and wide: on one branch Lee Hazlewood, or pop from Talk Talk or Harry Nilsson, on the other John Coltrane with Johnny Hartman, and a whole army of calm jazz or symphonic recordings sampled from everywhere imaginable. Almost twenty years later he has returned with an incredible new album. This new release is called "Opium" and it contains the very essence of Johanson's music: an ease with inventing melodies, a voice that gently caresses, and the jacked up, heady rhythms that lift and carry the songs. From the peaceful harmonica opening of "Drowsy / Too Young To Say Good Night" to the smoke-wreathed love song "I Don't Know Much About Loving", via titles with a sporadic and light groove ("NDE", "Alone Too Long"), "Opium" is a courageous offering. Johanson opens his heart with fearlessness and modesty, gracefully lowering his guard and evoking the questions that torment men of his age: love, solitude, immaturity. The songwriting is unerring, the words have a suppressed poetry. This new Johanson is the work of a guy who has survived the avalanches, who is no longer looking for answers and is content to sketch out the perspectives in as many songs. Some titles are serious ("Harakiri"), but others immediately take up the reins casting a more gentle, peaceful light, like "Scarecrow," a collaboration with Robin Guthrie that would not have sounded out of place on a Cocteau Twins album, or of the strange positivity of "Be Yourself" or "I Love Him So". The strength of "Opium" is that it asks questions that don't necessarily have an answer; it offers a collection of songs freed from any certitude but which convince through their modesty, through their precision. In short, Jay-Jay at his best.»

Jay-Jay Johanson, 1997

Here's the tracklist of "Travelling Light 1996-2000":

Disc 1

01. It Hurts Me So (Single Edit) (4:14)
02. So Tell the Girls That I Am Back In Town (Radio Edit) (3:49)
03. Mana Mana Mana Mana (Bang Bang Remix) (4:09)
04. Milan. Madrid. Chicago. Paris. (Radio Edit) (3:52)
05. BANG BANG feat. JAY-JAY JOHANSON - Two Fingers (4:32)
06. She's Mine But I'm Not Hers (Remix by Cherno) (4:23)
07. Alone Again (Remix - An Arthur Ashe Experience) (3:31)
08. Keep It A Secret (Radio Edit) (4:01)
09. Believe In Us (Piano Mix by Laurent Levesque) (4:08)
10. I Fantasize of You (Black Session, 30.04.97) (5:40)
11. The Girl I Love Is Gone (Black Session, 30.04.97) (3:53)
12. It Hurts Me So (Black Session, 30.04.97) (4:54)
13. So Tell the Girls That I'm Back In Town (Black Session, 30.04.97) (5:06)
14. Mana Mana Mana Mana (Black Session, 30.04.97) (5:50)
15. I'm Older Now (Black Session, 30.04.97) (4:18)
16. Suicide Is Painless (Black Session, 30.04.97) (3:32)
17. BANG BANG feat. JAY-JAY JOHANSON - Two Fingers (Instrumental) (4:34)

Disc 2

01. It Hurts Me so (Live at Studio Eefinanny, Stockholm, 1997) (5:52)
02. Milan. Madrid. Chicago. Paris. (Live in Strasbourg, 15.11.97) (5:00)
03. Mana Mana Mana Mana (Live in Strasbourg, 15.11.97) (5:22)
04. I'm Older Now (Live in Strasbourg, 15.11.97) (4:16)
05. She's Mine But I'm Not Hers (Live in Strasbourg, 15.11.97) (3:24)
06. Keep It a Secret (Remix - A Tribute To Venus & Serena) (4:25)
07. Believe In Us (Trip Listening Mix by Amadeus Tapioka) (4:46)
08. Far Away (Radio Edit) (4:12)
09. She's Mine But I'm Not Hers (Remix by Robin Guthrie) (4:25)
10. Neon Lights (Kraftwerk cover) (5:43)
11. Fire (Deep Deep Wood Mix) (3:10)
12. La Confusion des Genres Theme (Vocal Version) (3:22)
13. La Confusion des Genres End Theme (Alone Again Remix 2) (3:47)
14. Seven Inch (Vocals by Sadie & Alex Wollf) (4:56)
15. Alone Again ('La Confusion des Genres' hidden track) (1:53)
16. It Hurts Me So (Kareokee Version) (6:12)
      FIDGET feat. JAY-JAY JOHANSON - Hey Little Sister (3:23)

All selections were compiled and mastered in late 2016 / early 2017 and are available in FLAC lossless format along with printable artwork.

Before burning this compilation to CD-R using the provided CUE files you must convert the original FLAC audio file to WAV format using an appropriate software. Please have a look here if you need some help.

As usual, please have a look at the comments for the download link.



Some of the tracks contained on "Whiskey" - or more probably, the whole album - were recorded as early as 1994-1995, while "Poison" was probably already finished by the end of 1999... The "1996-2000" part in the title of this collection refers to the years the tracks were released for the first time. Here's more details about them:

tracks 1.01 and 2.16a are taken from "It Hurts Me So", CD single, 04.04.1996

track 1.02 is taken from the first edition of "So Tell the Girls That I Am Back In Town", CD single, 23.07.1996

track 2.16b is taken from Fidget's "Stop Losing", CD single, 1997

tracks 1.03 and 2.01 are taken from "Mana Mana Mana Mana", CD single, 1997

tracks from 1.10 to 1.16 were recorded live at Studio 105, Paris, France, 30.04.1997

tracks from 1.10 to 1.14 were remastered from "The Black Sessions #104", a CD-R bootleg released by Sangatte Records sometimes in 2004

track 1.15 is taken from the second edition of "So Tell the Girls That I Am Back In Town", CD single, 1997

track 1.16 is taken from "Un Automne 97", a various artists CD that was released as a supplement to French magaine Les Inrockuptibles in October 1997

tracks 1.05 and 1.17 are taken from Bang Bang's "Two Fingers", promotional CD single, 1998

track 1.04 is taken from "Milan. Madrid. Chicago. Paris.", CD single, 07.05.1998

tracks from 2.02 to 2.05 were recorded live in Strasbourg, 15.11.1997

tracks from 2.02 to 2.04 are taken from "Jay-Jay Goes Live", promotional CD single, 1998

track 1.06, 2.05 and 2.09 are taken from from "She's Mine But I'm Not Hers", CD single, 10.09.1998

tracks 1.07, 1.08 and 2.06 are taken from "Keep It a Secret", CD single, 11.02.2000

tracks 2.10 and 2.11 are bonus tracks taken the French edition of "Poison", CD, French edition, 11.04.2000

tracks 1.09 and 2.07 are taken from "Believe In Us", CD single, 05.07.2000

tracks from 2.12 to 2.15 are taken from "La Confusion des Genres", original soundtrack CD, 2000

track 2.08 is taken from "Best of 1996-2013", compilation CD, 2013

The following is a rich selection of original promotional clips, remixes and live tracks that are pertinent to the collection presented in this post, enjoy!

More information about Jay-Jay Johanson is available here:

http://www.jay-jayjohanson.com/

https://www.facebook.com/jayjayjohanson/

https://soundcloud.com/jay-jay-johanson

http://www.michelviotte.fr/spip.php?article58

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay-Jay_Johanson

https://www.discogs.com/artist/11481-Jay-Jay-Johanson

http://www.alwaysontherun.net/jayjay.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWU7Mx2vOlU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLaKwzYXutE

http://www.froggydelight.com/article-16552-Jay_Jay_Johanson.html

http://www.popnews.com/popnews/jay-jay-johanson-et-robin-guthrie-interview

http://crueltobekind.fr/jay-jay-johanson

https://zetalks.wordpress.com/2015/04/08/jay-jay-johanson-develop-your-creativity-and-believe-in-it/

All your inputs are more than welcome: you can reach me at stereocandies [at] hotmail [dot] com or leave a comment in the box below, thank you!

MONEY MARK "PERFORMING CHICKEN" (1994)

I've always loved you, I never told no-one
I think about you, everyday till the set of sun
And at night, when I'm alone again
I cry, I cry

I can't get next to you, I don't really try
That's way I wrote this song, that's why I cry
I'll send it to you, you could play it in your box
I cry, I cry

I don't really feel like a man, I'm feelin' low
Man on the keyboard, I'm gonna play my organ solo

[from the lyrics of "Cry"]



As the story goes, Mark Ramos-Nishita first came into the fold when some girl ran her car into the entrance gate of the G-Spot, an incredible '70s-type pad that the Beastie Boys rented in 1989 during the recording of "Paul's Boutique". The Dust Brothers were working on the album and asked Mark to fix the front gate. Mark was given an address and he went there.

He fixed the gate and after the job was done, he didn't see anybody around and wondered how he was going to get paid. Adam Horowitz (one of the Beasties, a.k.a. Ad-Rock) drove into the scene and paid Mark for his carpentry. Then Adam invited Mark to a party the Beastie Boys held that night.

The Beastie Boys were planning to build a studio, they needed a carpenter for that job and Mark helped building their G-Son Studios in Los Angeles. Mark also played keyboards, so he was a dual purpose member of the group.

Nishita's Fender Rhodes funkiness redefined the Beasties' sound into more Jazz-Funk-influenced grooves on "Check Your Head" and "Ill Communication", along with the new percussionist Eric Bobo. Completed by the original Beastie Boys, Michael Diamond on drums, Adam Yauch on bass and Adam Horowitz on guitar, they were a true groove machine.

After the success of the Beastie Boys albums, Mark decided to release the old tracks he had been playng long before he met them. The tunes on his debut EP "Performing Chicken" released in 1994, which are the subject of this post and were also included in his first full-lenght release entitled "Mark's Keyboard Repair" the next year, are just what he's been doing for a long time.



Money Mark has created a style and a sound of his own; his music may sound a bit weird or amateurish at first, but after a couple of listenings one gets sucked into his funky grooves and simple hooks.

The secret of Mark Ramos-Nishita's unique sound lies behind the warm heart of his analog synthesizers and keyboards. Among his organ grooves Mark also includes guitars, bass, flutes, even kazoo and other unusual stuff. The basic drumlines in his music seem to come out straight from a cheap Casio keyboard, but definitely with more feeling and life in it. Mark's lyrics aren't complicated or tricky, just plain and direct.

Mark has a special relationship with his keyboards. The following quotes are excerpted from an interview by Miguel D'Souza published in The Sidney Morning Herald, January 5th 1996:

«It's some thing I can fix on my own, that's what I feel most comfortable about. I have little relationships with my keyboards; these digital keyboards, I can't have any relationship with them. I look at them and, if they could look at me, they'd stare and go, "ha ha ha, there's nothing you can do, you can't alter me at all." I just recently bought a new car; it was the first new car I'd bought and when I opened up the hood and looked at the engine I thought I could never fix this! I can't even get to the spark plugs, I'd need special tools, oscilloscopes, all these other things to tune it up. I have this old '63 Chevy. When I look in there, I just... I get happy. I can fix it, I can see all the parts, I can see how this motor works and I can really see what's wrong when I open it up. It's the same with my analogue synths, if it is malfunctioning, there really isn't much that can go wrong, there's only a few parts that can go wrong. If you're talking about an IC or a chip you're at the mercy of some manufacturer, who you have to buy the chip from and then there's really no satisfaction in fixing it, all you've done is change a chip. It's hard for me to deal with this new-world, this new technology. Well, when I learn about a keyboard and I learn how it's made I have an idea of what it's going to sound like. I know, for example, that a Hammond organ is going to sound great, because of what's going on in there: there's a motor turning, the metal wheels are spinning and these electrons are flying and these pickups are picking them up... I take an idea like that and I... I get my motor drill and plug it in and stick it next to the pickups and it makes a sound. It has to do with having a little knowledge. I'm not going to buy a keyboard because it looks nice or it's the thing to buy, the trend. Some of these things look like little monsters, but if I know how it's made, I can look at it and say, "hey, this thing is going to be great." I have the idea that a musician should be a technician. It helps to know what's going on with the instruments, it helps the musician create new things, to know what's really going on in there and then you mix that in with some emotions and then when you make things they are really full because they have the best of both worlds, you know - left brain, right brain. A little bit of technical knowledge could lead to something where you can say, "Hey, if I cluster these kinds of notes together because I know that if I do these frequencies will bump into one another and create this other thing." Science is not usually connected with emotion, except maybe Einstein connected it. I just love to study keyboards and I do try to get some technique, I try to keep a balance between the technical thing and the musical thing as well. A person who is just strictly a musician may not have the same kind of sensitivity towards the keyboards they're playing, maybe they see the notes as just notes, the sounds are a secondary thing. They're rather more interested in the harmonic structure than how the tones are happening; but I try to consider the whole thing.»

"Performing Chicken" contains the following tracks:

01. Sunday, Gardena Blvd. (2:31)
02. Insects Are All Around Us (2:21)
03. Three Movements For the Wind: Theme For the Innocent Hostage (1:08)
04. Three Movements For the Wind: Poets Walk (1:00)
05. Three Movements For the Wind: Spooky (1:08)
06. Cry (2:21)
07. Pretty Pain (3:11)
08. No Fighting (1:28)
09. Ba Ba Ba Boom (1:35)
10. Have Clav Will Travel (1:23)
11. Don't Miss the Boat (2:31)

01.07.2013 Update: sorry guys, the big bosses of the Music Industry have knocked on my door and kindly asked to remove the audio files related to this post, download links are not available anymore...



Money Mark's music conveys a profound optimism and a sense of joy. This time instead of babbling about the eleven short pieces of "Performing Chicken", I prefer to offer you a short writing by Mark himself that I found on the Internet and saved to my computer some fifteen years ago. I can't remember the original source, I googled for it but it seems that it is not available online anymore, so I'm particularly proud to bring you...

"My year as a ball boy for the 1971-72 world champion Los Angeles Lakers" by Mark Ramos-Nishita

«My dad used to take me to basketball games because I wanted to be a basketball star. But who didn't? I mean, everybody did. I know Bob Mack did. I know Ricky Powell did. I know Adam Horowitz did. So when I was 12 years old, I wrote the Lakers a letter on my college-ruled paper - I was supposed to be doing my math homework - and I said: "To whom it may concern, I want to be a ball boy. How do I do that?" I really didn't think they'd respond me at all. But about a month later I got this card from Laker GM Pete Newell's secretary. So I bought some new Adidas Superstars and went to what was then called "The Fabulous Forum", or "The House That Jack Built" (as in former Laker owner / current Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke). I walked right through The Forum Club into Pete Newell's office, and Sam Winston was there! You know, the famous tire guy? He was good buddies with Jerry West. Then they gave me a ball boy uniform, which was like Lakers' own warm-ups. Next came the long walk down a hallway that led right into the locker room. I don't know how I'm gonna write this - sorry Mom - but what I saw next was Laker forward Jim MacMillan taping his penis to his thigh with some white adhesive tape. Seriously! I don't think he did this all the time, I think he just had a groin injury. And other players were taping other shits. Like Gail Goodrich was taping up his weak knees. That was my first impression of the locker room, but basically they were just getting ready to play the Phoenix Suns. I watched while the pros soaped their socks so they didn't get blisters; take two pair of socks, put one on, get a fresh bar of ivory soap, rub it all over the bottom of the first sock, then put the other sock over it and the soap will act like oil between the two socks asd thus prevent blisters. They had a way to tie their shoes, too, called "Russian Bow Tie", which never came loose. At this point I was acting really nonchalant because like any big fan I felt really close to the team already. So there I was, hangin' in the locker room, trying to act cool, watching all the guys crack jokes and talk shit. Incidentally, even then I noticed that one of the only players who was not dicking around but acting more serious was Pat Riley. Things didn't seem as glamorous back in the locker as they did out on the court, either...



...Eventually I was introduced to the head ball boy, who debriefed me on my duties. We went out on the court with the players for warm ups, and the first thing I noticed was that even though the baskets looked kind of big, the players were fucking huge! Anyway, I was supposed to hand out towels, and my mop was my best friend because I always had to be ready to wipe the sweat up off the court. Of all the players, probably Wilt Chamberlain sweated the most, but it was always sweaty under the hoop. If someone fell, then that was like a big mess. So during that first game against the Suns, I was wiping up some sweat near the free throw line while all the players were down at the other end of the court. I thought I had enough time, but suddenly the Suns' hairy-backed big man, Neil Walk, stole the ball from somebody like Mel Counts and came barreling down the court. By the time I looked up he was right on my ass and I had to make a head-first dive for the baseline to get out of his way. Then I heard the whistle. I was interfering with the game or something. Of course I had always dreamed of someday seeing some NBA action, but this was definitely not what I had in mind. I was pretty embarassed and turned red. You would too if 17,505 people were looking at you. I was afraid to even look up because I thought the ref called a foul on me or something. Even so, I actually did make it into the NBA - which is more than Bob Mack, Ricky Powell or Adam Horowitz can say! In the end, I only worked six or seven home games that year, probably because of that interference call. Who knows? Maybe Pete Newell got wind of it. Nevertheless, despite some embarassing moments, it's still one of my fondest memories...

Money Mark as pictured by Phil Knott, promotional shot for the album "Push the Button" (1998)

...By far the biggest highlight of my experience was witnessing the classic rivalry between Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul Jabbar, who played for Milwaukee then. Just being able to see those two go at it inside was something else. It was the first time I ever saw anyone block Kareem's hook shot, and I was right there, watching Chamberlain do it! He was the first and only guy to challenge the shot that would later be known as the allegedly unblockable "Sky Hook". Of course, I wouldn't be telling the truth if I didn't admit that it got kind of boring after a while, just sitting there under the basket, wiping up sweat. But the plusses definitely outweighed the minuses. It was the Lakers' greatest season (in fact the best season of any team in NBA history), and I was part of it. I also got to eat before the games at the M&M cafe near The Forum, where players like Harold "Happy" Hairston ate soul food (and where, to this day, Magic often munches). I got to meet Laker announcer Chick Hearn, definitely, who by the way still looks exactly the same. I also became buddies with one player, the great Connie Hawkins, though he never knew my name. Plus, it was just cool being on the court during the game. This was before all the frills. No cheerleaders, no band, no TV timeouts, no Cable TV. Finally, the players were cooler then, and security wasn't as tight around them. There was a lot of partyin' going on after each game, especially in The Forum Club bar. You could see movie stars in there like Billy Barty. You could see Wilt smoking cigarettes. But you never saw Jerry West. In other words, it was dope, both then and now. Back then, it gave me a sense of identity which was cool to have at school and stuff. Something that other kids couldn't front on and that I could prove. And nowadays, it's just cool to go to the games, look at the new ball boys and remember how it was. Something that I can take with me.»

Here's a few videos courtesy of YouTube, including a 1995 audio interview, a recent live rendition of "Insects Are All Around Us", a 2004 Moog-based improvisation with Woody Jackson and a complete Beastie Boys MTV special / live performance broadcasted in 1992, enjoy!

A few more information about Money Mark is available here:

http://www.moneymark.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_Mark

http://www.discogs.com/artist/Money+Mark

http://www.beastiemania.com/whois/nishita_mark/

http://solesides.com/winblad/beastie%20boys/moneysmh010596.html

http://adamconnors.net/network/revue/revmusin_monmark.shtml

http://www.pitch.com/kansascity/money-talks/Content?oid=2164171

If you have any other useful information about Money Mark and "Performing Chicken" - especially corrections and improvements to this post - or if you spot any dead links, please get in touch with me at stereocandies [at] hotmail [dot] com or leave a comment in the box below, thank you!

JAY-JAY JOHANSON - FEATURE/INTERVIEW FROM "LES INROCKUPTIBLES" #124, 29.10.1997

"Je suis quelqu'un de profondément mélancolique, tendance dépressif chronique. C'est un sentiment dont je ne retire aucune fierté mais il est là en permanence. Le seul aspect positif à tout ça est qu’il m'aide à composer. Lorsque je suis d'humeur joyeuse, impossible d'écrire une ligne ou une mélodie correctes. Ecrire est pour moi une espèce de thérapie, une façon de pactiser avec mes problèmes: OK, vous me pourrissez la vie, mais donnez-moi au moins de bonnes chansons en échange."

[Jay-Jay Johanson, 1997]

Jay-Jay Johanson as cover-star of Les Inrockuptibles #124

The following interview is taken from issue #124 of French magazine Les Inrockuptibles published in October 1997. After the success of "Whiskey", and with a view to his very first tour in France, the magazine elected Jay-Jay "revelation of the year" and featured him as cover-star.

The complete feature/interview is available in PDF format, please have a look at the comments for the download link of a compressed file that also include - both as TXT files - the original French text along with a rough English version created with Google Translate.

Advertisment for Jay-Jay Johanson's promotional tour in France, image taken from the same issue of Les Inrockuptibles

The following videos are two extracts from a 1998 documentary by Michel Viotte. Coproduced by La Sept ARTE, now ARTE France, the documentary was broadcasted in January 1999. More information about this project are available here.

More information about Jay-Jay Johanson is available here:

http://twitter.com/#!/JAYJAYJOHANSON

http://www.jay-jayjohanson.com/

http://www.myspace.com/jayjayjohanson

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay-Jay_Johanson

http://web.me.com/michelviotte/Michel_Viotte_-_Site_Officiel/jayjayjohanson.html

If you have any useful information about this post - or if you spot any dead links - please get in touch with me at stereocandies [at] hotmail [dot] com or leave a comment in the box below, thank you!

JAY-JAY JOHANSON - FEATURE/INTERVIEW FROM "LES INROCKUPTIBLES" #99, 09.04.1997

"J'écris mieux lorsque je suis triste. La frustation est ce qui m'a fait avancer. Si j'avais grandi dans une grande ville, où la culture est disponible à tous les coins de rue, je n'avrais jamais eu une telle curiosité. Mais a Skara, il fallait créer son propre univers, rien n'arrivait tout cuit: je peignais, jouais de la musique, écrivais des fanzines. Ça m'a endurci."

[Jay-Jay Johanson, 1997]

Jay-Jay Johanson at home in Stockholm, 1997

The following interview is taken from issue #99 of French magazine Les Inrockuptibles published in April 1997. It is probably the first important article/interview about Jay-Jay Johanson published outside of Sweden. A few months later the magazine elected Jay-Jay "revelation of the year" and featured him as cover-star on issue #124.

The complete feature/interview is available in PDF format, please have a look at the comments for the download link of a compressed file that also include - both as TXT files - the original French text along with a rough English version created with Google Translate.

"Here's where it started: Erik on my Hohner, Heikki Kiviaho on guitar and DJ Seep scratching that Al Green beat..."

More information about Jay-Jay Johanson is available here:

http://twitter.com/#!/JAYJAYJOHANSON

http://www.jay-jayjohanson.com/

http://www.myspace.com/jayjayjohanson

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay-Jay_Johanson

http://web.me.com/michelviotte/Michel_Viotte_-_Site_Officiel/jayjayjohanson.html

If you have any useful information about this post - or if you spot any dead links - please get in touch with me at stereocandies [at] hotmail [dot] com or leave a comment in the box below, thank you!

JAY-JAY JOHANSON "THE BLACK SESSIONS #104, 30.04.1997"

Every night I go to sleep and begin to dream
The story of my dream has got the same old theme
It’s you, baby, it’s you

Turn off the light, sit down on the couch, pour me a whiskey too
Take off your dress, I’ll help you with that
I fantasize of you

The scent of your skin gets to my head, as the smoke from your cigarette do
With Monk in the speakers and love in your eyes
I fantasize of you

[excerpt from the lyrics of "I Fantasize of You" by Jay-Jay Johanson]



With his debut album entitled "Whiskey" published in August 1996, swedish musician and singer-songwriter Jay-Jay Johanson (born Jäje Johanson) made crooning fashionable again at the end of the 20th century.

"I Fantasize of You", whose lyrics introduce this post and whose musical performance is the opening number on the bootleg recording of "The Black Sessions #104", is a fine example of his original style and genuinely affecting warm voice.

Originally published on Commando! / BMG (Sweden), and probably aimed at the Swedish market only, "Whiskey" was soon reprinted in a larger scale and made quite a sensation in France. Jay-Jay was elected "revelation of the year" by Les Inrockuptibles magazine and featured as cover-star on issue #124 in October 1997.



The Black Sessions are concerts performed for the French radio station France Inter as part of the C'est Lenoir Show. They were created in 1992 by Bernard Lenoir ("le noir" = "the black" in English) with the collaboration of Michèle Soulier. Often compared to the legendary Peel Sessions hosted by John Peel for BBC Radio 1, they are recorded in front of an audience and broadcasted live.

Also known as the "French John Peel", Lenoir has a strong reputation and is highly regarded as a radio pioneer, talent scout and prime mover of independent Rock music.

The Black Sessions are usually exploited by Sangatte Records, a bootleg label specialized in French radio shows. Marked as promotional releases, and resembling a connection with both Radio France and Bernard Lenoir, althought advertised as CDs they are CD-Rs "limited" to 2.500 individually numbered copies.



"The Black Session #104" by Jay-Jay Johanson was recorded live at Studio 105 in Paris on April the 30th 1997 and features the following songs:

01. I Fantasize of You (5:26)
02. The Girl I Love Is Gone (3:56)
03. It Hurts Me So (4:44)
04. So Tell the Girls That I'm Back In Town (5:25)
05. Mana Mana Mana Mana (5:50)
06. Tell Me Like It Is (3:19)
07. Suicide Is Painless (3:52)

All tracks were remastered from the original CD-R bootleg in November 2011 and are available in FLAC lossless format or high-quality 320 Kbps MP3 files, both formats include complete PDF artwork. Please have a look at the comments for the download links.


Jay-Jay Johanson performing live at The Black Sessions #104, picture by Maxime Lévrier

Technically speaking, the recordings on the original bootleg in my possession are not in the best shape. They have probably been recorded on cassette and present quite a lot of hiss and radio static.

Furthermore, one of the songs ("So tell the Girls That I'm Back In Town") has a ten seconds cut during the first refrain. Luckily, I was able to fix most of these problems and the performance is quite more than just enjoyable in the fully remastered version that I'm offering for download here.

I must add that "Tell Me Like It Is" doesn't seem to come from the same source as the other tracks. It has a completely different ambience and it looks like it simply is a low-bitrate version of the original studio version that appears on "Whiskey".

I can't understand the reason for this, maybe the recording of this track was completely unusable for some reason, or maybe the bootleggers failed to record the song during the broadcast. As an alternative explanation, maybe the track was added just to increase playing time, who knows... Anyway, since it is part of the original bootleg I decided to keep it together with the other numbers.


Jay-Jay Johanson performing live at The Black Sessions #104, picture by Maxime Lévrier

Most of the tracks presented on this Black Sessions were originally released on "Whiskey" about one year earlier. Musically speaking, these songs are in strong debt with the Bristol trip-hop scene and especially with "Dummy", Portishead's debut album released back in 1994.

The cool arrangements are fed with hints of Jazz, Noir soundtracks and Bossanova, and Jay-Jay's voice stands out against the cinematic and lush backgrounds of Rhodes piano (courtesy of Erik Jansson, a precious and constant presence throughout Jay-Jay's entire career) and samples.

And about samples: althought the sleeve notes of "Whiskey" only credits Michael Nyman's "Fish Beach" as a sample source for "I'm Older Now" (...unfortunately a version of this track performed and recorded during this Black Session was not included on the Sangatte Records bootleg CD-R, but it available on the second edition of the rare "So Tell the Girls That I'm Back In Town" CD-single released by BMG (Sweden) in 1997...), there are other uncredited samples that you can hear in some of the tracks presented here that are worth mentioning.

First of all, the masterpiece "It Hurts Me So" is completely revolved around an orchestral loop taken straight from Francis Lai's "Plus fort que nous" (or "Stronger Than Us" in the English version) which is part of the soundtrack to Claude Lelouch's "Un homme et une femme" ("A Man and a Woman").

"So Tell the Girls That I'm Back In Town" features a small sample from Lalo Schifrin's "Danube Incident" (from an episode of "Mission: Impossible", which also consists the core of Portishead's "Sour Times") and a basic drum loop from Al Green's "I'm Glad You're Mine" (from the 1972 album "I'm Still In Love With You", also used by Massive Attack on their "Five Man Army" included on "Blue Lines").

The original music videos of "It Hurts Me So" and "So Tell the Girls That I'm Back In Town" are available here below courtesy of YouTube.

"Suicide Is Painless", the closing number on "The Black Session #104", is a cover of the theme song from the famous American TV series "M.A.S.H." written by Johnny Mandel and Mike Altman. According to Jay-Jay's own spoken introduction, this is his favourite TV series of all times.

The song was included on "Un automne 97", a special CD sampler released as a supplement to Les Inrockuptibles in October 1997 (...I'm not sure if this was a subscribers-only gift, or not...), and has been regularly performed live by Johanson through the years.

Since at last it has been properly recorded and included on his latest studio offering entitled "Spellbound" in 2011, it seems that Jay-Jay is still fond of M.A.S.H. and hasn't changed his mind about it.

By the way, just like all the previous Jay-Jay Johanson's releases, "Spellbound" is a great album. A double CD limited edition that includes new acoustic versions of older tracks is also available, I strongly encourage you to buy a copy and check for yourself how good it is.

Jay-Jay is often touring, if he happens to be in a city somewhere near you don't forget to pay him a visit, you will be rewarded and touched by his great artistry and his lovely persona.


Les Inrockuptibles #124, 29.10.1997

[last update: 31.01.2012]

More information about Jay-Jay Johanson and The Black Sessions is available here:

http://twitter.com/#!/JAYJAYJOHANSON

http://www.jay-jayjohanson.com/

http://www.myspace.com/jayjayjohanson

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay-Jay_Johanson

http://web.me.com/michelviotte/Michel_Viotte_-_Site_Officiel/jayjayjohanson.html

http://www.blacksessions.fr/

http://www.freewebs.com/blacksessions/

I will hopefully post more Jay-Jay Johanson live recordings in the future. If you have any other useful information about him and this Black Session - especially corrections and improvements to what I wrote above - or if you spot any dead links, please get in touch with me at stereocandies [at] hotmail [dot] com or leave a comment in the box below, thank you!