I had so much fun with the brilliant band No Cars playing live in the studio last week. Go see them live - they are amazing! Check their Facebook for upcoming gigs in February: www.facebook.com/nocarsmusic/
Hope you all had a lovely festive break and are fresh and ready for the new year ahead! Here is a mix I made for a friend - no East Asian tunes but plenty of toe tapping treats. Lucky Cat returns to Resonance FM for a further 13 weeks of series 11 on Saturday 9th Jan 2016. I will be joined live in the studio by the fabulous group No Cars for a live set and interview. There may even be a curry taste off! So far I have quite a few DJ dates booked in for 2016: JAN: Sunday 24th: Women's DJ relay at The Ritzy, Brixton
Playlist: Fade Away - Junior Byles (Rewind Selecta Vol 1 LP) Celebratory Cantonese Music Milord - Edith Piaf I Wanna Love - The Jiving Juniors (Blue Beat 7") Wei Cheng - ChaCha and JahJahWay (produced by Along, on Souncloud only) Quando Salir de Cuba - Betty Chung (Love Story LP, EMI) Down in the Basement - Sugarpie de Santo and Etta James (The Sweetest Peaches LP, Chess) Where Do I Begin (Love Story) - Betty Chung (Love Story LP, EMI) East Virginia - Elizabeth Laprelle (downloaded from An Immaculate Collection charity online musical advent calendar!) Memories of China, Butterflies - Sydney Chinese Music Society Santa Claus is Coming to Town - Peggy Lee (Christmas Carousel LP)
The Immaculate Collection A project to help raise money for pregnant and traumatised women in the refugee camp in Lesvos, Greece. This is a really great project where you can donate to download lots of great tracks, do take a look and give if you can:
On this week's show I play tracks from the fantastic new No Cars album Yoko Goes to Bollywood. No Cars are a Japanese girl group based in Hackney, East London. Their new album is a wonderful mix of funny, feel good, taste good, spicy pop! The album is available as CD, cassette and download. Warning it might make you hungry (of course I love the food themed songs).
Today's show is an imaginary sound track for the Hong Kong noir The Lady from Sham Shui Po co-directed by Wong Kar Wai and Orson Welles. Starring Marlene Dietrich, Maggie Cheung, Joseph Cotten and
Simon Yam.
Bending the time space continuum to make this film, just imagine the possibilities.....
This Saturday's show will be an imaginary soundtrack for a romantic Hong Kong noir thriller.
Think Wong Kar Wai meets Orson Welles for a few jugs of rice wine in the
rain... Starring Marlene Dietrich, Maggie Cheung, Joseph Cotten and
Simon Yam.
Just doing some research and look at how similar these photos of Joseph Cotten and Simon Yam are! Both wonderful actors with charismatic faces, a twinkle in the eye and both can really smoke the hell out of a cigarette!
Netflix has recently added lots of old Shaw Brothers films - hurrah! Including this stunning wu xia masterpiece with the beautiful Cheng Pei Pei.
May I also recommend a documentary on there - General Tso's Chicken. It's basically the story of the Chinese American diaspora told through food. This dish is not familiar here in the UK, I'm not sure what the equivalent is. One of our national dishes is chicken tikka massala, a subverted Indian dish that has been created to appeal to British palates. It would be interesting to see a documentary made about that. Talking of documentaries there's a good one on Chinatowns of the world on BBC iPlayer Radio now: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0380gh0
Here's last weeks' show where I was joined writer and musician AndyMartin to discuss his book Chinese Cinema: A Study of Chinese Films from 1905 to 2005.
2. Boat People directed by Ann Hui 3. Tiger Cage directed by Yuen Woo Ping (produced by Michelle Yeoh's ex husband Dickson Poon, fact fans) 4. Daddy, Father and Papa directed by Clifton Ko Chi Sum
5. Men Behind the Sun directed by Mou Tun-Fei This film documents unbearable atrocities carried out by the Japanese in a chinese prisoner of war camp in Harbin. I watched a clip on Youtube and it is so disturbing I am unable to post anything. I notice is turns up in this list of the 50 most disturbing movies of all time! Go search for yourself. This looks so horrific, I cannot watch!
7. Young and Dangerous directed by Andrew Lau 8. 15 directed by Royston Tan, set in Singapore 9. Too Young directed by Derek Yee starring Jaycee Chan (Jackie's son)
In this week's episode I play some spooky tuneage for Halloween, pay tribute to the sadly departed HK movie legend Tien Feng and interview Hyujin Cho, producer of the London Korean Film Festival.
The London Korean Film Festival celebrates it's 10th year in 2015 with a bumper programme. I'm very excited that director Chung Chwang Hwa will be giving a Q&A and 3 of his films will be screening:
Voodoo Women - Smiley Smith (Zombie Horror CD Collection, Chrome Dreams CD)
Vampire - The Upsetters (Loch Ness Monster, Trojan LP)
Legend of Sleepy Hollow - The Monotones (Zombie Horror CD Collection, Chrome Dreams CD)
Dracula Prince of Darkness - King Horror , thought to be Laurel Aitken (Loch Ness Monster, Trojan LP)
Kung Fu Master - Solo Banton (Music Addict, Jahtari EP)
Last Blade - Disrupt (Music Addict, Jahtari EP)
Yunnan Reggae - Lao Hei (soundcloud)
Arriran - Various (Korean Folk Volume 1 LP)
Zombie Jamboree - King Flash and the Calypso Carnival (Zombie Horror CD Collection, Chrome Dreams CD)
The Taiwanese director made these films in Korea with Korean cast and crew...including the 1967 martial arts movie A Swordsman in the Twilight.
There are also more populist movies in the Audience Choice strand of the festival. HK actor Simon Yam stars alongside Kim Yun-seok, Kim Hye-soo, Lee Jung-jae and Gianna Jun in the heist movie The Thieves, which in 2013 was the secondhighest grossing movie of all time at the Korean box office.
The Dim Sum Lunchbox: Vietnamese style pork patties (makes 18)
Melt 2 tablespoons of muscovado sugar in a heavy bottomed pan with 2 tablespoons of fish sauce. This makes a very pungent caramelised syrup (i.e. you might want to open a window)! Let it cool before mixing it into your pattie mix which you make by blending: 2 large cloves garlic 10 shallots 1 stalk lemon grass (bash the bottom bit before blending and discard the thin top end - probably about half of the stalk) 3cm cube ginger dash fish sauce pinch of pepper Use a little blender if possible as ingredients need to be finely chopped together then mix into the 900g minced pork (not too fatty) using your hands and also mix in the cooled syrup. Cover and leave to rest for 2/3 hours. Heat the grill and lightly brush your grill rack with oil so the patties don't stick. Shape the patties in your hands into balls then flatten so they are approx 3cm in diameter. Grill until golden brown on both sides. Serve with fresh mint leaves and fresh chilli and fish sauce dip. I served the patties with a Thai green papaya salad made with physallis as well as baby tomatoes and mixed nuts (walnuts, hazelnuts and almonds) instead of peanuts.
On tommorow's show I will be joined in the studio by film director Gareth Rees. Gareth, who splits his
time between Beijing and London, has directed the silent movie Written in The Dust which will soon be screening in London with a live cross cultural musical accompaniment. Tune in: Sat 24th October 2015, Resonance 104.4FM http://www.writtenindust.net/
Just me on this episode. I review the HK movie Gangster Payday starring Anthony Wong and Charlene Choi (pictured above getting sloshed on jaeger shots!). The dim sum lunch box features a mild version of nonya Malaysian chicken curry. Thanks to engineer Laura for sampling.
Here's the mixcloud link to the show with very special guest selctor Naoko The Rock. It was wonderful to have her on the show, she brought along some wonderful musical treasures to share!
-There's a Reward - Joe Higgs and Roy Wilson (Wincox Records label 7") -Instrumental track (Treasure Isle label 7")
-In the Rain - Keith Hudson (Mamba label 7")
-Grow Closer Together - Gregory Isaacs
-Fever - Melanie [Melonie] Waters (Pin Up Records 7")
We talked about the first track Ringo and how it was originally a Japnese folk song famously sung by Hibari Misora. I found out that Hibari Misora sings this in the film Ringo-en no shōjo(aka The Girl from Ringo Park aka The Girl from Apple Park) in 1952. Here she is singing it in a film followed by a later clip of her singing on Japanese TV (looks like the 1970s):
This 1963 Jazz version predates the Skatalites version (1965), perhaps this was the influence?:
I am delighted to be joined live in the studio by DJ and record collector Naoko The Rock on tomorrow's Lucky Cat on Resonance 104.4FM. Naoko will be talking about Reggae in Japan, record collecting and DJing here in London. She will also be bringing some of her favourite tunes to spin - I can't wait! Tune in tomorrow Saturday 10th October at 3.30pm (UK time) www.resonancefm.com or on 104.4FM if you have a radio and are London based (DAB will be coming soon)!
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Images from the exhibition above. Below is some work made in the teacher's workshop which encouraged people to take inspiration form the exhibition and make their own prints.
