If Only I Could Speak French
After 5 long months of waiting, the holy grail of vintage Tropicalia performances arrived at my door.
I was pretty miffed at the guy from 5 Minutes to Live for never returning my e-mails or phone calls regarding my missing shipment, but once I watched the goods all was forgiven.
The only catch is that this documentary "La Revolution Tropicaliste" was made for French TV in 2001, with no subtitles in sight. I do comprehend some of the Portuguese spoken by interviewees like Gilberto Gil, Tom Ze, and Caetano Veloso, but how it all pieces together is lost on me. Either way, it is packed with performances from the late 60's and early 70's, footage I've been endlessly searching for and footage which is nearly impossible to find (even in Brazil's hippest record and video stores).
The best part is the bounty of extra clips included with the doc, culled from the 60's variety show, Som Pop. Most of it is in grainy black and white, like this one of Os Mutantes, but for me that just adds to the magic and mystery of the world's most enlightening period in music.
I was pretty miffed at the guy from 5 Minutes to Live for never returning my e-mails or phone calls regarding my missing shipment, but once I watched the goods all was forgiven.
The only catch is that this documentary "La Revolution Tropicaliste" was made for French TV in 2001, with no subtitles in sight. I do comprehend some of the Portuguese spoken by interviewees like Gilberto Gil, Tom Ze, and Caetano Veloso, but how it all pieces together is lost on me. Either way, it is packed with performances from the late 60's and early 70's, footage I've been endlessly searching for and footage which is nearly impossible to find (even in Brazil's hippest record and video stores).
The best part is the bounty of extra clips included with the doc, culled from the 60's variety show, Som Pop. Most of it is in grainy black and white, like this one of Os Mutantes, but for me that just adds to the magic and mystery of the world's most enlightening period in music.
posted by Kevin J. Elliott at 1:13 PM
2 comments 
2 Comments:
This is the only French you'll ever need: Je voudrais un grand bon bon.
Seriously.
That's a great clip from Os Mutantes. I find it interesting that whomever posted that on youtube told the world that it was from the early 60's (maybe because it's in black-and-white?). I guess the whole flower-child movement started 5 years earlier in Brazil. Stranger things have happened.
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