#for the record the only instruments i have that we actually purchased was my clarinet and my end-blown wooden flute

[idontdrinkgatorade]

super emotional orchestral music will fix me

[caravanserail-london-blog]

VICTOR VOX

Carvansérail: Your music blends blues, jazz, folk and rock and roll. What are your main influences?

Victor_I grew up in an artistic family, my mum being a painter and my dad a writer, so I was immersed from an early age into various art forms which I think had a strong impact on my music making. I remember being fascinated as a kid by the various Edward Hopper prints scattered around my house, trying to work out in my head the stories of these mysterious characters and locations. Thinking of it, storytelling was a big part of my upbringing, with my dad inventing stories on the spot for me at bedtime (he is a great storyteller!). Music wise, I spent my teens listening to a lot of traditional and world music (mostly afro-Cuban jazz, instrumental tango music, flamenco, klezmer, Balkan brass band music and African blues and Kora music) and a LOT of 60’s and 70’s rock and fusion-jazz. I also studied Cinema at university in Paris and movies (and their soundtracks) have always been a major source of inspiration for me. From 1990’s thrillers/suspense movies to Spaghetti Westerns, Science fiction and horror movies to the more ‘masterful’ cinematic monuments by directors such as Stanley Kubrick (‘Barry Lyndon’ is probably my favourite movie of all time) or Terrence Malick (‘Badlands’ - what a film!). When it comes to literature, I don’t read a whole lot of fiction (although I like sci-fi and I’m a true fan of Philip K Dick), but I love reading plays (Arthur Miller’s ‘Death Of A Salesman’ is an all time favourite of mine) and most of all, I enjoy reading about History (my two most recent recommendations on that front would be ‘Sapiens’ by Yuval Noah Harari and Richard Holmes’ ‘The Age Of Wonders’).  

C: Could you tell us a bit more about your musical background and experience?

V_I started music from an early age with classical clarinet and I remember loving instrument practice as much as I hated musical theory! I dropped it at age 11 or 12 and a year later I decided I wanted to learn guitar, but by myself this time (without the boring theory lessons). Around the same time, the dad of a childhood friend of mine got us into African drumming (djembe, dun-dun) and my love for more traditional world music really started then. I taught myself guitar for 6 years before learning Flamenco guitar from a great teacher in Paris for a year. I started singing and writing songs around that time (before then I only wrote long instrumental pieces for guitar) and when I was 20, I was lucky to join ATLA music school of Paris for a year, where I trained as a contemporary Jazz singer with the amazing Guillaume Coignard. I moved to London the following year and it took a while but I eventually put together my first band ‘Victor & The Rain Dog’. Starting as a three-piece with bass, drums and electric guitar, the band soon evolved into a five piece with added Cello and Orchestral percussion (vibraphone, timpani). The style was very much indie-rock, with strong ‘Latin’ influences and storytelling was a big part of our live show. We released a 5 track EP (‘Den Of The Dog’ which you can still find online here) before I decided to give the rain dog an early retirement, for personal reasons. I kicked off my solo project Victor Vox a few months later going back to basics with a more acoustic sound (double bass, acoustic guitar and drums). I am extremely lucky to play with two incredible, world-class musicians, Yaron Stavi and Adam Hayes.

C: How did the places where you lived impact your music?

V_I am not so sure. I wouldn’t think my music would be any different had I not left France, but I do find London to be much more conducive to creation. Paris is a very crowded city, flats are usually very small and cramped, streets narrow and buildings high. London in comparison is vast, less densely populated, buildings aren’t as high (which means more sky), parks are immense and plentiful, streets and pavements are wider, flats usually so too, and I generally find it a more peaceful, less aggressive city than its French counterpart. All this makes for a great creative environment, although to be fair, London can be pretty stressful too!

C: You covered the intro song from Jim Jarmush’s movie « Down by Law ». Would you say that beyond storytelling, your music and performance have a cinematic dimension? Is it something you are looking to develop in your musical identity?

V_It certainly is. I am very fond of character-driven songwriting and I like to approach the writing of a song like that of a short story. As I mentioned earlier, cinema is a major source of inspiration for me and some of my songs are actually tributes to my favourite movies, or genres. The idea for the closing track of our upcoming EP, ‘The Snatcher’, came from watching ‘Sugarland Express’ by Steven Spielberg, where a young unstable couple escapes from prison to stop their baby from being sent to a foster home. My song ‘Rosalyn’ is a sort of tribute to my favourite 1990s detective thrillers and ‘Sidewalk Empire’ is my take on the ‘lone wolf with a broken heart’ theme, so dear to American cinema.

C: Your father, Pierre Lemaitre, won in 2013 the prestigious Prix Goncourt for his novel Au Revoir là-haut (« The Great Swindle », translated by Frank Wynne and published by MacLehose Press)... a love of narrative runs in the family! Is there any advice he gave you as an author that you are putting into action as a musician?

V_My dad is very much a believer of the ‘1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration’ motto. I definitely share that with him. 

C: If your music was a novel, what would be its title?

V_I wouldn’t know how to answer that but a good friend of mine (producer JB Pilon, at Buffalo Studios) recently described my sound as “What Jack Kerouac’s book should sound like if they were music”. Although, thinking of it now, as I like to blend different genres in my music, maybe Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ would be right for it as the novel’s creature is a fabrication made up of different body parts! Not certain it is a very glamorous comparison though. 


C: Any favourite book to share with us?

V_I recently loved ‘The Buried Giant’ by British writer Kazuo Ishiguro. A beautiful fable set in the British dark ages about an elderly couple travelling the country on a hunt for forgotten memories. 


C: Your EP is coming out on vinyl this fall and will be available in a digital version from August 1. How would you describe it?

V_All songs were recording live at Eastcote studios. The idea was to start off with a debut EP that was 100 percent faithful to our live stage sound, so that people seeing us live and purchasing the album would get exactly what they signed up for. I am really happy and proud of the result and the Vinyl is gonna look stunning. I wanted it to look like an old classic Jazz record and I have to say, we pretty much nailed it! And great news is, the vinyls will be ready much earlier than I thought, with a delivery planned on 5th August. So don’t waste time and preorder your copy now!

Up coming concerts: 16th August @ The Troubadour 28th September @ The Magic Garden

[nikkystyx]

Music Blog #1

Alright! So here we go, this is my first blog and its intention is to spread knowledge and actually help people with information. Specifically, this one is for music teachers out there who are working with young students. 

I have been playing rock, pop, R & B, metal, alternative, and myriad other styles of music on drums, guitar, bass, and keyboard since I starting playing an instrument–around 13 years. I continued my journey in performing music, decided to make dedicate my life to music and eventually became a music teacher; that is quite possible the most condensed version of how I became a teacher that there ever will be. Now, there are only three possible paths for a music teacher to follow–band, orchestra, or chorus–and since there’s no “rock path” I had to take the band route. This enabled me to learned all of the conventional band instruments (saxophone, flute, clarinet, bassoon, oboe, trumpet, horn, trombone, tuba) and has given me the tools to be a band teacher, which I have been for a few years. 

The dust has settled, my first years of teaching have passed, and I’ve noticed some quirks in our little world music education that I would love to help patch up. Inevitably, many teachers will be faced with important decisions involving purchasing or recommending popular instruments such as guitars, keyboards, drums, and related equipment or software for some of the new movements in music education that we are seeing: modern band; informal music groups; songwriting; music technology, for example. So I am here to share some information to help teachers make these tough decisions, after all these are the instruments that I’ve held so dearly long before I started teaching music. 

Alright, so let’s get into this. This idea to spread knowledge in this area is inspired by a recent trip to one of the well-known music store franchises in the US. I don’t feel the need to justify my business, but for what it’s worth its proximity was a convenience to me. It seems, though, that every-single-time I go in this shop someone will help me who doesn’t know much about music or instruments. In fact, the only thing they appear to have memorized are the stores protection plans and financing options. 

Now, I’m a very reasonable guy and I’m very patient and I understand how retail works. But still, the customers who come in this store are very impressionable: young children looking for a way to perform music and express their creativity; adolescent teenagers looking for a musical gimmick to brighten their dimly lit reality; parents that may buy instruments for their kids as a present; and yes, even music teachers who may not have time to order something through their local music shop -_-

Either way, these customers are going to trust the employees of this store to recommend an instrument or device to them that will do exactly what needs to be down. Customers also may not know exactly what an instrument or device needs to do, which is where the employee should really be able to help. As an example, a student of mine went to purchase an audio interface earlier this year so she could record her self playing guitar and singing at the same time. I was so excited that she asked me about, and since she gave me her price range I recommended a few different interfaces for her; all she would need is one microphone input since she plays acoustic guitar while she sings, but two would be better so she could track them with individual microphones. Of course, her parents bought one for her from the same franchise that I mentioned before, and it was one that had no input for a microphone. The only input available was for a quarter inch jack, like for a guitar or electric keyboard. This still cost her parents a good chunk of change, and she couldn’t even use it! 

Now, that’s all that I know about that story–I hope that they returned it and got one that had the correct type of input available–but this certainly can’t be the only ill-advised purchase that these service clerks have influenced. On the contrary, my experience with employees at local music stores are usually trained in the qualities and features instruments and equipment that they sell. Better yet, if they aren’t sure about something, they will help you find the answer! 

I know that’s a long story to share but it’s important to know that cheap and convenient doesn’t usually last long with equipment. It’s a pricier approach, but if you want something that will make your art actually seem like art, you need to have the right tools. And I don’t want to just point out the problem, I want to be part of the solution as well: in my next entry I want to help by sharing my experiences with equipment, books, tools, accessories, etc. And just to be clear, everything that I will mention here I have personally used, gigged with, purchased, loved, and I completely vouch for. 

Thank you for reading, stay tuned for an update with some of my recommended gear for common situations in school music programs.