![]() “Brazil is a super racist country, unfortunately,” he says. And, ultimately find his way out of the country. He also couldn’t wait to get out of Santa Catarina. But then at one game Refosco saw a band playing samba and he was hooked. Of course most boys born in the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina probably wanted to play football. Growing up, Refosco actually wanted to be a soccer-sorry, football-player. Refosco on stage with the touring production of ‘American Utopia’ in Boston (Shira Friedman) And so I joined the band and have been working with him ever since.” I was more into the classical world of it, and also Brazilian music. I had never played rock music or pop music in my life. He was looking for someone to play percussion and mallet instruments: vibraphone, marimba. “I did this master’s at Manhattan School of Music. ![]() “I joined his band in 1994,” says Refosco. ![]() Pause for a second and reflect upon what it must take to be David Byrne’s musical director. This week on “ Brooklyn Magazine: The Podcast” we speak at length with Mauro Refosco, a renowned percussionist in his own right, a nearly 30-year David Byrne collaborator, and musical director of “American Utopia.” (And we suspect you have someone’s password.) A Spike Lee-directed live recording of “American Utopia” is currently streaming on HBO. It’s spare and stunning.īonus: You don’t have to buy Broadway tickets to see it. ![]() Byrne’s kinetic Broadway showcase of his and other songs-interspersed with his musings on the state of the world and the self, the communal and the individual-is a remarkable, throbbing and ultimately life affirming … party. Tell a friend!Įarlier this month it was announced that “David Byrne’s American Utopia” extended its Broadway run for the final time and now will conclude performances on April 3 at the St. Wow! I think that, in hindsight, the record label should have added this as a bonus CD on that release – much like Todd added the extra songs “Time Heals” and “Tiny Demons” to “Healing”.Like what you’re hearing? Subscribe to us at iTunes, check us out on Spotify and hear us on Google, Amazon, Stitcher and TuneIn. The next Utopia album would end up being “RA”. “Interestingly, in April 1977, soon after the release of Todd’s classic solo album ‘Hermit Of Mink Hollow’, a new mix was undertaken of the ‘Disco Jets’ sessions, one which was destined to remained unreleased in any form for another twenty four years.” The terrific booklet that is included shares a lot of great insight on the album, like this: Lucky for all of us diehard Utopia fans, the album was first included on a Japan “outtakes” compilation, and then officially released in the great version I’ve shared here in 2001 by Cherry Red records… Todd also says that the record label never really showed any interest in releasing the album, so it languished unheard for decades. And as i recall, we just went in there thinking we were going to do a while mix of pop music that we thought was just so incredible silly we couldn’t’ overlook it!” “It was the last thing that John Siegler did with the band. The book goes on to include a Todd interview from 1999, when he says: “We just did it for fun, over a two day period, recorded a disco album, like a dance record.” 1” by Billy James includes some quotes from Todd as well about the album: The squelchy funk of Black Hole and Time Warp recalls the 70s Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson, while the title track and VHF, overlaid with synth-spray sonic jism, boast the kind of sinuous, sunburst melodies that only Rundgren and Frank Zappa could devise.” “Largely conceived as a spoof, ‘Disco Jets’ is performed with such perky chutzpah that it actually works as a disco artefact. “Disco, once reviled by “real music” fans, has now been reappraised, exonerated and welcomed into the fold: there’s no time like a recession to make people appreciate the value of a source of unfettered, uncomplicated joy.Īnd so to Disco Jets: a loopy instrumental undertaking but with minimal, winningly gimmicky vocal interjections.” Here is how “Record Collector” magazine described it: “It was a disco spoof, but it was a hoot to record and I remember laughing so hard I cried”, he told Myers. Utopia member Roger Powell remembers the band knocking out the album in one long weekend. Since it was the Bicentennial, the band also wrote and recorded a song called ‘Spirit of 76’ as well.
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