[PT] Clique em PLAY e siga abaixo para o texto em Português.
[EN] Click PLAY now and scroll down to the english text.

Um espaço de intenso bom gosto.
Criatividade. Imaginação. Sarcasmo. Actualidade. Crítica aguda e implacável.
É o melhor programa de rádio do Alentejo.
Na última série pouco mais de dois meses durou.
Foi suspenso. No comments.

(Paulo Barriga - Diário do Alentejo nº 808 - 17 Outubro 1997)

[PT] Antes de mais, um gigantesco agradecimento ao João por ter recompilado os melhores momentos do “nosso” programa de rádio semanal, há mais de 10 anos atrás. Quanto digo, “nosso”, refiro-me a mim, ao João Guerreiro, à Claudia Alegre, à Inês Ferraz, à Marta Ferraz, ao José Luis Jones e ao Gabriel Costa e mais alguns colaboradores que me possa estar a esquecer. Era esta a equipa (não patrocinada) que criava os scripts, as ideias e os assuntos a discutir, uns mais polémicos que outros, sempre à última da hora, com praticamente muito pouco tempo de sobra para a gravação (e eventuais repetições) e a preparação dos materiais. Mas correu sempre tudo bem, pelo menos imediatamente após uma directa o programa de uma hora estava preparado, nem que fosse 5 minutos antes de ir para o ar. E ainda tivemos alguns programas em directo, incluindo participações telefónicas da nossa audiência, que embora um pouco alternativa relativamente ao conteúdo normal da Radio Castrense, existia em número suficiente para saber que nos prestavam atenção. O formato da RadioActiva, resumidamente, consistia numa mistura de radionovelas e notícias fictícias sempre a tocar em assuntos que, na nossa opinião, precisavam de ser “falados”. E foram inúmeras as vezes que esses assuntos foram resolvidos, visivelmente, imediatamente no dia a seguir. Isto, até ao momento que começamos a tocar em assuntos cada vez mais sérios… e o programa foi “misteriosamente” suspenso… de vez.

[EN] First of all, a huge thank you note to João, for recompiling the best moments from “our” weekly radio show, more than 10 years ago. When I say “ours, I refer to myself, to João Guerreiro, to Claudia Alegre, to Inês Ferraz, to Marta Ferraz, to José Luis Jones and to Gabriel Costa and any other people who collaborated and I might be forgetting at the moment. This was the (non sponsored) team that created the scripts, the ideas and issues to talk about, some a little bit more polemic than others, always last-minute, with little time for recording (and eventual repetitions) and material post-production. But everything went always fine, at least after a blank night the one hour long show would be ready, if not 5 minutes before broadcast time. And we even had a few live shows, including on-the-phone participations from our audience, despite its difference relative to the usual Radio Castrense content, they were enough to show us they were paying attention. In short, the show format consisted in a mix of radio-soap-operas and fictional news always touching subjects that, in our opinion, needed to be “raised”. And plenty of times those issues were solved, visibly, immediately the day after the show. Well, this was until we started touching more sensitive issues… and the show was “misteriously” suspended… forever.

Once more, I am posting something dedicated to a friend of mine whom I consider a great talent. Before starting to read the post, click the play button below the CD cover so you can listen to her while you read. Thank you very much in advance.

You are listening to my friend Claudia. She doesn’t sing for a living so the CD cover is fake and baked in Photoshop. Actually to succeed doing that in Portugal (singing), you don’t need to be a good singer or even have a good voice. You just need to stick to lyrics about unfaithful husbands, matrimonial drama, or related topics, suggested by some producer. Then this same producer suggests some really bad techno loops probably mixed with something more classic like an accordion or piano. That’s what sells in my home country. There’s only a few exceptions. Everything else, elsewhere called music is something alternative. You have a good example at my Ninfa Artemis post which I don’t get surprised if it sells or hits the charts.

Enough of talking about bad Portuguese artists, because this is an exception. I know Claudia for a long time and even had a chance to work with her in radio. She even participated in a small band that for the reasons mentioned above never had a chance to hit the charts but I enjoyed the few of their live concerts I had a chance to be in.
I even recently invited her to be the voice of the interactive Christmas card for our advertising agency. Well, that means the 38 voices of everyone on the card. I placed a link in the end of the article so you can listen to and understand what I am talking about without interrupting her singing (or reading this). I mean, I would like to see some of the so called Portuguese artists to sing three full octaves, including sharps, as you can see in that Christmas card, specially on a very tight schedule and without a lot of free time (and without a studio to do some miracles). She even said she would do it for free.

This afternoon she sent me “just a little piece of music”. The one playing now. I opened it expecting it to get some new pimba (term for trash music in Portugal) artist appearing in the scene. But I recognized her voice in the very first second and she caught me by surprise. And I got kind of goosebumps and felt cold in my spine while she was singing. I only get that when listening to certain Björk songs or watching a dolphin show. Don’t ask me about the dolphins but Björk is my favorite singer for ages. And actually I would love to see her recording (amateur nature or not) something in a Björkish fashion, with a lot of screams and stretching the limits of voice capabilities (and breathing).

The point here is that it should be a crime for the music scene producers to keep funding bad artists, when there are so many genuine excellent voices out there (like Claudia’s). Everything that seems to matter to sell an album in Portugal (Well, it happens worldwide too) is a big pair of boobs or a lot of muscles (thanks gym-drugs and silicone), a pretty face or a few of them, an extensive array of recording studio miracles and a good marketing campaign to convert the consumer (the boobs and pretty faces become really handy here). Voice is a completely optional item. What commands the “good music” is just cheap (well funded) marketing. If you listen to normal music that you enjoy you’re a freak and you are not riding the last wave (or fad). I am glad I do that. I don’t care. And I’ll be the first one to buy the first CD from Claudia if it appears in the market, as well as for the many Claudias out there.

Thank you very much to listen to her “little piece of music”!

Feel free to leave any comments on this post.

Download the mp3 file of this “little piece of music”.

Open the Xmas card (featuring Claudia’s voice) I mentioned above.

I just want to leave a friend of mine’s gallery link here.
She considers herself an amateur, but I always was a big fan of all her shots, speacially her auto-portraits.

I’ll leave you to judge the pictures (this one was retouched by me).

This post is sponsored by

Here it is: the very first post in this blog. And by the way, what is this all about? Well, this will be the place where I’ll post a lot of nonsense pictures, weird videos, useless articles I might come up with and whatever I decide to post, whenever I decide to post, after all, this is my blog.