Science voice

He appears late at night, to discover the life's enigmas to the audience.

Eduard Punset, and his program Redes in 'La 2', are a drop of water in the middle of the TV schedule desert.

He broadcasts, with his nice catalan accent and his frequently stretched hands and arms when he asks something important, the latest scientific advances once a week for an hour.

He really enjoys with his job. He loves science. You can see he is always keen on learning from his interviewed scientists, although he is 70. He wants the spectators to be involved with the scientific methods.

You feel happy to see someone, with an age to be retired, who wants to learn more and more, who is so interested in science. He's not afraid of technological advances, nor of a future society living with robots. Investigation with stem cells doesn't scare him.

He seems he has found the happiness that he explains in his last but one book. From my point of view, a model to follow.

Here is an interview of him published in La Vanguardia.

Makina music

This movement was born around lately 80's and early 90's.
The beginnings of this musical movements are linked with Nando Dixkontrol in 'Psicodromo' Barcelona disco and Chimo Bayo in 'Arsenal' Valencia disco. It was (maybe it already is) a cultural movement rooted in Catalunya and Valencia, where it was born, and later exported to other places. From year 1996 to 2000 was its more successful period of time.

Makina music is based in giving beat or rhythm to pop or melodic songs, otherwise are not very dancing, unless that's makina disc jockeys' opinion. So it uses two music styles in order to create a third one. Makina music is usually made of two mixed songs, a melodic one and hard beat one, called base song. Hence a makina disc jockey can become famous or peculiar, since the music quality consists in the skill of making good mixes.

Chimo Bayo is very known for his singles. He created real popular songs. He was not only a disc jockey but a singer.

Nando is considered the promoter or 'father' of the Barcelona and Catalunya makina music disc jockeys. He was the first person to refer to this kind of music as 'makina'. As a disc jockey, he started playing industrial, hard, high beaten sounds. He was a very innovative disc jockey. Afterwards he created his own label.


**********************************

Oriol Carrió started a radio show in Ràdio Gràcia in 1993, called 'Lo que más rompe'. Later, Amadeu H. Rodríguez and Xavi Escolano joined him. This show was short, and it was about 'makina' music and humour. It got more and more audience, so in 1996, Flaix FM hired the tree presenters to do the radio show from this radio station.

The new radio show in Flaix FM was called 'El que més trenca' and it was produced by Toni Morell. It was on the air from 21:00 to 23:00 from Monday to Friday.


It became very successful, so successfull that in lately 1998 it was one of the most listened radio shows in Catalunya. In fact, it was the most Flaix FM's valuable radio show.

In 1997, due to its success, they decided to organize once a year an anniversary party. In 1998, the second anniversary party took place in Palau d'Esports de la Vall d'Hebron. Later, Xavi Escolano would leave the radio show.

At the end of 1998 the radio show was getting more and more audience, so in 1999, the third anniversary party was in Palau Sant Jordi, it was called Mega Aplec Dance, and 23.000 people gathered in the biggest disco ever seen. Mega Aplec Dance kept on organized in Palau Sant Jordi every year until 2001.

In 2000, Oriol Carrió left Flaix FM and went to 40 Principales, and his new show was called 'Dance Kontrol'.

During that period of time, several discos where makina music was played became real famous, due to the makina music boom, specially because the popularity of Carrio's radio show.

Disc jockeys became popular, as if they were the music band in the concert. People used to go to these discos to listen to the music the played and to watch them. People were facing the disc jockey cabin and having fun with them. They were demanded from lots of places.

Most of them are from Catalunya or Valencia. Probably, D. Álvarez and D. Pàmies, from a Girona disco, and Marc and Xavi Escudero brothers, from a Terrassa disco, were the most popular.

The greatest success ever got by a makina music LP was in 2000, when Marc and Xavi Escudero's compilation got the Gold Record Award.

From my point of view, I think Carrio's radio show was a very important part in the success of this movement. The best time of this movement matches with the period Carrió's show was in Flaix FM.

Johnny B. Goode

Next 31st of March, it will be 49 years Chuck Berry released Johnny B. Goode, one of the most famous rock and roll songs. A song about a country boy who could play the guitar just like ringing a bell.

This song is an icon of rock and roll music. It's been versioned by lot of music bands. It was even performed by Michael J. Fox in "Back to the Future" film. Even John Lennon said if you had to use another name for rock and roll, it'd have to be Chuck Berry.

C. Berry was an amateur musician. He started playing in a music band to earn extra money. His first hit was a song called Maybellene.

He has influenced a large number of musicians, and he opened the door to black musicians as he was the first black musician succeed. C. Berry has a funny kind of performance. He made famouse his duck walk, which was really funny, above all because of he is quite tall and thin. His image with his Gibson guitar has became an icon too.

Although Bill Haley and his Comets are considered who started rock and roll, because of their great hit Rock around the Clock (1955), Johnny B. Goode is considered the biggest example of early rock and roll music. It was included in the Voyager I Spacecraft cultural compilation as one of the biggest human achievements.


Bill and his Comets were innovative. They were music jugglers! They were one of the first musicians using electric guitars.

Rock and roll music, come up from American folklore (black music styles), was an incredible musical and cultural movement in late fifties and early sixties.

Another musical artists followed the rock and roll music, as Buddy Holly and the Crickets, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Roy Orbison, etc. Musical sixties were starting to be born.

It's worthy of admiration people who enjoy and could earn their living playing music in that years. It wasn't like now. Nowadays, music is a world that moves huge quantities of money. It seems it has lost its essence.

Downshifting

Hurry up! We get stressed. Faster! It is not enough. Don't be late!


Maybe we are living in a society which is in a hurry, but on the other hand, we want to live longer and longer. We want to be young forever in order to enjoy more. But, do we want to enjoy living in a rush?

Downshifting is a movement started in EEUU. It tells maybe we don't need work so much to earn so much money. It is just we only need to work for living, not living for work.

Free time is living! Quality of life is not working a lot of hours a day to have an Aston Martin, or making extra hours at work to have more money to go farther on holidays. We have got used to a high consumer rhythm (maybe there are some people very interested in we work a lot and spend a lot) and we might buy more things than we really need.

Money isn't happyness. Obviuosly it helps a lot, especially in a consumer society. But it's proved once people reach self-sufficiency money levels, they don't get happier if they increase their amount of money.

It's not about not to work to lying around. It's working a reasonable quantity of hours, so you can enjoy life, your hobbies, your family, your friends... Enjoy is not consuming.

It even seems this "working & leisure time" is not very sustainable. We only have to see wealth distribution is not fair at all. Maybe western people life level is only possible if the most part of the mankind lives in bad situation.

There's another movement, slow food, very similar to downshiting. It is about the same but related to food.

Diary

February, 31th 2080

Today it's been a hard day. I had to wake up very early in the morning. The car-plane had a little failure with its network connection and it has become slower to deliver packets.

Third packet destination was far, not very visited area. So getting here has turned out a real problem.

Now I'm stuck here, at 10:50 p.m., with a nearly not working car-plane, I haven't found the destination place and my P8000-pet's messing around. At least, listening to Mark Knopfler is still a relaxing pleasure.

Mini-Saga: "Temporal curl"

Views from flat roof were marvellous. Above all beside Jane. His mobile fell down. He rushed down fast. His mobile was smashed. The worse thing was somebody had pushed Jane down! Ten minutes back on time would be enough. As he ran towards Jane he stumbled and pushed Jane down.

King of Soul

It was a shame he died when he was only 26, he scarcely enjoyed the success of his most famous song, 'Sittin' on the dock of the bay'.

Otis Redding was a soul singer. Soul is an afro-American music style developed in USA, based on gospel and blues styles, among other ones.

When he was young he won fifteen times in a row a talent show, and they don't allow him to participate anymore. He used to sing Rolling Stones' song 'Satisfaction', and they have always said they like more Otis version rather than theirs.

He had a particular voice, he obviously had black voice (I like them very much), but he had that hoarse voice which made him distinct.

O. Redding became very famous in the sixties, when the soul music was very successful too.

Aretha Franklin was a very famous soul singer in the sixties too. She made of 'Respect' (an Otis' song) a terrible success.
Other black singers as Wilson Pickett or Ray Charles were in fashion. Tina Turner was a soul singer in sixties too.

I like Otis Redding's songs very much, and I like Ray Charles' too.
O. Redding gave off a lot of energy on the scenario, a lot of happiness. I found him very funny when I see videos about him singing in live.

Some of their songs have a lot of rhythm, I think if some of them were played in discos, they would become in fashion again.

Today thirty nine years ago, he got killed in a plane crash.