Last night I drank too much beer and danced on a beach to live Canadian-German rock and yéyé 45s at the Glaz’art Plage. What a great place.

It was said that it didn’t feel or look like Paris, what with these youth in interesting outfits – Parisians generally don’t do costumes – cheering on a crowd-surfer who lost his short-shorts and underwear in the fray. But at the same time we were very much in Paris, beside the Parc de la Villette, watching fork lightning-infused storm clouds all around us as the sun miraculously kept shining.

There are few things better than outdoor concerts, especially ones by crazy motherfuckers like King Khan. But add an afforable barbeque, free-flowing headachy beer, sand everywhere and pétanque à volonter and you have the makings of a great evening.

So I’m moving a little slowly today but it was worth it. It’s nice to have these kinds of nights in Paris. Not all Paris dancing has to be done in a dark room behind a burly bouncer at the door, and not all indy bands must be seen at the Maroquinerie. There exists a sunnier, gentler Paris where mod kids in flip-flops slurp beer and let loose to rock’n'roll.

King Khan and The Shrines – How Can I Keep You Outta Har

I was in Brussels last weekend for the 3-day Couleur Café music festival. It was my third Couleur Café – it’s becoming a bit of a tradition.

If you’ve never been you should definitely check it out next year. I think the venue is changing in a couple years, so next year will be your last chance to check-out the festival at Tour et Taxi, a great festival grounds on the edge of Brussels. It’s apparently moving to the Atomium or thereabouts.. we’ll see how that works out. (Is there still that hilariously frightening Charlemaine Palestine exhibit of weird puppets inside the Atomium?)

The music at Couleur Café is always good, the event is well-organized, you eat well, the weather is inevitably sunny – at least every year I’ve been – and Brussels is a very fun place to spend a weekend if you know/meet the right people. A big plus is that Couleur Café, like Solidays in Paris but minus the attitude, is in a city instead of a muddy field somewhere.

The line-up this year was pretty good. You can never see everyone at these festivals, especially if you’re going to survive the million chopes in the uncharacteristically hot, sunny Belgian weather, but I did manage to catch quite a few good shows.

Today we’ll hear some music from some of this year’s highlights including Bibi Tanga, Asian Dub Foundation, Khaled, Alpha Blondy, Patrice, Cesaria Evora and the Kasai All-Stars.

I didn’t know Bibi Tanga before the festival – great show. Asian Dub Foundation put on a good, loud and sweaty set as usual. Patrice really rocked the crowd. Unfortunately for me, the Kasai All-Stars set had some of the worst sound I’ve ever heard. I was really looking forward to seeing them but the show was almost unlistenable due to bad mixing, bad mics.. oh well. Alpha Blondy was, well, an Alpha Blondy show with plenty of smoke in the air and dazed franco-reggae youth in the sun. Cesaria Evora looked like she’d seen a ghost or suffered a stroke, but her music still goes so well with the nice weather. (And no, Hocus Pocus didn’t actually play with her. That’s just a 20syl remix I like.. a nod to the Paris hiphop scene.) And we all know that Khaled is classic.

There was much, much more – some that I saw, much that I didn’t – but that’s enough for a big weekend. I’m still tired but Couleur Café is well worth the trip every year.

Big love to the whole Belgium crew – always a pleasure to see you guys.

PS Happy Canada Day!

Bibi Tanga – It’s The Earth That Moves
Asian Dub Foundation – Flyover
Alpha Blondy – Brigadier Sabary
Cesaria Evora – Petit Pays (20syl remix)
Kasai Allstars – Quick As White
Patrice – Fear Rules
Khaled – Raba Raba

Now I’ve never been to Panama but my friend, Rob, has.

“There is a lady called Elena Montilla in a little town in the middle of Panama called Ocù. She’s one of the last panama hat makers since they are almost all made in Ecuador these days. But though Ocù’s hat industry may be dwindling, Angolan pizza manufacture is on the up there. The main square is home to Pizza Angola – a one man mission to bring pizza to Panama along with some fine African music while you wait. And how did this Angolan fellow end up in Ocù? Via the Ukraine obviously! Turns out he won a scholarship to the university in Kiev at the same time as a girl from Ocù. They met, got married and he moved to Panama and started a pizza joint.

Over to Matt for today’s rocking Panamanian track.”

Thanks, Rob. I for one am all for meeting people in foreign countries and then deciding to get married!

I’ve selected two tracks for today’s guest post, both from Soundway Records’ excellent Panama complilations. Panama 2: Latin Sounds, Cumbia Tropical and Calypso Funk on the Isthmus 1967-77 was just released this month. It’s the follow-up to their 2006 release, Panama: Latin, Calypso and Funk on the Isthmus 1965-75.

ps- I’m heading to Brussels tonight for the Couleur Café festival. Will report back next week. And hey, if you’re going to be there then drop me an e-mail; the Benn Loxo Free Beer On Matt deal still stands!

Bush Y Sus Magnificos – Nana Nina
Alfredo Y Su Salsa Montanera – La Escoba

Despite what some people think, Parisians are fascinated by the Anglophone world. English-speakers are often surprised to learn that it’s the dream of many French youth to leave France for the UK or N. America so that they can escape the constraints of their relatively conservative society. Those without the gift of language skills look longingly to Montréal, that dreamy city where one can speak French but still feel American. (Most return after their first Québec winter.)

Relatively conservative? Paris? Well, compared to London… yes. In cuisine, fashion and music, absolutely. A trip across the manche will quickly convince anyone who has lived in Paris for a while that, for better or for worse, often the latter in my opinion, people make a much greater effort to individualize themselves in London. Goodbye to the seas of matching black clothing at Paris cafés; farewell to blandly-spiced “asiatique” cuisine; adieu to attractively unhappy brunette singer-songwriters. Hello to gutsy use of colour, brash drum’n'bass, fiery south Asian eats and an unabashed fusion of cultures everywhere you turn. I may be a francophile at heart – I’ll take Paris over London any day – but I’ll readily admit that Paris is London’s tamer, less integrated neighbour.

I was in London last week. Most evenings were busy with work nights out and catch-ups with friends but I did manage to see some music upstairs at Ronnie Scott’s in Soho. It was Friday, so it was Viva La Revolucion! night featuring live latin music. The band was Lokkhi Terra, a “Cuban Bengal” group from London.

Talk about a good example of London cultural mixing. Lokkhi Terra features Bengali, Indian and Cuban vocalists, drummers on congas and tablas, and horns backing-up the frontman, Kishon Khan, on piano. The enthusiastic crowd – very mixed in age, ethnicity and ability to dance – worked the bar for mojitos between salsas.

While I’ve grown to love the Paris music scene in its many forms, this live show was something that you wouldn’t find here. As a French teen might say, it was “so London.”

Lokkhi Terra – Gottogotodhaka
Lokkhi Terra – Nodir Kul (BAS remix)

I spent a week in Hong Kong on the same trip that took me to Seoul. I’m rarely wowed by a city these days but Hong Kong really blew me away. What an amazing place.

True, I was set-up in a great hotel on the island with a view of the harbour and, true, the weather was great while I was there – people tell me that summer in the city is hell. But every city has its bad seasons. Paris isn’t exactly Rio, and I grew-up in Canada where the entire population has convinced themselves that a few months of slush is a good thing since “seasons are important”. (This is not true.)

It wasn’t just the nice weather after a week of smoggy, hazy Seoul, that convinced me that I could easily live in HK. There are very, very few safe and vibrant cities in the world where you can walk to work in the morning, eat at a world-class restaurant for lunch, go hiking or lie on a beautiful beach in the afternoon, order fish at an unpretentious seaside restaurant in the early evening, then bar hop and hit the clubs until dawn. The city, the people, the green… I had no idea that the place was so green. There are even carefully designed clusters of ex-pats bars designed to keep drunk Brits out of the better parts of the city. Key.

I’m slowly discovering Asia, or at least its big cities. Why did I wait so long? I’m an urban Asia convert. Singapore and Malaysia soon.. and then hopefully Tokyo at some stage?

There is one bad thing about Hong Kong: the music. The Canto-pop revolution is still in full swing and most if it is so cheesy to my ears that it’s not even worth an ironic post. Luckily I played pétanque the other day – yes, with a Ricard in hand amidst the bobos of the Bassin de la Villette – with a girl who grew-up in Hong Kong. She gave me a few tips, a couple of which we’ll hear today.

My Little Airport is a Hong Kong duo who’ve released three albums since 2004. They’re “cute” but good. We’ll hear four tracks from each of their three albums plus one from a 2004 Hong Kong indie mix that I picked-up somewhere.

PixelToy is another Hong Kong girl-guy duo with a similar sound to My Little Airport. They have a couple LPs out. We’ll hear a song from each, including a fun Love Will Tear Me Apart cover, plus another from a mix that their label put out back in 2004.

My Little Airport – Edward, Had You Ever Thought That The End of The World Would Come On 20.9.91
My Little Airport – 悲傷的採購 (digilick remix)
My Little Airport – 悲伤的采购
My Little Airport – Romantic Kowloon Tong
PixelToy – Beautiful
PixelToy – Good Morning
PixelToy – Love Will Tear Us Apart