by RUPERT BOTTENBERG
If you want to know where Brazilian troubadour Seu Jorge is coming from, and where he's at, the two film appearances that got him on the radar in North America and Europe could help.
In Fernando Meirelles's City of God, from 2002, Jorge played the role of casanova-cum-crimelord Mané Galinha, or Knockout Ned, one of several true-life figures that populate the sprawling, shocking, magnificent saga set in the often brutal favelas, or shantytowns, of Rio de Janeiro's hillsides. Not a great stretch, given the actor-musician's background. Born Jorge Mario da Silva 35 years ago (the "seu" he's adopted is a play on words from a former bandmate, meaning both "sir" and "yours" - a tribute to Jorge's outstandingly affable stage persona), he grew up on Rio's rougher streets, losing a brother to gang violence and winding up homeless in his teens.
But like the eager shutterbug Rocket in City of God, Jorge used his artistic talents as a ladder out of the ghetto. Initially he'd focused on the theatre, due to a love of film and acting, but also because a theatre connected to the State University of Rio was the closest thing he had to a home in his late teens. It was at that time that a complete stranger on the street gave him a battered old guitar, setting in motion a parallel career track for Jorge.
Today, a happily married, globetrotting father with great prospects in the film biz (his next movie role is that of a slave-revolt leader in Andrucha Waddington's Casa de Areia), Jorge is closer to the whimsical Pelé dos Santos, his character from Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. Yup, he's the cat sporadically giving David Bowie songs an acoustic, Portuguese-language makeover. He'll doubtless trot a few of those out when he plays here this week, but he'll also share numbers from his new album Cru, a yummy scrapbook of Brazilian songcraft that ranges from moody, me-and-my-guitar moments to a funky, ribald run at Serge Gainsbourg's "Chatterton," betraying a rich sense of humour on Jorge's part.
Mirror: I have to start by asking about City of God and A Life Aquatic, because it's those films that introduced North Americans to you. The character you play in City of God, Knockout Ned, was a real person, one who many Brazilians would remember. Was it difficult playing a person already so well recognized?
Seu Jorge: Yes, I suppose so, but I was able to draw on my own experiences of living in the favelas as well. Ned was very close to my life, but very far away from my choices. He chose vengeance as his direction and I chose a different path. I suppose it was due to my family - I am lucky because the groundwork began at home with a loving family. Despite the fact that I was poor, I had a good childhood because my parents not only loved each other but their kids as well. They were very tender and had a lot of love to give. To them, the measurement of success was that I became a man of dignity who knew what was right and wrong. I managed to avoid their angry influence due to the strength of my family.
The movie is pretty accurate and, luckily, has created some socioeconomic reforms in Brazil. The only thing I would say would be that, although it appears to be quite a violent environment, the reality is much more scary and explosive than what has been depicted in the film. The true, harsh reality of the violence is hard to portray in a movie - for a start, it would turn off the majority of the audience - but I think it is very accurate in terms of the problems of getting out of the favelas. Once it is in your blood, it is hard to get it out of your system. I am in the small minority that have been successful.
Ziggy rejigged
M: Your versions of David Bowie's songs was one of the highlights of The Life Aquatic. I understand you adapted Bowie's lyrics to suit the characters in the film.
SJ: Wes Anderson wanted to take the songs of David Bowie and give them a worldly feel, appropriate for the movie's cast. I was asked to take lesser-known Bowie classics - "Queen Bitch," "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" and "Five Years" - and give them a bossa nova spin. I made, in the end, 11 Bowie songs, all of which were used in the end. I initially thought it might be an overkill in tracks, but they have been perfectly used in the film - not too much. Wes has always loved Bowie, but I only knew him from the song "Let's Dance." I stripped the songs of all their embellishments, until they were just vocals and acoustic guitar. I think Wes hoped that they would be faithful renditions. They weren't! I tweaked them according to the characters in the film and of my life. For the version of "Changes," for example, I found inspiration from my own life, from homeless addict to musician-actor.
M: It seems you've struck up friendships with two of the stars of The Life Aquatic, Bill Murray and Willem Dafoe - they appear in the video for your song "Tive Razão."
SJ: They are both nice guys and we hit it off on the set. When they found out about my video, they said it would be a laugh to do two cameo roles. Willem's role is of a slightly sleazy prospective manager of the guy busking - me - on the steps of a church, and Bill acts as a priest telling me to get off the steps of his church!
M: While your versions of David Bowie songs are getting a lot of attention, he's not the only artist whose songs you cover. On Cru, you also do the Elvis song "Don't" and Serge Gainsbourg's "Chatterton." How did you discover Gainsbourg's music?
SJ: Serge is an icon and when I went to France, I absolutely loved him. I first found out about him in a movie I was watching! A pretty sexy movie.
M: He was a fascinating creature, Monsieur Gainsbourg. He tackled risky topics with his songs - "Chatterton" is about suicide, a potentially controversial subject.
SJ: I pick tracks that do something for me, the tracks are the real thing, not just musical window dressing. The lyrics vary from political commitment to the words of love of "Tive Razão." Elvis's "Don't" is my homage to a man that helped put black music on the map to the masses.
Tit-job trepidation
M: The title of your song "Mania de Peitão" - "large-chested mania" - could easily be misinterpreted, especially as the song is coming from a man - from the home of the Carnival, no less!
SJ: It is a difficult one to interpret, but it is all about chest enlargement by way of breast implants. I am not criticizing implants, I am just telling you, as I do with most of my songs, telling you as it is. If women feel that they need larger breasts to feel sexy, then do it, but if you do, make sure that you see the best surgeon - there can be a lot of illnesses due to breast enlargement. Again, it sadly is the reality of this century, and women feel that they have to do this to please their men, but all I am saying is that there are other ways to be sexy without having larger breasts - you can be sexy from within!
M: Another song on Cru is "Eu Sou Favela" - "I am favela." I get the impression that you have mixed feelings about the favelas, both frustration and affection. From up here, the favelas seem frightening and sad - City of God certainly contributed to that! - but I'm not sure that's the whole story.
SJ: The song is a manifesto. People in the favelas are abandoned, completely marginalized by society, but dignified and proud. They have a right to humanity as well, and they can also be chic. I purposely wrote the song as a melodic tune about subject matter that is very grim, the life within the Brazilian slums.
M: What are your future plans, both as a musician and as an actor - or even filmmaker? Are you working on another album?
SJ: I have various plans, from doing an American-style album to directing, maybe a version of Othello, or other film projects for black Brazilian actors. I am not trying to institutionalize black cinema, I just want the black men in Brazil, whose lives are so rich and varied, to tell their stories. n
With Carioca Freitas at Club Soda
on Saturday, Sept. 10, 9 p.m., $26.75
Brixton guns,
Ipanema girls
>> Nouvelle Vague reformat new wave classics for the French palette
 Seu Jorge isn't the only one giving rock songs a Brazilian makeover. For France's Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux, choosing the tracks for their Nouvelle Vague project, which makes quasi-bossa nova out of new wave classics, was the easy part.
"I got this idea and talked to Olivier and maybe in half an hour we chose all the songs," explains Collin. "We were really big fans of this period, so we have a good memory of all these bands. There's cult bands and cult songs. For example, if you choose Sisters of Mercy, it's ‘Marian.'"
Songs by the Cure, Dead Kennedys, Flock of Seagulls, XTC, the Undertones and a dozen others were collected on the duo's 2004 eponymous debut, stripped of their rock arrangements and their male vocals in favour of neo-lounge beats, breezy arrangements and cool, coy female voices.
"The first idea was to find a Brazilian girl to do all the songs, but we only found one in Paris and she couldn't speak English," says Collin. Regardless, Eloisia sang Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" and Depeche Mode's "Just Can't Get Enough." Collin then enlisted French singers he'd worked with throughout his seven-year career as a producer, composer and Kwaidan label head. Two of these singers, Melanie and Phoebe Tolma, have joined Collin (keyboards) and Libaux (guitar) on their current tour, which will preview new covers that will appear on their next LP, out next winter. Bands like Blondie, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, New Order and Bauhaus will undergo the Nouvelle Vague treatment, with a similar cast of vocalists featuring, for the first time, a man. Meanwhile, the project's puppet masters are preparing to record a Smiths song for an iTunes session, but not exactly by choice.
"A lot of people ask us to do the Smiths, but for me it's not new wave, it's the beginning of the revival of pop," Collin says, adding that, in this case, it was one of the singers that chose the source material.
"Camille didn't know anything about new wave, the only song she knew was a Smiths song because a boyfriend was into the Smiths at one period, and she did the song a cappella at a show in Germany. It was beautiful, really."
One of Collin and Libaux's self-imposed rules was to give the singers songs they hadn't heard, which was surprisingly easy.
"I didn't expect this," says Collin. "A young girl like Camille is 25, 26, and she's in a completely different musical culture, she's more into jazz, funk, like a lot of the singers. They didn't know the originals and we didn't play them the originals, which was a good thing because they weren't afraid. They just started to do their own thing, create their own unique style."
Young musicians in France haven't picked up the '80s torch the way that so many North American bands have, with electronic exceptions like Miss Kittin and the Hacker, of course. "There were a lot of bands who tried to do the same sound in the late '80s, but it was horrible, horrible. In France now, we are more into French chanson or electronic music, because rock music isn't our culture. It's probably better that we don't try to do these kinds of things."
At la Tulipe on Thursday, Sept. 15, 9 p.m., $20
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