Blast From the Past: Les Négresses Vertes - Sous le Soleil de Bodega

1992 was an important year for me.  It was the summer between my Freshman and Sophomore years of college, and I was in Prague working on a documentary crew.  The last Soviet troops were pulling out of Czechoslovakia, the first faint murmurs of the Slovak independence movement were starting to be heard, and one of our assistant directors introduced me to Les Négresses Vertes ("LNV").  The first time I heard their exciting mix of gypsy guitar, French cabaret attitude, rollicking horns, and rock and roll beat, I was forever hooked.  Sous le Soleil de Bodega was a track from LNV's second album "Famille Nombreuse", and it perfectly captures what their music was all about.

Well, time marches on.  That job in Prague got me my first (and only so far) full-time job after college.  Through a co-worker, I met the woman who became my wife and ultimately the mother of my child.  The rest, as they say, is history.  As for LNV, after the release of "Famille Nombreuse" their lead singer died of a heroin overdose.  They soldiered on for another couple more proper studio albums, a "live" album, a "remix" album, an "acoustic" album, and a "best of" album, drifting from what some critics described as "gypsy punk" to electronica in the process.

Ultimately, though, the legacy of LNV in my life is that it was my first window into a world of popular music coming out of the non-English speaking world.