PLACEBO AND JOAN AS POLICEWOMAN

Today American musician and songwriter Joan Wasser, better known under her artist name Joan as Police Woman, celebrates her 51th birthday.
She was guest vocalist at Placebo's MTV Unplugged concert 2015 and sang “Protect me from what I want” as duet with Brian.

𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐘 𝐁𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐇𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐉𝐎𝐀𝐍 𝐖𝐀𝐒𝐒𝐄𝐑! 

Photo credit at the end of the text

Joan Wasser was born on July 26th 1970 to an unmarried teenage mother and given up for adoption at infancy. She was raised in Norwalk, Connecticut with her adoptive brother Dan who is a visual artist. Joan credits her background as an adopted child with her "very extroverted" personality. She explained that "when you are in a situation where you're not blood-related to your family, it does become extremely obvious that you're born with your personality".

𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲𝗯𝗼 𝗳𝗲𝗮𝘁. 𝗝𝗼𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝘀 𝗣𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗪𝗼𝗺𝗮𝗻 – 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗺𝗲 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗜 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁
https://bit.ly/2LZRi3q 

Joan started piano lessons at the age of six and had her first violin lessons when she was eight. At age 18 she began her music career during her studies at the College of Fine Arts at Boston University.
In 1991 she joined the Dambuilders who were signed to Elektra Records in 1994. After they disbanded Joan played in several groups. In 2002 she started a solo career under the name Joan As Police Woman which is a reference to the TV series “Police Woman” starring Angie Dickinson. Joan found the actress inspirational as "she was really powerful but sexy at the same time" in the role.
Since 2004 she has released eight regular studio albums, one EP and almost 30 singles. Throughout her career Joan has regularly collaborated with other artists as a writer, performer and arranger. Her resume includes live performances and studio work with Elton John, Lou Reed, Sheryl Crow, Depeche Mode frontman Dave Gahan and Scissor Sisters to name but a few.
Last year Joan As Police Woman released a cover version of Talk Talk's “Life's what you make it”, a song that has already been covered by Placebo in 2016.
 
𝗝𝗼𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝘀 𝗣𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗪𝗼𝗺𝗮𝗻 – 𝗟𝗶𝗳𝗲'𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗶𝘁
https://bit.ly/2zv7cA0 

Photo credit: Screenshot MTV Unplugged, Robin Kim, PIAS, Benni Valsson, Allison Michael Orenstein, Joseph Llanes, unknown

Post by Silke

ANNIVERSARY: The MTV Unplugged Show

Today we celebrate the ANNIVERSARY of the “MTV Unplugged” album. It was released as CD and DVD five years ago on November 27^th 2015. The concert was recorded on 19^th of August that year at The London Studios in Waterloo, Central London. Placebo manager Alex Weston and Angus Blue of the band's management Riverman were both executive producers of the show.

♫ The bitter end – MTV Unplugged ♫

The “Unplugged” concert consisted of 17 songs. Two guest vocalists had an appearance on stage: singer-songwriter Majke Voss Romme of Broken Twin sang “Every you Every me” with the band and Joan Wasser aka Joan As Police Woman “Protect me from what I want”.

♫ Bosco – MTV Unplugged ♫

According to Stefan it was very hard and took a long time to work out the right setlist, because “with acoustic versions it can be easy to become very self-indulgent and just play all the slow tracks. So it was challenging to do a setlist that flowed well” (uDiscoverMusic, November 25th 2015). But the band had lots of opportunities to rework rock versions of their tracks into acoustic ones in the past and so everything sounded just perfect. 

♫ Meds – MTV Unplugged ♫

CONCERT REVIEW BY A FAN

The event started later than scheduled and we were kept waiting outside in the cold wind, but, hey, who cares about temperature when you are about to see such a band?!

People invited by the band, Helena Berg and Cody Molko included, got inside first, of course, plus a number of people, mainly from Russia I guessed: maybe the latter belong to a Fan Club or run some specific blog on Placebo.

After about an hour we got in and were ordered for the hundredth time to turn off all our devices. Once inside, temperature wasn’t any higher: in fact the studio was a freezer. But, again, who cares?!
The audience was asked to sit down behind a group of seats right in front of the stage: these were already taken by the band’s guests. Seats sold by Crowdsurge were on the sides and behind other reserved seats in the central stalls area.

The stage was surrounded by a transparent veil that formed a sort of giant cube. Right before the show started, we were told to shut down phones, tablets and cameras. 

All of a sudden, an enchanting music played by a string orchestra (6 elements, I think) invaded the silent hall and the audience experienced a sort of trance. Then, the band came up on stage and they started with Jackie. Can you believe it? Jackie! True fans had tears in their eyes and I personally had to put a hand on my mouth, as it was trying to sing it automatically even if nobody was supposed to. It was so intense. I had the feeling that all members of the audience were tense for the band, a tad more nervous than them: everybody wanted it to be a special once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Brian wore a light make-up: foundation, black eye-pencil and a some grey eye-shadow (at least this was what I could sea from where I was sitting). His clothes were elegant and minimal: black trousers and black shirt. He had his hair trimmed, so it was a bit shorter than the last gig and he looked younger and sweeter: let’s say that the Severus Snape’s look was much less perceivable!
Stefan was impeccable as usual: his dark grey suit made his height and his slim silhouette really charming. He could have been a model! We already know his haircut (a sort of male pixiecut) seen in the previous gigs.

Matt was lightheartedly casual in his white t-shirt, while Fiona-the-busy-bee had a vintage updo that really suited her. Her half-ponytail was a bit backcombed. Very elegant.

Brian looked really relaxed, but I think he had a hurricane in his mind: he had to play, sing, entertain, do all the talking, as Stefan wouldn’t say a single word apart from “Thank you”, and get synchronised with the process of filming, which had been clearly organised before, but had to be rearranged. Nevertheless, he was cheerful and made us laugh more than a couple of times. Post Blue was played with an instrument called the Qanun, but the very moment Stefan pulled two strings Brian went “Ha! It seems the qanun is out of tune!” He sounded so funny!!! You won’t see that in the dvd!

The coolest thing you’ll see on the dvd are the effects. I told you the band played on a stage that looked like a cage of veil. On that veil projectors created images with white lights: squares, stripes, rain drops… It was beautiful to see, but I guess it will be even more enjoyable on the DVD!

Cover moment: Where is my mind. What can I say? They have played it before and every time the emotion is almost overwhelming, but you’ll see: this time the voice is so perfect, so in tune, full, it doesn’t get lost in the open space of festival stage. It’s like it should be. They repeated it twice and they did the same for Jackie, Loud Like Love and the two songs sung with the guest artists. Brian was pretty open about having forgotten a couple of lines in LLL and Where is my mind. I think he was surprised to see how we wouldn’t mind listening to same song as many times as he wanted us to! Before playing “Where is my mind” for the second time he said “You must like the song!”. No! We like the BAND!!!!

Sweetest moments: Brian smiling at his song as he stepped on stage; Cody almost jumping on his chair during Loud like love.
(Review by Laura Meneghetti)

Photo credits: Screenshots from the DVD, cover of the album, edit by me

Post by Silke

Interview with Stefan: MTV Unplugged

On August 19^th 2015 Placebo performed their famous MTV Unplugged show at television complex The London Studios in Waterloo, Central London. The concert was released on DVD on 27^th of November. Right before the premiere of this DVD at London’s Soho Hotel Stefan chatted with a journalist from uDiscoverMusic. Here's the interview.

STEFAN ABOUT THE MTV UNPLUGGED CONCERT

WAS IT DAUNTING TO TRY AND RECONFIGURE YOUR BACK CATALOGUE FOR THE UNPLUGGED FORMAT?
“Yes and no, actually. Placebo have in the past had many opportunities to rework rock versions of the tracks into acoustic versions. We’ve done it ever since the first album; we started with ‘Teenage Angst’. So it’s something that we’ve been doing. We wanted to do it on a bigger scale, and MTV allowed us to do that. Saying that, it did take a long time to work out the right setlist, because with acoustic versions it can be easy to become very self-indulgent and just play all the slow tracks. So it was challenging to do a setlist that flowed well, while mixing in the more popular tracks with some more obscure ones,and obviously finding those that lent themselves to being played acoustically.“

DID YOU TRY ANY SONGS THAT JUST DIDN’T WORK?
“Yeah, there were a few. But also there were also a few that we thought wouldn’t work acoustically that did.“

WHAT WERE THEY?
“The one we didn’t think was going to work at all was ‘The Bitter End’. We thought it was so heavily reliant on the power of the distorted guitar. But the groove transferred and it worked. And it also helped us get a more balanced setlist between the slower and more uptempo tracks.“

UNGLUGGED MUST ALSO LEND ITSELF TO PERFORMING MORE OBSCURE TRACKS – LIKE ‘BOSCO, WHICH YOU’D NEVER PLAYED LIVE BEFORE .
“Yes, it’s a track that we wanted to play live but we never had the resources – ie, we never had the orchestra. But within this context it was the perfect time to premiere it.“

WHAT WAS THE MOST DIFFICULT SONG FOR YOU TO REWORK?
“We worked a lot with the strings in order to get a variety between only the band, the band with strings, and also take it all the way to just strings. For ‘Without You I’m Nothing’ we asked Fiona Brice, our string arranger, “Can you just do an arrangement for this track purely as a string piece?” That was more interesting to do and more challenging to rehearse, because with a string section you don’t actually get to play with them until the day before – and they show up and play it first time. So I guess that was the more challenging and also the more out-on-a-limb track that we did.“

WAS IT NERVE-WRACKING TO KNOW YOU WERE ONLY GOING TO BE ABLE TO PLAY WITH THEM SO CLOSE TO THE SHOW ITSELF ?
“We’d worked with both Fiona and the string players on our past three albums, so we had a good relationship with them. But the nature of live TV – yes, it’s recorded, but you have an audience – and the nature of an acoustic show, where everything’s very exposed, there’s no wall of sound that you can hide behind. There was more margin for error, put it that way. So yeah, we were very nervous. I think it’s probably the show that, hands down, the whole band were absolutely shitting it the whole way through. Thank god for all our years of experience. It doesn’t really show, but we were happy when it was over.“

IT’S YOUR 20TH ANIVERSARY NEXT YEAR. HAS REVISITING YOUR BACK CATALOGUE IN THIS WAY SHAPED YOUR APPROACH TO THAST MILESTONE?
“We never really think about anniversaries as such, but, yeah, when it comes to doing the tour that will probably happen for the 20th anniversary, we’ll probably have to look at revisiting some old songs and singles that we’ve had a troubled relationship with.“

(uDiscoverMusic, November 25th 2015)

Photo credits: Jpc, Gizelle Renee
Post by Silke

Brian Molko about the Placebo MTV Unplugged concert in London 19.08.15

"We wanted to do something extraordinary, something that would challenge us. The process has been interesting, because we were creating something while we were performing it. That was something we had never done before. The simultaneity of the performance and the creation process was completely new for us.” 

Brian Molko

http://mtvunplugged.placeboworld.co.uk/

PLACEBO - MTV UNPLUGGED - 19.08.15

PRE-ORDER LIVE 

http://mtvunplugged.placeboworld.co.uk

Sources: Placebo

Placebo - MTV Unplugged - Preorder - Relased

PLACEBO - MTV UNPLUGGED.

Pre-order 23.10.15 

Released 27.11.15

JACKIE

FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH

36 DEGREES

BECAUSE I WANT YOU

EVERY YOU EVERY ME (FEAT. MAJKE VOSS ROMME AKA BROKEN TWIN)

SONG TO SAY GOODBYE

MEDS

PROTECT ME FROM WHAT I WANT (FEAT. JOAN AS POLICE WOMAN)

LOUD LIKE LOVE

TOO MANY FRIENDS

POST BLUE

SLAVE TO THE WAGE

WITHOUT YOU I'M NOTHING

HOLD ON TO ME

BOSCO

WHERE IS MY MIND?

THE BITTER END

Placebo MTV Unplugged- Publication on CD and DVD

Placebo MTV Unplugged- Publication on CD and DVD

Placebo have been honoured with an MTV unplugged just in time for their 20 vears band anniversary! 

It took place in London where also their first concert in 1995 was played. 

The Unplugged will be broadcasted this year and be published in different versions on CD,DVD and Digital. 

According to that we can look forward to songs from each record,arranged new and with special guests. 

The concept for the Placebo MTV unplugged is extraordinary and beautiful. 

A perfect synergy of the brands Placebo and MTV Unplugged. It gives the band the opportunity to interpret their songs in a new way and to play never before heard acoustic versions oft hem. 

The goal oft he band is to produce a show that stands fort the soul of the classic MTV Unplugged but combined with modern elements.

Sources and complete article (in German): Sonic Seducer.de 

Translated into English by Stef Lidell in colaboration with Placebo Anyway 

Check also out the offical Placebo page on Facebook. 

Photo credits: Placebo