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TOURISM

Gothenburg’s new rules strike bum note with street musicians

Starting on July 1st, tourists visiting Gothenburg may find the city’s streets quieter than usual due to a controversial new ordinance requiring permits for street performers.

Gothenburg's new rules strike bum note with street musicians

“It doesn’t seem to fit with Gothenburg’s reputation as an entertainment and tourist city. Music is important for life on the streets,” said saxophonist Martin Nurmi to the Göteborgs-Posten (GP) newspaper.

The new law, which is designed to place limits on the times and places where street musicians can play, will require performers to seek permits from police to play in central Gothenburg during business hours.

The new requirements were drawn up in response to complaints from employees at shops and restaurants near where street musicians have a habit of playing.

“We’ve tried to get those who play for really, really long periods of time to change places and not stand in the same place all the time, and to maybe play more than two songs. It can be really annoying,” said Madeleine Oom Wahlberg, who represents business owners on Gothenburg’s main commercial thoroughfare, Avenyn (‘The Avenue’), to Sveriges Radio (SR).

“Imagine having a tape player at your workplace with loud accordions or something like that playing three songs with only half the notes in tune. How long do you think you could stand to listen before you pushed the off-button?”

Another street musician, Petter Rosenlundh, is sympathetic to the concerns of store employees but still questions the fairness of the new regulations.

“The city belongs to everyone. Who can really decide over public spaces?” he asked the newspaper, adding that many shops play music which can be heard outside their doors.

Torbjörn Arro Förbergers, who moved to Gothenburg several months ago and supports himself by playing guitar in various locations around the city, hopes that critics of the new law can convince politicians to make changes.

“I think it’s ridiculous. That people who play music seriously aren’t allowed to play is just silly,” he told GP.

Gothenburg resident Jan Pedersen enjoys the sounds of the city’s various street musicians, but also understands the need for regulation, proposing that a limited number of spaces be rented out to street musicians.

“Just like someone who wants to rent out a booth in a market, they ought to be able to rent out spaces to street musicians. They way they get a certain amount of legitimacy,” he told the newspaper.

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CULTURE

New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday’s death

Fans of the late Johnny Hallyday, "the French Elvis Presley", will be able to commemorate the sixth anniversary of his death with two songs never released before.

New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday's death

Hallyday, blessed with a powerful husky voice and seemingly boundless energy, died in December 2017, aged 74, of lung cancer after a long music and acting career.

After an estimated 110 million records sold during his lifetime – making him one of the world’s best-selling singers -Hallyday’s success has continued unabated beyond his death.

Almost half of his current listeners on Spotify are under the age of 35, according to the streaming service, and a posthumous greatest hits collection of “France’s favourite rock’n’roller”, whose real name was Jean-Philippe Leo
Smet, sold more than half a million copies.

The two new songs, Un cri (A cry) and Grave-moi le coeur (Engrave my heart), are featured on two albums published by different labels which also contain already-known hits in remastered or symphonic versions.

Un cri was written in 2017 by guitarist and producer Maxim Nucci – better known as Yodelice – who worked with Hallyday during the singer’s final years.

At the time Hallyday had just learned that his cancer had returned, and he “felt the need to make music outside the framework of an album,” Yodelice told reporters this week.

Hallyday recorded a demo version of the song, accompanied only by an acoustic blues guitar, but never brought it to full production.

Sensing the fans’ unbroken love for Hallyday, Yodelice decided to finish the job.

He separated the voice track from the guitar which he felt was too tame, and arranged a rockier, full-band accompaniment.

“It felt like I was playing with my buddy,” he said.

The second song, Grave-moi le coeur, is to be published in December under the artistic responsibility of another of the singer’s close collaborators, the arranger Yvan Cassar.

Hallyday recorded the song – a French version of Elvis’s Love Me Tender – with a view to performing it at a 1996 show in Las Vegas.

But in the end he did not play it live, opting instead for the original English-language version, and did not include it in any album.

“This may sound crazy, but the song was on a rehearsal tape that had never been digitalised,” Cassar told AFP.

The new songs are unlikely to be the last of new Hallyday tunes to delight fans, a source with knowledge of his work said. “There’s still a huge mass of recordings out there spanning his whole career,” the source said.

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