By Lorenzo Giusti King Charles. This one is also dandy and British but is no member of the Royal Family (he does have a cool mustache though). Born in West London, this guy sang on his schools choir, plays the guitar, piano, and cello and is described by UK's Guardian as “an epic guy who is too cool for charts.” What he does to be called as such is: he mixes his classically trained voice with upbeat indie and his dandy prince style to turn it all into something that he likes to call "glam folk", Right after dropping Durham University, where he studied Sociology, he formed a band, Adventure Playground, and went on tour with Laura Marling and Noah and the Whale for one year before leaving them. On 2010 he would become the first Brit to ever win the International Songwriting Competition which made him sign with Universal Republic/Island. His debut solo album, LoveBlood, is out May 7th. Some people say he is going to be huge, some say he is just too weird. Anyway, be sure to check out the King's glam folk singles that have been already released:
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by Bruno Gianni The band named after Máximo Gomez Park (aka Domino Park), in Little Havana, Miami, started in Tyne and Wear, a metropolitan county in northeast England. In the first three years (2000 to 2003), Maxïmo Park had only the four founding members Duncan Lloyd (guitarist), Archis Tiku (bassist), Lukas Wooller (keyboard player) and Tom English (drummer), but they knew something was missing... The then girlfriend of Tom noticed a friend singing along to some tunes, Paul Smith, but his singing abilities weren't clear. "When he first joined we didn't know if he could sing, just that he was a lunatic jumping around in a suit, it felt like the last piece of the jigsaw". It is obvious what the result was. 3 studio albums, "A Certain Trigger", Mercury Prize nominated, and over 300,000 copies sold, "Our Earthly Pleasures", double platinum as well, and the latest, "Quicken the Heart". The band announced in July 2011 a new album for 2012, so "I'd like to wait to see how things turn out". But why would one enjoy such a band ? "I am not an acrobat… I cannot perform these tricks for you", Paul Smith sings, but this is exactly what happens... These acrobatic sound tricks that Maxïmo Park performs to its songs are quiet hard to explain... A mixture of deep lyrics, rhythm twists and catchy choruses creates the perfect atmosphere for their songs to evolve... And let's hope we find that on their new album... "Once a glimpse was all I needed" to start listening to Maxïmo Park, and hopefully this is exactly what you need too to do it so. By Luigi Gianni “I feel too young”, Mars sang in their innocent, bittersweet debut single in 2000. Vocalist Thomas Mars, bassist Deck d’Arcy and guitarist Chris Mazzalai started as a garage band in the suburbs of Paris. In 1995, joined by Chris’ older brother Laurent Brancowitz, they became the band we know today, Phoenix. Three albums later, in 2009, they released their most famous one yet, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. And they matured as well.
As they’ve announced a fifth album coming up in the end of August, it makes you wonder how they can top their last one, the same way you realize Phoenix should be bigger than it really is. After all, it’s not like they’re getting any younger... “Do you remember when 21 years was old?” by Bruno Gianni Ahoy there, today I bring another sweet series of music videos... In the Open Sessions follows a similar path of the Amsterdam Acoustics and The Take Away Shows series. However it is set, mostly, out in the nature, and it features a perfect mixture of landscapes and great acoustic music. You will find scenarios like farms, hills, mountains and even caves that somehow emulate the perfect studio for bands to expose their art. The first video I selected has been lately one of my favourite songs, 1957, by Milo Greene. Then I bring Young the Giant to you. They will probably get a post only for them here pretty soon. In the Open and Young the Giant developed a special bond among them, they also feature a series of In The Open sessions that characterizes probably the main set of videos of the blog. And here it is Apartment. And of course, I could not let Two Door Cinema Club out... so here it goes... By the way, In the Open is a music blog based in San Francisco, CA, United States, as you might have noticed from the Sessions, specialized in music videos, similar to La Blogothèque. And at their website you may find all the videos of these Sessions. By Lorenzo Giusti Guns 'N' Roses did it with "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", Pearl Jam with "Last Kiss" and Limp Bizkit tried with "Behind Blue Eyes". Musicians have been covering each other for quite a while but what the Panda is about to bring you are some covers that went a little farther then just playing someone else's song . We will start with one of the best: Harper Blynn covers "Halo" by Beyonce. The original-like soft beginning might lead you to think we are about to hear some sissy weirdos trying to be Beyonce, oh but just you wait until those drums kick in and J. Blynn bursts into a hell of an energetic performance. They even throw a bit of "Dirty Projectors" in there. Best of all: they are doing all this live. Really, "if you can't dance to this song you are never going to have sex again." Speaking of which this guy took Beyonce's husband's song and changed it so much that I don't even know if it can be defined as a cover anymore. Hugo, a singer with a style that is hard to define, took his banjo and covered "99 Problems" by Jay-z and what was once a rap turns into... well something much better: Still on the track of rap covers that aren't raps anymore we have the Belgian Milow covering 50 Cent's "Ayo Technology". This cover ended up being a success in Europe ranking #1 in the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Another great job that makes the original song look like the cover. To end this post I'll leave you with a cover that would go more as a parody. Alanis Morissete does "My Humps" by the Black Eyed Peas. Our (obvious) guess is that she has the intention of ironizing the original song as she does a slow version of it showing not only her voice off but also how ridiculous the lyrics are. Nothing against the BEP version but this turned out pretty funny. by Bruno Gianni I just found out about this documentary that just premiered last saturday at the South by Southwest Music Conference and Festival (SXSW) in Austin, Texas, United States... "3 bands, 6 cities, 1 train and thousands of miles of track." this is Big Easy Express. by Luigi Gianni Where the hell have these guys come from!? Mark Foster was a struggling musician in Los Angeles in 2009, writing commercial jingles for living. His luck changed one year later, when he wrote their most famous song yet, Pumped Up Kicks. The hit became a viral success after Foster posted the song in its website for free. He then joined friends Cubbie Fink and Mark Pontius to form the band we know today, Foster & the People. Well… Almost the band we know today. It happens that their first fans misheard their name, calling it "Foster the People". In the end, Mark didn’t mind, and started enjoying the nurturing image it evoked of “taking care” of people. In 2011 they released their debut studio album, Torches. Allmusic called it “catchy, electro-lite dance-pop”, and drove comparisons to MGMT and Phoenix. U2 guitarist The Edge singled out the album as one of his favorite records. Now the band is touring around the world while recording their second album, as Mark has promised at least a couple of new songs until the end of the year. Critics are still wondering though what kind of style Foster the People is trying to evoke, if any… In Mark’s own words: “Who cares? Call it what you want!” I don't. I’m just glad they’re here. by Bruno Gianni Well, I wrote about Amsterdam Acoustics, but you are probably thinking why not write about the Take-Away Shows also? So here it goes... The beginning... It all started when Chryde, founder of the website La Blogothèque, wanted to share music in a different way... La Blogothèque, by the way, is a really nice music blog/website, unfortunately my lack of skills in french does not give me the chance to enjoy it properly. So, back to Chryde, he thought that maybe filming music differently would shake things up, and in order to do that he brought Vincent Moon to the scene... His proposal to Moon was that he would film musicians in Paris... The Take-Away Shows was then born... Or should I say Les Concerts à Emporter... Who is this Moon guy? Okay, Vincent Moon, real named Mathieu Saura, is a parisian independent filmmaker well known for his music videos of indie rock related bands, and also for some work with a few notable mainstream artists. And here we could name R.E.M., Arcade Fire and Tom Jones among others.. Back to the Take-Away project, since 2006 it has developed over 120 music videos... These videos are usually unusual live acoustic performances shot in a single-take. The participant artist or band features usually from two to three videos, and among these artists it is possible to name Bon Iver, The Shins, The Kooks, Arcade Fire, Architecture in Helsinki, Phoenix, and a lot more... The result, in my opinion, is pretty amazing,, and here as usual I selected three videos to prove my point... by Bruno Gianni Have you been to Amsterdam? If yes, you will enjoy this post even more, if not then here is a good reason to do it so... Besides being the largest city and capital of Netherlands and also one of the financial centres in Europe, Amsterdam is well known by its beautiful cityscape and architecture. And why not combine it with good music? This is what Amsterdam Acoustics is all about. It uses Amsterdam's visual and audial features to create a cinematographic atmosphere that is perfectly fulfilled with the acoustic art of great musicians that are for some reason passing by the city. Well, the result couldn't be better... Check it out... Later on we can talk about these artists in the videos, but today is all about enjoying this amazing project. Here we have a few samples, enjoy!!... for more videos go to the official website. By Lorenzo Giusti Chances are, you already know who Eddie Vedder is. Facts are, if you do, you will agree with me that this guy deserves a whole post; if you don't, you will be thanking the Panda and it's headphones by the end of it. This once troubled child wandered around southern California music scene on the late 80's. That is until one day his friend Jack Irons, former RHCP drummer, told him about a band in Seattle who was looking for a singer. Eddie recored his demos and sent to the band "Temple of Dog" what later would be Pearl Jam's "Alive", "Once" and "Footsteps". Again, if you know these songs you will agree with me he was pretty bright right from the start, if you don't, stop whatever you are doing and go listen to them. Also in the early 90's Eddie Vedder would be recruited to be the lead singer of this band Ament, Gossard, and McCread were putting up together: Pearl Jam. The success from their first album "Ten" together with their intense live performances, that included Eddie hanging from the light rigs, skyrocketed band popularity. With the loads of media attention they were getting (and Eddies issue with that) the band decreased the promotion of its albums and refused to record music videos. In 1994 they went on tour with the goal that no fan should pay more than U$20,00 to see a show on what came to be their "boycott of Ticketmaster" tour. On the years to come Pearl Jam would keep making quality material that helped Eddie to be seen as an icon of Alternative Rock. Being a Seattle band with Grunge naturally flowing through it's veins PJ has songs that are a bit heavy and fast paced like "Even Flow" and "Hail Hail' but also more melodic songs like the 1960's ballad cover "Last Kiss" and "Just breath". Loaded with many other great songs, take you time to listen to PJ, you won't regret. I also recommend watching the bands documentary PJ 20, it will give you the chills if you are already a fan. As if all that wasn't enough Eddie Vedder also has a solo career, he recently released the album "Ukelele songs", has participated with a number of contributions to soundtracks and that includes a whole album to the movie "Into the wild". And I am going to say this one last time, if you've seen the movie, well, no words. If you haven't, stop whatever you are doing and go rent it or get it by any other ways we may not legally encourage. Have a little taste of it here while you are at it: |
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November 2012
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