Picture wise it was a toss-up between posting a paint splattered, artistic picture of Primary 1 or a black/white, classic shot of Nina Persson from The Cardigans.
In the end – Nina – won for being far prettier than Primary 1 will ever be – no matter how talented he is!
You’d really have to be either massively tone-deaf or equipped with twenty thumbs to mess-up a production with Nina Persson on board.
As a producer – who wouldn’t want to open your studio door for her ? I’m pretty sure my production partner agree on this point!
Primary 1 works magic with Persson on – “The Blues” – which is a classy frontrunner for his forthcoming debut album, and with an imminent release on super-limited vinyl.
The end-result comes across like an electrocuted version of The Cardigans, and thankfully all bangers’n'mash are left far behind.
To me – Nina Persson’s voice is “air” and “fragility” embodied, and nothing quite sums up her incredible talent as the added bonus of her – “03.45: No Sleep” – with The Cardigans - the closing track from “Long Gone Before Daylight”.
I think most of us have – at one point or another – been awake in the dead of night wanting to call someone because they are special to you. “03.45: No Sleep” hammers the message home in big bold letters, and it’s so achingly beautiful it cuts in your heart!
Hear this on your iPod, after a long night, when you’re human pulp, and someone will come and sweep you off the floor later!
MP3: Primary 1 featuring Nina Persson – The Blues (Original Mix)
Reverendo Brown: Live Music Review Razzamatazz 3, Feb 2010, Barcelona, Spain
I have to say I quite like Reverendo Brown. This Barcelona Pop/ Rock quintet take from quite a few influences from different musical styles and directions.
The end result is very pleasant, their songs uplifting with an occult lower sadness that really needs to come out. I’ll come on to this in a bit. The band has already proved their mettle, getting through to the semi-finals of Barcelona’s prestigious Emergenzia’s Battle of the Bands.
Reverendo Brown Concert Highlights
The second song of the evening, “Luciernagas” kicked off with a great keyboard intro and waded into Radiohead style guitar work. Coupled off with a confident and energy vocal delivery this song didn’t disappoint the audience.
“Pupilas” , I enjoyed a lot. This song carries with it Rafa [the guitarist] leads with a indie, brit rock riffs while Christian on bass delivers solid rock edgy emotion beautifully. Estíbaliz gave some Siouxsie Souix, vocal delivery[of Siouxsie and the Banshees fame] that got me a dancing baby! Great tune!
I think this is one of their stronger set songs. I think the song would be even stronger with some male octave or tonal vocal harmonies.
“El Lado fresquito de la Almohada”, I personally think they ought to enter this song for Eurovision for the song for Spain. One of their strongest Spanish feeling indie / rock numbers that the crowd instantly moves, nods and dances to! The keyboard melodies race ahead without abating, driving the hands in the air of the audience. Rúben behind the drums puts his heart into strong percussive hi-hat and snare delivery. The song is near perfect.
For me, maybe they could do with some more phrasal spacing in the builds. I’d love to hear a hard house version of this song. RB, send it to Paul Oakenfold.… I think it’ll be a winner!
Reverendo Brown, covered “Creep“, the infamous Radiohead number. This showed a more serious nature to the band. The best thing is they carried it off perfectly, the edginess of the song showed a more delicate and emotional edge to the band. They were in tune with the song. The drum lines were perfectly delivered by Rúben giving the song a familiar pace and feel.
This shows the band has a lot more promise to carry off emotive songs through their delivery! I want to see more of this please!
“Vampiros” is where I think the keyboard melodies are very Killers orientated with strong Oreja de Van Gogh style vocals. With the pace set the band loved us and left us with I believe one of their strongest songs, “Malo Final“. This song for me topped, “El Lado fresquito de la Almohada”, but only just.
I’d say if you’re in a tough spot Reverendo Brown, I’d play “Malo Final“, first to get the crowd going and don’t give up! Nice one boys and girls!
Concert low lights
There’s not much to fault this band on. As I said, I think they could start to show a bit more indie edginess that’ll set them apart from being perceived as just another Spanish pop/rock band.
Reverendo Brown deserve more. With 2 of their stronger songs, plus their cover, ‘Creep’, has shown more musical depth to touch and convey emotion that the band put into their numbers.
Sadly, the key influences drift towards the pop angle, which is okay. However, it is not enough to get them really noticed as something different from the plethora of other great Spanish pop/rock bands out there.
I’d say their brit indie guitar lines from Rafa, I enjoyed a lot. Together with a great fusion of brit/iberican pop/rock [look at the newer direction of Vertusa Morla] seems to have some life, and something to set them apart.
Estíbaliz lead singer needs to be a lot more versatile on-stage and get away from the stand alone mike. She interacts great with the band but she’s mainly static on stage and isn’t enough to kick you in the balls during the choruses [which are very strong] .
Estíbaliz please get up close to the crowd, play around with the band more. During the concert there was some interaction but it could be better with some of their slower numbers and male vocal harmonies that’d bring a dimension of band cohesion.
About Reverendo Brown, their influences and members
The female vocal lead band take a great chunk of their influence from Spanish Rock / Pop gods of music. Notably their sound is very Oreja de Van Gogh, with The Killers, REM and Radiohead thrown in for good measure.
Suprisingly the vocals, guided by the bands sound at times sounds very Souisie & the Banshees. A nice touch!
Behind the keyboards resides Alfredo, the band’s chief composer adding in great rhythmic and ambient chords, giving the band a great anthemic feel. It’s hard to place exactly where his influence is. The nearest would be compared to Brandon Flowers of The Killers fame.
Set List:
Carmen San Diego
Luciernagas
Pupilas
El Lado fresquito de la Almohada
Lagartos
Creep
Vampiros
Malo Final
Without even playing a note of music, Sting is able to put the dude in the middle to sleep by exuding a heady air of inherent boringness and cloying smugness
You may remember a few weeks back when this blog broke (after The Guardian and several other media outlets) the shocking story of Beyonce accepting a couple of million dollars to perform at Muammar al-Gaddafi’s son’s New Year’s party on the island of St. Barts. The latest pop star to cash in on the despotic-blood-money gravy train appears to be none other than self-congratulatory “do-gooder” Sting, who, The Guardian reports, accepted more than £1m to play for Uzbekistan dictator Islam Karimov’s daughter Gulnara Karimova.
Islam Karimov’s spirited antics include boiling people to death and conscripting children into forced labour. As you might expect, The United Nations has declared the guy a total fucking douchemonger. Sting, despite his associations with Amnesty International and various other humanitarian causes and his estimated £150m fortune, seemed to be right chuffed to get some of that bloody dictator money. Whatever you might say about Beyonce’s despot-furnished payday, at least she has never pretended to be some sort of spokesperson for the oppressed and downtrodden.
When the lid was blown off of Sting’s dirty little Uzbek secret, he was forced to issue a statement that read “I played in Uzbekistan a few months ago. The concert was organized by the president’s daughter and I believe sponsored by Unicef.”
According to Unicef, however, there is no truth to Sting’s claims about their involvement, which leads me to believe that the concert was actually sponsored by Uzbekicef and any funds raised went towards boiling people and enslaving children. Obviously, given the similarity in names between the two organizations, it’s quite likely that Sting simply made an error and his participation in the event, though unfortunate, was undertaken in good faith. Either that or he’s just a hypocritical, greedy shitbag.
Nazareth and Deborah Bonham Newcastle Academy 20 Feb 2010
My first Nazareth encounter was at the Lincoln Great Western Festval in 1972. They came on early on the Saturday morning to a crowd just waking up. At that time they had just released their second album Exercises. I can’t honestly remember a lot about their set that day, except that they seemed pretty good and played a great version of Morning Dew. I saw them around a dozen times in the 70s, witnessing some great shows at Sunderland Locarno, Newcastle Mayfair and City Hall (supporting Deep Purple on one occasion and headlining a few times) and at the Buxton festival in 1973. My last Naz gig of that era was 1981. I lost track of them for around 20 years, and saw them again a few years ago at Newcastle Arena. That recent gig revived my interest in the band; they still rocked just as much as they did all those years ago.
So tonight I’m back with my mates Will and Norm to see Naz again; some 38 (ouch!) years since standing in that field somewhere in Lincolnshire. Tongights venue is the Necastle Academy, and the support is the Deborah Bonham Band (sister of John). When we arrive Deborah and her band are already on stage. They have some pretty good rock songs, and her vocals are excellent, she reminds me of Maggie Bell. We get a great suprise for the last couple of songs when she is joined on stage by her nephew Jason Bonham who takes the drum stool; they treat us to a great version of Rock n Roll as their last song.
After a short wait Nazareth take the stage. The current version of the band features two original members: Dan McCafferty on vocals and Peter Agnew on bass. The drum stool is now taken by Peter’s son Lee Agnew who replaced original drummer Darrel Sweet, who sadly passed away a few years ago; and the guitar slot is more than ably filled by Jimmy Murrison who has been with the band since 1994. Nazareth are one band who seem even better these days than they used to. The sound is clear and loud, and Dan McCafferty’s vocals are as strong as they were in the 70s; which is pretty amazing given the way in which he screams the words out in an effortless manner. Pete Agnew commands the right hand side of the stage, with the same grin on his face, and Jimmy’s guitar playing is excellent. The set is a mixture of old and new (they latest album came out in 2008 and is called Newz), and features favourites such as Bad Bad Boy, My White Bicycle, Shanghai’d In Shanghai, Hair Of The Dog, and Love Hurts. They finish with Broken Down Angel which gets everyone singing along. For a few minutes I thougt that we weren’t going to get an encore as its after the 10pm curfew that the Academy has on a Saturday night, but they come back and do a three song encore including the great Razamanaz and This Flight Tonight. We all agree that they can still cut the mustard; great stuff and time for the chip shop.
setlist: Telegram, Turn On Your Receiver, Miss Misery, Bad Bad Boy, The Gathering, My White Bicycle, Hearts Grown Cold, Shanghai’d In Shanghai, Hair Of The Dog, Holiday, Love Hurts,nBroken Down Angel
encores: See Me, Razamanaz, This Flight Tonight
once again i was so happy to find some fresh meat in the industry! behind the vatle designs, stands a very ambitious girl from norway. i love it when people have full pockets of dreams and have guts to fulfill them! and this girl is doing really fine! i came across these pictures from the recent fashion week that took place in those sights and i fell in love with how the show was done.
a very mistique, but very fun, pop and creative. love the light! whole thing looked like some sort of freakshow, which is amazing!
And now, what made me choke on wow. surely fashion needs victims and pain, and not being able to drive a car, or be in the low ceiling room. but why should we care if the outfit is gorgeous! girls and boys, look at this perfect dress! again electric colors, shouting ‘long live the pop’, and freaaaakshow. totaly in love!
being amazed about vatle, Juicy Dry decided to make some further investigation. designs seem to be influenced by pop, indeed. and i love that girly look they have, girly yet extravagant, which maked a very fine combo.
different musical styles and directions.
ion for the song for Spain. One of their strongest Spanish feeling indie / rock numbers that the crowd instantly moves, nods and dances to! The keyboard melodies race ahead without abating, driving the hands in the air of the audience. Rúben behind the drums puts his heart into strong percussive hi-hat and snare delivery. The song is near perfect.
to carry off emotive songs through their delivery! I want to see more of this please!
