Ak's Musical Journey

Fave Song at the Moment: Arasha - Bora Bora
I went home for a week, especially for the festival of Navroz on the 21st March, and also got the chance to stay at my sister's University accommodation for the night. I met a couple of her friends including a couple of the kids at Birmingham JK, and one or two of her housemates. Special shout out to Keanu's flat mate Bhavini, another Musical Rani - we must have chatted for ages about music related topics (what else hey?) and it was just amazing to meet someone once again on the same musical level. Off course living in Birmingham, Bhavini knew loads more than me about the latest asian-related fusion music. I enjoyed our conversation Bhav! Back to this song though. It's a reminder of my trip home. I was fortunate to meet Nadia, who is a really good friend of Keanu's! In fact I'd already been chatting to Nadia on msn before hand, but anyway we met, and she was driving us around a lot, taking us to local hotspots, her apartment is beautiful, and most of all the music in her car was awesome. I'll have to review the cd, that she burnt for me, another time. This Bora Bora track stood out, and it appears on the Friction 2 compilation CD. Thanks for that Nadia, and I hope you're enjoying your time at Microsoft!

 

Music Topic of the Day: WinterFest 2007 - Tinariwen & Northern Lights Bhangra Band

Saturday 24th March 2007, a massive banner in the centre of town advertising the WinterFest gala night advertising Tinariwen, 'poet-guitarists and soul rebels from the Sahara desert'. I'd heard of Northern Lights because I'd seen them at the Middlesbrough Mela this summer. (A blazing hot non-blogged event, although I did meet Punjabi MC woo.) Although I'd tried to convince various friends about the possibilities of expanding their mono-cultural music worlds, I was intrigued to find that Mark was keen on checking out Tinariwen. Dubbed as masters of rock and roll, and even a lead singer resembling Jimmy Hendrix, this promised to be a memorable night. When reading up on Tinariwen, you'll hear all about the political movement, and the idea of a band formed in 1982 within Taureg rebel camps. The songs are mostly in French and the Tamashek languages, and most of their songs are about the liberation/independence of their people.

 

I'd just arrived back from my trip back home, and I was looking forward to this concert  - African, Asian, Fusion, a bit of a rarity in the boro. Mark joined me at Middlesbrough town hall for an extra-ordinary concert. The Northern Lights were up first and people were slowly filling up the hall. They had to explain a lot of what they were doing for the non-Asian audience. Essentially, they're a popular bhangra due based in Scotland, and so there were lots of introductions to the instruments, the style of dancing, and even for part-time Bhangra fans like myself, it was refreshing to hear. The track Janaab (Youtube link here) has really grown on me lately, and so when this came on I was dancing madly. People were slowly getting into the swing of it, and I even noticed a few people trying to copy some of my dance moves.. PLEASE! I can't dance to Bhangra music lol. An army of Black and White boro locals dancing like me. Northern Lights must have been wondering what kinda drugs we were all taking! It's funny how different songs sound in a club environment, with loud speakers and a heavy heavy bass. I say this because the DJ set included the track "Lus Lus Karde Ang" (the third track on this youtube link starting at 01:19 mins) This track used to make me physically sick. The female mc is awful, and the rest of the vocals are so squeeky. "Move put you hands in he air put em up put em up" No thanks. If you ever wondered why I stopped watching the Asian music channels, you can blame this track.

 

Anyway, a DMX rap on a Kray Twinz beat followed which was "sikkk" and then one of my favourite bhangra tracks by Tigerstyle: "Girl from Pakistan" (Listen at imeem) got me back into a frenzy. It wasn't all bhangra, with Fatman Scoops 'Be Faithful', Salt n Pepper's 'Push It' and Mylo's 'Drop the Pressure' being dropped - (both of which were desi-fied remixes) The other track I enjoyed dancing to were 'Kori Giddah', the slow/fast stop/start smash - (Check out the whole track by Punjabi MC that accompanies an origami video OR some fast giddah dancers in someone's living room!) The Track 'De Le Gera' came on and Tarv, one of the Northern Lights guys explained that you have to dance by twirling around, getting extremely dizzy. Felt like the only one doing it at first, but Mark joined in, which was great fun. Legend!

By the time Tiraniwen took to the stage, the place had livened up a bit, and with the relaxed atmosphere, it wasn't too difficult to get to the front of the crowd near the stage. A few kids were kicking a bottle around which was quite annoying, so Mark picked it up and that was that - confiscated. Poor chavvy kids! Tinariwen were awesome. They're look, their sound, their stage presence with Hendrix up front with the elegance and roughness that you'd expect from the desert. I didn't recognise any of the tracks, but listening back now, I clearly remember the'Cler Achel' track which I've added to my March (2007) faves list. We edged up to the front of the stage, mixing up positions on the left and right, and getting up close to one of the drummers who had an ice cold poker face.. but you could tell they were all feeling it. Some of the hippies in the crowd were re-living the 70s asian drugged up vibe, but all in all this was my first taste of culture in this town in ages! More!!

From what I remember of this gig, the music was very atmospheric, and almost spiritual in a way, and I'd definitely see them again if they were over in this part of the world! Ended up reading about the Toureg tribe on my girlfriends facebook notes, which was a total surprise lol Here's the comment I left:

"So there's me reading about your Nigerien experiences, and I come across the Toureg tribe, and I think.. hmm I've heard of this tribe. This is crazy, but I went to see a band called Tinariwen - a bunch of musicians from the Toureg tribe. That's crazy. I've yet to blog about them thinking that no-one would be interested in a bunch of "freedom fighters who are infliuenced by Eric Clapton/Jimmy Hendrix" lol..but.. you've inspired me to get writing about the gig. Here's a link to short bio of the band:

http://worldmusic.nationalgeographic.com/worldmusic/view/page.basic/artist/content.artist/tinariwen_5876

Nearly all their music is about their experiences as freedom fighters, and their experiences in the dessert, and it's refreshing to hear bursts of arabic recitation here and there. I loved the "allo ello I test the mic" bit loool! That's the type of thing I'd do up on stage for an hour to avoid having to the main performance!!"

 

Those were the days hey Alizahra? I've got so much to write about.. and we're in 2008 now! lol! Check out more about Tinariwen on their youtube page: youtube.com/tinariwen Go go go!

Update on Site Visitors  (24th March 2007)
Total Page views: 16233      Page views today: 17
Page views this week: 17     Page views within the last hour: 2

 

Note: With the number of events lately, I thought I'd make this a short one. This particular blog entry being over a year old! Album reviews to follow later.

Fave Song at the Moment: Dan le sac VS Scroobius - Thou Shalt Always Kill

Wow! Try Lazyboy, mix in a bit of Baz Luhrmann, and then add a heavy electronic beat, with crazy crazy lyrics telling us what we shall do and what we shalt not do. Those of you on my myspace have probably seen the bulletin that I stuck up asking which were there top 3 "thou shalt not" lines from this killer track. (Stuck it up as a blog as well) Loads of thou shalt not do this or that instructions - Check out the lyrics and tune over on their myspace (myspace.com/lesacvspip) As this is a blog dedicated to one of the maddest and weirdly close friends I have up here, the three "thou shalt not's" that remind me of this guy are: "Thou shalt not read NME/Thou shalt not stop liking a band or comedian just because they have become popular/Thou shall not buy Coca Cola products. Actually.. Mark.. The Smiths.. were JUST A BAND! Lol.. this is a loud track for 2007. I totally agree with the following article here at musiclikedirt: "Any song that manages to slag the NME & Coke, whilst covering Paedo’s, Stephen Fry, and Danny Glovers’ role in the Lethal Weapon franchise is ok by me." Mark introduced me to this track, I've also heard it on Jo Wileys show a few times and they're in Middlesbrough soon too. Let's see them Sparky Mark! Ooh the video is on youtube too if you want a quick listen!

 

Song Playing at the Moment: Plan B - Charmaine
Regulars on here know that I love songs with stories that either have twists at the end or tell a real deep story. This is an album track from Plan B who's did "No Good' and 'Mama' - both of which are relatively good tracks. (Prefer Prodigy's No Good [start the dance] though!) This track stopped me in my tracks as I was playing PS2 with MarkyMark, I was just amazed and didn't expect the end line at all. The story has 'Plan B' talking about a girl he's met, and how he's managed to get real close. He's quite blunt/street with his descriptions but theres a twist at the end when he asks he's telling his mate about Charmaine De La Rosa. Just re-checking the Plan B album for a mini review later, but this song certainly stands out. Good recommendation there Markus! Girls aren't always what they originally make out to be right?! Quite a few kareoki/live performances over on youtube again.

 

Albums on MarkyMarksMP3 CD/Albums Playing while Mark gets whooped on Burnout Takedown:

 

Longcut - A Call and Response

Another impressive album was by Longcut - 'A Call & Response' - Felt like there were enough instrumentals on this track, and in some cases I'm not quite sure if any vocals arrived. It was good background music to be honest. The track 'Holy Funk' is beautiful, and would probably send shivers down your spine if heard live like 'I see you I see Me' and 'So Here we Are.' (Magic Numbers/Bloc Party) To be honest, the tracks where there are vocals are awful. Great guitars, really nice music accompanyment, but lads... get some female vocalists or something. The lead singer of Travis would have been a better choice for front man. I personally think his voice would be perfect instead of the constant wailing onsome of the tracks. 'A Tried and Tested Method' is catchy, but once again the vocals kinda wreck it for me. Verdict: Nice BG music so stuck it on a CD. 

 

 
Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock & Roll
'Formed a Band... we formed a band' - Ugh.. who's this guy shouting at me? Rock and Roll? This is ear-bleeding perfection meaning that to save my ears I need to switch it off! the opening track 'Formed a band' has stuck in my head during recent weeks but the stickability/irratatingness is in the same form as the Numa Numa song by Dragostea Din Tei. 'My Little brother just discovered rock and roll" - umm I dont care. Why are you still shouting at me? Lyrics are funny but vocals are awful. Emily Kane would be awesome.. but ouch..I think I'm going to petition for a Natasha Bedingfield/Jamelia style Live Lounge cover of it just to save my ears. The 'Good Weekend' track is probably the only one I enjoyed listening to - cute in a rock and roll kinda way. The Metacritic reviews was an interesting read and before you complain (again) Mark, just because I don't agree with the majority doesn't mean I'm not allowed to dislike this album. I agree with the Guardian review but 3 stars is pushing it. Jason on metacritic sums it up: "I clearly missed something too because a friend just called me last night to rave about these guys. Unfortunately, I'd already heard this album and couldn't get through it a 2nd time" Verdict: Give me the last 32mins of my life back please!.

Plan B - Who Needs Actions When You Got Words
I've mentioned Plan B earlier with the Charmaine track which I definitely rate, and I'm quite impressed with this album. He sertainly has a different style, and after listening to other UK rappers like Skinnyman and London collectives ala Dr Syntax/Stif of the Dump, it's interesting to follow this guys progress. The album is gritty and paints a bleak and very dark picture of Britain today. This Nme review (Thou shall not read NME) say that Plan B is "crafting simple and darkly witty songs about the reality of life in Britain. It's the brilliantly foul-mouthed sound of the summer." There's enough foul language to make one of Jag's Spurs rants sound like poetry. But unlike Jag, you don't want Plan B to shut up. He's got some terrifyingly real stories covering hot topics like the youth today in 'Kidz' and then the story about honour killings in 'Tough Love'. Underage sex, rape, drug addiction and murder. His story telling is impressive and the acoustic guitar background balances the harshness with some much needed melody. Verdict: Will buy if under a £5iver.   

Danger Mouse - The Grey Album
If Jag and Footy ace Chris Betts had kids, this would be the result. One loves the Beatles, and one is a resolute Jay Z fan (one is a complete prat and the other isn't a bad footballer - please pick me gaffer!! lol) So what do you really get when you mash up Jay Z, the 'CEO of hip hop' and the greatest rapper of all time (says the Rolling Stones)........ WITH the Beatles, one of the most critically acclaimed bands in the history of popular music? Danger Mouse's quest to answer this question has resulted in a mash up of Jay Z's Black album and the much revered White album by the Beatles. Unfortunately record stores were prevented from selling the album with legal action from Beatles record label EMI. Sometimes these mash-ups make you want to hear the originals, and although I've had no real interest in the Beatles other than when Betts as mentioned them, I'm going to have to check this album out. I recognise a lot of the Jay Z lyrics from 'Public Announcement',' 99 Problems', 'What More Can I say', 'Change Clothes', 'Justify my Thug', and of course 'Encore'. A decent review from TinyMixTapes.com also questions whether more DJ's might try something experimental: 'Hopefully the ideas behind this album will be enough to start a sweeping trend which will see DJs picking up some better source material than an aging Hova with one foot in retirement and the other in Beyonce.' Verdict: Legally burning this to CD!  

Sigur Rós - Takk...
This is the first album by Sigur Rós to feature vocals in their native Icelandic. Secondly this album has the track Hoppipolla, a track that Vasso sent to me just before Christmas. I've been hoping to check out the music on this album for agesa nd I'm glad I've finally got round to it. This is soooo peaceful but at the same time uplifting. I can't quite describe it. It seems to just push any negativeness out of you when you're listening. Try writing a while blog entry about Markymark!! I needed this album and I'm thankful to Mark for providing it. I've not got much classical music in my CD collection, nowt that's a ready-made chillout session, and this is once CD that I think has solved that. Hoppipolla remains to be my favourite song, and although the NME make a complete mess of the review (forcing comments such as: "James jam, are you on crack? that was the worst review i've ever read in my life."), it is still one purely satisfying experience to hear the album all the way through. Check out the track 'Mílanó' aswell for the amazing piano towards the end, I've been watching a bit of Classic FM Tv and :-o I've seen the video to 'Glósóli' and hearing it again today seriously sent shivers down my spine. The track builds up to an amazing climax and personally I think that this track borders on the sublime due to its calm, powerful and mind blowing beauty.WOW Check out the video and fall in love. Anyone wanna come see them LIVE!? Verdict: Updating wish list as we speak!  

Music Topic of the Day: MarkyMark's Corporal Punishment

Just before I start, gotta explain briefly why I've dedicated this post to MarkusMarkus aka MarkyMark. Basically if you've read my myspace blog, you'll know that I had a bit of a week off from the usual Middlesbrough 'crack' life and Markymark came round for a DVD/music night and we had a wicked time. You can read about the "week of the indoor zombie" on my myspace blog. 

Also wanted to clarify the topic title today. Corporal Punishment according to this Wikipedia entry means the deliberate infliction of pain intended to change a person's behaviour. I was subjected to a lot of music, and some of it was great, but arrgh... there's only so much alternative music I can take before I get depressed. Thankfully Mark had a real mix but you know what we're like with our music discussions hey?

 

After arriving early with the house slightly cleaner than usual, we ordered a Pizza and put Marks CDs on while playing on the PS2. I'd bought Mark 'Hot Chip - The Warning' for his birthday/Christmas and it wasn't too bad. I'd heard the track 'Over and Over' on the radio once or twice. Mark put the new Bloc Party album on. I'd seen these back in 2005 and blogged about that night here. I was never really a massive fan, but I appreciated the vocal talent and Mark was quick to show me the really deep lyrics on this album. What's the sexuality of the lead singer Kele Okereke? Does anyone care? He has a great voice and an intriguing personality. He's shown a particular disdain for interviews once quoted as saying: "Why is it important to know what I had for breakfast? Or who I went to bed with? Or what sneakers I am wearing? If it's relevant to understanding my music, then so be it. But if it's purely to satisfy the media's obsession with celebrity, then no thanks. I don't want to play that game." I say: The Bloc Party... just a band! ;-) Kele also provided vocals for the track "Believe" for the Chemical Brothers.

 

The third album playing while we were eating was DJ Shadow's Endtroducing. Wow... a bit of hip hop in the building for MarkyMark. DJ Shadow was a recommendation from old housemate Huw as well, and I was impressed with the chilled out feel of this album. "Why Hip hop sucks in 96" is surely a track my mate Rich is gonna avoid! Stage Invader by Linus Loves was another album that we checked out - real mix of electronic dance with a hint of Mylo, and on listening to it again online, it's not too bad. I don't think I was feeling it on the night though with all the 80's repititiveness. "Thou shalt not make repetitive generic music"!!

 

I've mentioned most of the albums above, but essentially this MP3 cd that Mark compiled for me, had the albums of Arcade Fire, Longcut, Plan B, DJ Shadow, Dangermouse, Art Brut, Linus Loves and even Sigur Ros. That's hip hop, alternative, indie, dance, urban Uk rapping and bootleg remixes all rolled in to one. We played the music while chomping on all the snacks I'd served up... Jaffa Cakes, crisps, grapes, yoghurt, and then mmm pizza hut as well. A bit of an all nighter as we also watched the movie: The Shaw Shank Redemption on DVD, and I'd also given Mark a kicking on both Toca Touring Cars and Burnout Takedown. Mark actually fell asleep during the movie sleep-talking with some of those usual indiscreet noises that he likes to grace the room with. As Haider once said... "Mark.. did you BLEEP on my sofa?"

 

Later showed Mark all the firefox extensions I'd downloaded.. slightly geeky, but I've got plenty of cool ones, now that I've switched from Internet Explorer aka sir-crash-alot! (Check out these top 50 extensions for Firefox!) Also recommended some LazyBoy tracks including the Man Woman (Yin & Yang) and The Manual (Chapter 4), both of which were very funny to listen to.

 

Overall it was a crazy crazy session of music, movies and food which was the turning point after quite a difficult week. And although Mark does his best to get on your nerves, he's always gonna be one of the bestest mates up here. Weirdly enough we've just disagreed on another pool club related topic, but musically we're both flying the flags for new and innovative sounds.. Mark.. if you dress up (again) I can add ya to the Musical Rani blog! 

 

Update on Site Visitors
Total Page views: 15846      Page views today: 31
Page views this week: 97      Page views within the last hour: 0

 

Music Topic of the Day: The Musical Rani

After plenty of gig reviews, album reviews and musical adventures, I believe it's time to dedicate one of my blog entries to some my nearest and dearest Musical Rani's. Rani in hindi means queen, and if you've ever been reffered to as a Musical Queen, then you'll know that I've just got the deepest respect for your taste in music, your knowledge of a specific genre, or just your general love for music.

Now before I start fights there are plenty of people I know who've influenced me musically and they always get mentions but, the following 7 ladies are the ones I've clicked with in almost every way musically. (and believe me ya won't believe the buttons I've had to click to get some of these pics up.) It's Valentines day and some of the skeptics amongst ya might just see this as an excuse to stick pics of lovely women up :-p blah blah blah. Lets start!

---

Noureen
I think I'll start with one of my closest friends Noureen from Texas. We were introduced via my other best mate Shabs and unbelievably, we've remained close for over 6 years. She's actually been there for me through pretty much every important event that I've been through in those 6 years, and listened to me waffle on about countless relationships and friendships. Besides calling me a dork and chatting in the early hours, she's been able to advice, share photos, interests and more importantly, she's recommended so much music. We've shared a lot of music together and she will always be my number 1 source for music from across the Atlantic introducing me to a lot of old and new urban music. It actually came to a point last year when I did a massive Steel Wheels shop and bought her a load of music that I knew she'd love, and sent it over for her birthday. She's one of those true friends that I haven't met yet which is understandable due to distance, but is crazy because of what we've shared. This lady has ruled the dance floors across the US, more recently New York for New Years oh and she did introduce me to the 'The Roots' - which automatically makes her a top gal in anyones books! I have a lot of respect for Noureen and it's only a matter of time before we actually combine our music collections and conquer the rest of the world! Music track that we gotta share a dance to: Trick Daddy - Sugar (Gimme some)

---

Keanu
Kohinoor aka Keanu is my sister as most of you know, and she has to be included in this list. Apart from getting jealous that I've mentioned plenty of other women a lil too much in previous entries, she actually does have a great taste of music. I must admit that a large percentage of the music she owns, has originated from my own personal collection. (Had to add that in.) Everytime I hear a quality tune, she's usually the first to know about it. She listens to radio1 a lot more than me so she's quite quick to recommend me the latest and greatest tunes. She's also out in some of the hottest clubs in Birmingham, so she hears a lot of great remixes and see's a lot of artists live. She's quite quick to smash down any of my odd tastes, and always warns me if I'm straying too much into lala land, but we pretty much love the same kinda music and will continue our love/hate discussions about the asian music scene till the cows come home. She's astutely part of a massive asian collective both socially and religiously, meaning she's being exposed to all sorts of stuff that I wouldn't mind checking out, but recently she's become a lil too indie-fied. Luckily for her, she has my music blog to guide her in the right direction. Get commenting didi. Song that's exclusive to our sibling rivalry: Badmarsh & Shri - Bang (here's a video of someone dancing to Signs)

---

Jyoti
Don't know if the history books will confirm this, but Jyoti may have been the original Musical Rani. A Newcastle fan, a keen Bobby & Nihal fan, Juggy D's BIGGEST fan, a member of the famous Message Board Crew (MBC) where we first met, and someone who just lives and breathes the various music scenes that glow around the capital, this girl knows how to party and she know's how crazy I am to be temporarily stuck in the dullest & darkest town in the north-east grrr ;-) I've met Jyoti in Newcastle once, I've been this close to her on the dance floor at the 2004 Raghav gig without knowing, and we've been chatting ever since - While in London she's experienced dirty drum n bass, won tickets to see the Electric Proms, Nitin Sawhney, Erica Badu, plenty of top nights at the Bombay Bronx gigs AND more recently one of the best nights ever: Outlandish live - wow. Totally envious of her, but at the same time, she's a lil role model for me, and where I'd one day like to be before I get old and grey. I made here a compilation cd when I met her in 2005 and out of those, the three songs that we've both definitely enjoyed/would enjoy hearing live: Nitin Sawhney - Homelands, Swami - Desi Rock and Raghav - Winter in my mind.

---

Nazalene

Nazalene aka Feeny aka 'Rishtiqs sista' used to be one of my closest friends back in the day, especially when I started uni. I was totally out of the Ismaili social scene and when my cousin Aleem introduced us on msn, we hit it off instantly. We made each other laugh straight away and although complications arose after a holiday in America, we've remained friends and met up a few times at different socials, hanging out together for the first time at the 'dinner and dance' night held in Leicester. Infact, I met loads of friends from the community through her , Shak, Azam, NimyK, my first ex, her own sister (who then introduced me to even more people!) Musically we both loved our RnB and our hiphop but it was only recently that we realised that we were both major Bobby and Nihal fans. Probably one of 3 people I've actually met who listen regulary to the show- she had the 'Keep it Under Cover' song as her screen name for a while, and next time Outlandish are in London, I'm definitely taking her down. The song that I'll forever associate with our friendship is R Kelly's Fiesta (but not this remix grrr)

---

Afsha

I haven't known Afsha for long, infact I haven't a clue how we met online. It might have been through Karim aka Frenchy online or just from my blog like most of my random contact. Either way I've reffered to her as a Musical Rani plenty of times, because she's got a love for many types of music. Essentially she's been recommending me plenty of RnB and Hiphop tracks that are massive in Canada, she recommended me an awesome online radio station Defjay.com that I've been listening to, and then there's been the asian tracks, the dance and house tracks.. just constant recommendations and I haven't even checked out half of them yet. We haven't been chatting long as I mentioned but she's recommended so many tracks and so here's a big thank you!

Favourite song that she's recommended: Haji & Emanuel - Take Me Away (a road trip in Sarajevo - CHOON)

---

Karen

Karen from Northern Ireland! It's such a shame that she's never online any more, but we were very very close. We never actually got round to meeting up, but for a couple of months we were ringing and texting and ringing and texting. So many musical memories, especially as she introduced me to the legend that is John Legend. It was a difficult time coming out of a relationship and not knowing where to turn, but Karen helped me loads, she cheered me up and musically, she''d got me hooked on so many urban artists including the Game, Teedra Moses, more John legend, Kanye West, Ying Yang Twins, and Nate James. This girl is one cool cat with a love for all sorts of soul music, mixed with a bit of crunk and mainstream hiphop. Must admit, couldn't always stand too much 50cent, but always fun catching up with adventures from her nights out, and her mock attempts at singing Panjabi MC's Mundian to Bache Ke. Apart from ALL the John Legend songs that she recommended, the naughtiest and downright crudest song that we'd 'resist' dancing to is: Ying Yang Twins - Whisper

---

Vasso
Vasso is one of my closest friends in Middlesbrough, infact the only person on this list that I've chilled with for more than a day. so far too much to write here. We've known each other for about 4 months, and we've developed a unique friendship that's taken us from hardly knowing each other, to being so close, that its scary 9how much she does knows about me.) Culturally she kicks ass, gets dragged along by her hair to Bollywood movies, knows how to have a laugh with the lads, bouncey like tigger, bubbley, cute when shy, hyper, TIRED, witty, pretty much everything you'd expect from a personality that has been brought up in Greece, hammered to death in Hebdon Bridge and then brought back alive in sunny Boro. In these 4 months, we've built up a handful of memories including shopping trips, nights out, movies galore, adventures on the darkside with those organic strawberries lol, amazing singing sessions, kettle chips washed down with mango or even liches rubicon, indian sweets, charlie murphy, running around for christmas cards/pairs of jeans, dvd nights, late night international calls, ps2 nights, concerts, and as usual with best mates, we've clicked on so many levels. With all the heartbreak, struggles & jihad (thats for u googlers), financially, emotionally, family, romantically and just general stressing bout crazy weirdos and 'friends', its encouraging to see that there she's coming out (of the closet) fighting.

Musically, she adds a different dimension to the cd collection, and has sent me so much quality music that my 'fave songs list' for the last 3 months have been invaded by her recommendations. Luckily we compliment each other musically and I honestly feel pretty priveledged to meet someone who shares my love of music. Did I mention that she can sing? She's wrote a cute little message for me on her blog (which entitles her to a long description and a 2nd pic on here ) and overall hopefully she knows deep down that whatever happens we'll remain close mates for a long time. Well actually wait till I leave this dump :-o <runs away and hides> Songs that define our musical journey: 'Magic Numbers - I see you, I see me' and 'Dido - This Land is Mine' and 'Raining Pleasure - Capricorn' and two Bic Runga tunes: When I see you smile and Sway.

---

Right that took longer than I'd planned - as I've said these women have provided hours and hours of music related chat that I could probably write for hours about the tunes they've introduced me to. So a big thank you and happy valentines day as well. I also want to shout out a few more ladies of royalty that I also connect with, not so much musically, but as this is a music blog, I'm going to see what I can do... here goes cos I soo cant forget these special souls:

Nabila: You just have to see her music taste and the song playing on her myspace (myspace.com/nabz88) to see how cool this cousin is!
Shabs: This girl is one of my closest friends, infact she'll always be my 'best friend from Croydon' and we've been through many life changing moments side by side, and we've only met about 7 times! The songs: 'Things I've seen' and 'Sorry Miss Jackson' remind me of the time we first met. Those songs were huge at the time. The song that we both love is: My All by Mariah Carey. A relationship ending KILLER.
Victoria: I gave Shikeela here a good intro in the last blog regarding her recommendation of the Hinder - Better than me track(this time a video with clips from sin city), but 'Dakota' by the Stereophonics is also a strong contender for "our song".
Vanesa: The Shakira loving Godess who thinks I sound like Robbie Williams when I sing. She's definitely crazy, sexy and cool. (Like TLC sims styley) Vanesa is one of the prettiest girls I know, and I look forward to her teaching me some Shakira-style belly dancing moves when I visit Argentina one day.
Samia: Samia the most likely to give me a slap, but she's recommended a few great songs. Recently Mr Jones by Counting Crows, and the songs that remind me of her a lot are 'Mario's Let me love u' and 'Keisha White's Weakness in me'. Beautiful! (and that song isn't too bad either!)
Sarah Cakemonster: Can't believe I missed this star's birthday last month. Been sharing musical tastes with Sarah for a couple of years now, and apart from the latest indie pop, she's a sucker for her old late 80's and 90's music. Other than a worrying interest in the Hoff, she loves the Labrinth, a movie I'm desperate to see again, not just cos Jennifer Connoley stars in it. The whole movie in 5 mins is here on video with yet another David Bowie song! (Sarah informs me that hooked on a feeling is her fave David Hasselhoff song, altho the vid reminds me of a playgroup safari video my mom embarassingly made!)

MC AAG: This young MC broke on the scene with some great rhymes with her Girls on Top track, and later I helped her tweak her date rape rap. She's only young but she has a lot of talent, and so watch this space for more updates on her latest mixtape. (And I'm out, 2-double-Ohhh-seven!)

Anissa from Belgium: Apart from teaching me bits of Hindi, Greek and Arabic, this desert rose (Sting ft Cheb Mami reference) has sent me some of the nicest fusion music ever. Hindi with Arabic, Rai music, including tracks by Cheb Mami/Cheb Khaled and a real bollywood-esque fave: Douzi - Yali Nasini (hindi remix). The classic and beautiful Ya Rayah by Rachid Taha reminds me of her everytime I hear it!

Groovy Tasha (Natasha!): My cousin from Leicester is always bouncing around, always remember her for her love of J-Lo - when I was round her house a few years back - I remember her playing it and we both loved the album at the time. Crazy. Top song: J-Lo - Play ("turn it up turn it up turn it up... turn the track UP!") (oh and woops forgot the Michael Jackson track: 'Bad' because of a school dance at the time.)

Update on Site Visitors
Total Page views: 14696 Page views today: 22
Page views this week: 101 Page views within the last hour: 1

(Lots of visitors :) - Cue request for photos to be taken down.. as Hal said in 2001: A Space Odyssey: 'Im afraid I can't do that!')

Song Playing at the Moment: RJ Productions - 459
Bobby and Nihal compiled a 'best of 2006' playlist and amazingly didn't include this 2006 classic. Gotta give this track a mention because to put it simply: ITS BEAUTIFUL. Now beautiful is hardly the descriptive word you'd use for a high octane drum n bass track like this, but just as I was starting to think the show had gone slightly stale, this track popped up and deservedly got a lot of airplay. The best of 2006 radio show had some great tracks though including Riz's 9/11 blues, and the mash up 'Kawans other life'. Other great Asian dance tracks included Jay Dhabi's 'Mubai after dark', Audio Dakoo's 'I am Jack Smerking Jaanwar' and 'Darya I Nur' by Fusing Naked Beats. The latter being a track that Rich loved and ended up downloading from iTunes while i was over at his house. I was invited to help record a demo for a radio show we're both working on! Yes DJ AK at your service. The RJ productions track made such an impact on me, along with 'Danja Atari's Too Late' track, that when the opportunity arose to have my own radio show at the University of Teesside, Rich and myself recorded a fusion radio show demo. I'll be sticking it up on my myspace soon.

 

Note: Changes happening to my music blog. I spent a lot of time trying to complete this particular blog over a hectic Christmas schedule, and realised that the music lists that i've been updating have been upgraded so you can write a short description of each song and even include the album details with links to Amazon. This means that I can minimise the length of these entries with just the album reviews and main blog topics. It'll save ya reading all these ramblings - notice on the main image, I have a zippy-esque zip over my mouth to shut me up... stop me spitting my lyrics! Check out the December 2006 list and the January 2007 list!

 

Fave Song at the Moment: Justin Timberlake - My Love

With this being the last time I big-up my favourite song, and with so many months since my last blog entry, it was practically impossible to find a track that summed up the quality of the last few months. One of my favourite songs over the last few months has definitley been 'My Love' and it's one of the few quality tracks from his album.  I think Justin's a great entertainer and I've enjoyed dancing to "sexyback" every time I've been out recently. I've checked out his latest album so will be blogging about that soon too. With Michael Jackson's career pretty much extinct with a face to match, Justin's started to take over the pop world. This track in particular is great to slow-dance to, great to chill to, and the video like usual is stylish, surreal with Justin showing what a performer he is. I had a few of the lyrics as my msn screen name for a while actually. He's asking his girl a couple of questions.. I think he's just split up with Cameron Diaz fueling the usual trashy rumours. As youtube comments suggest, he probably hasn't got over Britney especially with his latest song ;-) So tell me.. "what would you do if I wrote you a symphony to tell you what you meant to me? or if I wrote you a love note.. and made you smile at every word I wrote? What would you do!"

  

Albums Playing on Phone Since Last Time: The Magic Numbers - Those the Brokes/Borat OST/Notorious B.I.G - Duets: The Final Chapter

 

The Magic Numbers - Those the Brokes 

Regulars on my blog will know that I not only bought the first self titled album, but my housemate Huw bought me another copy for my birthday. I listened to that album throughout the summer as I worked at Ramsdens, and it proved to be one of my favourite albums of 2005. It was always going to be difficult to live up to the first albums success, and when listening, you can't quite see which songs are going to sparkle as singles. The first single from the album 'Take a Chance' reminds you of what made you love them in the first place - pure pop heaven - and although the album isn't as good as their first, I'll still recommend it because it's certainly one of those you're not going to get bored off. Highlights include 'This is a song', 'Undecided', 'Let Somebody In', and 'Running Out'!  Mark hit the nail on the head with his comments: 'The album deals with serious issues concerning love, hearbreak, relationships and emotions all in a a cute sing-along manner' - which is what the magic numbers are all about. Verdict: On shopping list.

 

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan - OST

2006 saw a Borat attack America, and invade our movie screens. I'd been a fan ever since his early days on the Ali-G show, and ended up watching the movie with Jez, Table Tennis Adam and John Chan. Apart from the obvious laughs and the expected toilet humour, I came out of the movie hearing some extremely beautiful music and some very fun catchy tracks. Everyone knows my Eurovision obsession, and with recent music sharing sessions with new Pool club member Vasso, I've become a bit more aware of European music. Straight after the movie, I checked out the album, and wow I had to see the movie again. Crazy hey? Weirdly enough, there's no Kazakstani musicians on here with all the musicians originating from balcan and gypsy backgrounds. Vasso informs me that she's heard of Goran Bregavic. As Vasso has an intriguing taste in music, with influences from many of the surrounding countries around Greece, I unsucessfully tried to get her along to my second viewing with the rest of the pool lads. One track "Mahalageasca" by Mahala Rai Banda really stands out in the movie and is definitely one of my faves along with the really beautiful Ederlezi by Bregovic which accompanies the sad parts of the movie when Borat finds himself alone. There are sound bites taken from the dialogue in the movie and these are scattered throughout this soundtrack ending with the hilarious Kazakstani national anthem! Verdict: Gotta stick this on the shopping list due to its delicious taste of undiscovered world music!

 

Notorious B.I.G - Duets: The Final Chapter

"The Biggie Duets... Jazze Phizzle (phizzle phizzle)" Yep we all know the start of Nasty Girl, and ouch what a hot album. Although I rarely fully check out rap albums, I was glad I had a good listen to this one. There are some crackers on here, with a wealth of artists collaborating. The highlight is definitely Whatcha want featuring Jay Z. A heavy beat, catchy and man you should see my attempts to rap along to this! Eminem, Nas, Diddy, Fat Joe, Snoop, Mobb Deep, Twista, Mary J Blige, Missy, Ludacris - man it just reads as a who's who of hiphop! Then add Korn and Bob Marley, and you've got a great tribute to one of the worlds greatest rappers. 'Spit your game' is the soundtrack to the MC Riz jump-off rap battle video on his myspace. So I'd already heard this one and although I wasn't feeling all the tracks originally, the albums grown on me so much that I ended up bying it twice and getting a copy for Rich for his birthday! Jag, a mate I've met through Chris Betts likes his hiphop and loves the akon track on here. It's another highlight of a highly recommended album for any rap fan. Verdict: Bought!

 

Music Topic of the Day: The Magic Numbers Gig 2006

It's blogging time again and suprisingly I'm writing this while on my way to another gig. Must be filthy rich, I hear you say. Well not quite. MarkyMark had informed me about both tonight's Basement Jaxx gig, and Friday's Magic Numbers concerts a couple of months back when I had cash!" Note: I'd wrote all this nearer the time, only now am I finding time to stick this online.

 

On to the Magic Numbers gig. After being held back in Middlesbrough after a houseparty and an expensive haircut, I had to take the train up to Newcastle, instead of taking Rich's offer of driving up. Although the pre-gig warm-up music in his car would have been ace, my haircut over-ran, and I couldn't handle trawling around Steel Wheels - a bit boring if you've got zero cash/you're not filthy Rich!

 

I met up with MarkyMark & RichyRich, at Northumbria's Student's Union café. Directions given by the family of one of the warm up bands 'Horsebox.' Chilled around for half an hour then queued up. I'd had my own mini warm up to the gig on the train, listening to both albums, that I'd stuck on to my phone. I'd bought the Magic Numbers debut album a while back, and Huw had kindly bought it me again as a Birthday pressy, and so I'd been listening to the tracks on repeat all day. Ended up giving the fellow queuers a blast! (Show off!)

 

Horsebox were the first warm up act, and I was pleasantly suprised by the band. One of the band members had a xylophone and looked like he had taken a few drugs beforehand. Sorry if you're reading this family members. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, because he was getting into it, and the crowd were applauding. A lot of the songs had a food theme which was making me hungry! The second warm act was David Kitt and he was great. He had a great voice, and even did a duet with Michelle from the Magic Numbers. Note this was when Rich perked up after being asleep for the last hour. It's difficult when you have to stand up at a gig hey? Where's those VIP balcony seats we ordered?

 

Things had already started heating up with the hall filling up. Finally the Magic Numbers entered the arena, or what could be classed as a small intimate venue. They were awesome. I didn't think I'd get dancing, but Rich, Mark, and myself were dancing and singing all night. Big shout out to markymark at this point, for getting me the tickets on time, nearly scared me when he said he didn't have them while we were queuing up. Nutter! Each member of the band has a distinct soothing voice, and there were a couple of times when the hall was in awe of the sweet melodies and delicate tunes that were perfomed. They started with the opening track of their new album 'This is a song' and continued with all their singles and plenty of album tracks from both the first and current albums. As soon as 'I see you, you see me' came on however, I was in dreamland. That track as mentioned before is just one of their best songs, and has some extrodinary lyrics that I really relate to. For me, hearing this live is straight up there with Bloc Party's 'So Here We Are' - infact it's even better! ouch! 

 

Their 2nd album as reviewed above hasn't in my opinion got as many classics, but it's still worth checking out. They played a few from the new album including an exclusive solo effort that you can hear on their myspace. Personally I didn't think I'd dance as much as I did, but what can I say.. Lost in the music! Had to decline an invitation to go out after when back in Boro, but after the last few weeks, I think a rest is required. So onto the Basemet Jaxx gig which I should be blogging about soon!

 

Note: Mark has kindly uploaded his PTO newspaper review of the gig, along with many album reviews on his msn space so check it out here.

 

Update on Site Visitors
Total page views: 14316

Page views today: 3
Page views this week: 116

Page views within the last hour: 0

 

Last 5 searchs for Ak's musical Journey

Oh dear, haven't blogged in such a long time, that I'm practically off the search engine scene. I'll be back on soon though. Google, I'm coming for ya! I already made it on to youtube by the way - was filming some friends and Polish Michael made 2 pretty smart videos including one where I appear to be trying to dance. It's definitely a no-no when infront of a video camera. Check out the Houseparty trailer and the Absynthe Legacy videos. Jag's houseparties have been fun and pretty eventful, and I've managed to get back into the clubbing scene with the introduction of new best mate Vasso, a dancing, singing, habitual line-stepping party animal with a great ear for quality music - so more about her later.

 

Mp3 Download of the day

The myspace bubble has lasted longer than I thought it would with it becomming a major community for artists to get themselves known, or to share music, or even promote gigs and tours. We saw that with Lily Allen last time round and the arctic monkeys, how useful these types of sites can be for upcoming artists. Today's download is from Horsebox and it's probably the best song from their set. 'My Town' expecially with the catchy sounding electronic xylophone they use.

Check out www.myspace.com/horsebox for more downloads.

Fave Song at the Moment: Lily Allen - Alfie

Lily Allen seems to have taken over the blog world. In a similar fashion to the Arctic Scumbags *thanks Little Ste*, she's managed to build up a large following over the Internet and that's spread on to the radio with Radio1 playing her songs "Smile" and "Alfie" and now her album's out! I heard her on Jo Wiley's show, always a good source for good new music. Alfie is a catchy tune about her little brother, telling him to get up and do something with his life. I'm sure my sister has adapted it as her tune to tell the same things to her older brother. Lily Allen's mixtapes are worth checking out. Both one and two are brilliant and there are a number of places to download them from all over the net, infact her myspace website allows you to listen to the whole album at the moment. Check out LDN as well as Smile and Alfie, and a big thanks to Dave from Virgin Mobile for sending me Smile. Spot on dude. More on Lily soon especially as there's a tracklisting for her 2nd mixtape to dig out and I wanna be the first :-D (Mp3 downloads at the bottom of this blog.) Check out this blog for plenty of links to the tunes.

 

Song Playing at the Moment: Enter Shikara - OK Time for plan B.
Last time it was Shakira, today its Shikara, and boy is there a difference. Twisting things with a Metal flex again as my journey is hijacked by Nick Crisp from Staffordshire. He's introduced me to Enter Shikira, Trivium, Disturbed and Children of Bodom.. ouch. My speakers are bleeding in a way that's quite beautiful! The air guitar that's going on at the moment is totally unproffesional. You can hear some tracks at EnterShikari.com or ya can give me/Nick a call! According to Nick, the prince of metal darkness, the genres of music that Enter Shikari falls into TranceCore. Unlike housemate Huw's Dance trance, EnterShikari have a bit of fusion going on with hard beats, heavy guitars, vocals etc. Nick's also helped summarised some of the other genres of these recommended bands too... Children of Bodom would be classed as Melometal and Trivium are metal/hardcore. Disturbed - Stricken is excellent, and Requiem by Trivium is great too. Although I must admit, took a few listens before they grew on me. Rock on. Note my Internet Buddy Ady actually went to a Trivium concert and said that they RULED.. he'd sent me two tracks which I've just dug out: 'Dying in your arms' and 'Pull harder on the strings of the martyr ascendancy. Both were quite heavy but still cool :-)

 

Albums Playing on Phone Since Last Time: Outlandish - Closer Than Veins/Corrine Bailey - Corrine Bailey/Shamur - Let the Music Play/Nelly Furtardo - Loose

Time to review some more albums... once again an eclectic mix of fusion, pop, compilations and beauty. You ready?

 

Outlandish - Closer than Veins

The intro to this album "introspective" builds you up to a heavy hiphop frenzy but the whole album isn't like this. The great thing I've always found about Outlandish is how they fuse spanish, english, hiphop, soulful vibes and arabic!! I've reviewed their bread and barrels of water album which is on my shopping list. This one looks like it will be too. It feels like there are more slower tracks, but at the end of last year, B&N were playing 'Komigen' and 'Raggada' - I love both of these.. They remind me of pras, lauren and wyclef from the Fugees in the way that they combine pretty well on each track although having different styles. Verdict: On shopping list.

 

Corrine Bailey Rae - Corrine Bailey Rae

My sister Keanu recommended this album and I'm not overly impressed. I like the singles "Put your record on", and "Trouble Sleeping" - but I'd only recommend this album as a chillout summers day album.. and at the moment I've got no time to be chilling out.. not in this heat anyway. Ouch. I don't particularly think her voice is strong, and that's why I find myself nodding of when listening to this. Give me Nora Jones or Katie Melua any day. Verdict: Burned to CD and saved for a chillout day in the "conservatory".

 

Shamur - Let the music Play

Originaly checking this out cos of the single with the same name, but this album is basically a compilation album of some of the best desi beats. We have yet another poor remix of Rouge's Don't be shy, we also have Dr Zeus' Kangna, Swami's Desi Rock, Snap's The Power of Bhangra, Tabba by DJ APS Feat Mohd Siddiq & Ranjit Kaur and the gorgeous Desi remixes of Shakira's Tortura & Outlandish's Walou. I'm not one for these asian compilation albums so... Verdict: Will buy for under a £5iver.  

 

Nelly Furtardo - Loose

After hearing 'maneater', and 'Promiscuous girl', both the  album version (thanks adil walji) and the desi remix (thanks B&N) , I thought I'd check the album. I've never been a big fan of her music, but with this album produced by Timbaland, I expected something good. I got something good! The beats on this album make ya wanna dance. There are some catchy numbers including Afraid, No Hay Igual, and slow slow smooth tracks like Glow and Te Busque. Problem is, these are all at the start of the album, for me the end of the album crumbles dramatically. (The exception is 'All Good Things' which is such a beautiful track. I'm going to add it to my faves list!) It's great to see her change her style though and the album IS slowly growing on me but... Verdict: Not on the Shopping List this time. 

 

Music Topic of the Day: Middlesbrough Music Live 2006

Middlesbrough Music Live, a large scale annual music festival held in smog town, featuring a host of upcoming artists, and throwing in some old school established artists while there at it. Well this was my first. I've been in Boro for 6 years, and although last year I was glad I missed it, cos of the torrential downpour that we had, this year the rain didn't matter.. I had a good time. I spent most of my time with Rich, as we eagerly awaited Jane Wails at the TFM stage. Jane Wails is the name of a band led by the singer Amy. Now this isn't any old Amy.. infact Rich failed to mention throughout the day which Amy she was.. so after her performance, when I suggested going up to her and saying Hi backstage, I coudn't really see a reason for Rich's cringing & undecisiveness. (today it was amplified to nervous and shy!)... anyway I convinced him that she woudn't bite no matter what her celebrity status, and we plucked up the courage to go and have a chat.

 

What a charming young lady. I mentioned that I hadn't heard of her, and Rich was the main fan, but I did tell her I enjoyed her perfomances. She explained how she came up with the name of the band, Rich on cue announcing that he knew Amy's middle name was Jane, and Amy completed the story stating that her brother used to tease that she sounded like a whale. We didn't get a photo with her, but we did manage to get her autograph. Rich has taken a few pics already up on his FLIKR web site. I didn't really look at the autograph and so didn't catch her second name.. I was just happy for Rich. He was over the moon. It's like he'd met Shakira or Katie Melua. So later on in the Dickins Inn, we met up with Dangerous Dave who mentioned.. "oh you met Amy Studt didn't you?" - WHAT?!!!!

Amy Studt? I know who she is.. she had some hits with Misfit, and she also did "Under the Thumb" and "Just a girl" and a couple of others. To be honest I wasn't feeling her back then, and today I wasn't blown away.. however she was very down to earth, she was very friendly.. and I wish her every success with her new venture.

 

Before today, I hadn't the foggiest about any of the artists who were on show today. The most popular acts were likely to be: Ocean Colour Scene, Morning Runner, The Fratellis (who later cancelled) and Paulo Nutini. Almost an indie-fest with loads and loads of kids dressed up like Mork, almost perfect pulling opportunities some might say. Where did all these come from? There was a fair share of chavs around as well dancing along to the Indie classics that the main stage was belting out, lots of police as expected, and towards the end, lots of "fans" throwing things in the air.. Morning Runner's set had a guy dodge security & run up on stage from the crowd, and although no glass bottles were allowed in the main stage area, it was still amusing to see all the misiles thrown around. I learnt my lesson from Orange Evolution 2005 when Markymark got splattered by a sandwhich, I stayed on the side, kept an eye out.. and enjoyed Martin and Dave's company. We were essentially waiting for Ocean Colour Scene, who once again I haven't ever been a big fan off. I liked Riverboat song with it's infectious guitar, but I didn't care bout their other tracks.. My memory was returned though as they belted out hits like Travellers Tune, Day We Caught the Train, and Fight No More.

(Note: That Travellers Tune is horrible. The chorus rhymes the words "different world" with the words "different world" just about as creative as a crazy frog lyric - I have no gripes with the music, Ocean.. just get yourself a proffesional song writer next time. Makes me cringe each time.) I'd easily lyrically dismantle that song!  

 

I missed 'Paulo Nutini' which was a shame after Samia had introduced me to his "Last Request" tune, I missed the 'Gangsters of Ska', I missed 'Enter Shikari'. But that's nothing compared to previous years.. Keane, The Darkness, Goldie Looking Chain, Kasabian, and Bloc Party have for some reason come to this great town, and all before they were famous. Middlesbrough Music Live's website is middlesbroughmusiclive.co.uk

 

Rich's review is equally excellent: Check it out here.

 

Update on Site Visitors
Total page views: 12425

Page views today: 2
Page views this week: 51

Page views within the last hour: 0

 

Last 5 searchs for Ak's musical Journey

1) 'mass destruction lyrcs faithless' - Croatian googler spelt lyrics wrong. Try: Faithless Lyrics

2) 'so here we are bloc party car commercial' - maybe someone could help him here?? 

3) 'Mario Picotto 2006 dates' - As corrected by Huw, his name is Mauro. Try: Official Site.

4) 'Swami Desi Rock' - A chinese Baidu surfer needs to check out the links at DesiRock.com

5) 'Black Eyed Peas feat Macy Gray' - The song that you're after is called Request Line.

 

Mp3 Download of the day

Lily Allen has two mixtapes.. Mixtape one's tracklist is on Lily's blog, but the tracklist to mixtape two is a bit harder to find. See if you can get a tracklist for "My second mixtape" by listening to it here at:
http://www.lilyallenmusic.com/music/demos/csd23dsms7/LilyAllenMixTape2.mp3

The tracklisting for mixtape one are on her myspace blog.. check out Thurs January 19 2006

Fave Song at the Moment: Shakira ft Wyclef - Hips Don't Lie

I've been so busy over the last week with work, that amazingly that the only thing ensuring that I'm still awake in the early hours of the morning, is the video to this Shakira track. My old housemate Deji once tried to convince me that Shakira and her tunes were worth listening to, and to be honest I was sceptical. Especially after her warbling vocals on "wherever whenever" - it put me in two minds to be honest. (By the way if you want some excellent photo's, check out Deji's web site. Note to self: Make sure ya comment on his site.) I discovered this songs chorus was buzzing around in my head though, and it was quite refreshing as well - "I'm on tonight, you know my hips don't lie" and "All the attraction, the tension, Don't you see baby, this is perfection". Shakira, you're beginning to sound like me in front of a mirror!! I'd seen the video, made a quirky comment about her dancing.. and the rest is history. Me and shakira are now engaged. Wake UP Ali! -The main thing about this song for me, is the chorus. It's got that kinda hook that really does wake you up no matter what the time is, and just revolves round your head. Honestly. I've had the song on repeat throughout the whole night. How sad is that? "I never really knew that she could dance like this, she makes a man want to speak spanish." According to Vanesa from Argentina, (who is equally pretty, but we'll have to check out those dance moves though!), the spanish version is titled: "las caderas no mienten" -  It was refreshing to here that she's been repping this song relentlessly watching the video everyday and singing along too. (and trying to dance along too)  See, I'm not totally crazy! If your reading V, "Hola Linda!!" Information about downloading the video is right at the bottom of the blog. Look for the symbol :-)

 

Note: Just found old buddy Zahra from Northampton (>??<) with the above lyric in her msn screen name and "Shakira - Belly dancing IDOL" - the songs getting repped relentlessly by a few ppl now which is excellent.. time to practice the  belly dancing moves!

 

Song Playing at the Moment: The Pipettes - Your Kisses are Wasted on Me 

I'm on Andy Morewood's myspace, and he's got this song on it that plays automatically. It just plays all the time. It may imply that I visit his space a lot, but arrrgh it plays and plays and now its in my head! The song is v.catchy, as are most of their other tracks which you can hear when visiting their myspace, I was pretty impressed with this track. Andy has good taste, although I'm slightly concerned about his blog about his visits to the loo. Quick congratulations on becoming environmental officer at Teesside uni. "Want more wood? Vote Morwood." - genius. See his pic on the Union website here.

 

Albums playing on phone this month: José Gonzalés - Veneer/Massive Attack - Collected - The best of../Hard-Fi - Stars of CCTV.
I'll keep this short, especially as I've listened to so many more albums over the last 5 months which I haven't even mentioned. Go further down the list for Black Eyed Peas, Jack Johnson, and Magic Numbers, Ciara, and Amerie.

 

Jóse Gonzalés - Veneer
This album is beautiful. There are so many chilled out tracks on here. In fact a lot of this acoustic bliss reminds me of my dear friend Azam - you must listen to his music at www.azambata.com - I'll be blogging about him and Haider (www.haiderzafar.co.uk) too. Heartbeats is of course my fave track, but Crosses, Slow Moves, and Stay in the Shade are all cool tracks too. Verdict: On Wish List

 

Massive Attack - Collected. The Best of..

I didn't really know much about massive attack. I'd heard some of their tunes, and I'd heard that they had an interesting mix of sounds, mostly deep to tear apart your brain. I therefore decided to give it a go. Definite faves are Unfinished Sympathy, Angel, and Teardrop. But I've discovered Safe from Harm, Karmacoma, Protection, Future Proof and Sly, which has weird exotic vocals. Judging by this list, there'd usually be enough evidence for me to go and buy this and I will if I can get it for under a £5iver, so at the moment... Verdict: I'll stick it on the Wish List. (Birthday's coming up people..)

 

Hard Fi - Stars of CCTV

I think I'm going to have to dedicate a whole blog to this album review it's definitly gripped me, and I'm very suprised that I ignored them back in my Mercury Music Prize blog. Verdict: Need to Buy Straight AWAY!

 

Black Eyed Peas - Monkey Business

I found this in Steel Wheels for £3.97 which is an absolute steal! I had to buy it straight away. I've been playing this on my phone's mp3 player for a couple of months now. It's got some great songs on it. Everyone of their released songs has been a hit, a mix of pop, RnB and a hiphop. Of course, nothings going to eclipse the beauty of "Request Line" featuring old husky voiced Macy Gray, but hey there are some infectious tunes on here. The song featuring Jack Johnson, is awesome, and I believe it may be their next single. I heard it on the radio a few weeks ago when grabbing my latest haircut. Verdict: Bought Straight away!!

 

Jack Johnson - In Between Dreams

Jack Johnson's album isn't as good as Jose Gonzales, but they've both got similar styles. I like the singles that Jack has released from this album, especially Better Together, and Breakdown. The song "If I could" is a sweet and sad song, and is probably going to appear on an advert. There are a few pointless songs that I don't like on here like "Belle". I'm still waiting to hear the original of the "Gone Going" track that the BEP's have sampled. Verdict: Burned on to CD.

 

The Magic Numbers - The Magic Numbers

These lot have a special style. I can't really describe them. When Markymark told me a while back that he'd bought the album, I didn't really take any notice. They'd had a few good songs, but after hearing them on the Mercury Music Prize, and hearing their follow up singles, I thought it might be an interesting experience. I've been listening to this over the last month or so as well, and I'm hooked. It's great! The singles are great, and the rest of the tracks are almost equally as good. "I see you, you see me" is the most beautiful track on this album. It's cute, ignites emotions, and oozes class! Verdict: Bought straight away!!

 

Ciara - Goodies

I didn't really listen to this album as much as I could've. It has some great catchy tunes on it as well as the singles. I've heard "Goodies", "1, 2 step", "Oh", and these are all good Rnb/Hiphop tracks. Hmmm.. Crunk - I dunno what to make of this album. Hotline and Thug Style are not bad, and the track "Looking at you" has a good beat. Although Ciara has a good voice, I totally switch off when she slows the pace of her songs. If she doesn't have a good beat, then I can't really put up with her durge! And also Ciara if your reading.. the Kardinals remix of Oh is 100 times better than the original, so I'm not buying your album unless you re-release it with the Kardinals version on. Verdict: Awaiting Ciara's phonecall ;-)

 

Amerie - Touch

Amerie's album was hyped up all over the place. I'd heard of Amerie from a few earlier songs, which I didn't really feel so much. She's got a powerful voice and she's not a bad dancer judging by her video's. her album is cool. (So awaiting Amerie's phonecall for a totally different reason!) - The sngle's TOUCH and ONE THING directed me in the direction of this album, and I wasn't completely convinced about the hype over the first few listens. Infact it was one track that blew me away, "Not the only one" - I ended up rinsing this song relentlessly, such a deep song, that stayed on my phone's mp3 player for ages! - I LOVE this song. There are some other tracks like "Talking About" which are pretty good, but overall I wasn't greatly impressed. "Not the only One" saves this album from complete deletion. So Verdict: Burned on to CD.

 

Top Review on Friends Space: Statto's Eurovision Song Contest Review
An interesting read - a bit more funny than mine :-) Read below for more information about Statto.

 

Music Website to check out: Lordi's Offical web site

http://www.lordi.org/main.html - Click on Extras at the bottom and click one of the numbers on the TV to watch some heavy heavy rock videos. When Lordi rises from the ground in video number 1 (would you love a monster man) and number 2 (devil is a loser),you can see the scare factor. I love the three videos on this site, but the best video is for their Eurovision hit: Hard Rock Halleluja. Watch the video at this Lordi Eurovision page and the girl is very pretty too. Europe... GET READY TO GET SCARED!

  

Music Topic of the Day: Eurovision Song Contest 2006

As some of ya remember, I did a long blog about the 2005 Eurovision song contest including brummy chris' expert opinions and of course a run down about the best song.s My new years blog resolution (note: blog is one year old) is to keep my blogs short.. half of ya dont even read what I'm writing so I figured it might be sensible to keep it short hey but its never gonna happen. Firstly a brief overview of why the Eurovision song contest doesn't suck:

 

1) All round family entertainment, there's something for everyone... when was the last time you switched on the TV and got dumped with bad language and unnecessary nudity. I'm obviously totally referring to Big Brother! You'll often find yourself asking "how did anyone vote for that?" or just laughing yourself silly at some of the crazy acts that come on.

 

2) Terry Wogan - It's true that a lot of the music is rubbish.. but Terry Wogan's witty comments, keep ya chuckling through the poor tracks, the voting, the terrible hosts, and the endless promotional footage of the host nation.

 

3) Digging out a real Gem - There are some really really good songs. Check out my ratings for this year and last year.. some songs got 9/10 and 10/10. (some got 2 and 3 of course).

 

4) European International Music - Some of ya know that I'm a big fan of the asiatic sounds that Bobby Friction and Nihal rinse out every wednesday afternoon. Well as a lover of almost all things musical, I personally find it interesting to see what each country enter each year. A few years ago Malta entered a song called "Desire" and I loved it. It was so catchy! There've been songs with a real arabian feel, some with a real authentic Eastern European feel. A lot of countries now sing in English, which in fact is good for us ignorant Brits, cos we usually just laugh at or ignore songs that we don't understand. Open your mind people! There's a lot out there, and the smaller countries are pumping out better music then we are! Jessica Garlic? Javine? Daz Samspson? Gemini! Enough Said!

 

Ok enough of the rant..

 

Richard told me earlier that Statto, the newly elected Communications Officer has blogged about this years song contest while watching it online. Excellent. It's an entertaining read, so it's another highly recommended site from me :-) Statto's blog's a proper blog. He talks about what's happening in his life, including his sporting achievents, leisure activites, music, girls, and increasingly interesting rants/comments about the PTO news paper. He's given a one-line comment about each country, and the thing I like about it is.. it's not serious, and it's not slating the contest either. It's just a general unbiased clean overview and provides some funny reminders: Germany's scores given from on top of a horse and the MAD MAD MAD guy from the Netherlands!

 

So me and Rich had planned to organise a Eurovision night, both armed with a note pads and pens to score, and a welcome introduction for Joanne (Jo Jo), Rich's mate who interestingly pointed out that a lot of the acts performed in English and highlighted how strange it is, that the when we're abroad we just cant be bothered learning the language. Someone with sense! We enjoyed the show as we all munched on strawberries, apples, and satsumas - a far cry from the beer fuelled eurovision parties across the UK. Ahh well.   

Here are my scores: (Scores are marked out of 10 and the ones in  in red are my faves)

Switzerland - 5 band piece - nice start (6)

Moldova - Poor male vocals + britney-esque+ costume changes, "mmm loca" upbeat! (7)

Israel - Slightly out of tune + good singer though, all dressed in white + bit dull (5)

Latvia - Nice Harmonies - once again slightly out of tune, but excellent beatboxing! (8) 

Norway - Whimsy vocals - not memorable. (4)

Spain - It's Las Ketchup :-| this one wasnt catchy and had a Sinead o Conner ballet dancer. (4)

Malta - Ugly guy (sorry) - and out of tune! (3)

Germany - Or should I say the Magic Numbers! - quite cool with a country western feel. (7)

Denmark - Twist song. Upbeat, nice dancing, pretty girls, lyrics are naff, weird random mail dancer. (8)

Russia - Slow tune, with a mullet in a vest. Infact ended up Rubbish with a girl popping out a piano. (3)

Macedonia - Really good start, really nice dancers! and pretty impressive overall. (7)

Romania - Catchy Tune - bit dancey - with a middle bit "eeh oh eeh eeh!" (7)

Bosnia/Herzogovena - Took a while to get going, but nice instrumental. (3)

Lithuania - WHAT? We are the winners? No your not. But bald Harry Hill lookalike with pendulum-slam type dance saves ya. (8)

UK - A good performance from our rapper, cokney school girls trying to shake up the European vote - proud of our effort. Well performed. (9)

Greece - Boring balad.. ugh! (2)

Finland - Scary! Arrgh! A ten for effort, the masked monsters tore up the place with their originality. (9)

Ukraine - Catchy, good singer, very pretty with the "show me your love lyric". (9)

France - Dull. not memorable. (3)

Croatia - This lady's eyes are weird- Has a ukelele guy.. but poor. (6)

Iceland - Calm tune but quite typically westlife-esque. (7)

Sweden - I thought this was a favourite - what a mess. Pretty naff tune (3)

Turkey - an "Old Gwen Stefani" horrible - please stop wailing at me?! (2)

Armenia - girls in suspenders and rich's line: "mmm bondage" - ouch! (4)

 

So my faves out of those were UK, Ukraine, Finland, Romania, and Germany! and the top 2 were: Finland/ Russia/ Bosnia Herzogevina (spelling! )

 

So ok you'll see a lot of 2's and 3's but the 8's and 9's like usual was worth the effort. (And its a totally welcome change from the usual Poker Night Live (Aka pNs) that Huw watches nightly. The Harry Hill look alike was hilarious, and Lordi (Finland's entry) deserved to win with its originality and introduction of hard rock. The UK gave it the thumbs up with a full "Douze points". (Say that in a french accent) Right Enough from me :-D

 

New Sections for Ak's Musical Journey

Always evolving and trying to offer interesting features for everyone who visits. There's 3 new sections.

 

1) A quick counter at the end of each blog just to let ya know that your not the only one reading this thing. I guess this is an ego thing... typical!

2) A rundown of the last 5 search engines that were used to access the space. I get about 10 a day from Google, MSN, yahoo and Baidu.com, so your own search might appear here, and if its a question, I can just go an answer it.

 

3) MP3 time... yes a lot of your searches have been for free downloads! Well there's surprisingly a lot of legal quality tunage up for downloading. So when you see the following logo in future blogs you will be able to download a song for free. (or maybe a video!)

 

Update on Site Visitors

Total page views: 11717
Page views today: 0

Page views this week: 0

Page views within the last hour: 0

(that's what you get on a sunday when ya blog at the start of the week!)

 

Last 5 search engine visits for Ak's musical Journey

1) "keep it undercover lyrics sunit" - Lyrics, song, video are at www.myspace.com/raxstar1

2) "you go out every night trying to find" - The song is: Gadjo - So Many Times 

3) "03. If I Can't (Have You) Rupee No Title" -  Enter it into google without the "03" and the "no title" and you'll get many many pages with lyrics.

4) "KT Tunstall lyrcs" - Ya spelt Lyrics wrong boss. Common mistake made by my SE visitors.

5) "song 2 BLUR" - Quality song, quality video, one of those tunes to go MAD to!

 

Recommended Video Download: Shakira ft Wyclef - Hips Don't Lie

Ok Ok - it's not the mp3 download I was hoping for, but hey, proper mp3s to follow, go and download Shakira's video to this song, it's so infectious, she's an awesome dancer, and I'm in love. Download lots of her videos here.

WARNING: This Could Be Quite A Long One

 

Fave Song at the Moment: MC Riz - 9/11 Blues

Back in the day when Eminem was hitting the scene, I'm sure none of us failed to notice the continuous controversy caused by his lyrics, his videos, even his collaborations. (Dido/Elton John etc.) Well we've got a new guy on the scene, and although Eminem's Mosh covers a lot of anti-Bush/anti war feel, this MC Riz track just blows it out of the water. I practically forced Markymark, RichyRich, and BrummyChris to listen to it when Bob & Nihal played it a couple of weeks ago. It's bound to provoke some kinda reaction and the B&N MBC definetly had their say. My personal view is, it does show one perspective of what it's like being victamised, and the crazyness of going to war. Riz's myspace site allows you to listen to it, he also has a video of a spin-the-mic rap battle which he nearly won, and make sure you check out the lyrics to this 9/11 blues track. "but will it get airplay geeza well, if bbc dont want it Ill send it to al jazeera" Gosh. MC Riz's MySpace Page.

Song Playing at the Moment: José González - Heartbeats
Dunno when I first heard this, but it may have been my sister - I'm sure the new age indie wannabe will claim responsibility for getting me hooked. What a song, what an album! Acoustic bliss is all I can say. There are some great songs for a summers day, and if I get mself some wireless/bluetooth headphones, I could (maybe) sit in the garden. (umm with the weeds) Back to Jose though, I've put a quote from Rich, cos he's already blogged about it. I'm also pretty impressed with the advert that he mentions. So Rich take it away...

Quote from http://spaces.msn.com/simplyrich

Anyone seen that Sony Bravia LCD TV advert? The one with the millions of coloured balls bouncing all over the descending road / hill? Here's a bit of a trivial twist to the whole thing. You know the music that accompanies the advert, 'Heartbeats' by José Gonzales? Check out the video to the original version of 'Heartbeats', performed by The Knife. It shows grainy black-and-white footage of people skating in sync down a descending road / hill and these bright multi-coloured 3D shapes come and flood the footage, a lovely sight! But my point being that it's a co-incidence that these colourful 3D shapes contrast with their respective "grayscale scenery" and the thing that links it is two versions of the same song. Do you suppose the admakers have seen that original music video? One to think about. And I think I've summed it up nicely.

You certainly have Rich

 

Music Topic of the Day: Prodigy - Newcastle Metro Arena 2005

So.. I've not really gone to many big concerts, especially those specially for one artist or one band. I guess the Usher concert in Nottingham with the ex, was the largest, the open air "One Big Sunday's" by radio1 in Leicester don't count, and I guess there's that Nitin Sawhney concert at the Sage, Gateshead (See earlier posts). So the PRODIGY LIVE at Newcastle Metro, oh my gosh- that was BIG! This had to be the biggest and best gig ever, and apologies for the delay in writing this. hopefully its worth the wait.

 

Firstly, I've gotta mention that I've been a Prodigy fan from their Fat of the Land days with "Breathe" and "Firestarter" and of course "Smack my (EX-GF) up" - but without sounding like a complete violent nut, Im a fan of their earlier stuff ALA the Experience album. "Charlie says.." In preperation for the gig,  I went and bought "Their Law - Singles 1990-2005" a few days before the gig, and I'd already been rinsing the "Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned" album which has my other faves like "Spitfire", and "You'll be under my Wheels". Regulars will have seen me blog about those a while back.

 

The journey to Newcastle had Rich, Gav, Markymark, and myself bouncing to the "Their Law", did a bit of shopping at Steel Wheels, and a meal at Pizza Hut. After the usual in-decision and slightly time-consuming event of wondering whether to park/ get stuck in traffic, we made our way to the Metro Arena. The arena was sold out and we were pretty early so we got right to the front near the stage. Amazingly we caught up with Ste & Matty - I didn't have faith in the "we're at the front near the stage" directions. The warm up band was pants - infact someone threw a bottle at the guitarist. Typical.

 

The Audio Bullies didn't come and so I didn't get to hear my fave "I'm in Love" tune. Keanu's been raving about it too. So anyway the replacement DJ's didn't dissapoint too much by playing a bit of "Galvanise", and throwing on a bit of "Notorious B.I.G" - The crowd decided not to show much energy as we were all really waiting for the Prodigy!!

 

And wow.. they didn't dissapoint. We were still quite close to the front, but as expected we were being ushered back by the over-excited nutters. My plan of standing near Rich aka the brick wall protector didn't work, and as Breathe came on, I was totally knocked all around the place. I knew this was going to happen, and a near elbow to the eye-socket convinced me that I wanted to enjoy the gig without ending up in hospital, so I went to the side quickly followed by Ste who wouldn't have lasted 2 mins in the rabble. Later found out that both Rich, and Markymark had to get their glasses repaired afterwards. I think I just about got out at the right time!  Some might say that "not being in the middle being knocked about" means an uninteresting gig, but when Keith & Maxim went into the side crowd area, I was v.close to them. Woo.

 

The tunes came thick and fast, and that meant continuous dancing! I didn't get to keep my ticket in the end, but hey it's unlikely to be a night Im gonna forget. It's been over 5 months since the gig, so Im not going to go through the track listings etc... instead I'm going to leave you with the msn spaces of Gav, MarkyMark and Rich!

 

Gav's Prodigy review on his msn space - seriously, this guys review of the gig kicks ass. I should've just quoted him instead of writing my drivvel. AND his tummy got slapped by Keith and we shared a pizza. Mark also provides an animated review. Shame about the glasses. Rich hasn't really wrote about it but visit Rich's space for an emotionally driven white stripes gig review. Mark provides a fun animated review of the Prodigy gig too. Right.. off to sell my White Stripes Limited Edition CD-Rs on Ebay!

 

---

Ok a lots been happening musically and being my first blog in 5 months, I'm going to bullet point some latest music news:

• Didn't got to see "Do Me Bad Things" in Newcastle as the gig was cancelled in October.
• Got a weekend job at Virgin Mobile, but totally rinsed the overtime during Xmas - awful HOLD music, but awesome hearing Bobby & Nihal on a wednesday evening. 
• Missed out on the Nitin Sawhney gig at Fabric. He wasn't there in the end, but the night sounded awesome. Fellow MBC'er Jyoti, said the night was awesome and I'm very jealous.
• Went to see Lethal Bizzle at an NME night - totally shambolic - I was expecting the NME organisers to support the artist & maybe play a hint of uk rap/grime - kano/dizee rascal/mitchell brothers... but no.. it looked ike lethal b was exposed to a gang of dis-interested indie loving drunkards.
• I've become a massive Hard-Fi fan. I love their Stars of CCTV album and Im hopefully going to see them next weekend at the OrangeEvolution festival. I hardly mentioned them in my Mercury Music Prize Blog (below)!
• I've finally got onto Myspace but didn't want it looking like everyone else' page, so I'm just promoting my superior msn space. http://www.myspace.com/aksmusicaljourney
• Bought sooooooooo much music during the last 5 months. The January sales were a great source of albums. Don't think I'll go into writing about them unless, I make a new music list.
• Didn't get to see in the new year with anyone due to work.. grrr, so as a beleated happy new year blog update, I'm putting the radio1 dj's faves of 2005 in the photo gallery. Take a peak. 
• The blog's going to get a makeover. I don't like the really really long posts.. especially as no-one reads them. Instead I'm going for short and sweet and more regular.
• The makeover is also going to tie in with the music section within my own personal website. More details to follow.
• Haider the musical maestro has been working away at the "sad song". Make sure you check the tune, and the video out at his website. http://www.haiderzafar.co.uk
• Azam Bata - the chosen one.. his "goodbye" and "2B or not 2B" tracks are available at his web site: http://www.azambata.com - I get a mention on there. Don't worry buddy. My next blogs are going to be dedicated to some raw artist material.

Right, thats it from me.. if you've been wondering why I've not blogged for a while, or why I've suddenly started... well the blog is ONE YEAR OLD. So current stats state: 

20 Posts
85 Comments
66 Page views this week 
11541 Total Page views ... and counting...

So one year old, and it appears to be a full circle again, with the nitin sawhney gig (which I missed), the Skinnyman gig, the 2006 Eurovision song contest (tomorrow), the upcoming Mela's, the 2006 Orange Evolution Festival, and my birthday, Im sure there'll be more opportunites to continue my journey.

Fave Song at the Moment: Outlandish - Peelo

You all remember Outlandish from their chart hit: Guantanamo. Well I felt it was time to check out their album, especially as fellow MBC'er Jyoti is a big fan of their 'Bread and Barrels of Water' album. I've listened to it and there are quite a few stand out tracks which are mentioned in my album reviews below. Peelo uses a Hindi nursery rhyme which a simple but cute verse, which the Outlandish crew rap over. I love it and I clicked with it as soon as I heard it. It's just one of those tracks that you wouldn't mind hearing again and again. The little child's voice verses the Asian vocalist is a good technique especially when incorporating a nursery rhyme. 

 

Song Playing at the Moment: Blank and Jones - Desire (4 Strings Remix)
So a bit of trance to get the body moving hey? Well I saw this track on Streakfury aka Dom's msn screen name, and so I gave it a try and wooo there's a lot going on with this track. I've discovered a new wave of trance/dance concepts through my housemate Huw, who's a huge Mario Picotto and Tiesto fan. Dom's msn screen name always acts as a good source of tunage especially within this genre. I coined up the term Emo-trance which translates as emotion-invoking-trance music. Sometimes with trance, you can get lost within the music, and after hearing Tiesto's 'Best and New' and it can be turn into a mini journey of your own. Enough of the deepness here and on to the song.. I managed to get hold of a few different remixes of the Desire song, all sounding pretty excellent. I'm not exactly sure if any of them are recommended my Dom, but they're all cool :) There's more information about the original on the global trance site here. You can hear a clip of the 2005 4 Strings Remix here.

 

Albums Playing on a 'Regular Basis': Sona Family - 100 Rupee Mixtape/James Blunt - Back to Bedlam/Outlandish - Bread and Barrels of Water

It's album review time. I've been listening to loads of albums since the last time I blogged, but I've got a few blogs to write so I'll save some for later. Once again its a good mix of genres so here goes:

 

Sona Family - 100 Rupee Mixtape: The Sona Family mixtape is pretty cool. I found myself not only enjoying some of the tracks, but laughing along to some of the skits, including the Southall bootlegger and the record boss' comments on their "rangjang" music referring to the Asian chart killing "Mundian to Bache Ke" Nightrider tune. As a mixtape, most of the tracks are short and give you a taste of some of the remixes that they've done. I've listened to the album a few times and I'm still a bit undecided on it. It's got some good tracks on it, and a variety of talent on show. Desitunes4u once again provides a much more detailed review with lots of info on that tracks and artists here. Verdict: On Wish List

 

James Blunt - Back to Bedlam: I think I can hear the grunts of disapointment already. I don't suppose that James Blunt's music is on the top of any of my friend's music lists at the moment, especially with his music sounding a bit "blunt" and boring. However, my job isn't to listen to the judgemental-ists. (??) It's to check out the album and buy or slate it. The two singles make up the first two tracks of the album, so it's a good start for James, because if it had been any of the other tracks, I'd have fallen asleep. To be honest I like "You're Beautiful" - I thought it was a cute and sweet song and has come along with a host of other male singers including Daniel Powter and someone else I cant remember. Amazingly, 'You're Beautiful' topped the charts for ages, and so did this album. When albums like this do well, the least you can do is check it out to see why people are buying it. Another mention goes to Samia, who loves this song. She's got a few requests on the line at the moment including Pon de Replay by Rihanna, Swami's Desi Rock and Ray J's I wish. Arrgh she just mentioned online that she went to see Bombay Rockers at the National Mela 2005 - how did I miss that?! Back to the album though: I didn't think the "High" track was bad and the 3rd track "Wisemen" is a nice song. "Tears and Rain" is also a nice song.. but hold on.. the chorus sounds like Busted's "Caught in the Middle". Actually.. these songs would probably be best sung by Busted because Blunt has an extremely whiney voice, which really put me off. None of the other songs really caught my attention unfortunately... so I'll have to give those a good listen. I didn't have expectations for the album, but hey I found a few nice songs... But last comment for Mr Blunt is.... BLUNT.. NOOOO -why do you need to swear on your tracks. It's just un-needed. I mean I'm not so sensitive that I cant listen to grimey hiphop or heavy Prodigy tracks.. but James Blunt? Verdict: Deleted but several tracks ripped.            

 

Outlandish - Bread and Barrels of Water: Fellow MBC'er Jyoti B must be in shock that it's taken so long for me to check out this album. She's back in the toon after smashing the London desi scene with the Message Board Crew. (MBC)  This album is a definate buy for me. I've heard all the tracks and I'm automatically absorbed into this world of spanish, asian and hip-hop flavouring that blows everything else away. Guantanamo, Peelo, Aicha, Dirty Dirty East, and OUCH... Belly Dance. Stand out tracks by just looking at the track list... then you here El Moro, and 'A Donkey called Cheetah'. When you hear Asian talent like this, you start to forget about the weak Bhangra scene, and you start begging for the new album to come out soon. I'm in love with this album so there's no surprise that.... Verdict: On wish list.

 

Music Topic of the Day: Bloc Party Live/Album Review

It's back to some good old fashion blogging for me, as I prepare for a lot more writing on recent happenings in the wonderful musical exotic world that encompasses Ak's Musical Journey. As the Prodigy concert draws near, more music purchases fly by without record, and recent Bobby and Nihal news remains without a comment on here, i felt it was time to get back on my blog adventure and write a bit about the Bloc Party concert I went to.

First of all however I just want to link to two good reviews from MarkyMark and Richy (fabulous?) Rich who've both wrote decent reviews about the concert that we attended over a month ago.

Rich's Review: A fairly brief, but interesting review of the gig, highlighting the songs that were performed and info about Kaito who were the support act.

MarkyMark's Review: Mark also provides a cool review of the gig with a bit of info about the day as a whole, and questions whether Kaito were singing in Japanese.

Like all bands/musical artists that I see live, I tend to do my research, listen to the singles, rinse the album just so that I really enjoy the performances for what they are. It also means I can sing along to the songs and usually helps me enjoy the gig more. I did that with Skinnyman back in June and ended up making the most of it. Back to the Bloc Party though, I'd already fallen in love with "So here we are" after it's airing in the Mercury Music Prize show (See previous blog) and so I was practically in heaven when I heard it performed live. It was definitly my highlight of the night. As Mark and Rich both mentioned in their reviews the singles, and album tracks were played and everyone seemed to be having a good time. I felt like a bit of a dork because I had my jacket with me, but didn't let it spoil the fun.

But I'll tell you one thing that does spoil the fun, and I'm not sure if it's just a north east thing, but when you get idiots jumping around banging in to you, or even worse throwing beer in to the air. Firstly, what a waist of beer and secondly it's probably one of the quickest ways of getting yourself in trouble. After starting relatively close to the stage, we found ourselves pushed back either by people pushing themselves to the front of the stage, or our own decisions to move away from the bunch of locals who felt the urge to jump into each other pushing and scuffling with each other. There were quite a few young people at the gig, and the girls who were near us, (before a certain member of our "crew" scared them off) were in a spot of bother not looking best pleased at the antics of the idiots mentioned. Markymark later mentioned that the Prodigy gig would be a lot worse (Will review that later), and later at home, housemate Huw confirmed that it was probably the same type/bunch of scallys that made the Arctic Monkeys gig uncomfortable. I'm not asking for the impossible here.. why not go to a gig to enjoy the music, the performance, the atmosphere.

 

After listening to the album, I can confirm that "So Here We Are" is my fave track, and although it's not one I'd rush to buy, I'll still be on the search for it on the cheap as I like a couple of the tracks including:

 

Positive Tension: Irritating, but interesting at the same time = it has a nice chorus, but the jerky voice in the verse does my head in.

Banquet: Awesome - it's quite a cute song and got the crowd going.
Helicopter: Another crowd favourite, and also a stop start song in parts. I don't actually remember this being played, but it definetly was. One of those songs that has taken a bit of time to click with me.
Two More Years: The new single wont get to number 1, although with Indie durge like Arctic Monkeys topping the charts, I can see why people might think it could've done well. The song is catchy and I like it :-) (As you can tell I don't rate the Arctic Monkeys at all. Sorry)
Like Eating Glass: I've heard this track enough times, as it was great to hear it live. It's a really cool song with some deep lyrics. I like the chorus as well.

 

So Kaito.. nothing much to say about these lot, probably because they didn't impress. Most people actually spent more time trying to take photos of the drummer as she was cute. (Note: The drummer was a man. Thanks Rich - I was thinking of El Presidenté. Wopps)  I'll make it a mini prioroty to check out their web site and find out if I recognise any of their songs, or more importantly.. see some stand out qualities might make them different to the rest of the 'drab' that this genre churns out.

 

Just came back from work, and was chatting to a guy who seems to love all types of music as well. Told him about the Bloc Party gig/Prodigy concert and he recommended the Silent Alarm Remix album. Note: His name is John according to David "God" Longstaff. Why oh why haven't I checked that album out yet!

Fave Song at the Moment: Kray Twinz feat Twista, Lethal B & G.Ranks - What We Do

Bounce. This song has been played for the last few weeks on the Bobby and Nihal show and even got an airing on the Westwood show the other day which was another example of how asian producers are pushing boundaries. The Kray Twinz have worked with the best in the business when it comes to Urban music and achieved commercial success with Panjabi MC's Mundian To Bache Ke (with the Nightrider tune). Make sure you check out all the stars they've worked with on their web site. This song is a very catchy, and is one of my faves at the moment. It's quite an achievement to fuse both Twista and Lethal B on the track who both have different flows and come from different sides of the Atlantic.

 

Song Playing at the Moment: Gotan Project - Last Tango in Paris

Brazilian Victor Rocha gets another mention on my musical journey as he sent me 4 tracks from the Gotan Project's ' La Revancha Del Tango' - (The review has some excellent feedback from fans in the UK) Each track blew me away and as I listened to the album in HMV the other day, I realised that it was a must for my CD collection. The song playing at the moment has an infectious rythem which like all the tracks is impossible to describe without using the words chilled out, jazzy and amazing. I can't explain how much of an effect this album has had on me. When I tried to introduce music 'Rani'  Noureen from Texas, to the Gotan Project, she revealed that she'd already heard of them. And there's me trying to sound clever. She also asked me if I liked acid Jazz.. then name dropping the Thievery Corporation. Another crazy shock. She'd heard of the Thievery Corporation?? This lady is full of suprises. They're music gets regular play on Bobby and Nihal's show due to their collaborations with Gunjan.

 

Albums Playing on Phone This Month: Ashanti - Concrete Rose / Kano - Home Sweet Home/ Asian Dub Foundation - Tank
Until recently, the mp3 function on my phone was mostly being used to play favourite songs, (most of which appear in the "Faves Music list" that's compiled each month) or play songs that included timeless classics that I could listen to over and over again. (Listed here) In this new section of the blog, I give a brief review of several albums that I've been listening to regularly on my phone. The end verdicts are either: Deleted/ Deleted but several tracks ripped/ Burned to CD/ On wish list/ Bought straight away.

 

Ashanti - Concrete Rose - I was expecting complete RnB dirge from this album, and guess what? That's exactly what I got from this album. Although her stand out track 'Only U' is a favourite of mine, and I've been lucky enough to dance along to this in several night clubs including the students union, I was dissapointed to hear most of her other tracks. Track 5, however has a spicey hip-hop beat, and a catchy catchy chorus, that I'm thinking of pinchng and MC-ing to it. (Yes people, I've ventured into the lyrically challengeing world of MC-ing.) 'Don't Leave Me Alone' and the remix of 'Wonderful' save this album from total deletion. Verdict: Burned to CD.

 

Kano - Home Sweet Home - After Kano's guest appearance on the Mitchel Brother's 'Routine Check' and his own single 'Typical Me', it was only a matter of time before I checked out the album. One of the first plus's on this album for me are the extremely excellent beat's on the tracks: 'Home Sweet Home', '9 to 5' and 'Ps and Q's. There are some cool tunes like 'Sometimes' and a heart-warming badboy-turned-romantic track in 'Brown Eyes' - That's one of my stand out tracks although it has a chip-munk sample in the background. (When will they learn.) It has the line - 'I dont wanna fall in love.. but your brown eyes have got me hypnotised, maybe we can give it a try.' There are some good grime tracks that have a rock feel to them, and the new 'Nite Nite' that's getting lots of airplay is a cute cute song too. Overall I'm quite impressed, and now that the album is no longer on my phone, I've found that I'm actually missing certain tracks.. so:  Verdict: On Wish List.

 

Asian Dub Foundation - Tank - I was expecting a lot from this album after hearing 'Warring Dhols' and the title track 'Tank' on the Bobby and Nihal Show. There's a good drum n bass start in the track 'Flyover' which doesn't resurface anywhere else on the album which is a disapointment. The track 'Hope' is cool, and 'Oil' serves up a mini treat as it feels like a trade mark fast ADF track should. Other than that, I didn't really find anything else, other than the last track which is called 'Melody.' This track is an instrumental, but probably up there with Warring Dhols as the best track on the album. Asian Dub Foundation is still a good album and one for the fans to take home. I read in a recent article about a performance by Faithless. It said if you want to see Political statements through music done correctly, forget Faithless (reffering to Weapons of Mass Destruction' and check out Asian Dub Foundation which was refreshing. Verdict: Burned or Deleted but ripped a few tracks. Not sure. 

 

Music Topic of the Day: Mercury Music Prize

Jools Holland and Radio 1’s Jo Wiley presented the Mercury Music Prize awards ceremony this evening on BBC 4. I decided to watch it mainly to find out the winner of course, and also to find out about the many different artists that I hadn't heard of.

 

The show kicked off with the Kaiser Chiefs and their hit "I predict a Riot". If I was a betting man, I’d have picked the Kaisers as they were the favourites to win this year and were even given odds right to the end of 6-4 by a guy called Rupert from William Hill.  If you don’t know who won, you can scroll down to the bottom of this review and you can find out.

 

Throughout the show actually, there were some excellent live performances, especially Block Party, Maximo Park, KT Tunstall and the Magic Numbers. If I was too pick my favourite artists between the acts on show today, it’d have to be between the Magic Numbers and M.I.A. For me, both have brought something different to the music scene, both have had hit songs, and then followed them up with even better songs. Although I admire the other bands/artists like Coldplay and Maximo Park, I’ve only been impressed with single songs. More on Coldplay later! M.I.A edges it for me over the Magic Numbers.

 

M.I.A entered the stage after a short documentary, both colourful and informative and her story seems quite genuine – born in Hounslow, moving to Sri Lanka, and returning to the UK to study arts. The refugee style video had M.I.A putting her mark on proceedings by talking about how life was for a young girl moving about, frustrations, what life means, with the token mention of George Bush and gosh she has such a posh accent.

 

There were bands I’d never heard of, but they all performed excellently. A guy in the band Polar Bears had a games controller on stage appearing to make his own special effects, which was very innovative. Softly spoken ‘Screech’ on the drums was musically conversing with him through out the song. Seth Lakeman performed ‘Kitty Jay’ and sounded very down to earth in his interview. His sound is described as West Country World Music and Indie Folk. Very beautiful sounds from the violin controlling the tempo the melody and the direction of the short but cool tune.

 

Coldplay’s ‘Fix You’ in my opinion is a disappointing follow-up single to ‘Speed of Sound’ and personally I think the track is over-rated. So many people on Radio 1 think its ace, saying it’s an amazing song from the album. I guess it’s like M.I.A however, where like most music.. it puts you into the category of “I totally get this” or “’I soooo don’t understand the appeal of this”. I tell you what: if you want an amazing song – try “My Way” by Frank Sinatra, The documentary after the Mercury Music Prize show was about the different versions including choir efforts, Shirley Bassey, Elvis, and even a performance by Sid Vicious and what it means to people across the world.

 

The Go Team must have left the crowd speechless with the girls in red tracksuit bottoms doing gymnastics on stage, the lively refreshing sound and very, very different from the rest.

One song I really enjoyed was Bloc Party’s “So Here We Are” – The guitar piece in he song is really cool, and the almost 2-step beat was interesting to see played by an Indie band. Markymark later introduced me to some more tracks including – ‘Banquet’ by Bloc Party and ‘Suzie’ by Boy Kill Boy which weren’t too bad.

 

Other than the Kaisers, M.I.A, and the Magic Numbers, it was Maximo Park’s ‘Gone Missing’, which really lit up the show. The live performance was great with the guitar sending shivers down my spine. It’s got such a sweet melody that you don’t associate with many Indie bands, and you just know that someone like Charlotte Church is waiting in the shadows to cover it with horrendous results.

 

But anyway – time to reveal the winner. When this guy turned up and sang his song, I was thinking “WHAT?” According to Jules Holland, he’d send shivers down your spine and guess what he certainly did. Antony and the Johnsons performed “Hope There’s Someone” which is such a beautiful song, it was amazingly performed, and although he looks like ‘Adnan Sami on a diet’, he has a killer voice that was later compared to Nina Simone.

 

In all honesty, I haven’t heard any of the albums in full. I’m hoping to get the Magic Numbers album, and M.I.A’s album but there looking at the 12 nominations, it would be interesting to broaden my horizons and take the musical journey towards more leftfield genres. I’m not so sure if this year’s winner was a total shock, with quite a few critics saying Antony might pull it off at the end, however listening to Mark Radcliffe and the guy from NME after, it was intriguing to see the reactions, especially after past shocks like the M People’s ‘Elegant Slumming’ album beating Blur’s Parklife way back in 1994.

Fave Song at the Moment: Mylo vs. Miami Sound Machine - Dr. Pressure

I heard this for the first time on Jo Wiley's show about a month back, and in the last week I've seen it all over MTV Dance and I'm in love with. Earlier, music fan Adil Walji brought the song up in conversation along with a couple of efforts by Sean Paul, and the song looks like it's going to be another hit. This song is an up to date 2005 remix of both the Dr. Beat 80's fun tune featuring Gloria Estefan and Mylo's Drop the Pressure and as some of the posts on this UKMix forum thread show, "if you listen to both tracks separately, you'll find that they're a semitone out from each other, so they work beautifully" (watever that means!) The video is crazy!! Personally I think this remix blows the two originals out of the water, carrying the best elements of both songs. I liked the Drop the Pressure original song, but I "Love" this.

 

Song Playing at the Moment: Roll Deep - The Avenue

Another favourite of mine at the moment that also samples a previous hit, this time: Heartache Avenue by the Maisonettes. Usually I'l all for promoting the originals, because without them, the newer track would be nowhere, but I guess I've heard Roll Deep's version a lot now and the rapping is great. Rich mentions the song on his latest blog entry too  so check out what he makes of it.

 

Music Website to Check out: Daniel Wolovick's Mercury Music Prize Review

Daniel's blog reviews each album that has been nominated this year giving his odds allowing us to compare with the bookies odds. I've never really followrd the Grammy's but I'd like to check ALL the nominations for the previous years.. and of course all the winners. Daniel's entry also has many comments from people who have opionons on the matter. Give it a go here.

 

Music Topic of the Day: Birthday Treat

On the 29th July, I turned 24 and went home for the weekend. Unfortunately I was home a week too early for the BABPA summer school performance which 1) my dad and sister have been helping out in and 2) I've had the privilege of performing in, in the past. Back home I managed to play some of the songs Shri's 'Tarana' and Nitin Sawhney's 'Search' to my dad from my phone, and he was pleasantly suprised at the quality of the music. It's just as well that I didn't bring back any tiresome Bhangra dirge that he frowns at. Both 'Tarana' and 'Search' are asiatic dance tunes that are on the grimier scale of Asian Music Scene. (Check out Nitin, Talvin, Sonik Guru's and the Shiva Sound System) Actually just found out that the Nasha Crew are going to be up here at Newcastles Womex World Music festival along with Nitin Sawhney! Check out the line-up.

 

I've had a history of receiving music related presents and this year was no different. My sister suprised me by giving me her 'Badmarsh and Shri -  Signs' and her signed 'Nitin Sawhney - Migration' CD. She'd also given me Pink's 'Cant Take Me Home' album but Im not sure whether that was a gift or an opportunity to get rid of it. Mum gave me a cd with some devotional religious bouncey remixes done by the Nazimabad orchestra in Pakistan. (Interesting because it originates from Garden in Karachi where my female friend Kiran once lived.) I'd trawled through my old music collection finding old Now 32 type compilation cassetes and even the Apache Indian 'No Reservations' tape that unfortunately sounded like it had been rinsed. (in water/relentlessly) Luckily however I found my first ever CD singles that I'd bought which I've brought up and added to my collection: 'Shanks and Bigfoot - Sweet Like Chocolate' and 'Brandy & Monika - The Boy is Mine'. The first singles that I bought on cassette were: 'Spice Girls - Spice Up Your Life', 'Dodgy - Good Enough' and the best... 'Fugees - Killing me Softly'. I couldn't find ' Nineh Cherry - Woman' but raar.

 

On returning to Middlesbrough I'd got two parcels through the post, an excellent tie pin/cufflink set from my bro Yusuf who's web site is going to blow you away (that's cos I'm doing it) and my housemate Deji sent up a card reader so no more pestering him for when I want to transfer music on to my phone. Put 3 albums on today: [Kano - Home Sweet Home/Ashanti - Concrete Rose/Asian Dub Foundation - Tank] so that I can rate/delete them. So far Kano's album is looking promising so will review later.

 

Pool club brought two suprise pressies and a few cards as well. RichyRich bought me the single 'Blur - Song 2' and if thats not the best birthday pressy in the world thn I dont know what is. It's my favourite Blur song, infact I'd go as far as saying it's one of my all time favourite songs ever (along with Jacko's Billie Jean and Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody) MarkyMark got me a HMV card and so I looking forward to spending some money on new music. Later that evening after the dinner, the absence of Blade (of Mark B & Blade fame) didn't ruin an the UK hip hop night with Steve, Chris and Mark at the Purple Onion. Highlights include seeing old buddy Satish who mentioned his plans for innovative new music nights and his current venture: moShine.co.uk My friend Rob and his mates sang "Happy Birthday" to me and he later made his debut on the open mic session on stage which was worth waiting for. Really pleased for the guy, who's got some slick lyrics. He encouraged me to write my own, so I'll be putting them up soon. Bet ya cant wait.

 

Quick look at music-related presents through the ages:

Birthday 95 - Walkman/ headphones from grandparents.

Christmas 95 - Michael Jackson - History Album on tape from dad/ new walkman from mum.

Birthday 96 - 1st 4 singles on tape mentioned above (Fugees/Nina Cherry/Dodgy/Spice girls.

Birthday 97 - "Daniel sent me a tape" - must've been the blood on the dancefloor cassette.

Christmas 97 - James Bond Theme Tune album, Apache Indian - Ragamuffin girl single CD :-o

Birthday 98 - Lightning Seeds: Like You Do (Best Of..) album

Christmas 98 - Ladysmith Black Mombazo album for dad - ended up taxing it/HIFI from mom

Christmas 99 -  'Sacred Spirit: Chants and Dances of the Native Americans = v.classic CD

Christmas 02 - New CD writer meant loads of CDs for family including fusion/bollywood CD.

Birthday 04 - A snazzy new Hi-fi system from the ex. Kept hold of it in the mass clearout a month later.

 

Quick Test

Never been a fan of these tests, but as its my birthday blog, I thought I'd check this "what age do you act test" found on Anicha's msn space. (pronounced Anisha)

 

You Are 24 Years Old

24 Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax. What Age Do You Act?

Fave Song at the Moment: Harj Uppal - Pukhi
Reshma aka Risherz Rishtiq was always on for a winner here when she recommended this track. This song has taken over my life. When I first started listening to Asian Underground Fusion music, there was Dr Zeus -Ah Ni Kuriye, Hunterz - Dil, and of course 2004's classic Desi Rock by Swami. For some reason this song by Harj Uppal has just blown me away. It's catchy, it's totally Panjabi and it has a real rock vibe to it. Asian music verses Rock? I hear ya in dismay, but other than "Desi Rock", you'll find more of this kinda stuff from the Bombay Rockers who continue to include a hard core mix of rock and pop to their music. I heard clips of the song as an advert for asian music, and before I could get on the B&N message board to find out what it is, I randomly checked out this track. Unsurprisingly it's already on my phone, also downloaded the video from her website and checked out samples from the rest of the album. I wasn't totally impressed with the rest of the album and I guess I need to give it a real good go, but Panjabi music doesn't always stick with me. Guess I'm more into the asian underground house-y type tracks. This track however, needs to get repped relentlessly - give it a taste, you never know what kinda world you might uncover.

 

Song Playing at the Moment: Maximo Park - Going Missing

This track has to be my favourite Maximo Park song at the moment. I really liked their earlier effort - Graffiti, but this tops it mainly because it has a really catchy melody. The guitar riff at the beginning is mesmerising, and the lyrics are really interesting. It's not the type of song I'd go out dancing too, but probably a great kareoki number for me to try. (Watch out people!) I saw the lyrics to the chorus on Markymark's msn screen name, and he introduced me to a few more tracks including "Apply Some Pressure" and "The Coast is Always Changing". I've heard these songs and they aren't bad - Apply Some Pressure is best described as quirky, but Going Missing blows it away. Pool Clubs Martin mentioned the other day that his fave was Graffiti which is an excellent - has a lot more of a rock n roll feel. I think the difference between the 4 tracks is that Graffiti and Going Missing both have really relaxing cute melodies. It's something I don't pick out often unless its soft core stuff like Athlete, Keane or Coldplay, but from what I've heard, I'm definetly look forward to hearing more tracks.

 

Music Topic of the Day: Middlesbrough Mela

Well I wrote a mini review here for the Bobby and Nihal Message board but just in case it's been taken off.. let me elaborate. I had a great day at the mela this year. Last year, I missed Raghav and didn't really have a clue about anyone who was performing, so I didn't take any notice. I was of course with the ex which this photo shows nice and clearly. (happy birthday btw) This year it was a lot more open where I'd be hanging out with my Newcastle buddy Rahim, Pool club legends RichyRich and Huw, bumping into Rehman, Itrat, and meeting my old buddy Nihal :-)

 

Ok Ok I didn't think I'd get to meet my fave DJ, but I went back stage and wooo got my pic taken with the guy. Anyway on to the review of the day: In the programme notes it said Bobby would accompany Nihal, but he didn’t turn up, in fact neither did Ms Scandalous or the PHS. The "boromela" website said that B&N would start the show with just a 15 min set which didn’t happen thankfully... So luckily Nihal stayed on throughout & I got a chance to meet the guy finally after a long wait in the sun! (Since when have we had good weather up here) We had a local bhangra group CDP who were "ok". (stands for Chak-De-Phatty - pardon the spelling/posh English accent) They had a decent fan base, loads of people down from Newcastle. There 'Wayo Wayo' track is getting played on the B&N show and I think they'll do well especially with fans like Sima who I met from the boromela guestbook.

There was Daddy Freddy, who was 1989’s Guinness Book of Record’s Worlds Fastest Rapper. He certainly was fast and he got the crowd going at the start, brought a few more people to the stage area so it wasn’t just me dancing like a lunatic at the front! I missed Shanti Dev, but the oldies loved him – I had gone for food by then – ouch - £2.50 for a small tray of Pakora’s.

Himmat Singh or as Nihal mentioned.. the asian Adam Ant sang 3 or 4 songs including the ace “Ranjha Ranjha” – and he shook my hand as I rudely/forcefully got in the way of him and Nihal. Sorry guys – I was hanging round backstage with my mate Rich pretending to be a celebrity but Veronica wasn’t feeling it and she blanked me. Metz & Trix couldn’t lend me a pen to get some autographs for my sister so I didn’t bother listening to them. They’re Streets of Bollywood tunes wrecked that album (wrecked = in a negative way) and I think they performed those. Veronica was the main act but she was on stage for a grand total of 4 mins. Totally missed her cos we were in another field playing an Indian card game (Three-Cards?). Nihal brightened the local crowd with his shoutouts, his crazy dancing, and some cool tunes. All in all, it was an ace day. I've met some more cool people as a result of my posts on the boro mela guestbook and as usual I've been promoting my blog space :-D Im beginning to wish I'd listened more to CDP's set so I can work out what all the fuss was about.

If the line-up at Newcastle's mela is good, I might give that a go. But until then.. blog ya later. 

Fave song at the moment: Prodigy - You'll Be Under My Wheels

Sometimes when I hear a song and I don't know who its by, I tend to write it as a note on my phone, and the words: "BMW Series 1 advert tune" had been there since last summer. I can't believe that I've only recently discovered this track because it's ace. My buddy Richyrich will tell ya about the lack of publicity surrounding the Prodigy's last few singles, especially with M.I.A totally annihilating the music industry with her fresh sound, but absolutely getting no chart success. (By the way searching for the word "Annihalating" on google has given me a free download of this grimey dance/electronic track - Neil McCall describes his track as "Tight & dirty driving techy hard house with elements of acid techno and trancey edge" - check it out - the musical journey continues) Back to the prodigy though, the track featured on a brilliant advert that uses an extremely creative kaleidoscope technique to sell the car.You can watch the video and download it here. Hanna's handbag blog has loads of comments regarding the advert and the tune so check it out here. Car adverts are certainly becomming a lot more than just having a car driving around a scenic location. For example after telling Marlu my Argentinian buddy about MC Escher, one of my favourite artists, I found that Audi had a car commercial using some of the impossible illustrations that Escher was famous for. Reevo's blog has a few links to the making of the advert. Slightly of the topic of music there but Marlu did recommend me the original Gasolina track by Daddy Yankee just after sister Keanu sent me the lil Jon remix. "OKAY"

 

Song Playing at the Moment: Doulli - Yalli Nasini
Talk about fusion music. This is a bollywood track mixed in with some Arabic/Morroccon Rai flavouring. Morrocon Anissa sent me a few other tracks and even had to put up with my awful rendition of the extra-ordinary "Ya Rayah by Dahmane el Harrachi" which I orginally got from Mr music himself Haider Zafar. The Doulli track samples a famous Bollywood track but you know what? I haven't a clue of what it is. When trying to sing it to Keanu, she promptly said that the Bollywood song was old and in my buddy Karen's words: WISE UP. I think the song is very catchy and pretty impossible to sing along to because it's mostly in Arabic. I love the hindi singing in it and look forward to getting the original. Anyone got a clue what the original track is?

Music Topic of the Day: I Bought Some Music - Part 2

Oh my word. Alikhan in a cheap music shop, aka a chocolate lover in WillyWonka's Chocolate Factory or even Joyti De- Laurey in Goldman Sachs. This time it wasn't Cash Converters but a massive music sale at Steel Wheels in Newcastle. There were some Albums down to £1 - and pretty new-ish singles were 50p, and there were promo singles, and a couple of promo albums. With Noureen's birthday coming up, I thought I'd get her a few things as well. Thank's to Rich for driving me up there with a heavy Matrix rock/metal soundtrack accompanying the journey.

 

Albums

Craig David - Born To Do It - After his vocals on the Artful Dodger - Rewind track and hearing his first two singles, I remember thinking.. wow. Of course now the poor guy's being ridiculed on Bo Selecta, but even I found that v.funny during the early early series late late at night. Think that was way back in 2002 when I was living at Barney Rd with Rob, Kim and Doc. His second album had a real dance floor grabbing catchy number in "What's your flava" and then two mellow efforts with "World filled with love", "Rise and Fall" and "Hidden Aggenda".

Artful Dodger - It's all about the Stragglers - This album is packed with hits. Once again I've been playing this recently in the kitchen like most of the other new CD's I've got. Artful Dodger have totally been on top of the garage scene with their two step beats and catchy songs. I dont know how they're doing now but they've got some excellent tracks on this album including "Twenty Four Seven", "Think About Me" and "Rewind". The garage that Artful Dodger do is more pop-friendly compared to other stuff I've heard but nevertheless, this album does include some great vocal talent such as Michelle Escoffery, Craig David, Robbie Craig, Romina Johnson, and Lifford.

So Solid Crew - F*** It - 2 CD Compilation - I haven't heard this in a long long time, but I used to have a copy of it and it had some good songs on it. The actual "They dont know" album by So Solid Crew had some excellent excellent songs on and they tore up garage in a big big way. Need to give this a listening to!

 
The Corrs - MTV Unplugged - I've been a big fan of the Corrs, and they sound pretty amazing live. They've got such pure voices, and some of their tracks are amazing. I love "dreams" and "Runaway" and "What Can I do". Unfortunately not all my faves are on this album, but I think that just means that Im on for getting the "Best Of.." album.

 

TLC - Crazy Sexy Cool - Although my fave track is from a later album, I've always thought this album was one of those "albums of an era" type albums. Although I can only name "Waterfalls", and "Creep" of the album, I can't wait to give this a good listening to. Actually "Unpretty" and No Scrubs are both on their Fanmail albm so I must check that out, but we'll see what I make of this one first. All this "defending my purchases.." making me tired :-D

Eminem - The Eminem Show - All though I dont agree with a lot of what Eminem raps about, and I dont always feel his tracks, and sometimes the smuttyness of his fun records shine a bit too much.... the guy is still a lyrical GENIUS. I've heard lyrics from him and thought.. how has this person come out with something so cool. He's got an extremely different style and love him or hate him, the guy is still pretty talented. Tracks from this album that he's released are: "Sing for the moment", Without me, and "Cleaning out my closet." I think when I really really like an artist I just want to have everything that person has done.. so.. guess what.. Destiny's Child is next!!

 

Destiny's Child Back Catalogue

---> Destiny's Child - Destiny's Child

---> Destiny's Child - Writings on the Wall

---> Destiny's Child - Survivor

---> Destiny's Child - 8 Days of Christmas

---> Destiny's Child - Destiny Fulfilled

I find it difficult to name my fave Destiny's Child song. It used to be "No No No" ft Wyclef Jean but when I first heard DJ Munroe's remix of Lose My Breath in the Cornerhouse night club, I really thought I'd found the best track ever. I love the remix but I also love the original. They have so many good friends and have practically ruled the 90's and kept pretty strong going through different band members, seeing certain members have amazing solo projects and so I'm extremely happy that I managed to get these 5 albums for £5. I need to get the missing albums! Think it's just "This is the Remix". The only other complete album collection Im considering is Michael Jackson, and Nitin Sawhney - both of course are Kings of their genre's.

Eternal - Always and Forever

 - Well keeping on the girl group theme, after TLC and Destiny's Child we have the UK's very own Eternal, when they had Louise as part of their outfit. Like the Corrs track this album, doesn't have all the tracks I've loved, but its a start hey? I should get they're greatest hits because there are some amazing tracks on that including "Don't you love me", "Power of a woman" and "I wanna be the only one" - Im sure I'll enjoy this though as its their orginal stuff with Louise who's single naked was cool too. Ahh the memories.

 

Talvin Singh - Ok - I've linked to a website that lists the Mercury Music Winners over the last few years as well as the other bands/artists that were nominated. Talvin Singh won the award in 1999 with his "OK" album and I've given it a listen and wow I'm impressed. I think its my ambition in life to own ALL of those albums.. especially as they'reall the cream of the crop for each year showcasing new talent, the most creative, innovative and original musicians. Huw sent me the album via msn to evaluate, and I was so impressed that I just went out and bought it. Luckily for me it was only £3 at the music sale and it's probably one of my best purchases so far. I love the grimey-ness, the house-y feel, the dance, the mysteriousness that seems to take you away from what your doing while listening to it. Music like this takes you on a journey of your own. Forget my musical journey - try taking the Talvin trip. God knows what it's like to see him live - actually my buddy Jyoti, (also a regular on the B&N message board saw him the last weekend and her mini review is here.

 

Jennifer Lopez - J-Lo

I already had the J-Lo album but I like this album a lot and as it's Noureen's birthday, the next three albums were especially for her. I've heard all her albums now, and was even tempted to get "On the six" but this one kick's its backside. This album actually had a couple of remixes as well including the catchy I'm real featuring Ja Rule. This album was one of the only albums I had ever bought where I really loved each of the tracks and so I thought it'd only be right to share something as special as this with someone who I treat as a sister :) So soppy!! "Play" is another wicked song on here, and the sleak and slender "Come on over". Ok looking at the reviews on the Internet, this album pretty much got slated. Her debut album started things of and people hearing this were quite disapointed. For me I heard this before "On the Six", I related to a lot more of the songs, enjoying the dancier numbers, the latino "tinged" tracks, and of course the RnB tracks on here.

 

Raghav - Storyteller Promo

The Raghav album... well like the "J-Lo", I'd actually downloaded this.. played it a few times, and thought.. I gotta get myself a copy of this. The guy's broke boundaries doing the Mela scene last year - I went to see him in Leicester and Middlesbrough, but amazingly both times I missed him - you know how these events go.. always start late.. He did pop into Nando's after and I managed to get signed promo card from him.. also with his order on :-| Later in November.. I actually went to see him perform in the "Legends" night club in Newcastle with my friends Matty and housemate Deji - I also managed to see Bobby and Nihal there as well.. and that's where I in-directly met Jyoti. See the review at my ak-images.tk site. Raghav's sound is a breath of fresh air in the Asian music scene, and along with Jay Sean, has been successful in making that cross-over.. and although he's a bit of a sleaze, I bought his album a few times for a couple of different people, including my best mate Shabs, Noureen, my sister, and of course myself! Phew!

Chingy - Power Ballads

I never got a chance to listen to this, so outta the 3 albums I sent over, I was a bit worried about this one. I mean.. It didn't actually have the Right Thurr single on.. but.. Chingy is Chingy.. He's still quality. I need to check this one out.

 

Singles

Bubba Sparxx - Ugly - I bought this song for myself cos it ROCKS. I love this song. The beat is infectious, I'd heard Bubba Sparxx on the remix of "Oh My" by Tweet and I liked his flow. As a dirty south white rapper, I just thought it was cool to see some fresh talent on the hip hop scene. I personally haven't heard of him since, but the tracks is cool, especially at the end when he's on a tractor in the video and the beat mixes with Missy Elliot's "Get ya freak on" which incidently is another single I MUST get.

 

Jennifer Lopez - Love Dont Cost A Thing - Ok ok before ya say it - I didn't just get this for the album cover :-$ The front cover used to be on my msn screen pic for AGES. I remember as a young lad thinking.. who's this J-Lo lass with that amazing body.

Terror Squad - Lean Back - Terror Squad - Lean Back - Those who've seen me dance, know that this is the 2004/2005 dance floor killer along with Destiny's Child's Lose my Breath. I love Lean Back, and have currently got about 8/9 remixes of the song on my computer, ranging from a bit of MC-ing by Skinny Man on Westwoods show, Lil Jon/Mase/Eminem's remix, Notorious BIG's remix, even Dizzee Rascal spitting a diss at Crazy Titch. I had this song on repeat on the Saturday that I bought this.

 

Kylie - Slow - I found the video of this song while lurking around the intranet spaces of one of my past tutors. It was actually for a presentation on design I think, but I managed to download the video, and I've loved this song ever since. The video as you can see from this review is a visually absorbing arthouse type of spectacle, slow moving, but definetly a visual feast for all who watch. <Snaps out of it> It's definetly not her best single, but its up there in my top 5 Kylie songs which include umm.. "Confide in me", "Loco-motion", "Can't Get you out of my head", and "Love at first sight" - not in any order.

 

Outcast - Ms Jackson - This song has my best friend Shab's all over. Not cos of the words or because of the video.. it just reminds me of the first time I met my best mate. She's all the way in London now, but like most songs, it brings back some cool memories of the Winter of 2001 where I also heard Spooks - Things I've Seen for the first time. God that was the time when I had my computer in my box room back home. Ouch.

Jason Downs fy Milk - White Boy with a Feather - This is quite a cool song that didn't do as well as I'd have hoped but mixed a good guitar based singer with a a bit of rapping from Milk. Not quite the rapping we've seen from the "Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc" song but a very very similar type of fusion. I remember loving this song loads and woo.. now I've got the single.

 

Moby - Porcelain - This is my fave Moby song ever. It stands head and shoulders above any instrumental I've heard, and it's definetly a stand-out track for me on his "Play" album - I managed to get the Play album in my last big scale music shop, but I had to get this song especially as it used to be in my all time top 20 fave songs. I did this list in 2001 and I still adore most of those songs.

 

Bombfunk MC's - Freestyler - This is another one of those "old skool" top 20 track's actually, and so once again I've got a hard copy of one of my favourite songs. This was a totally different sound to break the charts when I first heard it. Love it.

 

Dr Dre ft Snoop Dogg - Still Dre - Who can forget this video hey? With his bouncing cars, Dre making his comeback with the excellent Chronic 2001 album and this song once again has an infectious background tune. Reminds me of my old housemate Rob aka Dom Jolly who used to play the album into the early hours while we battled it out on Championship Manager!!

Redman ft Adam F - Smash Sumthin' - Most people know Redman for his Dirrty video with Christina Aguilera but he came out with this single before all that and I loved it. It has a famous sample and like most of the tunes a catchy bass line that you really have to dance to!

 

Blur - Universal - One of my favourite Blur songs. so calm.. so cool.. and a bargain cos it's in mint condition. Blur have to be one of my all time fave bands, and after getting their "Best of" and also seeing the loving that my sisters buddy Miriam has given them.. Im thinking WOW.
 

Blur Tender - Another one of my favourite Blur songs.. infact its in my top 3 along side Song 2, and "To the End" - The case of this CD is really cool and definitly something I'm glad to have in my collection. "Tender is the ghost, the ghost I love the most..." 
 

Basement Jaxx ft Dizzee Rascal - Lucky Star - "Round Round Round we go" - loving this song from Basement Jaxx especially due to Dizzee's unique sound. As ya can tell Im a pretty big fan of his. I saw him live at the Orange Evolution festival on the Quayside in Newcastle, and I've also not heard a bad record from Basement Jaxx either. Need to get both their albums!!

 

The All American Rejects - Swing Swing - Once again for those who know me, and have heard this blasted out on my phone, you'll know that this is a song that I'm pretty emotionaly attached to. Its one of those "break up" songs that has lyrics like.. "did you think that I would cry.. on the phone?" and "I'll find someone new" and words aimed at a prospective partner.. "can you help me find a way to carry on again" - It's one of those feel good songs that has lasted the chops and changes to my phone's mp3 play list. It'll probably be there for a few more months!!

 

=======================
I got the following singles for Noureen 
=======================
Lloyd Banks - On Fire - When I asked Noureen what kinda music she was keen on, she said a bit if G-Unit.. I frantically looked through the CDs I'd bought and thought.. arrgh I aint got no "gunit" as she says! Well luckily.. I found this CD and it's quite a cool track.

 

Ciara - One, Two, Step - Wicked song from her album, it's weird seeing people in clubs trying to dance to this, but it's a catchy song.

 

Beyonce - Work it out - After watching Goldmember a couple of times on TV, I remember asking myself.. doesn't my friend Noureen look like Beyonce. The answer is umm "no Alikhan.. snap out of it" but it was a cool mainstream acting debut and an excellent hit.

Chingy - Right Thurr - We saw the album above - but this is the single that I know Chingy for. It's catchy and with my mini speech inpedement.. impossible to sing to! "I like the way you do it right "furr/durr" lol

Trick Daddy ft Ludacris - Sugar (Gimme some) - Noureen currently holds the title of "Friend who recommends the best music" probably because she hears all the music first over there in the US. Actually Noureen does have a very good taste in music, and she's one of these buddies who's all-rounder when it comes to music so she recommended me this tune and I love it. The remix with Lil Kim I think it is, is v.cool too.

 

Mase - Breathe, Stretch, Shake - She recommended me this too! Love this track so much, and its ace to dance too. His comeback tune "Welcome back" wasn't too bad - and I've recently heard his older stuff thanks to Rich.

 

Houston - I like that - "Houston bursting through, I see me I see you.." wow. This is one of those tracks that I've literally danced my ass off too and I know Noureen loves this. So I had to grab this one!

 

The other CD's weren't necessarily my faves, but the songs are ace for example "Mario - Let me love you" is a cool song that reminds me of my friend Samia cos she liked it. When Mario did the live lounge on Jo Wiley's Radio1 show. "J-Kwon - Tipsy" and "Ja Rule ft Ashanti - Always on Time" are also great tunes, and the singles have remixes on and it just adds to the hip hop/rnb feel to the birthday pressy. "Lumidee - Never Leave You" is one of my sisters favourites and I've heard it in clubs a few times sparking people off to dance to the Sean Paul-esque reggae/Diwali rythems remixes.

Song Playing at the Moment: Supersuckers - Hey Ya (Outkast cover)
Remember the guy who recommended me Calyx? Yeh its Sarah Cakemonsters brother Rob. This time two bands, Supersuckers and Static X. I heard a few of the songs included the requested: "Evil Powers of Rock and Roll" and Static X's "Im the One"and raar more heavy stuff.. crazy. The tracks I was especially feeling were Static X - Cold - (Queen of the Damned OST) and Psyched Out and The Evil Powers of Rock and Roll by Supersuckers. They're catchy, they're cool... they're a bit raar but I can handle it. The Outkast cover is excellent. I love the original, but to have it revved up to this level is v.interesting. The original when you listen to it is quite a well produced track - lots of things going on - keeping with the 70's styles in the video. This version is a rock-ier version and It's v.catchy. Gotta take this opportunity to thank dear old cakemonster for sending a few tracks my way.. as part of her current top ten tracks at the moment I managed to get some old classics like Bon Jovi's Always, Otis Reading's Sitting on the Dock of the Bay, Jane Wiedlin's Rush Hour, and Elvis's Burning Love. Also got some tunes from the movies as well which isn't surprising as she's a movie princess on par with that lass from the Princess Bride: Star Wars Attack of the Clones - Across the stars instrumental which is beautiful and Han Zimmer's A small measure of peace (from the Last Samurai). I wont mention the two David Bowie tracks - way too embarrassing.

 

Favourite Song at the Moment: Christina Aguilera Vs Strokes - Genies Revenge
During a rare but interesting chat to cousin Asif, he explained to me the phenomenon of mash-ups. I've obviously heard the Linkin Park vs Jay Z songs, and they've received mixed reviews from hiphop/metal fans across the board, but the songs on the GoHomeProductions website are ace. The genies revenge track is my fave so far, but the "Whitney Houston Vs U2 - I wanna dance with Bono" track is worth checking out, as well as the "Destinys Child vs Radiohead - Independant Creep" track. You can get a few more mash-ups at the PartyBen web site including the slightly surreal "Gwen Stefani vs Clash - Radio Hollaback"

 

Bought Some Music: Two Albums
I went to cash converters again and instead of the rampant spending spree that they encountered last time, I only bought two albums. The first is Samantha Mumba's Gotta Tell Ya and the second is the Matrix Reloaded OST. Both are excellent buys for a total of £4.50 - You'll be surprised about how many hits Miss. Mumba came out with. One of her songs "Baby Come on Over" is a very special song for me as it reminds me of my close friend Mel Bogar from New York. She's got a lil kid now, but it's one of those songs that brings back loads of memories - coinciding of course with the movie Roadtrip which the song featured in too. The Matrix Reloaded, like the first movie's sound track is heavy metal all over. Rich played it in the car on the way to Newcastle and ouch.. head banging heaven.

 

Music Topic of the Day: Live 8 - TV Extravaganza
It's taken too long to write this blog, but its not just my blog that's been silent on the musical matters. Live 8 - yes it was a while back, but how many people can say they remember watching the original Live Aid back in '85? There's been countless re-runs of the concerts and the performances of the original including the amazing set by Queen that I'll never forget. This time round there was a fresh line-up mixed with some oldies which was excellent. The UK concert consisted of artists such as U2, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Keane, Coldplay who performed with Richard Ashcroft for a breathtaking rendition of Bitter Sweet Symphony, Madonna, Snoop Dogg (both of which really need to wash their mouths out with soap), R.E.M, Snow patrol, Sting, Razor Light, the Killlers, Joss Stone, Mariah Carey and Robbie Williams. David Beckham introduced Robbie as being a little bit shy which was funny, cos the guy owned the stage. He just came on and everyone knew the words.. his songs are excellent, which is why I cant help but wanna get his greatest hits CD! It was touching to see the Ethiopian girl who was the face of the original campaign, being introduced on to the stage, but Madonna dragging her around wasn't a good look. Bob Geldoff performed his Don't Like Monday's track. That's an amazing song. Dido performed Thank you, and was joined by Youssou N'Dour and they performed Seven Seconds. He's a legend! I missed, Stereophonics, Annie Lennox, Travis, Scissor Sisters,  and Ms Dynamite because I was flicking to see the other concerts on interactive. UB40 included Hunterz in their set and it was a surprise to see Dhol players on the stage especially after the event had been criticised for being too white. Blah Blah. The Dhol Blasters (Gurcharan) are explained here. Pink Floyd, The Who and Paul McCartney all came on after Robbie Williams to finish the show off but by that time I was exhausted. I'd started watching it at 2pm, and it was 2am before I knew it. This BBC site has given a mark out of ten for each of the performers at the UK concert. I managed to download the video footage of both Pink Floyd's set and Madonna's set, and as recommended by my client John, watching Pink Floyd was definitely a historic musical moment. Phil Daniels from "The Who" has also featured on Blur's Park Life :-D

Moving to the other stages now, it was great to see Gordon Lightfoot perform "If you could read my mind" in Canada, a classic that we all heard while watching Dom Jolly's Trigger Happy TV. (The show has an awesome soundtrack.) Berlin had A-Ha performing their famous James Bond Theme: "Living Daylights" and the concert in Berlin also had Faithless performing an excellent set of songs including "We Come One" - I saw them perform in Leicester way back in 2000. Also saw the Pet Shop Boys perform in Moscow.

America had it all. Jon Bon Jovi tore it up with some of his classics, Destiny's Child played some of their hits, Will Smith rocked the party, Black Eyed Peas, Dave Mathews Band, Maroon 5, Alecia Keys, Kaiser Chiefs, and Kanye West were all there trying their best to get the crowd going. Come on you Americans.. get off your fat bottoms and dance! Rob Thomas formerly of Matchbox 20 performed and so did the legend that is Stevie Wonder. The highlight for me was seeing Will Smith on stage performing his classics. Thats when the crowd got moving, and also seeing the mash-ups from the Collision Course album - Jay Z and Linkin Park.

A mini review about all these concerts including memorable moments/hottest acts/and comments from both artists and audience for each concert can be found here on the USA Today site.    

Song Playing at the Moment: Ladysmith Black Mambaazo - Chain Gang
What a track, I remember this being one of the killers on the "Best of.." album when I bought it for my dad for his birthday way back in 1997. Funnily enough I bought this album in tape/cassette format back then, but today as you'll see in the music topic of the day, I spent bought the actual cd. This is a famous song and once again another sang by Sam Cooke who's Soul Deep documentary (episode 2) will be blogged about eventually. I love the emotions it evokes, both happy and sad, and I remember loving it when I first heard this album. It also introduced me to "Knocking on heavans door" (with Dolly Parton's croaky voice) and "Swing Low Swing Chariot" - but the main track was the Inkanyezi Nezazi track that featured on the Heinz Beans TV ad. Interesting article about them achieving international success and not being known at home is here.

Top Review on Friends Space: MC AAG's "Veronica - Theen" album Review.
For those who dont know, Veronica is aiming to tear up the asian music scene as part of the 2 point 9 crew that features other Asian singers such as Jay Sean and Juggy D. I've not really been a fan of her music, but her Theen album has recieved some good comments in AAG's review, so I must check it out. A lot different from her Ms Scandalous review but an interesting read. Read it here

Music Topic of the Day: I bought some albums
Today was crazy, after a mental note to save some money I went mad at Cash Converters. Yes not your usual place to get music, but wait till ya get down to Middlesbrough's store. Hundreds of singles for 30p and even more albums foronly £3. Looking at my "Albums I need to buy list" it was time I bought some of them. And I'm happy to say I managed to knock one of the list. "Daniel Bedingfield's Gotta Get Thru This." With a lack of cash like usual, I was unlikely to spend loads at HMV/Virgin, so like those charity shops, town hall record sale stalls, and any ebay, cash convertors is a great place to pick up cheap CD's. I've listed the music I've bought below. Rich bought a couple of singles, as we raided their shelves, and the big box of singles. £23.70 (Would normally have got me about 2 albums.. so I did well)...

Albums
Ladysmith Black Mambazo - The Best of - This has some awesome tracks as blogged about earlier.
Michael Jackson - Greatest Hits History Volume 1 - Well the guy's innocent. Always will be a musical genious in my eyes, and I can just about forgive him for his weirdness, cos of his childhood (or lack of..) Love the music on this collection! Like the previous album, I already have the cassette, but Im building my album collection.
The Matrix - Music From The Motion Picture - One of my favorite movies with some grimey excellent tunes. Remember when they enter the club and Neo meets Trinity and the girl in the red dress? (Rob D - Clubbed to Death is super!) This was only £1.50. Bargain!
Daniel Bedingfield - Gotta Get Thru This - I downloaded this album a while ago, and loved a lot of the tracks. The title single really made me take notice of the guy, and seeing him at one of Radio1's big sunday was one cool experience. Poor soundsystem ala Skinnyman, but he beatboxed to Billie Jean and kept us entertained! Why didn't I see him live in Newcastle hey?!!! £4 though! gosh!
Romeo and Juliet - Music from the Motion Picture - Don't ask why I bothered with this, but wait let me check... ahh this has all sorts of excellent artists on it including Garbage, Des'ree, Radiohead and the Cardigans. I need to see this movie again, preferably without the ex gf ;-)
Moby - Play - Another album I downloaded, and thought I really need to get this some day. Some awesome tracks on here, including Body Rock, Porcelain, Southside, Why does my heart..., Honey and natural blues. Porcelain and Honey used to be in my all time favourite tracks along with Eminem's Stan.. More on this in a second.
Coldplay - Parachutes - Both Radio1 and the country is Coldplay mad at the moment, with the album re-entering the album charts. Some classics on here! £4.00 - gosh!
Justin Timberlake - Justified - Who said I'd lost my RnB/Hiphopness hey?? This £1.50 album was an absolute bargain. Some excellent tracks on here, including some of his best singles. Right.. on to learn some dance moves!

Singles
Michael Jackson - You Rock My World - One of the best, if not best song from his Invincible album. Am I the only one who enjoyed the album? Used to pump this out loud in my friend Drew's car - Ok it's not a patch on his earlier stuff, but if you listen carefully, you'll find that the man hasn't lost his creative edge. You Rock My World is a contender for my favourite FIVE MJ tunes. It's difficult, but it goes like this: 5) You Rock My World 4) Don't Stop Till You Get Enough 3) Beat it  2) Heartbreaker 1) Billie Jean ... arrgh... Smooth Criminal, Thriller,  Scream, The Girl is Mine, Black or White... moving on... wait.. "LEAVE ME ALONE!" how did I forget that one?
Various Artists - Perfect Day - This was a charity single back in 1997 and at £0.20 I thought why not. Has a line from each artist, and is one of my favorite songs. Used to sing it at school with my infamous mate Kingey.. "such a poiiiifect day"
Eminem - Stan - My fave Eminem single. When this came out, I was hooked on Dido's vocals, transfixed with the tragic story, references to Phil Collin's song, the video.. wow.. "hit me back just to chat, truely yours, your biggest fan this is Ali khan!!" (Yeh used to be my msn screenname/signature in emails - I've grown up.. honest.)

OK people.. to get some of you lurkers commenting.. what's your 5 fave jacko tracks?
**Goes in search of Number 1's Album**

Song Playing at the Moment: The Jam - Town Called Malice
I heard this song out tonight at the Walkabout, and the song is excellent. Both Richyrich and Markymark inform me that they've got other cool tracks as well which I'll no doubt check later, but amongst the rest of the usaul cheese, this track stood out. I've heard it loads as it's on the Fifa2004 Playstation 2 game soundtrack which I've rinsed since I bought that this time last year. I'll have to blog about the soundtrack later as there's excellent tracks by Junior Senior, and the Ceasars - Jerk it out is also one that stands out. The lead singer reminds me a bit of Damon Albarn in this song, which is probably one of the reasons I like the track especially as the guy is an awesome musician. His outspoken views have upset a few regarding Band Aid (live 8) but he's still excellent especially on his latest stuff with the Gorillaz. 

Fave Song at the Moment: Max Graham Vs Yes - Owner of a Lonely Heart
This song is very catchy, and is a cover of the original track by Yes. I've not heard the original so this isn't going to be a great comment here, but basically the video is awesome. Two kids bunk of school, and invite loads of bikini-clad women to dance. Some excellent dance moves, even a Justin Timberlake wannabe pizza boy joins in on the act, with the video ending with the kids rushing back to the school dates getting picked up by mom. "How as your day? Oh the usual!" Read some mini reviews on this forum.

Music Topic of the Day: Skinnyman Gig
Markymark, Chris and myself went to see Skinnyman at the Purple Onion on Tuesday. The gig was excellent. I'd already listened to the album before hand and I'd heard some cool tracks from it. The tracks "Council Estate of Mind" and "I'll be suprised" are the the two highlights of the album. The rest were ok, and if you're interested in the guy's council estate, and what he's gone through.. then fine. Read about his album review here. His is a unique style that combine's the rawness of Uk hiphop with his own specialised style of getting his messages across. His performance live was no difference. He had a geeky looking guy at the decks and it was his first time, so the guy was having a few probs, but most of the sound issues were down to the sound system of the Purple Onion. I was of course waiting for him to spit some lyrics over the Lean Back rythem which I heard on a clip of the Westwoods show when he did an interview there. But alas I didn't get to hear it live. He had to perform a few of his tracks as acapellas because of the techical issues, and half way through he started his political rant. Totally anti-Blair like most of the crowd. God knows who most of these voted for in the first place? The place wasn't packed incidently. It was only a small venue, and he had a small coffee table where people were buying the album and t-shirts. He had earlier asked who had bought his album.. who had downloaded it.. and who hadnt heard it! All recieving cheers. Interesting comment of the day.. "I see drug dealers selling their stuff to kids.. but today instead of rapping about them, who are the real dealers? The government have done a deal with Korea..." or something.. God.. it sounded like an episode of Question Time (or an evening out at the Pool Club)!

There were 2 Dj's before Skinnyman came on, the first playing some UK hiphop which I didnt recognise AT ALL.. but after talking with the organiser (who sold us the tickets), he mentioned that the second DJ was going to play some more mainstream stuff, (and also commented that Skinnyman had gone walkabouts.) The organiser did a bit of rapping which went wrong at the start, but he picked up with a great rap about girls having to pay for drinks for him instead of vice versa. A line about the date rape drug Rohypnol was below the belt.. but this is Middlesbro.. what do you expect? The second DJ came on and it was showtime.. his set included:

2Pac ft Dr Dre - California Love - What an opening track.. this blew the place apart.
Pharoahe Monch - Got you - Needed a bit of help for the locals for the track name, but TUNE!
Mary J Blige - Dance with me - A very chilled out track that sounds great loud...
Dr Dre - Next Episode - Brings back memories of the great tracks on his Chronic 2001 album.
Mark Ronson - Ooh Wee - A percussion-y background with 2 catchy samples - "Sunny by Boney M" and "Scorpio by Dennis Coffey" (Thanx Rich who incidently bought the single after its continuous play at the CornerHouse!)
Joe Budden - Pump It Up - The bass kills it first and foremost. "Look baby your fine but your GF's not"
Jay Z - Just wanna love you - "cant deny me, why wud u want to.. u need me"
Jay Z - Change Clothes -  This song reminds me of the end of the 2003 when I stuck this on a Nov 03 compilation CD. Ahh the memories.

The night ended with an open mic session, and various local lads gave the mic a bit of a hustling with their own lyrics over the instrumentals of Snoop's "Drop it like its Hot" and "X" by Xzibit!

Song Playing at the Moment: Out of Eden - Open up your Heart (DJ Maj Remix)
My sister introduced me to this track, and to be honest it took a bit of time to get into it. It looks like a heavy garage remix of a slower track, but it sounds good. According to my sister her mate Maj found it when spotting his name in the title. I've already had SIX visits from google searchers suprisingly:
1) "Bungee Jump Against Racism" by Nirobi & Barakas - 4th search down from an Aussy googler.
2) "All I ever wanted" by Mase ft Mya - doesn't even feature Mya - 1st entry!! from another Australian googler.
3) "When Doves Cry" remix by Aliyah - I have MC AAG on here and she's getting relentlessly repped again! You heard about her here first! 1st entry again!! 
4) "Mausam" played on Bobby and Nihals show by Nitin Sawhney - 3rd search down.  So yes.. Im all over Google as well! :$
5) "Sunit, Raxtar's official site" - This person has found my site using the Indian version of google. 1st and only entry!
6) "Dr Zeus ft Swiss - Not Your Average" - A visit from the google.co.uk - 4th Entry down

Favourite Song at the Moment: Royal Gigolos - California Dreaming (Benny Benassi Remix)
Remix = "an alternate mix of a song different from the original version, made using the techniques of audio editing according" to Wikipedia. This song is one hell of remix! I was looking for the California Soul soul by Marlena Shaw and the remix by Riot Act that's recently been used on the KFC adverts, and bumped into this remix of a completely differnet song. We all remember the original California Dreaming song, and this is one of those remixes that keeps the essence of the original, and enhances it with modern dance beats. This isnt one of those lame remixes, infact I'm impressed with Benny Benassi here as once again like all the songs I like, there's an infectious bass line that goes around your head.

Music Topic of the Day: Metal Night at the Crown (Thurs 02/05/05)
First I wanted to say that both MarkyMark and RichyRich have blogged about the night so make sure you check out their spaces aswell ok. [That's covered me] Secondly.. I had a great night. I went to the Crown a while back with Rich and that's when I heard the Prodigy's Spitfire for the first time. What a track! This time that track didn't get played, but a whole host of weird and wonderful tracks were aired, and most weren't to everyone's liking.

Metal... what metal?? The night wasn't as grungey as the last night that I'd been to, but as usual Chris, Rich and Mark all made the most of it. The Killers - Somebody Told Me track came on near the beginning of the night, which was a shock, cos this is an Indie tune, and you woudln't expect people to be moshing aroung to it.. but suprisingly people were loving it and it just goes to show that music is "transcultural" across different musical barriers. [Dad's CD had to get Plugged] Another suprise was Michael Jackson - Beat It track. Amongst the cries of "where's the metal?", I was dancing away MJ style - this track of course has the talents of guest guitarist Edi Van Halen who's guitar solo was voted 90th in the 100 greatest guitar solos. Not bad as there are 241 in that top list! The track is one of my fave's from the Thriller album and was the first time I'd heard it in a night club for quite a while.

The tunes played, listed below are catogarised as:
(a) weird music that sounded slightly out of place
(b) music I'd heard/loved before 
(c) music that was remixed 
(d) music I'm desperate to hear again.

Michael Jackson - Beat it (a) - Excellent 80's Van Halen guitar riff.
Prodigy - Breathe (b) - They should have played Spitfire, but this track tore up the place.
Andrew WK - Party hard (b) - What a tune, always remember him for his nose bleeds tho.
Europe - Final Countdown (a) - Would've been more at home at the Final Fling.
Killers - Somebody Told me (a) - Too much metal  = ouch so this was a welcome break.
Green Day - American Idiot (a) - Not a patch on the tunes from "International Superhits"
My Chemical Romance - Im not ok (I promise) (d) - What an emotional ride this track evokes. V.Impressed.
Ben E King - Stand By Me (Remix) (c) - This remix was outstanding. More on Ben next week. 
Transplants - Diamonds & Guns (d) - Dont remember much about this track but it was ace.
Pantera - Walk (d) - Once again, needed the DJ's help with this one. It was a really cool track.
Alice Cooper - Poison (b) - "I wanna taste ya but your lips are venomous poison"  Tune!!!
Nine Inch Nails - Hand that Feeds (d) - Another track I dont currently remember
Placebo - Every You, Every Me (a) - My fave Placebo songs "Sucker love is heavan sent"
Devils Dance Floor - Flogging Moly (d) - "and I thought only Bewitched's Cest La Vie was the only track to get people doing the Irish Jig on the dance floor??"
Justin Timberlake - Cry Me a River (remix) (c) - We left when this came on at the end of the night, but the remix was awesome and if I'd stayed I'd have had to gone mad. Justin's tunes are ace to dance to.. but at a rock night?

And saving the best till last... System of a Down - B.Y.O.B. These guys are tearing up the airways with this tune, and its an amazng experience singing "Why do they always send the poor?" with Rich (Aka Mosh Legend). My head's still ringing!

Now thats a what I call a review ;-)

Song Playing at the Moment: No Doubt - Star Wars Imperial March
I went to see the final installment of the Star Wars saga last wednesday after a long weekend of catchup watching all the movies. After visiting Massacre's msn space and spotting this on his music list - I thought I'd give it a go. This version has a great marching band drum feel to it at the start and appears to be a live recording of a concert they did. It's interesting to hear different versions of this track, especially as I love the orginal orchestral version. I've also found a Nine Inch Nails and Metallica version but NONE of these covers are a patch on the Rage Against the Machine version which absolutely ROCKS! I love their cover as its more alligned with the orginal but adds its heavy guitar and beats making it a good remix.

Favourite Song at the Moment: Gadjo ft Alexandra Prince - So many times
This is one of those summer tracks that's going to do well. Although it's not got a great chart placing, I think it has potential to grow. The Steve Angello/Lino Di Meglio remixes destroy the track, with the radio1 version being the best I've heard so far. It's got interesting lyrcs: "You go out every night trying to find a perfect love. You've lost the faith in yourself, you've found another loneliness" or it's "you've fallen down in loneliness" - Either way, both are deep! I like the look of the single reviewed here by contactmusic.com who mention that there's a Stonebridge remix. Stonebridge are the guys who did that "Put 'em high" song feat Therese in August.

Music Topic of the Day: Orange Evolution Festival 2005
Yesterday was Bank Holiday Monday, and the Orange Evolution music festival had reached its 'natural climax' after almost 2 weeks of Blues to Dance music in the North East. The finalé was a free outdoor event over three different stages. The acts on the three stages looked like this:

-----------------------------------------
Innovation Stage
(Spiller's Wharf)

El Presidente
The Rakes
Dogs Die in Hot Cars
The Ordinary Boys
*Mylo Live*
*Dizzee Rascal*
*Super Furry Animals*
-----------------------------------------
Imagination Stage
(Baltic Square)

Boy Kill Boy
Kubicjek
Hard Fi
Fightstar
Carbon Silicon
The Others
*The Futureheads*
-----------------------------------------
Inspiration Stage
(Quayside East)

*Charles Walker R&B Soul Revue*
Vic Godard
Kirsten Hersh
Mark Eitzel
Misty in Roots
Candi Station
*Martin Stephenson & The Daintees*
-----------------------------------------

We lined up originally at the Millenium bridge hoping to see the Futureheads at the Baltic Square stage not knowing that they were the last acts, just as well because we weren't allowed in due to the fact that we had bottles. Interestingly, the organisers didn't want you to bring bottles in, but were selling all sorts of bottled drinks, glass/plastic, cans and food once past the security checks.

We ended up spending most of our time at the Innovation Stage but unfortuantely due to time constraints, we missed the Super Furry Animals who I blogged about at MarkyMark's Hitchhiker aftermath, & to MarkyMark's dismay, we missed the Futureheads. Steve had given us a lift up and he'd mentioned that Martin Stevenson & The Daintees were a band that his uncle had played with. Although we lined up for the Inspiration stage "tent", we didn't go in, even though the music inside sounded different and more chilled. The sun was out, a few dark clouds, but no rain, and the other member of our group: Chris - well he was definately enjoying himself. No rush, no expectations, no worrys.. just chilled and as cool as a cucumber. The guy deserves an award for making the most of the day even though he wasn't passionate about any of the bands. Special thanks to Steve for driving us up as well and although he had to leave early, his contribution to the day was appreciated. Mark was unlucky to miss the Futureheads and although he was upset about it, Im sure he'll get a chance to see them soon "as he's their biggest fan".. and he also got his money's worth seeing some live acts and moshing to "The Ordinary Boys" and finishing the night with half a large PizzaHut pizza for only £2.50!!

For me, the day was great and I had a great time. I wasn't really passionate about ANY of the bands on show. I wanted to see the acts that have stars next to them in the above table and managed to see most of them. Dizzee was the only one remotely hip-hoppy but that wasn't important as I've not his biggest fan either. However when he came on, he TORE up the place. I was really impressed with his set as he performed "Jus' a Rascal", "Fix up, look sharp", "Dream" and "Stand Up Tall" - The crowd were seriously loving him and his DJ mates who were also on stage. The highlight was during "Stand Up Tall" when he started rapping over the Lean Back rythem for one of the verses. Now that was AMAZING! Mylo were good, although they played a lot of they're stale/bland album tracks first which I wasn't feeling. I'd like to get hold of the album and review it later as they single's they've released are fab. As we walked to the train station, we heard the Futureheads across the Tyne. They didn't sound too bad, and like the Super Furry's and Mylo, I only really know 2 or 3 of their songs.

On the train home, got chatting to Lydia, a young lady returning/recovering from a trip to Amsterdam. She mentioned her fave music: Ska/Reggae music (Is that stuff like No Doubt??).. and gave me a few bands to check out. So as usual.. the musical journey continues.

Song Playing at the Moment: Kylie Minogue - Confide in me (Tomer G Club Mix)
After the recent news of Kylie's battle against breast cancer, I thought it'd be cool to "big her up a bit" on my music blog. As the queen of pop, she's dominated different era's through-out the last 15 years or so starting off with "i should be so lucky" style cheese throught to this decade's pop/dance classics: Spinning around/Cant get you out of my head. In the middle of this in the mid 90's she went through a slight dip in form. The emergence of Brit pop in the form of Oasis/Blur moved people in different directions and Kylie herself started getting grimier. Confide im me definetly stood out, and this remix is one that captures some of that grimey-ness. It's one of those tracks that Streakfury Dom would be proud of as it has a hardcore house sense about it. For me thought it's a mysterious track that cropped up a while back on a top 10 Kylie hits Tv prog and I found that during the mid-90's I totally had no clue of what she was up to. The 555-Confide title heads a paragraph about this time which helped transform her into an even more accessible star. Get well soon Kylie!

Fave Song at the Moment: M.I.A - Bucky Done Gun (Bachata Plantain Mash)
M.I.A is one of these artists who can infuriate you. She has a lot of talent, and when I heard Galang, I was impressed. Bucky Done Gun didn't really have the same effect although it had the same kind of weirdness. When Rich mentioned it a few times, I tried to see past the weirdness and enjoy the track.. found it difficult and still do.. but BRING on the remixes! M.I.A has made 3 acapellas available and the resulting remixes are excellent. This Bachata Plantain mix is by Ezra Factory, and it's Summer feel totally revolutionalizes this track taking its weirdness and neutralising it with some excellent samba/steel pan type beats. Throw in some violins and ouch.. this track is the best of the 50 or so remixes on this M.I.A page.

Music Topic of the Day: Calyx
Calyx aka Larry Cons and Chris Rush are a London-based jungle/ drum n bass production team. During a music requesting session, young Cakemonster Skywalker requested "follow the leader" by Calyx for her brother, and amazingly after about a week, I found the track. Infact I found "Are you Ready", "Leviathan" and "Collision Course as well." Hardcore Drum n Bass rarely interests me, unless it's got some extemely interesting asian break beat fusion like what Nitin Sawhney experiments with. But I've been giving Calyx a go, and they have some interesting songs. I woudnt recommend this stuff to just anyone, because you really have to be able to appreciate your Drum n Bass. With your own bass turned up load "house shaking volume", Leviathan absolutely does what good old Drum n Bass does... fuses and melts your senses. "Follow the leader" is by far the best of my collection so far.. but we'll see what happens - "Collision Course" is faster but a bit more lighter. Overall really interesting to hear this kinda stuff. So thanks to Sarah's brother for recommending me them :-D More about Calyx here.

Song Playing at the Moment: Mansun - I can only disappoint you
This was one of Mansun's top hits, and out of the two songs I've got (the other is "electric man") this is my favourite. For some reason it reminds me of my old next door neighbour Nick aka Gibbo. Maybe he was a big Mansun back in the day. Maybe he wasn't. What I do know is that when this was out in 2000, I loved it. "I can only disappoint you cos I always let you down"

Fave Song of the Moment: Maximo Park - Graffiti
I heard this on the radio1 chart show today, and it's actually quite good. The lyrics "I'll do graffiti if you sing to me in french" are bizarre but the song is cool, has a catchy chorus and I found myself singing along while doing the washing up today. Theres a review of it here. On their website, I've just found that I MISSED the Maximo Park boat trip last week. Just my luck. Will have to check their album out!

Music Topic of the Day: Eurovision Song Contest 2005
An event that has evolved from the "old family around the TV" evening, to one which involves drinking games, superficial political voting, and yet again the trademark commentry by good old Terry Wogan. This years Eurovision Song Contest wasn't a disapointment however the position of Javine, the UK's entry sadly was. The UK got a measly 18 points ending up 3rd from bottom. The song wasn't too bad but trying to involve eastern beats, and a bit of ethicity had already been covered by 75% of the other acts. The turkish feel to the show was tiring, but now on to the positives. Moldova - The front man looked like Anthony Kiedis from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers - a rock tune that got the thumbs up from Rich, Chris and myself... especially after the "pensioner on percussion" turned up banging her drum. Terry Wogan as usual added light relief commenting on Moldova's granny entry, and it didn't do too bad in the end coming 6th. Norways entry was the Darkness all over, with a bit of glam rock and Bosnia's entry was a real pop Abba style entry. BBC review here.

My top 3 in the end were: Moldova, Bosnia and Greece. Greece won in the end. Their entry was one of the favourites and ended up wiping the floor at the end winning by 38 points. Chris included Turkey in his top 3 getting into the eurovision feel to it, and Rich provided the food.. so special shout out to Rich :-) (What's a good european music contest without a good old English Fish n Chips!)

Final standings looked like this: {My comments in blue/Chris's in red}
1) Greece [Deserved it] {nice song/catchy song/irish bit/weird moves with stick}
2) Malta [Bit Celine Dion-ish] {Hard song to do/Corney/good voice/well performed}
3) Romania [Incredible Stage presence w. cans] {nice looking/like steel drums/cool costume}
4) Israel [Good voice - bit Mariah Carey-ish] {Played instruments/well performed/crap song}
5) Latvia [Unimpressive but the lads did well] {Poor singing/Annoying}
6) Moldova [Deserved to win due to granny] {Crazy costumes/mad dancing/weird people}
7) .... More...

Song Playing at the Moment: Nirobi & Barakas - Bungee Jump Against Racism
Maddest name for a song award goes to this... This track like most of the asian music Im into has an infectious asian sample in the background. There's no rapping (thank God), it's just a dance record, with a funky beat, a cool sample, and and odd title. The single also includes a track called patridge which is once gain just a funky track that can be heard here. Both are reviewed here Listening to Bobby and Nihal's show online and I've heard some really excellent tunes especially: Sunit ft Raxter - "Keep it under cover" - That's just been added to my "Fave May tunes list".

Favourite Song of the Moment: Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc
Rich mentioned that the great De La Soul appear on this record, no wonder its soo good! This track got 'RINSED' today in Rich's car, much to the distaste of one of the other passengers. The truth however is, this song sounds ace no matter how many times you play it. I've had it on my phone for a while, and I just love the mix of hiphop, the acoustic bliss, and Damon Albarn's distinct voice. Ace. 

Music Topic of the Day: Vh1 Greatest Movie Soundtracks
On Monday night, the house was filled with movie nostalgia, as me and Deji, watched the countdown on VH1. The show went on forever, and threw up a few suprises, and a few unknown tracks. See the list below to see the top 25 songs. Definetly knew Celine Dion's Titanic tune would be up there but where's the Bryan Adams Prince of Thieves hit? A bit 80's orientated, but it begs the question, are there any outstanding songs from movies in the current day and age? Blue text indicates movie name.

25. All Saints - Pure Sures - The Beach
24. Prince - When Doves Cry - Purple Rain
23. Whitney Houston - I will always love you - The Bodyguard
22. Phil Collins - Against All Odds - Against All odds
21. Limahl - Never Ending Story - Never Ending Story
20. The Psychedelic Furs - Pretty in Pink - Pretty in Pink
19. David Bowie - Absolute Beginners - Absolute Beginners
18. Trust me to miss one out!
17. Bette Midler - Wind Beneath My Wings - Beaches
16. Cardigans - Love Fool - Romeo & Juliet
15. Irene Cara - What a feeling - Flashdance
14. A-Ha - Living Daylights - James Bond - Living Daylights
13. David Gray - This Years Love - The Girl Next Door
12. Ben E King - Stand by me - Stand by Me
11. Peter Noone - I'm into Something Good - Naked Gun
10. Los Lobos - La Bamba - La Bamba
9. Roxette - Must have been Love - Pretty Woman
8. Phill Collins - Groovy Kind of Love - Buster
7. Duran Duran - A view to a kill - A View to a Kill
6. Ray Parker Jnr - Ghostbusters - Ghostbusters
5. Madonna - Crazy for you - Vision Quest
4. Irene Cara - I'm gonna live forever - Fame
3. Celine Dion - My Heart will go on - Titanic
2. Survivor - Eye of the Tiger - Rocky III
1. Berlin - Take my Breath Away - Top Gun

Song Playing at the Moment: Mase ft Mya - All I ever wanted
This song was recommended by one of the ultimate RnB/Hiphop Desi fans: Reshma aka Rishtiq and is actually about 6 years old. I'd not heard it before, but it's made it on to my Faves list for May 2005 after hearing it a few times this week. It's quite catchy and no doubt it'll be 'blairing out the speakers" in Rishers' Ride. Checked out his 1999 Double Up album out on the Artist Direct website, it allows you to liisten to 30 second clips of the 18 album tracks. The album review doesn't sell that album at all, so maybe if you're a super Mase fan, you'll get it. With 18 tracks and 30 seconds each, something really needs to stand out like a guitar riff or a "sikkk" beat; Nothing stood out at all on my first listen and after talking to the God of musical knowledge: Rich.. I guess that I have to give his album another go because my initial impression was that the Mya song saves it. When chatting with Rich later and with a bit of googling, I found that it's Cherie Dennis on the track. Rich also recommended me "Get Ready" which samples the Shalamar and, later on the 911 cover: "A night to Remember." And he gave me a clean version of the song too - Good man.

Favourite Song of the Moment: Nitin Sawhney - Mausam
MC AAG aka Asian female MC Aliyah was playing this last night (14th May), and I spotted it and the first thing I told her was that the track she was listening to was amazing. She also gave me the link to an album review that was simply mouth-watering. (See Below.) This has to be one of my favourites on the album along with Search and Throw. I think after hearing most of Nitin's tracks from the Philtre album LIVE, I've become a super fan, and I've been listening to this album loads. It's definetly next on my shopping list and this amazing desitunes4u album review explains why!!! Album Review

Music Topic of the Day: Q-Tip's Amplified album
After hearing him blow up 'Galvanise' and more recently 'What the Fuss', I was intrigued to find what I'd missed from Q-Tip's past. I knew he was a part of A Tribe called Quest and after going their seperate ways, much was riding on this Amplified album. I'd already heard 'Breathe and stop', and 'Vivrant Thing' and both appear on the album. Other highlights are 'Wait' and 'Do it' which has a nice guitar piece in the background and an Akon Lonely type chipmunk voice at the end! The appearances by Busta Rhymes and Korn add a bit of excitement to the album which I think on the whole is more of a chillout album with slow tracks. The two singles really stand out. Will have to check out his Kamaal the Abstract album which incidently has been adopted by my cousin as his msn screenname and emal address. (And theres me thinking he just wanted to be called Kamaal?)

Music Website to check out: Top 5 songs 2001/02
URL: http://talk.livedaily.com/archive/index.php/t-97574.html
I found this site while looking for info on Cherie Dennis. One member of this forum had listed a song of hers in their top 5 songs. Although these are lists done over 3 years ago, some of the tracks are fantastic. I love it when people share their opinions on their current favourite songs. Scanning through the list, I've found some gems like 'Angie Martinez - If I could go' and 'Staind - It's been a while.'

Song Playing at the Moment: Iggy Pop - We have all the time in the World
Not a patch on Louis Armstrongs hit that first came to my attention when it accompanied the Guinness commercial. (Scroll down the page to get the video) It also featured on the soundtrack to James Bond's 'On her Majesty's Secret Service.' This cover appears on the soundtrack to a new movie called "The Jacket" featuring Kiera Knightley and has just been reviewed on James King's late night Radio1 show. He's reviewing loads of the latest films and playing songs from the latest movie soundtracks. 

Song that tickles Memory: Dr Dre ft Snoop Dogg - Still D.R.E
I've actually just heard this on the radio too, but this deserves a mention as it evokes memories of my early University days, way back in 1999 seeing Dr Dre's comeback and chilling with old StickyFingers Dave, and the rest of the first year housemates. This song has an infectious hook, remembered for its comedy bouncing cars in the video. The Chronic 2001 album is excellent and has excellent tunes like 'What's the Difference', "Next Episode" and "Forget about Dre."

Music Topic of the Day: Marky Mark's Hitch Hiker Aftermath
OK the title of today's topic makes it sound way more interesting then it actually is, but basically after watching the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, the lads went to Marks house and watched music videos from the following 3 dvds: 1) Super Furry Animals - Song Book Volume 1 - 'Northern Lites' and 'Juxtaposed With U' blew me away. I loved these songs from back in the day. The other vids were creative and some were funny. 2) The Futureheads Bonus dvd - 'Hounds of Love' is their most recognisable track but I like the 'Decent Days and Nights' track which has a great chorus. 3) The Streets - 'A grand don't come for free' special edition dvd - Was impressed to see a remix of "fit but you know it" with Lady Sovereign and "Get out my room".

Mark continued the music education by sticking on the Destroy Rock and Roll album by Mylo. The first frew tracks sounded good so I'm going to check the whole album out. 

Song Playing at the Moment: Stevie Wonder ft Q-Tip - What the Fuss
This song is this weeks CD burner on Colin & Edith's Radio1 show. So far it's got 204 votes saying its Great (72%) and 79 saying its rubbish. (28%) I'm feeling this track at the moment because as soon as the intro piano piece finishes, it's got the cool Eminem 8-mile beat, and Q-tip of recent Galvanise fame, rapping. I'm enjoying this track at the moment, heard it a few weeks back on Jo Wiley's show, and again this morning. Might have to check out Q-Tips old albums again - Amplified (1999) and Kamaal the Abstract (2002).

Random Song at the Moment: Death in Vegas - Dirge
Well this was a completely random song, and what a song it is. One of my faves because it's just "different" - Dirge actually means "a song or hymn of mourning composed or performed as a memorial to a dead person" according to WordNet 2.0's word search. I think I originally heard it on a Levi's advert way back in 2000, and it is kinda depressing, as it builds up with the drums and contnues its haunting "la la la la" tune.

Music Topic of the Day: General Music Round-up for the week
Well as mentioned in an earlier post, I went to see Nitin Sawhney with my mate Huw at the Gateshead Sage, so a lot of the last few weeks have involved listening to the Nitin Sawhney back catalogue with a bit of emphasis on the new Philtre album. Rashid the Moroccan who's introduced me to Rai music gave me a link to the Radio 3 World Music awards which had Khaled, the God father of Rai music performing. Coincidently that was held at the same place as the Nitin concert. The lads all went to see Mylo at the Empire. I might see them for free at the Orange Evolution Festival later this month along with Dizzee Rascal and Super Furry Animals who are the only ones out of the line-up that dominate my music collection.

Richy Rich and MarkyMark gave me the CutCopy CD which is a radio1 DJ Mix which they recieved free at the Mylo gig. My faves on the CD are: Fleetwood Mac - Tell me Lies, Daft Punk - Around the world and Franz Ferdinand - Matinee (headman vocal mix). The rest were awful, and with the CD being one long mix, it's difficult to pinpoint which tracks are which in the track listing. Those three I mentioned are the ones I recognised straight away. and the only ones worth listening to. Richy Rich's music that he was listening to showed up on his MSN so I checked out two of his songs: "Art Brut: Emily Kane" and "Do Me Bad Things: Time for Deliverance" The latter song was quite a catchy number.

Brazilian Victor's love for the spice girls' solo efforts especially Posh, Baby and Sporty, has resulted in some more songs with Portugese vocals, or even with some 2step beats. In return sent him some early Craig David/Artful Dodger garage. Cakemonster Sarah sent me the Um Bongo tune and the sister sent me a song from Sister Act 2 - Interesting. This weeks interesting album is by Lembher Hussainpuri - 2 of his songs have been remixed by DJ Sanj and Dr Zeus - one of which is: "Swiss & Lembher Hussainpuri (Jut Beat) - Not Your Average" Swiss, as you'll all know is the younger brother of So Solid Crew's Megaman, has teamed up with Dr Zeus and Master Rakesh. Cousin Aleem rang me ealier asking me to listen to the bollywood soundtrack for the movie: Parineeta. Well I listened to two songs and ouch.. it didnt "blow me away" like it was meant to! May do an ultimate Bollywood soundtrack list later. Maybe not. 

Song Playing at the Moment: Blaze - Most Precious Love
Heard this tune back in March when out on a night out for Haiders Birthday at Hush. And it's playing now on Galaxy FM which isn't my usual choice of radio station, but good old Radio1 is playing one of those songs that holds bad memories - so moving on =)

Favourite Song at the Moment:  Gwen Stefani - Hollaback Girl
Just watched the video to this from her website and once again she's broken the mould with a song thats just weird. It has a brilliant bass line, an intriguing chorus, but the rest of the lyrics are just awful. Infact the beat and video probably save this song. When I first heard this a week ago on the radio, it stuck around in my head, and it's been buzzing around with my sister also feeling the track too. Thanks to sister by the way ;-) numero uno music provider.

Music Topic of the Day: Sunderland
Ok I'm a bit biased as I'm living in Middlesbrough and supporting the Toon Army, so it's unlikely that I'm going to say anything good about Sunderland.. but hold on. It's meant to be a "rejuvenated" city and "much improved from six years ago" when it was a total dive. 1) The railway station is a dark dingey underground "clean" dungeon. 2) The city centre is drab. 3) The city centre on friday night was EMPTY. It's a friday night! Huw suggested that we might be in the wrong part of town, but I don't buy that excuse. <Wannabe Mackem!> Music wise - we went to a bar that was playing commercial dance music. Fair enough it was ok.. bit of Eric Prydz - Call on Me and some other good tunes, but the bar was fairly empty. Add to that the fact that Radio1 are spending the weekend with some BIG acts up here, it was well below expectation! Still enjoyed myself though!