8Bit Heart is on its way 🙂 The talented Simon Curtis is less than 100 followers away from the target of 8,000! What a great way to kick off the recent b-day boy’s 24th year!
UPDATE on March 21: Simon got to 8,000 followers today 🙂
Simon’s mixtape has 10 songs, so here are some clues 😉
d–‘- w—- — –o–
-e– — —e -i– — –d—d
—-r —c– —e
8Bit Heart
Diablo
Delusional
–y—–
–a- –o-
-r—-a–
the —-
OK I’m done teasing 😉 So all you have to do now is wait!
Below is a cast pic of the leads of last year’s Nickelodeon movie Spectacular! which co-starred Simon.
I find so many wonderful, interesting artists and songs online, and it’s so very hard to keep up with them all.
Elspeth is a five piece band from Newry and Belfast, Ireland, featuring band members Leo, his brother Gerard, and friends Jonny, Davy and Phil. They describe their influences as ranging from Radiohead to Simon & Garfunkel, but there are so many. The great thing about being unable to pinpoint very specific influences is that the sound of a band or artist is generally pretty broad. So while we can hear Radiohead, Bob Dylan, perhaps even The Smiths, as the band mentions on its MySpace page, we can make our own comparisons as well.
I found myself thinking of fellow Irishmen The Script, in terms of melody anyway, and then lean towards Tom Chaplin of Keane for vocal similarities. Their song structure is quite beautiful and unique, and it’s no wonder that Elspeth is being cautious about putting out a record. The band hopes to find an EP officially released later this year, but for now their music is available to you for free as download via Soundcloud.
Among several splendid tracks, check out “Old Age” below and download it! So hopefully here’s a bit of the luck of the Irish for Elspeth on St. Paddy’s Day! 🙂
It goes all the way back to the disco days of the 1970’s when I did dance mixes using vinyl. I’ve done them all through the subsequent years, but they always end up being a mix of pop, dance, rock, and R&B – not like the beat-matching disco of the 70’s or the beat-matching electro of today.
So while you might not consider this one to be a dance mix in its true sense, it’s a good sampling of some of my current favourites – 18 of them – all in 32 minutes! For some songs you get a minute or so, for others close to 3 minutes. I’m proud of some of the mixes – couldn’t likely do some of them with turntables – others, well, will at least catch your attention 😉
Here’s the rundown of the 18 songs. Your comments would be welcome, particularly if you would like to see more of this kind of blogpost in future 🙂
The Ides of March are upon us tomorrow, and Daylight Savings Time has hit. Spring is, well, springing in advance in Toronto, and my work schedule is lightening up a bit to take a few days off this week. That usually means I get to play a lot of music and get caught up with new releases.
So while this edition of my personal chart(link also to the right under ***BILL’S PERSONAL CHART***) is chock full of stuff, the chart activity is pretty minimal. But we do have a new #1! Lady GaGa gets her first chart topper here with “Teeth”, which I think is just an incredibly wonderful and fun song. It will be competing with Penguin Prison’s quirky and amazing free download “Something I’m Not”, which moves from its debut position of 11 to 6 this week. (NOTE: Simon Curtis fans fear not – though “Delusional” will leave the chart after this one, since it’s lasted the maximum 10 chart appearances, new music from Simon is coming soon 🙂 )
A lot of the activity in the chart takes place outside of the Top 10, where there’s a passel of songs battling it out among each other. The more I listen to “Hallelujah” by Justin Timberlake, Matt Morris, and Charlie Sexton, the more I appreciate the careful harmonies and how close it comes to Jeff Buckley’s definitive version – especially given recent renditions of the song which I’ve heard in the past few weeks. Jason Derulo’s “In My Head” is an almost-singalong carried by a great melody. Dan Black’s pastiche that is “Pass That Head Noize” keeps winning creativity points from me, while “Don’t Stop” by Annie is pop/dance at its most adorable.
Evan Taubenfeld’s “Starbucks Girl” is gonna keep moving up my chart until I tire of it, even though it’s only available now on YouTube (I can still hope for a bonus live version on his upcoming CD, can’t I?). Example’s “Won’t Go Quietly” puts me in a good mood (which I’ve needed these past few weeks) and climbs 25-17, the Fastest Riser on the chart. Justin Nozuka’s “My Heart Is Yours” is right behind moving 27-20, an emotional ballad whose closest companion on the chart is “Hallelujah”. BT & Christian Burns’ “Suddenly” gets stuck in the middle but should find its way out of it in two weeks. Other debuts from last week by Pink, Javi, Ellie Goulding, and Vampire Weekend should also strut their stuff in the coming weeks.
Right now I can’t get enough of the energy from songs from Clayton Senne’s Wonderland CD, so the title track debuts at #24. I had this fascination with Massive Attack back in 1994 when they released the splendid Protection CD. After that they remained interesting to me but dropped off my radar. Now reduced to a duo, they seem to be back in the same form as 15 years ago with their new CD Heligoland, from which comes the murky, foreboding sound of “Girl I Love You”, featuring vocalist Horace Andy, at #25.
My final debut is timely. This song has been popping up on my iTouch shuffle in my car a lot lately. I saw the band open for The Midway State in Toronto last summer and was impressed at how tight they are and how lead singer Shaun Frank wins over the audience. Toronto’s The Envy signed this week to Gene Simmons’ record label, so expect to hear more from them soon. “Don’t Let Go” debuts at #29 and is available to you for free by subscribing to their newsletter at their MySpace site. Below’s a video of a recent live performance of the song. Enjoy 🙂
When I’m not digging round the ‘Net trying to find the scoop on some great new music, I often refer to many fellow bloggers for information. One of those terrific blog finds is Paul Reynolds’ My Fizzy Pop (also see Blogroll link to the right)!
This week, Paul tips us off to some updates on two of my 10 Performers to Watch in 2010. Sweden’s Måns Zelmerlöw stirred up pop delights in 2009 with his stunning performance of “Hope & Glory” on the Melodiefestivalen TV show contest, as well as with a varied bunch of songs on his MZW release, my favourite track from which was “Rewind”. Måns guested on Melodiefestivalen this year instead of as a contestant, and MyFizzyPop tells us all about his respectable take on Duran Duran’s James Bond theme “A View To A Kill” right here!
Paul’s second scoop was about that wonderful lad Sam Taylor, he of my favourite song of 2009 “Run Away”, who has entered the Eurovision contest this year as part of UK group Uni5. The vid below gives us an introduction to the quintet. And if the voices are all of Sam’s calibre, well the UK will certainly have a winner!
After today’s looooonnnng day, it seems like talking about yesterday’s iTouch shuffle mix on a trek into downtown Toronto seems so….. well, yesterday. But it’s a good, interesting mostly retro mix that I want to share with you.
Karyn White “Romantic” (1991)
Boys Brigade “Into The Flow” (1983)
matchbox twenty “How Far We’ve Come”
Royal Society “You Say (It Was Supposed To Be)”
Bram Tchaikovsky “Shall We Dance” (1981)
Elvis Costello & The Attractions “(I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea” (1979)
Gavin DeGraw “Follow Through”
OneRepublic “Stop & Stare”
Red Hot Chili Peppers “Scar Tissue” (1999)
Maxi Priest featuring Shaggy “That Girl” (1996)
Suzanne Vega featuring Joe Jackson “Left Of Centre” (1986)
Grace Jones “Private Life” (1980)
“Private Life” was a cover of a Chrissie Hynde tune from Grace’s CD of cover songs called Nightclubbing. The video for that song wasn’t so hot but I did find the classic video for the now 61 year old Grace’s cover of Sting’s “Demolition Man” from the same album. Enjoy!
Could Lady GaGa get her first #1 on this chart? While Mika’s “Rain” reigns steadily with former #1 “Delusional” by Simon Curtis right in tow, “Teeth” by Lady GaGa charges 12-3 to become her biggest hit on this chart, surpassing the #4 peak of “Bad Romance” and the current #4 position of “Speechless”. It’s really hard to say what’s my favourite song from The Fame Monster, I could pick and choose between the three and be very happy. Not to take away anything from “Teeth” (whose King5kat remix is outstanding) or even “Bad Romance”, but there are other challengers that could get to #1 too…
Also new to the Top 10 besides “Teeth” are Blake Lewis’ retro happiness of “Heartbreak On Vinyl” and “Pick Up The Phone”, the plea from the dancefloor by Dragonette. But just outside of the Top 10 is our first debut, and it’s the highest one in quite some time.
I lumped Penguin Prison’s “Something I’m Not” in with last week’s highlighted songs, but the tune has grown immensely on me during the last week to make it one of this year’s must have records, and it debuts on the chart at a huge #11! And the great part of it all is that it’s a free download! Chris Glover has a massive talent up his sleeve, and it’s too bad Interscope Records didn’t take him up on it as cited in this excellent story about him. I’m not sure if “Something I’m Not” can get to #1 next week, but it will give it the old college try! Do check it out – you will miss something special from this talented singer/producer/remixer otherwise!
Next, I have to comment about Evan Taubenfeld’s terrific track “Starbucks Girl”. Because of its connection to Starbucks, and Evan’s fans’ reaction to his use of autotune, the song has been pulled from the Welcome To The Blacklist Club CD and is no longer available as a free download. And that’s a damn shame. As is, “Starbucks Girl” has immense appeal, and the excellent, simple video expands on that appeal. Sure, I said that I’d like a version without the autotune too, but to no longer make the original version available is a mystery to me. Watch the video yourselfand decide! The song still moves up 25-20 on the chart!!
The chart is full of massive activity this week. P!nk’s Grammy performance of “Glitter In The Air” is her best record in more than 6 or 7 years, and debuts at #23. New Yorker Javi, of Puerto Rican and Panamanian background, debuts at #24 with the gorgeous European-sounding Monsieur Adi remix of “Situation” . UK’s Example could give Calvin Harris a run for his money with “Won’t Go Quietly” at #25. This song may seem a little static at first but it really grows on you. Then blog-darling Ellie Goulding arrives at #26 with “Starry Eyed”, which has many remixes (including one by Penguin Prison), but my preference is for the shimmering retro Monarchy remix. Justin Nozuka’s fans light up this blog as his new CD You I Wind Land and Sea gets closer to release. “My Heart Is Yours” bows at #27. And finally, Vampire Weekend enters the chart at #28 with “Cousins”. The indie band scored a #1 Billboard album with Contra a few weeks back.
One last piece of housekeeping: I don’t think I’ve mentioned it since I started this blog last Fall. I have one rule on my personal chart. Songs must leave the chart after 10 appearances (20 weeks). This allows a fresh rotation of songs to occur, but it doesn’t prevent them from re-entering at a later date, though this doesn’t happen very often. Both Mika’s “Blame It On The Girls” and Dan Black’s “Alone” left the chart this week for this reason.
Part of my ongoing quest for great music lo these past 30 years or so is to seek out artists who are “The Real Deal”. Kansas-born Clayton Senne is just that. Now based out of Florida, Clayton has been working his CD Wonderland for the last year or so and has been touring throughout the U.S., currently focusing on the mid-west and southern states.
One listen to the title track will conjure up musical memories of other recent piano kings such as New Yorker Ben Jelen, but the power of Clayton’s voice and the energy in those magic piano fingers of his lead directly back to pop icons like Billy Joel. There’s blues and soul in Clayton’s musical upbringing because the live songs on his CD and MySpace sitecome from way down deep inside.
Wonderland is available for a very reasonable price on iTunes. Keep your ears tuned for further information about Clayton Senne because those Real Deals are few and far between!
Dan Black’s show at Wrongbar in Toronto on Saturday, February 20, 2010 showed a lot of promise for this UK musical mad scientist whose debut CD UN I have been listening to for months now.
Black is an engaging performer, and he was in great voice, wearing stylish red and white war paint on his face, but unfortunately didn’t get the response that he deserved from a club crowd looking for a regular Saturday night out. The complexity of Dan Black’s music commands attention, and only a select few of the crowd was willing to give it. Black made the most of a very small stage – he deserves a huge stage full of props that would expand his story-telling and allow him to let loose – accompanied by two musicians (guitarist/percussion, and bass) instantly revving up the club with “Pump My Pumps”, and continuing on with great songs like “Alone”, “Cigarette Pack”, “Yours”, and of course “Symphonies”, which unfortunately seemed lost on the crowd. He even worked in some of his mashup work from mixtape Weird Science, such as the rollicking “Pass That Head Noize”.
There wasn’t much of a crowd when he began shortly after 11:30 but by the time he finished at about 12:20 the club was packed. I was definitely left wanting more – he disappeared into the crowd to sign autographs but I couldn’t locate him – but figure better showcases were to be had in New York City, Los Angeles, and Montreal.
Toronto is definitely losing its edge in terms of what audiences seem to want and don’t want in a club setting, and it’s no surprise based on concerts like this that someone like Dan Black might return as an opening act or on a multi-artist show. So once again I feel very fortunate in seeing this show and the remarkable talent on display, however restrained it might be given the venue and audience.
I snapped a few pix but unfortunately my Blackberry doesn’t give very high quality shots. I doctored one pic up to interesting if unintended effect using Adobe Photoshop. At least it’s proof I was there 🙂
So many good releases will be upon is in the first half of 2010, it’s getting hard to figure out what I want to hear and succeed more!
Simon Curtis is over 7,500 followers on Twitter. He’s promised his mixtape 8Bit Heart will be issued when he gets to 8,000 – whether or not that’s preceded by another single is a good question right now… and there are gonna be several great songs from which to choose! And take a look at the provocative website of photographer Tyler Shields! He’s shooting the artwork for 8Bit Heart! Follow Simon on Twitter!
UK fave Sam Taylor is teasing us with snippets of a wonderful new song called “Every Time We Fall”. You can find excerpts of it on You Tube (below) or his MySpace site. As I mentioned last month, Sam’s looking at giving us a full song when he gets to 1,000 Twitter followers. So, as with Simon, follow Sam on Twitter !
Justin Nozuka’s been pretty generous with two singles already out, “My Heart Is Yours”, which appears be out in Canada and the U.S., and “Woman Put Your Weapon Down”, which is U.S. only. The new CD You I Wind Land and Sea will be released soon, and there are many glimpses of Justin’s songs from this CD that you can find on You Tube, like this one, below.
It’s February 20 and I’ll be seeing Dan Black’s show in Toronto at Wrongbar tonight!! Really looking forward to seeing what Dan has to offer in a club setting, and hopefully I can report back on the show tomorrow. The deluxe edition of his CD UN is now available in North America.
Plus… three great new songs:
Ellie Goulding’s “Starry Eyed (Monarchy remix)”
I’m hit and miss on some of Ellie’s songs, which have been gracing the Blogverse for months now, but this subtle remix is unique with a dash of late 70’s flavour.
Chris Glover is Penguin Prison, and he’s been remixing many other artists’ songs lately (including Ellie Goulding’s “Starry Eyed”!). This American talent really mixes up the music styles in “Something I’m Not” – a little bit of something for everyone, without it sounding like the kitchen sink was thrown in for good measure.
Vampire Weekend’s infectious “Cousins” – I love tidy, fun songs done in two and a half minutes!
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