N°78 MISS MONTREAL - JUST A FLIRT

Apologies, apologies. Haven't had the time or the feel good vibes to post anything. I've been sick for a few days. But here it is. A talent from our neighbour country The Netherlands: Lady Montreal.

I'm sure some of you must have thought she was Canadian or anything but she's as Dutch as tulips and windmills. Lady Montreal is a 28 year old singer songwriter who started her career in the band Ysis. In that band she was the lead singer but didn't play any insturment. After the band quit she started of as a solo artist and through small jobs in advertising campaings and duets with BLØF and Bertolf Lentink (used to be a band member of Ilse Delange) she finally got picked up by Giel Beelen a national radio DJ. He rocketed her to her first succes with the song I posted. It made number 11 in the national charts.

In 2009 she finally had her first album ready for release called Miss Montreal followed by a second album in 2010 So... Anything Else? With both albums she started touring through The Netherlands and Belgium. Miss Montreal will perform this year on a small festival in Grootebroek and now you may guess the name of that festival. No-one? Well it's called the Forever Young festival and this way it ties in into our previous song. Cool huh?

I'd like to tell you Forever Young takes place on May 11th and 12th 2012 and besides Miss Montreal the have Def P and The Howling Coyotes, King Jack, Maslov, Peter Pan Speedrock and the Loco Loco Disco Show on stage. If you might go there, enjoy it and now enjoy Miss Montreal.

Oh yeah one more fact: In interviews and in real life when she's talking, she stutters !!!

N°56 ANDRE VAN DUIN - BIM BAM

Bells make me think of church bells and stuff like that and although wanting to go in a totally different direction the chuirch bells reminded me of an Andre Van Duin song which, when I was a little boy, I found very very very funny.

Andre is a Dutch entertainer, actor, singer, whatever. He does about anything but he's most famous for his sketches, his revueshows and his funny songs. This is one of 'em. In his shows he used to be accompagnied by the late Frans van Dusschoten and Corrie Van Gorp. Their succes in The Netherlands and Belgium was huge. Later he'd become the host of many different tv shows. In between he released over 30 full albums throughout his career and as many singles. He'd score 3 number 1 hits: Willempie is the first (and probably most known), Bim Bam his second and in the 1990's he scored a third top hit with his Pizzalied.

In 2004 he celebrated his 40 year old career and he dis so with a complete new theater show. At the moment he's working on  another show to be premiered ... yesterday !!!! Andre was celebrated many times with a huge number of awards.

The song above by the way is based on Edith Piaf and Jean Villards, Les trois cloches.

Greetz

N°36 B-A-B-E - IETSIE BIETSIE BOE, GEEF MAAR LEKKER TOE

B-A-B-E is a Belgian/Dutch girly formation formed by 3 blondes with some background in the world of showbiz. First of all there’s Tanja Dexters, an ex-Miss Belgium, presenter of different events and free lance singer (not the best voice though). Second we have Lesley-Ann Poppe; a big breasted sort of Pamela Anderson wannabe look-a-like who got her ‘fame’ from participating in culinary tv-shows. And Finally there’s Griet Van Hees, who reads the news at a regional tv station. She’s also a model and fashionista. Three blonde bimbo’s who want to be in the spotlights for sure. The singing isn’t even what it’s all about in my opinion. I wish them luck with the group.

Anyway, I know of 2 singles they recorded and some covers. I’ll give you one of the singles so you can judge for yourselves.

B-A-B-E doesn’t even exist at the moment anymore under this name since they got into a fight with the management team. Tanja and company quit with the management and restarted the same band under a different name. Pretty sure I don’t need to look up the name for anyone.

Anyway, Enjoy this beautiful music.

Oh the  link is a bit far fetched -> LeAnn -> Lesley-Ann. Sorry.

N°26 PETER KOELEWIJN - ALICE, WHO THE FUCK IS ALICE?

A very short post this will be since I'lm not using my own laptop. A wrecked modem puts me without the internet so I'l dependent on whatever pc I can use. For weekdays I can prepare the texts at home and take them to my work and post it during my lunchbreak but at weekends .... hope it gets fixed soon.

Anyway ... here's famous partysong from the 90's which reached the top position in the Belgian and Dutch charts. It's a cover off course but the 'Who the fuck' lyrics made it a bit funier. It's not his first number 1 hit since Peter Koelewijn, a Dutch singer also scored hits with 'Kom van dat dak af'. Translated that would be 'Get your ass of the roof'.

Peter is not only a singer. After his 'Kom van dat dak af' number 1 song he started to concentrate more on producing than on his own songs. Although he kept performing with his band The Rockets his DJ performances were more famous. In 1973 he'd score another big hit with 'Angeline, de blonde sexmachine'; translated as .... I guess it clear to you all? As you can see his songs were never to be taken serious when it came to the lyrics. The same counts for the titelsong in my blog.

Untill today he keeps producing songs from local (Dutch and Belgian) performers and from time to time he keeps contributing and/or singing on different songs as he did with Pater Moekroen in 2008 on the song 'Het zit er niet in dat ik oud word' - 'It's not meant to be that I'll become old'.

N°3 HIND - SUMMER ALL OVER AGAIN

We'll stay in Holland for now and the next link is an obvious one. Hind is an ex-girlfriend of our previous performer Brainpower. She's been 'discovered' in 2002 in a tv show called The Soundmiwshow where she made it into the final singing a Vanessa Williams cover. The year after she took a shot at the Dutch version of the world famous tv program Idols. Hind was eliminated in the semi finals but The Netherlands embraced a new talent.

Hind, who's full name is Hind Laroussi Tahiri, is part Dutch and part Morrocan which has a huge influence in her later career as you can hear in the enclosed video clip. Summer All Over Again is her very first single released in 2003 from the same album.

Her second album released in 2005 wasn't as succesfull as her first but she kept trying to score another radio hit. At the Eurovisionsongcontest 2008 in Serbia she represented The Netherlands with the song 'Your Heart Belongs To Me" but she had to survive the semi finals first before competing for the win. She didn't make it to the top 10 in her semi-final and got eliminated early in the contest. Kind of the same problem Belgium always has.

For those whe never heared of the Eurovisionsong contest: It's a contest in which all the European countries participate with one song representing their nationality. The contest is always held in the previous winner's country. Belgium won in 1986 so we organised it in 1987... Since there are too many countries participating there are 2 semi-finals held the week before the actual final in which the top 10 can qualify to the final itself. Points are given by all the fellow European countries and vary from 12-10-8-7- up to a single point. Usually neighbour countries are benefitting each other so it's not that easy to win the contest itself but maybe with a very very very good song Belgium might catch a second win sometime.

As you can read this opens a lot of options for the next link (idols - eurovision song contest - moroccan music - ...) Wait and see !

N°2: BRAINPOWER - DANSPLAAT

 

We're moving up north to our Dutch neighbours from Brainpower. That's the artist name for Gert-Jan Mulder, a Dutch/Belgian (born in Antwerp but his parents are both Dutch) rapper. He's a big name in the underground hiphop scene and always working on new projects with upcoming talents. Gert-Jan has been collecting TMF-Awards ever since his first album was released in 2001. Dansplaat is in Belgium and The Netherlands the biggest hit Brainpower had.

"Dansplaat" is translated in English as "Dance Album" and thus this makes a perfect link into the previous post. 

Go ahead and practice your breakdancemoves !