The police was a 3 member band formed in 1977 by Gordon Sumner (aka Sting), Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland. Although they existed only seven years they were of greatly inluence for late 70's and 80's music. And even that's not completely correct. The Police never really split; they took a break for the many solo projects each of the band members had. In 2007 the three of them decided to do a reunion tour celebration their 30th anniversary. During that tour Sting's son, Joe, would play some of the gigs as the supporting act with his band Friction Plane. Friction Plane is also an anagram of Infant Police referring to his father's band.
Their many many hits have been influenced mainly by Bob Marley's reggea music. Reaggea mixed with rock and pop which you can here in songs like "De doo doo doo, de daa daa daa", "Message in a bottle", "Walking on the moon" and espacially in the one I posted: "Roxanne".
Sting wrote the song, a story, based upon some prostitutes near his hotel whe he spent some time in France, also inspired by a character in the play Cyrano de Bergerac, which he saw in Paris. Those two combined made him write lyrics as "you don't have to wear that dress tonight".
Since this is the official recorded track, did you notice the out-of-tone piano chord at the beginning followed by Sting's laughter? A little hick-up when recording the song but they decided to keep it in the record.
Linking this one was quite easy. Joan Wasser was Jeff Buckley's fiancee at the time of his death. Although she's been playing the violin since the age of 8 she only started to think about a real musician's career after Buckley died. After having played in several small bands she created Black Beatle, together with the former members of Buckley's band. They lasted until 2002 but never released an EP.
From this moment on Wasser went solo and Joan as police woman was born when Ben Perowsky joined on drums and rainy Orteca on bass. Joan is the singer, songwriter, guitar, violin and keyboard player. Throughout the years different musicians joined the band on different occasions.
Joan as police woman thanks his name to a 70's cop series. Apparantly she once had her hair done like the main character Police Woman in that series and from that moment on her friends would relate her to that series.
The band released 4 albums so far. Real Life in 2006, followed in 2008 by To survive. She recorded a series of cover for her third album naturally called Covers. Her latest album isn't even a month old since it gave birth on January 25th of this year. Therefor I've chosen to link their newest single called The Magic, wich is a very good song. If you like this you'll probably see her appear on different festivals this year. You might want to catch a glimp of her before she puts her sirens on and speeds away.
It's not that i'm very religeous or anything but I simply couldn't pass this uterly beautifull version of this song. Although the original song by Leonard Cohen is also a rock solid piece of art I think this performance grasps straight to anyone's throat.
Jeff recorded this cover back in 1993 for his debut album Grace. Actually, apart from an earlier EP called Live at sin-E, that was his only album released during his time amongst us. Jeff Buckley died way too soon at the age of 30 on May 29th, 1997. His dead was, just like all great artists who die too young, quite tragic. On his way to the studio, ready to record his second album, he and a friend stopped to take a short swim in a lake called The Wolf River Marina where he drowned. Off course more albums were released posthumous like live recordings, live performances and one with songs from 1991-1992. I think Jeff Buckley fits perfectly in the same category as Kurt Cobain, Michael Hutchence and many others. Great artist who died too young and who could have given us many more great songs. But then again this is also a part of the myths.
The musical genious was passed on to him by his father Tim Buckley who was a well know folk artist in the 60's and 70's. Tim also died very young at the age of 29and if you look at pictures of them both you'll find many more similarities.
I sujest now to close the curtains, make it real dark and light up a few candles, close your eyes and clear your mind and put this song on infinite repeat. You'll never know what hit you.
Off course I've chosen to walk the Eurovision contest path especially because I'll always remember where I was when this song won the contest in 2006. I was in holiday in Rhodos, Greece at that time and I didn't watch any of the songs participating that year. Actually I wasn't really aware there was this metal rockband from Finland wearing masks and cosstumes. But as soon as I heared the news I was thrilled that a band like this actually won.
The day after I even had a discussion with a Greek lady who thought the monsters should have won since that wasn't even music and she couldn't see if they sang it live. Off course they roared it live and off course the show was more important than the song itself but then again it was a pretty damn good song. Once I heared a stripped down version on the radio sang by a Belgian singer, playing it on an acooustic guitar and it really really sounded good. If any song holds it up when played accoustic it's a damn good song and I'm saying this with Nirvana in the back of my mind.
Anyway, Lordi. They're from Finland and they all wear masks and go by beast names. They even wore their mask throughout the whole week at the contest. Up till now there's merely speculations on who's who in the band. Another fact is that the Rovaniemi square in Rovaniemi, Finland was renamed to Lordi Square after their victory in 2006. They made 8 albums in the past 11 years and they toured with bands like Nightwish and Type-O-Negative.
Lordi also participated in creating two movies. The Kin came out in 2004 and is a shortfilm about a novelist trying to publish a book about superhuman monsters (played by the bandmembers) who kill people. The band co-wrote this short movie but although they participate in it at no point their music is played.
In 2008 they wrote a complete movie called Dark Floors. This ones about an autistic girl who gets stuck in a hospital elevator together with some other people. When they finally reach the next floor the hospital is abandoned apart from some monsters which are again the Lordi group members. Only in the end credits you'll hear a Lordi song.
As you can read there's plenty to tell about these crazy Fins but i'll leave it for now. Just open up your mind, watch and listen to their performance in the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest Finals.
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 !
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.
Triggerfinger is a band I got to know at first by a friend of mine about 4 years ago. It consists of the charismatic lead gitarist and singer Ruben Block, basist Paul Van Bruystegem aka Monsieur Paul and drummer Mario Goossens (also known from Belgian bands as Noordkaap and Monza)
They started of in 1998 with a first album in 2004 called Triggerfinger followed by What Grab's ya in 2008. All This Dancin' Around is their 3rd studio album made last year and this album is their absolute breakthrough in Belgium. As you can see in the video below Triggerfinger is known for their fantastic live performance.
At the moment the title song of their 3rd album is at number 1 in 'De Afrekening' at Studio Brussel and that's also why I've chosen to start with one of the best Belgian bands at the moment.
Oh yeah, I've seen 'em at Pukkelpop 2008 and they rocked ! (For some reason I missed them the year before ...) So whenever you see them this summer in the line-up on a festivel: GO AND WATCH THEM !!!!
Inspired by the many, many youtube links I get on facebook I came up with the following idea:
Starting from a random chosen song from a random chosen performer I seek a link into the next song I will post. I'll try and give some basic information about song, performer, ..., or anything else what could be of any interest. I'll also explain the link with the previous song off course.
If anyone reading this blog should have a nice link with the last song you can always post this into the replies below the last song posted. I promise to see into it and I just might use it from time to time.
I hope my readers will take the time to listen to most of the songs posted here and just perhaps you might discover that very special, but to you unknown, song.
The hardest part of it all was to choose a 'random' song and at first I'd wanted to start this blog with One from my all time favourite band Metallica. It had great potential to continue to the next song but then again I'm pretty sure One will pass at some stage int the link. Then again I'm pretty fond of a homegrown Belgian band and I've chosen their recent hit in my home country.
Updates will be posted every weekend and (probably) Wednesdays.
I hope you all enjoy it.
P.S. Layout of this new blog will also be updated in the near future :D
