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°77 ALPHAVILLE - FOREVER YOUNG

For those amongst you who actually expected Alphaville in the previous link I’ll give you what you want. No problem with bringing some eighties music. 

They’re a German poppy synthesizer band founded early 1980’s and untill today they are still producing new records. Their latest album is titled Catching Rays On Giant and was produces only two years ago in 2010. In between this first album, from which Forever Young is the title track, in 1984 and Catching Rays they created twelve more original albums  (no best off or anything) of which one live album called Stark Naked and Absolutely Live. You could say their Singles Collection album is some kind of Best Off album though.

Alphaville actually started off under a different band name which was a bit gay to me. It sounded …. Forever Young so with this song we have the new band name and the old one combined in band name and song name. Alphaville became the band’s name just before the release of the first album in 1984 and it was based on the movie Alphaville. Anyway it sounds way cooler.

At the moment lead singer Marian Gold is the only remaining founding member. Bernhard Lloyd left the band in 2003 after a taning succes in the nineties and twennies. Frank Mertes left the band right after their first succes with the singles Big in Japan, Sounds Like A Melody and Big In Japan. Started ad a three man band they’re now a quartet with Marian Gold, Martin Liser, David Goodes and Pierson Grange. No German sounding names anymore.

I’ve chosen a song from their first album since that album contains the most hits. I don’t know any of their recent songs but since they’re still performing and recording I guess the rest of the albums aren’t crap … at least for the fans that is.