NEW 'MY FRIEND THE CHOCOLATE CAKE' VIDEO:
















One of my favourite bands from Australia 'My Friend The Chocolate Cake' have just released their new full length cd titled 'Home Improvements'. Their lead vocalist David Bridie formed Not Drowning Waving back in 1983 and a few members started MFTCC in 1989 as a side project that eventually became their new band after NDW split up in 1994. David Bridie has also released some great solo records and is always composing music for film and television projects. The band has some tour dates in Australia in April/May, but it is unlikely they will make the trip to North America as no one is distributing their material over here (I did see David Bridie live when he was in the city promoting his 'Act Of Free Choice' cd, amazing performance).

Below is a link to the video for the title track and first single from the album. If you aren't familiar with the band check out this video and some of their others on YouTube to get an idea of their musical stylings.

My Friend The Chocolate Cake - Home Improvements (music video)

OCTOBER ROAD - GREAT NEW T.V. SHOW ON ABC:













If you haven't started watching the new ABC drama October Road you should. Last night was the third episode (of what I think is a 6 episode run) on the network following the hit Grey's Anatomy at 10pm. The series was created by Scott Rosenberg (the movie Beautiful Girls), Andre Nemec and Josh Appelbaum (Alias). The ensemble cast includes Laura Prepon (That 70's Show) and Bryan Greenberg (One Tree Hill). In a nutshell the main premise of the show is that Greenberg's character Nick Garrett returns to a small university town after 10 years away and becoming a successful writer after writing a popular book based on all his friends. We he returns some people aren't too happy, and he finds out his former girlfriend has a 10 year-old son that he starts to believe is his.

The acting is superior as is the storyline/writing (despite a few corny bits and some strange soundtrack choices) and it is a far better series to something like 'What About Brian' that I gave up on after it's initial run. You can watch the already aired episodes on ABC.com (if you live in the U.S.) and I recommend you do and then watch the final three episodes on Thursday nights. I hope ABC picks up the show for a full season, it seems to be doing fairly well in the ratings (better than 'Men In Trees' which used to be in the timeslot and ranked 20th last week).

Interview with Josh Appelbaum about October Road

JONATHA BROOKE RELEASES HER NEW CD, IN STORE APPEARANCES:















The new Jonatha Brooke cd titled ‘Careful What You Wish For’ is released in the U.S. next week. Jonatha has some in store performances coming up, check her website for more info.

I’m not doing a full review of the new cd but I will say that I am somewhat disappointed in it. There are a few standout tracks – Keep The River On Your Right, Hearsay and I’ll Leave The Light On, but overall I feel it isn’t her best work. When I heard she was working with Eric Bazilian (The Hooters) again I was hoping for more tracks similar to ‘Less Than Love Is Nothing’ (a song they wrote together that was on Jonatha’s last studio album ‘Back In The Circus’), but no such luck. The link below if for the yesteryear dance remix of the track ‘Baby Wait’ from the new cd that is worth checking out if you are a fan.

Baby Wait yesteryear Remix (click on the speaker icon to hear it)

BUY Jonatha Brooke Careful What You Wish For CD

THE IMPRESSIVE LO-FI-FNK MAKE DEBUT TORONTO APPEARANCE:





















Last night I had the great pleasure in catching Sweden’s Lo-Fi-Fnk live at a small club in Toronto. It was the band’s first visit to the city and they put on a super show. The band is Leo Drougge on lead vocals, programming and bass and August Hellsing on keyboards/sampler (and they had a drummer playing live with them). I had most of the tracks from their debut cd ‘Boylife’ that I had downloaded off some music blogs (I probably first heard about them on Nick’s great #1 Hits From Another Planet blog). Luckily they were selling copies of Boylife at the gig so I picked one up for $10 (great deal, especially considering the cd hasn’t been released in Canada yet).

The guys played most of the album (setlist is below, not 100% sure of its accuracy, if you were there and have corrections please email me) and played for about an hour. Highlights would have to be Wake Up, The End and Change Channel. They even came back and did an encore. Leo said they don’t normally do that and hadn’t done one on this tour and thanked the audience for being so nice.








Photo copyright KulPop








They remind me a bit on stage of the Pet Shop Boys, with Leo being the Neil Tennant vocalist/frontman and August standing behind his equipment like Chris Lowe with the occasional dance and arm moves. The sound they create (with the help of their laptop computer) is full and recreates the produced album tracks quite well. My only criticism would be that on some songs the vocals got a bit drowned out, but everyone was enjoying the show so much it didn’t really matter. The stage was dimly lit (I gathered the guys wanted it this way, and before they performed ‘The End’ they asked that the stage lights be turned off completely for that song) which was fine but mean’t I couldn’t video tape any of their performance).

I think that Boylife is a fantastic cd that everyone should hear and these guys need to get booked as openers for a big name group like the Pet Shop Boys, Erasure or Depeche Mode to really get exposed to a larger audience. I chatted with August and Leo briefly after the show and they signed my cd and seemed like nice guys. I really hope that a North American distributor picks up Boylife and they manage to come back on another tour. Check their MySpace site to check out their music and for the rest of the tour dates, there aren’t that many dates left for North American’s to catch this great band.

Below are also links to their three music videos on YouTube in case you want to watch them.

Lo-Fi-Fnk videos on YouTube:

Wake Up

Steppin’ Out

Change Channel

BUY Boylife CD

Setlist for Lo-Fi-Fnk – The Underground, Drake Hotel, Toronto March 27th, 2007

City
Adore
Wake Up
System
The End
Change Channel
Steppin’ Out
Heartache

Encore
A.D.T. (Act Don’t Talk)

GREAT TRACK BY AUSTRALIAN BAND 'DECODER RING':

















I hadn't been to a used cd store in a while but stopped by one today and picked up an interesting sampler cd from the Bella Union record label for 55 cents as it had tracks by Fionn Regan and Midlake on it. I tend to scan through these samplers quickly in case something jumps out and in this case I discovered a cool downtempo track by the band Decoder Ring called Somersault. I checked out their website and MySpace sites to get a bit of info and it appears this song is featured in a movie of the same name (Since its debut in Australia in late 2004, “Somersault” has gone on to become the country’s most critically-acclaimed film of all time, winning 13 AFI awards (the Australian OSCARS), including best music.) Not sure what the status of the band is right now, check out their sites for more info.

If you like Dido or Sia you will most likely like this track, check it out.

Decoder Ring - Somersault MP3

BUY Decoder Ring - Somersault O.S.T. CD

MIKA CONCERT IN TORONTO - SPOILER ALERT:









Photo copyright KulPop






The bad news, I didn't get to meet Mika today while he was in Toronto, the great news is that I went to his amazing sold out concert. If you have tickets for an upcoming Mika show you may not want to read this review as it may spoil any surprises you may be in store for at one of his concerts.

The MOD Club was decorated with lots of balloons and as you entered you were greeted by clowns who were making balloon sculptures (one of them was on stilts). There was no opening band, the show started with what the set list calls 'Relax Intro' which sounded like a remix of Dolly Parton's '9 to 5'. Mika bound onto the stage in purple pants (that were constantly falling down slightly as he danced around) and a brown hoodie and played the uptempo tracks 'Relax (Take It Easy)' and 'Big Girl'. He really has fun on stage and it comes across and the crowd ate it up. The set list is below and he played most tracks from his debut album 'Life In Cartoon Motion'. He also played a new track 'Holy Johnny', a cover of Everybody's Talkin' (a Harry Nilsson song) and talked to the audience a little bit between some songs. He ended the main set with his hit 'Grace Kelly'.

The encore was the wildest part of the show. The entire band came out wearing costumes and enacted a bit of a Teddy Bear's picnic play (on YouTube) and then performed 'Lollipop'. Below is a photo of Mika in full costume singing. During the song bubbles came from the ceiling of the club and they threw out 10 or 15 huge balloons for the audience to play with. Mika has a great live band also (the guitarist threw out lollipops to the audience at the end of the show), but it sounded like he may be using some backing tracks, maybe it was just where I was standing, hard to tell.











Photo copyright KulPop









Mika has the X Factor as some people call it, plain and simple HE'S A STAR!. He is a decent singer who writes great pop songs and has a fun engaging personality that will continue to garner him a larger fanbase. I fully recommend checking out his live show (if you can get a ticket) as soon he will be playing much larger venues as he is selling a lot of records (in the U.K and Canada) and Canadian radio has started to play 'Grace Kelly' in heavy rotation.

Click here to get to a site where you can listen to and download Mika's cover of 'Everybody's Talkin'

MIKA - THE MOD CLUB TORONTO MARCH 21ST, 2007

Relax Intro
Relax (Take It Easy)
Big Girl
My Interpretation
Billy Brown
Over My Shoulder
Everybody's Talkin' (cover of Harry Nilsson song)
Stuck In The Middle
Ring Ring
Love Today
Grace Kelly

Encore
Lollipop

NEW ALBUM BY THIRTEEN SENSES DUE OUT THIS APRIL:





















I really liked the first album 'Invitation' by the U.K.'s Thirteen Senses especially the track 'The Salt Wound Routine'. Their new album 'Contact' is due out in Britain on April 2nd. On their MySpace site you can listen to the first single 'All The Love In Your Hands' and the better album tracks 'Contact' and 'Spirals'. Looking forward to hearing the whole album and hoping they venture to North America to promote this one as I don't believe they did for 'Invitation'.

UPCOMING CONCERTS:












I just found out that Aqualung (who performed on Letterman last night) are heading back to Toronto for a show, looking forward to that. Also saw and ad for a concert by AIR coming up in May with Kate Havnevik opening up for them (I think I have a wedding to go to that day). VERY disappointed that The Feeling haven't scheduled a date for Toronto, come on guys, you said you'd be back! (They're on Jimmy Kimmel this Friday night). Shows I have tickets for:

Mika - The MOD Club March 21st, 2007
James Morrison - The MOD Club April 5th, 2007
Aqualung - The Opera House April 19th, 2007

MEETING PAOLO NUTINI, TORONTO CONCERT:


















Photo Copyright KulPop


Scottish rising star Paolo Nutini was in Toronto this past week to promote his debut CD 'These Streets'. I met him after he performed 'New Shoes' live on a TV show. He came across as somewhat shy but chatted briefly and signed my copy of his cd.

Later that day I went to his show at The MOD Club on College Street in Toronto. In the line I saw a couple of the cast of 'Degrassi: The Next Generation' waiting to go in. Then I saw them walk away, I guess they didn't have tickets and didn't realize it was a sold out show. I ended up right up at the stage and had a great view for the entire gig.

Paolo came out to huge cheers and performed most of the tracks from 'These Streets' and did a cover of the Jeff Buckley song 'Dolphins'. He played for about an hour and left the stage after performing one of my favourite tracks 'Jenny, Don't Be Hasty'. I could see the set list and he was down to play two songs for an encore (including a cover of Amy Winehouse's hit 'Rehab'), but despite the loud cheers Paolo never returned to the stage. The crowd loved the gig, it appeared there were lots of young girls there that must like Paolo, in fact I heard one girl yell that she wanted to 'Suck his $%*&', what a crude display that was. He came across as somewhat stoned on stage and I wasn't sure if that was just his rock star act.

Hard to say what will happen to Mr. Nutini, possibly a flash in the pan, maybe he will have a career in music that will last more than a couple of years, only time will tell.

SORRY FOR THE LACK OF POSTS RECENTLY:
















I haven't had time to tend to the blog for the last several weeks as I was in the process of buying a house and it took a lot of time. In the end I decided against this particular one, but the search continues. I also discovered how the banks really have you by the nu*@ with mortgages, paying so much of the interest in the first years.

Anyway I hope to get back to regular blogging as I want to recount meeting Paolo Nutini yesterday and seeing his show last night, as well as talking about the new Jonatha Brooke cd when I get it in the mail. Also picked up tickets to see Mika and James Morrison in the coming months at small clubs in Toronto.