WHAT'S HAPPENING WITH 'THE FEELING' IN NORTH AMERICA?:





















Today I decided to listen to the amazing cd by The Feeling - Twelve Stops & Home as I hadn't listened to it in a while. It is definitely one of the best albums from 2006 and it is a shame things haven't clicked yet in North America. The label should have passed on 'Sewn' as the first single here and gone with 'Love It When You Call'. I hope they rush release it as a single for radio and make a decent effort to get the guys some airplay. Not that they sound the same but if they can get Mika on the radio they should be able to get The Feeling out there. I was hoping the guys would be back in Toronto after their gig with The Fray but no such luck. I hope the band's fortunes change over here so they can become huge and enjoy the success they deserve.

J'ason over at Chart Rigger has a great interview with frontman Dan Gillespie-Sells that is worth checking out.

INTERESTING MASHUP ON YOU TUBE - HOWARD JONES:


















Howard Jones is one of my all-time favourites and I follow what he is up to fairly closely. I saw him last year and he put on an amazing live acoustic show with guitarist Robin Boult. Some of the new tracks he performed were top notch so I'm looking forward to his next studio album. I travelled to London for his 20th Anniversary gig a few years back and show up in the DVD of the concert a couple of times as I was in the front row.

This cool mashup of a Howard Jones track with one of today's more popular female singers is actually very good, check out the video on You Tube. Now I have to try and find the track in MP3 form.

NEW ERASURE CD / CONCERT BITS / LO-FI-FNK REMIX:

First off Happy Easter weekend to those who partake in this holiday. I had to work the weekend but am off today and had Thursday and Friday off so I can't complain.







The new Erasure cd - Light At The End Of The World has leaked, just listening to it now as I type, sounds okay so far.






Last week I saw Aqueduct from Seattle opening up for Youth Group from Australia. I had seen Youth Group a year or two ago do an acoustic in-store gig that was cool, and I like their cover of Forever Young.

Aqueduct were actually a lot of fun, it was unfortunate the whoever was doing the sound at the legendary Horseshoe Tavern didn't seem to know what they were doing (lots of strange distortion and a very bad audio mix in general). I think that Youth Group were also very unhappy with the sound person, they did comment once about the bass sound and the lead singer seemed pissed off at times. The band were fairly good but sometimes suffer from the 'most of our songs sound the same' dilemma that also plagues bands like The Fray. The new track 'Sorry' was probably the highlight, no encore and no 'Forever Young' which they've included on their new cd.









Two days later I went to see U.K. star James Morrison at his sold-out show at the MOD Club. James came out to lots of wild cheers and played a decent but short set with just a keyboard player. He actually seemed to have a decent personality and joked with the crowd quite a bit between songs. I was worried that it was going to be a boring show but he does have a strong voice live and managed to keep the energy level up. He hopes to be back with his full band, no doubt it will be at a larger venue (he did well selling out considering Toronto radio isn't playing him at all to my knowledge).

On a side note what is with concert goers these days? It seems like they are more interested in taking pictures of the artists with their cameras or cellphones than they are listening to the gig. Then there are the young girls and even some grown men who insist on talking throughout the show like we all went to listen to them and not the artist. I guess normally I'm closer to the stage at gigs and don't have to deal with these issues but at the Morrison show I had to put up with the worst kind of patrons.

No October Road this week on ABC, the teaser for next weeks fifth episode looks good!!

Still loving the Lo-Fi-Fnk, below is a link to download the cool Teenagers remix of the City track from the amazing Boylife cd.

Lo-Fi-Fnk - City (The Teenagers remix)

VARIOUS KUL TRACKS/REMIXES AT VARIOUS KUL BLOGS:
















Over at the 5Acts blog there are some decent remixes available of Amy Winehouse, LCD Soundsystem, Bloc Party, Bright Eyes and the Patrick Wolf remix of Mika's 'Love Today' track off 'Life In Cartoon Motion'.

Mika - Love Today (Patrick Wolf Remix)

Over at XO's Middle Eight blog there is a nice ditty by The Rosebuds from their forthcoming album 'Night Of The Furies' called 'Get Up Get Out'.

He mentioned he really liked The Rosebuds song 'Cemetary Lawns' that you can find at the BLISS blog.

The funky Young Americans Remix of HelloGoodbye's 'Here (In Your Arms)' is available for download at the Palms Out Sounds blog.

The very Captain sounding track by Winterkids titled 'Who Am I Kidding' is available at the Who Needs Radio? blog.

I am so enjoying the full cd by Sweden's Lo-Fi-Fnk titled 'Boylife', make sure you go out and buy it. Over at Nick's blog #1 Hits From Another Planet you can still download the band's latest single 'Change Channel'.