NAKED EYES RECORDING NEW ELECTRONIC ALBUM AND JOINING HUMAN LEAGUE AND ABC ON THE REGENERATION TOUR:





















Naked Eyes' Pete Byrne is currently in the studio recording tracks for his new electronic album, tentatively titled "Piccadilly" that is due out later this year. Pete and his band are also going out in August on the "The Regeneration Tour" tour with Human League, Belinda Carlisle, ABC, Dead or Alive and A Flock of Seagulls. It sounds like more dates will be added, confirmed ones so far are listed below.

August 4th, 08 - San Diego, CA - Viejas Concerts in The park

August 5th, 08 - Los Angeles, CA - Gibson Amphitheatre

August 7th, 08 - Salt Lake City, UT - Usana Amphitheatre

August 20th, 08 - Boston, MA - Bank Of America Pavilion

August 21st, 08 - Trenton, NJ - Nikon At Jones Beach Theater

August 22nd, 08 - Wantagh, NY - Sovereign Bank Arena

August 24th, 08 - Clarkston, MI - DTE Energy Music Theatre

August 26th, 08 - Vienna, VA - Filene Center At Wolf Trap

August 28th, 08 - Cary, NC - Koka Booth Amphitheatre At Regency Park

August 29th, 08 - Atlanta, GA - Chastain Park Amphitheatre

.

MY MAC'S HARD DRIVE SEEMS TO HAVE DIED:















My Mac Mini has had a major hard drive meltdown so it's off to the shop. I'm hoping they can retrieve all the files otherwise they're gone. Just bought a 500GB external hard drive but I should have bought it ages ago and backed everything up.

So I won't be posting much until it is fixed and/or I get a new hard drive installed.

UPDATE March 30: Computer files retrieved, I was lucky, computer back up and running. Thanks Mac Station.

NEW ABC CD 'TRAFFIC' DUE OUT APRIL 14TH:
















Finally some U.K. websites are listing the new ABC cd 'Traffic' for sale, due out on April 14th. Not sure if this is the official artwork, not too impressive if it is.

IDOL THOUGHTS & VARIOUS BITS AND PIECES:







- Was disappointed to see Danny Noriega eliminated last week (it looks like he was in the audience last night as Ramiele Malubay's 'Bestfriend'). See his appearance on The Ellen Show here.
- I enjoyed Brooke White's version of "Love Is A Battlefield" last week also.
- David Archuletta was feeling the pressure this week, hopefully he won't mess up big time and get voted off as most people have him pegged to win the whole thing.









- Howard Jones has just created an electronic duo stage show that means he can bring his electronic gigs to America with greater ease (recently he's been performing mostly acoustic shows with guitarist Robin Boult.) He has got four dates in America in July with this new set up and they should be cool shows. If you go to his website and listen to his latest podcast you can hear some of the samples that his can create with the new Roland Fantom X-8 keyboard that he is using (along with keyboard and electronics wizard Robbie Bronnimann) on this tour and they sound fantastic. Hoping that a Vancouver show can be arranged since he will be close by in California already.

- Update - See Howard performing with Robbie in the new electronic duo set up at The Roland Electro-Pop Night 2008 by clicking here.

- Martin Fry recently played some concerts in Ontario Canada with a full orchestra, click here for a review of the show. Still no exact release date for ABC's new cd titled 'Traffic', website is still saying in March.

- You can listen to Imogen Heap talking about Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' album here.

- Check out an interview with Teitur here, still no Vancouver tour date.

- Nick Heyward's son Oliver has a MySpace site with some of his musical compositions available to listen to.

- Cinnamon Melts amazing, Vanilla Frosty not so good.

A FINE FRENZY - THE MEDIA CLUB, VANCOUVER - CONCERT REVIEW:





















Photo Copyright KulPop

Alison Sudol returned to Vancouver to play the intimate Media Club venue for an early show with Ferras and Ben's Brother as opening acts. Ferras played a short four song set finishing with his current single 'Hollywood's Not America'. He performed well and is definitely a talented singer/songwriter and is a bit of a joker too. From listening to samples of his forthcoming album 'Aliens And Rainbows' I think he should be quite successful. This was only his third show on the tour and only his third actual gig outside of L.A. where he moved to from Illinois to pursue his music career. I video taped the last song but the lighting wasn't very good (see comment below) so it isn't that great (although the audio is okay).

Ben's Brother from the U.K. (two members of the band) were also playing their first Canadian gig and it was the last date of this tour for them before heading down to Texas for the SXSW music conference. They were enjoyable and performed their hit 'Stuttering' which is used in a Dentyne Ice gum commercial.

Alison Sudol and her two band members played for just under and hour with all the songs coming from her debut cd 'One Cell In The Sea' except the encore. Alison played guitar on the encore (she has just recently learned to play it) the new song 'What I Wouldn't Do' which will be on her next cd. She is a great vocalist and charming performer and was impressed when the audience sang a verse of 'Almost Lover' for her as well as how quiet the audience was waiting for her to perform the encore. The only thing that took away from the concert (besides the obligatory strange female fan that insists on yelling to Alison several times during the show and making a fool of herself) was the poor stage lighting provided by the club. Maybe Alison requested to be dimly lit but it was so dark I'm sure the people further back in the club would have had trouble seeing her face during most of the show while she was playing seated at the piano. I highly recommend you go see A Fine Frenzy live if you like the cd, hopefully you'll get to see Ferras as well before he becomes huge.

Set List:

Ferras:

Marshmallow Spaceship
Aliens And Rainbows
Rush
Hollywood's Not America

Ben's Brother:
Time ???
Holding Out For More
Beauty Queen
Carry On
Stutttering
Live

A Fine Frenzy:

Come On Come Out
You Picked Me
Last Of Days
Think Of You
Ashes And Wine
Borrowed Time
an unnamed classical instrumental
The Minnow And The Trout
Hope For The Hopeless
Almost Lover
Rangers

Encore:

What I Wouldn't Do (new song)

IMOGEN HEAP - NEW VIDEO BLOG AND HEROES VIDEO:


The always charming and beautiful Imogen Heap has a brand new video blog up on You Tube, she talks about the new song 'Not Now But Soon' from the Heroes soundtrack cd that is due out in March, and plays a sample of another new very orchestral sounding song and has a mystery drummer in her house. Looks like her new album won't be out until next winter. You can hear a 57 second long sample of the new single in this 'Heroes Video'.

AMERICAN IDOL - -TOP 8 GUYS 80's SHOW:












As I mentioned before this year's crop of singers on American Idol is probably the most varied the show has ever seen. Last night's show was the remaining eight male singers doing songs from the 80's. Best performance of the night goes to Danny Noriega with his cover of 'Tainted Love'. I also enjoyed David Archuleta's performance as well as Jason Castro's and it was the first time David Cook didn't come across as a pompous ass and his cover of Lionel Richie's 'Hello' wasn't so bad. And was judge Randy Jackson mistaken in thinking that Michael Johns sang an INXS song when it was actually a Simple Minds track (Aussie guy returns home for the eighties??). The two that should go home are Luke Menard and Chikezie.

Recently found out that Ferras is opening for 'A Fine Frenzy' this Saturday night, I hope to be at the show.

NEW MUSIC ALERT: LANDON PIGG:

















I just read about Landon Pigg and checked out his website. He's just released a five song EP called 'Coffee Shop' on iTunes and is currently opening for Gavin DeGraw on a short tour. It appears he released an album in 2006 on RCA called "LP" that was had songs produced by the Dan Brodbeck (Dolores O’ Riordan), Paul Ebersold (3 Doors Down), and Clif Magness (Avril Lavigne, The Calling). The new single "Falling In Love At A Coffee Shop" is a nice tune, you can hear it at his MySpace site or download it here (the song is also being used in a diamond commercial). In his pictures he reminds me of a young Ivan Doroschuk (lead singer of 80's Canadian band 'Men Without Hats'). Check out an earlier video for the song 'Can't Let Go' on YouTube.