FERRAS WRITES FOR ADAM LAMBERT:















Ferras has been in the studio with producer/guru Peter Asher and plans to release an EP soon with this new material. Apparently he is friends with Adam Lambert and hopes a song he has written for him with Lauren Christy and Desmond Child will make it onto Adam's album. He also hopes to work with Diane Warren in the coming weeks, once he returns from Vienna with Katy Perry! Just saw that on Twitter on June 7th Ferras said "Spent the afternoon writing with Adam Lambert! Havent seen him since before idol- we're writing a great song. Its gunna be sick ya'll. :)"
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VARIOUS BITS AND PIECES:





















According to reports Sheffield's The Human League have begun recording their follow-up to the excellent and under-rated 'Secrets' album released back in 2001. The band have been playing live shows pretty consistently in recent years, but news of a new studio recording is always a good thing. "All that is currently known about the new Human League recording sessions in Sheffield is that Philip has been writing songs with drummer Rob Barton who has been playing live with The League since 2004. Philip has also revealed that the new tracks may have an electro glam rock feel them."

And news that Prefab Sprout plan to release their new album, tentatively-titled 'Let's Change The World With Music - The Blueprint', in February 2009. This would be their first new studio album release since 2001's 'The Gunman And Other Stories'.

Wondering whatever happened to Ferras? Reading some of his recent MySpace blogs it appears that he is busy writing the follow up to his debut cd 'Aliens & Rainbows' in LA where he just downsized from a house to an apartment. Sounds like he may also be caught up in all the changes going on with EMI (and that may also account for some of the lack of success and promotion of the Aliens cd). He certainly didn't have the break through that I and other bloggers predicted but it doesn't sound like he has any plans to stop writing/recording and performing so hopefully a new album will see the light of day in 2009, good luck Ferras!

Do you remember the Paul McCartney recommended rock band 'Steadman' who released a good self titled cd back in 2003? It appears that a couple of members have formed a new band called London To Tokyo and you can listen to their new song 'Feel Better' on their Myspace site that shows a lot of promise for a decent album to eventually get released.
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VARIOUS BITS AND PIECES:





You can vote for what bands you would like to see on the 2009 Regeneration Tour here (lower right side of screen), currently The Thompson Twins are leading with 13% of the vote.




Speaking of The Thompson Twins there is now an on-line petition set up to try and convince the band's record labels to release some rarities collections, go here to sign your name. It appears that Tom Bailey is on board and willing to help search the archives for cool rarities, let's hope this becomes a reality. I believe the recent reissues of 'Quick Step & Side Kick' and 'Into The Gap' have sold fairly well, maybe that will help BMG and Warners to work together on this project.

Love the song 'Breathe' by Schiller featuring September (Petra Marklund), getting a lot of plays on my iTunes.

Imogen Heap has video blog #22 up on YouTube.

You can download the fun track 'Version' by Plimsouls over at Ohh! Crapp.

Enjoying the Ferras album "Aliens & Rainbows" that I had to download as for some reason the release in Canada won't happen until the end of May. He appears to have a new website now and hopefully he will do a proper tour soon.

I may be going to see Duran Duran at the end of the month. I saw one of their smaller club shows a few years back which was great. The new album is just okay, I hope they don't focus too much on that material and focus on the back catalogue.

ABC's new album 'Traffic' is now set for release on April 28th in the U.K. The first single 'The Very First Time is currently Number 2 on the 7Digital singles chart, right behind Madonna's 4 Minutes.

Enjoying the new sound Jesse McCartney has on the single Leavin' and leaked tracks from his forthcoming album "Departure" due out in May, hopefully he will enjoy some more success after the last album's less than stellar performance.

Still no sign of The Feeling having their second album "Join With Us" released in North America, a real shame that their label seemed to have little success breaking them here. Now to track down the 'Without You' cd single b-sides!

Ashton Kutcher hosts and musical guest Gnarls Barkley on tonight's new Saturday Night Live on NBC.

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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)

LO-FI-FNK TOURING & FERRAS NEWS:

















Just checked out Lo-Fi-Fnk's website to see if there was any news of the next album and was surprised and happy to see they are playing some dates in North America in late February/March that includes a stop in Vancouver. I'll definitely be going, hopefully they will have some new tracks to perform (tour dates at bottom of posting)



















American Idol may actually have a decent season as there is a quite varied top 24 that will be whittled down to the Top 10. If you've been watching you'll no doubt have heard the song by Ferras titled "Hollywood's Not America" that they are using. He shows great potential and has an album titled "Aliens And Rainbows" due out on April 1st, you can download the David Bowie influenced title track here and check other tracks on his MySpace page. ChartRigger has blogged about Ferras, and I was interested to read on another website that the album has been produced by The Matrix (that includes the amazing Lauren Christy) with their frequent collaborator Gary Clark (remember the band Danny Wilson - that Gary Clark who has also worked with Natalie Imbruglia and Lloyd Cole).

Lo-Fi-Fnk Tour Dates:

February 28 Montreal [CA] Le Cabaret w. Fluokids

February 29 Toronto [CA] Circa w. Fluokids

March 01 New York [US] Highline Ballroom w. Finger On the Pulse

March 04 Los Angeles [US] UCLA Kerckhoff Grand Salon

March 05 San Francisco [US] Mezannine w. Junior Boys DJ-set

March 06 Vancouver [CA] The Bourbon

March 07 Guadalajara [MX] La Santa

March 08 Mexico City [MX] MX Beat Festival