May and early June belonged to Counting Crows, June and early July belonged to Greg Holden and the last 4 weeks firmly to 7 of the most amazingly talented musicians from Israel. You know by now you're probably sick and tired of me blogging about Roy Rieck and The Medley Band or Strange Folks but just indulge me for one last time - for the moment, just because as a set of musicians, they deserve just one more shot of attention.
It's rare today that you find something musically that sounds so fresh. 90% maybe more of what you hear you kind of think "oh man, they're good, they sound a bit like.........". that's not a bad thing, not every musician or band can have his/her/their own sound and if the comparison is good all the better but it makes it so great when you find something that doesn't sound like anything else, that has its own sound - ladies and gents, these guys are that unique sound.
Last night's double-header Strange Folks / Roy Rieck and The Medley Band farewell gig at The Slaughtered Lamb was just brilliant. A great way for the guys to sign off what's been a brilliant UK stay - if the last 3 weeks of personal experience are anything to go by plus the volume of CD sales last night.
And what makes it even more amazing is that I keep finding new things musically about these guys that just wows me. They are technically as musicians nothing short of amazing...I know I've said that before and maybe it's getting boring, but it's valid so I'll say it again and again till you all believe it and buy their albums. What I found out last night much to my absolute amazement is the depth of how amazing a set of musicians they are, they just keep surprising over and over again.
For example, you can't help but be envious of anyone who sings, plays the guitar brilliantly, can play the lap steel whilst playing the xylophone and is a classically trained concert pianist - how Idan can do all that is way beyond me and now he's adding to that the pedal lap steel. For one person to have that much musical talent is just unfair. But it extends right the way through the band from Roy's Harmonica all the way down to Nadav on the drums and Hamudi on the Saxophone.
So for those of you in Israel who are heading to see Okkervil River next month, do yourselves a big favour and get to the venue early, get a beer and get inside and watch these guys, then buy the CDs and well you'll see where I've been coming from for the past 3 weeks.
"Guys - thank you for the CD, for the warmth and friendship and for the amazing music. See you in October and keep in touch!!!"
Right then, I promise not to mention anymore about the bands just for the moment. So I'm going to move on to something else. Playing after the guys last night was a band called Animal Kingdom who are signed to Warner Bros (who incidentally REM are signed to - that's not impressive as a fact in the slightest I know, but I thought I'd throw a bit of trivia out there). Anyways, they've recently been supporting Snow Patrol and they played a good set. They're still a bit raw and there's something quite newish about them but they have a nice slightly raw sound and a distinctive vocal which is really good. They have a single out now called Tin Man, which I bought last night and they have an album coming out in September. Well worth a listen to and if nothing else, have a look at the video header on their myspace for Tin Man which is seriously impressive.
Oh and one final exciting tidbit for tonight. I've decided with my videos to go a bit more upmarket with the production values...ok slight bend of the facts. You'll notice if you take a look on the latest videos I added to YouTube that I've started adding title sequences to the beginning and end of each video. I don't know why I decided to do that but it just seems to be quite cool and I guess helps give the musician a bit more publicity in case the casual viewer doesn't see or can't be bothered to view the info in the sidebar. It does throw up a bit of a problem though...I have to be extra careful now to make sure that the titles match the song and as I just found out, I made 1 mistake already...so a bit more attention to detail than normal is needed in Adobe Premiere Pro.
On that note, from a hot and humid London and from a man who's thighs are burning from an overheating laptop and who has rambled on long enough, I'm done for tonight.
Night night people, wherever you may be!
Rich xx
No comments:
Post a Comment