Stardom beckons

When you have friends, you want to see them do well. When you love music, you want everyone else to love it too, so tonight's blog post is nothing but an absolute pleasure to take the time to sit down and write since it merges the two streams together beautifully.

Back in the days when I used to blog regularly and got out to lots of live gigs, I stumbled across two bands in one called at that time, Strange Folks and Roy Rieck and The Medley Band. It was the same brilliant seven musicians but playing two different sets of tracks and splitting setlists.

After two years of trials, setbacks (thanks to a certain UK Border Agent) and hard work, these seven brilliantly talented men have finally released their debut album under the now final adopted name of joined band...Acollective.


As a huge fan and friend, I've seen and heard the guys in every formation playing music from the very beginning of their evolution (Idan Rabinovici's Bedroom Folk, through to Roy Rieck's Never Trust The Holy Gracious Medley Band, the Strange Folks - EP plus much more) right through to this latest offering which I cannot evangelise about enough.

Onwards, the 13 track beauty was recorded late last year in their native Israel and produced by the quite brilliant Chris Shaw (yes, he of Leonard Cohen, Super Furry Animals, Guillemots, Bob Dylan and Weezer amongst many others fame). What's magnificent about the album and what's been produced is that whilst being true to the roots of the band's humble musical beginnings, this is a totally different sound to anything they've produced before. If you listen closely you can still hear the screaming harmonica solos of Rieck, the mesmeric keys from Rabinovici, the brilliant Sax bursts from Roy Rabinovici, the guitar and bass solos from Shoham, E-Shine and Slonim and the downright intense drumming from Luzia but this somehow feels bigger, bolder, rockier, edgier, louder and prouder. For the first time in a recording, as a group and with Chris's help, they've managed to almost capture that breathtaking "wow factor" that you get from seeing them live.

The arrangements throughout just work in every way. A lot of people don't understand how complex that is but when you've got so many different sounds to contend with there's often a fine line between nailing a song and totally destroying it. In the up-tempo songs like Whisky Eyes and the very commercially pleasing Better Man everything jumps out so vibrantly not over-powering any other part of it's make-up, just working perfectly in tandem. In the more laid-back songs such as Lewknor Arch and Working Title the sounds blend to form a hazy warm fuzzy glow rather than a clash and even in Home Office, a song I was initially skeptical about when I first heard it live a year ago the arrangement makes sense and lifts a good song to greatness.


On top of brilliant arrangements there's also really nice pull-backs to the music that drew me in to the guys nearly two years ago. Turn To Cry is a wonderful Middle-Eastern sounding track which would've sat as a headline track on a second Medley album had it happened and there's even a complete and quite astonishing re-mix of Stolen Goods, the lead track from the Strange Folks EP.

I just cannot recommend this album to you highly enough. I know I like to hype the music I like up a bit but quite honestly, I believe this album will project the boys to massive stardom. They've managed to craft an album which is so uniquely and distinctively them into a commercial footing which will serve them well, not just in Israel but to the wider world.

This is a band about to enter a whole different orbit. On March 10th, you'll be able to get your hands on physical or electronic copies. You'd be mad not to get hold of it and spread the word.

Here's the full album for you to listen... http://acollective.bandcamp.com/

A triumph in the face of adversity...

You know, sometimes in life we make mistakes, sometimes we suffer bad luck and sometimes we're just in the wrong place at the wrong time and we get treated badly. But when the chips are down and everything seems to be going against us, it's how we respond and the level of resolve we show that defines our character; and over the past 2 weeks the 4 guys of Strange Folks / Roy Rieck and The Medley Band who were let into the country have shown the most amazing fortitude to overcome an almost fatal blow.

Losing two guitarists (Emmanuel and Joseph), a lead vocalist and harmonica (Roy Rieck) would be pretty much impossible to contend with but four hard working and outrageously talented musicians stuck their heads above the parapet, walked the line (I just realised I might rename this blog post - "The cliche post") and produced a string of amazing performances culminating in a rousing, brilliant and spell-binding show last night at The Slaughtered Lamb.

I'm never short of a superlative for the guys anyway but to so quickly adapt enough songs to make a set and make them sound great let alone the bravery to add in two new brilliant songs in "Running Away and "Girls" with such important parts of the band missing, shows the most incredible depth of musical talent.



And if bravery hadn't been shown enough, when challenged by a small but raucous awe-struck crowd to an encore (twice) and after a quick discussion where the words uttered included "what should we play?" and "we haven't practiced any more songs" two more exceptional efforts were delivered which included a rare live outing of Jungle Man (a track from Idan Rabinovici's solo album, a song which I adore).

So with this mini-tour over all too quickly for my liking, the guys are heading back to Israel before playing a few shows in Paris next month and then hopefully (immigration permitting) they'll be back in full force come January.

I've now seen the guys in different guises play seven shows since July and you know what, I am not in the slightest bit bored of my favourite musical discovery of this year and I truly doubt I ever will be!

Have a great day people xx

Marking the first landmark....50th blog post!

Does anyone celebrate such a thing? I think we should, why not and I intend to right here, right now and I want to do it with a bit of a personal insight into this whole mission of mine, so please bear with what might be a bit of a personal indulgent blog tonight.


I started this whole thing off back in late June as a way of writing down my muscial thoughts and recommendations with the world in the hope that it might spread the love of the music I enjoy not just with my native UK but to every corner of our amazing little planet. I wanted to help promote unsigned or unheard of artists a little so that they become more well known or at least build up enough of a following to provide them with the income and inspiration to keep them doing what they do best...producing amazing music.

The past 4 and a half months have been totally amazing. In that time I have seen more live music than the rest of my life put together, met an abundance of people I am proud and honoured to now call friends, been blessed with unspeakable acts of human kindness and hopefully inspired a few people along the way to go and check out some amazingly talented people.

I think in this short space of time I've already achieved a lot of what I set out to do and I will keep doing it today, tomorrow, next week, next year, forever...because I passionately believe in good music and I hope that by doing what I am doing I am making a difference to someone's life somewhere in the world, be they a music lover or a musician.

So tonight, in my 50th blog post I want to thank the artists who have inspired me enough to sit down and write about them, post videos, tweet, recommend and to talk about them. You are all truly amazing talents and I hope you are reminded of this every day! If you ever for one second doubt it, pick up your music, listen to it and know that people out there love and respect what you do and are inspired and moved by it! What you do for a living matters so never give up or get dis-enchanted.

I also want to thank my great friend Dave who it is a privelege to share my musical experiences with first hand, all of you who have taken the time so far to stop by to read my blog, view the youtube videos, add me on twitter, send me emails, send me recommendations...it just makes me even more certain that what I'm doing is worthwhile and that hopefully you're finding music you can enjoy as much as I do.

Finally I'm going to leave you all with a final thanks to someone who is totally awesome, truly amazing and who doesn't believe it despite me constantly telling her. So to that end and in recognition of my 50th blog I'm making a special recommendation tonight here is a first original song from the wonderful and totally beautiful Kamila who I am honoured and blessed to have in my life...



thank you all so much, in your own ways you all inspire me xx

The milk of human kindness...

So I said I was going into hiding for a few days to do a research project and here I am reporting back some 5 days later with absolutely no research done, because I got ligitimately distracted and haven't been able to focus since.

My favourite musical finds are the ones that just fall out of the sky and hit you and this week, I had one smack me so hard it almost knocked me out. Wednesday night with all good intentions, I sat down to research this big blog post I've been talking about for a while but before I did that a signed in to Facebook. Just as I was about to sign out, I noticed something in the highlights sidebar on the home page which caught my eye.


I thought I'd be...I guess, a bit nosey...and check it out, because my friend and Strange Folks front man Idan Rabinovici had been tagged in it. The video in question is this one:-



Within 23 seconds the idle curiousity turned into absolute fascination and I sat in complete silence throughout listening to the most amazingly beautiful song. At first I was so utterly bemused by the quality of what I had seen I actually had to watch it a second time, and after that I quickly stopped everything, abandoned all research and went off in search of some more information on another Israeli talent in Omer Leshem.

This search started with MySpace where further time was spent listening to tracks on the player and then a fruitless and frustrating trip over to the iTunes and CDBaby stores. So with bedtime fast approaching I dispatched a message via MySpace in the hope of finding somewhere to buy his album "Send Yourself Away".

The next morning, whilst I was sitting at work, I had a reply from Omer directing me to 2 sites however in the end did something quite unbelievable, totally amazing and something which I will always be eternally grateful for, he uploaded the album for me to download. I was and still am totally astonished by this act of generosity and human kindness shown by Omer towards a complete stranger...it's mindblowing!

So I immediately stopped everything, booted my laptop up and downloaded the album and within an hour I was listening to a raft of beautiful songs. That night I lay in bed drifting off to sleep listening again to the album. And I guess it was then it really hit me, how good this collection of Folk/Country songs sung by a man with a rich voice is. As an album, Send Yourself Away is so warm, fuzzy and beautiful that it just seems to suit every mood you could ever possibly be in. This is your stressful drive home made better, it's your lazy summer day spent basking under hot blue skies, your red-eye flight, your candle lit bathtime chill out, your late night under the covers, your early morning wake up, your reflective gaze on life, your momentary inspiration in a mentally challenging moment, it's all those and so much more.

You just can't help but be swept away by the rich vocals and melodies throughout the album. Musically there's definite undertones of the great Neil Young along with vocals that remind me a touch of Johnny Cash meets Ray LaMontagne without quite the huskiness.

It's a truly great album and you all need to go and check Omer out, it's music that'll lift you, move you and leave you feeling better and warmer than you were before you hit the play button. Just make sure you tell Omer how amazing it is and music industry folks...give this man a record deal for goodness sake and whilst you're at it, go and take a closer look at Israel, it's clearly got some amazing talent that needs exporting to the world.

I'll leave you with the thoughts of my great friend Dave who described the video above with this brilliant analogy so beautifully...

"I've been taken back to when I was a kid and my mum gave me 10p for the lucky dip. My hand dived deep in to the bucket of sawdust and i pulled out a gem of a prize.

Rich, thanks for the 10p....and thanks for being mum!

Nite all xxx

Better late than never, a post from the Bedroom...

So the much awaited post and review of Idan Rabinovici's album got put on hold for 24 hours and after promising to deliver for about a week on said review, here we go.

So I've had this album for about a month now but decided not to listen to it for a couple of weeks. I guess I'd been so sucked in by the Strange Folks EP and the Roy Rieck and The Medley Band CD and the live performances here in London that I wanted to be able to listen to Idan's album objectively without comparing it to either other offering from my Israeli friends and listen to it as if it were unrelated. That idea I can assure you worked brilliantly...

The first thing I will say is that the entire album smacks of what I call visual songwriting, in the sense that, you close your eyes, you listen to the songs and you get the vision behind the songs and there isn't one weak song on the album.

The first song Morning Song welcomes you in gently within about 5 seconds. There's no big band sound here, just Idan (who does remind me a little of Cat Stevens) and a guitar for the most part and it hooks you in straight away because it's that simple, there's nowhere to go but to be drawn in. I found myself listening attentively throughout the whole album because of this almost claustrophobic closeness and intimacy.

There then follows some real stand out tracks. Jared's Blues is one of my favourite songs of this year, quite possibly my favourite. Just to set a context against this claim, I would happily suggest I have listened to it comfortably well over 50 times since the start of July! When I received the album Roy Rieck explained that this version was quite different from that of the Strange Folks EP, he wasn't wrong. It's slightly longer in length with an extra verse and a bit different musically although in essence the same song. But what really stands out more than anything and makes the song so completely fresh and in many ways even more beautiful is the sound of Idan playing piano towards the end of the song with Roy's Harmonica...it just works in a big way, to the point that I think I like this version as much if not slightly more than the Strange Folks version.

Thinking Cap is a song I'd seen live and loved because as Strange Folks, it's played quite uptempo but I never quite got the lyrics because I got carried away with the music, so in this version you hear the words and it's actually quite an amazing bit of songwriting.

The same goes for Jungle Man, Your Last Letter, Pretty Hard To Tell and Brand New Coat of Armour which seem to be a deeply emotive and personal set of songs and it feels slightly uncomfortable like you're poking your nose deeply into a life that isn't yours, which makes you listen all the more attentively and that in a way comes back to my original point about it being very visual songwriting.

It truly is a great album, rich in stories, outlooks on life and experiences and musically it just works amazingly well. A brilliant combination of outstanding vocals and well arranged instruments that keep you coming back to it over and over again.

It's actually quite an important album come to think of it. It sets that very first musical marker, for Idan's (and that of the rest of the guys who make up Strange Folks/Roy Rieck and the Medley Band) musical progression. It's that album you look at in years to come and think "that's where it all started". It's amazing listening to Bedroom Folk and being wowed by its raw nature and then hearing and seeing how far they've all progressed as musicians in such a short space of time. It actually highlights even more now in my own mind just how much of an amazingly talented bunch of guys they are.

Go buy it, trust me, it's worth it and you'll be hooked.

Enjoy xx

something for the weekend...

The last couple of days have been tiring to say the least and totally self-inflicted, but I wanted to drop a quick note down to say, if you're in London this weekend and you want to see something worthwhile, head on over to the Luminaire in Kilburn tomorrow night (Saturday 29th) to see the brilliant Greg Holden perform his last UK date before he heads back to the US for possibly a long, long time.

The gig is absolutely free so there's no excuse to not be there really. I can't remember what time he's on but 9pm seems to stick out in my mind.

Seriously people, you cannot afford to miss it!

That's pretty much all you're getting tonight, except to say I'm currently listening to Idan Rabinovici's album Bedroom Folk and will at some point over the next couple of days give you a review of his album.

doing something really cool...

Ok this is a slightly self-induglent post tonight, so I'm aplogising in advance but I wanted to share this with the world. Right now and inspired and helped by someone probably fast asleep right now in Scandinavia, I am writing and singing my first song. Ok well it's sort of my song, well least it will be by the time I've finished.

Let me explain the lyrics, well least the originals actually belong to a global musician, a very famous one at that. They are lyrics to a song never published by the musician but yet I have them and they are hand written and can be authenticated by anyone anywhere in the world. So these lyrics, well they needed a bit of work, god alone knows why I felt qualified to do this but anyways I've started sketching out some re-drafts, working on a chorus, chopping down a verse and adding some chords to go with it and when I nail a chorus and a middle bridge well...it might just get played to that certain someone in Scandinavia who has already had a first sight of it.

It's so cool and well, I just don't want to share with the world who the artist is, because it's kinda special to me and well I'll probably get a billion questions and non-believers, but trust me folks...when you see and maybe hear the song...if I get the balls to ever youtube it, you might realise who the lyrics might belong to.

Oh and as an aside, today I started listening to Idan Rabinovici's solo album Bedroom Folk which on first pass I can recommend wholeheartedly. I want to have another scan or two at it but you'll get an in depth review shortly.

Back to the guitar...

Nite xx

Final thoughts on the past 3 weeks...

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

Wow...just wow!

It's odd. A couple of months ago, I started blogging, I have no idea why, I guess I just wanted to put down somewhere my thoughts and feelings about music to go along with my videos on youtube.

I checked the hit counter today and it's gone over the 200 mark today and shot up in the past week which is really awesome. I haven't yet worked out if it's the same 1 person other than me viewing the blog over and over or if it's lots of you but a big thanks for stopping by and reading whatever you've found...rest assured, I have loads more to say. Also thanks to Roy Rieck who I know published a link to my blog on his MySpace site.

I think I started two months ago by moaning about the lack of synchronisation between Itunes stores around the world...two months on, I'm moaning still. I just want Jay Nash's EP, is it so hard for you people to stick it on the store? Just get this into some perspective Itunes people whoever you might be and the music industry as a whole, you don't want people to illegally download music, well make it available so people can pay for it when they want it. I want to pay for this EP, give me the means to do it will you please?!?!?!

Right onto the next bit of news, the last post I said that the Strange Folks / Roy Rieck and the Medley Band were heading back to Israel to support a band "something river", having forgotten what the "something" was....I can now confirm it's Okkervil River. I still haven't a clue who they are but I will add it to my homework list.

And finally...(for those of you in the UK, I feel very Trevor MacDonald like right now and for those of you who haven't a clue, this will explain - just the first 4 seconds!)

Well through the power of the internet, (which I believe we take for granted) I have found many things and through those things I have found people around the world who share in the things I enjoy and consequently made friends with these people. One is a very recent friend who I sort of met without ever saying hi to, but who shares some of the same musical tastes as me and is also a big fan of the mighty Greg Holden. Her name is Kamila and well, this evening I found a cover version of hers of Greg's song Bar On A. You have to see it, she has such a sweet and beautiful voice.

Right, it's getting very, very late, you've had a mixed post tonight...a moan, a recommendation and I've cleared up a few minor details and found myself some more homework to do.

Thanks again for stopping by and feel free to drop me a message on here, youtube or whatever.

Night all xx

"We like to see how many people we can fit on a stage at any one time..."

...says Idan Rabinovici of Strange Folks...."the most we've ever managed is 16, tonight there's just 7."

And 7 works just fine for me, it's a good number, it sounds good on paper, it sounds awesome to the ear (although I'd love to see 16 of them play together). It was a fantastic show last night, its a simple as that.

Before I delve further, today I wrote out on a postit note all the things I wanted to put in the blog tonight, and I left it on my desk in the office...so I'm working off the memory banks, which is risky.

Back to business. The guys played a set of 7 songs last night including one of my top 3 songs of the moment "Jared's Blues". I absolutely adore this song, I can't tell you exactly why apart from musically it's just perfect and it resonates with me. It's been on in the car, on the iPod, just about everywhere, infact as I type this I have the video playing on youtube. It seems from the video that the place was dead in this video but when they broke out into Thinking Cap, the place seemed to completely change with people dancing all over the place. Videos of the entire set are on my youtube channel (which is in the sidebar - i love writing that, I sound like a pro).

The real shame of the evening was that the set went by so quickly. Half an hour just doesn't seem long enough, and the camera had plenty of room for more videos and the battery was up for the challenge too.

As my friend big Dave S said last night, "some raw bands beat the hell out of their instruments trying to outplay the rest of the band, these guys are just so comfortable playing as a band that it just works amazingly well...they have a great sound." - He knows what he's talking about and I know this because he turned to me at one point and said that it reminded him a bit of Cat Stevens or Yusuf as he's now known. Turns out the gig guide on this website agrees.

So I knew going last night, that it was going to be their last gig in London, but now I know why. They're heading back to Israel to act as support to an American band who are touring there next month (the name escapes me, I think it was something...river - I needed a postit note then too). What I didn't know was that the guys had to go back because of visas too. That's sad in a big way, but Idan and Roy tell me they'll be back in the late Autumn / early Winter and that is great news.

So from a humble fan to a great set of musicians...guys thank you so much for 3 brilliant nights of music and two brilliant CDs. Safe trip back to the holy land and see you in a few months.

Musically this last few weeks has really proved my point, if you don't go out and listen to live music and support it, well then there's a good chance you'll miss out on great music, just as I might have had I opted not to make it to Monkey Chews that night.

Night all xxx

PS. - I can now clarify something that people keep asking me about the whole Roy Rieck and the Medley Band and Strange Folks two bands in one thing. Here's the crack, its exactly the same set of guys, except the lead singers alternate between Roy Rieck (Medley Band) and Idan Rabinovici (Strange Folks) AND yes, they play two different sets of music and they actually sound somewhat different.