What are you listening to at the moment Options

[daren]

Just bought Radio 1's second outing of the Live lounge long players. Amongst the many hidden gems I see on disc two there's a band called Elbow singing Forget myself, a track from their 2005 offering 'Leaders of the free world'.

I wonder if it's any good??

Doubt it

[Panja]

Blimey, says here that Darren Hayes has just been arrested for impersonating a musician..

[Guest_hootananny_*]

Hard Fi, Kanye West, Darren Hayes, Newton Faulkner and Mutya Beuna is currently in my car.

Bring it on guys!

Mutya Beuna is currently in my car.

Hope its fellatio

Revolver at the mo by d beatles

[daren]

Blimey, says here that Darren Hayes has just been arrested for impersonating a musician..

[davekermito]

Hard Fi, Kanye West, Darren Hayes, Newton Faulkner and Mutya Beuna is currently in my car.

Bring it on guys!

Mutya Beuna is currently in my car.

Hope its fellatio

I preferred her first album.

[Tommy Shambles]

The Band - The Band

Divine Comedy - A Secret History

Rufus Wainwright - Poses , Want one, Want two.

Mamas and the Papas Collection

Prefab Sprout - 38 Carat Collection

The Turtles - Best of

Aztec Camera- Love

Elvis Costello - Brutal Youth

Christy Moore - Live in London

Burt Bacharach - Look of Love ( Various )


( I notice he's not mentioned Jethro Tull Martha, but I know for a fact he regularly gives ' Living in The Past ' a spin )

[Bluepeter15]

The Band- The Band- I take it this lot are their own tribute group, eh Sham? BTW give Martha one for me- I'd do it myself but at my age I need to conserve energy for my impending funeral- I think there's nothing worse than having a bunch of friends round and just lying there self importantly.

[Panja]

Shotter's Nation by Babyshambles is still a regular down at the Panja turnatable arms, necking quietly in the corner and taking the occassional interest in the darts.

Sham, try and get a soundbite from the album if you can. I swear the man is mimicking Steve Harley at times.

Good album though..

The Flying club cup by Beirut is a sheer joy. Mainman Zach Condon is a fine young musician who writes an interesting ditty, it sounds nothing like i've heard before and therefore comparisons are none, but he likes to play in a style that an Eastern European sipping Zwiec from a wide brim would not be offended by.

Shammy, we may just have a new Paddy McAloon on our hands..

[Tommy Shambles]

Shotter's Nation by Babyshambles is still a regular down at the Panja turnatable arms, necking quietly in the corner and taking the occassional interest in the darts.

Sham, try and get a soundbite from the album if you can. I swear the man is mimicking Steve Harley at times.

Good album though..

The Flying club cup by Beirut is a sheer joy. Mainman Zach Condon is a fine young musician who writes an interesting ditty, it sounds nothing like i've heard before and therefore comparisons are none, but he likes to play in a style that an Eastern European sipping Zwiec from a wide brim would not be offended by.

Shammy, we may just have a new Paddy McAloon on our hands..

My next purchases from Play.com will be based solely on your recommendations Panja.

[Panja]

Sham, a description and then review is below. The review after that is obviously written by a fan, it doesn't look like Condon's handwriting but you can't be too careful, eh?

Description
'The Flying Club Cup' is the second album by Zach Condon, AKA Beirut. Following on from his impressive debut album 'Gulag Orchestra', this release finds Condon expanding his musical vision from the Balkan alt-folk of his previous work and augmenting it with flourishes of French chanson music. Includes the tracks 'La Banlieue', 'The Penalty' and 'In The Mausoleum'.

Review:
Beirut have always been all about Europe. Ever since Zach Condon started mingling electronica and indie-rock with traditional East-European music, his little band has been redolent of the old world.

And though "The Flying Club Cup" has a more modern flavour to some of its songs, the feeling of wistful, melancholy nostalgia still hangs heavily over these exquisitely orchestrated pop tunes. Think early twentieth-century France, as seen through sepia photographs and a band's sad tunes.

It opens with a haunting chorus of wailing horns, before switching to the smooth, swaying melody of "Nantes." Condon sings mournfully, "Well it's been a long time/long time now/since I've seen you smile/and I'll gamble away my fright... and in a year, a year or so/this will slip into the sea..."

It's much the same throughout the remaining songs, which tend to be bittersweet in tone, with a backdrop of horns and stately pop rhythms. Mellow dance tunes, Eastern European marches, mournful accordion-piano ballads, and pretty folky tunes. Not to mention, of course, combinations of all of the above.

In the second half, we're even graced with some upbeat songs -- the twittering violin and swirling melody of "In The Mausoleum." And the sprightliest music on the album is "Un Dernier Verre (Pour La Route)," a peppy pop tune that sounds like something Snoopy would dance to as the World War I flying ace.

If I were to compare Condon and Beirut to any other artist, it would probably be Sufjan Stevens -- polished, multilayered music with rich vocals. But the music of "The Flying Club Cup" is all nostalgia, bittersweet and weariness, mingled with a rich, over-the-top quality. It's so much BIGGER than Beirut's past work -- in sound, in scope, in feeling.

Not to mention that the sound here is a bit less Balkan -- think electro-indie mingled with vintage pop melodies, then filtered through an old French radio. Lots of mellow accordion, mingled brass, rattling drums and tambourine, an acoustic guitar, some twittery fiddle melodies and a nimble, energetic piano. Here are there, a gentle layer of keyboard is laid over it all.

Condon's voice is the clincher -- this guy is not only a great musician, but he has a smooth, rich voice that slides through the music like a satin ribbon. And his songs are evocative and stirring ("A plague on the workhouse!"), with plenty of feeling ("what melody will lead my lover from his bed?/What melody will see him in my arms again?").

[scooby]

Shotter's Nation by Babyshambles is still a regular down at the Panja turnatable arms, necking quietly in the corner and taking the occassional interest in the darts.

Sham, try and get a soundbite from the album if you can. I swear the man is mimicking Steve Harley at times.

Good album though..

The Flying club cup by Beirut is a sheer joy. Mainman Zach Condon is a fine young musician who writes an interesting ditty, it sounds nothing like i've heard before and therefore comparisons are none, but he likes to play in a style that an Eastern European sipping Zwiec from a wide brim would not be offended by.

Shammy, we may just have a new Paddy McAloon on our hands..

My next purchases from Play.com will be based solely on your recommendations Panja.

[Panja]

I unashamedly played the soundtrack to the fillum, Notting hill, today. Classic tear jerkers by Al Green (How can you mend a broken heart) and Bill Withers (Ain't no sunshine), with a soupcon of joy by Elvis Costello who does a grand cover version of Aznavour's She, and flashbacks a go-go with the Spencer Davis group doing Gimme some lovin'.

Party on..

[Panja]

Today i'll be mainly listening to Nick Drake.
I don't know why I keep doing it to myself because every time I play Pink moon I want to curl up into a ball and cry myself to sleep, and having read his biography only makes it worse.

[davekermito]

Care to eloborate Panja? I know very little about Nick Drake.

All I know about Drake, was that he smoked ridiculous amounts of weed, was from a very privileged background. It appeared he 'wallowed' in self-pity and hated not getting his own way.

Oh and his ashes are buried in Solihull.

[Panja]

He only recorded three albums before he finally succumbed to depression, which people who claim to have known him have pinned it down to a mere several thousand reasons. His biographical writer claims it was because his albums were selling so poorly, and the fact that his three album's total sales were less than 6,000 during his lifetime certainly support this theory.

His music is surely sent from Heaven though, Davey K, particulary his third and final album, Pink Moon, purely because it didn't (at Drake's insistence) get over-produced.

he died of an overdose when he was 24 (or thereabouts). His mother claimed he took it accidently, and the fact that he got up at 4AM to have a bowl of cornflakes suggests she may be right.

Either way it was a great loss to the music industry. he has a best of called Way to blue - An introductiuon to Nick Drake. There are very few folk acoustic albums that better it in my opinion..