International music, News, Power Pop

Greg Pope – Monster Suit

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Greg Pope is a multi-talented guy. The power pop circles know him as an excellent pop singer-songwriter, but apparently he is also a film director. This latest album Monster Suit is actually the official soundtrack for the short film Giant Monster Playset directed by Mr. Greg Pope, but it works beautifully also as an individual piece of pop art and contains several fabulous pop tunes. For example this song entitled Soulless Heart is a slice of melodic pop heaven.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/26503539″]
 
Trailer for the movie Giant Monster Playset:

GIANT MONSTER PLAYSET, trailer from Greg Pope on Vimeo.

Greg Pope Website

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International music, News

Joe Pug Live at Lincoln Hall

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I think another great songwriter Kasey Anderson first got me into Joe Pug. Either him or the blog ninebullets. Or Kasey writing for ninebullets. Either way this happened sometime last year, I later bought the album Messenger, fell in love with it and it was one of my top 20 albums last year. Now ninebullets alerted me about the new live album and I have to do my small part in spreading the gospel.

Chicago’s Joe Pug is one of the greatest folk troubadours at the moment. Everyone seems to think so, but of course that’s a bit of a perspective illusion. In the bigger picture he is still relatively unknown, but in the world I live in, he is extremely highly respected and about 90% of the blogs and webzines I read (and whose opinion I trust) are totally into him. The big news concerning Joe Pug is that he has a new live album out there in the digital world entitled Live at Lincoln Hall and you can buy it for $5. You know that generally I don’t really care for these kind of things, but this guy is something special and you can hardly get a better value for money than buy this thing of beauty for around 4€ or so. Live albums don’t get much better than this. Fantastic stuff.

To get you in the right mood. Here’s How Good You Are from the HearYa sessions:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INoHB8aX43k]

Joe Pug Website
Joe Pug Store

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Featured, Finnish music, Finnish music videos, News

Video of the Day #80: Matti Jasu & The Loose Train

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Matti Jasu wrote a lot of amazing pop songs for Goodnight Monsters and I’ve been eagerly waiting his new material. Now the wait is almost over. Matti Jasu will perform at Flavour of the Month on friday 2nd of december with his new band and today this cool video of a song called Fingers Crossed appeared. Fingers crossed that the Matti Jasu & The Loose Train album will soon hit the stores and our hearts. I’m 100% sure that it’s going to be awesome.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT80lUksDRs]

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Finnish music, News

Flavour of the Month – Mikael H & The Siberians, Matti Jasu and the Close Encounters

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Flavour of the Month is once again around the corner and will take place at Pikku-Torre, Turku next friday 02.12.2011. Two wonderful bands Mikael H & The Siberians and Matti Jasu and the Close Encounters will share the stage. Really looking forward to this. More details in the finnish press release below:

LAULUNTEKIJÖITÄ YHTYEINEEN JOULUKUUN FLAVOUR OF THE MONTHISSA

Joulukuun Flavour Of The Month-klubilla perjantaina 2.12. on tarjolla helsinkiläistä ja turkulaista laulaja-lauluntekijäosaamista.

Folk-mestari Mikael Hakkarainen ja yhtyeensä The Siberians ovat juuri julkaisemassa kolmatta albumiaan The President of Venice Beach Helmi Levyjen kautta. Yhtyeen debyytti Sounds like Siberia julkaistiin vuonna 2004 ja kakkoslevy Back from Serbia vuonna 2006. Parin vuoden tauon aikana Hakkarainen on soittanut mm. John McGregorin kanssa Kasparissa sekä Astrid Swanin, etelä-afrikkalaisen Guy Collinsin sekä australialaisen Gosia Winterin yhtyeissä.

Turkulainen Matti Jasu puolestaan saatetaan muistaa kaksi albumia 22-Pistepirkon Bone Voyage-merkille levyttäneestä Goodnight Monstersista. Jasun uusia tekemisiä kuullaan nyt nimen Matti Jasu and the Close Encounters alla.

tiedot lyhyesti:
FLAVOUR OF THE MONTH ESITTÄÄ
Mikael H & The Siberians
Matti Jasu and the Close Encounters
+ FOTM DJ team
pe 2.12. 2011 klo 21-03
Pikku-Torre, Yliopistonkatu 30
liput 3€

Mikael H & The Siberians photo: by Alena Rebova

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