New Stuff from Nada Surf

I came across a new music video by a band I like but still should get to know better... Anyways, I enjoyed this song. You might too. Nice imagery there.

An Exciting Comeback

I feel like I don't get anything done with this blog. The only thing to do now is to try to make it make it better - despite all the other (more important?) things. A new post, say, every two days is not such a chore. Gee, why do I think it is? And I always have lots to say..

I was quite excited to hear that The Cars have returned, and it is not The New Cars, it really is all the original living members of the Cars: Ric Ocasek, Elliot Easton, Greg Hawkes, and David Robinson. I should get the new album right away. Now that I think about it, why haven't I already?

Here is a new single and video from the album Move Like This.. I feel quite thrilled... As if nothing has really changed about the Cars since the 70s/80s and that is the way it should be. Wonderful, wonderful.. I really didn't expect this and I hope to get the album soon!

The Cars website

Time to Get Myself Together!

I am in serious need of blog therapy. Utter laziness has been controlling me, as usual, but I have noticed that this laziness causes nothing but trouble. Everyone needs a chance to express their opinions, thoughts, the important stuff, and I think I am the kind of person who really needs that. I don't have anyone to open out about music in real life so this blog is my only way to let off steam. Even though writing takes a lot of time, it is well worth it.

I have several new favorites and I plan to discuss them very soon. But now here is a song that I listened to a few times the other day, and a couple of days later I noticed that the song was playing in my head. Well, it is a very 60s-influenced song: Candy Street by Colorama. They say the album is good so I might get it quite soon... Oh, and what a totally cool video!

J-Pop Moment

Yeah, I don't listen to Japanese music much but sometimes I discover real gems like this... This was originally a lyrics workshop assignment at school. I ended up listening to this song very many times and soon I realized this song sounds really perfect to me in every possible way. It is a song by Hitomi, a singer-songwriter who has been releasing music since the mid-90s.

Wow.. I can't help loving such a great song with a great arrangement. I also enjoy the very glam video.. Cool light saber!

Hobbit Fun

It is time for an update after another quite long break. Sorry again for not posting anything but I've been busier with school than ever...

I had a Lord of the Rings board game evening with my friends a few weeks ago and this song became a small hit then. I had actually never thought that Leonard Nimoy would sing but here he is, singing a cool little bubblegum/sunshine pop/novelty song about Bilbo Baggins. Despite not being perfect I think it is a really catchy song.

Kick-Ass Pop from Chicago

When I think about the development of my music taste, I can notice at least one thing: it is getting more and more hard rock -oriented! It can be stated that 2011 was my first big hard rock year. It can get bigger, though... Meanwhile, I still enjoy power pop just as much as before. And when it comes to just about any kind of music, I can be really slow. I got this album more than a year ago and not until now I can say that I have found the essence of it. I am talking about The Webstirs album So Long, released in 2009.

Sometimes the Webstirs sound like Weezer, sometimes like KISS or the Beatles, sometimes even 80s ELO. All the time they sound like an excellent pop rock band with music that is not really bubblegummy or candy-coated but melodically it definitely is pure candy. Every song is fantastic and memorable, and for some time I didn't feel like listening to anything else because So Long sounded so good. Excellent songs and sounds, solid performance and well-written lyrics make a gorgeous music experience.

There is also of course the thing about the Effingways. The Webstirs are also the Effingways, with the difference that Doug from the Sun Sawed in 1/2 takes care of the lead vocals. And what do I think about Doug? Don't even get me started, he is the greatest singer in the universe! I hope to hear an album by the Effingways in the future. Doug actually sings background vocals on So Long and you can hear him very well. At first I was a bit confused but... He sounds awesome and this definitely adds to the quality of the music.

Here is Wesley Station, a video that I already posted here a long time ago but here it is again. I don't think it is the best song of the album but it definitely is good. The last time I checked the entire So Long album could be listened to on Spotify.

The Webstirs at MySpace

Greatness from Farrah

Now, another music video.. I just noticed there is also a video made for Swings & Roundabouts, a song from Farrah's self-titled album. Do yourself a favor and check it out - it is a wonderful song!

Farrah at MySpace

Music Video Time

Taylor Locke & the Roughs released the great album Grain & Grape last year. You can also see the album in my "best of 2010" section. Here is a video for Jennifer.

Have a Wombling Merry Christmas

Happy holidays, everybody!

Let's Dance

All of a sudden I felt like dancing! So I listened to The Feeling, a great British pop band which has released two albums. One of The Feeling's most danceable songs is I Thought It Was Over, a bittersweet but uplifting tune from the band's 2008 album Join With Us. Like everything I listen to, this song too has a human point of view, something that I have recently noticed to be one of the most essential things in music. In a way this song is almost too serious for dancing.. Anyways, it is a lovely song. Dance if you like!

Gees, I just love this song - and band! Dan Gillespie Sells is also a great vocalist and frontman. It has been ages since the last time I praised The Feeling. So, voilà, The Feeling!

Belated Gig ”Reviews” Part 1: Stalingrad Cowgirls and Sweatmaster

There are several past gigs I would like to tell something about.. At least mention the bands, because I always love a good gig that encourages you to check out new music.

Well, well.. First of all, let's say that on September 23rd I discovered the best Finnish all-female powerpop band. They are called Stalingrad Cowgirls and probably like to label themselves primarily as a punk rock band. Well, they do look very punk.. Black leather, black hair, definitely not too girly! These women were also the best female rock'n roll players in this country I had seen live: a wonderfully energetic gig, melodic songs and loud guitars! Geez, there's nothing like a good-looking melodic punk/pop band with good songs that also can play really, really well.

Stalingrad Cowgirls come from Salla, a small town called Salla, north of the Arctic Circle. These northern girls – Enni Kivelä (vocals and guitar), Riina Kivelä (drums), Henna Vaarala (bass) - debuted in 2007 with Somewhere High. Kiss Your Heart Goodbye followed in 2010. I will check out these albums. They can be listened to on Spotify.

Stalingrad Cowgirls at MySpace

Stalingrad Cowgirls website

These cowgirls in black weren't the headlining act on that night, though. The stage was also taken by another hard rocking band, Sweatmaster, from Turku. Sweatmaster is said to be the most underrated rock band in Finland. That might very well be true, although this country surely is packed with other talented, unnoticed bands as well.

This time Sweatmaster came to Tampere to promote their new, fouth full-length album Dig out the Knife. So how was the gig? Sweatmaster kicked ass, and the musicians were just as surprised by the roaring applause as always.

Check out the video for one of my favorite Sweatmaster songs: Good Looks, Big Deal. It was released on the band's second album, Tom Tom Bullet (2005). Now that's rock'n roll!

Sweatmaster at MySpace

Sweatmaster website

Marvellous! Perfect!

I can't help posting this everywhere I can... It's a music video by my favorite Finnish band Lemonator, from year 1996. For the first time ever this video can be seen online from this day forward.

This was the band's first music video. The song is called Superb. It was released on an album called Yellow (1997). The song... is superb, of course! The video is also really cool.

Groovy

Oh my. I really want to see Groovie Goolies. The characters look like so much fun! Groovie Goolies was an animated TV show that aired in the early 70s. The show had a lot of references to old horror movies and there was also a pop song in every episode.

Yeah.. Sounds like it was made for me. A happy cartoon with horror movie characters. Gee, I really have to check out the show and the soundtrack.

Here is the theme song. Actually, it sounds quite a lot like the Archies.. Catchy, isn't it?

Another Serving of British Bubblegum Sunniness

While going through my massive piles of CDs that I haven't had time to listen to yet (at least not very much), I came across a release called The Best of Vanity Fare. I spotted this band on a bubblegum website several months ago and decided to give it a try.

Vanity Fare, originally called The Avengers, were a lot like the other British 70s bands like Edison Lighthouse and anything else connected to Macaulay and Macleod - sunny, soft-sounding, baroque-tingled, melodic, and often absolutely gorgeous.

This band released some really wonderful melodic pop singles such as I Live for the Sun (a minor hit for a Murry Wilson-managed American band The Sunrays) and Early in the Morning already in the late 60s. Vanity Fare actually hit it big with I Live for the Sun – it was a huge hit especially in America. Vanity Fare wasn't just a cover band, though. The band also wrote original material right from the start. For instance, check out You Made Me Love You from 1969, written by keyboardist Barry Landeman.

To be honest, one of the reasons I am writing this is to get myself to listen to this band more. Music with such great harmonies, lovely melodies and optimism is always a winner – and so is anyone who listens to it.

Enjoy Hitchin' a Ride, from Top of the Pops, 1970! The band is understandably misspelled by the uploader here.

Proto-Bubblegum by the Searchers

I love The Searchers. Sweets for My Sweet is a nice dose of sugary beat music. I just thought about searching for the Searchers (!) on YouTube and found a live video for this mid-60s song.

The Searchers have given me many wonderful 60s beat music moments. They have been active after the 60s too and I plan to do research on the subject.. And listen to lots of good music!

Dodgy in a Flying Van

Continuing in the theme of cool, more or less summery music videos, here is a video from UK band Dodgy. I wanted to share this video because I just saw it for the first time a little while ago and enjoyed it very much. There are not so many music videos that contain a flying van... Also, a piece of summery feel can never be a bad thing in December, the darkest time of the year.

So, here we have another tune filled with catchiness and sweet harmonies. Interestingly this video is a TV rip from a Finnish music show called Bänd-X that was shown for a couple of years in the early 2000s. There have been quite many different music shows on Finnish TV in the past 15 years but they have pretty much all disappeared. I used to follow those shows but now I don’t even have a television in my apartment anymore… Internet is all I need to find new music.

Enjoy Dodgy’s summery pop video! In case you're interested (and don't know it), klassikko means classic.



Dodgy website
Dodgy on MySpace

Webstirs Video “Wesley Station”

Check out this video from Chicago band The Webstirs. It was released quite recently – in September if I’m correct. It is their debut video and a really nice tune. Flowers, listening to vinyl LPs, power poppin’ hooks… It’s a combination of summer and the feeling of a great band playing live in your living room. Trumpets are of course very hip, too. Someone said that everything sounds better with horns. Can’t argue with that!

I really should listen to this band more – I intend to do just that. The material on MySpace sounds very good. I don’t know much about the Webstirs, except that there are some fabulous guys in the band, and that they have fabulous friends... Well, I’m already starting to get into the music as I’m listening to them now. Geez, I really dig the sound of Big Break. And What Do You Believe. Awesome!



The Webstirs website
The Webstirs on MySpace
The Webstirs Facebook fan page

Positivity, Positivity!

Before I go on to blab more about bands and music, I hereby post another music video. It is a song by Egotrippi, one of my favorite Finnish bands (which I previously discussed last October). The idea of posting this just happened to cross my mind... And since it's one of the most hilarious videos ever made, you might enjoy it even if you can't understand Finnish.

Egotrippi had been around for more than ten years before they really started to draw attention in Finland. Nowadays their albums sell well and they attract big live audiences. All in all, they are the most popular power pop band in Finland. Curiously, the band never really became popular with ultimately happy songs such as this (the song is from 1997). That says something about what kind of music Finns seem to like to hear.

And, by the way, Se on tosi jees means approximately "That's Very Cool" (In fact, "jees" means "yes", but a word-to-word translation "It's Very Yes" wouldn't sound that good..) . The song is very happy and it's about things like making the clouds disappear from the sky and not being worried.


Egotrippi at MySpace

The Best Day of Summer

As you might have guessed, I wasn't so much liberated from schoolwork after all.. Well, now I'm feeling a lot more free - no deadlines tomorrow.. In order to celebrate the current heatwave and the fact that I don't need to wear woolly socks, here is an awesome summer hit by my newest Finnish mega-favourite Tehosekoitin. This song was released in 1999 on the band's Freak Out! album. It is a song about the best day of the summer. The asphalt is really hot and the mood summery, even though the beautiful girl seems to be (curiously) missing..

Asfaltti polttaa is a perfect song for summer. The arrangement is excellent and has a lot of 60s/70s vibes. You just can't go wrong with those saxophones... This video was filmed at the Mediterranean. More about Tehosekoitin soon.

Sailing Away

My devotion towards the rock/hard rock band Styx started thanks to The Sun Sawed in 1/2, Messrs Rose and Bobenhouse, and a very, very nice song called Come Sail Away. I find it quite weird that I didn’t hear a word about this band until my favourite singer sang the song on YouTube. On the other hand, I had never heard of bands like Kansas or Foreigner either.. Except for that I most certainly was familiar with them as place names/words.

Styx ended up becoming a quite big thing for me. Their wonderful harmonies, great melodies and very grandiose style that reminds of The Who and Queen were sure to impress me big time. The band has several excellent singers – Mr. DeYoung not being my least favourite.. The guy sounds like Freddie Mercury who’s swallowed a chunk of bubblegum – and occasionally that seems to be roughly the definition of “How to become Melody Freak’s #1 favourite singing voice”.

And the songs! The harmonic and melodic quality of Lorelei and Light Up will surely brighten up any pop fan’s day – let alone the romantic ballad Babe, it’s gorgeous! Once again, we get to hear those Allman Brothers guitar sounds that we love – check out Mademoiselle (not unlike Queen!). For a rock’n roll girl like me Rock & Roll Feeling is a new theme song. Another cool song is Renegade – also provably partially performed by The Sun Sawed in 1/2 on a TV show in the early 90s.. The Grand Illusion and Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man) give you all the things a pop music fan searches for in a song – plus more. The most wonderful song, in my opinion, is The Best of Times. The title basically says it all.. Those harmonies, those melodies! On more than one occasion six minutes is not enough for a Styx song. I suppose there is a reason why this band is also considered progressive. However, when done properly, a two-minute intro won’t bother at all, and as a reward you’ll get some excellent melodies that you will never forget - definitely not a bad deal.

I was surprised that I didn’t seem to find a single familiar-sounding song in the band’s catalog. I tend to find at least one familiar song whenever I check out new (famous!) artists from the past. For a band this big it should be quite logical that there would be some familiar songs. For goodness’s sake, they have sold platinum with eight albums – and no one ever told me this band existed?

It took really long but eventually I found a Styx song I’d heard before. This is so silly.. The song is Boat on the River, and it has been performed in Finnish by schlager artist Riki Sorsa as Joki ('The River'). According to Wikipedia, it was actually performed already in the 80s by Taiska with different lyrics and name (Aamulla yksin). Can you believe that? To be honest, it’s not that strange.. Translated schlager has been a really popular concept in Finland in the past (and it still might be), although I don’t think there is a reason to translate music into Finnish. The original performance is the original, one and only. However, there is a possibility that someone might make a really good cover... Besides, almost everyone knows English these days – at least the young people.

Styx is still touring and even releasing new albums (the latest being from 2005). However, people seem to think it’s not the real Styx anymore. Original band members Dennis DeYoung and Chuck Panozzo, for instance, left the group in 1999. YouTube has many songs from the band’s 1996 Return to Paradise tour, a gig in hometown Chicago, with all living original members on stage. These are incredibly good-sounding live performances. Don’t hesitate to watch – it sounds perfect.

Lorelei
Come Sail Away
The Grand Illusion
The Best of Times
Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man)
Renegade
Boat on the River
Show Me the Way

Official Styx website