posted by david on Mon 20 May 2002 @ 09:39 PM

Irish singer-songwriter Andy White has never broken through to the general public in Australia but he's picked up a fairly loyal following around the world. Many people have been introduced to him through his involvement in the ALT project with Tim Finn (the 'T") and Liam O'Maonlai of Hothouse Flowers (the "L"). On his own, he has recorded a number of albums of lyrically buoyant songs which at times seem to be more vehicles for his words than seamless tunes. You might say he's a folky rap singer. But sometimes his songs really hit the mark, either with some phrase that delights or a deceptively catchy tune that you can't get out of your head. I first saw him live in London a couple of years ago at the wonderfully bizarre venue known as the 12 Bar Club and that time around, I was a little underwhelmed. On the other hand, his Friday night appearance at the Rosstown was completely disarming. His solo presentation had a certain charm to it, all enthusiasm and life and while it was interesting to hear solo versions of ALT songs like "We're All Men" it was his solo material that worked best, with the more subdued version of "Between A Man And A Woman" a particular highlight. Monique Brumby joined him for a few numbers while on other songs Andy accompanied himself, looping guitar riffs to play along to. Low key but satisfying entertainment.

see the rest...

posted by david on Tue 14 May 2002 @ 09:28 PM

Okay, I had hoped I would be able to avoid mentioning her name so think of this as a story about Sony Music instead of... gulp... Celine Dion. It seems that Sony are trying to make enemies of all of those people who went out and bought new shiny Apple iMacs - the copy protection on the new album from whatsername may cause their computers to crash. And then they may not start again. And the disc might not eject. And you might have to take the computer back to Apple. And just as a bonus, they will probably charge you for removing the album from your system. Of course, the tech geeks over at slashdot are up in arms, as much as they can be when it comes to whatsername. There's a pretty daft story about it over at The Age and a better one over at cnet. This strikes me as a PR disaster for Sony so it will be interesting to see if they re-consider using this copy protection technology. How long will it be before someone sues amazon.com because an album they bought there didn't play because the CD was non-standard and they weren't warned? It looks like this technology has the potential to annoy many retailers and hardware manufacturers in addition to consumers. The Slashdot story above links to one possible work around for dealing with these "pretend" CDs.

posted by david on Tue 14 May 2002 @ 08:43 PM

Paul Kelly seems to have the whole media thing sussed out. If he's not releasing a new solo album (eg. Nothing But A Dream), a soundtrack (Lantana) or acting/singing in a film (One NIght The Moon) he's still got the media talking about him with the release of "The Women At The Well", an album of songs written by him and recorded by various female musicians. Those involved include Renee Geyer, Deborah Conway, Kate Ceberano, Kasey Chambers and Rebecca Barnard. This article focusses mainly on Chrissie Amphlett's contribution to the album, a re-working of "Before Too Long". The album is out this week and will be launched May 16 at the Corner Hotel, Melbourne. update: it seems one of The Age journalists enjoyed the show

posted by david on Mon 6 May 2002 @ 05:12 PM

I recall reading a review of one of Chris Isaak's shows on one of his past tours where the reviewer was positively ecstatic about it, citing a night of great fun and laughter mixed with great music. Ever since then I've vowed to catch Chris Isaak the next chance I could and now finally he's heading this way again. Hurrah! He plays the Palais in Melbourne later this month - see Ticketmaster for tickets and stuff. Also playing the Palais soon-ish is the legendary vocalist Art Garfunkel. It'll probably be musically goopy but hey, the man can sing so I'll be there. Irish singer/songwriter Andy White (of ALT, with Tim Finn and Liam O'Maonlai) is also hitting town for a couple of shows in a couple of weeks, one at the Corner Hotel and the other at the Rosstown Hotel. And finally for now, I've heard a rumour that Elvis Costello will be heading this way but I've seen no mention of that in the press or anything. update: telstra.com has some info on the Elvis Costello tour.