Rock 'n Roll

This past week I've been attending the Beached Academy, as a student. This is an annual opportunity for budding talent in Scarborough to work with professional tutors on song-writing skills and music performance. There's also training for people who want to work on the technical side. While some would think that I don't qualify to be a student within such a setting, I was pleasantly surprised by the whole thing. It was good to be among young, raw performers keen to see what the scene has to offer. This is why I teach at the university. And yet, it was quite good to see what the student experience is really like. Our tutors were Toby Jepson (former Little Angels frontman and the new singer for Gun) and celebrity vocal coach Dave Laudat. Their generosity is astounding.

We shall all be performing at the Beached Festival on Sunday 17 August here in Scarborough, so I'm sure I'll talk about all this some more later. I'll (hopefully) also get an opportunity to play you a recording we did together on a song written at this year's Beached Academy on my weekly podcast. Former Goldfrapp drummer Rowan Oliver, who is now a fellow tutor at the university, said that hearing me sing was a revelation. I'd certainly put that on my poster and publicity material if I were to take this further rather than return to my regular life once Beached is over.

For the 126th edition of my weekly Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast I've picked Jean Claude Vancell's new song Heartbreaker as the show opener. Once again JCV delivers an excellent track showcasing both his skills as a songwriter and as a singer. I have a lot of time for this young man and so should you.

The Areola Treat will be appearing live with the Retrophytes at the Poxx Bar next Saturday, 16th August. Last month they released their eponymous debut EP on the Belgian independent label Kinky Star. Boulevard Werewolf is lifted from it. Playing this band's music on my podcast for the third time in less than a year (do I like this band?) makes me realize that I've never played anything by Lumiere, the band Areola guitarist Adrian and drummer Chris played in in the first half of this decade. So to right that wrong, I've included Rememberence of Lovers Past from their 2005 album It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time. That was indeed one of the finest bands to grace the Maltese music scene, ever.

Since I'm playing something from 2005 and it's August, I must pause to celebrate Pinkpube's upcoming birthday/anniversary. On the 23rd August 2005, Pinkpube was launched 4 astounding EPs. HA's Approaching the Gnu was one of them. From it I've included Festa in this week's podcast. I'll be returning to the Pinkpube catalogue again over the next two weeks to mark the third birthday/anniversary properly or as we say in Maltese kif imiss.

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