After the Love is Gone

I can't believe it's already been a week since I left Moscow. It all seems like a blur. I guess this is partly, if not mostly, because I'm so busy with all sorts of things. Unfortunately some of the things that keep me busy are not very productive. It's really about time I learned to take the raw with the cooked, and yet it's getting better all the time.

Two deaths broke up this week's humdrum cheer. The first was that of Maltese actress Antoinette Soler. She was quite well known and loved both on stage and TV for many years. Oddly, though, I haven't seen a single obituary or appreciation for her online. Next came the shocking personal message from my old friend Robert Longo that Niki Falzon had passed away. He was only 48 but Sam Hayman told me that he'd been hospitalized about a month ago. I'm afraid that the best that I can do is remember them through my blog and celebrate Niki's music during my Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast.

The 163rd MMI podcast is a mixed bag of goodies that accumulated on my desktop over the last few days. The opening song is the long awaited debut release from Kartridge. This band, fronted by former Purple Haze singer Daryl Ebejer, has been gigging since around 2006, and I've always longed to hear them. Now that they've finally produced a recording I can fulfill that wish and share their sound with my podcast listeners. The song is called Wild Crazy Nights.

I'm pleased to see that more and more Maltese musicians and performers are taking to Twitter. On this week's podcast I've deliberately included two people who have taken to Twittering quite regularly. It was through Twitter that I discovered Christabelle's song Flame, which has just been released on YouTube accompanied by a static picture of the singer for the duration of the song. Apparently it's been out (and getting regular radio airplay in Malta) for several months but if it wasn't for the fact that I started following Christabelle on Twitter about a week ago I would have probably missed out completely on this one.

Brian Vassallo is the other inclusion on this week's podcast to come from Twitter. Several days ago, Philip Mizzi posted a short film called In The End made by Ramon Mizzi. Philip acts in this short film, but I only really became aware that the original soundtrack was composed by Brian Vassallo from Brian's Twitter account; I have been following him for a number of weeks. The track I've selected from this short film soundtrack is called My Only Son.

Regular listeners of the Mużika Mod Ieħor series may remember that I've included the music of Nick Falzon at least a couple of times in previous editions. Niki, as those of us who knew him more than two decades ago called him, was a very prolific composer of jazzy new age music and broadcast jingles. His passing earlier this week is marked with a fond final farewell at the close of this week's podcast. The music I've chosen to play to see us out until the next episode comes from a 1992 album called Twilight Moods, which Niki Falzon released under the name Masque, in collaboration with several other musicians, including saxophonist Nigel Hitchcock and drummer David Vella. Glow is among the best tracks on what was one of the very first Maltese CD albums ever released.

The RSS feed for the Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast is available here or you can simply click here to subscribe directly with iTunes. You can also follow each new episode through the MMI Podcast: Facebook Fan Page or on MySpace. If you have no idea what any of this means, just click here.

Just Dance

As there are still a considerable number of early-year events still to come, it would be foolish of me to think that the new year is really already is full swing. It simply is not. Next Tuesday's Obama inauguration brings high hopes with it. I'm not expecting any radical changes but the fact that a new tone will be set for world politics helps me breathe easier. If I manage my time properly I should be blogging about that later this week.

Some things never change, or rather, as the saying goes, the more things change the more they stay the same. Right now, the 147th Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast is my way of making sense of this paradox. It opens with a grungy ballad called Till I Die by Totema. This ties in with the last track on the preceeding edition of the MMI podcast. Guitarist Emerson Vella is the link between the two. Totema's MySpace page contains three recordings by this band but little else, so I don't know as much as I'd like to about them. I'm hoping that they're active enough in 2009 to merit another inclusion on my weekly podcast.

Daniel Cassar is a young guitarist I just met via MySpace. He has uploaded a jazzy tune called Around the Day in 80 Worlds to demonstrate his excellent guitar playing skills. By his own admission this is just a demo but it shows him as a local guitarist worthy of note. I'm looking forward to hearing more from him, either as a soloist or even with a band. He plays with metal newcomers Cyanide, so there's hope.

By contrast, I know we'll be hearing more from Maltese-Australian singer-songwriter Luke Caruana, better known as Carra. He was recently in Malta and played some gigs in France and Holland too before returning back to Sydney. There's now a Carra Facebook page too and he's working on a new album and, judging by his previous releases, I'm sure that will be one of the better Maltese-Australian releases this year. Down the Line is from last year's Gaia EP.

Back to Maltese guitarist uploading their recordings to MySpace, a few weeks ago I came across Stefanos who has uploaded a small number of instrumental tracks. The one I've selected for my podcast is entitled Little Thoughts. Stefanos' online presence is one that beautifully demonstrates the sort of worldwide audience hitherto unknown Maltese musicians can attract.

Back to the opening point I clumsily tried to make in the first paragraph of this blog post, I'm very much looking forward to developing a major research project on the arts in Malta. I've already managed to articulate the main idea for a couple of funding applications I put forward last year, but now I'm quite keen to get the project off the ground by any means necessary. To make sure that the work isn't perceived as an academic project that has limited interest to a broader public I accepted an invitation to write an article about a small aspect of this planned work. Writing this article for one of the local Sunday newspaper magazines I exchanged several emails with Freddie Portelli, among other veteran Maltese pop rock musicians.

I mention all this here because aside from answering my questions and showing me some wonderful picture from his time with the Malta Bums and Black Train, Freddie also sent me an MP3 of Play It Again, released as a single in 1979. He explained that Black Train were unable to travel abroad to promote this single widely when it came out because the band had far too many commitments to play at people's weddings. Having attended two of those weddings in the late 1970s I can attest to the frenzy that accompanied the presence of The Black Train at wedding halls across Malta. If you've never heard this song before, I suggest you listen to it in the context of the Eurovision Song Contest.

I bring this up because although Malta was not taking part in that contest at that point in time, Play it Again would have possibly gone down well with Eurovision fans and made Freddie and the Black Train into a Euro-pop sensation. Then again, this also came out at the time that punk had changed the face of rock music, but it would take the next generation of Maltese musicians to bring that around, even if an underground scene was already brewing by then. Sadly, no one has documented any of this properly so far. I'm now hoping to rectify this in a systematic way.

The RSS feed for the Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast is available here or you can simply click here to subscribe directly with iTunes. You can also follow each new episode through the MMI Podcast: Facebook Fan Page. If you have no idea what any of this means, just click here.

See Saw

2008 is history. For the last five years I've been blogging about the ups and downs at the end of every year. Things have changed somewhat since 2004 around here, mostly because my blog has been taken over almost completely by show notes for my weekly Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast. I have no real regrets about that. If I had more (free) time I'd probably blog more often between podcasts.

So, my annual partial, most subjective, list of blog entries from the year gone by, in random order is marinated in podcast show notes. In any case, this list is meant mostly as a simple way to mark the highs and lows in my year, as chronicled on my blog throughout 2008:


UPPERS

Speaking about Performance in Second Life at the IOCT

Undergoing colonoscopy at Whitby Hospital

The 100th episode in my weekly Mużika Mod Ieħor podcasting series

Could I possibly ever live in Malta again?

The Maltese blogosphere is dead! Long live the Maltese blogosphere

Claudio Baglioni's version of L-Aħħar Bidwi f'Wied il-Għasel

Diana Gurtskaya singing Peace Will Come (Georgia's 2008 ESC entry)

I have one word for you: Facebook

Public transport in Malta will never be the same again

Best Dr Who episode, ever

Xtruppaw return to delight a live audience

Philip Auslander is not dead!

Being a student at Beached Academy

Appearing on Bondi+ via web-based video chat

Interview on SBS radio in Australia

CDs: Brikkuni's Kuntrabanda! and Magic of the Sun by The Rifffs

Marking 10 years since the first MaltaMedia production

DOWNERS

Malta Song for Europe 2008 - semifinal

Malta Song for Europe 2008 - final

Hard disk meltdown!

2008 Malta General Elections

Malta's entry at the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest

Remodeling our kitchen

Christmas comes a little too early

RIP: Roland Friggieri, Ebba von Fersen Balzan, Albert Hofmann, Sir Anthony Mamo, George Carlin, Bo Diddley, Kilin, and Manwel Borg.

Not counting the departed friends and icons, this year seem to be considerably abundant in the ups and somewhat scarce on the downers.

I'd like to thank you for reading my blog and/or listening to my podcasts in 2008 and a special thanks if you contributed to all that in any way...I wish you a very happy new year!

Trying To Pull Myself Away

Things should be better by this time next week. Right now I'm just fighting against the clock to make a Monday deadline on submitting a chapter I'm writing about performance in Second Life for a book on learning and teaching in this virtual world. The book will be published by an academic press in Norway within the next few months. On top of this, life goes on and my "to do" list keeps getting longer and longer. Ironically, as the impeding start of the new academic year looms over the temporal horizon I long for it to all come into place because it helps me structure things better.

The other thing that helps me structure things better is of course my weekly Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast. In the midst of the final sprint to get my Second Life writing done on time, I can't but pause for a few hours to produce this week's MMI podcast. By taking time to do this I find that my brain works better when I get back to writing about avatars and the conceptual possibilities of virtual worlds.

I'm very pleased with the new recordings from Dean Saviour. His Marshmallow Girl was picked to top the 2007 MMI podcast listeners' picks in the online releases category. He now returns with two new online releases. Hallway of Kites is the one I've picked to open the 131st edition of the MMI podcast. I'm sure Dean's music will receive a good number of votes again on this year's listerers' picks. More about that in a couple of weeks or so.

I'm also thrilled to discover that Brikkuni are in the process of putting together an album and it looks like it'll be entitled Kuntrabanda. They've just released to unmastered tracks from it on their MySpace page. Brussel is one of them and it captures the unique sound of this band fronted by former Lumiere singer Mario Vella. The band now includes a prodigious line-up, which includes Danjeli on keyboards, his mate Michael Galea on drums, Daniel "il-Flambu" Cassar plays bass, and the other former Lumiere Matthew Cuschieri on guitar. Additional musicians include Ruth Abela on clarinet.

Their earlier recording was too raw for comfort - I featured it on the 47th edition of the MMI podcast anyway - but it also encouraged me to include a track from a recent batch of recordings I discovered on Facebook by a defunct band called A Fuscia Sun Vessel. This trio was only together for about six months in 2006 and since then Robert Farrugia Flores has emerged as one of the foremost performers on the underground scene along with his new band Dominoes. They will be appearing at the Poxx Bar with Explicit next Friday the 19th of September.

Since I've gone back in time a little bit for A Fuchsia Sun Vessel, I thought that this would be a most appropriate time to play a track from a CD I've been wanting to feature on my podcast for a long time. I finally acquired my own copy of Sigo's Perfect Existence from 2002. Sergio Gatt, the singer-songwriter who also goes by the name of his band, has withdrawn from performing original material since then but thankfully he still gigs regularly playing covers. This is a shame because as you can hear from Bliss, a duet with Marvic Lewis, there's much more than meets the eye to this performer who has been active for about 20 years now. I must dig out some of my old tapes one of these days and play you something from his days with a band called Big Foot, a time when survival on the local music scene was a much harder slog that it is now.

The RSS feed for the Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast is available here or you can simply click here to subscribe directly with iTunes. You can also follow each new episode through the MMI Podcast: Facebook Fan Page. If you have no idea what any of this means, just click here.

See Saw

2007 is history. If you've followed this blog for more than a year you probably already know that I at the end of every eyar I take stock of the previous 12 months. This all started in 2004 and went on with slight variations the following year and last year. I've come to see it as a way to have a quck look at all (or most of) my blog entries in one go.

So now, for the fourt consecutive year here's a partial, most subjective, list of blog entries from the year gone by, in random order. This list is only meant to mark the highs and lows in my year, as chronicled on my blog throughout 2007:

UPPERS

Interview on BBC Radio York

World's first enhanced Maltese podcasts

Results of the 1st annual MMI Listeners' Picks + MMI podcast: 50th & 75th

Oliva Lewis wins the 2007 Malta Song for Europe

Easter in Malta

Visiting the National Media Museum with my students.

Lunar Eclipse + Eklissi Perpetwi

Pierre J. Mejlak's Riħ Isfel

Second Life - YouTube - Twitter - Facebook

Visiting Helsinki and the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest debacle

Post-Eurovision comments for Malta Today

The Simpsons Movie

Conferences: SL in London + SL-related in Salford

Discovering Drive + Dean Saviour

Patti Smith, Radiohead's In Rainbows + Danjeli's Kakofonija on my iPod

Taking the 2nd annual MMI Listeners' Picks poll to Facebook


DOWNERS

Morrissey is not the UK Eurovision entry

RIP: Apakuki Coka - Jean Baudrillard - David Hatch - Bergman+Antonioni - Tony Wilson - Marcel Marceau - Karlheinz Stockhousen

My friend Ġorġ Mifsud-Chircop is dead

Olivia Lewis' drean turns into a nightmare

Big Brother (not the celebrity version)

10th anniversary from Diana's death

Summer bummer

Radio Malta sinks to further low

Xtruppaw return on the scene with a football anthem

In putting these two lists together I realized that there were a number of things in 2007 I'd have liked to blog about properly but didn't find the time or the muse to do so. At least most of them get a mention here and there, in unrelated posts. Here are the main ones (in random order): Frank Camilleri and Mario Frendo visit Scarborough, Pan's Labyrinth, Amy Winehouse, moving house, transliteracy, 40th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Steve Dixon's Digital Performance book, support for the Burmese monks, attending academic conferences in Birmingham + Leeds, the joys of organic gardening, Yoko Ono's Yes I'm a Witch, and Joni Mitchell's Shine.

One thing I (very oddly!) didn't blog about was my interview with Clare Agius for her Mhux għall-Kulħadd on TV series. It's available on YouTube, of course. Perhaps that's why I forgot to blog about it.

Anyway, many thanks for reading my blog and listening to my podcasts in 2007 and a special thanks if you contributed to all that in any way...I wish you a very happy new year!

Total Eclipse of the Heart

If for nothing else, I like the Christmas holidays because I get to find the time to do some of the things I can't do when I'm simply too busy. One of those things is non-academic reading.

One of the things I've been reading recently is Achille Mizzi's new book of poetry entitled Eklissi Perpetwi. He is one of the modern Maltese poets I've admired for many years. I first discovered his work along with others in the anthology Linji Ġodda as a teenager in the early 1980s. I remember the poem Enigma Variations very well, mostly because of its wonderful musical allusions. His collection Il-Kantiku tad-Demm had just been published so it was quite easy to find more of his poems to read. Eventually other books of his poems were published and I was hooked. I was particularly mesmerized by Tango, which became one of my favourite poems of all time, especially after setting it to music for a literary evening in his honour at the University of Malta about 20 years ago.

Whenever I come across any new poems by Achille Mizzi, I immediately look for the musical qualities in them, and I'm never disappointed. Some allusions are subtle, but, as if to reward me and those like me, there's also direct references. In the new collection we get Kitarra and Toccata e Fuga in Re. For the more astute observer there's also Qanpiena, Ritmi, and even Asperges.

I've always believed that Achille Mizzi is like an unassuming bespectacled superhero who transforms himself into his alter ego through his poetry. Eklissi Perpetwi is clearly written by a mature poet. In reading poems like Amnesija, Rebbieħa 2003, Turment, and Lil Binti fil-Milja Tagħha, among others, I see more than a glimpse of the man behind the poet. He's been at it for so long it now seems that the poems are more inseparable from his everyday thoughts than ever. To me, this is what he means by the title of this new book: it's as if his poetic mode is so innate that it now casts an eternal shade on his thoughts.

If you've never read any of Achille Mizzi's poetry, just consider this from his new book:

IL-MOĦĦ

Il-moħħ
teleskopju ta' mirja
ġo mirja,
jirriflettu
il-bnazzi
etern.

The Clock

Anyone who follows this blog on a fairly regular basis knows that I'm simply too busy to put as much time as I'd like to into writing here. If I didn't have a weekly music podcast to blog about, I have a feeling that I wouldn't post at least one blog post a week. So, if for no other reason, I podcast to keep my blog active.

Whenever I sit down to produce my weekly podcast, one of the first things I do is write down the number for that particular episode. I frequently surprise myself by the ever-growing count. This week it's number 88.

As it happens, this week's podcast contains a relatively laid back selection. It's as if there was a chill-out theme guiding me as I was putting it together. To dispel any such thoughts I'll just say that I actually replaced one of the songs with a more upbeat track at the last minute.

Sasha Vella's Melody sets the tone perfectly. I only discovered Sasha's songs very recently. They're quite beautiful. It's also quite refreshing to hear a Maltese singer deliver vocal interpretations that are not feeding from an obvious palette. She has released 4 songs on MySpace and on Sellaband, which she sees as her possible ticket to a future recording in a professional recording studio. Her demo recordings are remarkable and I hope she keeps producing more of them until she gets to record in a sophisticated studio.

About a year ago I played a track from David Agius, a Maltese-Australian musician based in Sydney. He has recorded and released more tracks since then. At first I was tempted to include his haunting ballad When I Get Old but eventually I picked Can't Help It, which demonstrates the best qualities of this singing guitarist, who plays all the instruments heard on his songs.

From time to time I discover a Maltese CD release I missed simply because it was not publicized on the Internet well enough when it first came out. One such CD is Clifford Borg's Drifted, which ironically has a very strong online presence. It's quite a good recording of piano music made on the Manoel Theatre's Steinway grand, with the occasional sparse string arrangement. The title track appears on this week's podcast as one of two instrumental selections.

The second instrumental track comes from Mario Sammut who first appeared on my radar in connection with the amazing Mantra Fest held at the Garden of Rest in Belt is-Sebħ a couple of months ago. He has recently released a live recording of his performance from that event. You can hear Urn as the closing sound on this week's podcast. This is the sort of chill-out music that everyone should hear from time to time to realign their chakras.

The RSS feed for the Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast is available here or you can simply click here to subscribe directly with iTunes. You can also add the latest episodes to your My Yahoo! page. If you have no idea what any of this means, just click here.

Fluorescent Adolescent

This is one of those rare times when I wish I was in Malta right now for something that's quite unique. This time it's Marc Almond's concert. I've been a fan of Marc Almond since his days with Soft Cell in the early 1980s. I like his recent stuff but my personal preference remains for the two years he recorded as Marc and the Mambas just after Soft Cell split. I've never managed to catch any of his live shows and the fact that he came to Malta to sing is almost surreal to me.

I was hoping to blog about my activities in Second Life but I've been busy writing an academic paper about all that for a couple of conferences I'm involved in right now. I just returned from Birmingham yesterday where I attending this year Theatre and Performance Research Association conference. Next up is the International Digital Live Art Conference in Leeds on Monday. Perhaps I'll blog about my Second Life goings-on after Monday.

One things I make sure not to miss is my weekly podcast. Having said that, I have a feeling that I'll need to give it a rest for a week later this month. This week's podcast is the 82nd in the series and there was not interruption this summer, so I guess I can get away with a autumnal break. I'm sure no one will complain.

Xtruppaw return on the scene with a football anthem, of all things! They've been working on new material for their second album since last winter. While Forza Malta (B'Għajta Waħda) is not really the sort of thing I expect from Xtruppaw, it's still better than nothing. In their defense, this song was commissioned by the South End Core for today's Euro 2008 qualifying match between Malta and Turkey at Ta' Qali. The date chosen for this game couldn't have been worse than the 8th of September. The last thing any self-respecting Maltese person wants is to bring up ghosts of conflicts past into the so-called beautiful game. I'm holding my breath until this one is completely over cause it's things like this that really make me cringe about being Maltese. God willing, I'm just over-reacting in a preemptive bout of premature paranoia brought about from all the years I spent living in New York City.

Back to having fun on the podcast with Fakawi. I've been wanting to play something by this band on my weekly podcast for quite some time but I never managed to get my hands on any of their recordings. Finally my former class/band mate Mark Attard, who plays keyboards for Fakawi posted a number of video clips of this popular band on YouTube. So now, from this year's Farsons' Beer Festival I can play you Eileen, which is more of an irreverent leg-pull than a tribute to the great Eileen Montesin.

While looking for more pleasant oddities on YouTube earlier this week I came across a couple of clips posted by Ian Schranz from The Beangrowers. These clips show a pubescent band called Winona Riders playing two songs live. One is the fabulous Seven Nation Army from The White Stripes and the other appears to be a new song from the upcoming Beangrowers album Not In A Million Lovers. The song is called Love Can Do You No Harm and these kids do it as much justice as any other band you can imagine doing a cover of a Beanies song.

This week I also want to start putting together the list of nominations for this years Mużika Mod Ieħor Listeners' Picks. I've just received a copy of the new CD album by rock band Stillborn called Thy Feeble Soul. I'll be publishing a list of preliminary nominations in the coming days...so watch this space. This release from Stillborn will most certainly be among the nominees for this year's best CD album. The tracks Rites of Passage and Cross of Fire are the two I like most from the six on this collection, so the first one closes this week's podcast until the next edition.

The RSS feed for the Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast is available here or you can simply click here to subscribe directly with iTunes. You can also add the latest episodes to your My Yahoo! page. If you have no idea what any of this means, just click here.

Hold On

I've finally managed to find the time to blog a couple of times during the past week about things that are not directly related to my weekly podcast. Oddly enough this summer I don't think I'll be giving my weekly podcast a break, like I did last year, but things could change over the coming week. So this blog entry will simply cherish the fact that we can enjoy the 76th edition of the Mużika Mod Ieħor series.

One band I've been looking forward to include on my podcast for quite a while is The Areola Treat. I missed a gig they gave at Naasha's during my last visit to Malta but at least they're finally offering us some of their recordings on their MySpace page. The one I've selected to open the podcast with is a called Disco Party. From these recordings I get the feeling that The Areola Treat is a joyful live band, so I look forward to the next opportunity for catching one of their shows.

Facebook is one Web 2.0 community I never thought I'd warm up to as much as I have. It's very different from MySpace but I'm glad to see some music related activity on this social network. jon lukas and I exchanged messages this week and he is offering a song called Mysty as a free download through his Facebook page. Collaborating with his son Ashley as WOODENMAN, Jon was among the very first Maltese people to explore the power of the internet as new way to handle music distribution.

Operating on a different circle, David Magro is another early Maltese adopter of the internet as a music distribution network. You probably know him as Mind's Eye Dub. Reggae DJ turned remixer Manwel Tabone alerted me to MED's new release in an Instant Message this week. The track is called Trod On Dub and it's always a pleasure to include new material from MED on the podcast.

Through my expeditions on YouTube I discovered that Malta's XFM is collaborating on a new talent contest with The Alley called Virtual Rock Star. I'm not sure why they've selected this name for this contest because I haven't been able to find much information on the Web about it. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that every band or singer has sent in a video for the contest, which XFM has uploaded to YouTube. In any case, I've chosen to feature two of these acts on this week's Mużika Mod Ieħor.

The first is called ReActor and their song is called Dismissed. Apparently this band has been around for a couple of years but I've only ever heard of them this month. Aside from their video on YouTube they have a MySpace page, which includes a brief history of the band and some details about the current line-up. The other band is called Cynic Pictures. They contacted me via my MySpace page and that prompted me to include their song Aim High as the closing selection for this week's podcast. More than anything else I find the song title most titillating as this was the motto of St Elizabeth Primary School in Sliema, which I attended in the early 1970s.

The RSS feed for the Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast is available here or you can simply click here to subscribe directly with iTunes. You can also add the latest episodes to your My Yahoo! page.

Changing Of The Guards

No more about the recent Eurovision debacle. I've really had enough of it...for now. Perhaps I should be blogging about the Blair-Brown changeover (or even the upcoming switch from the Maltese Lira to the euro) but my blog is not what it used to be, so I'll move on.

This entry is actually meant to serve as a public announcement of my presence on YouTube. I've just been spending too much time in Second Life to create my YouTube account earlier. It also just occurred to me that I haven't even mentioned anything about my adventures as a 3D avatar. I wonder why.

I really need to sort out my priorities in terms of my interests and what not. I guess the first thing on my agenda must be to get the Franklin Furnace book published. To get to that I have to clear all the other odd jobs that have piled up over the months. The first of these is a MaltaMedia feature about the sainthood of Dun Ġorġ Preca. An equally pressing task is a huge pile of essays by my students, which I need to mark in within a period of about two weeks.

And now you may have an idea why I don't always blog as often as I should between my weekly podcasts.

May It Be

It would really be marvelous if I could find more time to blog. I'm not entirely pleased that this channel has been all but taken over by my weekly Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast. Not that I mind, either. It's just that I wish I had more time to blog about other things. If you look back at my blog before my podcasting series became a regular thing, you'll see that I'm not just longing for a better time that's no longer with us, but a renewed way to blog about things other than the Maltese music scene. Meanwhile it feels like there's no stopping this trajectory and so this blog entry deals entirely with episode 65 in the MMI series.

If you follow the Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast with any regularity you know that I like to string my selections together thematically, in some way or other. Finding a connection between the first two songs for this week is fairly because they've done it for me themselves. Surreal, the opening tune, comes from a UK-based band called Caligula, which is fronted by Maltese-born singer Glenda Azzopardi, better known as Gia. Her life partner, and father to their infant child, is Muttley. Misery is another song off his 2006 album Paid to Fail.

MySpace never fails me. It's my constant life-line to the Maltese music scene. To be honest I'm not sure whether my weekly podcasting series would have survived in its current form if it wasn't for the seemingly endless stream of new and old acts establishing their presence on this most popular Web 2.0 network.

Just a few days ago I was terribly pleased to discover that 80s electro-combo Joy Circuit are in discussions to reunite. Founding members Kevin O'Neill and Larski (a.k.a Mark Ellul, of Dejjem Tiegħek, Becky fame) have established their presence on MySpace and appear to be pushing towards bringing singer Jody Fiteni to the fray sooner or later. In case you're wondering where you've heard that name before, Jody's voice has already graced this series twice; with the Sky Giants and from a rare Mill-Garaxx recording with the Ophidian Twin.

In a previous blog entry I mentioned that during my recent visit to Malta I bumped into Melchior Sultana. We kept in touch after that and earlier this week he sent me a couple of recordings he made earlier this year. No More is one of them and it clearly shows him for the major force he is in electronic dance music on the local scene.

Keeping the music as varied as possible, I close with Tribali's Never Give Up to mark their appearance at the Earth Garden Festival in Ta' Qali this weekend. I also like the title of this track as a precursor to events in the upcoming week. Yes, it's Eurovision week again now and I'm off to Helsinki on Monday.

If you're (still) wondering why I bother with such pop drivel, please find comfort in the fact that this question is still on my mind. Still, I find more reasons to fly towards the flame as I get deeper and deeper into this multinational television phenomenon. Next week's podcast will be an attempt to peel off another couple of layers from this glass onion.

The RSS feed for the Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast is available here or you can simply click here to subscribe directly with iTunes. You can also add the latest episodes to your My Yahoo! page.

When I'm 64

There are three major forces pushing and pulling on the shape of most of my days right now. Thankfully, most of this will all pass relatively soon. We're still settling into our new home here in Scarborough; we went to an auction looking for good deals on furniture this morning. I'm still toiling away at my book on Franklin Furnace and I'm hoping to have a revised version to hand on to my prospective publisher. Meanwhile, I'm getting ready to go spend a few days in Helsinki at the end of next week. These three aspects modulate everything and anything I can think about right now.

Thankfully, my weekly podcast can be a haven away from from such life forces, and in some way that holds true for episode 64. This week's podcast opens with the title track from Limestone Kick's 1996 album Y. I like to include the occasional blast from the past on Mużika Mod Ieħor. One of the reason's I pick to play Limestone Kick is to remember previous work by two band members who have now moved on to a very different style of music. Guitarist Jo "Sapi" Sapiano and percussionist Peter Paul Galea are now in Tribali. They will be appearing with a number of other World-Music-type acts at the upcoming Earth Garden Festival next week. More about that in a minute.

I really miss some of the Maltese bands that are no longer together. Particle Blue would definitely top that list. All things must pass, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who mourns Claire Tonna's departure from Particle Blue. Listen to the track Modele that I've selected to play and you'll hopefully see why I'm so enamored with this dissolved act.

As I'm not one to wallow in nostalgia, the next track is from 2007. It comes from Mathematikal, who have appeared on a previous edition of this podcast. I'm sure that people who follow the local alternative music scene in Malta remember Jon and Jay from Hidden Sun. They're been very active recording new material in recent months. This is Plonk is one of the tracks they've recorded and it's probably as far away from the sound of Hidden Sun as you can get.

During my recent visit to Malta, Etnika's percussionist Jason Fabri gave me an unreleased recording of the band playing in Köln, Germany, last year. From that show I've selected the song Rummiena, featuring among other elements the celestial voice of Julie Pomorski, a delightful mandolin intervention by Andrew Alamango, and the masterly tuba of my old friend Paul Borg. This is contemporary Maltese folk music at its best. Etnika will be appearing along with Tribali, Nafra, Renzo Spiteri and others at the Earth Garden on Saturday 5 and Sunday 6 May from 7pm at the National Park in Ta' Qali. It should be a very enjoyable evening. Pity I can't be there but I will be producing another Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast next weekend before I scoot off to Helsinki.

The RSS feed for the Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast is available here or you can simply click here to subscribe directly with iTunes. You can also add the latest episodes to your My Yahoo! page.

Desecration Smile

Is it just me or is this year really rolling along like road traffic before the invention of speed cameras? I know that part of the reason I perceive time to be passing faster than usual is because I'm very busy. Nothing really new there. The ability to choose what keeps me busy is a daily struggle, which, to me, is as colossal as the eternal battle between good and evil.

One thing I find to be most positive in my weekly routine is the production of my podcasting series Mużika Mod Ieħor. Among the many benefits I derive from this podcast is the sense that it's a weekly touchstone where I take stock of the week gone by and the week ahead. As expected, some weeks are better than others.

This week's podcast is one of those house-keeping editions I spoke about a few weeks ago. I've been meaning to play another track from the new album by Winter Moods for several weeks, so this week I start with what I believe is one of the best songs on Ordinary Men. Hang On to Your Smile shows how the band has matured over the last twenty odd years they've been around, even if the line-up has changed a number of times over the years.

If only some of the bands that were active when Winter Moods started out were still around. William Mangion's attempt to recapture the opportunity to represent Malta at the Eurovision last week reminded me of one of the best bands to ever appear in Malta. Getting Closer released one album before they split up. It was one of the first Maltese CDs and although it first appeared in 1991, to my ears it sounds as fresh now as it did back then. Ever Changing Moods remains one of my favourite albums of all time by a Maltese band. I've selected to play Coming Home from this CD and while listening to it again as I prepared for this week's recording I realized why one of the best things that ever happened to Anna Nicole Smith was that she died before turning 40. I know that this won't make much sense to most of my readers, but rest assured that it makes a lot of sense to me.

It's always a delight to feature new recordings on my podcast. A few days ago I received an advance copy of what is probably the first Maltese CD album for 2007, unless you count last week's Malta Song for Europe compilation. ...Only The Beginning by Different Strings is a one-man-band project by Chris Mallia. It's a contemporary of progressive rock without too much pomp. This debut album will be officially released on Sunday, 18 February at Baystreet in St George's Bay.

Before that, there's another launch. It's carnival weekend next weekend, so once again the Gran Ballo in aid of the YMCA Homeless Shelter is a good place to be on Saturday night if you're up for a carnival ball and have nothing better to do. This year the event will be MC'ed by Casanova, played Carlos Debattista. For this occasion, Glenn Cachia has written a celebratory song called Casanova Vivo, which is performed by Sin Sensation. This song brings this week's podcast to an appropriate close until next week's appointment. I have a special show all planned out...and I promise it'll have nothing to do with carnival.

The RSS feed for the Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast is available here or you can simply click here to subscribe directly with iTunes. You can also add the latest episodes to your My Yahoo! page.