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  • Down By The Water

    Show notes for the 258th Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast featuring music by performers from or in Malta:

    Walter Micallef – Ħażin
    On Friday 3 June 2011, the second ‘You Rarely Hear This On The Radio!’ event organized by M3P took place at V-Gen. This song was beautifully covered by Duo Kukkanja, which at that point comprised Justin Galea (from PDM and BBB) and Steve “Id-Delli” Delia (from Brikkuni). As they played this song, it struck me that it’s quite a shame that this song is not one that Malta’s younger generations identify with. I have my own theories as to why it is so (the title of the event is a dead giveaway!) but I’m hoping that including it at the start of this week’s podcast will start the process of redressing this vacuum.

    Stalko – In A Hurry
    I went to watch this band live at the original Wirdien event in Mtarfa last year, but it rained buckets before they even got on stage and the gig was postponed. This is their first new release since then and I heard that they’re still drawing attention to themselves in good ways, most recently with an appearance at the legendary Cafe Riche in Cottonera, where Charles Clews was a regular two or three generations ago.

    Richard Edwards – You’re Gonna Thank Me
    The Malta Eurovision Song Contest 2011 brought Richard Edwards to public attention (and acclaim) in Malta, as he placed second with just a few points behind Glen Vella. I believe that if he had taken part in the contest with this song he would have very possibly ended up as this year’s entry from Malta in Düsseldorf. I’m not sure if it would have made it to the final, but that’s actually irrelevant now. This song shows that this singer is not going away any time soon, and you can bet good money on his return to Malta’s Eurovision selection in 2012.

    Freddie Castelletti – Malta Ħanina
    Aquarius and the Johnny Mick Band were two of the foremost Maltese bands in the 1970s, and Freddie Castelletti was one common thread between them. He returned in 2009 with a CD album of songs written by Alfred C. Sant. However, it’s only recently that I became aware of all this and only managed to hear tracks from this CD just a few days ago. The song I’ve chosen to include on this edition of the MMI podcast sounds wonderful to my ears, particularly because it captures various elements of popular Maltese songs from the last century.

    Malta’s Lost Voices: Ġiużeppi Burlo’ & Orkestra Carabott – Rigal F’Banju
    Listening to Freddie Castelletti and Walter Micallef as I prepared this edition of the MMI podcast, I thought it was essential (and about time) that I include something from Andrew Alamango’s outstanding double-CD production Malta’s Lost Voices 1931-32. It was also the mention of Big Band Brothers reinterpreting a number of songs from these original recordings at this weekend’s Għanafest that led me to pick this particular track. Justin Galea tells me that this song was particularly well received as an encore. Thankfully the show was also recorded for television by PBS, which still manages to capture some of the more significant moments of live music in Malta from time to time.

    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 enjoy listening to the podcast on the player right below this text.

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:19 — 14.6MB) | Embed

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  • The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

    Show notes for the 257th Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast featuring music by performers from or in Malta:

    Funk Initiative – Paris
    I’m always amazed when a new Maltese band introduces itself to the world with a music video. When it’s a video like the one Funk Initiative produced for Paris I also realize what a long way digital video production has come in the last 20 years. You really no longer need a record company behind you to get a decent recording and accompanying music video out. This particular band and track are no different from most other out on the market right now and they certainly deserve to be noticed by a larger audience than they’ve reached so far.

    Muxu – Love You Right
    The Maltese master of slick pop is back with what to my ears sounds like a relatively mature departure from his humble beginnings just a couple of years ago. Here’s someone who is clearly head and shoulders above the fray and all the wanna be pop stars that grace the Maltese islands believing that the Eurovision Song Contest is the ultimate in show business. Muxu continues to earn my respect as he has since the very first time I heard him telling us to beat his drum. Now, where’s that album? Or is that sort of thing too old fashioned now?

    Jean Claude Vancell – Music Box
    I’ve always liked the songs created by this young Maltese singer-songwriter. They hold a great promise that he sometimes manage to achieve all on his own. He returns after what seemed like a two or three year long hiatus with a song that’s so well-crafted that you can’t but feel you’ve already heard it plenty of other times after the very first listen. I hope he’s back to stay this time.

    Crowns – Memories
    I’m never sure whether bands use a definite article as part of their name when they produce a logo without one. In any case, this new Maltese pop rock band seems to be attracting lots of airplay right now. I’ve been wanting to play their debut song for about two weeks but for some reason it remained in my pending folder along with a bunch of other tracks I plan to include in upcoming editions of the MMI podcast. I don’t know much about this band but their instant popularity with certain types of Maltese radio stations makes me believe that we’ll be hearing much more from them in the coming months and years.

    Pupi tal-Logħob – Hagi SAK
    They’ve gone through a number of line-up changes over the past 10 years but Malta’s best loved old-school punk pranksters are thankfully still around thanks to Kuzza. I saw them live at Rookie’s a couple of months ago and now I’m extremely pleased to include them as the opening act for M3P’s You Rarely Hear This On The Radio 2: La Maltija, which will also include Duo Kukkanja (that’s Steve id-Delli from Brikkuni and Justin Galea from Plato’s Dream Machine) as well as Ċikku l-Poplu in what should turn out to be a memorable evening at V-Gen in Paceville. This is just one of four live music events associated with the inaugural M3P conference, which will be taking place at St James Cavalier in Valletta on Friday 3rd and Saturday 4th June 2011.

    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 enjoy listening to the podcast on the player right below this text.

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:31 — 14.8MB) | Embed

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  • Running Scared

    Show notes for the 256th Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast featuring music by performers from or in Malta:

    Norm Rejection – Kemm Hawn Dwejjaq Fil-Pajjiż
    This track from the new EP Belligerent from the same band that gave us Malta Not For Sale about 10 years ago will very possibly join that classic of 21st century Maltese rock as a favourite with generations to come. No other band expresses itself as eloquently about political discontent in Malta as Norm Rejection. The EP also features a couple of bonus tracks from the bands early recordings from the 1990s.

    Cable 35 – Memories
    In preparation for the release of their CD album, Cable 35 have released a music video for this song to start off the promotion for July’s official launch. I’m sure I’ll be playing another track (or two) from the album once it comes out, so for now I can only really recommend that we enjoy the video that comes with this new song. I think people familiar with this band’s previous pop punk sound will be pleasantly surprised at the heavier grungy sound this power trio has moved towards.

    Blade – Burnout
    One of the most popular new metal bands in Malta in the 1980s was called Passion Blade.  They eventually morphed into Blade and by the end of the 1990s had matured into one of the best loved melodic metal acts that Malta has ever produced. Apparently Blade is now reformed and in the process of producing new material. So I thought I’d play this track from 1998 on this week’s podcast, particularly for the new generation of rock fans in Malta who are completely unfamiliar with this band.

    Prayer of the Dying – Wastelands
    Martin Ciappara has been involved in various projects over the last decade or so and most of them have been featured on previous editions of the MMI podcast. When his band Prayer of the Dying released the album In Silence and Grief We Decay a few weeks ago, I knew right away that I’d be including a track from it on the MMI podcast. So that’s what you hear as this week’s closing selection.

    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 enjoy listening to the podcast on the player right below this text.

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:05 — 13.2MB) | Embed

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  • You Only Live Twice

    This morning my old friend Paul Giordimaina (who composed Malta’s 2011 Eurovision entry) wrote the following note on Facebook:
     
    “Irrelevant to certain comments made by some ‘armchair critics’ or self proclaimed music experts i want to congratulate Glen for an amazing performance filled with great positive energy.Also well done the backing vocalists and dancers for their total commitment. Thks to the numerous backstage proffesioanl people who worked endlessly around the team. A special thks to PBS for their dedication and support from day 1 and last but not least thks to the big majority to the maltese people who beleived in the project ‘ONE LIFE’”

     
    I commented by saying that Glen Vella gave a great show. He was in tune, hit the mark and the act looked very polished on stage. He (and the song) deserved a better placing but there’s clearly more to the Eurovision Song Contest than that.
     
    Veteran Maltese pop singer Jon Lukas Woodenman wrote his own note on Facebook after Malta failed yet again to yield a decent placing at the Eurovison Song Contest. Here’s an essential excerpt :

    [… ] “i will today ‘n tmrrw put on my artiste & production  hat and review the Maltese entry as projected last night and try to decide WHY this happened and find out where did we go wrong AGAIN cos’ i REFUSE to accept the usual moan that of voting of next door neighbours as the Maltese normal losing excuse. There probably is something intrinsically wrong in how Malta writes, produces, chooses and then projects the actual songs that needs to be seriously adhered to …. EMOTIONS ASIDE please .. there is ALWAYS something missing on the night. 50 years on we HAVE NOT HACKED it yet … do u seriously think it’s ONLY because they gang up on us ? The bookies ONLY want to make money (no patriotism there) the odds they offered fr the song was one to eleven …..bookmakers news 9 May 2011 … QUOTE ‘ Eurovision: Odds stacked against Glen, according to bookmakers’ …… are we gonna’ face this and TRY to PUT it RIGHT ? … are we gonna’ eliminate what we thought would work on the night that ACTUALLY did NOT … or are we to settle fr ‘THEY GOT IT IN FR US’ sad bull shit and go through the same rigmarole ‘n blunders next year.” […]

     
    I’m not sure the Maltese Eurovision structure is set up in such a way to get to the bottom of what’s going wrong year after year. The main reason is that the producers for Malta’s entry are removed almost completely from the music industry across Europe and involvement in this has now become a crucial ingredient for a decent placing at the ESC. And to be clear, it’s not enough to have a strong affiliation with a record company. It takes an up-to-date knowledge of trans-European PR for pop music: an expertise in how the music world operates online, or at least tries to.

    Also, to be fair, the old essential ingredient (i.e. the song and its performance) is the other element that needs more attention. There has been a (slight) improvement in the way the song is picked – or rather which song is picked – but there’s still a long way to go in determining what makes a memorable and/or impactful song for this show.

    There’s no point in over-analyzing Glen Vella and One Life in this context. The situation is not that radically different from what it’s been since about 2006, when weeks ahead of the contest I predicted that Lordi would win that year. The “armchair critics” or “self-proclaimed music experts” from Malta didn’t take me seriously then and the people who can really make a difference in Malta haven’t heard what I’ve been saying all these years now. Apparently that can’t really do much about what I’m saying either.

    Anyway, good thing I didn’t come to Düsseldorf just to follow the Maltese act, otherwise I’d be stuck in what is not a particularly interesting part of Germany until the weekend. The events we lined up from the Eurovision Research Network for this year start tomorrow and I hope to blog a little about that in the coming days too.

    Meanwhile if you’re only interested in Malta’s entry at the Eurovision Song Contest, perhaps you’d rather hear the comments I gave to Marlene Galea at the Maltese service of SBS Radio in Australia after Malta once again failed to qualify for the ESC final.

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 12:53 — 11.8MB) | Embed

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