Even though I think his songs are somehow much too romanced for my taste, I must admit that “The Blower’s Daughter” is a nice song. So, for all you Damien Rice fans, the I Am Fuel, You Are Friends blog has some new and unreleased songs of the Irish guy [link].

Even though I listened to a great deal of music all my life – I tend to believe that it was something more than the average – I still discover some excellent pieces of musical art in music from all over the world. This is probably why this blog contains posts about Hawaian music, African Jazz, Cuba’s most treasured band (twice), Gypsy Music and more.  

Considering this, is easy to imagine the excitement I found when discovering this guide to world music published by The Independent. It features an excellent selection of some of the most beautiful pieces of world music which will help anyone discover something new to enjoy.

In briefing, the featured albums are:

Americas
- ’40 Temas Originales’ by Carlos Gardel – Argentina
- ‘Beleza Tropical’, compiled by David Byrne in 1987 – Brazil
- ‘The Buena Vista Social Club’ – Cuba
- ‘The Mighty Sparrow and Lord Kitchener’ – Carribean
- ‘Grandes Exitos by Juan Luis Guerra’ – Dominican Republic

African Music
- ‘The History of Township Music’ – South Africa
- ‘Golden Afrique, Volume II’ – Congo
- ‘Golden Afrique, Volume I’ – West Africa
- ‘Immigrés’, by Youssou N’Dour – Senegal
- ‘Moffou’, by Salif Keita

Europe
- ‘Rumba Argelina’ by Radio Tarifa – Spain
- ‘Clandestino’, by Manu Chao
- ‘Musique des Tziganes de Roumanie’, by Taraf de Haïdouks – Romanian. The description of the album is impressive: “This record shook us all. These Gypsy guys from the Balkans are a group with a fiddle, a cimbalom, and lots of other stuff – they play at an unbelievable speed, and change gear at the same time. Exhilarating.”
- ‘Napoli Mediterranea’, by Pietra Montecorvino – Italy
- ‘The Art of Amalia’, Amalia Rodrigues – Portugal

Asia and Pacific
- ‘Musst Musst’, by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan – Pakistan
- ‘Lata Mangeshkar: The Legend’
- ‘The Very Best of the Far East’ – China
- ‘The Gabby Pahinui Hawaiian Band’ – Hawaii
- ‘The Rough Guide to the Music of Thailand’ – Thailand

Middle East
- ‘Khaled, Khaled’ – Algeria
- ‘Fairuz: The Lady and the Legend’ – Liban
- ‘Ilham al Madfai’ – Iraq
- ‘Yemenite Songs’ – Israel
- ‘Tea in Marrakesh’ – North Africa

A nice sample of the music played by Taraful Haiducilor can be found in this live performance video.

Google released a new project – an open source repository available here: http://code.google.com/hosting/. More details about the service in this article.

After 500 Beatles tapes were found – with the members of the band singing, jamming and talking -, now a Jimi Hendrix new-found track is to be put up for sale. Links are here and here.

I was happy to hear that some thought of the spirit of Vama Veche – and not only – in connection to the Folk music, not only rock. This is how Jurnalul National and Radio3Net managed to put together, for the second time, this folk festival – Folk You !.

Last year it took place in Vama Veche and at Gura Portitei, this year it is going to be in 4 locations – Mamaia, Neptun, Costinesti, 2 Mai and Vama Veche. I am not sure what sort of audience will follow them in the first 3 locations, but I hope I will catch them in one of the latter.

The festival is taking place between 3rd and 26th of August. On the stage you can find Florian Pittis, Ducu Bertzi, Mircea Vintila, Florin Chilian, Alexandru Andries, Nicu Alifantis and many others. You can find the entire schedule here.

Mihai gave me the sad news today. One of the teachers I admired most in University – Prof. Dr. Paul Bran – passed away because of a heart-attack. He was one of the few teachers actually trying to apply what he was teaching in the real business life and he had a great passion for his job. Also, he was one of the closest to the students and helped a lot of them in their activities.

Rest In Peace !

It seems summer is the statistics season, as more and more charts are emerging. One I found particularly interesting – and seems to reflect a lot of truth – is the top Rock Guitarists chart made by Digital DreamDoor. The chart has over 200 names, and the artists are ranked based on their impact, influence, creativity, technical skills and popularity.

The top 10 on this list are:

1. Jimi Hendrix*
2. Eric Clapton
3. Jimmy Page
4. Jeff Beck
5. Eddie Van Halen n
6. Stevie Ray Vaughan
7. Joe Satriani
8. Ritchie Blackmore
9. Steve Vai
10. David Gilmour

It is quite interesting that Clapton, Page and Beck, ranked on 2, 3 and 4 have all been members of the English Yardbirds band, which is well known for producing a great deal of guitarists over the time.

Also, the ranking features the “best of the decade”, which are:

90s – John Petrucci
80s – Eddie Van Halen
70s – Jimmy Page
60s – Jimi Hendrix
50s – Chuck Berry

Overall, I think it’s an excellent chart and any changes to this would be mostly on subjective basis – for example, I would have put Frank Zappa higher than 39th position. For the entire chart, here is the link.

Edvin Marton, the Hungarian violonist known for his music for skating performances, is going to hold a concert in Romania in end of September. More details here.

This year I decided I will take a vacation. A typical one, 2 weeks long, going someplace nice with some nice friends and such. Therefore, the planning started and there are various options to consider. From going to a distant island and doing nothing to travelling around the country or just hanging around the house and doing all those things you never find the time to do – all of them sound somehow interesting.

But one of them looks particularly interesting, too bad for the price tag which makes it quite unaffordable – a walk in the space.

“Space Adventures Ltd., a company based in Vienna, Va., that has sent three very wealthy men to orbit the earth on the International Space Station, is planning to announce today that future customers will be able to take an hour-and-a-half trip outside the station as well.

The price? Just $15 million, on top of the $20 million for the flight itself.

The spacewalks have been approved by the Federal Space Agency of the Russian Federation, which provides training and transportation to the station on Soyuz rockets, said Eric Anderson, the chief executive of Space Adventures.”

So finally you can get to know how a spaceman feels like. For a preview of how it should feel like, Babylon Zoo’s Spaceman might provide some insight. Really nice track, with an excellent video.

UPDATE: And, if you are to go for it, here is what the wake-up tune in space is – ABBA – I had a dream :) Here is the story.

Speaking about influencial bands – The Who, one of the most influent rock bands in the 60s and 70 is comming back, 25 years after they stopped making any music. The Who performed a concert earlier this month in Hyde Park, London and they are to tour the US later this year. They already performed some concerts in Europe in July and June, and their are to start the US tour in September.  

Also, in October they are about to release a new album, called WHO2. This will be their first release after It’s Hard, in 1982. The first preview, entitled Wire & Glass, has been released as a maxi-single on 17th of July on iTunes.

More info about the comeback are to be found on www.thewhotour.com. Also, for you to remember, here is one of their old famous tracks – I Can See for Miles.