…you name them Carla Bruni. So beautiful you can easily fall for her in less than 15 seconds, so talented that you can easily ask her for marriage, and so beautiful and talented you wonder if it’s really true.

Another love story, just like the Diana Krall one, started out when Irina opened my ears to her music and my eyes to her beauty (Thanks, fata!)

Comming from quite a rich family, she was born in France and, due to her beauty (and fame), in 1988 she was one of the best-payed models around the world.

She worked for designers such as Valentino, Christian Dior, Paco Rabanne, Chanel, Givenchy and Yves Saint Laurent. After several affairs with Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton and others, she finally married Raphael Enthoven. Maybe this is the reason why one of her best songs is called Raphael.

She quit the fashion stage in 1998 and in 2002 she released her greatest success so far, the Quelqu’un m’a dit album.

Here you can listen to the Raphael song, which is one of her best in my opinion.

Erik Schrody, former frontman of House of Pain is currently known as Everlast. This might be not much of a news, and neigher be one of his tracks which, upon hearing, immediately captured my attention.

I am reffering to the Deadly Assassins track, where he makes a duo with B-Real, from Cypress Hill.

Well, it’s just a great combination in my opinion. A deadly combination, so to say.

Listen and provide feedback.

P.S. Actually, Everlast has some great songs on his “Eat at Whitey’s” album. Worth gining it a try.

I was in my office (former office, that is) about 2 years ago, in a late evening, just me and one of the companies partners. Even though we were quite some distance away, when I first heard the voice in the track it was playing on his computer, I quickly jumped from my seat to find out who that is.

This was the start of a beautiful love affair I have since then with Diana Krall. It was her beautiful, educated and powerful voice that surprised, thrilled and excited me in the beginning. And the feelings have not changed ever since.

Diana Krall is a Canadian jazz singer, who, as many others great jazz player, started its musical activity early…at the age of four. But it was only until the age of fifteen when she started playing regularly, in restaurants.

You see, this amazes me in Jazz… Artists have go get through a long period of learning, practicing and personal development before actually starting to be noticed by the public. While in commercial music, you just need a summer hit (and usually, voice, skill or talent is obsolete).

It was only at the age of 29 (after 25 years of music!!) when she released her first album, Stepping Out. 2 years later followed another album, and so she kept on going, having today about 10 albums, a great amount of live concerts and numerous collaborations with musicians all over the world.

She was one of the very few to cover a Tom Waits song (Tom is notorious for his aversion towards covers, lending his music for commercials and so on), Temptation. The cover instantly reached 1st position in the Jazz charts, being one of the many formal recognitions Diana received for her talent and dedication.

Diana received several Grammy awards (Album Of The Year, Best Jazz Vocal Performance and Best Engineered Album Non Classical in 2000), National Jazz and Juno awards, and more (even one MTV award). Also, she has 4 Platinum and 7 Gold Albums.

But more important (maybe), are some acknowledgements which are not that familiar in the musical world, like the Order of British Columbia, Order of Canada and Honorary PHD from Victoria Univ.

Well, these are mostly the facts. But the passion behind those facts, the sweet delight you can hear while listening to her and the calmness in her songs cannot be matched by anything.

So, to the Diana Krall and to the Vocal and Piano Jazz fans, here she is, Diana Krall:

No downloads, just listen and go buy the album. It’s really worth it !

Today I am soooo happy !! This is because I managed to find a song I’ve been looking on for several months….I only knew the rhythm, and the band, so it was pretty hard to find, as I was looking for a special live version.

It’s Stratovarius – Will My Soul Ever Rest in Peace. I cannot define very well why it is so close to my heart right now, might be the rhythm (it’s a ballad), might be the lyrics, might be Timo’s voice or all of them altogether.

Unfortunately, I don’t have enough space available right now to upload the song for you to download, but I will do this in the near future. Meanwhile, here are the lyrics.

Few words about Stratovarius: they are a Finnish power metal band, founded in the late 80′s, with most of they successful albums being released in the 90′s. I can’t say I find them very special, but this song really has something.

…but turned ok despite all odds

Back in 1991-1992, Bach and I were driving the DJs nuts with our phone-calls, letters, wicked gift ideas, dedications and requests. Some of those requests were dedicated “to all the fans of the best heavy metal band made in Deutschland”. We just loved the sheer energy transmitted by Helloween’s strong and fast rhythm, we knew all their lyrics by heart, we used the tapes so many times they were showing signs of damage. Bach has her share of stories of jumping around the house on their unmistakable sound. To my knowledge, her neighbour’s selection of teary ballads has been interrupted many times by devilish guitar riffs and loud music airplay.

Then, around 1992, we heard a band that had some potential. We were probably drawn by some sappy ballad, as back then every radio station had one or two mellow charts, and everyone was trying to promote music the others never heard of. It could have been “Where the eagle learns to fly” that introduced Pink Cream 69 to us, we liked it and we bought their album.

Later on, in 1993, when we got cable and started watching MTV’s “Headbanger’s Ball” religiously, we taped videos and interviews with Pink Cream 69. Our fave song / video to this date remains “Keep your eye on the twisted”, shot in black and white and tinted blue. We bought “Games People Play” and felt Pink Cream 69 is becoming a band with a strong recognition and a strong fan-base. As for the interviews, we absolutely loved Andi Deris’ personal style, so much different than the German natural reserve and rather Latin in spirit.

When we heard that Andi Deris has left Pink Cream 69 to replace Helloween’s lead-singer Michael Kiske, we were devastated. We loved Michael’s previous efforts with Helloween and we couldn’t picture Pink Cream 69 without Andi’s charismatic figure. We had the impression this move was going to destroy both bands. We were only half right. Pink Cream 69 sunk into oblivion, but in the end we agreed that if anyone were to replace Kiske, it couldn’t be a better choice for the job than Andi.

Bach was fortunate enough to chat with Andi after the release of “The Dark Ride”, his fourth album with Helloween. Funny enough, he was saying something about never playing in Romania and “maybe someday touring there”… That day has finally come.

The opening acts were, as always, a good chance to mingle with the crowd and look for acquaintances. This time we had some specific characters in mind, for we knew they once loved this band with passion. Their T-Shirts proved it :)) We only came close to “Lemmy”, his significant other – still a blonde metal chick – and “Zapada”. Some things never change… I bet there were more of the old school, but we went forward trying to secure some spots closer to stage.

Prospect, a band from Slovenia, played some sort of progressive rock with long intros. They also had instrumental tracks. The beefy vocalist managed to make himself popular (with us, at least) with his energetic moves and his overall stage presence. They were quite cool, actually, but the crowd was dying to hear the headliners. Just close to the end of their act, they started a medley; “Paranoid” got the attention of everyone present, “Two minutes to midnight” got them mosh-pitting, and “Pull me under” brought them back to their musical style. All covers were greately appreciated and I was joking with Bach that, had they known they were going to be so successful, they would have started with that in the first place…

Helloween’s show was a treat from start to finish. We were pleased to notice Andi looked unchanged, just like he was stuck in a time warp. He had the same sparkly eyes, he was his old-self, and he managed to mesmerize and electrify the crowd immediately. Anyone could see that after almost 12 years he was still a great showman and really passionate about this whole thing. Not for a moment I had the impression they were just playing their part and the hell with the rest. Quite the contrary, they really knew how to communicate with the crowd and it was such a great audience too. Everybody around me knew the lyrics and shout their lungs out. There were a lot of youngsters present and they were enthusiastic about newer songs, while me, Bach and a couple of older fans were extatic during older tracks that made Helloween the legend that it is today.

Now, you know how every rock concert has it’s drum solo, right? It is the time when the rest of the band members are catching their breath. It’s just as basic as the chorus. These guys managed to entertain the crowd with Grosskopf, the bass player, mocking Loeble, the drummer, using a kiddie drum kit… Mmmmmokay, maybe it wasn’t something that a serious fan would want to see on stage after so many years of hopeless waiting, but apparently no one there constituted a serious fan; they all cracked up… including us.

Now, you know how every rock concert has it’s guitar solo, right? It is the time when the drummer is also catching his breath. It’s just as basic as the bridge after the chorus. Of course, we didn’t see that one coming. Loeble, the drummer, was mocking Sascha Gerstner, the guitar player, using a tiny electric guitar.

Ok, don’t let these funny pictures fool you for one bit. The actual music was great and the performance awesome. You can’t even pretend to understand what I’m trying to express here – the indescribable emotion of being a tiny drop in a sea of people singing together “Future World”…

The show lasted 2 hours and a half and I honestly didn’t realize it has been that long. Apart from the exquisite company, and I mean the men on stage, the combination Bach+Kitz is always bound to raise some eyebrows, start a riot, set a trend or other things that makes us ordinary people feel special…

Although extatic, we still found the time to crack some jokes about what was going on on stage. If Andi was the Latin type, then Michael Weikath was definitely the British type. We surprised him smoking a cigar, leaning on an amplifier and looking up in reverie, and if that were a scene in a Tarantino movie, his line should have been: “Life is peachy, man…”

The newest member of the band, Sascha, nicknamed on the spot “Der Junge”, proved to be the secret ingredient for the recent recipe of success; not only he is composing most songs for Helloween, but he fits well in the group, too.

“For the first time we can rely on two guitarists that get along very well. It is a new experience for me in the ten years I have been part of Helloween that the band enters the rehearsal room and works on the songs together. With the old line-up it wasn’t possible because the rest of the band would have been forced to idly sit on the couch while the two guitarists unwillingly tried to find the least common denominator. Back then it was normal that Weiki recorded a couple of tracks and Roland a few but they were absolutely unable to do it together. Now after a very long world-tour with Sascha, we know we really like this boy”
~ Andi Deris

If you sat home crying over former band members and thinking Helloween’s time has passed, you missed out. Big time.

Tommorow, starting with 20:00, Helloween will perform live in Romania.

I guess I should go, hopefully they will play the “Helloween”, “Escalation”, “Ride The Sky” and “Save Us”.

But when thinking that, from the old crew, only one guitarist and the bass player are still on board….i might as well skip.

Anyways, Tina is going for sure, so hopefully she will write a “review” :)

One of the bands I really loved while I was in my “Le Noir” age was Havayoth. It was the only place where I could listen to this band and I tried for a long time to find their albums.

Actually, they only have one album, released back in 2000, called “His Creation Reversed”. The sound is a gothic metal that is both relaxing, calm and “majestic” and also powerful and dark at some points.

Havayoth started as an experiment of three Swedish guys and it ended the same way. Too bad the good things come in small pieces :)

Here are the tracks I’ve been listening mostly last week:

1 Nickelback
2 Seether
3 Staind
4 Coldplay
4 Activ
6 Ibrahim Ferrer
7 Oasis
7 Guns N’ Roses
9 The Postal Service
10 Katie Melua

This is out of the Last.fm plugin, wth which I am still aving some problems, so the statistics are not that accurate.

Can you suggest any other Last.fm similar plugin that works better?

Yesterday, Cristi recommended to listen to a band he found recently, called Seether. As he mentioned something about them sounding somehow similar to Nirvana, I proceeded. And I must say it sounds very decent for such a young group.

Also, they have some covers of Nirvana, which to me proves they are really inspired by Kurt Cobain & Co. But anyways, they sound pretty original and well-put-together, with some heavy riffs from time to time to add more weight to the sound.

It made it to my standard playlist, so I guess it’s worth giving it a try :)

Good things: tracks like Broken, 69 Tea, Gasoline, Remedy.
Interesting: they are from South Africa.

Out of my knowledge so far, this are some of the most important events to expect in new album releases in 2006:

- Implant pentru Refuz to launch “Monolith” in February
- ACDC to launch the “Get Back in Rock” album in March
- David Gilmour to launch “On an Island” in March
- Red Hot Chilli Peppers to launch “Stadium Arcadium” in April
- Guns ‘N Roses are expected to come back with another album, called “Chinese Democracy”, sometimes this year.
- Also Sepultura should release “Dante XXI” this year
- Roger Waters, U2 and Motorhead should announce some albums this year. Hopefully, so will Joe Satriani.

Looking forward for all of the above, and also for some nice surprises !

Ah, and you can also expect me to buy a new external USB hard-drive to store all the music to :)