Lee Jordan .org.uk

To round up a mighty fine year of gigging with my best mate Rich, the NIA last night played host to indie pianist Ben Folds, who goes from strength to strength with his solo material. Starting a UK mini tour in Birmingham no longer than your little finger, it wasn’t so much the suburbs he was rocking, it was a more soothing, charming and relaxed night.

By all acounts it was one special gig. With the audience taking part and singing along with Ben it was amazingly intimate, at times so quiet you could hear a tear drop amoungst the heartfelt lyrics and yet at times with just the piano so full of energy and humorous lyrics. You might be able to see us at the front of the crowd, to the left of centre in the photos found at this forum post.

Just with his piano and voice, Ben managed to fill the entire arena. A true talent, truely a special night, click the photo for a longer review

On Monday I headed down the A41, back to a second home of mine, the Academy. Sigur Ros were in town, I couldn’t miss this one for anything at all. I got to the front of the balcony after being quite a way back in the queue, the view was stunning and the night was enchanting.

The support came from four women who play stringed instruments for Sigur Ros, so from the get go the night was well thoughout. Ammamina were their name and they played what can only be descibed as music that would be well suited to soothing a young child to sleep … it was really nice. Sigur Ros had a powerful sound at times and a blinding lightshow, it was a special night, and here are some photos.

This gig was gonna be awsome, I had to book it. Sigur Ros are a sureal band billed as “Artistic Rock” their sound is very big yet very small, and so very beautiful.

My autumn gig calendar continued this week as both myself and Rich rushed over to the 2nd stage at the Birmingham Carling Academy for Long-View. Just as the crowd was near to overheating, the five lads from Stockport gracefully took to their repsective instruments and the Longview set kicked in with an old favourite. A perfect example of the mastery of their sound they hold is to be heard in the very popular track “Further”.

“God’s love will save our light and we’ll come shining bright, God’s love will save our sun and thy will be done”.

Hear a sample of lead singer, Rob Mcvey chatting with the audience: It’s been a year, no 2 years!

Click the image to read the full review

The LED message above the stage a must for every band. These photos taken with a 2MPix camera phone

Click on the title or photo for more details and extra photos or even use this link: full entry, but this below paragrah is a must read, I got a smile from Anneli Drecker

Texas came to town after a four year break from touring. Last time it was the NEC this time a downscaled Academy right in the city centre. It was a quality night, support act didn’t seem to go down well in the crowd though. Driving back home with the hits on the MP3 player it was a really enjoyable night with pleanty to talk about.

Sharleen Spiteri, lead member of the band, spent a lot of time interacting with the crowd which was really nice, as heard in this sound byte.

More photos and more details can be found by clicking through to the full entry

We were on the balcony overlooking the satge and for most of the night the view was pretty darn good

Last night was ace, myself Rich and Kel headed for the Glee club in Birmingham to see David play in the small room known as the studio. The Glee is such a nice venue. Anyway we took our seats as me and Rich were at the bar David came out instead of the support band, who couldn’t make it, and so the enchantment started.

We hung back at the end, I spoke to a few people I hadn’t seen since a set of Easyworld gigs a long time ago and we managed to meet Dav(id) have a chat and get the new single signed. The canvas, which Davids backing female vocalist painted while State of the Union was being performed, was offered to me, after I asked her what happens to them but I hadn’t drove into town, plus where would I have hung it?

Signed copy of the powerful debut single come protest song, “State Of The Union”

Clever men know all that and all this
And they will talk and they talk and they don’t fudging listen
It’s a shame, it’s a shame, it’s a shame
…

It’s no life but God, it’s a living
Come on Jesus Christ, come back all is forgiven
We are lost, we are lost, we are lost

I heard “State of The Union” this time last year, and by the time the 2004 US election was going on I was in hospital having some more surgery, delaying me getting back to work, The track is a protest to that government it was all timely, it’s a very powerful song and a year on the lyrics still hold true.

All in all a fantastic night in one of our favourite venues in the city. One of the lyrical highlights for me was certainly the last few lines in “A song for the road”. Seriously check this guy out at his website david-ford.com. Buy the single. Also if you like this guy and Badly Drawn Boy type bluesy-rock-alt-folkish-indie stuff check out The Vessels

My glands are randomly swollen right now and I have a thumping headache, they are happening at such random times now, so anyway I’m gonna stop typing, if you follow a link below you can read the lyrics that sent images rushing through my synapses plus more details of the gig including some spoilers. Truely a great night.

A full review and a few spoilers are seen in the main section of this article, click here to read more

Guys, I got one to call for you for the Autumn, keep your eye on a gal known as Julia Harris. Check out her site. Couple of tracks on her site show Julia to be the Joss Stone of the acoustic world combining raw hard edge strumming with pop melodies and adding in some RnB too. Infectious to listen too, hard to define .. check her out or wait for my next podcast, the next one is about the music baby! Juilia is on tour very soon, with October dates waiting in the wings.

Look out for David Ford too, to hit you with a cult track, State of The Union, released September 26th with his Album to follow, as good now as it was during the November 2nd rat race for the Whitehouse, David combines extreme enthusiasim for his music with experimental one man band type craftmanship of his instruments. David starts his Autumn tour at the Glee club in Birmingham, September 26th, perfect city for one of the most thought provoking tracks and evocotive live performances of the year. I’m an Easyworld fan, he signed my shirt, so take my view on Dav with a pinch of salt, check out both em out or miss out!

Two artists to really watch as we progress towards the very end of the Summer. If you are in the mood for British music …. checkout Imogen Heap of Frou Frou fame, her post moderm and warm approach to electronic music is too cute for words.

Elective yes, selective oh yes and the tallent waiting to be found … without a doubt!

Below is a list as it stands for my best of 2005 Mix CD. What a fantastic electic year for music.

If you would like a copy of this CD in its final version, complete with small biographies and details of the artists and albums featured please leave a comment or email me at lee.jordan@gmail.com. I’m planning on adding a few album montages and some unsigned artists to a secondary CD to make this years best of Mix CD the best ever.

You seriously don’t want to pass up this oppourtunity, I’m looking at getting these mailed out by end of Novemember in time for Christmas international delivery deadlines.

Click here for some details of these tracks and how they sloted into the best year for music in a very long time.

Naughty 0d2, stupid HMV!

So yeah: “HMV takes on Apple in online music”, but hmmm Apple computers are being denied access to the service ….. “However, they are not compatible with Apple’s iPod, the most popular digital music player.” …. way to go, and the award for short sighted online retailer of the month goes to … HMV

HMV are to launch a digital download service, don’t count on buying anything though unless you use Windows and IE6. Erm yeah I’m sorry you erm can’t get on this bus because well you are wearing the wrong shoes, we only allow people with black plimsols who have the latest version of soul. I could easily deny you access to my site because you are using IE, but that’s wrong so I won’t. As it is if you use IE you don’t see my Melanoma ribbon, but that’s becase IE screws up the page with it there

I sent this email to HMV’s customer service department to raise the issue as a customer and not a geek :

“I have the technology installed to use your new download service, but because my configuration doesn’t meet your requirements I am being turned away and thus not even being allowed to use the service.

I’d hope that you would look at supporting more secure web browsers such as Opera and the Mozilla range of browsers, these can be accessed on a variety of computing platforms such as Microsoft Windows and are less vunerable to security threats and ID theft.

Could you kindly look into the issue and get back to me when you think such a denial of service would be removed, so as to let myself and others use what I’m sure to be a valuable service. I’m a loyal HMV customer and look upon this unfortunate event as a reason to seek service from your competitors, online or offline due to customer satisfaction, I sincerly hope that this matter can be resolved.

Best wishes
Lee Jordan”

“We don’t expect the iPod to retain the market share it has today for very much longer while it remains incompatible with the rest of the market” Will someone slap this guy around the face with a kipper or something … both Apple’s way and the HMV way lock people into one format. Like I said … CD’s all the way baby, wait till you see what’s gonna happen with your monitor when you upgrade to the next version of Windows, now really is the time to switch.