Appreciation... Montt Mardie and his song of Holly Golightly

My love of Swede-Pop meets my love of the film Breakfast at Tiffany's thanks to Montt Mardie. This is him and The Clocks performing, "Set Sail Tomorrow", live from the morning show on Swedish TV4.

Enjoy!

Recommendation... Simone White

I have never met anyone who is familiar with this artist, but I really enjoy her stuff and I think she deserves some attention somewhere. I first discovered her thanks to hearing the "Beep Beep Song" which was featured in an Audi commercial a year or so ago. After finding info about the commercial on Google I was able to learn who the artist was and find her music.



The first thing that struck me about her was her lovely voice and I like the wistful folk, indie pop, jazz tinged style of her songs. She's someone that with the right exposure could capture the kind of attention groups like Feist or an artist like Regina Spektor has enjoyed.

Simone has two CDs, Sincere Recording Co. presents Simone White(2004) and I Am The Man(2007), that are available through her website, but they might be found in the right music stores. She has so many videos available on youtube to watch, so I'll include a few of my favourites here. But certainly look her up and enjoy more of them on your own.

"I Wrote This Song About You" or the "Beep Beep Song"



"Why Is Your Raincoat Always Crying"



"I Am The Man"



"Christmas Makes Me Blue"... my favourite Christmas song this past year.



If you look into her music, I also strongly recommend the songs "I Didn`t Have Any Summer Romance" and "You May Be In The Darkness". I especially love those tracks and hopefully you will too!

Affection... Band's from Scotland, Part 2

Texas -the name of an American state, but better still the name of the currently five piece band from Glasgow, which formed in 1987 and are fortunately still making music now. They had a long road to success at home and in Europe, but they never could quite make it over here despite the fact that three of their tracks got attention in TV and films. Occasionally, I do seem to hear "In Our Lifetime" on the overhead play at grocery stores and even once recently at Lowe's. Anyway, I liked this band quite a bit since their third album, Rick's Road, and in my opinion they only got stronger as a band with the fourth release, White on Blonde. I think this was the point for the band too when the soul rock sound they had was traded in for a bright soul pop sound and it worked for them. Sharleen Spiteri became not just a singer/rhythm guitarist at this point, but a beautiful, soulful Scottish diva. With her musical influences ranging from The Clash (the main reason she plays a black Fender Telecaster) to Blondie to Marvin Gaye and Prince to Diana Ross, this metamorphosis should have seemed inevitable. Despite her reluctance to flaunt any kind of "girlie" image when the band began, Sharleen has graced the covers of many magazines in the UK and Europe, both with the band for music publications and as a model for several fashion magazines. Her only previous experience with fashion would have been working as a hairdresser in Glasgow at the Irvine Rusk salon at the time when she co-formed the band. Not bad for a girl who's nickname in school was "Spit the Dog", after the puppet companion of entertainer Bob Carolgees on the UK kid's show TISWAS.

This is the video for one of their most infectious tracks, "Say What You Want", from the 1997 album, White on Blonde. Cheers!



Better version here...