Sometimes when I'm hungry,I long for the Mediterranean sea...

If you haven't listened to Joran and Axlina's Eirodziesma attempt 'More than 27' yet,I think you should.It's bonkers.I don't think I've ever heard anything like it,although I'm not sure if that's a positive thing or not.There's a nice sentiment behind it,the whole "let's speak European" thing,but it's so strange...You can hear all the songs from the first Eirodziesma final here. Have to say,I haven't really heard anything I like yet,but I still have a few more to go...

Exciting news from Russia

Well,it's exciting,but not necessarily news.As much as I try to keep up to date with Russian pop-world,I do fail quite a lot :) Anyway,this moody yet lovely picture of Dima K is from a new video shoot he's been doing.It's all quite mysterious,there doesn't seem to be any indication around of what this song is,or when it will be out...Still,I'm sure it'll be a pleasant surprise :) I've also read that there's going to be an album released soon.Which is about time.He's done some really good songs since Fabrika Zvezd,so it'll be nice to hear a proper album at last.
Oh,and I also found this video of him doing a song I've never heard of called Dom Khrustalniy (House of Glass) on some programme or other.I like it,it reminds me of a big Italian ballad for some reason.And he's looking gorgeous.But then again,when has he ever not looked gorgeous?And by the way,I'm sure I've seen Dima Bilan wearing that belt...


In other Fabrika based news,there's a new song on Prohor Shalyapin's website.It's called Ya Luchiy and it's really good.Probably about as typical pop as Prohor's going to get.It means 'I'm the best.' Yes Prohor,you are,I think you're fabulous.And you should come over to the next Russian Winter Festival :)

Sounds of Europe...

...is the name of mine and Keira's new radio show!Yes,we managed to persuade the manager of our university radio station to let us loose on the air for a few hours a week to play lots of funky Europop tunes and talk a lot about Chelsi and Dimas Bilan and Koldun (probably) :) It wasn't difficult actually,seeing as the stations schedule is full of gaps at the minute...But that's not the point,the point is that we're going to be on the radio.Good news for us,not necessarily good news for the rest of Guildford though...

Anyway,here's a band,well,duo from Fabrika Zvezd 7,consisting of Vlad Sokolovskiy and Dima Bikbaev.They're otherwise known as BiS,and the song is called Твой или ничей (not sure what that means).It's good,it's quite funky.I've been getting into the seventh series lately.Nothing to do with my new obsession with Mark Tishman of course...

You were as cold as Arctic ice

I'm still of course very disappointed (but not surprised) that Litesound didn't win Eurofest last night,but I must say,I do feel a bit sorry for Ruslan.Practically every comment I've read about him on the esctoday.com message boards and various other places has been really negative.With an amazing song like Do You Believe in the final,I can't believe how they could have chosen anything other than Litesound,but,as I've said before,Hasta La Vista is a very typical pop song that ticks all the right Eurovision boxes.It really isn't as bad a song as so many people are saying- a bit unoriginal maybe,but when you look at the 'original' things that have been tried in the last few years (Andorra's punk-pop last year,Croatia's Dado Topić and Dragonfly,also last year,and Anžej's theatrical camp disco in 2006),it seems that people don't like it.And to say that Ruslan "can't sing" is ridiculous,he has a nice voice,and he sounds a little bit like Dima,which is always a plus :) And as for the performance,of course it'll be good on the night,Dima's first performance on Eurofest last year was pretty rubbish,but it was all fabulous eventually.
So Ruslan,if you ever happen to come across Work Your Magic (I can always hope :) ),just ignore all the horrible people- Я люблю тебя! (And sorry for saying it was rubbish that you won :/)
Oh,by the way,here's a nice song (apparantly the Eurofest theme song),that all the finalists sung last night.It's good :)

And after all that...

Ruslan won.Rubbish!

Bloody technology!

Well I would have had some comments to say about the Eurofest final (which,incidentally,I've been looking forward to all month!),but of course technology doesn't work,so I've been able to watch about 2 minutes of the whole thing.I managed to hear more of Gunesh's song than any of the others (unfortunately),and the first line of Ruslan's and Litesound's.I did however,hear (and quite like) the military band playing Work Your Magic at the beginning.It was very different!
It's been quite entertaining following it all on esctoday.com though- seems there's a lot of support for Litesound (and rightly so!),and some quite amusing comments too.Anyway,I shall be back with the results later,if and when I find out what they are.

C'è una parte di me che tacere non sa

Last Sunday we were having fabulous fun in London amongst thousands of Russians and lots of plastic flags. This Sunday we've been sitting in our front room in Guildford amongst lots of deflating balloons and watching our newly made Chelsi DVD on loop.Yes,it's been a boring day to say the least,but just now I discovered (I don't know how I didn't know about it before),that Paolo Meneguzzi's Eurovision song is now on youtube.Hurrah!

I've been looking forward to hearing Era Stupendo (It was wonderful) for ages,and it's probably better that I expected it to be.It starts all nice and ballady,but then there's a twist..It's quite anthemic in a way.I love it!And it's nice to hear a Eurovision song in Italian for a change.If Litesound don't get through tomorrow,it looks like I'll be supporting Switzerland in May.Well...I can't support Belarus for another year,it's good to diversify :)

Eurofest...

Is on Monday,which will be the perfect thing to sit and watch after the big anticlimax that Sunday is going to be...Here at Europop Mansions Surrey Branch,we're backing Litesound 100% after realising that although Ruslan's song is eurotastic,Do You Believe is an anthem that must be loved and shared with the rest of Europe :)
Just to get in the Belarussian spirit of things,here's Litesound's 2006 Eurofest attempt- My Faith.It's good,I like it.Although this video is of shocking quality.


Of course,Litesound weren't the only great entrants that year.Everyone's favourite Belarussian,Dima Koldun (must have been just before Fabrika Zvezd) was in it too,singing Maybe,the English version of Bit' Mozhet,the duet with his brother that I assume was recorded later,possibly even after Fabrika.Again,the video's a bit rubbish,but the sound is fine.It's a really good performance,I can't believe Belarus actually sent Polina to Athens instead...

RWF: "Na beregu na beregu na beregu NEBA!"

Then came what was described in the programme as the ‘climatic moment.’ We’d been speculating about this for a while. They drew a white curtain across the stage and then started counting down the new year, which seemed a bit strange at a quarter past 5 in the evening, but whatever. Then a big Russian flag was projected onto the curtain, the Russian national anthem was played, and there was fake snow everywhere. It was actually quite touching in a way, I think it was because of all the people singing the national anthem and everyone waving their little plastic Russian flags.

Mr Comedian came out after that anyway, with a bottle of vodka, and then led everyone in a bit of a singalong of a song that went on forever.
And then, after a big huge intro of guitars playing something we didn’t really recognise…

“Heavy clouds no rain, and every move causes pain…” Aaaaggghhh, it was Dima! For so long we’ve been saying how good it would be to see him, but we never thought it would happen. From all the videos we’ve seen, he seemed like such a good live performer, and he really is. Never Let You Go was great to sing along to, I think I must have deafened the guy in front of me by the end of Dima’s set, and possibly caused a few injuries to a couple of others too…Anyway,it was a really good performance,complete with an impressive series of Dima jumps :)

We said about a week ago, that as long as Dima sang Ty Dolzhna, we didn’t care what else he did. So when he suddenly launched into “you should have written me a letter…” we were quite excited. Thankfully he didn’t do the whole English version and was interchanging between that one and the real Ty Dolzhna, which was a bit confusing when you’re trying to sing along, but it was wonderful.


In fact,if you listen quite closely,you can hear us singing the English chorus towards the end.We've always 'given it large' to this song,so being amongst thousands of Russians wasn't going to stop us!

Number One Fan was next,which again was super,I almost can't believe I didn't like that song when it first came out,it's really good!The "they call me Dima Bilan,Dima Bilan,D-D-Dima Bilan" bit still makes me laugh though.
I think Nevozmozhnoe Vozmozhno was next.Another great,bilingual performance.Very energetic.

When Kak Romeo started,we weren't quite sure what it was,although the violinist who had just come on stage should probably have given us a clue.I've never really liked Kak Romeo to be honest,but it's far better live than it is on a CD player.It really shows off Dima's great voice,and although all the big lively singalong songs like Nevozmozhnoe Vozmozhno and Number One Fan were fabulous,it was nice to hear something slower as well.

Possibly our second favourite Dima song after Ty Dolzhna was next.We weren't really expecting him to do Eta Bila Lyubov,so it was a nice surprise.I've seen videos of him doing this one live before,and he always sings it really well and full of emotion.I seem to remember him singing the chorus about 86 times at the end.Not that we were complaining :)

The last song seemed like a bit of a strange choice actually.I thought he would have saved one of the big songs like Ty Dolzhna for last,but instead he did Na Beregu Neba/Between the Sky and Heaven,which again has never been one of our favourite songs,although now I realise it's probably quite a nice chillout song.The performance was cool,Dima's backing dancers,who were fabulous throughout,had odd silver masks on for this one,which made it all very arty and nice.The ending of it was funky,sort of turning into a bit of a freestyle type thing with Dima repeating "na beregu" over and over again... But it was all good.

And then,after saying a few quick-fire words in Russian,Dima ran off and the curtains were shut,to get the stage ready for DJ Lupin.But we didn't bother staying to watch him.We fought our way through the disippating crowd of Russians,went and bought a shashlik and some other bits,and then made our way back home.Very happy indeed.

At the time,even when Dima was on stage,which was what we were looking forward to for weeks,it was only afterwards when we got back to Surrey and looked at the photos and videos that I realised what a fabulous day it had been.As clichéd as it sounds,there's bits that I'll remember for a very long time to come.So,in true Mastercard advert style...

Guildford-Waterloo return ticket- £11,30
Obligatory purchase of Russian doll related merchandise- £12,00
Having the best weekend ever in the company of super-fabulous Russian stars- Priceless!

RWF: "It's not the same without Dennis is it?"

The Russian National Dance show was next, which as I expected, was super. Lots of fabulous colourful costumes, oh, and they danced a bit to Vdol Pa Peterskay, which made me and Keira very happy, seeing as we love the version of that song that Prohor did, and listen to it quite a lot.

Ken Livingstone came on next. But he didn’t dance. Or sing. He just talked for what seemed like ages about bridging the gap between Russia and Britain, and then went on about fascism, although I’m not sure why. Either way his involvment would have been far more interesting if he’d have given us a chorus of Ty Dolzhna.

There were rock bands next. Sankt Peterburg were OK actually, we liked their lead singer because he was the most smiley person we’d ever seen. Zemlyane though, were awful. Well, maybe not awful, but just boring. And it was strange hearing Russian songs that we couldn’t sing along to. They really did seem to be on stage forever though. And my legs were hurting so much at that point, which didn’t help.
Then it was pop time.Kuba were next. They were on Fabrika Zvezd Series 2 apparantly. They were shockingly bad. Don’t know if it was the Hello Kitty guitar or the angel wings or the fact that they just couldn’t sing and kept screaming that put me off of them the most. They seemed to be on for ages too. I don’t think any of the crowd liked them actually, it was all pretty silent when they were on.

Fabrika were on next, doing Pro Lyubov to start with. I like that song. And then they did one that I didn’t know, and then Ne Vinovata Ya, which me and Keira like because they did it on Fabrika Zvezd with the Chelsi boys and Prohor and Dima. It was good, although there were a few sound issues at times, but we couldn’t help ourselves every time a certain bit came up, “aww, it’s not the same without Dennis is it?” “aww, that was Dima’s bit.” It was quite cool to see them though.

RWF: "Russians are strange people"

Squashed between Keira and 3 Russian men yesterday evening, I had an epiphany- Dima Bilan is amazing!

We’d been planning to go to the Russian Winter Festival for a while, since we knew it existed really. And when I found out last month that Dima Bilan was going to be there, we started getting pretty excited.

When we arrived, it was ridiculously exciting to hear Nevozmozhnoe Vozmozhno coming from the speakers on the stage. Apart from hearing The Ark a few times in a few shops in Norway, this was the first time for years that I’d heard a song I really like being played in public, which was super :)

We got there really early, considering Dima wasn’t going to be on until 5.40, but once I’d found a good spot near the front and in the middle of the stage, I wasn’t going to move. This was fine during the first lot of performers, a sort of modern folk type group and the wonderful Baikal Ensemble (who were from Eastern Russia, so a bit more on the oriental side of things), but I thought it might have been a bit of a mistake when the Aquaaerobik Project came on.

Being fans of Fabrika Zvezd, we’re pretty used to crazy stage set ups and performances, so we weren’t shocked whatsoever when this ‘Project’ came on stage wearing brightly coloured, skin tight plastic suits (one of them with a shoe attached to his head) and playing giant plastic guitars to the sound of generic electro music and the woman screeching quite unintelligible words. I don’t know, they were different I suppose, but not really my thing.

Then there was 5 minutes of time filling, when some girls from Ukraine and the Baltics were up on stage answering quite stupid questions from the most irritating presenter in the world. She was even more annoying than the woman from Fabrika Zvezd, and that’s saying something. When finally asked “who’s your favourite artist here today?” the girls all responded “Tiiiiiiiishman!” cue disbelieving looks between me and Keira, thinking they must be either joking or mental for clearly not loving Dima Bilan as much as us.

I was quite excited about seeing Mark Tishman actually, I didn’t watch this series of Fabrika Zvezd, but I thought it would be cool to see someone from it. He’s gorgeous in real life, he looks so much like Prohor Shalyapin. The first thing he said in English was “Russians are strange people,” which I thought was quite amusing, and then he went on to talk about the concept of Old New Year and why it’s good to have celebrations because of the ‘deficit of love in the world’ or something like that. Anyway, then he sang a song that he'd written himself,called Yarkim Plamenyem, it was rather Prohor-esque and lovely. Then he did the beautiful I’ll Be Your Angel, and another one that I didn’t know the name of. He was fabulous though, although it was only him on stage, he was a good performer, doing lots of interesting, flamboyant hand movements. It was good, if there’d been anyone else on stage with him I don’t think it would have worked as well. So yes, I can see why the Baltic girls were so excited about him now, hopefully he’ll have a good career and maybe, mmm…come back to the festival next year perhaps? : )

Russian Winter Festival

This weekend has been one of the best weekends ever.After a vodka fuelled,singing filled Saturday night,me and Keira went up to London on Sunday to see the Russian Winter Festival,which was a celebration of Old Russian New Year,as celebrated on the Tsarist calendar.The next few posts I do will be all about our big Russkytastic adventure,along with some pictures and videos that Keira took.I have neither the required patience or coordination to keep my arm suitably mobile in the air for so long,so she was in charge.The results are pretty fabulous.

I'm in love with everything you are

How excited was I when I discovered Eurosport were showing ski jumping from Val di Fiemme today?Very is the answer.I was very much looking forward to seeing the lovely and amazingly talented Gregor Schlierenzauer (look at him,he's adorable!),but I forgot,as it was a qualifying round,the top 10 jumpers in the world cup rankings didn't need to be there.So that sucked.
Anyway,I only came here to say that I won't be posting anything for the next few days,I'll be busy moving back to Surrey and celebrating Russian new year and doing yet more work on that horrible Luxembourg essay I thought I'd got rid of ages ago.I'll be back sometime next week probably,hopefully with all manner of wonderful things concerning the Russian Winter Festival.
I'll leave you with something Keira sent me.It's Tom from Jetzt Anders! (can't forget the exclamation mark),singing Anna Vissi's Everything.Not an easy song to sing- we've tried many a time in the kitchen at Europop Mansions Surrey Branch,but Tom does it really really well.No wonder the band split up,as great as they are,Tom's talent is a bit wasted in a pop group I think.Enjoy :)

Ein Leben,dass ich wirklich leben kann

Just another quick mention of Jetzt Anders! I was listening to them again this afternoon,when I thought "mmm,this song sounds rather familiar." That's because Ein Neues Leben is in fact a German version of Venke Knutson's (or Nylon's whichever you prefer) Holiday! How odd.Anyway,I love Venke's version,but I think I might like this one more,if only because I think the lyrics are a bit better.

I won't die without your love

While we're on the subject of boybands,here's the greatest Russian one ever singing Dima Koldun's Ya Ne Umru Bez Tvoiy Lyubvi,which came joint 3rd on my favourite songs of last year list.(Nice to see Arseniy looking as gorgeous as ever :) )

Für immer und ewig werd'ich mit dir sein

Do you ever just fancy sitting down and listening to some 100% cheesy pop?Of course you do!Well look no further than Jetzt Anders! So cheesy they even have an exclamation mark at the end of their name.
I've been thinking a lot about Austria lately (which is a sentence I've never said before) for various reasons,and when I realised I have no Austrian music whatsoever,I thought I'd try and find some.It turns out Jetzt Anders! a) are so called because there are already 2 other bands in Austria called Jetzt (Now) so they thought they'd better add an extra word- 'anders' meaning 'different', b) were formed on Starmania,Austria's answer to Pop Idol,in 2007, and c) are not around anymore.Which is a shame,because they're a really good old school pop group.I've been listening to their one and only album Gut So,and although some of the songs on it are a bit samey,some of them are super.
Such as this- Für Immer und Ewig (Forevermore),it's summery,happy and catchier than flu.It's the only proper music video of theirs I could find,but it ticks all the right pop-boxes,it's all choreographed complete with some questionable dance moves,the boys all have wonderfully cheesy grins,and they're all dressed in standard boyband white.Fabulous!


I love this one too,it's called Frag Nicht Nach Morgen (Don't Ask About Tomorrow).There's only one picture on the video,and I don't know what was going on when it was taken...


All boybands must have at least one big ballad on their album.This is probably theirs.It's called Alles,and it screams Westlife at me.


There'll probably be quite a few more Austrian/German/Swiss related posts in the next few days,I'm getting quite into their music at the minute :)

It's Dima time!

It's been far too long (yep,at least a week or so) since I posted anything to do with Dima Koldun.So I just found this camp and fabulous performance of V Ritme Tantsa (nope,I've never heard of it either),and thought I should share :)

Just when you thought...

...the festive season was all over,it was Russian Christmas a few days ago.Which of course makes sense seeing as New Year is on Sunday...So if anyone with any vague Russian connection is reading,I wish you a belated Shastlivova Razhdyestva (or something like that :) ),and here's a nice madly colourful Russian version of Jingle Bells sung by Dima Bilan and a woman called Kristina who I've never heard of before.

And another thing...

Today marks the start of what's going to be a long,long,long 2 months for me.I'm going back to Surrey on Saturday,which means I won't be able to watch any more ski jumping until my return on March 14th.Which is the last day of the season!Admittedly it's the Planica competition,which is one of the most exciting,but still,I'm going to miss 12 competitions,including the one at Holmenkollen :( The Four Hills was a big disappointment in the end as well,particularly yesterday at Bischofshofen when at least half of the top 10 didn't even get through to the second round because of the shocking weather conditions.At least Anders Jacobsen finished the whole tournament in 9th place though.That was quite a nice surprise :)

Cosa nostra… cosa vostra… cos’è vostro?

I've said before that I don't listen to enough Italian music.My one Paolo Meneguzzi album and 2 Tiziano Ferro ones and a couple of random mp3s don't really constitute a good collection.So that's my mission for this year,to find more good Italian music.
I must admit though,sometimes it is quite difficult- it's easy to appreciate a bit of (not too much though) Swedish schlager,cheesy Russian pop and a bit of German rock,but Italian music I think is a bit of an acquired taste.It has its own sound which I think is more similar to Balkan music if anything,and can be quite hit and miss.

I know virtually nothing about Italian pop.Maybe it's just my family,maybe it's a Southern Italian thing,or maybe it's the annoying inevitable international spread of English language music,but even my younger cousins don't seem to be that interested in their country's own music.My first encounter of Italian music however,happened the first time I went there,13 years ago,and all over the piazza in Piano di Sorrento were posters announcing the big and exciting event that Mango would be performing there.This is him.

He had a lot more hair in 1995....
Anyway,I'm quite liking that song,but I can imagine that a big proportion of the Europop-loving public wouldn't.(If you do,here's the actual video to Mediterraneo,bit odd,think of a chilled out version of Fatboy Slim's Praise You,set on a nice beach :/ ).So yeah,Mango's alright,but not really worth all the frenzy I seem to remember going on in the piazza that evening :)

Then of course there's the songs everyone knows.Good old ancient (almost anyway) folk songs that get covered every once in a while to varying degrees of success.As lovely as Dima Bilan's version of O Sole Mio is,my favourite version is Dalida's,done in 1960.

I love it because that video is meant to be set in Naples,which is (almost) where my family are from (well,just over the water a bit,on a little island,but whatever,it's the same county :) I also remembered last night that I have another,rather tenuous connection to Naples,but that's another story...),and also because it reminds me of holidays.I've travelled quite a bit in the last 17 years,and the best times I've had in holiday terms have been in Italy and Croatia,two countries that,from my experience,share a few cultural similarities,music being one of them.

My original reason for doing this post was to talk about the San Remo Music Festival,because I read about this year's on ESCToday .I've heard of a few people who are in it this year,Paolo of course,Tiromancino,Toto Cutugno...,but generally I've never taken much notice of the festival.Simone Cristicchi won it last year,with the song Ti regalerò una rosa (I'll give you a rose),a song that makes me cry every time I hear it.The winner of the Best Newcomer category last year though,was Fabrizio Moro and his song Pensa (Think),which is also quite sad.It's an anti-mafia song with pretty strong lyrics.If this is the future of Italian music,I like it.

I want to go to Iceland

There seems to be an ongoing conflict in my musical brain.As much as I like to listen to music from Europe's more obscure places,it's generally Russian or Scandinavian music that I like the best.Whenever I start getting excited about the Russian stuff,something Scandinavian comes along and reminds me that it's better.And vice versa.Anyway,last night while I was trying to find something decent to watch,I came across the new series of Grumpy Old Men on BBC2.This made me happy,because although I am neither old or male,I am very grumpy and love to moan about...everything really.Particularly technology,which was what this episode was about.Anyway,after this,The Culture Show was on,which is something I've never seen before,but last night it was about Sigur Rós,so I thought I'd watch it.

I can't say Sigur Rós have ever been one of my favourite bands,but I have Takk,one of the latest albums,which is ok,and a few of their older songs which I love.A lot of the time though to be honest,I think a lot of their stuff sounds pretty much the same,which is why I tend to not listen to them that much.As odd as it might seem though,from what was on this programme last night,they seem to be a band that I'd enjoy much more if I actually saw them perform live.You wouldn't think that there'd be much going on at one of their gigs,but I don't know,seeing Jónsi,the vocalist,singing one of their songs in what is essentially just a made up language,seemed to really add something to the music.It was nice.

They were also talking about the 2002 album which had no artwork,no track names and minimal lyrics sung in this made up language.It seems a lot of people thought this was all very 'pretentious' (a word that I've also heard to describe Mew,one of the greatest bands ever),but I'm not so sure.I like the idea of drawing your own conclusions and interpreting sound and nonsensical words for yourself,I think that's what good music is.Maybe I'm just turning into an indie snob,I don't know.Only real indie,not the pathetic "we're 4 guys from London who play guitar (badly) and sing supposedly witty songs to a tune that sounds exactly the same to every other band around at the minute" excuse for music that is now classed as indie.

This programme also mentioned Heima,the band's first film which was made over last summer when they held a series of unannounced shows all over Iceland,in places such as an abandoned herring oil tank.Although the original film was edited so it didn't look so much like it was made by the Icelandic Tourist Board,there are still loads of shots of the beautiful Icelandic landscape,which fit with the music very well.The presenter of this programme said both the music and the country are 'mystical,' which I think is a good description.I really want to see the whole of this film,and I also really want to go to Iceland!

I'll leave you with part of Heima- it's Olsen Olsen,my favourite Sigur Rós song,and what I think is one of my all-round favourite pieces of music ever :)

Don't stop dreaming coz it never gets better than this

Ugh,it seems the rumours were true and Lene Alexandra is going to be in Norway's Melodi Grand Prix in the Bodø semi final.Great.
Anyway,thought I'd just mention 2 songs that I'm really liking at the minute,by 2 of my favourite Scandinavians :)
The first one is Live For Today by the ever fabulous Kjartan Salvesen,it's from his latest album Then Silence,which seems really really good.Not sure if it's available on itunes,because every time I try and access the store bit,my computer gets stuck.If not though,it's probably on one of those nice Scandinavian music websites like cdon or something.One that only accepts the sort of credit cards that I don't have.Anyway,here's the song.It's good,very happy,reminds me of some sort of 90s Britpop or something.


I finally got Teitur's second album Stay Under The Stars on Christmas Eve I think it was.Although I haven't had a chance to listen to it properly like I did with Poetry and Aeroplanes,this is my favourite song from it.It's called Hitchhiker,and it seems he released it as a single (something with escaped my notice at the time somehow),because there's a video to it,which I also really like.It fits the song very well,not just because she's a hitchhiker,but also because it's just kind of...dark I guess.It's good.

Love is like popcorn

This year's series of Fabrika was won by Mark Tishman,someone who I know nothing about,but feel that I should find out about,because he's going to be at the Russian Winter Festival next Sunday (ooh,next Sunday...getting very excited now).Of course I'd much rather see the winner of last year's series,but I think Mark will do.He reminds me so much of Prohor Shalyapin,who I have written about before,in terms of his voice and the type of songs I've heard him sing so far anyway,I don't know if he was as camp and fabulous as Prohor in the house.Anyway,this is a nice little tune called Lyubov kak Popkorn,which I'm sure means Love is like Popcorn.I haven't listened to the lyrics enough to know if they're as philosophical as the title,but I think it's quite a nice song.Apart from the backing vocals in the performance,which are shocking to say the least.Victor Drobysh- if you're looking for backing singers for your Fabrika winners,you could do a lot worse than give me and Keira a call :)


This is another of his songs,which he wrote himself.It's called Ya Stany Tvoim Angelom (I'll Be Your Angel (?) ),it has Prohor Shalyapin written all over it,and it's a very nice bit of what I like to call ethno-pop :) He'll blatantly be singing this next Sunday.


Edit: OK,so he didn't actually win Fabrika Zvezd,one of my sources was a bit unreliable.But he was second :)