Tuesday 23 March 2010

Urban Folk Quartet: Review

Hello all and welcome to yet another edition of Malfunctioning Musical Madness. I'm now going to stop talking like a gameshow host, and get on with the topic in hand. Today's blog entry is a review of the performance of the band Urban Folk Quartet, who I had the pleasure of going to see last night.
Urban Folk Quartet (UFQ) are a folk band (duh) made up of four musicians:
  • Frank Moon (Oud, Guitar, Percussion, Vocals)
  • Tom Chapman (Percussion, Vocals)
  • Joe Broughton (Fiddle, Guitar, Mandolin, Vocals)
  • Paloma Trigas (Fiddle, Vocals)
They play a mixture of music that encompasses traditional folk sounds, Middle Eastern music, and Latin American music. This is all incorporated seamlessly into their songs, and the result is fantastic. All four are very talented musicians, Joe is both a brilliant fiddle player but a very good guitarist. Paloma is a fantastic fiddle player, and her vocals were great. Frank Moon plays the Oud, and interesting middle eastern instrument with a lovely sound that was demonstrated on a song they played in which he took the lead. Finally Tom Chapman, the percussionist who uses an interesting set of percussive instruments including a cajon, his talent for percussion was very high and his vocal appearance on one song was very good.

The performance was fantastic, all members looked like they were having a good time, and the audience did too. Having only heard about the band at the beginning of the week, I'm glad I took a chance and went to see them. As a band they function faultlessly, without a wrong note. They are one of my favourite folk acts about, and I thoroughly recommend them.

Anyway that's it from me for now, I don't know when the next entry will be, but I'll try and submit one soon.

Thanks,

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Wednesday 3 March 2010

Notable Artists I

This is the first in a series of posts where I will discuss a favourite artist of mine, or just one that catches my ear at the time. Now the point of this particular series of posts is to talk about artists that I like, but mainly artists that are not all that famous. So while I very much like bands like Iron Maiden and the Foo Fighters, these posts will feature lesser known artists. Anyway, on with the post.

Ok, well the band I'll give a special mention to in this post is Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. Now I have actually mentioned this band before, but I plan elaborate on whatever I said before.
Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. (I shall refer to the name as Get Cape for short) was originally a single musician called Sam Duckworth. His first album consisted of him playing guitar and singing, with other instruments added via a computer. When on tour he plays with other musicians that play the other parts.
His genre is difficult to define in my opinion, I reckon he falls somewhere around the alternative/acoustic mark, but his second album has more of a rock-like feel to it in certain places.
Anyway, his first album is called The Chronicles of a Bohemian Teenager. This is my personal favourite of his two albums. My favourite tracks on the album are War of the Worlds, and Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. Through his songs Get Cape aims to target issues such as social injustice, and corporate giants.
His second album is entitled Searching for the Hows and Whys. Again this is a very good album which features Get Cape's brilliant guitar playing.
In terms of live performance Get Cape is great. So far I have seen him once a couple of years ago, but I plan to go and see him live again this year.

So I hope I've been of some use here, if you haven't heard any of his music I urge you to check it out. That's all from me for now.

Thanks,

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