Amplifico

Amplifico are a Scottish band comprising Donna Maciocia (keyboards and vocals), Ross Kilgour (guitar) and Dave Brunton (drums). The name Amplifico was chosen from a Latin dictionary (meaning to increase or enlarge). Amplifico's roots are from an early teens friendship at Balwearie High School, Kirkcaldy. Donna Maciocia started song writing and performing in 2004 following her completion of an art degree at the University of Dundee. In addition to playing across the UK & Ireland with Amplifico, she provided backing vocals for KT Tunstall on her live Acoustic Extravaganza album, sang with Tunstall on her tour in 2006, appeared in Tunstall's Another Place to Fall video, and in 2007 joined Aberfeldy onstage as backing vocal and keyboard musician. Amplifico won the 'Best Scottish Band' title in a national UK competition for unsigned bands, playing Glasgow Carling Academy and London Astoria within a year of forming. During this period, the band recorded and self-produced their first material (Hometakes 1 & Hometakes 2) and gained both live an internet based followings. Unsigned and unmanaged, they utilised their fan base and internet following to fund their first full studio based work. This brought the group to the attention of the Scottish media with an article about their efforts to fund their first album being seen in 2006 on BBC Scotland main news programme ‘Reporting Scotland’. The album was largely funded through individual donations and via a live web-streamed "webathon" fundraiser gig. Via their own ‘record label MDM Creations, Amplifico published See Heart, See Muscle on March 3rd 2008. Immediately upon release BBC RADIO 1's Vic Galloway awarded Amplifico the 'Album of The Month' status on his show.

@ London, UK
♫ Indie, Pop, Rock
♥ Open Your Eyes (mp3)
♥ The Comedy Stops Here (mp3)
▸ Myspace
▸ Official Website

Updates

As you probably have noticed, I changed my layout (again). Just wasn't feeling the previous one! The original layout was pretty boring, with grey, black an white colors only, and no tiled background, but I changed it. Hope you like it, I do! I also added something new in the sidebar called Followers, which is a nice new widget that keeps track of everyone that follows this blog, and gives you updates about new posts as well. So please add yourself as a follower! Two other nice widgets found their way to the sidebar, one showing photos of bands featured on this blog, and the other a nice tag cloud. (All earlier post will be tagged (after) tuesday)

Some questions for you:

*Would you like to have a star rating system again?
*Is there anything you want on the blog? (not artist, but features)
*Please join the last.fm group (link is on the menu above) if you didn't already!

Thanks all for the support, that is what keeps me coming back! (and my love for music of course)

Angela Desveaux

A gifted singer/songwriter, Angela Desveaux's music merges the simple emotional honesty and rich sonic landscape of classic country with the personal focus of contemporary folk and the roots-conscious attack of alt-country. Desveaux was born in Quebec just outside Montreal, but she spent much of her childhood on the island of Cape Breton in Nova Scotia. Cape Breton has a rich history of traditional folk music drawn from Irish and Spanish sources, and the island's distinctive fiddle music had a deep impact on Desveaux. Desveaux also grew up on a musical diet of classic country. When she was ten, Desveaux's family returned to Montreal; in her early teens, when her older brother joined a local rock band, Desveaux followed suit and started singing with a handful of local rockers. Desveaux was drawn back to her country roots; she started appearing at open-mike nights around Montreal and sang with bluegrass bands before joining the Sonny Best Band as lead singer in 2001. However, inspired by Lucinda Williams and Emmylou Harris, Desveaux began writing her own songs and eventually approached Howard Bilerman, former drummer with the Arcade Fire and owner of the Hotel 2 Tango Recording Studio in Montreal, with a demo tape. Bilerman liked Desveaux's music, and helped her assemble a band for a recording project. Brian Paulson agreed to produce the sessions, and Desveaux's first album, Wandering Eyes, was released in the fall of 2006, followed by Mighty Ship in 2008.

@ Montreal, Canada
♫ Acoustic, Folk, Pop, Rock
♥ Sure Enough (mp3)
♥ Shape You (mp3)
▸ Myspace
▸ Official Website

6 Day Riot

6 Day Riot march on from their successful debut album "Folie A Deux" with renewed vigour and a refined sense of identity. Ideas are flowing thick and fast. Rhythms are more eclectic and varied. Lyrics more focused. Live performances more impassioned. The bands musical palette has expanded the bluegrass/klezmer hybrid of album one to a sound distinctly and resolutely their own; fuelled by the creativity, imagination and technical ability of the players. Hot on the heels of the EP release this summer album no 2 is scheduled for release at the start of '09 With Tamara Schlesinger’s vocal travelling on the top like a jockey on the hump of a camel it makes for an interesting ride. ‘The Last Stand’ has some interesting drumming that circles like percussive echoes from canons ricocheting off each other in some huge naval battle - add in some faintly mariachi trumpet and you have something as satisfying as pastrami on a bagel. This sort of tasty mouthful is repeated across all four tracks. Tamara’s vocal dominates ‘Sky Father’, whilst ukuleles chime the opening of ‘Gerald & the Gliders’ and with the soft velvet touch of the vocal, it is a seductive mix. If you stir all of the ingredients together you get ‘Go! Canada’ which shows 6DR off to their best advantage, a sparkling mixture of old and new which makes this a very tasty appetiser for their next album

@ London, UK
♫ Alternative, Folk, Pop
♥ Go! Canada (mp3)
♥ Sky Father (mp3)
▸ Myspace

Caroline Keating

Caroline Keating's just a girl who likes to tinker on her piano at 2 am and make up stories… although her neighbours don’t appreciate this so much. Other people do. She's selling a 7-track demo at shows. However, I am looking to re-record a lot of these songs, with more OOMPH and Oooos and Ahhh’s. I believe all of these things can be found in good hearts and good instruments. It took some time, but Caroline finally started recording her first full length! She got requests from managers and labels and all that bizness stuff sort of foggied up the connection between the keys and her heart at some point. And she's still so young, so she felt no rush to get into an album unless it was the right time and the right songs. And then it sort of just accidentally happened. She's recording her record independently and it couldn't feel better. She wanted to take 4 steps back from what everyone else was doing, who everyone wanted to work with, or wanted her to work with. So no producer. She knows what sound she wants, and she doesn't want that raw vulnerability to be compromised. It's coming along real good. However, being technologically inept, she needed a great sound engineer and got him. She has been spending the summer writing a lot of tunes. So let's hope for an albumrelease early next year!

@ Montreal, Canada

♫ Acoustic, Minimalistic, Pop
♥ Billy Joel (mp3)
♥ Lusty Dusty (mp3)
▸ Myspace

Minotaurs

Minotaurs were never likely to be pigeonholed as just another guitar band. Bursting out of South Shields, the seaside town more famed for Saturday night scuffles than finely crafted mini-epics, they bring a mix of immaculate vocals, beautifully arranged songs and heartbreaking narratives that give an entirely new twist to the art form making them one of the most exciting bands around today. Together, Andrew Coiley, Tom Devlin, Sarah Farrell, Andrew Forster, Grant Lagan and Michael Ross have big hearts and an even bigger sound. Fragile and delicate, yet completely compelling, they hail not only the return of the anthem but the return of hope. While their joyous live shows have been rightly acclaimed as a breath of fresh air for melodic folk-pop this EP lifts them head and shoulders above their peers, showing them at their self-consciously stunning best. Stand out track ‘Anyone Who Had A Heart’ is bursting with understated emotion and is a stunning representation of the warmth and charm that makes Minotaurs so enchanting to both the listener and the audience. Forster’s voice swings between arrogance and insecurity, innocence and insouciance while the music spirals unfathomably and the effect is truly breathtaking. Minotaurs have already overtaken their contemporaries in both creativity and song writing. Wowing packed ‘sing along’ audiences they have been loved and admired solely in the North East for too long, it’s time to let the rest of the country in on the secret.

@ South Shields, UK
♫ Alternative, Indie, Folk Rock
♥ Anyone Who Had A Heart (mp3)
♥ Good Care (mp3)
▸ Myspace

We need your help.

I just noticed that my hotlinkfiles account ran out of bandwith. This can be explained by the growing visitor rate of this blog. Which of course is a good thing! Unfortunately are free accounts at hotlinkfiles limited to a 4GB bandwidth each 15 days. And more users means more use of bandwith, especially if other blogs are using my links on their blog!

I thought about a solution, and all I came up with, is asking you, the readers for a small donation so I can buy a VALUE account at hotlinkfiles for a monthly price of only $4,99. That value account will give me an bandwith of 30GB and UNLIMITED download speed for YOU! (More here)

To give a little donation, press the Paypal button on the sidebar/menu. (will be up soon)

Thanks a million in advance, for helping us out, and giving us the oppertunity to share more music with you!

If you have a better solution; please comment!

UPDATE: I upgraded my account, songs will load a lot faster now, and we have a bandwith of 30GB, thanks to Jelmer for the donation!