YAY

I stumbled across this little tid-bit on The Age website:

One of Melbourne's most loved roots venues, Fitzroy's Rainbow Hotel, is set to re-open this month — with live bands — after the lease of former publican Chick Ratten expired last month. Incoming publican brothers Chris and Cameron Strachan say they intend to restore the venue to its former glory.

YAY!
It shouldn't take too much to restore to its 'former glory' given it only shut down in December... hope they have better luck with the authorities and whinging newby residents.

Should we start the campaign to restore the Paul Williamson Hammond Combo residency?

Hottest 100

'Tis voting time in the Hottest 100 for Australian ' yoof' radio station, triplej....

I like to take the chance to support Australian acts, but couldn't help picking some faves from the wider world too...perhaps partly due to my distance from Aus the past year?
While I don't usually listen to the station (given the general brilliance of public radio in Melbourne), the chance to win a double pass to every event supported by the j's for a year is hard to pass up - it would certainly ease the return to Aus....
Anyway, here be my votes whittled down from the large shortlist and I'm sure there some I've forgotten....

Art Of Fighting - Free You
Biffy Clyro - Saturday Superhouse
Clare Bowditch & The Feeding Set - You Looked So Good
CSS - Let's Make Love & Listen To Death From Above
Love Of Diagrams - Form & Function
Regina Spektor - Better
White Stripes - Icky Thump
Yelle - A Cause Des Garcons
Young And Restless - Police Police
Queens Of The Stone Age - 3's & 7's

What did/will/would you vote for?

State of EXIT

Now that was a festival!
EXIT - 4 days of music in an old Fortress overlooking Novi Sad in northern Serbia, practically in the backyard for those of us working in Kosovo, was an awesome way to spend a summer weekend.
In fact it was 4 nights, with the bands not starting each day till around 7pm and DJs played till 8am, which left days free to sleep in, hang by the riverside, walk around Novi Sad and regroup. We also made the excellent decision to rent a room in an apartment rather than camp out, which meant plenty of quiet, comfortable and cool rest was possible with access to a bathroom and kitchen - and all closer to the fest than the festival camp area.

Now 6 hours in a clunky old bus meant it didn't exactly feel like it was in the backyard, but the travel was worth it. I arrived late on Thursday and managed to catch the end of The Prodigy's set, which sounded amazing and the atmosphere was electric, it seems they still got it. Some fireworks followed to officially launch the festival then Groove Armada hit the stage and had even our died-in-the-wool rocker friend dancing along.

Highlights would have to be a very cool Beastie Boys set with loads of old-school tunes including Egg Raid on Mojo and No Sleep till Brooklyn as well as quite a few of the new instrumental jams, Basement Jaxx impressed me despite not knowing much of their set and had me dancing like a fool and unusual for me, I also enjoyed dancing till dawn to a set by the dj Roger Sanchez.

I was sceptical as to whether CSS would translate to a main festival stage, after seeing them earlier in the year at a small venue in Sydney with a bad sound mix... but they pulled it off, sounded fantastic and were lots of fun. I especially loved the singer stripping off several layers of dodgy jumpsuits and having the attitude to make it seem cool.

Lauryn Hill seemed to pull some kind of diva stunt, going on late and playing past the timeslot, delaying Basement Jaxx for over an hour, which did not impress the fans... but she played some Fugees towards the end when we wandered over which somehow made up to it.

There were loads of stages, but just the one main stage, which made it easy to catch the extended sets of the major acts. None of those paltry 45 minute sets here!

Everyone was friendly (well, almost everyone), the weather was perfect, despite the huge crowds there was never a problem to get where we wanted to go (except to get beer during a main act set) and to top it off it was cheap!

There were messages of peace and ending discrimination, with many organisations granted stalls and space on site, harking back to the original intentions of the first EXIT festival in 2000 to bring youth together and move past the period of war in the former Yugoslavia.

While there is still much tension surrounding Kosovo, it was heartening to know that several hundred kosovars travelled from Pristina to the festival to enjoy it alongside people from all over former Yugoslavia and the world.

Culture Week, Kosovan Stars

It is Culture week in Mitrovica south and last night there was a free concert in the city centre featuring a competent backing band and a rotating list of local female singers, as well as a somewhat disturbing display by the local karate club.

One of the singers was Rona Nishliu, who I have been seeing on local tv a lot recently. A pretty daggy video (you can see on YouTube here - watch for some terrible dance moves and worse outfits) has been playing, I've seen her sing 'live' on a show reminiscent of Countdown, seen her in a kind of game show, and popping up on things that look like variety shows.

So you can imagine that after this much exposure I had it in my head this chick was a bit of a celebrity, so it was fun to see her up close and personal singing her hits and some rather cheesy cover versions of american songs both solo and with the other singers at the concert. It was almost Kosovo's answer to the Young Divas.
Anyway, it turns out this girl is some kind of over achiever, go-getter, and the more Kosovo can get of them, the better!

"Rona Nishliu was born in Mitrovica and attended high school in Pristina, both in Kosovo. In the top 1 percent of the student body at the American University in Kosovo, Nishliu is also a well-known singer in the Kosovo, Albania and Macedonia regions and was one of five finalists among seven thousand participants in an Albanian Pop Idol show. She is the host of a daily radio show for one of Kosovo’s most popular radio stations, Bluesky Radio. She participates in various volunteer activities, including initiating and organizing Kosovo Remembers, a concert to support the Bush-Clinton Hurricane Katrina Fund. She also works with movie and documentary companies and collaborates with international artists visiting Kosovo." rit.edu

Eurovision Controversy!

It has been claimed that the winning song at Eurovision was, at least partly, a copy of an Albanian song.
"A striking similarity exists between "Molitva" sang by Marija Serifovic in Eurovision 2007 and an albanian song "Ndarja" performed by Soni Malaj in Top Fest 3 in 2006, Albania" esctoday.com

It would be controversial enough just to claim they copied the song, but for it to be Albanian raises the stakes so much higher given the tensions in the region.

So much for Eurovision changing the world and bringing peace to the region!

P.S. Seems we weren't the only ones thinking about possible conspiracies regarding the political influence of winning the contest...

"Probably the most outrageous story concerning the singer appeared on May 9, in the Serbian tabloid Press. It claimed that the Western powers fixed the Eurovision contest in order to ensure Serifovic's victory. "Lulled by a triumph in Helsinki, Serbs are expected to calmly swallow the imminent secession of Kosovo," the paper claimed." time.com

Perhaps Eurovision really can change the world?!

The Eurovision Song Contest, that cheesy, bizarre and addictive event where European countries (plus a few hangers on) compete for musical glory (or infamy) was held on Saturday.

Out of all the bubble-gum pop, dramatic rock, folk-punk and cross-dressing madness, the winner was a love/religious ballad from Serbia called 'Molitva' sung by Marija Serifovic.

As the BBC said this morning, International success is something Serbia has not experienced in some time. Serbia will now be the host of the finals next year, a boon to the country and the region. You cannot begin to understand how exciting and important this is around here.

Our first thoughts of course went to the possibility of Kosovo being a semi-independant state by then, and of the huge desire of locals for Kosovo to have an entry in the contest. I wrote a while back that it would be one of the more important measures of independance for Kosovans - who needs membership in international organisations, as long as you've got a song in Eurovision?! Imagining a Kosovan entry into the Serbian-hosted Eurovision event was almost too freaky to contemplate. But could it be the ultimate reconciliation?

This morning there was news of the nationalist, hardline, speaker of Serbia's parliament, Tomislav Nikolic, stepping down from the job after only 5 days and it somehow felt like Eurovision may have played a part in the decision.

"opposition MP Nenad Canak said Mr Nikolic's nationalist and anti-European stand no longer had a place - especially as Serbia had just won the Eurovision song contest. Mr Canak said Serbia's neighbours had all awarded his country maximum points in the contest. But Russia, described by Mr Nikolic as Serbia's only friend, had only awarded his country five points." bbc.com

Block-voting aside, this victory was pretty astonishing and has the potential to influence far and wide. We asked ourselves at one point if there was some kind of underlying conspiracy leading to the high votes for this song?

Can Eurovision change the world? It certainly has the hearts and minds of millions in its grasp... and therefore great potential to influence.

Eurovision as good as independence?

The Status of Kosovo is still somewhat up in the air, but I came across this article that shows what is REALLY important here. Its getting into Eurovision of course....
"Next year, predicts Selimi, Kosovo would see 'mass hysteria' if Flakareshat got to go to Eurovision. 'Even if we don't get a flag in front of the United Nations,' as a result of the current talks, he says, 'as long as we get that song in the Eurovision Song Contest, I think we will be pretty happy with it.'" kosovareport.blogspot.com