Fountain from the Front lines!

Recording the debut album. First single released.

2019-06-24T23:47:00.001-04:00

Hey guys just an update.

For years I've attempted to record an album then let it fall to the wayside and never completed one, however, I am now almost done with my first album!

I also released my first single on Spotify this past week and you can check it out here:

https://open.spotify.com/track/5Mrztqei1quo5VgTn6ObY0

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0CiKTSSi9MFlUSz14UQCa0

I have also set up a few other profiles such as:

http://www.facebook.com/musicjasonfountain
http://www.youtube.com/jasongunpoint
http://www.twitter.com/jasonfountain15
http://www.instagram.com/jasongunpoint
http://www.soundcloud.com/jasongunpoint
http://www.reverbnation.com/jasonfountain

I will keep everyone posted on whenever the album will be released.

I also plan to do artist reviews again so if you would like your music given an honest review, contact me to send it in.

Thanks guys!

"Franz + Polina" An excellent foreign flick!

2016-02-24T23:38:00.002-05:00

SPOILER ALERT!!!

I love World War II stuff. Documentaries, Books, and Films! Last night I took the time to watch a Russian film on YouTube titled "Franz + Polina" and I'm glad I did! The film is a love story that takes place in "White Russia" or Belarus during the time of, you guessed it, World War II! It starts off with a German Waffen SS(the military branch of Himmler's SS) unit occupying a local Belorussian village where a girl named Polina lives with her mother. Polina's father and brother have left to fight in the Red Army, as have most of the men in the village, while others have taken to the woods to either hide from the occupying Germans or to fight with the Partisans. Franz, an SS-Schütze or Private, is infatuated with Polina although they do not understand one another and continues to flirt with her(who flirts back with him) despite his SS-Unterscharführer or Sergeant's disapproval. Franz and the Sergeant have also been staying at the home of Polina and her mother, who cook for them and in one scene, hold up mirrors for them to shave with in the morning.

The Sergeant tells Franz not to take things so serious with Polina and informs him that he will have her the next day, however, Franz is in love with Polina and cannot help but take things serious with her. The next day arrives and Franz, the Sergeant, and all of the other Waffen-SS soldiers get dressed up in their uniforms and go on a march. Polina is impressed by Franz's appearance in uniform saying that he looks like "a shiny copper coin" and is unaware what is to come. The Sergeant and Franz stop by Polina and her mother's house for breakfast and the Sergeant get's onto Franz for not keeping his eye on Polina insisting that he will have her in an hour. The hour comes and suddenly all of the SS soldiers begin to massacre all of the villagers and burn the houses to the ground. The Sergeant starts shooting at Polina's mother and tells Franz to rape Polina but Franz shoots the Sergeant instead and Polina puts him in a hiding place with her and her mother under the floor of their home. The SS then murder everyone in the village and burn all of the homes to the ground and leave.

Franz then throws his Waffen-SS uniform away and puts on some of Polina's brother's clothing and she hides him in a nearby cemetery. Polina's brother and other soldiers come and visit the village and find his mother and Polina. He asks her where her "German" is but she says that the Partisans took him. He then tells her that if they didn't take him far, to tell him to leave and then leaves with the other Red Army soldiers. Polina and Franz then bury the bones of some of the villagers for her mother who then sits by a tree and passes away. Franz and Polina then pack up some food, clothing, and tools and go to the woods. There in the woods they find an empty hut where they stay for a couple of days. Franz goes down to the river to catch fish when Polina is attacked by wild dogs. Franz comes back just in time to save her and get her to safety in the hut where they make love and she becomes pregnant.

The next day some Belorussian collaborators find them and bring them to another Waffen-SS unit. Polina tells them that Franz is her mute brother and Franz pretends not to be able to speak. The collaborators are ordered to let them go but when they bring them to the edge of the woods, the collaborators shoot Polina and Franz gets away. He finds a cart where some local people were murdered by the SS and takes it and puts Polina on it. He then blends into a group of refugees who get to a town but are kept out by the Wehrmacht and more collaborators. A doctor checks on Polina but cannot help her because he has no medicine or supplies. Franz then goes to the town and kills one of the Wehrmacht soldiers and takes his uniform and buys the medicine she needs. When he gets back a young boy is amazed that a mute man could get the medicine needed until Franz falls to the ground, sick with typhoid fever and starts to mutter things in German, thus giving up his true identity.

Time passes and they both get well and Polina says that she told the people the truth about Franz and what he did for her mother. Instead of killing them, the people have allowed them to join them except for the young boy who was amazed about Franz getting the medicine. This boys family was murdered by the Germans and has vowed to kill Franz with a gun that he traded his father's watch for. The boy's godmother tries to stop him but the boy has already set his mind to it. Polina gets dehydrated due to her pregnancy and Franz goes to the river to get her water when he turns to see the boy pointing the gun at him. Franz says the boys name in surprise and tells him the water is for Polina. In the last scene of the movie, the boy brings the buckets of water to Polina and starts to stroke her face until she realizes who it is and that he has killed Franz and starts to scream.

I thought this was a great film! I love when films use the actual languages of the characters rather than having everyone speak the same language like Valkyrie or The Longest Day. A 20th century Romeo and Juliet is a good way to describe this film and I totally give it an easy five stars! Also I really enjoyed the tragic ending because happy endings are for children's stories in my opinion! Check this movie out if you haven't seen it already! You can find it with English subtitles on YouTube right now!

"THE EARTHLINGS" A Short Story by Jason Fontaine

2016-02-24T17:23:00.004-05:00

THE EARTHLINGS
By Jason Fountain

I remember when the Earthlings first came to visit our home planet Monde. I was amazed to learn that there was another race of human that developed independently from ours elsewhere in the cosmos. I mean, they are exactly like us! The only difference is that they have existed much longer than us and are far more technologically advanced than we are as they can travel the stars and we can not. They also have many other subtle differences like the clothing they wear. Here on planet Monde everyone dresses differently and wears very colorful clothing but the Earthlings all wear pretty much the same green suit with black boots and steel hats. The only differences between each of them are the buttons and patches on their clothing.
There are also another group of Earthlings that wear a suit like the others but instead of it being green, it is black and the symbols are different on their suits. The leaders wear a brown suit. That is, at least some of them. The main leader of theirs wears different things on different days. Some days he wears a white suit, some days a brown one, and on some days he wears a really fancy looking suit that doesn't have any buttons except for one on what they call the lapel of the suit. The button has the symbol of the humans on it and it is a symbol that every human wears on their outfit with no exceptions. Some of the humans wear the symbol all over their outfits in different places. They are all very friendly, though and we are all very happy to have them here with us to help teach us how to better improve our planet technologically like theirs. They say that their planet isn't all that great really because of something they call a "war" that happened on their planet years ago but personally I think they are just being modest. I'm sure that planet Earth is the most glorious planet in the cosmos! If they teach us just a small percentage of their technologies and traditions, I think we will be much better off because they really are so much more disciplined and organized than us Mondians. It was a great thing those Earthlings did by coming here to our planet I tell ya! It's probably the best thing that has ever happened to us in the history of our planet! Anyways, let me start from the beginning...

It was just a regular day like any other day here on Planet Monde. The weather was beautiful and every face had a smile on it just like mine. I was walking on the sidewalk downtown when suddenly I saw a crowd of people standing outside of the television store. The television is a really cool invention and it has only been around for just a couple of months here on Planet Monde and I assumed that there must be something really interesting on so I jogged on over to see what all of the excitement was about. I couldn't get a good view of the television or hear what it was saying because of all of the Mondians standing in the way talking to each other about some type of flying machine. I was intrigued to know what it was exactly that they were talking about, maybe they invented a new helicopter and were showing it on the television or maybe the man from East Esserton finally invented that aeroplane thing that he had been talking about to the newspaper reporters.
I had to know so I nudged and squeezed my way through the crowd of eager Mondians to see what all this excitement was about. Finally when I made my way to the front of the crowd I could see on the television the leader's palace and things hovering in the sky around it. They were round and I heard the news reporter say that they were called flying saucers. They all had the same symbol on the sides of each flying saucer and some of them began to land near the leader's palace in our capital city of Mondia. Suddenly the camera focused onto a group of the flying saucers in particular that were grounder and that appeared to be opening. After a minute or two of no activity, people that looked just like us began to emerge from the saucers and exit the grounded saucers.
They all wore the same green outfits with black boots and steel hats and they all wore an assortment of different buttons and patches with different Earthling symbols on them. They all ran from the crafts holding some long device that appeared to be made of wood and metal and they all ran to one area of the yard of the Leader's Palace where they all stood in lines completely still. One of the men with a different symbol on his shoulders and shirt collar with a cloth hat instead of steel like the others was walking past the other men standing in line and he seemed to be inspecting the others. Finally another grounded saucer opened and three Earthlings dressed differently from the rest exited the flying saucer and began to approach the others who all snapped themselves upright and stood even more still and straighter than they had before with one arm raised in some type of gesture of respect for the three other men who had just exited the saucer. The man who was walking and inspecting the other men even stood still with his arm raised in respect for the three men who must be some type of leader of the Earthlings. The three Earthlings that approached walked in a triangular formation with one walking in the front and two walking behind him. The three men wore different outfits amongst themselves with the one in the front wearing a long black coat with a cloth hat similar to the hat that the man who inspected the others men in steel hats had been wearing except the color was brown instead of green. The two men that walked behind the man in the long coat wore different colors with one wearing brown and one wearing black. They both wore cloth hats similar to the man walking in front of them but the man wearing black had a black hat and the man in brown had a brown hat that was shaped slightly different from the other's. These three Earthlings must be leaders more important than the first leader that I had observed.
I had enough of watching the television with the others and went walking to see several different types of spacecraft besides the flying saucers flying through the sky and hovering over various parts of the city. Soon I saw some of the spacecraft lower themselves and land in the middle of our city streets. The spacecrafts began to open and more and more Earthlings exited from the craft and ran to stand in some type of formation along the sidewalks. This caused a problem with our transportation system but nobody seemed to mind so much as they stood in awe of these god-like Earthlings. The tops of the spacecrafts began to open and giant television screens lifted up out of the tops of the craft and suddenly an image of The Leader sitting with the Leader of the Earthlings in the long black coat appeared on the screen.

"Great news!" The Leader Announced.

"The Leader of the Earthlings has promised to bring about a new age for us on our planet Monde!"

"He has offered to teach us cures for any ailments we may have, great technology that we never imagined before, and a great new universal philosophy to adhere to."

"We will be able to travel back into time to be with our ancestors he says!"

"It is truly a great period in history for us all!"

"The Leader of the Earthlings has promised to take each and every last one of us Mondians on a tour of the cosmos and a tour of the technologically superior Planet Earth!"

"He apologizes that the only way that we can all be transported en masse will be on cattlecraft, though we do not see any need for him to apologize as a cattlecraft seems most appropriate from the images he has shown me of the craft."

"Everyone is allowed to bring one bag of clothing and anything else that they might want to bring with them on the journey and you all have exactly one hour to prepare before we all leave on our tour of the cosmos."

After the announcement a countdown from 60 minutes began on the screen and everyone scrambled to their homes to gather up their bag of clothing and whatever else they needed for their trip across the cosmos to the planet Earth. I got to my home in five minutes flat and grabbed my bag and put in a couple outfits, hygiene products, and some pictures of my family and I to show any curious Earthlings I might meet when I arrive at Planet Earth. As soon as my bag was packed, I left my home and saw these giant spacecraft which must be the cattlecraft that the Leader had spoken of. The cattlecraft were too large to land in our city streets and stayed up in the sky hovering over the city's buildings. A large door opened and a smaller shuttle craft began to transfer us in small groups from the ground up into the cattlecraft. I myself don't understand why the Leader of the Earthlings apologized that we had to be transported in these craft because first of all, I have no idea what a cattle is to begin with and second, it looks like a nice and large spacecraft designed to fit us all inside of it. The large television screens that came from the tops of the spacecraft that landed in our city's streets were now instructing us to stay calm and to board the shuttlecraft in an orderly fashion. The voice sounds like a machine talking and it is now telling us about our journey to come.

"Once you are all on board the cattlecraft you will be taken across the cosmos to see the beauty of our galaxy."

"When you arrive on our home Planet Earth, you will marvel in the cleanliness and technological wonders of our beautiful planet."

"Because our planet is very clean, we will have to make one stop before we reach Planet Earth for sanitation purposes where you will briefly enter the sanitation chamber and come back out perfectly sanitized and ready to visit our beautiful and clean Planet Earth."

"After your visit to our home Planet Earth, you will never be the same."

"We hope you have a wonderful time on your trip and we wish safe travels to you all."
The announcement began to repeat again as a shuttlecraft landed in front of my area of the street. I boarded the shuttlecraft with a small group of other excited Mondians and we began to lift up off of the ground towards the large cattlecraft in the sky. As we approached our designated cattlecraft, I saw the final shuttle pull away from another cattlecraft and watched the doors close to reveal the glorious symbol of the Earthlings emblazoned across the door.

I know that the Earthlings are going to take great care of us...

Bahia: Just Out Of The Woods

2011-02-19T09:54:00.000-05:00

Okay so like I said I was going to write a review on a very deserving and talented artist and that I am doing right now with Bahia's album "Just out of the Woods." I was in my room the other night and had some free time and I saw her album sitting on the shelf that I had found when I cleaned my room recently. I took a look at the album cover and looked at the photo of Bahia playing her classical guitar. The picture is really what interested me into giving the album a listen because I am a big fan of the classical guitar, being into genres like flamenco and jazz, so I popped it into my computer and at first I didn't know what to expect but quickly I realized that my decision to listen to her album was a very good one.

The album starts with the slow melodic intro on classical guitar, cello, and hand percussion instruments from the song Dharma and then after a measure or two she starts to sing the first verse with a soft singing voice that leads into the chorus which really carrys the song as then a drumset starts to be played and she sings a catchy hook with great lyrics. The outtro is great as she just uses her voice as an instrument without using words and then it leads back to the soft, slow melody of the intro. The second song on the album is probably my favorite or close. The song is titled "Freedom Passion Poison Potion" and it has a nice unique melody with poetic lyrics that make you wonder what this potion she is singing about really is. The song is very entrancing and I was really able to get into it which was placed perfectly as the second track because from that point I was hooked and knew I was going to listen to the album in it's entirety.
The whole album is a true work of art and I highly recommend it to anyone. Especially for folk fans of artists like Nick Drake and others of the like. She blends her folk style of songwriting with cool exotic styles blended with some pop hooks that keep you listening. The producers of the album did a great job adding other instruments to her songs to make them fully live up to their potential. Her guitar playing on the classical guitar is executed perfectly to compliment her peaceful sounding voice. What is truly cool about her album is that all of the songs seem so "her." It's remarkable that even though I do not know her and have never met her and maybe only exchanged a few words with her via e-mail many months ago, I feel as if I know her so well and that I have known her for quite some time. That is truly a gift when an artist is able to connect to the listener through their music and I knew that I had to blog about her and tell as many people as I could. There are a few more surprises throughout the album including the final track "Apple Tree" being an acapella number.
If you are like me and can appreciate songs that are very meaningful and artistic, then I high recommend that you get this album because I have already listened to it several times since I discovered how wonderful of an album it is. I wish I had listened to it sooner but hey, what can I do? Anyways check it out!!! Thanks for reading and stay posted for more later!

Darren Michaels: Cumulo

2010-06-05T17:21:00.000-04:00

So a few days ago I went and checked my mail and I recieved my first cd to review submitted by Darren Michaels, an up and coming artist from right here in Atlanta and I was very excited to give it a good listen! The cd itself looked very cool because of the artwork which was mostly paintings that Darren had done himself, a very nice touch! The cd is titled "Cumulo" and I was suprised to find out that it's a bass album! Five of the tracks on the album including the first and last tracks were completely solo bass and nothing else while others were bass and vocals and bass, drum loops, and vocals. I have heard of maybe one or two other bands that have tried to just have bass, drums, and vocals but failed miserably to sound remotely talented and musical but I was quite surprised when I listened to "Cumulo" because Darren is a very talented bassist and composer. I had the opportunity to interview Darren and ask him a few questions about him and his music and he seems to be a very nice and intelligent person.
His influences go across the board from classical music to alternative rock, to pop, jazz, and Motown. It's no suprise that he is as talented as he is because he is 34 years old and has been playing the bass guitar for just over 16 years. I had to ask him what made him choose to do an album with just bass and he said that when he began playing bass, he immediately began composing music such as this and that the bass has such a broad voice and responds well to mimicking other instruments. He also wants for more bass players to explore the solo side of the instrument so that someday a bass player would be viewed like someone with an acoustic guitar that you can pretty much assume that he or she can play a song without accompaniment and make it sound like music.
I enjoyed his techniques hearing more than one bass track and harmonics and other cool techniques being used and asked him what they were and he told me that he mainly plays in open tunings and that one of his basses has detuners for all four strings which are little levers that you can flip that change the pitch of the open string that way each string may have two seperate tunings which is what banjo players, acoustic guitarists, and upright bass players have been doing for a long time and Michael Manring is most notibly know for this in the bass world.
When I asked him what his songs were about he simply replied "Clouds" which I found to be pretty interesting. I asked him if he plays any other instruments besides bass and will they be featured on his next album and he told me that he does play other instruments such as the keys, harmonica, tuba and Ukelele but he plans to keep his next album still "very bass centric" because he is not finished saying things there. He is currently booking summer tour dates which can be found on his website at http://darrenmichaelsbass.com and also he offers guitar lessons in Atlanta at the "Atlanta Bass Gallery" so if you are interested in bass lessons from a very talented bassist you may contact him through his website. If you would like to get a copy of his album it can be purchased here:

Make sure you check him out and give him a good listen because it is a quite origional and unique expierence!

If you would like to purchase single mp3 files of his songs you can get them from the following links:

Teach My Eyes to See Only the Silver Blue

A few things I've done for the blog while I wait for the cd's to come in the mail!

2010-06-01T17:37:00.000-04:00

Okay I've talked to quite a few artists and I am now waiting for their cd's to come in the mail so I can get started with the interview process but in the meantime I have added a couple things to the blog to make it more interesting. I put a little "Feedjit" tracker or here so that you can see some of the places that my visitors are coming from as well as a poll at the bottom of the page so check those things out and follow me so that you can be updated on new up and coming artists very soon!

Everybody get ready!

2010-05-31T22:48:00.000-04:00

So I've begun posting ad's for artist reviews in a few different cities and have gotten a lot of replies and hits on my blog. People are starting to follow and the cd's will be coming in the mail soon. Soon you will have the opportunity to hear about great up and coming artists on the rise and you will have the chance to be one of my featured artists and get yourself the promotion you deserve! Spread the word so that more people follow this blog and help each other get discovered! Thanks everybody!

Rodrigo Y Gabriela: A great flamenco duo!

2010-05-29T00:39:00.000-04:00

I know I just wrote a review about another flamenco artist last week but it's what I've been listening to lately and this duo is truly amazing! This group has actually caused me to believe that flamenco might be hitting the mainstream soon because I was browsing music videos on Comcast's On Demand and I found a video for their song "Diablo Rojo" and to find a flamenco video On Demand was a pretty cool thing to see!
The duo are originally from Mexico but moved to Dublin, Ireland and started preforming in pubs and busking for a living when they got their big break and now tour and preform all over the world! Gabriela is the rythmn guitarist and she plays amazing percussive guitar and rasqueado right hand techniques which really give them a much more fuller sound as if there are more members of the band! Rodrigo plays lead guitar and damn good lead at that! They met when they played in a metal band back in Mexico together is what I've heard and they are heavily influenced by metal which you can totally hear in their music. All of their songs are instrumental and they do great instrumental flamenco covers of Metallica songs and they also do a great cover of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven."
If you haven't checked out Rodrigo Y Gabriela yet I highly recommend that you do ASAP! I'll post some of their cd's here if you wanna just go ahead and get one!

Protest The Hero: Rockstar friends of mine!

2010-05-26T23:06:00.000-04:00

Protest The Hero is a progressive metal band from Whitby, Ontario Canada and happen to be one of my favorite bands. I first heard them when I was 18 years old and I was hooked. What really set them apart from all of the other metal bands I had heard at the time was not only their technichal musical abilities playing very fast and difficult music in strange time signatures but it was also their singer's voice because he actually SANG! A singer that can sing... amazing right? Well I say that because most of the metal bands that I listened to at the time just screamed and growled and maybe ocasionally sung during a chorus or something. Their lyrics in their songs were awesome and their songs rocked so when I had an opportunity to see them in concert I jumped on it and got tickets. When they came to town and played they didn't let me down! They were the opening act on tour with Silverstein, Devil Wears Prada, and A Day To Remember. Even though they were the opening act they outplayed and rocked harder than all of the other bands including the headliners Silverstein in my opinon.
At that time I only owned their first album "Kezia" and they were touring promoting their new album "Fortress." Right after they played I knew that I could catch them unloading their equipment so I made my way outside to the lift and there I found their guitarist Tim loading his amp into the van so I started talking to him. He was a really funny guy, had a great sense of humor, and sold me a t-shirt and a copy of their album "Fortress" personally! That was so cool to me because they were my number one favorite band at the time. I got to meet and hang out with the other members that night and it was definately one of my greatest memories. The next time they came to town a year later I got tickets to go see it again and I saw the guys in the band and they remembered me which I totally thought was cool. What was even cooler was that the girl who is now my girlfriend was there with me and I got to introduce her as well. That night was awesome and I had so much fun in the crowd crawling all over the jam-packed crowd and I hung out with the band some more after the show! I also got a vinyl copy of "Fortress" and got the guys to autograph it. Tim being a funny dude drew a goatee on the girl's face on the cover of their album. When I talked to Tim he told me that over the summer they were supposed to go into the studio and record a new album so be on the lookout for new stuff from them and make sure you check out "Kezia" and "Fortress" if you haven't already!

What I'm going to start doing soon!

2010-05-26T15:39:00.001-04:00

Soon I will be writing reviews for up-and-coming artists on this blog and helping to get there name out there and will put a lot of hard work and effort into it! Be sure to keep an eye out for these blogs and support!
Thanks everyone!
-Jason!

Playing for Change: Street Musicians of the World

2010-05-26T03:25:00.000-04:00

I found a documentry titled "Playing For Change" where they go around the country interviewing and recording street musicians from all over the world. I myself have been a street musician in one of the best cities in America for buskers: Savannah, Georgia. In the documentry they interview all types of street musicians of all styles from blues players to folk singers to even latin groups. The streets have no rules and you never know what kind of great music you can walk up on! They would record a guy playing one instrument from one city and then travel on to the next and record another guy playing a different instrument over the track and go on doing that until they've created an awesome collaboration all on one track!
I've heard people on the documentry talking about the adventurous life of the street musician and I myself was totally able to identify with them. It's just a fun expierence over all from being able to play my music and make a little extra cash doing what I'd be doing in my bedroom anyway and getting to meet awesome and fun people while doing it. It's fun meeting other street musicians and jamming with them right there on the streets and the people who walk by always seem to enjoy groups preforming together on the street as well. When I played on River St. in Savannah, Ga I knew all the other street musicians and had a lot of fun hanging out and making friends. A couple of the friends I made down there are the most popular buskers in the city such as Old Walter who always posts up by the anchor statue. He's been playing in the same spot on River Street for a decade or two. When I first arrived to Savannah and walked down the street carrying my guitar on my back searching for a good spot to post up and start playing I walked past him holding his guitar and he said hello so I went and sat down next to him and said "Hey man, you play guitar?" "A little bit." was his reply.I said "Maybe we could jam some time" and he said "You couldn't keep up with me. How long have you been playing?" I told him that I had been playing 8 years and asked him how long he been playing for and he said "Not long, just 43 years." Ah Old Walter had a good sense of humor. We did wind up jamming together and I was able to keep up just fine to his suprise. He was a good guy who took me under his wing and showed me around and told me who to stay away from. Next time I go down to Savannah I'm going to pay him a visit and throw a dollar or two in his tip pail after he sings "Wonderful World."
Make sure that you check out the documentry, it's a very interesting and fun look at street musicians who you normally wouldn't give a second thought!

Oh and you can get the dvd that I saw here:

They have a few other dvd's and cd's but that was the particular one that I saw so I listed it.

Eric Hansen: Nuevo Flamenco Romancero

2010-05-25T00:17:00.007-04:00

So in my last blog about Ayub Bacchu I mentioned how in his song "Shey Tara Vora Rate" it had somewhat of a Spanish sound to the guitar in it which is a sound I truly love. The guitar was invented in Malaga, Spain so I naturally assume that that's probably why Spanish guitar is arugeably the best guitar playing in the world. One of my favorite genres of music is "Flamenco Guitar" which is Spanish guitar to the max! With that being said, I was at the library a couple of weeks ago and they have a section where you can check out compact discs. I made my way over to the "International" section so I could check out a few cds of artists from around the world and I found a cd by a guy named Eric Hansen titled "Nuevo Flamenco Romancero" in fact, it was the first cd I picked up that day. I knew that I would enjoy it because I've been going through a pretty big flamenco phase currently so I checked it out along with a few others and popped it in the cd player on the way home.
The first track was a cover of Roberta Flack's (and many other's) "Killing Me Softly With His Song." I instantly fell in love with his sound. He took the song and completely made it his own by playing the entire song instrumentally playing the vocal melodies on his guitar as well as the rythmn of the song as well while adding that amazing flamenco style to it. "Killing Me Softly" is already such a great song and to hear it played in the style of flamenco guitar was a real treat to me. The next track on the disc was "Careless Whisper" which transfered over to flamenco so well, I knew that this album would be one of the best albums I'd ever heard and I was not disapointed at all. The whole cd is covers of popular songs I believe. I few other songs that were familiar to my ears were: "Fields of Gold", "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman", "If You Leave Me Now", and "Sailing."
The album was a treasure for me to find at the library, a true masterpiece. It was been the album I've put on almost every night before bed and has inspired me with my own music. Eric Hansen is extremely talented and knows what he is doing. I did a little search online to find out more about Eric Hansen but I haven't fould a lot so he must not be very well known and I strongly suggest that you check him out! I promise you will not be disapointed!!!!!

I am signed up with Amazon Associates and have found the album so if you are interested in buying it and at the same time helping support this blog you can get it here:

Ayub Bacchu: a great artist from Bangladesh!

2010-05-01T01:05:00.003-04:00

I have a couple students that I teach guitar and drums to who are from Bangladesh which is actually where my girlfriend is from as well and I've come to realize over the years that my favorite artists are always recomendations from friends of mine so I asked them "Who is a good musician from Bangladesh?" and they recomended that I check out Ayub Bacchu who is the guitarist and singer of the group "LRB (Love Runs Blind)." I went on youtube and looked him up and I found a video for the song "Shey Tara Vora Rate" and gave it a listen and I fell in love with the music right away! In that particular song he was playing mainly phrygian mode stuff which I love because of it's exotic sound that you mainly hear played by Spanish guitarists. Spanish guitar such as flamenco is one of my favorite styles of music out there and to hear him blend it with Indian style singing made an excellent combination!!! Of course the lyrics are in Bengali but from what my girlfriend told me after I asked her what the title of the song translated to in English was that it meant "A star filled sky." I asked her some of the other lyrics and it seems to be pretty much a love song which you can never go wrong with.
My students had told me when the recomended him to me was that he is one of the best guitarists in Southeast Asia and after watching a few more videos I definately have to agree! I totally dig his unique style and I recomend that everyone who reads this blog go ahead and check him out on youtube, I'm sure you won't be dissapointed as long as you are open to new styles of music from across the globe! I myself went ahead and looked up the chords and have begun learning how to play the song on the guitar... the only difficulty that I'm having currently is learning the lyrics being as there in Bengali but that makes it more fun to me anyway! Anyways like I said go and check him out, I'm sure that you won't be dissapointed in the least litte bit!!!