gimme a beat

* Xmas Mix *

I love Xmas !!!
This year, unfortunately, I was to ill to do my special Xmas show
However, here is a little mix to make your Xmas merrier, happier and definitely sexier...
MERRY XMAS !!!


Kisses,
Babymonster
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for the info about old Gimme A Beat shows please go to previous entries or babymonster's blog on myspace

* Selah Sue, Wildbirds&Peacedrums and Le Prince Miiaou at Les Eurockeennes De Belfort 2010 *

This year, just before the summer time, I was looking to find yet another festival, that I haven't visited until now, with good line up and not in Switzerland (where I live), so that I can combine musical with traveling experience.
And what did I found? Les Eurockéennes de Belfort, festival only few hours away from Zurich. I’ve organized press accreditation, booked a hotel, packed my mic, voice recorder (and comfortable shoes of course) and headed off to Belfort.
Les Eurockéennes de Belfort is a festival that is taking place on the peninsula of Malsaucy, near Belfort France. Amazingly enough, even if this festival is happening since 1989, it’s line up seems to be always fresh, but not overwhelming, having just right amount of more and less known artists. Easy to access: if you were staying at the campsite you could take a walk or a shuttle buss and if staying in Belfort, there were free local trains running every half an hour, even during the night. Les Eurockeennes has five stages: Grande Scene (main stage), Loggia, Chapiteau, Plage and Club Deville. All of the stages are surrounded with green and water. One of the stages is even set right on the beach. Adding to the great chilled vibe, that until now, I only truly experienced at French festivals (fabulous Rock En Seine last year), taking a break is easy anytime, finding a quiet place in the nature and recover.
It's impressive line-up, that includes many of my favorite artists from different genre, fortunately for Gimme A Beat listeners, doesn't include male artists and bands only, but fair amount of brilliant female artists from all over the world.
This is the second part of review of Les Eurockéennes. Tonight my focus will be on 2 female artists and one female-male (husband-wife) band:
First to focus on is Selah Sue, young artist from Belgium, also known as a white girl that rhymes as a Jamaican that totally blew me away with great performance down on the Plage stage. It was a perfect setting for her gig, her powerful soulful voice combined with summer sun made everybody dancing in the sand (Plage stage is the one on the beach and next to the water). Also, not only that she exhibited an awesome voice but on top of it, hey, this girl can definitely rhyme. How cool is that!
After the gig, we sat down for an interview and I learned more about this charming lady, her inspirations and her future plans.

I also caught up with über friendly, creatively and personally linked Swedish duo, Wildbirds & Peacedrums, just before their performance on Les Eurockéennes. They had specially organized local choir for their gig on Loggia stage, which made it somehow more organic, kind of layering and very interesting. They looked as relaxed and comfortable when performing together as they were during an interview, showing that mixing business and pleasure is more then possible when done in the right way.
Third artists to be featured in tonight's gimme a beat is Le Prince Miiaou.This tiny, now platinum blond young French artist (she used to be dark haired), armed with a guitar, loop machine, powerful voice and lots of energy, also gave great performance. Later on, during an interview, she showed another, shy side and she also told me that she was very nervous for performing on such as big festival as Les Eurockéennes but neither I nor I believe the audience noticed that.
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Tonight (15.11.2010) on Gimme A Beat, it's all about sharing my impressions, playing the music and interviews with Selah Sue, Wildbirds & Peacedrums and Le Prince Miiaou
Tune in for 2nd part of ..
Les Eurockéennes De Belfort Festival 2010
from 22:00 - 00:00 on:
webradio lora
featuring:
gimme a beat on youtube
Kisses,
Babymonster
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for the info about old shows please go to: babymonster's blog on myspace

* Kate Nash at Kaufleuten, Zurich *

Kate Nash is an UK singer/songwriter/pianist/guitarist that had a breakthrough in 2007 with break-up song "Foundations". Following was release of the first album, platinum selling UK number one, Made of Bricks. Next, she was named Best Female Artist at the 2008 BRIT Awards.
This year in April, Kate released her 2nd studio album, entitled My Best Friend Is You. Being inspired by 60's girl groups and Riot grrrl movement, this album has a different sound then the previous one. And somehow i feel that this style of music suits even better Kate's daring, bold lyrics. It definitely seems like logical development of young talent and by moving (forward) in this direction she is also moving away from other UK artists that she was compared to in the beginning of her career.
On 24th of September, I met up with Kate, few hours before her only concert in Switzerland, in one of the rooms of the club Kaufleuten, Zurich. She was funny and sweet, intelligent and honest, just like her songs are. Due to her easy going-ness and chatty personality, I've managed to get much longer interview then 15  as originally agreed.
Even if Kate Nash's Tshirts with bunny rabbit fluffy were out of stock (and still are), so I couldn't buy one, my mood was on the high, even before, but especially after the concert, where Kate, again, charmed and made me and rest of the audience entertained with her intelligent talks and songs.
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To hear the interview, Kate Nash's songs from both albums and 5 songs from female artists of her choice, tune in tonight (18.10.2010) for Gimme A Beat and
All Eyes On Kate Nash
from 22:00 - 00:00 on:
webradio lora
featuring:
gimme a beat on youtube
Kisses,
Babymonster
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for the info about old shows please go to: babymonster’s blog on myspace

* Sam Red at Roxy Jam 2010 *

Since 2006, each summer, Roxy Jam in Biarritz blends surfing, art and music in unique and unforgettable way.
Main focus of this event is ASP Women’s World Longboard Championship, won this year by Cori Schumacher, American surfer. However there was lots of other stuff happening in the Roxy Town on the Basque Coast in Biarritz. With Roxy Charity Shop that was selling vintage Roxy clothes as well as autographed surfboards; Art Tent with Roxy Second Wave, art exhibition with focus on recycling; collection of pro surfboards brought together by Lee-Ann Curren, to be auction to support her charity Titanzinho and I love boobies (Keep a breast) campaign, and few other sponsor tents, you couldn’t feel bored even if you wanted to. Bigger problem was how to manage to enjoy, see everything in few days, and do some media work as well . One other great thing was that media area was located on the perfect place to watch the competition and it was always busy and packed with people giving interviews, photographing event  or just hanging around.
It was my first year to review Roxy Jam and I have to say that I felt really spoiled with all the goodies (free surf classes with pro teachers included ), a fabulous treatment and one excellent organization.
The music side of event, always in tune with current times and one of my main reasons to go to this event was as cool as expected. And being that events were free of charge it felt that Roxy wasn’t only spoiling me or other media people but the whole Biarritz as well.
There were two major music events:
On 10th of July, Australian born, model-turned-singer Micky Green, now based in Paris, followed by all-female French rock band The Plastiscines rocked the stage set up on Port Vieux Beach. On 13th of July, the Beaurivage parking lot just above Roxy Jam town turned into fabulous music venue with an awesome vibe. Making sure to make everybody dance from sunset into the night, this event was supported by excellent female DJs: Sam Red, Estelle S. and DJ Chloe.
The only down point of my Roxy Jam experience was that I came to late to set up an interview with Micky Green and The Plastiscines, but luckily I’ve caught up with one amazing DJ and very charming Sam Red, winner of the Next Girl DJ competition, sponsored by JBL and Roxy and also with Ashley Douglas, PR manager for JBL and the mastermind behind the competition.
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To hear these interviews, mix from Sam Red and selected tunes from Micky Green and The Plastiscines tune in tonight (Monday 20.09.2010) for Gimme A Beat and

Roxy Jam 2010
from 22:00 - 00:00 on:
webradio lora
featuring:
gimme a beat on youtube / sam red on fb / sam red on soundcloud / sam red and sync.live / sam red next girl dj winning mix
Kisses,
Babymonster
————————————————————————–
for the info about old shows please go to:
babymonster’s blog on myspace

* Martina Topley-Bird and Rox at Les Eurockeennes De Belfort Festival 2010 *

This year, just before the summer time, I was looking to find yet another festival, that I haven't visited until now, with good line up and not in Switzerland (where I live), so that I can combine musical with traveling experience.
And what did I found? Les Eurockéennes de Belfort, festival only few hours away from Zurich. I’ve organized press accreditation, booked a hotel, packed my mic, voice recorder (and comfortable shoes of course) and headed off to Belfort.
Les Eurockéennes de Belfort is a festival that is taking place on the peninsula of Malsaucy, near Belfort France. Amazingly enough, even if this festival is happening since 1989, it’s line up seems to be always fresh, but not overwhelming, having just right amount of more and less known artists. Easy to access: if you were staying at the campsite you could take a walk or a shuttle buss and if staying in Belfort, there were free local trains running every half an hour, even during the night. Les Eurockeennes has five stages: Grande Scene (main stage), Loggia, Chapiteau, Plage and Club Deville. All of the stages are surrounded with green and water. One of the stages is even set right on the beach. Adding to the great chilled vibe, that until now, I only truly experienced at French festivals ( fabulous Rock En Seine last year), taking a break is easy anytime, finding a quiet place in the nature and recover.
It's impressive line-up, that includes many of my favorite artists from different genre, fortunately for Gimme A Beat listeners, doesn't include male artists and bands only, but fair amount of brilliant female artists from all over the world.
Tonight my focus will be on two female artists:
Martina Topley-Bird, British female artists who gain fame at early age through her professional collaboration, as well as personal, with trip hop pioneer Tricky. I loved both of her solo albums, especially 2nd one, the Blue God, so I was curious to hear and see her live. Her performance was a great moment. She looked beautiful and dreamy, like a princess in her red strapless dress and around eye make-up mask, that for the moment, I felt like I was mesmerized into another world. The world of Martina Topley-Bird. Excellent and stunning performance, followed up with another one, closing gig of the festival, where she performed together with Massive Attack. Wearing mermaid look-alike gold/black strapless dress, again, she added a touch of her dreamy world to their performance as well. During an interview, backstage in the car to avoid noise of the concert that was happening at that moment,  she was very approachable and easy going and I felt like I am chatting with somebody that I know for ages, about personal, intimate, deep subjects like love and music and life experiences in general.
Another artist that I had a pleasure to have an interview with was Rox, young British soul artist, that was for a very good reason tipped for the next big thing of the 2010. Her gig was loads of fun, with her showing off not only her vocal capabilities and her powerful soulful voice but also dancing skills, when she went down while bogle dancing during the "Rock Steady" performance. The whole moment was even more authentic since her concert was on Plage stage, that as the name suggests, is the (only) stage on the beach. Everybody were dancing and clapping, all smiles, hooked on an infectious vibe of Roxanne Tataei.
She was bubbly and funny when I meet her in the press area during the press conference. However, even if she is only 21, she gave me an impression of the person that knows exactly what she wants career wise and that is without any doubt standing 100% behind her music.
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Tonight (16.08.2010) on Gimme A Beat, it's all about sharing my impressions, playing the music and interviews with Martina Topley-Bird and Rox
Tune in for..
Les Eurockeennes De Belfort Festival 2010
from 21:00 - 23:00 (time changed due to the studio being closed after 23:00 tonight) on:
webradio lora
featuring:
gimme a beat, 16th of august, on radio lora
Kisses,
Babymonster
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
for the info about old shows please go to:
babymonster's blog on myspace