Check this out!

This is not a podcast ok. Just wanted to share with you the fact that someone in the USA, a College Freshman majoring in Music, played Acoustic Dream, from my trio's CD, in his podcast! I submitted the title track Acoustic Dream, (you can listen to it in my first podcast) to http://music.podshow.com and this guy found the track good enough to include in his podcast. How about that! You can listen to the podcast by using the following RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/trucast (and do as with my podcasts ie. insert the rss feed in Juice Podcast Reader or your favouite reader). He plays the tune at the end of the podcast - he seems to talk for ages so you can move your mp3 player's slider way to the end of the mp3 if you want to skip the bla bla and just listen to the track.
Well that was it. Just wanted to share the news.

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Third Plectrum Podcast - The Great Paco De Lucia

Hi whoever you are who reads this:) I am dedicating my third podcast to the guitar giant Paco De Lucia. He was born in Algeciras in Spain as Francisco Sanchez Gomez. He took De Lucia as his stage name as a tribute to his Mother, ie, Lucia Sanchez Gomez. Click [HERE] for his biography.

I was first introduced to Paco's music through his album Sextet - One Summer Night. Unfortunately I only have a vinyl copy of the album...but I do have another Sextet album, the more recent Sextet Live in America.

His music attracts me most because most of the time its not pure flamenco which at times tends to be a bit too crude for the untrained ear. Paco's music is what now is termed as New Flamenco but with a difference. De Lucia seems to be more influenced with jazz music than all the other exponents of New Flamenco as you can hear for yourself in this podcast. Obviosly you will get to listen to more of Paco De Lucia in future podcasts. Happy listening.


Podcast description:

TRACK 1. Monasterio de Sol - from Solo Queiro Caminar. Just relax and enjoy the genius of Paco De Lucia. Note the jazz bass lines though while at it. Also note the breath-taking scale with which he ends this piece! Just brilliant!

TRACK 2. Chanela - from Solo Queiro Caminar. Another mesmerising tune masterly executed by Paco De Lucia. No further comments required.

TRACK 3. Zyryab - from Sextet Live in America. Don't ask me what the name means ok. This track is representative of how Paco De Lucia's music fuses jazz and flamenco in such an effective and pleasant way. I would tend to say that Paco invented a new music style. Note how the saxaphone blends nicely with the other traditional flamenco instruments.

For newcomers please follow this tutorial.



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Second Plectrum Podcast - Al Di Meola - One of my guitar heroes.

Welcome back for my second podcast. This one is much better I believe as I used an external microphone for the voice recording and its much clearer.
Well this time I wanted to introduce to some of you at least, the talents of Al Di Meola. He's American born but has Italian roots, which probably explains why two of his collaborations are with Italian artitsts. His style is very versatile and quite difficult to describe. It verges from Jazz to Latin / Spanish though describing it as Latin Jazz is not good enough a description. In future podcasts I will bring to you more tracks by this giant of guitar music. In this podcast I limited myself to tracks in which Al Di Meola collaborated with other artists.

Podcast description:

Track 1. TANGO - Al Di Meola with Leonid Agutin from the Album Cosmopolitan Life. All the album is excellent stuff which I would recommend to anyone even those uninitiated in this type of music. The Russian singer, Agutin, sometimes sounds like Sting and some songs verge on the commercial style which makes the album accessible to a vaster audience. This particular track starts off with some brilliant guitar work by Al Di Meola accompanied by a sumptuous brass accompaniment.

Track 2. INFINITE DESIRE - Al Di Meola with Italian singer and guitarist Pino Daniele. This is the only track in the album with the same name, Infinite Desire, featuring Pino Daniele. It is a beautiful love song, very romantic. Pino lets Al take centre stage on the guitar and uses his other marvellous musical instrument - his voice.

Track 3. THE SOUND OF SILENCE - From the album Armentos - Al Di Meola with Sardinian singer Andrea Parodi (remember Tazenda - Spunta La Luna Dal Monte - with Pierangelo Bertoli?) Its their long haired, very skinny singer. Anyway I left this track for the end because one either loves or hates this unique voice of Andrea Parodi...I did not want you to be scared away immediately after starting listening to the first track! The voice grows on you though while one cannot but love Al Di Meola's guitar work especially in the intro, sounding more like El Condor Pasa - but then eventually evolving into The Sound of Silence.

For newcomers please follow this tutorial.



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My First Podcast - Selected Tracks from Acoustic Dream by Acoustika

This is my first podcast so please be gentle on me - I know I was rather shakey with the voice recording and I am sure my English pronounciation is not perfect...But I wanted it to be understood by all that's why I used English. I could have done it in Maltese but then only Maltese people would understand it - and that's not much isn't it - there are only 400,000 of us in Malta!

Anyway - I hope you enjoy this week's selection. I took the opportunity to publicise Acoustika, my trio and our CD Acoustic Dream for my first Podcast.

Next time it will be just tracks that I like from my rather vast collection.

I intend to create a new podcast each week - Saturday morning will be most likely the time it will be ready.

Podcast description:

Track 1: Theme from Romeo and Juliet. Joseph Micallef and George Pollacco on guitars. No percussions on this track. This is one of my favourites in the CD. George came up with the chords there and then in the studio - for some reason he never used them again. You can hear me double tracking the melody with a sort of mandolin effect in the background and using the guitar's bass strings in the end.

Track 2: Besame Mucho / La Playa. A medley of two latin songs played in the bossa nova style which is not usual for these two tunes. In this track you can listen to Louis Naudi's expert percussions at their best.

Track 3: Acoustic Dream. This is the title track. It is an original composition by Acoustika and not a cover version as with the rest. This track was born in the studio. Notice how I recorded my guitar three times doing three melodies that converge perfectly to create a wierd sound, almost oriental at times.

Track 4: Viva Malta. This is our interpretation of the 70's hit by the Malta Bums (led by Freddy Portelli). The original was a pop/rock song but we converted it into a gypsy song.

Instructions for first-timers:
Download the Juice Podcast Reader from the right-hand sidebar. Then subscribe to this Podcast by using the RSS feed (copy and paste) in the appropriate field in the program. Double click on it when it appears in the list and then click on the download button [which says "Check/Download selected Feeds"]. It should be easy but I suggest that you view this short tutorial.

Should you wish to be notified by email when new podcasts are uploaded just enter your email address in the field provided in the sidebar and click the Subscribe Me button.

Just right click and choose Save Target As


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