Those adorable Celtic choristers The Town Pants are at Connolly’s Klub 45  in New York City tonight as part of Irish Rock Fest with Ceann and Ice Cream Flu. 

Pray, celt on gentle souls.

The Fes Festival of World Sacred Music is making news in Fes Morocco.  Popmatters brings us the whole story.

And from the sacred to the, well, not-so-sacred.  The “World Music Award” went to Amr Diab, the biggest star in the Middle East.  To put that award in perspective, Avril Lavigne, Justin Timberlake, and Celine Dion also won in that particular competition.

Nope, we were not on the judges panel.

 Yoav uses every surface of the guitar to blur the lines between acoustic and electronic. Light music was never tolerated in his home in Israel and later, in Cape Town where he grew up. His mother was an opera singer and ‘Classical’ was the only sound heard in the house. So, as a nine year, Yoav would sneak next door to his friend’s place to listen to Wham and OMD. From there he was hooked on the beat. After years of piano and cello lessons he rebelled and started to learn guitar, but it was hard to emulate the chilled rhythms of Massive Attack or Portishead with just an acoustic … until he started to experiment with tapping, live sampling and basically, DJing with his guitar. “The more I did it,” he says, “the more possibilities I found.” Every note and beat you hear on his new album, Charmed and Strange has been coaxed out of his trusty acoustic. Check out the album’s first single which proves that in Yoav’s hands, it’s more than just a guitar… it’s a Club Thing. Yoav’s first taste of the spotlight came as a 15 year old at a Crowded House concert in South Africa. He was invited on stage to sing with band in front of 15 thousand people and received a standing ovation.

Key Tracks: Club Thing, Yeah, The End

SUNDAY, July 20th @ 10pm IN THE SPOTLIGHT with GREAT BIG SEA

Lady Fortune stares blankly from the cover of Great Big Sea’s new album, which is a good thing, because as we all know, she can just as well turn her back on you.  She’s kind of fickle that way.

Great Big Sea gambled that they were in Fortune’s Favour, choosing quirky Canadian rocker, Hawksley Workman to produce their new album. He took them outside of their comfort zone and into the spirit of ‘the moment’. The result is diversely different from anything in their catalogue and should be a pleasant surprise for their legions of fans.

Cal Koat sat down with Alan Doyle and Bob Hallett for more on the story behind Fortune’s Favour.
+ LOTS OF NEW VIDEOS: from the Odd Couple, Gnarls Barkley, Ghazal innovator, Kiran Ahluwalia and they’re not dead, just resting … it’s the return of Argentina’s Tudos Tus Muertos!

TODOS TUS MUERTOS

INSIDE THE BEAT: It took off in the early ‘60s with bands like The Shadows and The Ventures who pioneered the instrumental surf rock sound, and then … it faded into near obscurity for decades until the release of the Quentin Tarentino block buster movie, Pulp Fiction. The film’s soundtrack revitalized the career of surf guitar hero, Dick Dale, and renewed interest in the genre, jump starting one of the craziest combinations of Mexican pop culture and American surf music. Later this hour we’ll catch a wave with Eddy Angel, Danny Amis, Pete Curry and Jason Smay … the guys behind the Mexican wrestling masks and glittering guitars of Los Straitjackets. That’s Inside The Beat.

LOS STRAITJACKETS

Visit www.worldbeatcanada.com for fresh reviews and charts

Host, Vanesa Tomasino

Enjoy world.bEAts Saturdays at noon and Sundays at 10pm on channel m, Cable 8

 Download our podcast this week, or tune in to AM1470 Sunday, July 20, at 4 pm, (Metro Vancouver area) and you’ll hear these great Celtic artists in our Contemporary Celtic Top 10! Click on the band names to go to their websites.

• Oliver Schroer
• Willie Nile
• Tiller’s Folly
• Breabach
• Dharmakasa
• Capercaillie
• Great Big Sea
• Boiled in Lead
• Gaelic Storm
• Flogging Molly
• Hackensaw Boys
• The Mahones

And be sure to leave a comment!  Have your say about what we play.