Yesterday I attended a funeral. A funeral of a long time mentor and friend. Namely my favourite record store since twenty years back! After years of struggling to hold head above water in the rocky ocean of the business, the great ship that it once was sank slowly but gracefully before the eyes of everyone it had so loyally served in the past three decades! A tragic death marking the end of an era! Rest in peace old friend, you will be dearly missed …

Chris de Burgh has arrived to Tehran! He is holding press conference at the moment, making it to a landmark visit. However, despite all the political correctness, its still uncertain whether de Burgh gets to perfrom the planned concert with the ARIAN or not, let alone an own solo concert which he has aspired to! According to the Independent there has been no concert permit granted yet and the joined concert has been postponed till after the summer!

thanks to Richard.

I am really open to the idea of artists crossing over to neighbouring domains of art, heck I even advocate it! And history has in fact proved that we very well can have omnipotent artists among us, and our Leila Forouhar is one perfect argument.

Scarlett Johansson, one of my eye-candies in American cinema who is also one of the few blonde exceptions that prove the rule of me preferring brunettes, has just released her debut album. And as much as I have looked forward to hear her strawberry lips uttering a seductive Marilyn Monroe-like voice for the heat of my summer afternoons, the girl basically sounds terrible! And by terrible I mean terrible! At its best it has a vague resemblance to Sinead O’Connor’s voice, after a sever case of flu! …and what’s bizarre is that I find it sexier this way! hehe!

ARIAN’s 4th album “Bi To, Baa To” has just been released in Iran. The album features 15 audio tracks and 4 video tracks of which one is a 45 min documentary.

It’s confirmed, Jake Gyllenhaal will play the Prince of Persia “Dastan” in the forthcoming cinematic adaptation of “Sands of Time”! I must say that of all the possible choices they could have made (previous blogs) this isnt that bad after all! I can actually see him as the prince!

According to Rahim Shahryari, the manager of the AZAR band, POP bands in Iran haven’t had any considerable problem with Ershaad issuing permits this past year but their main concern at the moment is rather the cost/logistics situation when it comes to concerts. Permits get issued but no location is found available for the event!

I am not sure which clever mind came up with the idea of adding carbon dioxide to doogh (I’ve heard it was the company AabAli that introduced it first, decades ago) but by doing that she/he managed to create magic and thereby commercialise the simple mountain drink of the region and offer a native alternative to the Western soft-drinks! Brilliant! And what’s even more brilliant is that you can mix it just as easily at home! A bottle of sparkling water (soda), some yoghurt, limejuice and a pinch of salt and you are ready to dope! Its dooghalicious!!!

Tarantino and Rodriguez’ tributes to GRINDHOUSE cinema have so far been released separately on DVD while they are meant to be watched back to back with all the fake trailers inbetween. At the moment only this SUPER-COOL Japanese set does the work and presents the movies and all the extra goodies as they are supposed to be presented! Such an elaborate detail design and relevance! The set came with an exclusive poster of a fake coming-attraction.

Just watched the first semifinals of this year’s EUROVISION and though my two previous crushes (Greece and Armenia) were both voted to the finals Netherlands’s Hind didn’t make it! The song is nice in a Ricky Martin-meets-Shakira kind of way, too bad it lost considering some of the terrible entries that made it further to the final showdown! Here is the video for “Your Heart Belongs To Me”, watch it while I go and comfort Hind! Hind, Hind! where are you Hind?!

Nooshafarin’s brand new album is out called “Koocheye Rangi”:

 http://www.musicboxla.com/nokora.html

The eccentric Swedish producer Andreas Kleerup whose song “With Every Heartbeat” for Robyn hit the top spot on UK’s charts and is slowly but surely conquering the international dance-floors will be releasing his self-titled debut album this week.

“Kleerup” features a range of collaboration with numerous Swedish vocalists and the style is heavily influenced by the artist’s JAZZ background, the Continental ELECTRONICA and the Scandinavian LOUNGE POP. Melancholic yet uplifting, making it an album for both the dance-floors and headphones!

The arrangers of the Farhad Awards are still waiting for a suitable location for the event. Meanwhile they have announced that the POP music wont be the only genre presented but even orchestral and classical genres will have their place at the awards.

The Sweden-based filmmaker Nahid Persson whose documentary on the lives of a number of prostitutes in Iran was internationally shown, claimed and finally triggered an ethic-centric controversy a few years ago is now back with her new documentary on DVD. “Four Wives and a Husband” shows the everyday life of a family in Iran consisting of one husband and his four legal wives and the internal dynamics of such marital constellation! The DVD will be released in Sweden but its in Persian, for those who are interested.

Film director Khosroo Masoumi said in an interview with IRNA that there is a vacancy in the Iranian movie industry for soundtrack composers. He explained that although there are plenty of talented composers in the country, most of them either lack ideas or interest to score movies. This he sees as very alarming and urges musicians to consider contributing to the country’s cinema.

After a year of postponing ARIAN’s 4th album entitled “Baa To, Bi To” will be released at the same time as their concert with Chris De Burgh. The album will feature 15 audio tracks and 4 video tracks of which one is a 45 min documentary. Ali Pahlavan says that there has been attempts to reinvent the trademark ARIAN sound on this album and the ambition is to make fans keep this CD on replay for at least a whole year!

For those of you who have heard Shadmehr’s new songs leaked on the internet and wondered when the new album is going to hit the stores here is the answer! The source is a blog belonging to Shadmehr’s wife Mia, which makes the information official:

http://miaslifeinthefablane.blogspot.com/2008/04/shadmehr-aghilis-sabab-ep-on-itunes.html 

The planning of the 24th Fajr Music Festival has already begun. This year the event coincides with the celebration of the Islamic Revolution’s 30th anniversary, therefore the arrangers are considering it as a theme for this year’s festival. Part of the festival will be devoted to musical tributes and anthems marking the history of the Islamic Republic.

Just when I had recovered from the Kalomoira fever I was instantly struck by Sirusho! The Armenian contribution to the EUROVISION. “Qele Qele” is the perfect specimen of an ETHNO DANCE fare with a huge HIT potential for the summer dance-floors in continental and northern Europe. Sirusho (or moosh mooshak as I call her) looks cute as a button and sings like a woman! Do I even want to recover from such exotic fever?!

sorry about the low quality clip, it had the best “audio” I was able to find!

My good friend Erwin Khachikian was recently on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show, playing in Serj Tankian’s band. Here comes the clip, enjoy if you havent watched it already!

Sharareh’s third album is out called “Los Angeles”, featuring work by Shahbal Shabpareh:

http://musicboxla.com/shlosan.html