Well, last night my wife and I took in one of the formerly-known “Cutting Edge Band” ’s farewell tour concerts – the inevitable is happening and Delirious have decided to leave touring to concentrate on being normal people again.

In all fairness it was a fantastic gig; the band still sound as fresh as the recordings did 17 years ago – they all carry boundless energy and talent into the concert, the songwriting is still the best that Britain has to offer in the Christian AOR sphere; and they’re not afraid to sing praises to the Most High whilst showcasing their gifts. This doesn’t put people off either – a capacity crowd at the O2 academy was proof that people love this stuff.

So what now? We can only pray that something happens to fill in the huge void that is going to open now that there isn’t such a huge christian presence in the UK music market. I am sure people will be raised to carry on….until then we have the CDs…

Beat Berry Jam Presents…

The Xmas Ham Jam!

Bringing Hamilton some of the best in underground sounds with plenty of jammy goodness to satisfy all your cravings.

DJ’s

Yama and Nats | Ivan Groot | Rory Quigley

HOUSE | BREAKS | TECH

10pm till they close us down!

19th December

Sekure

5 Hood Street
Hamilton

Rise Against have a reputation for having somewhat energetic live sets. Tonight they didn’t disappoint.
We got to the gig pretty late after stopping off for food and so only caught the lost song of Poison The Well which seemed to involve to topless men walking around the stage showing off their muscles. Rather a surreal start to the nights proceedings. I can’t really give a fair assessment of this band as one song isnt enough to judge a band on, Swing Life Away by Rise Against is a fair example of this. Although that one song did shed a bit of light on the band, they’re slightly crazy, aswell as show that they can make good songs and play them well live.

After a lengthy session of Rage Against the Machine ringing through the Great Hall, the lights went out. And for what felt like five minutes we were treated to some sort of political-speech-medley-kind-of-thing that you couldn’t understand a word of due to the sound set up. This didn’t bode well.
Rise Against took to the stage with leaps and bounds and jumped straight into the first song of the evening. Now here’s where it gets a bit confused. The drums, guitar, other guitar and bass all sounded spot on but the vocals were drowned out. You could make out some of the words and if you knew the song well could sing along, but if every man on stage was playing you had no idea what Tom ‘no idea how his second name is spelt’ Mcllrath was saying.

I and a few of the people around me started singing the lyrics to ‘Give It All’ through the whole of one of the songs about half way through the set. It wasn’t until Tom announced that their last song of the set was to be ‘Give It All’ that we realised our mistake.

‘Swing Life Away’ and ‘Hero Of War’ were both beautiful on the night for the first encore with everybody’s arms waving in the air and an en masse sing along.
The second encore was classic Rise Against massive mosh/circle pit action. Just to make sure you’d be too shattered to walk to the train station at the end.

It was a brilliant gig, not for the songs, but for the energy that the band produced. You managed to forget that the sound man should have been shot for that terrible error because your body is bruised and beaten and you were happy that you managed to catch that massive guy in the pit with the perfect shot to his chin.

In the nine months since White Lies last played Rock City, sandwiched between Florence and the Machine, Friendly Fires and Glasvegas on the annual NME package tour, their live reputation has steadily grown. A successful summer festival season has won them many new fans, as last night’s capacity turnout demonstrated, and it was heartening to discover how much the band has gained in confidence and stage presence, in such a short space of time.

They’ve been compared with the likes of Editors and Interpol, and it was easy to see why: there’s a similar sense of bleak grandeur, and a shared tendency to pitch dark lyrical themes against rousing, anthemic melodies. The playing was clean, sharp and concise. Emotions were never overplayed; arrangements never sagged or dragged.

Although not a particularly demonstrative front man, Harry McVeigh displayed an intuitive grasp of stage craft, and an ability to connect with his audience without resorting to the usual bag of crowd-pleasing tricks. His eyes said it all: scanning the room, sensing the energy that was being returned to him, and lighting up with pleasure. This whole experience is clearly still new to him, and it was a delight to see him relishing it.

The 67 minute set was bookended by surefire crowd pleasers, opening with Farewell To The Fairground and closing with Death (a more uplifting track than its title might suggest). Material from the chart-topping album To Lose My Life was augmented with an older song (You Still Love Him) and a Talking Heads cover (Heaven). But if one song defined the night, perhaps it was the album’s title track, which took all the band’s key themes – love, fear, hope, faith, death – and placed them into a fist-pumping anthem of the first degree.

Here is an illustrated run through how Monotonix’s set went down at the Scala.

It was calm…

Then this guy came and lay on the floor:

Then he started shaking around:

Then the singer came and poured water all over him and dragged him round in circles:

Uh-oes. Then they did this weird handstand thing:

They were really loud…

The singer climbed all over the drummer (who kept on drumming):

This is one frame before he pulled his shorts all the way down. YES. We saw his behind. TOO MUCH…

Then he picked up a random girl and lifted her up for a while, kissed another random girl, tried to jump into a bucket, and then fell into me. Then, he stole a guy’s hat:

They had a dance off, tossing the hat between them:

He put the hat down his shorts. Then the guy whose hat is was rubbed the hat all over his face. It was weird. Then the singer recruited people to hold his drum kit and stool:

No way was I going to help. This guy was well up for it though:

And so were these folks:

He had successfully managed to get people to hold him up. Hurrah:

Then they drummed and played guitar and sang all around the audience:

THE END.

And then I went upstairs and saw Phosphorescent after. Chuckle chuckle chuckle. What a crazy evening. I’ll review Phosphorescent later. My right side still hurts from having the singer fall into me after he tried to jump in the bucket and failed and just fell over (into me). I can’t say Monotonix are my thing musically, at all, but they really do put on a great show.

003

Live at The Rainbow, Birmingham with Tantrums + Full English

004

On road in the sunny South of England.

Go buy the tune – Al Murray & The Cimarons – Morning Sun

I went to see Mr Luke Haines at the Kilburn Luminaire last night. I was running late, as I didn’t finish work until 9 and, it transpired, the former Auteurs frontman was due onstage at a frustratingly early 9.15. What’s more, he was most prompt.

I arrived to a packed venue full of extremely tall people, but fortunately we were able to find a spot at the back, on some steps, so that we were even able to see the misanthrope in chief. We’d missed 20 minutes or so of his set, including the wonderful Suburban Morning, and we arrived half-way through new album closer “21st century man”, which is Haines’ self-obsessed equivalent to “We Didn’t Start The Fire”. Except good. I mean, here’s him on the 1980s:

” David Bowie lost it for years /died a death in his slap-bass phase / everybody else died of aids”

and here’s the nineties:

“What do you do after you’ve made your masterpiece / that’s what I did in the nineties / I was all over the nineties / I was all over the nineties”

That verse is particularly good because you know he thoroughly means it and thoroughly doesn’t mean it at the same time.

Anyway, the rest of the gig was excellent, despite my unfortunate right-at-the-back position. The Kilburn Luminaire is known for its enlightened/fascist approach to those that talk during gigs: there are big signs up everywhere that basically go “IF YOU WANT TO TALK WHILE THE MUSICIANS ARE PLAYING THEN FUCK OFF DOWNSTAIRS, SCUM. I MEAN, FOR FUCK’S SAKE – WHAT’S THE POINT IN GOING TO A GIG IF YOU’RE NOT EVEN GOING TO LISTEN?”, except more succinct. It’s a bit like how trains have only one train carriage nowadays where you’re NOT expected to shout into a phone for the whole journey. The Luminaire is the quiet carriage of the London gigging scene.

Inevitably there were some people behind us talking. I did my duty and asked them to keep it down; they looked outraged, but kind of complied. So I was able to enjoy Haines’ songs about Yorkshire, mass-murderers, paedophiles, the seventies, unsolved child murderers, and how Guildford is the Promised Land in relative peace.

There was also one very drunk guy in front of us who staggered around singing all the songs about murder at the top of his voice, staring around wide-eyed to make sure we all knew the words too. And presumably planning to murder us if we didn’t.

The set finished with two songs from his funk album about German domestic terrorism, Baader Meinhof. Excellent stuff, but it wasn’t Lenny Valentino or the other early Auteurs ‘hits’ that the crowd were shouting for. “That’s probably as likely as Graham Coxon playing Country House”, I said to Morgan.

Then he came back on and played Lenny Valentino, and the two ladies who had been sat at the back chatting away for the whole gig suddenly CAME TO LIFE. They launched themselves off their sofa of gossip, and danced and FRUGGED along to the whole tune and its three false endings. I still have no idea what Lenny Valentino is about.

Afterwards I had a pint with Jason and his lovely blogger chums, one of whom had a better gig librarian tale than I: he told a woman to “Shut the fuck up”.

Turns out it was Luke Haines’ wife.

Continued pictures from the Gold Kids / MTL / Ghost Town show last weekend. These were mostly taken by Steph and some by Saam. Enjoy.

bahahaha! nice one CatFace!

So good I have to review it immediately. I was so hugely looking forward to this show, and I wasn’t disappointed in the slightest. Absolutely wonderful. So prepare yourself for a poorly structured, super excitable post about my evening of JOY.

I headed down to the Bush Hall early. The show had sold out and I was hoping for there to be a spare ticket for a friend, and there was. Epic win #1. Firstly, I think it’s amazing the band sold out Bush Hall. I’m so happy for them. They completely deserve every bit of success that comes their way, and it was such a joy to see them play to a packed out room. There’s nowhere in the world that I would’ve rather have been that evening. It just makes me happy that people are hearing this amazing band who, really, are something so special.

The doors opened and Peter and Darby where there. I can’t write enough good things about this band, really. They are such warm and welcoming people and it was so lovely to see them again. They wanted some dinner and I told them about the Nando’s down the road… they offered to take my Nando’s stamp cards to get stamps towards free chicken. How lovely is that!? They are such genuinely lovely people, and I love them hugely.

The support was Norway’s I Was A King. They were nice. I was just terribly impatient and wanted to go straight to The Antlers. I do have to say, the guitarist was incredibly fast at changing guitar strings. She was like lightning! Good work, that lady. So finally, it was actually time for The Antlers and the lights went down. I was ridiculously excited. I think anyone who has seen me this week would have had me say ‘WOOO ANTLERS!’ at them at some point.

They opened with Kettering. I’m trying to articulate just how magical everything is live, and it’s really difficult. They are such a brilliant band; it’s the whole thing. Peter’s vocals are so powerful and beautiful, everything Darby adds is spectacular, and Michael is an excellent drummer- and they all play so well together. You can’t fault them.

From Kettering they went to Sylvia. It is such a beautiful song. The loud parts are crushing, the quiet parts are heart breakingly beautiful. The way Peter sings every word with so much soul and emotion… it made me want to cry. It was so wonderful. He extends some words and screams others… it gives you chills as he howls ‘let me do my job!’. Towards the end of the song there is a pause… and then the music and vocals come back in. Peter slows all the words down and sings ‘Sylvia, I only talk when you are sleeping. That’s when I tell you everything, and imagine that somehow you’re going to hear me.’ It couldn’t be any more perfect.

Then, after Sylvia, in came the lullaby-esque introduction to Bear. The keyboard part is just so beautiful. It was SO BEAUTIFUL! (I have resorted to shouty caps, really sorry). The only word for it is ’swoon’. I was swooning. It was just overwhelming. Watching these three people make such gorgeous sounds… I felt so lucky. It really is so special. How can three people make such wonderful sounds that emote such passion and feeling, that translates and pulls the audience in like that? You can’t help but feel so connected and close to the songs. That is something truly special.

Bear led right into Thirteen. It just completely washes over you and sucks you in, and then Peter and Darby sing ‘pull me out, pull me out, can’t you stop this all from happening?‘. It killed me, I was ready to bawl. There’s such a depth to all their songs, I wonder if people could fully appreciate the power of their songs if they hadn’t heard the record. I love Thirteen. It breaks my heart. I think one of my new life goals is to hear them play it with Sharon live. So much goodness there. If you do want a taster of Thirteen with Sharon, NYC Taper has a recording of the album launch show with Sharon singing. It’s wonderful. I love the version with Peter and Darby singing too, it’s brilliant.

Next came Atrophy and Shiva. Both stunning. Shiva just sounds so powerful live. Just the crashing, raw energy is stunning. When Peter yells ‘the sensation was scissors and too much to scream‘… the way he sang it was ridiculously wonderful. Two came next… it has such a gorgeous opening. It was breathtaking. Absolutely breathtaking. What I loved so much about this show is that it felt like the record, like you were on a journey. It all flowed so wonderfully. The drums in that song are particularly amazing. Yeah, I’m not going to list all my favourite parts of that song (I just tried), because I would basically be writing out the lyrics and saying how I love every single part. Perfect.

Next came two songs that I hadn’t heard the band play live before. First, it was Wake. It was such a joy to hear. Wake is so beautiful. Peter has such fantastic control of his voice. When he sang ‘when your helicopter came and tried to lift me up I put it’s rope round my neck‘ I just died. It was so beautiful. Hospice is such a special record, lyrically, it’s mind blowing. It’s written in such a powerful way, you can’t help but be sucked into this heartbreaking story. Wake is the second to last track on the record, and you feel like you’ve been there through it all, and you just want to cry. Musically, they’ve just made it so that the guitar, keys, drums, everything, reinforces the power of the words and, all the little interludes and instrumental parts really speak in their own right. It was so special to hear that song live. There’s such a glimmer of hope, as the drums picks up ‘I’m letting people in’. It touches my heart. 

After Wake they left the stage and, after lots of cheering, they returned for Epilogue. One of my favourite things ever. I had never heard them do this before. It was mind blowing. A’cappella opening. A cappella! YES! I had tears in my eyes. The drums, and when the tambourine came in… it was like someone tapping on my heart! Michael is so modest, later in the evening I said how wonderful that part was and he said thanked me and said ‘oh, I gotta do something back there’. He’s such a great drummer. Through the whole show, the single line that got me most was ‘but now it’s not a cancer ward, we’re sleeping in a morgue’. If I wasn’t actively trying not to cry like a baby, I would have. I had a huge lump in my throat and tears in my eyes, it’s so powerful. That line really got me. It’s the end of a journey, it’s over. It’s amazing that Peter could take such a destructive experience and turn it into such a powerful, special record. Then after the quiet start, when things get loud and Peter raises his voice… it just is even more devastatingly perfect.

And there you have it. Quite possibly my favourite show of 2009, no band has ever touched my heart like that.

Whatever you do, don’t miss their show on March 3rd. I love this band so much. I want everyone to get to see them. If you like the record you’d have to be insane to miss them. They are nothing less than phenomenal. Brilliant. Get Hospice if you haven’t, fall in love with it, go see them live. I think there’s some really bright things in store for The Antlers, and they truly deserve it. So much love for that band and their beautiful music.

THE ANTLERS.

What a wonderful gig! I am largely unfamiliar with Lisa Hannigan’s songs but my good friend Bobbles (who took that fine photograph) had a spare ticket and kindly invited me along to see Lisa play at the wonderful Royal Festival Hall. What a treat.

It was my first jaunt at RFC and it truly is beautiful. The sound was perfect and the balcony and boxes all looked very lovely, and the lighting! Oh, the lighting! Marvelous. I was not shooting but I still dig good lighting.

Lisa and her band played a wonderful set. Because I’m not that familiar with her work I can’t really comment in much detail- but I can most certainly say that Lisa and her band are excellent performers. They sounded fantastic, everything was spot on, and they were so charming. Lisa seemed so appreciative of the audience and it was really endearing seeing her dedicate a song to her mum, who was in the Royal Box. It was such an enjoyable show. Lisa’s voice is quite whispery and soft but she can really belt it out as well.The glock, harmonium, and violin parts were all particularly lovely touches to some great songs. Lille was absolutely beautiful, and for the encore she did a playful little snippet of the Ghostbusters theme tune as a joke. It was very sweet and I’m pretty sure it brought a smile to the face of everyone in the room. Go see Lisa Hannigan: she is brilliant. And listen to Lille- such a gorgeous song.

On Saturday 12th of December, the Racket will be making their debut performance at the Manly Rugby Club.  The Racket is a 6 piece band – genre undetermined.  In fact, we’ll let the crowd determine the genre post gig.  One of the BotF founders will be tootling on a sax and providing occasional back up vocals. 

Doors of the Manly Rugby Club open at 8pm.  The Racket will keep their sets tight, so there’ll be plenty of time for yarning on the night.  Beers are at club prices – and it might be the last night of live music at Manly Rugby Club as it is threatening to close its doors at the end of December.  History to be made on multiple levels.

Howdy one and all – hope you’re all keeping well?

All good here with the Billy Coleman experience, I’m busy dusting off various pieces of equipment that haven’t seen much use in the last few months, but pretty soon, I’m going to be back making some new tunes. Oh yes. And I’m looking forward to it too…

In the meantime, things have been fairly slathered with graaaavy in a pretty good way with the new ep and ‘Welcome to the Breakdown’. I’m doing another few radio things over the next few weeks, but it seemed to react well to being Ian Dempseys ‘Song of the Week’ there last week, even though some listeners thought it sounded like Madonnas ‘Material Girl’.

Seriously. See what you think…

Some people are craaaaazzy.

Totally epic song to be compared to of course. Always knew I had great taste!

Anyhoop, in the meantime, I’m embarking on another ‘3 gigs in 3 days’ adventure, and hope especially that those of you in Dublin can make it out to the Academy 2 gig this Saturday (28th).

This’ll kick off a series of dates I’m doing with Roesy in particular. A true gentleman, not to mention a great songwriter, I encourage you all to check him out if you haven’t already – http://roesymusic.net/ – dude uses the same WordPress theme I do! Excuse me while I nerd, nerd, nerd, neeeeerrrrrdddd….

Anyway, live dates:
Dundalk – 27 Nov 2009 20:00 The Spirit Store – Supporting Juliet Turner
Dublin – 28 Nov 2009 20:00 Academy 2 – Double Headliner – SINGLE LAUNCH TOUR w/ GDC and Alan Marshall
Dundalk – 29 Nov 2009 20:00 The Spirit Store – Supporting Roesy – The Spirit Store
Kinsale, Cork – 13 Dec 2009 20:00 The Spinnaker – Supporting Roesy – The Spinnaker
Clonakilty, Cork – 15 Dec 2009 20:00 De Barras – Supporting Roesy – De Barras
Cork City – 16 Dec 2009 20:00 An Cruibin – Supporting Roesy – An Cruibin
Cavan Town – 4 Mar 2010 20:00 Chapter 1 Cafe – The Acoustic Corner

Over and OUT. For now. Watch this space for more awesome radio stuff that people are talking about, but not confirming and swearing on their mothers graves will DEFINITELY HAPPEN. Yet.

B

3 Chords & A Cloud of Dust is thrilled to have just added Friday night, December 4th, to our schedule.  We will be joining together with Opportunity Networks (formerly Souhegan Valley Association for the Handicapped) in their annual fund-raiser, the $10,000 Raffle Extravaganza!

Opportunity Networks is a local charitable organization that provides supported employment, training and activities for mentally disabled adults in the Souhegan Valley Communities.  You can read more about them on their website.

Prizes of $250, $500, $1000, and the grand prize of $10,000 will be raffled off during the evening.  Someone is going home with a lot of cash!  The event is being held at the River Card Room on Elm Street in Milford (the old IGA next to the New Hampshire Liquor Store) from 6 to 8pm.  There will be a coctail reception with an open bar and a ’shrimp mountain’ plus many other tasty appetizers.  3 Chords will be playing a couple sets of music as well.

Tickets for this event are $100 per couple.  In other words, $100 buys you and a date admission, free drinks and hor d’ouvres, and a chance at all the cash prizes–and your ticket price goes to a great cause in our community.  You can’t beat this deal!

To buy a ticket, please call Charlie Burns at 603-801-8964 or Jim Stratton at 603-759-1423 or see one of them at Christ’s Church on Sunday.

We would LOVE to see YOU there.

For The Telegraph

Taylor Swift is walking right down the middle of Wembley Arena – no mean feat considering that row upon row of hysterical fans stand between the American country pop star and the front. A couple of bouncers help her through while she turns this way and that in a knee-length blue dress and cowboy boots, hugging and thanking as many people as she can. If Kanye West attempted to crash onto the stage right now, as he did in the middle of Swift’s acceptance speech at the recent MTV awards, he’d likely be torn to shreds by thousands of tiny pink fingernails.

Finally back onstage she waits – little pink mouth agog, eyebrows habitually arched – while her adoring audience scream for nigh on ten minutes. There are 12,500 people (mostly young girls) in attendance tonight, a figure not far off the £13,000 Swift donated to Children In Need live on British television just three days earlier. Between then and now she has appeared in LA via satellite to accept no less than five American Music Awards, beating both Michael Jackson and Lady Gaga to artist of the year.

Though Swift only broke through in the UK this year with her second album Fearless, her global album sales already exceed 10 million, and she performs with the steady confidence of a superstar. Still just nineteen, she glows with youth, tossing her platinum blonde curls and carrying her lanky frame with practised grace, taking care to high-five the VIP fans flanking the stage every time she passes. This two-hour show is impressive, high-energy stuff – full of costume changes, set pieces and dance routines.

Miley Cyrus, that other current American teen sensation, appears in an opening video montage to particularly amplified screaming and we are reminded that though Cyrus and Swift are both ruthlessly marketed to young teenage girls – perhaps the last mass record buying audience – Swift is not part of the clique of pin-ups who have emerged from the Disney TV shows High School Musical and Hannah Montana. Rather, this is the girl who was so determined to be a singer that at the age of 11 she was handing out demos in Nashville, hundreds of miles from her home in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania. She writes nearly everything she sings (call it country, but this is pure pop) and can carry the whole arena even without her seven-piece backing band, playing a customised guitar with remarkable skill.

Her secret’s not her talent – she can write, but her vocals often err on the flat side – yet Swift is the very opposite of a diva: self-made, grateful, unpretentious and hardworking. She’s every young girl’s best friend, and judging by the noise they’re making tonight, Swift’s got a fair few friends to her name.

November 29 (Sunday), 22:00
club “Chinese pilot Jao Da”
Moscow, Lubyanka etc., 25/12, p. 1, m. Kitai-Gorod, (495) 624 56 11, 623 28 96
Price: 250 rub.

CherryVata – a harmonious blend of electronica with live instruments and vocals, layered cocktail of sensations and emotions, shake of waves of sounds and moods, adorned with nu jazz, reggae, dub, breakbeat, funk & rock elements. In the collective sound is a constant evolution and improvisation, the dissolution of the stylistic scope and definitions.

In May 2009, they released the album “ViaVanilla”, the group reached a new level: a newly emerged and changed the composition, sound became deeper, denser, authentic drive began to displace the lyrical mood of the live performances of team. «Live & more drive» – now CherryVata sounds like!

The band performed at major festivals in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine ( «Koktebel Jazz» -2009, «Empty Hills» -2009, «Stare Selo», «Yes!”, “Picnic Graffiti”) and now present its new program «Vanilla Dance» in Moscow.

Press about CherryVata:

With “CherryVata” – a very pleasant appearance on the Belarusian stage and, probably, at this moment the most famous representative of the Belarusian electronic mainstream. Another thing is that their strongest side after all concerts.
(Experty.by, Belarus)

Yes, and what they play – not quite trip-hop, because they are equally expressed rationally and E, and blues component. Fans of complex and carefully calibrated music will appreciate the harmonious combination of electric grinding with acoustic guitar solos and the ease of jazz arrangements, sliding it in a relaxed fusion, the agile rhythm and blues.
(weekly BelGazeta, Belarus)

It looks quite young, and music played an inventive, hypnotic, driving and fresh. But the most wonderful have Cherryvata – personal charm. Even without the charm, and the expression of happiness and attention to the audience.
(AFISHA, Russia)

Greetings Frolic Fam, this is whats going done this weekend, catch our my boys playing at the VW Party on Saturday and on Sunday at SCHIVITO’s BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION

Another thing. The hardcore gig scene has changed so much. Even just going to see Bishop opened my eye to really how bad things have gotten. What is all this head banging?! Your not at Metallica…

Recently a few friends went to see Confession. I only heard bad things like ‘band played crap, the kid’s at gigs suck, sick of people being idiots, too many metalheads and goths etc etc’

Not only that but kids doing drugs at straight edge gigs. I don’t get it. Show some respect and put that white power away… not up your snoz.

I don’t know what’s happened but things just arn’t as good as what they used to be. This saddens me.

Very very exciting tings a gwan at the Baobab Village!  Soum Bill, the founder of Les Garagistes, who is recording his new album in New York will be making a stop by San Francisco for a one time performance.  We are so lucky to be able to have him perform here in the Bay Area.  I will be djing alongside the great DJ Polo of Reggae Gold SF, and the other Baobab resident DJ’s.   Come get your Zouglou and Coupe Decale first hand in the mission next Friday December 4th!

Speaking of Ivory Coast, I’m already getting World Cup 2010 fever, and apparently Les Elephants and the Black Stars are both in the possible running for a world cup final appearance.  Time to get my Drogba jersey (sorry Chelsea haters!)  Here is one of my favorite songs from the Ivory Coast: