Cautionary Wife

Guess this applies to all of us... M also wrote.... "... and hope that the shakira instead of Everybody's talkin, didnt dissapoint." CW.

14.1.07 Leona Lewis still heading UK Top 40 But there's a big new entry at three X Factor winner Leona Lewis is still enjoying her moment this week, as debut single "A Moment Like This" continues untroubled as the UK singles chart No. 1. The track is entering its fourth week at the top, with Eric Prydz' "Proper Education" at two. Relative unknown Mika has this week's top new entry at three with "Grace Kelly", while dance producer Just Jack lands his highest new entry at four with "Starz In Their Eyes". Take That's "Patience" drops to five, while JoJo's "Too Little Too Late" jumps up 15 places to six. The rest of the top ten sees Booty Luv's "Boogie 2Nite" at seven, Akon's "Smack That" ft. Eminem at eight, Sharam's "PATT (Party All The Time" at nine and Cascada's "Truly Madly Deeply" at ten. Entering just outside the top ten is The Views' "Same Jeams", with the Klaxons' "Golden Scans" a new entry at 16. Meanwhile the Automatics' "Raoul" hits the chart at No 30, one place ahead of Koopa's "Blag Steal & Borrow" the chart's first ever unsigned debut. On the album chart, Amy Winehouse's "Back To Black" continues its rise this week right to the chart summit, taking over from Take That's "Beautiful World", which drops three spots. James Morrison's "Undiscovered" moved up three spots to No. 2, Snow Patrol's "Eyes Open" held on at No. 3 and the Fratellis' "Costello Music" is at five. Kylie Minogue's "Showgirl - Homecoming Live" is the top debut at seven. By: News Desk From: Sound Generator http://www.soundgenerator.com/news/showarticle.cfm?articleid=8839&CFID=22939439&CFTOKEN=26850141 -- Further report.... Sunday January 14 2007 19:00 GMT Four weeks at the top for Leona X Factor winner Leona Lewis is still riding high at the top of the charts with her single A Moment Like This. The reality television show winner is in her fourth week at the top with her debut single. Eric Prydz was also a non-mover, still at number two with Proper Education ahead of new entry Mika with Grace Kelly at three. The second highest new entry was Just Jack with Starz In Their Eyes, which entered the charts at four. From: BBC Newsround http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_6260000/newsid_6261500/6261501.stm

Mika was on the phone with Radio 1 during the Chart show. Asked what he would drink on a night out - Beer Favourite film - Wizard of Oz Favourite person dead of alive - Harry Nilsson Hobby - collecting toys, especially Japanese - and said that he might celebrate being number 3 by buying a toy, a particular Japanese robot, but it was expensive. That's all I can remember. CW

'I WOULD EAT DOG POO BUT WOULDN'T SWIM WITH FISH' MIKA INTERVIEW A cross between Scissor Sisters and Freddie Mercury who's arrived on the scene via Paris after fleeing war-torn Beirut - how could we not be intrigued by Mika? So how did you get into music? 'I got into it because I had a very tough Russian singing teacher from a very early age. I was about nine and she used to terrify me into practicing.' She didn't put you off music? 'I didn't have a chance to be put off. I'd be so f***ing terrified I kind of got on with it. When something like that becomes part of your life it's hard to remove it.' How did you get your break? 'I got my record deal by auditioning for a man at Universal in a hotel lobby in Kensington because they didn't have a piano to use in all of London [laughs]. I think because of the way I performed it was more embarrassing for him than it was for me. People were just, like, 'Who's the freak on the piano?'' You're originally from Beirut, is that right? 'Born in Beirut and half Lebanese. I was born in Beirut in '83 then we had to leave about a year later because the war was just too bad. We ended up in Paris like a lot of people did. We stayed there for a couple of years and then things got complicated and we had to move to London.' Do you like living in England? 'Yeah, I consider it my home. It's much more embracive than Paris.' Has the UK music industry accepted you? 'Funnily enough, people seem to be quite nice to me at the moment when they weren't very nice to me most of the time. It was strange because I never really fitted into any scene because I was always a bit too commercial and melody driven for all the indie people. I could never really get into any bands and no one really wanted to play with me.' What do you have to offer that sets you apart from the rest of the industry? 'Complete ignorance about what the hell I'm supposed to be doing. Musically and marketing-wise I think that's the best thing I've got going for me because I don't know. I don't really give a sh*t. Generally, ignorance is bliss.' How does it feel being compared to the likes of Freddie Mercury and Scissor Sisters? 'Well, Freddie Mercury firstly, slightly terrifying. I mean, yeah, he was a f***ing genius and he stayed good from the beginning to the end which is the scary thing. I would never compare myself to him, though, I just can't. And Scissor Sisters, I just think it's fun and flattering. Bring it on, it's cool. At least they're not comparing me to Barbara Streisand in her early years, then I'd be a little upset because she seems like a really scary woman.' OK, you seem a bit too nice, Mika. Let's see if you've got a mean side. If a close relative bought you a hideously multi-coloured jumper for your birthday, would you ask for the receipt to exchange it or keep quiet? 'I'd give it to a nasty journalist. I'd be, like, ‘Here, this reminded me of you.'' I hope we won't be receiving one! 'No, no, you won't [laughs].' Would you be prepared to miss a night out with the lads if your girlfriend wanted to have a quiet night in with you? 'No, if I was hung over then yeah, sure. No, I'm kidding. Am I a lad? Somehow that doesn't have much relevance to me.' Would you give up your seat on a bus for an old lady? 'Absolutely. I've been brought up as a good Roman Catholic, Lebanese boy.' What about a lady of any age? 'Well, it completely depends [laughs].' Depends on what? 'Oh, I don't know [laughs].' We think we get what you're saying. Would you be happy to dress up in a panda suit on stage if an animal charity asked you to help protect them from extinction? 'Of course, yeah, bring it on. You'd have a 6ft panda jumping around the stage. At my height I'm pretty funny generally so I might as well be wearing a panda suit.' Would you be happy to eat a bit of dog poo for £500? 'F*** off, no, no. That's disgusting, that's absolutely foul.' Is there anything you wouldn't do for £1million? 'Yeah, loads.' Like what? Does anything particularly freak you out? 'Yeah, sharks, or watching Countdown. No, I don't like fishes. Is a shark a fish?' Er, we think so. 'Well, just anything that's in the water. I hate water. I'll go to the beach and pretend but I won't go in. What's underneath you is really deep. It freaks me out. I probably would eat dog poo or eat dinner with Prince Harry for £1million but I wouldn't swim with fish.' From Popworld http://www.popworld.com/pages/mika_interview

My PM. The lovely guy wished me Happy Birthday too. That was so so cool. I was made up. Made my day. CW.

MIKA WROTE last night after the performance: "...will give a shout out to you guys next time im on air. M." CW.

I sent Dodgy Holiday to a couple of US pals at Christmas and they loved it. CW.

Q MAGAZINE FEB 2007 Page 14 TAKE 5 Q's NEXT-BIG-THING TIPS FOR 2007 1 JUST JACK 2 GINDERMAN 3 MIKA OTT, one-man Scissor Sisters bringing soft rock to the dancefloor. Watch out for: debut single Grace Kelly out 29 January. 4 ENTER SHIKARI 5 THE TWANG CW.

Shame not Belfast - cheaper to fly there for me. CW.

Two years ago, nobody had heard of the man they call Mika. A young, London-based singer with a five-octave vocal range, he had been bombarding record labels with demo tapes only to have the door continually slammed in his face. ‘I was scorned by the alternative crowd because of my obsession with good melodies,’ he says. ‘And I was rejected by the commercial crowd, the big record companies, because they thought I was too weird.’ How things have changed. Named as pop’s hottest new property in last week’s BBC Sound Of 2007 poll, Mika (pronounced ‘Meeka’) now has the world at his feet. His euphoric debut single, Grace Kelly, out later this month, is a heady taster for a forthcoming album, Life In Cartoon Motion, that will underline the 23-year old’s distinctive, wide-screen take on the art of the singer-songwriter. ‘From day one, my ambition was to make records that sounded like a band,’ he says. ‘I earmarked artists from the Seventies and Eighties, like David Bowie and George Michael, who produced big-sounding solo records. ‘That notion disappeared in the early Nineties. These days, the idea of a singer-songwriter has negative connotations. People think of a solitary guy in some weird Camden café singing about himself. ‘I never wanted to do that. I set out to make a record that reeked of artistry, but I also wanted to throw in anything I liked, like a circus master.’ Drawing on a broad yet esoteric array of influences – Prince, Harry Nilsson and Queen – Mika’s tuneful, vaudevillian songs will sit comfortably alongside the ‘guilty pleasures’ pop of The Feeling and Scissor Sisters in this year’s singles charts. His bright-eyed style should fit in well, too, with a new wave of male singers, including Jeremy Warmsley and Jamie T, who also sound more like bandleaders than lone troubadours. Mika acknowledges the changing mood: ‘The UK is great for pop right now. But it makes me giggle that even Louis Walsh has tipped me as one to watch. ‘I can remember sitting in Simon Cowell’s office when I was 16 and being told that my songs were so strange that I shouldn’t bother writing any more. ‘To be fair, he also said my voice was very distinctive. But it still hasn’t sunk in just how much these people are altering their opinions.’ Born in Beirut, Mika (full name Mika [sp] Penniman) was evacuated from Lebanon with his American father and Lebanese mother in 1984. The family relocated to France before moving to London when Mika was nine. His early experiences in the UK were unhappy, however. Unable to settle at a French school in South Kensington, due partly to his dyslexia, he spent six months outside the education system, most of it studying music. Mika recalls: ’I was the unconventional kid in school. I used to dress in bright red trousers, with a matching bow-tie and shirt. Looking back, I was asking for it – and I had a pretty horrific time. ‘But music got me back on my feet. My mother found a singing teacher in a music shop, and I hit the jackpot with her. ‘I was trained as a soloist in the way that they used to train Russian athletes. I would have a two-hour singing lesson twice a week and then practise for three hours every day. It was tough, but it gave me a belief in myself.’ As he developed into something of a child prodigy, Mika performed at the Royal Opera House and sang on a recorded version of Vaughn [sp] Williams’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. At 19, he turned down a place at the London School Of Economics to study at The Royal College Of Music. But while a classical grounding was useful, pop was always his passion. ‘Classical training has helped my singing,’ he says. ‘It means I can use little vocal tricks when I perform live. ‘But I grew up listening to Harry Nilsson, Serge Gainsbourg and Bob Dylan, and I love the three-minute wonder of a great pop song.’ With his album out on February 5 and a UK tour opening at the “Concorde in Brighton two weeks later, Mika is going to be hard to avoid in the coming months, especially as he has also been chosen by fashion designer Sir Paul Smith as one of the faces of the year’s spring and summer collections. With the heartbreak of previous rejections still fresh, though, the singer is keen to keep this sudden, dramatic improvement in his fortunes in perspective. ‘What’s going on is amazing, but I’ve still got a lot to prove. I was lucky enough to be given complete freedom on my album, so I want to keep on pushing the boundaries.’ HIGHLIGHTS * GRACE KELLY Mika soars like Freddie Mercury on a tribute to the Fifties screen goddess. Out as a single on January 29. * LOLLIPOP This punchy piano anthem combines nursery rhymes, doo-wop and the spirit of Harry Nilsson. *LOVE TODAY A delicious disco romp that finds Mika adopting a falsetto reminiscent of Scissor Sisters frontman Jake Shears. DAILY MAIL Friday 12 January 2007 It’s Friday! Music MIKA WORKS HIS STRANGE MAGIC Interview by Adrian Thrills CW.

GIGWISE ALBUMS: Mika - 'Life In Cartoon Motion' (Casablanca) Released 05/02/07 by Zoheir Beig on 11/01/2007 "Sure there’s a few coffee-table moments, but ‘Life In Cartoon Motion’ has enough verve to hurdle such moments with ease.." If there’s an unwritten rule in pop that every artists’ career begins an irreversible downward trajectory after playing Knebworth, then from the moment Robbie Williams walked off stage there after his third record-breaking night in 2003 record companies have been clamouring to find the “next†Robster, a pop star that can unite disparate musical factions into thinking he’s amazing. Everyone from ex-Blue elephant-lover Lee Ryan to Celebrity-flop Matt Willis has undeservedly earned this tag, overweight suits all over London forgetting that Robbie was a true one-off, his cheeky/arrogant and exceptionally charismatic persona the like of which has not been seen since. Well, until now. Because Mika is the pop star that the beleaguered mainstream has been waiting for, a Beck for the MySpace generation who will dominate 2007 like a particularly rampant giant chart-Godzilla. His back-story is worthy of star status in itself: Born in Beirut during the war (his father was once held hostage in a Kuwati embassy), before self-imposed exile took him to Paris and, eventually, London. It’s a dandy-like existence that has surely contributed to Mika’s restless, euphoric music. Anyone within spitting distance of a radio will no doubt have heard ‘Grace Kelly’. Its mix of falsetto, self-referencing and the grand aura of Queen at Live Aid is clearly bonkers, but like half of Robbie’s back catalogue, it’s a song that will sell a lot of copies whilst sticking a middle finger up at the idiocy of the industry itself (“Shall I bend over? / Shall I look older? / Just To Be Put On Your Shelf?â€Â). As with mostly everything else on the album, Mika sidesteps any accusations of ridiculousness by having a very acute sense of just what he can get away with. In short, he has star quality in spades. Elsewhere ‘Lollipop’ has the same child-like naivety as The Go! Team, the pianos on ‘Billy Brown’ will have those editors who spend their days making sad montages of children dying running for the phone, while ‘Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)’ is as wittingly frank as when J.C Chasez, who used to be in squeaky-clean N’Sync, came back with that song about how he wanted to have sex all day. ‘Happy Ending’ though is the album’s gem. A climatic splurge of gospel and strings, it’s like ‘I Believe I Can Fly’ stretched to the length of Russell Brand’s hair, and it will slay the charts if given a single release. Sure there’s a few coffee-table moments, but ‘Life In Cartoon Motion’ has enough verve to hurdle such moments with ease, dazzling us as it does with it’s cheek, arrogance and, yep, charisma. Bar a national disaster this album will unite the pop-heads, gays, fashionistas and Tesco-shoppers in the same way the Scissor Sisters debut did back in 2004. Pop album of the year, already. From: http://www.gigwise.com/contents.asp?contentid=26699 CW.

Of no use to us Mac users. Boo Hoo !! I fear. CW.

Have you actually got your tickets in your hand, so to speak. Otherwise - are they mailing them out and when, do you know? CW

More info... sorry for the separate note.. Mika be doing 2 tracks live - Grace Kelly and Everybody's Talkin - plus he'll be chatting with Dermot. Any questions for Mika, do please email them to dermot@bbc.co.uk The show will also be available to listen to online on the BBC site for a week after broadcast. CW.

I have confirmation that Mika IS actually playing live on Dermot O'Leary show (Radio 2 Saturday) - not a recording of something we already heard. HURRAH!!!!! CW.

Hi SM Is there any way of flagging up things like radio and forthcoming press to look out for - maybe as sticky - Also this VOTE FOR record of the week - to put on front page so everyone can vote? Thanks CW.

DERMOT O'LEARY SATURDAY 13 JANUARY 16:30 - 18:30 BBC RADIO 2 In the next show, Dermot [O'Leary] has an exclusive live session from the hotly-tipped Mika and finds out what Ben Folds gets up to on a Saturday night. LISTEN LIVE http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/dermot/ You can also vote for Record Of The Week - state Title. Artist and Reason for your choice of record. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/dermot/recordoftheweek.shtml CW.

Any info about 'Over My Shoulder' and 'Satellite'? Anyone heard them? Sorry if I have joined this forum after this has been discussed. CW.

Hope I'm not repeating, but may be use to someone. Here's a booking URL and phone for Dublin gig. (Doesn't appear to be a booking link on official site and gig not listed on myspace). DUBLIN - Spirit MCD PRESENTS MIKA AND GUESTS Thu 01/03/07 19:30 Online: http://www.ticketmaster.ie By phone 0818 719 300 STANDING €25.70 Internet Onsale Info Onsale to General Public: Fri 22/12/06, 11:45 Also news item today on MCD site. http://www.mcd.ie/live/fullnews.php3?tname=1050313884&xname=mika CW.

Intrigued by our rising young star's real name - came across this New Year weekend. Wondering if his first name was Lebanese, and did he perhaps take his mother's surname and not that of his father? Looking into 'names' resources, "Mica" appears to be a girl's name in the USA. Maybe it is short for Michah (Hebrew) meaning 'who is similar to god?". Mika I found as a Japanese girl's name, meaning 'The New Moon' - though could be short for Hebrew boys names Mikal or Mikasi. Then there's an Arabian boy's name, Mika'il - angel name (Michael). Also Sunny Monkey mentioned that F1 racing driver, Mika. Seems a little odd to chose the professional name 'Mika', (have to say it suits him entirely), when there is already another artist of that name - electronic techno music. Thoughts? Though I don't want to intrude on privacy - just curious. CW.

I felt Ms Zendle was rather dismissive of "Relax, Take It Easy", just talking about how it sounds on the surface. No mention of what the song is about, or Mikas ability to cleverly slip a dark lyric, dealing with a serious subject, into a perky pop song. That was disappointing. "...though it perhaps doesn't quite have the immediacy of some other songs." Well maybe it's necessary to dig a little deeper than it's perky, dancy exterior. No mention also of the origins of Grace Kelly, though happily does mention inspiration for "Big Girl". CW

They are confusing him with the 'other' MIKA. As http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mika/dp/B00004TTVJ/sr=1-4/qid=1168380417/ref=sr_1_4/202-9264697-2216653?ie=UTF8&s=music I ended up with a download album by the wrong guy - thanks iTunes. GRRRRRR!!! CW.

Thanks Steph. Good to know you. Looking forward to what's ahead. Already this feels like a great new adventure and we are all along for the wild ride. CW.

Hi Folks Errr... a first mail - scary, as I don't know your culture yet, but seems like friendly territory.... so I probably can't go wrong saying 'Hello'. So - glad to meet you all. Well - like so many others, my first wake-up call to Mika was the Popbitch newsletter in my In Box. "Mika: lovechild of Mercury and Bolan"? I just had to see this and zipped off to mySpace only to find this incredible voice (of an angel???) coming out of my computer - just couldn't get off the Grace Kelly track and onto the others on there - totally compelling. Amazing how the number of plays / hits accumulated on ther over that lunchtime - it's a wonder mySpace didn't implode on itself and then pals started mailing me the Popbitch piece. So it was rare excitement that day. Instantly the world was a much sunnier place. Thanks Mika. We needed your freshness and light. CW. PS I came here on a banner link in Mikasounds Forum.