Cautionary Wife

Can confirm it works now. Brill. CW.

Tried connecting to the two files, but am asked for a user name and password. CW.

Sorry I couldn't reply straight away. Had to eat. My file is 63.8MB for the whole thing. So your's definitely more manageable. I haven't managed to upload anything on this board, have tried many times. CW.

I've recorded it. Press Red Button on TV and can watch behind the scenes footage for the next week. Available from 10pm tonight. CW.

I'm adding to previous post - set list and synopsis.... sort of. CW.

Starting off with 1. Relax 2. Love Today 3. Stuck In The Middle 4. My Interpretation. 5, Everybody's Talkin - acoustic 6. Billy Brown 7. Big Girl (You Are Beautiful) 8. Grace Kelly 9. Lolliipop BRIEFLY .... not verbatim... Is he being told to remember every moment because he will want to look back on all this. No people are telling him it's worth getting up at 6am and getting it all over with now because in a month it will all be over and he will be free of all this. Enjoying every minute. Exhilarating. Interesting how cosmopolitan background may feed into the music? When you never associate with one particular place makes you a bit footloose. Gets into the music and the way he tells storie and can dip into anyone's life. Very Now, but doesn't appear rooted in time? Talks about iPod gneration - consume anything from anyone's music, more of a mash that puts everything into the same pot. Own perspective of 70's 90's. Once upon a time mentioning Queen in interviews would've been considered uncool. Nothing these days is off limits. Dolly Parton played next to a piece of Electronica can be perfectly right if played int he right place. Not about a scene anymore. About context. Completely liberating. Grew up with clssical, cheesey jingles, pop music... the same bucket. Classical background... Does that enable you to go to places in music that the average guitarist doesn't go? Perfectly okay to write a song with just chords C F and G, Classical study enables vocal gymnastics, but took away the fear of any time of music. No snobbist attitude. What were the first records he was into? Frech records - talks about French legends, baby pop, obsession with reggae as a kid. Being gun-searched to get into a gig at age of 9. Theatricality about French records? Rushing through someone's life in 3 and a half minutes. Recent obsession with Harry Nilsson. Asked Martin to learn about 20 minutes ago - Everybody's Talkin' - acoustic. Well done Martin. At first ever gig - Manumission, Ibiza, after everthing going wrong, people started ballroom dancing to Billy Brown 5am in the morning. Are you drawn to character study kind of songs. Can be very effective to build and navigate through simple melody, and play with a pop melody. Big Girl - you felt like an outsider at school. Mum is quite big and was picked on because of her size. Butterfly Lounge was original ititle. First acceptance nightclub in the world. Documentary of Victoria Wood. Skinny women not being allowed in. Wrote in 15 minutes and recorded a week later. Are underdogs things that attract you to write songs about? A lot of songs are a remedy to some part of his life or a story that needs telling. Extraordinary the effect they have on other people. Get a kick out of fact there are a lot of people out there that are like him. Makes us feel a little more normal. Grace Kelly About coming out of education, and coming out from structured system and leaving all that behind, deal with money, girls (giggles) suddenly contemplating being growing up. Went through that in a harsh way as nothing happening in music. Foundation course then degree later. Managed to hide that he couldn't sight read. Relied on feeling in gut. Lost teaching jobs. Had amazing people with him at music college. Living a double life and trying to adapt and Grace Kelly came out of that. Could've been a bitter song.. No point as you can't go forward. Defence he developed in school. Singer-songwriter has certain connotation - guy with acoustic guitar, bleating about his girlfriend. You end up making indulgent record. Look at artists from late 6's, 70s and into the 80's was tied into song and came out big. Talks about Beck. Prince perfect example. You can still get indulgent and get lost in a big studio. Being rootless in upbringing, not tied to any particular scene/music, does that make you ambitious? Wouldn't describe as ambition. Just goes for what is available to do. Do you get worried when people start talking about campaigns? Have to know the devil you are dealing with - had to learn to play the game - has to pay off debt - try to make campaigns enjoyable. When did doors start opening? When he had dealt with how he wanted to sound, dress, bigness of record, that's when people started to want to take risk. Press play. Put the battery in and it would go. The last 2 weeks have been amazing and mostly due to this next one 'Grace Kelly'. <Plays Grace Kelly> Thank you. This is our last song and one of my favourites. It's called 'Lolllipop'. <Plays Lollipop> Tune in HERE QUICK !! CW

To buy Leeds tickets from Seetickets appears to be Face Value £12.50 With booking Fee £14.25 Plus £2.00 per order Appears cheaper to buy Leeds concert tickets from Leedstickets.com Mika The Refectory, 18 May 2007 at 7.30pm £13.75 (includes booking fee of £1.25 per ticket) Mika, in his own words, wants to make amazing pop records that couldn’t be performed by anyone else, in the way that is true of artists such as Prince, Elton John, and Harry Nilsson. Drawing on his experiences singing as child on projects as diverse as a Richard Strauss opera to a chewing gum jingle, and an eclectic taste in music which included flamenco, Joan Baez and Serge Gainsbourg, Mika’s songwriting is brimming with brightly-hued melody, engaging hooks and a distinct lyrical style that speaks exactly and distinctly of its moment, an outlet for his unique vision. Having stormed his way to the top of the charts with “Grace Kelly†and receiving rave reviews for his debut album, grab this opportunity to see a star in the ascendant. --- CW.

Well done and appreciate all your very hard work to bring this together and keep it going, especially after that little setback with officialdom. CONGRATULATIONS !!! CW.

Irish singles chart Grace Kelly No 1 Irish albums chart Life In Cartoon Motion No 3 DIGITAL SPY Saturday, February 10 2007, 09:20 GMT By Daniel Kilkelly Mika is at the top of the Irish singles chart for a second week with debut song Grace Kelly. The top four singles remained static this week, while Fall Out Boy's This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race and Survivor's Eye of the Tiger climbed up the chart. Jessica Simpson and 2Pac debuted in ninth and tenth position respectively Snow Patrol's Eyes Open has stayed at the top of the album chart, followed by Bloc Party's A Weekend In The City at number two and Mika's Life In Cartoon Motion at number three. The top ten singles in full: 1. (1) Mika: 'Grace Kelly' Review 2. (2) Just Jack: 'Starz In Their Eyes' 3. (3) Jojo: 'Too Little Too Late' 4. (4) Leona: 'A Moment Like This' 5. (8) Fall Out Boy: 'This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race' 6. (5) Akon ft. Eminem: 'Smack That' 7. (6) Cascada: 'Truly Madly Deeply' 8. (12) Survivor: 'Eye Of The Tiger' 9. (-) Jessica Simpson: 'A Public Affair' 10. (-) 2Pac ft. Ashanti & T.I.: 'Pac's Life' --- CW.

Lovely. Initially it was brilliant how the whole audience clapped along. My French isn't that great but I could understand enough his comparison of Marriage of Figaro and Grace Kelly - the fast bit - "I could be brown, I could be be blue, etc, and it was fascinating that he sang a snatch of both to show the similarity. Also loved the segment of Queen's Killer Queen. And that French song, Champs Elysee? CW.

I think there would have to be a male and a female involved... traditionally. ) But I am thinking about relatives/predecessors. CW.

If you ordered from Seetickets.com you should've got an immediate reply from donotreply@seezz3.com headed Ticket Order Confirmation Did you print off or save the screen that had the confirmation number? Help desk phone no 0871 220 0260 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. CW.

Genetic impossibility? CW.

Welcome. Friendly bunch here. CW.

Glad you were successful for Manchester. CW.

NAH... he's already the Lovechild of Bolan and Bulsara. Popbitch said so. ) CW.

Key word? Which word? CW.

Me too - and Manchester. Brilliant!! I came across more ticket for sale for Manchester earlier this evening Piccadily Box Office 0161 852 1111. CW.

I'm still getting through to the actual ordering page for B'ham. CW.

Hmm.... Well? CW.

Often pre-sale is a limited number of tickets, and not always the best. It will be interesting to see if and what tix available on Monday. For a Paul Rodgers concert recently, the presale was upper circle, whereas on the morning of the public release, I got centre front for myself and a group of pals. I'd made a few phone calls and established that the venue itself kept hold of the best seats. That has happened a couple of times for me. CW.

Thanks - I don't remember this one. Cheers CW.

A friend of mine had heart set on London. Ah well.... Glad I got my Birmingham tix. CW.

Any hope of any London tickets? CW.

THIS IS LANCASHIRE By This Is Lancashire reporter 09 Feb 2007 CHART TOPPER: Mika confounded the critics with single His debut single shot to number one in the charts - confounding talent spotter Simon Cowell, who thought Mika didn't have what it takes to be a star. The singer spoke to us, ahead of his gig in Manchester on February 27 about his rise to fame. Mika isn't a conventional musician. His incredulous life history to date, five-octave vocal range, unruly hair and neatly manicured nails ensure that he isn't your average pop star. When Simon Cowell says he's "strange" there's a part of you that has to agree. "He told me that my songs were strange - he said something to the effect that I might as well not bother," said Mika, smiling. "At the same time, he said I had a distinctive voice and that could help me out. I got upset to a point, but at the same time, I realised he was clearly not the person to work with me. This was before his Pop Idol fame. "I understood early on that this is someone who spends his life looking for singers to sing projects he has already created, and that would have been a disaster for me to work too closely with someone like that. But I saw him at a party recently and he congratulated me." Luckily, Mika (pronounced Mee-ka) wasn't put off by Simon's comments, but he said he would never go on The X-Factor. "Music speaks for itself. Egos just get in the way of it. If I went on the show, I'd be kicked out in the first round. I certainly wouldn't make it into the later stages," the 23-year-old said. "I'm the worst karaoke singer in the world - that's why I write songs that are practically impossible to be sung in karaoke." Born in Beirut, Mika and his family emigrated to Paris as self-imposed exiles because of the civil war. They settled in London when he was nine. "Moving here was hard. I went to a French school when I first came here and had a really hard time," he admitted. "Moving over to the English system was better because they were more sympathetic to my dyslexia. "I was bullied, and verbally abused." Rather than fighting the bullies, Mika coped by writing songs to deal with his feelings. "I dealt with it quite passively, much in the same way as when I went in for a meeting with a music company in London after they heard a demo of mine, and they sat down for an hour telling me how I had to write songs like everybody else in order to be accepted. "I got angry and wrote Grace Kelly when I got home. They never called me back but two years later, the song is doing so well. The song says 'here's the middle finger and the time has proven my point'. "I could have been brash and loud and rude and told them to f*** off, but I didn't. I put it in the song instead, and then it worked for me. It's the perfect example of this passive aggression that I seem to practise in my life." His debut single, Grace Kelly did amazingly well in the charts, even knocking Simon Cowell's latest protege, Leona Lewis, off the No 1 spot before it was officially released. "It's going by strength of word of mouth, and people making up their own minds after they've listened to the songs online," he said. "That's amazing, particularly since I haven't won a show, I haven't got in trouble or done anything particularly scandalous so I don't have tabloid inches on my heels." See Mika at Manchester Academy 2 on Tuesday, February 27. For tickets call 0161 275 2930. [sOLD OUT] ---- At time of writing, there are some Manchester tickets at Piccadilly Box Office 0161-832-1111. CW.