Sprk

I hope they'll tell us ALL about Mika's appearance on the show

He's not a vegetarian. I've personally seen him eat meat. He does have a low salt diet, though (he doesn't add salt to anything and he requests his food to be cooked without added salt).

Mika will be on The Ellen DeGeneres show on October 22nd (as in: the show airs on the 22nd, I'm not sure if it's taped on the same day).

It's going to be in a couple of weeks, in the 2nd half of October.

In my original review it said that I See You was 'een klein beetje Justin Timberlake-achtig' which rougly translates into 'sounds a little bit Justin Timberlake-ish', I guess. But the originel text must have been edited and then translated into English. Anyway: the beat and the way he does the falsetto vocals on this song kind of reminded me of JT a little bit. It's obviously not exactly the same or a rip-off or anything... There are just some similarities. I'm glad you guys liked my interview by the way Mika was very nice, but of course I've talked to hem a lot before. Which is why I knew Calvin Harris is in his mobile phone (I once sat next to him as he was texting Calvin). The questions about his sexual preference weren't the very last questions that I asked by the way. I asked them about halfway through the interview, and then at the end I asked him about Lady Gaga and who he'd like to work with. I knew we only had like 15 minutes so I wanted to get the 'important' questions first

Ouch. The translation of that cd review is pretty bad. I wish I would have been able to check that before it went to print

Ok guys, this is the cheapest and fastest thing I could come up with. Once again, the interview (as well as other parts of the magazine) are in Dutch AND English, so you'll be able to read it Dutch residents: Please use this link to order the magazine or grab a free copy at the nearest gay bar: http://magshopbc6dc48b743dc5d013b1abaebd2faed2.sellvia.nl/meerinfo.aspx?editie=23356 EU residents: You can order a copy of the magazine for € 6,68 (price includes priority shipping + free poster*). Non-EU residents: You can order a copy of the magazine for € 9,30 (price includes priority shipping + free poster*). If you're interested, send me a PM and I'll send you the payment details; you can pay via bank transfer, I'll give you the IBAN and Bic/swift codes for the publisher of the magazine. Magazines will be sent out after I've received payment. Sorry we don't have an option to pay with Paypal or creditcard. * while supplies last

Yeah, the magazines are available The magazine is bil-lingual. You can read the full interview (and a lot of the other articles) in Dutch AND English That sucks that they only ship to The Netherlands. Let me try and figure out a solution for that...

Yeah, they still have it listed as 'sold out' because they still haven't received their stock. Stupid stupid site. Hopefully it'll be available later today. I'll keep checking

That's 10! Congrats, AnnaMariaPetra, Droopsy, BangBangLou, IngievV, lindemfc, robertina, FREDDIESDOUBLE, beckster22, mellody and DANI56!

Hah noooooo All of our envelopes are white. We also have a couple of subscribers (mostly people who don't live in a city where they can pick up the magazine for free) and some of the specifically asked them if we could send the magazine in a plain white envelope because their parents/roommates don't know they're gay.

Tell you what: The first 10 people to PM me their postal addresses will get a poster of the new Gay&Night cover in the mail. It's approx. 42cm×59,4cm and will be sent to you in a folded white envelope. Very few copies of these posters have been printed (only 250) and they will only be sent to a select number of addresses that distribute our magazine. Sorry, I can't send any free magazines. They're heavy and stuff.

It can be ordered from here (it will be on sale later today). Not sure if international orders work as well. Yep, that was me. The interview people are talking about is my 2nd Mika interview. The English quotes that are used here are pretty much word for word what he said. I have an audio recording of it, and I was very careful to use his exact wording in the article, to make sure there wouldn't be any misquoting. Exactly. That's why it's so good that he said what he said. Nah, it's not sold out at all, tha stupid website just refuses to sell the magazine until they've received their stock. Which they should be receiving today. It's a missed opportunity, really. It's available for free in all the gay bars and clubs in Holland (as well as Antwerp, Belgium). People who can't pick one up there can order it online as well, but that's not free. I'm not sure if I would call that bragging It was just really great to see an interview that I did, was getting so much publicity Anyway, here is the full excerpt of the interview. I’m sure you’re tired of being asked about this, but I really do have to ask: now that you’re an established artist, you’ve sold out huge concerts and your records have sold incredibly well, does that make you more comfortable to address all those rumors about your presumed homosexuality? ‘My presumed homosexuality, I love how you say that… [laughs]’ Well, I’m trying to be careful here! I wouldn’t want to piss you off. ‘Nothing like this would ever piss me off, and why would it? It’s not a bad thing in any way whatsoever. And as far as discussing sexuality and gender: listen to my songs. It’s everywhere. Sexuality has kind of themed this record, if you have to think about it that way. That’s part of growing up. I mean, I’ve never ever labeled myself. But having said that; I’ve never limited my life, I’ve never limited who I sleep with. So, whatever. Even if I was going out with a man right now, I still wouldn’t tell you. And I wouldn’t tell anyone. I mean, I would tell you though, as my friend, but not as a journalist, you know what I mean? So, I don’t know. Call me whatever you want. Call me bisexual, if you need a term for me.’ The thing is, wouldn’t you agree that, as a young person in the industry, with lots of young fans who look up to you, and lots of people who respect you for what you do, someone like you might be the perfect role model for a teenage kid who is in the closet? ‘Well, look at the 14-year-old kids that are making their own videos to my song, the 12- and 13-year-old guys dancing around in their room… There are ways of being a role model without having to always establish yourself with a label. Let’s say if you’re a 16-year-old guy, and you’re not sure about your sexuality, you should be as free as you want. You shouldn’t have to say ‘I’m gonna label myself in order to figure out what is going to make me happy in life’. Having a role model who makes you feel like it’s allright to do whatever you want, without the pressure of a label, I think that’s a good thing as well. I think there’s a million different ways to do it, there isn’t only one. And I hope I’m right. That’s the key to it. You don’t have to pigeonhole yourself all the time. You shouldn’t stick yourself into any kind of constraints or limitations at all. And seriously, if ‘bi’ is the label that helps you do it, then do that, as I said already. Apply that to me, if that’s what you want. That’s as close as I’ll get to any label.’

You can find the full interview in PDF format here. Please ignore the mistakes in the intro... I know my editor did when she proof-read the article

Of course he said it. Otherwise we wouldn't put it on the cover as a quote. Here's the context: Why did you change your name from Mica to Mika? Because everyone was calling me ‘Maika’, or ‘Mischa’. So I was saying ‘noooo, my name’s ####ing Mika!’.

It's ok, we're not in America. You can say '####' here. Christ.

Well, we finally sent the magazine off to the printer. Here's the cover. I might post a PDF of the full article online later. We're a bi-lingual magazine (Dutch/English) so you'll be able to read it Martijn.

No, the opening spoken part is an actress. The other parts (getting angry doesn't solve anything/humphrey we're leaving) is Mika. 100% sure, straight from the horses mouth (he told me in an interview). Lollipop and Big Girl are both not on the promo and the unreleased tracks aren't like them. More Robbie Williams-ish.

Well I hate to gloat some more... But I have to So I only listened to the 3 'new' songs on that promo, because I already had the full album... But then I got the UK version of the album, and the album version of 'Ring Ring' is different from the one on my promo. So I decided to listen to all the tracks on my promo... And they're ALL different. They're all like demo's. Less produced. The spoken intro on Grace Kelly is from an original film, not re-done by an actress, virtually all the electronic bleeps are gone, some vocals are different, etc etc etc... VERY interesting to hear. Since I got this from the record company instead of just finding it online somewhere, I hope you guys understand I can't share mp3s of this with you. But it's good to know it's out there, perhaps you'll find it on a record fair or eBay or something... Sprk.

From the record company - I work for a magazine and I interviewed Mika last week. So they sent me some pics and music.

There's a Mika CDR promo that I just got, which isn't an album promo, but it still has 11 tracks on it. Here's the tracklisting: 1. Love Today 2. Grace Kelly 3. Your Sympathy 4. Happy Ending 5. Billy Brown 6. Ring Ring 7. My Interpretation 8. Stuck In The Middle 9. Any Other World 10. Relax 11. Gave It All Away That's right... 3 (!!) tracks that aren't going to be on the album. Well, 2, if you don't count 'Ring Ring' which is a UK bonus track. Cool stuff, hopefully the songs will end up as a b-side to a single some day. The track 'Satellite', which will be on the UK 7" release of 'Grace Kelly' isn't on it BTW.

Not very tight on security... I was able to download both wmv files Yay!

He was at 3...

- he had just done a french TV show with Jane Birkin earlier that day (Serge Gainsbourg's ex-wife) - he hired drummer Matt Chamberlain because he loved his work with Tori Amos. He's a big fan of Tori, not too fond of The Beekeeper though. He said he LOVED the drums on 'Crucify', but Matt didn't drum for Tori until like 6 years after Crucify was recorded, and Mika replied ,,s**t, I hired the wrong guy." Here's a short audio clip (it was a 30 minute interview including a full minute of me looking through the CD booklet going 'wow').