meimei88

And so the media frenzy begins.. again... same article... different website - contactmusic.com

one of my photos is in there!!! The one with Mika in green pants sitting at the piano!!

If you listen to his music... By: Chris Taylor on 3/19/2007 Entertainmentwise Pop singer Mika claims there’s no big “enigma†over his sexuality – especially if you listen to his album. The ‘Grace Kelly’ star refuses to talk about whether he is gay or straight (just like Morrissey), but says the answer simply lies in his music (er, just like Morrissey). He tells the Daily Mirror, †People say, 'You don't talk about sexuality because you're worried about success in the US.' I say, 'Have you heard the f***ing album?' There's a song about a married man who has a homosexual affair! There's no enigma." ********************************************* Similar to the last article I posted...

Movie & Entertainment News provided by World Entertainment News Network (www.wenn.com) 2007-03-19 08:59:08 - Pop sensation MIKA is baffled by critics' claims he is hiding his sexuality insisting his preference is obvious to anyone who listens to his songs. The androgynous GRACE KELLY hitmaker has never spoken of his sexuality in interviews, but his lyrics are laden with clues. He says, "People say, 'You don't talk about sexuality because you're worried about success in the US.' "I say, 'Have you heard the f**king album?' There's a song about a married man who has a homosexual affair. There's no enigma." (IG/WNTMI/MT) WENN - THIRD - HOLLYWOOD, SHOWBIZ & PEOPLE NEWS - 19 MARCH 2007 ********************************************* Reliable source? Not that it matters to me.. I still love him!

don't get me wrong! The photos are fabulous!!!.. just pop them in the gallery too I admit that it may take a little longer as the mods need to approve them etc but once done they are there for everyone to see and comment on!! Admin.. Mods.. is there an easier way? Like also uploading links to photos on the web as well as uploading actual files?

Hmm.. I agree with Beckar! Thread gets very clogged up when people reply with the photos quoted. In the gallery you can add comments too! Its great to post new pics with articles too but lots of photos like these should to popped into the gallery too!

Interview from the site Man on the move Monday, October 30, 2006 Mika is a true young internationalist. Born in Beirut in the middle of the '80s, Mika's family soon found themselves having to move to Paris following conflict in Lebanon. When his father was subsequently taken hostage and held at the American embassy in Kuwait, the family eventually settled in London. An inevitably turbulent experience for our young hero, he found himself bereft, lost in the chasm of a displaced upbringing. "It was the combination of moving as well as a horrible time I had at school in the first few years of living in London that lead me to forget how to read and write and stop talking for a little while," he explains. "I was pulled out of school for over six months in order to sort myself out and find a new school. This is when music really became important. It got me back on my feet." He says now that by the age of nine he knew that songwriting was his destiny. The electric performances that would win over some of the most hardened musical ears on the planet would come later. "After I started singing as a boy I started to get jobs everywhere," he says. "With the help of a terrifyingly tough Russian singing teacher, I got to be really good at professional gigs. I did everything from recordings at the Royal Opera House to the Orbit Chewing gum jingle. I'll never forget calling up British Airways to get a ticket, only to be placed in a line, listening to my own voice. That was a painful eight minutes. "I think the other reason for getting so much work was that I was insanely cheap! My mother and I had no idea what I was supposed to get paid and no-one was in a hurry to educate us. I think 45 quid for the Orbit chewing gum jingle could have been a little too cheap." A self-taught piano virtuoso, gymnastic vocalist and born entertainer, Mika has music in his bones and was ready to show the word from a young age. He was catapulted onto the stage of a Richard Strauss opera at 11. Also in the audience was artist David Hockney who was pottering around backstage designing the set. Mika still has the poster for the opera on his living room wall, signed by Hockney. After near-complete social exclusion at school ("I wish I could say I was a self-imposed loner but it was imposed on me") this was a life he fell in love with, instantly: "It was a magical world that you could live in. A parallel universe for people that is illusory and enchanting and amazing." At 19 he left home to study for an academic degree at the London School of Economics. He quit on the first day and enrolled at the Royal College of Music two weeks later. An obsessive songwriter as a student, he would gatecrash parties and take to pianos to deliver five-song sets, unannounced. Mika's is a voice that needs to be heard. Belting out refrains with his four-octave range, the boy found himself in Miami, demoing with anyone he could hook up with, in any studio time he could get for free. He ended up befriending the Bee Gees engineer who was promptly sacked for moonlighting on company time. This is the Mika magic touch. Unafraid to stand alone — because this is what he is used to — his intimate storytelling will connect with outsiders while subverting the mainstream from within. Whether singing of the delights of the larger-framed woman on the funk-rock 'Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)', condensing modern sexual peccadilloes on the burlesque 'Billy Brown', or celebrating the joys of being alive on 'Love Today', his is a place that pop music is not used to travelling to. "I wrote 'Love Today' when I was happy, really happy. When you're on a buzz, you get cocky and you assume that everyone in the world at that time feels the way you do. I often feel like that. So I put it in a song." Will add pictures to the gallery! - looks like pics from the various recent gigs...mmm lovely!

Wasnt supposed to stay up this late.. but turned on the tv anyway to watch it again have recorded it to go in my Mika collection!! It didn't blow me away this morning.. but its growing on me...there are lots of big close ups and it's slightly hypnotic.. not that he would need to put us in a trance! He doesnt have to say 'Love Love Me!!' to me!!

Fabulous!!! I sooo can't wait to see him live again!! I'm in the middle of recording the Mika highlights form Radio 2.. will post once its done!

Cool - I have to admit that Mika at KOKO was my first proper gig (I am so ashamed!) My amazing night totally made up for it!! Not many gigs scheduled at the moment Ross Copperman on Tuesday! (20th March) Mika on 14th May!!

March 18, 2007 12:00am Article from: Sunday Herald Sun Hot UK artist Mika's debut album Life in Cartoon Motion is filled with quirky, but addictive ditties. We've got 10 copies of his album to give away. It includes his UK No.1 hit Grace Kelly as well as his boppy ode to love, Lollipop. For a chance to win, click here. Don’t forget to include your name, address and a daytime phone number. Please note that this contest is only open to residents of Australia and closes at midnight on Thursday, February 22, 2007. Good luck! ********************************************************** I'm guessing they got the closing date wrong!! The article was definatley only published today!!... Enter anyway!

They were also in the Grace Kelly video!!

ok.. too many threads talking about the same thing!! The video was not what I was expecting..as Grace Kelly knocked my socks off... but its growing on me.. I love the second half in particular.. from 'Carolina' Its ace!

ooooo.... his french is so yummy Would love a translation!!

By Jim Welte - MP3.com March 16, 2007 at 10:01:00 AM British singer plays a set of over-the-top melodic pop that is equal parts Freddie Mercury and George Michael. AUSTIN, Texas--Do you like to skip gleefully through fields of daisies? Are you looking for just the right soundtrack for that? Mika is your man. Equal parts Freddie Mercury and George Michael, the British newcomer is a one-man melodic army. He performed a fun-filled set at Eternal last night, singing one unbridled, angst-free pop song after another. From the moment he took the stage, the singer stood out among the brooding rockers that permeate much of SXSW. Wearing bright red pants, a white shirt with suspenders, and a striped jacket, Mika had the theatrics of his idols down pat. He kicked off the set with "Relax, Take It Easy," which established a perfect tone for every song that followed it. This is about as carefree as music gets. Highlights included Mika's debut single, "Grace Kelly," which has Mercury's fingerprints all over it and even mentions the late Queen singer by name, despite the fact that the song is an apparent attempt to satirize musicians who try to reinvent themselves to be popular. The song hit the top of the pop charts in the UK in January and has been streamed more than 1.6 million times on Mika's MySpace page. Mike topped off the night with "Lollipop," a song that seemed destined for either a children's movie or a porno flick, depending on whether you focus on the giddy music or the refrain: "Sucking too hard on your lollipop / Oh, loves gonna get you down!" ********************************************************* Sounds wicked!! Go Mika!!

Cool! Thought I'd bump this thread as I have been hunting Mika articles today. I found this article.. and its already here! Hooray! The Search facility DOES work I would have loved to see Leon Jean-Marie.. love his stuff!!

Another old gig review again I can't find it already posted ***************************************************** Mika magic BBC Leeds Mika onstage in Leeds By site user Jackie Hitchen went to see Mika at the Cockpit on Wednesday 28 February 2007. It was a full house at the Cockpit to welcome the man tipped (by some) for greatness in 2007. Michael Penniman aka Mika is a relative newcomer and yet when he arrives on stage to rapturous applause you could be mistaken for thinking this guy has been a star for years. Flamboyantly dressed and strikingly handsome, he is a man to whom being a pop star comes naturally. He and his band launch straight into Relax, Take it Easy and the crowd go wild. Most of the tracks during this 50-minute set are from Mika's album Life in Cartoon Motion which allow him to demonstrate his amazing vocal range and versatility as a song writer. Tracks such as Love TodaY and the recent number one single Grace Kelly are uplifting pop tunes which have the whole crowd dancing. Ring Ring, the seventh track on the set has a rock feel. Over my Shoulder is a ballad. He jumps effortlessly from one style of song to another. After an impressive acoustic version of Nilsson's Everybody's Talking he launches into Stuck in the Middle without pausing for breath. He's witty too. His anecdotes to the audience and cheery banter with his backing band (bassist Michael Choi in particular) have the crowd in raptures. Mika must be tiring of the constant comparisons to The Scissor Sisters but with his vocal style and theatrical performance it is easy to see how this comparison came about. Some songs such as the nursery rhyme-like Lollipop which was the encore song are cheesy beyond belief. But look past the cheesy songs and you see a serious musician with a broad range of influences from rock to pop to classical. The Leeds crowd went away happy. He must like Leeds too - he's back in May!

I found this review of the Manchster gig, couldn't find it already posted.. so here it is.. looks like someone got out of bed onthe wrong side!! ******************************************************* By Hannah Wysome (gig: 27/02/07) BBC Manchester Bumped up from the modest Academy 3 to the giant Academy on the strength of one song, Mika did his best to give the people what his record company are telling them they want. Mika When a song sits at the top of the charts for six weeks and is hammered to death on national prime-time radio, you can’t begrudge people for wanting to go along and check out the artist live. However, lesson one for the rising star: you can’t then keep folk waiting until nearly quarter to 10 to make up for a shortfall in material. Mika’s a talented bloke but he’s just starting out. As such, what he presented was 45 minutes of pastiche 80s disco, Scissor Sisters’ demo tunes, leftovers from his GCSE composition unit, an obligatory ‘slowy’ (sort of Aqualung meets Elton John), before topping it off with the money-song, Grace Kelly, and an encore of Lollipop, complete with glitter and balloons. Someone somewhere has turned a bloke with real promise into a cynically packaged show-pony. There’s no consistency; he doesn’t have his own sound and that can’t be countered with chants of ‘but can’t you appreciate his crazy eclecticism!’ If you like Grace Kelly, there’s really no guarantee you’ll like anything else; he’s got one song that started off so similar to Sesame Street, you were surprised when The Count didn’t turn up to join in on percussion; his cover of Nilsson’s Everybody’s Talking would have had Mister Cowell snarling that he’d made no attempt to make it his own. Mika’s clearly having a ball on this tour; he looked genuinely astounded by the size of the crowd. At the moment, he’d make a fantastic support act to a bigger band; he’s got presence and, at times, he really can hold the attention, but when it comes down to a summer of headline gigs before slipping back into obscurity versus a profile-building Take That support slot, it might be an idea to rethink his decision.

The BBC2 SXSW coverage schedule is here I am guessing the Highlights of SXSW at 19:30 - 21:00 will be similar to what Dermot plays at 16:30 - 18:30

Ooooo hot blonde (girl or boy? ) Vampires!! we have much in common dear hubby!

Mika made a name for himself the newfangled way: On MySpace, and without a promoter. Web-Exclusive Commentary By Jac Chebatoris Newsweek Updated: 8:22 a.m. ET March 16, 2007 It’s shaping up to be that the casualties of MySpace.com might well be music publicists. How else to explain that Mika, a Lebanon-born, London- and Paris-bred singer-songwriter debuted at No. 1 on the U.K. charts before his CD was even released? MySpace is as old news as freeze-dried astronaut food now, but Mika, who is being touted as music’s next big thing, is in its debt—and not the hard-working publicist’s—for getting him on top of the charts in the U.K. and Canada already, and likely the U.S., when his buzzed-about “Life in Cartoon Motion” comes out here March 27. Only Gnarls Barkley before him, with last year’s “Crazy,” reached a No. 1 position on downloads alone—again, before the album was ever released. He’s all of 23 and doesn’t check his influences at the door. Comparisons to Rufus Wainwright and glam-pop band the Scissor Sisters already abound. But what is most striking about the curly mop-topped Mika is that not only does he completely resemble Queen’s legendary lead singer, Freddie Mercury, vocally, but that he does not hide that fact at all. Instead, he points it out directly in the lyrics of his bob-and-bounce infectious romp, “Grace Kelly,” the single that has shimmied and shook its way onto the top of the charts, rounds of blogs and critic’s “best new hope” lists. Suffice it to say, I’m not really the target demographic, but I could not help to dance wildly around when I put it on. Which is the point, of course. Also, Freddie Mercury died in 1991, so chances are that a great deal of Mika’s audience has no idea that he’s being cheeky—beating detractors to the punch, no doubt—when he sings: I try to be like Grace Kelly/But her looks were too sad/so I try a little Freddie/I’ve gone identity mad! Or again, when he directly tips his hat with an “mmmmmmmm” straight from the Mercury stylebook. But it stills sounds fresh and flamboyant and really, better he take a cue from one of the greatest groups of all time than try to be like the myriad other mini-Mayers and -Matthewses (John and Dave respectively), whose influences might only go as far back as U2. Mika’s classical training keeps good company with the rococo styling of his songs—and gives weight to what might otherwise have become empty pop puff pastry. And he adds substance to style with an anthem to big girls and their “curves in the right places.” “Big Girl” is seductive in its simplicity: he repeats the chorus, “big girl you are beautiful,” like the most enthusiastic cheerleader ever, over and over again, so that you hope she believes it, too. “Love Today,” another snap-and-sparkle track has already been plucked for an ad for Bono’s Red Campaign. From zero to Bono in record time is rather impressive. The heartfelt ballads, such as the aptly named “Stuck in the Middle,” fall a little flat after all that disco ball-inspired piano pounding. But maybe the rest of the album doesn’t even matter. He topped the charts on the strength of one song, so the other 12 tracks? Maybe they’re just a formality now in the world of digital downloads. The great big hope of 2007 should stick to being the ringleader of the party anyway—a role he plays with relish and one that should keep him from asking, “Why don’t you like me/why don’t you like me,” as he does in the chorus of “Grace Kelly.” He’ll have time for that when the next big phenom of MySpace comes along.

We're one big happy family!! Imagine the family holidays!!!

I claim Jemmalee as my first wife!!! Hey there wifey!

ooops.. I already posted this story in News and Press.. some good comments over there too

You're most welcome.. I've not had much time to search the Internet for hidden treasures lately! Life just keeps getting in the way.. oh and claiming husbands Great to see Mika hitting the headlines on the other side of the world!! I have told everyone I know over there about Mika!