stephanie... Posted March 19, 2007 Share Posted March 19, 2007 http://music.ninemsn.com.au/section.aspx?sectionid=2465§ionname=artistfeature&subsectionid=9107&subsectionname=mika Hey I'm from Australia and here is a web page that has an article, interview, songs and some pictures of Mika. I hadn't seen a few of the pictures before so they are worth having a look at. I hope the link works I'm so bad at posting things like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meimei88 Posted March 19, 2007 Share Posted March 19, 2007 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! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steph Posted March 19, 2007 Share Posted March 19, 2007 this is brilliant, so positively written, I love it, could have been my words, what a briiiant start for the aussie market! Super pics, some new ones, I love the one where he loves so moody, ... thanks a lot for posting this!!! I just had to repeat these lines again... '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."' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kriszti Posted March 19, 2007 Share Posted March 19, 2007 Thanks for posting! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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