Bobbie Watson - Vocals, Samplers
Jon Seagroatt - Keyboards, Saxophones
Ryan Bradshaw - Bass
Lee Smith - Drums
Influences
Please do visit our ’best pals’ boxx - there’s lots and lots of good stuff there, much of it influential, at least as of recent date.
How shall we determine causality in the making of ’influences’?
From whence spring such things?
How should we calibrate the cyclical eruptions of the past into the present?
Always quite liked ’Little Drummer Boy’.
Found out recently that it’s a religious song.
Still like the tune though, and the bit where it goes ’rupa pum pum’.
Sounds Like
A wigged-out genre mash-up
or
"Space-jazz-drum&bass-funk-rock-fusion-upside-down-cake. If you invited them into your home they'd probably turn your kitchen into a debauched jazz rave up" Ronan, Nighshift Magazine, Oxford, May 2007.
Which brings us very neatly to........
and........
....or, have a look at this.....(don't forget to switch the playboxx off first!)...
Meanwhile, back at what passes for a ranch in these parts......
Well Spring is here at last, and the first cows have been spotted frolicking in the back garden. Thanks to everyone who sent their 'first cow of spring' photos in. Here is this week's winner:
LAST FM RECENTLY PLAYED 'WIDGET'. This is a bit of a weird thingy - not very elegant. I wonder where we found it?
Mind you, how elegant can something called a 'widget' be?
(Actually, it's from Peter @ www.vancooten.com/blog. Thanks, Peter!)
OK. Hands up all those who thought Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was pretty cool...Well. Welcome to...
1 Prologue: Escape From the Tiger's Maw
2 Flying Off to the Red Base Under Chang-Ching's Guidance
3 Ching-hua Tells of Her Grievance and Joins the Red Army
4 Strike From the Outside and From Within - A Night Assault on the Bandit's Lair
5 The Party Nurtures Heroes; The Soldiers and Civilians are of One Family
6 Holding Out in the Mountain Pass; Valiantly Killing the Enemy
7 Forward! Along the Path Crimson With the Blood of the Fallen
So. Not much scope for a twirl in a tutu there then.
Phew! That's as nice as a nice cup of tea and a nice bun. What a relief! If you have been profoundly moved by this picture, you may well need to pay a visit to www.unicornlady.net
On the other hand, if you want to nail your berets to the beat vibe mast and remain irredeemably cool beyond belief, you could do a lot worse than track down a copy of this collection of Village Voice cartoons by Jules Feiffer. First published in 1956. This cat is the bomb.
We should have put this up ages ago, but our mums kept telling us that we'd start getting emails from 52 year old truck drivers from Hull. So we didn't. And then we thought; hang on a minute! Our mums are all 52 year old truck drivers from Hull.......doh! So here it is! You can now email us at:thecolinsofparadise@googlemail.com. Which is nice.
For those of you who do not have a myspace account, but would still like to download CoPs tunes, we've set up an account with Badongo that allows you to do this for free. So far we've only put up one tune as a trial. If you click here on Dreamlike it will take you through to the download page. Myspace will try to slap your legs for leaving, but it's an OK link.
Let us know if it's a useful addition to the site. You can use our nice new googlemail address! If it's popular, we'll load the other playboxx tunes up too.
Hot off the press; The CoPs playing 'Save Me' @ Mr Wolf's, Bristol in July '08, filmed and produced by Ralph Colmar.
Float your pointers please across this new outbreak of auteurism from the man Ralph , the cineast who never sleeps, and click on that big arrow.........
Here's another bit of vid foot of the CoPs, playing 'The Pool' @ the Melloboat Festival, somewhere in the Baltic Sea. We're nearly as loud as the people having a nice chat in the background. Nearly.
More pix than you can shake a stick at.......
Genre-plundering groove surfers, the Colins of Paradise, are fronted by vocalista Bobbie Watson, who's iridescent, gravity defying voice we share with legendary psych-folk wierdlings
Comus.
Driven by Lee Smith’s bare-knuckled drumming, nailed-down by Ryan Bradshaw’s groove-launching basslines and polytonally detonated by Jon Seagroatt’s saxes and keys, the CoPs play a song-based set of original material featuring urban, R&B and nu-jazz grooves laced with periodic eruptions of metal.
The CoPs sound is sometimes cool and iced with black notes, and sometimes head-bangingly funky.
Too weird for the straights, too straight for the weirds: Reviews and previews
'The Colins of Paradise too look as if they may coat me in easy-listening, but their bi-polar space-pop cum nu-jazz both grooves and unsettles from the start. Ryan Bradshaw's and Lee Smith's awesome bass and drums kick the jams from Bobbie Watson's and Jon Seagroatt's sunshine vocals and ripping sax, and, while they can all lay it down like The Egg in session during '139', it's in the arena of complicated jazz chords and twisting time signatures that they're really pushing the envelope.'
Paul Carrera, Nighshift Magazine, Oxford, March 2007.
'4.40: The Colins of Paradise (main stage) jazz rock fusion with incredible driving energy coupled with great songs. A four piece musical extravaganza including an awesome rhythm section.'
Music at the Crossroads, 2007 festival preview.
'Most normal human beings see jazz as esoteric, indulgent and elitist. The Colins of Paradise are none of these things, although their brand of smooth jazz-pop is intimidatingly slick.
'139', which opens this EP, highlights the classy tenor playing of Jon Seagroatt and the summery vocal nuances of Bobbie Watson, the latter combining the coolness of Sade, the effervescence of Cyndi Lauper and an airiness seemingly all her own. The tune itself is functional funk, anchored by an icily solid rhythm section, and is full of scary modulations, apparently designed to overburden the humble rock donkey.
'Pearls' bears a significant resemblance to Lauper's 'Time after Time', before loping cheerfully into periods of jazz-disco. Come again? Yes, it's a double tenor-sax solo, but you can dance to it! Genius. Bobbie's singing is urgent and thrilling, and although the song itself is an unwieldy beast, it is essentially loveable.
The Colins have plenty of lively ideas, strong musicianship and an excellent lead singer. I'm not sure many folk on the Oxford scene will get what they are doing - sometimes they seem to playing Channel 5 shag-music and sometimes elevator muzak. But in between the cheesy bits, there are some cool tunes. Perhaps Jazz isn't a four-letter word after all'.
Colin MacKinnon, www.oxfordbands.com on-line review, October 2007.
"At last a follow up to Janette Mason's sparkling debut as leader. Alien Left Hand ....was well worth the wait…” Production **** Performance**** -- BBC Music Magazine
“…an album fizzing with fresh ideas and delights, an exhilarating musical journey .. with brilliantly original writing and inspired playing…” -- Helen Mayhew
"Every track from the rhythmic ‘NY Cab Ride’ and restless ‘4 Wheel Drive’ to the brooding ‘Mae’s Song’ has a terrific hook but it’s the way Mason switches tempo and moods that makes ALH great fun. " -- Diva Magazine
Velcome to Lottie's furry forest zeColins of paradise , pretty new friend. Don't forget to go on ze page tomorrow,thorsday, for ze new sketch!! xxLottie
whilst on youtube recently I followed a sudden carefree whim, and did a search for that wonderful tune "another day in paradise" by the inimitable Phil Collins. Imagine my astonishment, if you will, when youtube returned "The colins of paradise" as the first six results of this search, with the great legend himself only coming in seventh.
May I say how much I object to this type of flagrant coat-tailing in the strongest possible terms. I wouldn't wish to express an opinion as to your potential or lack thereof; but greatness is achieved through sheer hardwork and application of dare-I-say immense talent, as the uniquely gifted Mr Collins has so adequately demonstrated. You would do well to follow his example. Who knows, in years to come we may see you mixing with the likes of Brian May and other such luminaries, instead of bouncing around youtube like the worst kind of parvenu.
haha that must have been a fun gig. Just had my first composition deadline of the year- It was an atonal solo recitative for violin so pretty glad that is over with now to be honest! I am doing electroacoustic music this year as well as sound design which is really good fun. Its just like mus tec except in a classical sense and using we use protools.
Does this mean you'll come to my birthday partie? I'll introduce to all my IMAGINARY friends. They'll be sooo pleased. You are real aren't you? I said you are real? Hello? Oh god - I've done it again.
your recent blogposts tell me you're getting gigs in strange intriguing places were you might find the listeners you're looking for... hope that they all are as impressed as I was. Are there by any chance pics of the Brasenose public house? sounds a so familiar to the obscure BE venues with a heart...
anyways, good luck with the industrial boot selling bizz...
Thanx for Request/Adding the U.k's Newest Music Network Site for Unsigned Bands/Artists based in Oxford ..www. myonitlive. com Please check out our official Site
Hey I would love to give you guys a gig, Try and pop down to one of the launch nights if you can! We have some cracking line-ups!!! 15th or 22nd Sept be good for you, let us know asap please. See you soon guys.
To: The Colins of Paradise Thanks for becoming a friend here. I particularly love "Save Me" - the mix of musicianship, vocals and beats is fresh and surprisingly wonderful - really pushing the envelope. I look forward to hearing much more.
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