Today was a good day. A nice guy, singing small songs with a humble attitude. Maybe not the next Bob Dylan, or even Jacob Dylan, but very in tune with his own message. All in all a credible performer. Not incredible, not a great performer but someone that you can believe in and that you want to believe in. I recorded with an A-B setup of old Calrec CC50's quite close to each other on the nylon stringed classical guitar and the Studio Projects C1 on the vocals. Very straight forward and nice results. OK songs, nice lyrics and an atmosphere with potential. Good luck to you man. But... you still need to work on the performance, and on bringing out the best in your songs.
Speaking of surprising talent. I don't know exactly how, but I happened to stumble upon some clips of Britains Got Talent, the TV show. I have to admit that the winner really charmed me. Just check this guy out
Now here is a guy with a hidden talent. You can really feel yourself rooting for him. Or atleast I can. This guy really deserved to win. I could really feel his presence when I first saw that clip. He completely took me by surprise.
I have to show you this next clip as well. The song isn't as good as the other one but he pulls it off, especially at the very end when he raises his arms slightly. Great humble showmanship. Like Elvis. The King.
But the best part of this clip is him talking about himself in the introduction. It is quite moving when he talks about not being confident and that he had been bullied in school because he was "a little different" and that he always felt insignificant.
Come on! What kind of person wouldn't be on his side. Especially when he looks at you with those sad, insecure eyes.
Take a look.
I have to admit I don't know the first thing about opera but I don't think that really matters. Might be that he isn't the next Pavarotti but he is somehow incredibly convincing. Here is the final one.
The judges are eating from the palm of his hand, and that Amanda Holden is soo sexy. Actually they have really good points when they are evaluating his performance. And again, his own comments are just killer.
" I should have more faith in myself and I'm working on that" I love it!
Yes, a great ugly duckling story. He seems like just the kind of guy that would have been bullied in school. So insecure and harmless. He is such an ordinary guy that he kind of sticks out. It is a shame the he has been walked on, but I guess he is just that unlucky type of person. I am really glad the TV show found him. Now he can stick it to the man. Good luck with that Paul Potts! I can also imagine that his name might have stirred some comments as well. What was his parents, mr. and mrs. Potts thinking when the chose the name Paul? It can't be easy, (almost) sharing a name with the dreaded Cambodian dictator.
No wait a minute. Pol Pot wasn't born Pol Pot. His real name was Saloth Sar. Pol Pot was just his badass name that he took when he became dictator of Cambodia. I might be going slightly off track here but the Cambodian genocide isn't something you just mention hastly and then forget about it. Besides, I am still on the subject of the average man with a talent. Too bad that Pol Pot used his talent to take over and destroy a nation instead of building radios. It is still an interesting subject.
With the aid of this site, United Human Rights,
I can inform you that Saloth Sar called himself the "brother number one" and declared himself Pol Pot, from the french words Politique potentielle in 1975 when he and his rebell troops, the Khmer Rouge took over the capital city of Phnom Penh. He studied radio electronics in Paris in the early 50's but skipped school when he got into Marxism. The he returned to Cambodia and became leader of the Cambodian Communist Party. Uups, I might be getting very far off track here, but I find this very interesting and it's my blog, so sit down and shut up.
Anyway, he formed the militant Khmer Rouge movement during the 60's and started a guerilla war against the Cambodian government and after a series of events gained control of the country. The Khmer Rouge took over the capital city of Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975 and already on the next day Pol Pot took communism to a whole new level. He shut down the whole country, emptied all cities and turned the whole country into a concentration camp. He banned money, personal property, religion, different languages, cultural activities and changed the calendar to year zero. Bizarre? Yes, very!
He also shut down hospitals, schools, and universities. The Khmers interrogated and tortured most of the population and killed whoever they wanted. Everyone with some kind of professional education were killed and so was their families. And those who survived where moved out to the countryside to work as slaves for the nation for just a few bowls of rice per week.
Interestingly, a major factor in handing over the power to Pol Pot was that the US backed a right-wing military coup of Cambodia and after that dropped 500 000 tons of bombs and napalm over Cambodia in order to fight North-Vietnamese soldiers hiding by the Cambodian borders. That is three times more bombs than fired against Japan during WW II. And the result was the trained soldiers from North Vietnam and the poor Cambodians who where bombarded all the time decided to join the Khmer Rouge making it expand explosively in a short time. Then it was easy for them to take over the country.
The US practically handed the power over to Pol Pot going as far as even keeping a UN seat for the Khmers for a looong period of time. Go U.S.A! Democracy for all! Good job.
"Well that cast rather a gloom over the evening"
I admit it does feel a bit strange taking about Paul Potts, the regular guy who sang opera on TV, and Pol Pot, the Cambodian dictator in the same sentence. But, looks like this is one of the fun parts of blogging. Crazy crossover subjects.
Anyway. Thanks for sharing my new found enthusiasm with last years Britains Got Talent. I am going to leave you with this hilarious clip to lighten up the mood. Cheerio Jeeves!
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