Jimmy Eat World

This group was formed in 1993 in Arizona, USA. The unusual name apparently comes from a drawing done by one of the group's little brothers who drew a picture of himself with the world in his mouth and the words "Jimmy eat world".

The band has punk rock origins but they started to become commercially successful in 2001 with their album "Bleed American". This album includes their most famous song, "The Middle", which reached N° 1 in the top twenty.

The album's name was changed after the September 11th attacks to simply "Jimmy Eat World" as they were concerned that the title could be changed to read "Bleed, American" and thereby cause offense. However, in 2008 they re-released the album with some new tracks and changed the title back to its original name.

Their latest album, "Invented", was released in September 2010.

The Middle has been used to help people who feel marginalized or different in some way. It encourages them to do their best, to be themselves and not to worry about what anyone else thinks. The song tells us that finally, everything will be alright!

by Richard, written at level A2

During the holidays I went to Paris with my son, Luke, to see Joe Satriani play in a tiny Theatre called ‘La Cigale’, which is near Monmartre.

Joe is an American guitarist who is recognized by other well known guitarists as one of the best in the world, so it was a great pleasure to see him play live.

He started playing the guitar when his hero Jimi Hendrix died. He has continued the Hendrix way of playing but in his own style and he has now clearly surpassed his former hero in ability with his many excellent instrumentals.

He performed for over two hours, playing all the tunes from his new album, which has the strange title ‘Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards’, plus some old favourites of mine including ‘Revelation’ and ‘Summer Song’, which he played as an encore.

It was a great atmosphere because a small venue is much more intimate than going to see a concert in a big stadium, and the theatre has great sound quality.

This is what it was like to be there:

And here’s Joe playing the blues:

Looking forward to the next concert Joe!

Rick's Music Info 2 (niveau A2)
for Lycée & Collège 4ème / 3ème

I’m a long time fan of Rammstein
and the new CD “Liebe ist fur alle da” has some good things on it.

The first track, “Rammlied”, is excellent and for a total Euro feel listen to “Fruhling in Paris”.
“Ich tu dir weh” is also fun.

I speak only a few words of German, so if anyone is doing German LV2, please tell me what the songs mean, in English of course!

In my opinion this album is not as good as “Reise Reise”, so I give the CD 3 stars ***

1* = bad, don’t waste your money; 2** = O.K; 3***= average; 4**** = very good; 5***** = you MUST buy it!

I saw Rammstein live in 2005 in the Arena at Nîmes and would like to see them again, so I was very pleased to see they are playing in Nantes on the 16th November.

Unfortunately all the tickets are sold out. Oh well, maybe next time.

PS If you are lucky enough to go to the gig in Nantes, please tell us all about it. By the way, be careful if you are very close to the band - it gets very hot - they use a lot of fire!

Vocabulary: sold out = no more tickets available
a gig = a rock music concert (of any size)
I saw them live in Nîmes = I went to see them play their music
Live from Nîmes = The group is playing now , not pre-recorded (& you are watching on TV)

Rick's Music Info. 1 (level B1)

Spotify .com is a website like Deezer only it’s 100 times better.

It streams music like a radio station, so you can hear what you want, when you want. It has over 6 million songs at the moment and adds thousands of new tracks every month. You can find French music as well as English and American music.

It was started 2 years ago by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon in Sweden and until a few months ago you needed a friend in the music business to invite you to join, but Spotify has recently signed a contract with iphone and it is now available in France and some other countries.

For the free service, which is paid for by advertising, all you have to do is register and wait for Spotify to invite you to join them.

Alternatively, you can pay a subscription every month and listen without adverts. If you are lucky enough to have an iphone you can listen anywhere, anytime.

I don’t pay because I actually like to hear the adverts, which helps me to know about the latest music and concerts.

So, if you love music, log on to www.spotify.com/fr and register.

Don’t forget to tell me what you think!