Patrick Duff returns!

Just over a year after my first blog post about Patrick Duff's gigs in Malta and my ears have been delighted yet again to this wonderful artist's magical voice. He has been by far the BEST artist to have graced the tiny stage at our local gathering spot - Coach and Horses (and the best to do an impromptu cover The Suburbanite's chorus of "Dance with me" for the competition - https://www.facebook.com/notes/yasmin-kuymizakis/dance-with-me-competition/10150591382798727).


Former lead vocalist of UK brit-pop band Strangelove, Partick is now travelling to different venues where he entrances the audience with his captivating stares, haunting voice and beautiful songs. Again the atmosphere was intense and magical albeit rudely interrupted by an overly chattery bunch. However, all bad things have a silver lining, and although these rude idiots very visibly distressed Patrick, his performance of some of the songs was greatly improved by this contained anger. Unfortunately the audience was not treated to an encore on the first night, and understandably so. However, in a very special moment which I shall cherish, Patrick was kind enough to treat myself, Daniel, Emerson, Tim, Nigel and Stimpy to a special encore in the shaft of the pub where he sang "Spider Woman" - one of my personal favourites on his album "Mad Straight Road". As the seven of us huddled together in the 2m x 2m cold and wet shaft , everything about us seemed to fade away as we were carried elsewhere with Patrick's voice and soon we were all singing softly with him, reliving all the times we had sung the song in our cars and in the pub, waiting for him to return to our tiny island.


During the set we were graced with songs from his up coming album, "Luxury Problems" and "Mad Straight Road" thus treating us to new songs we hadn't heard him play last year while also giving us songs we have come to love over this last year among which were "Dead Man Singing" and "Maria" and the newer "Hail Holy Mother" written about an experience he had the year before in our old capital city - Mdina, which we had visited after his Saturday concert. We were all especially lucky to have been treated to two songs performed on the piano. Despite him justifying his lack of technique to do being self-taught while under the influence, I adored his playing. Being self-taught myself, I am a firm believer of not going to lessons or doing grade exams to learn an instrument as I find that this limits the user with the full exploration of what this tool can do. Granted, I will never play as well or as quickly as a trained pianist and I am surely limited by this in certain ways. However, I am also sure that the creativity and passion of self taught musicians is in its own way more valuable. And this belief was proven yet again while I heard Patrick play on the piano as I heard my new favourite song - "Early Morning Birds". 


A word of advice for anyone who enjoys music and likes to attend such events: always try to attend both nights!
And if you want to be there, but find yourself uninterested for whatever reason? Please step outside or into the side room, were you can shout and chatter all you like without disturbing everyone else.

The anger hath begone.

Yes, in a sudden sprout of dare-I-call-it, new-found maturity and peace of mind. All the anger hath begone she said! And its starting to show in my songwriting. No more shouts, screams, hate, disgust and sarcasm but inner calm, musicality and wit. I'm growing up, (at least I hope so).

All this was triggered by a huge disappointment given to me by what I deemed to be close friends. The wave of awareness that its useless being anger or disappointed or feeling regret for not being able to save those you care for or at least help them save themselves lead me to be more zen and matter of fact about things. "You want to fuck up your life? Ok, see you around."

And on that note, my all time favourite local band from what I consider a flawless album: Beangrowers.

And tonight guitars by Lucas and vocals by Jorje from Gozo in the form of Monobrow MP at Coach and Horses. Looking forward!!



You are You are - Beangrowers

First Blog Post

Hi all,

At last, I have finally got around to creating my own blog. May I prepare you all, this blog will not only revolve around the graphic design facet of myself. Ou contraire. I will be using it to write and post about anything that tickles my fancy. If you want to see what I'm capable of as a designer, my Behance page will be up soon too :)

And so here goes, my first official post is going to be about....PATRICK DUFF.

Most of you might not have the slightest clue who he, or his band from the 90s (Strangelove) are. This man however, was brought to Malta by Tim Ellis, to give us two very special and intimate performances this weekend. The atmosphere was intense and magical. Save for a number of idiots in the audience who felt that the time was appropriate for a long chat and gossip session and others who thought that saying things like "aww he's fucking, like incredible " after each song would make them seem musically knowledgable. (As you can see, I am also a hardened cynic who tends to easily nurture a dislike of certain people).

Anyway, back to the point of the post. Patrick has the most beautiful, crystal clear voice, and might I say, looks nowhere near his actual age. I loved his little anecdotes before most of the songs as it helped people like me get to know him and understand what he was singing about more. This man is incredible and has a genuine love for all those around him. My favorite tunes played these two days were Dead man singing, King of the Underworld and the happier Three little monkeys. Below hear Three little Monkeys uploaded by friend and soundsman on the night Emerson Vella.



Three Little Monkeys - Patrick Duff