Old Music Reviews: Bic Runga

I have decided to review old music CDs.  I think that most of the new music is crap, mostly beats with nothing more to offer.  I own a ton of old CDs and have even more older songs on my IPOD.  With this being said there are some CDs and artists that may have been lost in the fray.  I would love to review them now and hopefully I can interest even one person.  I was going through CDs trying to look for something that was low key that I could jam to whilst working on stuff on the computer and not waking my son up.   Bic Runga jumped out at me, and made me remember the never-ending repeat of the amazing song "Sway."  If you have never listened to Bic Runga and if you have never heard the song "Sway" you missed out on something amazing!  Let me be the one to share it with you for the first time, or to remind you of it's musical awesomeness. 

First off let's get to know Bic Runga herself.  Her full name is Briolette Kah Bic Runga.  But she records as Bic Runga.  She is a New Zealand singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose first album was entitled "Drive." and debuted at number 1 on New Zealand's Top 40.  She is one of the highest selling New Zealand artists of recent history.  The Bic part of her name is Chinese for jade (pronounced Bec).  Let me just say that personally it is strange that I have always loved her and later in life I ended up learning Chinese....  The crazy coincidences in life.  Bic Runga's mother definitely must have had an influence on her in life as she was a Chinese-Malaysian lounge singer from Malaysia.  She ended up marrying Bic's Vietnamese father who was a soldier on leave.  Bic has been recording music since she was only 4 years old, with her two sisters.  One of which is a member of the music group Stellar and the other is a session singer.  She could play the drums, guitar and keyboard by the time she was in her mid teens.  Bic has released 4 studio albums as well as 2 compilation albums.  Most recently she released a greatest hits compilation in December of 2012, which I will be investing time and money into acquiring as this is exciting news to me. 

Let's get back to her amazing song "Sway."  I first got hooked on Bic Runga and this song thanks to the original American Pie movie and the great soundtrack.  in the late 90s and early 2000s, I bought a LOT of soundtracks, as it was a great way to find new artists and great new music and singles to fall in love with.  "Sway" was so amazing that it led me to buy her second album Beautiful Collision which was released in 2002.  It is a great independent album however and great chill music.  A lot of it flows into itself as far as song change goes and progression throughout the album.  This isn't a bad thing, but as far as an album standing out for itself I think her initial album Drive would be better for that and definitely her latest compilation "Anthology."  Once I invest in this I will do a full review, song by song for those interested. 

"Beautiful Collision" is a definite Cd worth taking the time to listen to however, I love the entire thing.  On par with popular artists such as Sarah McLaughlin, Dido, and Norah Jones (when she doesn't go too bluesy) if you are interested in that kind of sound, this is definitely for you!  "Beautiful Collision" also debuted at number 1 on the New Zealand charts.  The album is currently peaking at five on the Best Of All Time List in New Zealand (*as of October 2012).   She is the only female musician on the list.  The album went 11 times platinum in New Zealand.  Give it a listen. 


I will share with you my all-time favorite Bic Runga song "Sway" as promised and then my favortie song off of this CD "When I See You Smile."

"Sway" -Bic Runga

"When I See You Smile" -Bic Runga

Please check out and support Bic Runga at her official website

Bic Runga Official Site

Incriminating Themselves: Dumb Criminals Part 1

Many criminals end up self incriminating themselves.  The other day I read about a gang member that was caught due to the intricate detail of a tattoo on his own body about a murder he has committed that had been unsolved for years.  Now there is another man whose rap lyrics led to an arrest.... A girl who posted a YouTube video bragging about robbing a bank... Are these people too over-confident or too ignorant to keep from getting caught?  Or are they just ready to be caught?  Not that I don't want criminals to pay for their crimes, but these people are one short cry from the Darwin awards?  *The Darwin awards are presented each year about people who die or come close to death due to their own stupidity.

First I am going to go over the rap lyrics that lead to an arrest in an unsolved murder in Virginia.  Police were able to solve a double murder from 2007 due to rap lyrics, within these lyrics the rapper Twain Gotti aka Antwain Steward made a song describing the murder.  The song was called "Ride Out" and lyrics are as follows: “Listen, walk to your boy and I approached him, 12 midnight on his traphouse porch and everybody saw when I [expletive] smoked him, roped him, sharpened up the shank then I poked him, 357 Smith & Wesson [unintelligible] scoped him,” Police believe that this was a gang related killing and Mr. Steward was already considered a subject but until he incriminated himself in the song there was not enough evidence to tie him to the murder.   I also want to point out the fact that the gang he was affiliated with was called Wickzoo....  Need I say more?  For the full story you can follow the link: Rap lyrics lead to arrest in unsolved murder

 

News video featuring part of the song "Ride Out"

Now let's talk about stupid criminals and tattoos.  Recently a gang member was picked up on a minor offense and had his tattoos photographed for record.  He was apparently so proud and confident of his work in the unsolved murder that he had many details unreleased to the public graphically depicted within his tattoo.  Unfortunately for him a detective that had worked on the original unsolved case happened to now be working in the department that had photographed his tattoos and came across the incriminating evidence.   This man was in a Los-Angeles gang called Rivera-13(affiliated with MS-13?)  The murder occurred in 2004 at a liquor store and the tattoo graphically showed specific lighting around the store and depicted a peanut being killed (peanuts are routinely used to represent rival gang members).  The tattoo also shows a chopper gunning down the peanut.  The man Anthony Garcia went by the name Chopper in his gang. 

"Each key detail was right there: the Christmas lights that lined the roof of the liquor store where 23-year-old John Juarez was gunned down, the direction his body fell, the bowed street lamp across the way and the street sign — all under the chilling banner of RIVERA KILLS, a reference to the gang Rivera-13.
As if to seal the deal, below the collarbone of the gang member known by the alias "Chopper" was a miniature helicopter raining down bullets on the scene." Shortly after being picked up and taken to the police station he confessed to the killing.  For the full story you can see: gang tattoo leads to arrest or also los angeles gang member convicted on tattoo

Moving on to a Nebraska teen who was convicted of robbing a bank thanks to a YouTube video she uploaded about it.  She titled the video "Chick Bank Robbery."   In the video she brags about stealing a car as well as robbing the bank.  To further self incriminate herself she shows off the money that she got from the bank (over $6K) as well as showing her smoking a full bowl of weed in the video.  She must have made the video right away because apparently she is wearing the same clothes in the YouTube video that she wore when she robbed the bank.  The video is a written confession to the crime and claims to be a victim of the government.  In the written confession she decides to mention "fun facts" about herself including the facts that she is married, pregnant, and has AIDS. 
You can read the full story here: Chick Bank Robber

"Chick Bank Robber"

The awesomeness that is "Bu De Bu Ai"

As I was contemplating what to write about tonight, I decided to peruse my facebook posts for inspiration. I came across my notifications that one of my former Chinese classmates birthday was today.  I knew that she loved to laugh at cheesy Chinese music videos and went youtube searching for a birthday themed ones.  The one I discovered was a Chinese love birthday song.  This made me remember another Chinese love song "Bu De Bu Ai." by the internationally famous Wilber Pan.  We had many great times with this song with my incredible Chinese class.  Never have I met a group of people with a better all around sense of humor.  With that being said I am going to make the assumption that the majority of the people that read my blog do not also speak Mandarin.  Therefore I have included the English translation video for you to enjoy. *The English translation is very literal and therefore not great but you can get the gist.  I am thinking that whoever translated this was a Chinese speaker that did not have very good English skills.  Either way just reading the lyrics itself is quite entertaining haha.  Don't let it distract from the song though (you can do that in a moment)!  It is a very beautiful song in case you have never heard it before. 

Now we come to one of the most amazing lip syncing duos of all time.  The Back Dorm Boys.   In this rendition you will see them lip syncing to Wiber Pan's Bu De Bu Ai.  (The same music video that you just watched with the atrocious English translation.)  If you don't find these guys funny than you must be lacking in sense of humor.  Everything about their lipsync is hilarious.  They go all out and the facial expressions make the video.  These gentlemen have also lip-synced many other great songs including some Backstreet Boys songs.  Feel free to check out more of their awesomeness on YouTube.  Enjoy!