Marta Ren, Summer's Gone

Marta Ren is a wild and burly voice and the way it contrasts with the soul/rocksteady sound, very characteristic in the 60's, is really catchy and interesting.

Even though, her first music steps were taken with bands like Sloopy Joe, Bombazines and the cover band The Funkalicious - who, essentially, performed songs from Aretha Franklin to James Brown, Marta Ren is now giving her steps as a solo artist.

About the recording sessions for her album, it's possible to see how much it respected the 60 and 70's old school methods, preserving all the typical sonority very used during those times. Along the way, the artist counted with New Max - better known for being part of Expensive Soul.

The best proof of this hard work is the first single Summer's Gone. The song reflects a very joyful and easy-going beat that conquests everyone for being so fresh and original.

This is a great example of the quality that we have in Portugal, artists like this should be widely revealed to the world, it's a pity if others don't see Marta Ren too.

"You passed me by 

You didn't seem real

Suppose I'm digging

To get my dream"

Willy Moon, I Wanna Be Your Man

Willy Moon is a young 21-year-old singer-songwriter born in New Zealand who's image reminds the 90's "black wool coat, white suit, pale blue shirt and tie, hair greased and parted with precision".

Moving to London with only 17 years, he found his first months on the city a "massive shock" ending up with no job, no where to live and drug issues "It was largely my fault. If you spend most of your time on the streets of Camden scoring heroin, you are naturally not going to be a very attractive prospect for a job.", he felt a need of change so he moved to Berlin where he had to sand floors and decorate apartments to pay his rent and also where he discovered music per se - "I wanted to do something, I wanted to create something, I wanted to make something of myself. And I thought what a fantastic thing to try and do. It was probably a little bit masochistic, trying to make music for a living. Because the chances of you ever getting anywhere are so fucking slim."

With his friends encouragement, he returned to London in late 2008.
Now with an independent label - Luv Luv Luv - that belong to Universal, Willy Moon is a big promise to 2012.

With a very funky-rockabilly-50's sound with touches of 60's and electronic - considered the Rockabilly of the future - presents I Wanna Be Your Man and She Loves Me.
Both on a single released on December 12, 2011.
An album is expected to be released during the following year.

Know more about Willy Moon on his Facebook or Twitter.

"People try to put you down
Talking that jive all over town
I don't mind what the people say
Gonna talk that jive any old way

I wanna be your man
I wanna be your man"

The Beatles, Paperback Writer

The Beatles, probably one of the most recognized bands in the music history.

Since 1962 the band was composed by John Lennon (guitar/vocals), Paul McCartney (bass/vocals), George Harrison (guitar/vocals) and Ringo Starr (drums/vocals).
Initially, the first band formation were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Stuart Sutcliffe (bass) and Pete Best (drums).

Their status and recognition made them being commonly refereed about their phenomenon on the press as "Beatlemania".
The first Beatles hit success was "Love Me Do" beginning in this way, one of the most talked bands until nowadays.

On their first years, The Beatles built their reputation on Liverpool and Hamburg pubs. But during that time, in 1961, Pete Best decided to leave the band and he was replaced by Ringo Starr on the next year.

The band work intensively until 1966, break up in 1970. Each member pursuit a solo career. John Lennon was killed in 1980 by a fan and George Harrison died of cancer in 2001. Only McCartney and Starr are still alive and working.

The critics consider their album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" has one of the best Beatles album and is usually referred as a master piece.

They were honored with 8 Grammy Awards and 15 Ivor Novello Awards. They are part of Time's Magazine Top List of the 100 most influence people from the XX Century.

With 13 released albums: Please Please Me (1963), With the Beatles (1963), A Hard Day's Night (1964), Beatles for Sale (1964), Help! (1965), Rubber Soul (1965), Revolver (1966), Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), Magical Mystery Tour (1967), The Beatles [also known as "White Album"] (1968), Yellow Submarine (1969), Abbey Road (1969) and Let It Be (1970), besides several compilations and re-releases.

Paperback Writer appears the side A from the single "Rain", later appearing on some The Beatles compilations like Hey Jude or The Beatles 1962-1966.

Paperback Writer was written by McCartney/Lennon but the original idea was from McCartney and it's one of the few songs that don't talk about love, but "a letter from an aspiring author addressed to a publisher. The author badly needs a job and has written a paperback version of a book by a "man named Lear." (...) a reference to the Victorian painter Edward Lear, who wrote nonsense poems and songs of which Lennon was very fond (though Lear never wrote novels)." as we can see on wikipedia.
There are several theories about it, one is that McCartney got an inspiration from a letter sent by a fan, there is also another mention revealed by Paul himself on an interview in 2007: "recalled that he wrote the song after reading in the Daily Mail about an aspiring author". The Daily Mail was usually read by John Lennon and it was possible to find many copies at his home, where he and McCartney wrote their songs.

"It's a dirty story of a dirty man
And his clinging wife doesn't understand
His son is working for the daily mail
It's a steady job, but he wants to be a paperback writer"