Tag: Marsheaux

Music, Nondescript

Blog 697: I Travel

Rao Dao Zao

It took me until far too late to even conceive of the notion that one could travel to a gig rather than waiting for it to come to one’s home town (or not). The first time I did it was to see Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s special gig in the Museum of Liverpool, then I followed them to London for the truly stellar Royal Albert Hall performance of Dazzle Ships and Architecture & Morality (I even bought the T-shirt for that one!).

Now, I’ve done it again, albeit to a slightly more modest venue. This time, I followed my favourite Greek synth-pop duo Marsheaux to… Norwich.

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Music

Blog 641: An Unbroken Frame

Rao Dao Zao

It was a cover version that first got me into music. I mean, I had some passing interest in some songs before, but it was Erasure’s cover of Solsbury Hill that turned on the taps. I remember I was playing Unreal Tournament mod Operation: Na Pali when I first heard it.

Marsheaux have always been good at doing cover versions. Some, like their idea of timeless synthstrumental Popcorn, might be obvious because they’re famous tunes, but others from off the beaten track you wouldn’t even know were covers without somebody telling you, because they all nestle so well amongst their original work.

So when they said they were going to cover an entire album for their next project, what was I to think? Especially when they made the so very… interesting choice of Depeche Mode’s difficult second album, A Broken Frame.

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Film, Gaming, Music

Blog 579: Of the Year

Rao Dao Zao

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 41,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 15 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

2013, eh? That’s just under twice the number of views of last year, so I must be doing something right. Or I’m just getting better at clickbaiting.

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Music

Blog 552: Inhale

Rao Dao Zao

It seems like you just can’t pre-order a limited edition Marsheaux album without a crisis. Bonus track compilation E-bay Queen is Dead took ages to arrive because of some quibbling with the manufacturer, and the same thing happened all over again with the limited edition version of their new album Inhale that I gleefully pre-ordered.

Sure, it’s a small run, but once the factory has committed to producing something they kind of have a duty to do so without constantly displacing it for larger clients… right?

Oh, the things I do for autographed loot.

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Music

Blog 508: The E-Blog Queen is Dead

Rao Dao Zao

Marsheaux have been long overdue their fourth album for some time now, and, well, this blog isn’t about that.

It recently came to my attention that my favourite Greek synth-pop duo (uh, my only Greek synth-pop duo) were unleashing a compilation of rare and lost tracks. Now, the word was this would only get sold at gigs — since Marsheaux have only ever touched London once or twice, I naturally despaired that I would never be able to get my filthy completist paws on this collection.

Then I got an e-mail from the record company…

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