Altera
Mood:  energetic
Now Playing: Grunge - Metal - Croatia
Band History:
Although the beginnings of the band go somewhat back, we can designate the year 1998 as the year when Altera was founded. Then Kriss and Maja decided to visit the drummer Marin Bari?ic, introduced to them by a friend, Tomislav Mihalic, to see "how that would sound with drums".
In the beginnings, as every new band, they were very impressed with every new song they would manage to play to the end, and later they played more and more demanding songs and started improvising, recording rehearsals with a camera to study them later and "take" interesting parts from the tape.At the time, Maja only played guitar, and the role of the vocalist in the band was not determined yet. At the very first rehearsals, that was the role of Kriss, and later of Tomislav Mihalic, in order to become Maja's in the end.
Thus the first "cast" of Altera was made: Maja, Kriss and Marin.
In the summer of 1999, Maja wrote the song "Distress", which was the first song they managed to play more or less in the same way every time.
After two years of trying to play Nirvana and improvising of potential own songs, Marin, Kriss and Maja enrolled into the "Rock Academy" in OTV home, where they wished to learn something new. After almost two months of attending the rock academy, Kriss and Maja decided to "change" the drummer. At the rock academy, which was then attended only by Kriss and Maja, they met their future drummer, Dario Barbir. In February, 2000, Kriss, Maja and Dado had their first rehearsal, and Dado became a member of Altera soon.
They had their first appearance at the Rainbow Music Shop, Vla?ka 72 b in Zagreb, on 6th April, 2000, where they continued to play every Thursday for some six months.
After that, that was followed by a number of performances in Zagreb and Croatia, recording of their demo CD "S-Y-A-F" ("Squash-You-All-Flat"), promotion CD "Live at RMS", and several other live CDs, as well as a promo CD "S-Y-A-F" with a camera recording, and, finally, publishing of the maxi-single CD "Ablaze" by the Croatian metal publisher "Full Metal Jacket" from Zagreb.
Altera turned to be particularly interesting to media due to the family relationship within the band (Maja-Kriss - daughter-mother), and the very specific Maja's singing, which is sometimes believed to be a male vocal, and exceptionally good quality covers of Nirvana songs, due to which Altera draws many grunge, but also thrash metal fans. The style which Altera plays was described as "grunge metal". Altera appeared in many musical and informative broadcasts on Croatian television (HTV),and on a few radio stations. Altera's official web page is sponsored by "INTERDATA", a software development company. Altera is mentioned on several other web pages, it was the topic of some newspaper articles and music magazines ("Zapre?icki ?pigl", "Arena", "Vecernji list", "United Forces"), and of Internet forums. What their career is missing is a stronger support of the media, a manager and a record company well known outside of Croatia, because Croatia is relatively limited to other styles of music, not too open for metal and rock. Altera is listened to by some fans in Greece, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Italy, Germany and Great Britain, as well as in other European countries, but also in US and Brazil, and they were invited to many countries but still don't have enough capital to organize a tour.
In December 2002, with the help of the sponsor "SPES", a company for translations, Altera managed to record a video for the song "Suicide Sunlight" from the CD "Ablaze", which has been and is broadcasted on Croatian TV, in shows 'HIT DEPO', 'Briljanteen', 'Glazbena TV', 'Gradski ritam' and many more.
Altera keeps on practicing diligently and hopes to issue their first long-playing CD "Ablaze" soon, for which the songs are already made.
Altera's Homepage

Ilka Vilardo in Rio
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: Pop-Blues-Jazz-Rock
We were there! Ilka and her band were amazing in the "Sagrada Mistura", a very cool pub in Rio de Janeiro (Shopping Rio Design Barra) last September 18th. Ilka sings the best of the international, italian and MPB (Musica Popular Brasileira). Visit Ilka's site and keep you informed where and when it happens again!

Ilka Vilardo - Release Show "Sem Fronteiras"
Dire??o Musical: Maria Cei?a
Uma int?rprete da boa m?sica nacional e internacional que realmente mexe com os sentimentos de seus apreciadores.
Desde seus cinco anos de idade, ela j? encantava plat?ias com can??es escolhidas cuidadosamente por ela pr?pria, caracter?stica marcante de Ilka, talvez o segredo de seu encantamento, aliado a uma interpreta??o aut?ntica e um timbre muito agrad?vel de se ouvir, o que lhe valeu aplausos nos palcos ao redor do mundo.
Tendo estudado m?sica e canto no Brasil e posteriormente na It?lia, ela volta aos palcos cariocas com um show in?dito Sem Fronteiras.
Ilka reuniu neste show o melhor do cen?rio pop italiano, com a nata de nossa m?sica. Can??es de Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso e Ivan Lins se misturam a consagrados sucessos de compositores italianos como Paulo Conte, Pino Daniele entre outros. Como cortesia, foram pin?ados cl?ssicos do jazz e (porque n?o?) alguma coisa do cancioneiro napolitano.
(Gostou da mistura? Se n?o for "sagrada", no m?nimo ? "fina" e deliciosa....)
Ilka canta acompanhada de Cl?udio Mendes no piano, Mauro Rocha no contrabaixo e Paulico na bateria.
Simplesmente, imperd?vel!
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Querida Ilka, voc? est? convidada pr? visitar o nosso blog e comentar o seu show, principalmente para aqueles que ainda n?o a conhecem. E para os que j? a conhecem, tenho certeza que ser? um grande prazer tamb?m poder "l?-la", j? que ouvi-la ? indiscutivelmente um deleite :-)) Ilka's Website

The Oil Band innovates
Mood:  cool
Now Playing: New Band
A 12 ft tall, long haired mad singer wearing only a battered swimsuit and tan oil all over his body; who arrives at the show riding a bicycle; jumpsup the stage and beautifully performs Elvis Presley songs accompanied by a punk band; This is The Oil Band.
Mr. Nelson Rebello, the famous The Oil Man, is an excentric former biology teacher who became known by his habit of daily riding his bicycle through
the streets of the coldest capital city in Brazil wearing only a swimsuit, a pair of sneakers with no socks and tan oil over his large and muscular body.
The polemic bicycle rider, crazy rock singer, has had nationwide promotion after his appearance on National TV where he was interviewd by one of the
most popular talk shows in the country and sang Love me Tender like very few
people could.
After having seen Mr. Rebello on TV, the former Wall Street- NY employee, Mr. Paulo Dalla Stella, residing in the same town of Curitiba, decided to
contact Mr. Rebello to form The Oil Band. The original plan was to put together a punk / hardcore band perfoming Elvis Presley songs. "Just picture, I Can't Help falling in Love starting with a Samba rythm and turning into a ferocious and fast melodic hardcore song". Although the Band is two years old, it has only recently set a few shows in
the town of Curitiba - South of Brazil, after a few changes in its original formation. Mr. Dalla Stella, the band's manager, excited about all the fuss and promotion given by the media, decided to change all the musicians to a
group of professional players. He says: "The Marketing is great, the band sounds just wonderful and we hope to at least have a lot of fun with this
project".
The band started performing in September 03 and this includes a "performing act". For additional information please contact Mr. Paulo Dalla Stella -
(5541) 9972-5577 (Curitiba - Brazil).
The Oil Band Website

Comentarios de Curitiba sobre a banda:
Boas. O Oil Man n?o decepcionou os 500 curiosos que vieram conferir a sua estreia nos palcos . Nelson (e o nome dele) cantou canc?es de Elvis Presley acompanhado da excelente Oil Band, que e um show a parte. O cara(acreditem) e por demais timido e de pouquissimas palavras, mas desempenha bem. O show alterna momentos com e sem o personagem no palco. Muitas historias sobre a nossa cidade: a loira fantasma, o jacare do Parque Barigui entre outras. Foram momentos hilarios que em breve deveremos repetir. Quem perdeu se esperte.

Hi!
Now Playing: Music
Welcome to our Rock Blog. This place is dedicated to the rock music lovers. Please post your comments, news, infos about whatever you want, your site, new or old band, etc. We ask you only to keep it clean (profanities will be not tolerated). Attention, new bands, let us know about your next shows. Thank you!