Joaquim Rocha's Web Page » music

Vacations Finished

Joaquim Rocha — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 17:12:48 +0000

Today is my last day of vacations. Two weeks ago I went to Portugal, in the pleasant company of my girlfriend, to visit family and friends. I arrived at dinner time on Saturday, had a quite dinner and although I was really tired I still managed to be until 5 AM finishing a paint I wanted for so long give to my cousin. The following day we had a nice supa-lunch with my family, a good beginning for the busy week that would follow. On Monday and Tuesday we were in Évora to meet with some good friends and my crazy brother. The rest of the week was spent in Lagos, the home town of my girlfriend and a land with some of the best beaches in Portugal.

In the middle of this past week we returned to Coruña as we had stuff to take care of but yesterday we went with our friends Victor, Edu and his wife Silvia to the “Festival de Pardiñas”, a very Galician folk music that started 30 years ago. We were supposed to spend the night in the camp but it had been raining a lot and the humidity and mud convinced us it was better to take the invitation of Silvia’s friend Fernando and sleep at his home which was 10 minutes from there.
The music was nice, we were late for the first band and tired for the last one but we could watch the great performances of “La Belle Image Fanfare” (France) and “Hedningarna” (Sweden). Although I think everyone of my party liked the French folks much more, I really enjoyed “Hedningarna”! Some of its songs reminded me of some metal bands I like from Scandinavia and I think it makes sense…

Now, back at home, I upgraded my WordPress successfully and will watch a movie and relex a bit so I’m all set for tomorrow’s work.

Goodbye Last.fm

Joaquim Rocha — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:56:26 +0000

A while ago Last.fm announced that the poor humans living outside cool countries like the USA, the UK and Germany would need to pay a 3 EUR monthly subscription.
They are so kind and understanding that even provide us, poor bastards living in the wrong countries, with 30 free songs!

I *was* a big fan of Last.fm since I joined it in 2007. Now, I’d like to say goodbye to it for as long as they don’t go back on this decision (actually, since their announcement I never turned on my Last.fm clients).

I decided to do this not because I’m a cheap bastard or would starve if I spent the damned 3 EUR on the service but rather because I feel they’re decision goes against the community that helped/did build their service and also because I know that 3 EUR for me might be nothing but for a guy in another country might be a significant amount of money.

Good bye Last.fm, good times we spent together.

BTW, go explore Jamendo and let me know what you think. Also, check if Spotify works for you.

Portuguese Metal on Terrorizer

Joaquim Rocha — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 21:27:41 +0000

I am not a regular Terrorizer reader but I was on hollyday in my girlfriend’s hometown and I needed something to read so I bought Terrorizer’s November issue.

To my surprise there is a 3 page report on the Portuguese Metal scene with an overview on our main metal bands.
They wrote good things about Process of Guilt, a very good doom metal band from my city – Évora.

Great stuff!

Il Maniscalco Maldestro

Joaquim Rocha — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 15:49:16 +0000

I accidentally discovered an Italian band called “Il Maniscalco Maldestro”.
The band’s style is a mixture of sounds that go from funk to meta, they are sometimes tagged with the so-called crossover. Great sound!

And the best of all…. they release their music under a CC license! Yeah, everyone’s welcome to download their albums, listen to them and give it to friends!

Although their web site is in Italian only, it is easy to navigate and find the music:
http://www.ilmaniscalcomaldestro.com/

And here’s a music video from them so you know what I’m talking about: