Nizlopi

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Nizlopi

Origin	Leamington Spa, Warwickshire
Country	United Kingdom
Years active	1990s–Present
Genres	Folk/Hip-Hop
Labels	FDM Records
Members	Luke Concannon (Vocals, Guitar) John Parker (Double Bass, Beatbox)

Nizlopi are a two piece band: Luke Concannon (guitar and vocals) and John Parker (double bass affectionately named Stephanie, human beatbox and vocals). John now owns and uses a total of three double basses. Stephanie, Catherine and a travel bass whose name is not yet known. They are based in Leamington Spa, United Kingdom and were educated at Trinity Catholic Technology College. The band is named after a Hungarian girl that Luke had a crush on at school.

1 History
- 1.1 Half These Songs Are About You
  - 1.1.1 JCB
  - 1.1.2 Girls
- 1.2 ExtraOrdinary
2 Live Shows
3 Discography
- 3.1 Albums
- 3.2 Singles
4 External links

[edit] History

[edit] Half These Songs Are About You

Main Article: "Half These Songs Are About You"

Nizlopi released their first album, Half These Songs Are About You, in 2004 under FDM Records, and was generally very well received.^{[citation needed]} It features the singles JCB and Girls.

[edit] JCB

Main Article: "JCB (song)"

The JCB song is Nizlopi's most successful song to date, after reaching number one in the UK on its second release. The song was written about Luke's troubles with dyslexia at school and his escape to accompany his dad at work, and was released as a single in June 2005, reaching number 160 in the UK Singles Chart. The single was then re-released in the UK on 12 December 2005, reaching number one the following week on 18 December 2005, selling more than twice the number that the closest contender, Westlife. Some bookmakers put it in the running for the honour of Christmas number one but it was beaten by the winner of the second series of the UK version of The X Factor, Shayne Ward's debut single "That's My Goal". The video has received lots of airplay, mainly on music TV channel VH1. It is an animated video, made by Laith Bahrani (a.k.a. 'Monkeehub'), who also animated an unofficial video for an acoustic version of "Creep" by Radiohead.

[edit] Girls

Their next single, released on 3 April 2006, was track 2 on the album, "Girls". The band have described the song's video on radio interviews as "Tim Burton-esque". The video was directed by Karni & Saul of Flynn Productions, and is the first that the band appear in. It was released, in what is now traditional Nizlopi strategy, on the Internet first.

[edit] ExtraOrdinary

Main Article: "ExtraOrdinary"

An EP, containing six songs and titled "ExtraOrdinary", was released on 4 September 2006 . The six tracks included two which had been released before; 'Helen' and 'Yesterday' which were previously released on the JCB and Girls EPs respectively. This release contains the track, 'Homage To Young Men', a piece written and performed by Alastair McIntosh. Alastair is one of Luke Concannon's favourite authours (Tom Yorke of Radiohead fame is also a fan of Alastiars). Alastair is an 'eco activist' and human ecologist and was inspired to write this piece after working with Luke. He has performed live twice with the band, performing this song with them. The band have likened Alastairs performances to "..the howlings of a wild animal". Alastair is well known for his contributions to the Scottish version of 'Thought for the Day' and has been dubbed "The Rapping Reverend".

[edit] Live Shows

Nizlopi are renowned for crowd involvement at their gigs, giving an energetic performance. Often improvising, inviting people up on stage to sing and dance or unplugging and going into the crowd. They took part in 'healthy concerts' or 'gigs in digs' where artists play in someone's house.

They have recently confirmed to be the support act on Christina Aguilera's Back To Basics Tour in November 2006.