Music Inspiration: Marié Digby

I have always had the liking of good music and good artists. But most of it was listening and singing. Nothing more than crazy screaming sessions of karaoke at home or in the car. But there came a time when playing an instrument was the missing void in my love for music. But still there was nothing to kickstart it. But 'thanks' to the timing of an unfortunate event in early 2008 and Marié Digby posting videos on YouTube, things really got started. It has been quite a journey since knowing Marié, I have connected with her songs and life in a way that it has elevated my love for music. Marié's music has helped me through so many ups and downs in life and I'm pretty grateful for that.

Better late than never, I picked up playing the guitar at 18 and it was because of Marié's music and inspiring story. Her acoustic version of songs just absolutely blew me away. I instantly fell in love with her music and story. When you actually write a song based on a true story, that message gets transmitted in a very very special way. It's not very often you get to see people like Marié or Taylor Swift, putting their life stories into their songs and delivering that message in the most unbelievable way. I don't know how, but at that point of time, I had the feeling and every reason of wanting to learn the instrument.I had so much inspiration in me and most importantly I had plenty of time. It was nothing short of perfect. That period in time will always be a very important point in my life and I am very thrilled to have Marié be part of it. I also got to watch Marié for the first time in her only appearance in Malaysia to date. One moment I am really into her music, the next month I got to watch her live, a moment to saviour.

When someone has the passion for something or anything, magic actually happens. How many famous dropouts made it absolutely big in this world? Marié dropped out of college to pursue a career in music and it has worked out pretty fine so far. Although a recent interview I have read HERE shows that Marié is still finding it hard to make her next big breakthrough, her passion, determination and love for music is admirable nevertheless. I have understood her life as a musician through each of her songs and I actually feel her story in every song, it's another example of how incredible music can be.

I love her music, got all her albums, play her songs all the time,what else was left to do...To meet her of course! It's been quite a year for me, my long wait for Taylor Swift finally ended, I still find it hard to believe it. So, Marié was going to play a show in Singapore, the moment I knew it, there was nothing left to contemplate. I have waited for quite awhile to finally watch a full show of her performance. And how many times in my life will I get to watch her live in a concert hall? The analytical brain of mine matched all the factors together and made a conclusion that it was ridiculous not to go, and it was damn right.

Some four and a half years since she started as my music inspiration, the time finally came for me to meet her. She played a wonderful show, despite a bit of an 'old' playlist, it was an experience that I could only imagine previously. She was absolutely glowing, looked stunning in a beautiful dress while she poured her heart out on some of her best hits. She started off with My Great Mistake, one of my favourites, continued with many songs from Unfold, then a few from her new album Your Love and her two fan favourite covers, Umbrella and Sweet Dreams by Beyonce. She told a lot of her stories in between and really communicated with the audience. It was like a revision for me how she ended up writing those songs. I was practically living in disbelief (in the best way) the whole time, I usually sing along with my computer and YouTube, now I was singing along live. It was an amazing feeling for me, a dream come true is not an overstatement. At the end, I finally got to meet her after her performance. I had my CD signed and had a conversation with her! I've 'known' her for such a long time and the moment finally came. She was nothing different from what I know of her, except she was right there in front of me! I could really see she is very grateful to everyone who has supported her all this while. Another wonderful chapter added to my year. 

Keep it there Marié, you've got our support. Thanks for all the inspiration.

I don't need my senses to know where you are, even in the distance, you're never far 

~deyao~

Here's her Breathing Underwater movie she made 2 years back which describes her album and a period back in 2008/2009.

Miss Inspirational

I've been re-inspired again, all thanks to the extremely inspirational Marié Digby. She made a short "movie" named after her album Breathing Underwater. It was primarily to describe how she actually wrote her album, how the songs came about. I did remember her mentioning about the sequence of songs throughout the album and the way she presented it in the movie explains many unanswered questions. The videos are based on a true story and to be able to get an insight on this was a great feeling for a big fan like me. She may not be a big star in music but her songs has appealed to many people. Her songs has played a very huge role in my life over the past few years and it has become a part of me. Marié is one of the people I draw a lot of character and passion from and I am really glad her songs has made an impact like she intended to.

After watching the "movie" (made of 17 short videos), it reaffirms everything she has always tried put in her songs. Her drive and passion for music is remarkable. It is not a typical movie but just an illustration of her songs from the album. You get to experience her many acoustic versions of her songs which sound so much different from the original version. Overall, the videos also shows her difficulty during the start and also the people who exists in her songs. I forgot to mention the movie was directed by her too.


The best thing is the videos are absolutely free for streaming on the ABC website. Refer to the picture above for the sequence to make you don't skip any videos in between.

Go to this URL to check the movie out
http://abc.go.com/watch/clip/music-lounge/FK_lilith

The videos were released over the course of the Lilith tour which consists of only female artists. The tour is created for a good cause, Marié was a correspondent for the tour and she got to meet many big artists. She wrote about her experience on the website below.
http://forums.abc.go.com/abcontheroad

Although I haven't written about her in awhile, it is no indication I've lost touch. I'll most probably write about her again when she has new music or an album coming.

Some pictures to end.

♥

Jap look?

Not sure who are the rest
Marié's precious Misty.

♥♥ Marié
~deyao~

2 New Albums

It's been awhile since I updated since I updated on Marié Digby. Well she hasn't updated a lot recently so I was quite clueless about her whereabouts compared to a year ago. A recap of my previous craze is here. But she did explain her absence on YouTube . Well it's very good news, she has come out with 2 new albums. The first has released on the 4th this month and it's called Second Home. It's a full Japanese album consisting of covers of songs by Japanese artists. The album name Second Home clearly refers to her being half Japanese. She spent several months in Japan mainly to record this album and probably to catch up on her family which is half way around the world from where she lives. Well as a huge fan of hers, the album certainly had to be on my collection. So here is it.Thanks to my Ah Chi again.
COVER
BACK .Really like the expression.
INSIDE

I know none of the songs she covers, which is not surprising. I don't understand a single word she sings unless it's in English. For a cover album, it's pretty good. I can't rate her pronunciation, but it sounds pretty authentic to me. A real Japanese could have rated this album more accurately. As for me , there's obviously bias to everything I like. Lol. But the truth is, some tracks are pretty good, all the credit to the original singers of course. 4th track caught my attention so. The chorus sings "Don't you think,I wanna be with you, and then something something...lol".

Live performance of her first song in the album


Some pictures from her photoshoot for the album and promotion of her album.
















FULL CREDIT TO MARIEDIGBY.ORG for the pictures.
Go to the website for more of the pictures.

Can't help but notice the really cute hair!! Marié, pretty as always....

Before I forget, the 2nd album would be out on 27/5/2009 , its called Breathing Underwater. You can check the preview on her YouTube channel (linked on the sidebar). Four CDs in over a year, some accomplishment for the girl on YouTube.

Here's her preforming her song from the album "Come to Life" in Japan.

~deyao~

Capricorn

First impressions on Jay's music always failed me. The last time I heard "Niu Zai Hen Mang" (first song from the previous album), I was like this is a complete disaster, what has happened this time. Then, at the end it turned out to be a great album. The previous album had great hits like Cai Hong, Yang Guang Zai Nan, Wo Bu Pei and the wonderful Zhui Chang De Dian Ying. I've been proven wrong many times and this time I threw first impressions out the window. I told myself, listen to the whole album first. The negative comments were there to be proven and damn hell they are all untrue. The Capricorn album is great! Every song was "very Jay" and he definitely has not lost any of it. Negatives to rest...
So here's the new addition to the collection.


His ninth album so far....erm wait.....did I lose count again....ok...it's 9!
This album has not many surprise elements, as I said it's still very Jay. Maybe a few songs might sound weird at first, but surely it becomes nice as always, don't know why.
Recommended tracks. My translations are bad, so I'll leave it.(edited: translation by JCNET)

2. 給我一首歌的時間 (Gei Wo Yi Shou Ge De Shi Jian) 4.花海 (Hua Hai) - Ocean of Flowers
6. 說好的幸福呢 (Shuo Hao De Xin Fu Ne) - Where Is Our Promised Happiness?
7.蘭亭序 (Lan Ting Xu)
8.時光機 (Shi Guang Ji) - Time Machine
And of course
9.稻香 (Dao Xiang) Paddy Fragrance -How can anyone not like this song I imagine.

The rest are not bad, but are not the ones you can sing along too, so that should be reason.
And also, my Jay collection is complete. Thanks Bin, Sylvia and Loon Hung for the gifts.

They got me Fantasy and Jay. The collection is done. Yay.Wondering how I should arrange all of them for a shot. I'll do it soon.

And finally, an unexpected addition this week.

Marie Digby Unfold Japan version. Never thought I could get it, only available in Japan. Thanks to my Ah Chi (cousin) and her connections, or else I wouldnt think of getting it. 2100yen is like Rm80. Nice booklet and pictures with a another booklet with translated lyrics for the Japan people. Acoustic version of Traffic, Spell, Miss Invisible and Unfold are included compared to the normal version. And obviously a full Jap song called "Kolewa" concluding the album. Sounds a lot like Utada Hikaru and due to her proficiency in Japanese, sounds completely like an ordinary Japanese. haha.

I might have a America's Next Top Model review when the show ends but definitely not the usual long post due to my dissatisfaction with the last season. Lauren Brie has a crazily stunning face but lacking personality =(. Astro is doing a very fine job, showing the current season, very surprising. Interesting week ahead, last week in uni sem 1, US elections, Arsenal vs Man Utd (trouble). And whether the RBA cuts the rate this week.


~deyao~

Another Original

I haven't figured out what the blog for days now. And randomly I accidentally bumped into more Marie Digby on YouTube, you know what happens when people get too bored , they look for just about anything to pass time. And thats what happened. I was looking for this song I heard for awhile but I never knew the title. And now I finally got it, it's another original from Marie herself and it must be a newer song as it is not part of her Unfold album. Unfold was actually completed way back in 2006 and I suppose the between then and now she has came up with new ones.

This one's called Dear Friend. Mouse over to load it on the mini SnapShots window(you can always zoom in) or click on the link. This one was recorded live. This one is rated 8/10.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IkO4_VsrPo

This is another version she did in the studio.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00YlAUuzzTc

She also has another song which I think is fabulous. Lucky Americans get to watch her perform this song during her tour around the country. It's called My Greatest Mistake . It's also another original, I wonder whether it's going to be in her next album. I'll give it 8.5/10.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nus12OhcfIE

Btw, she would be releasing a Japanese edition of her album Unfold , and the good news is she would be releasing a full Japanese song called 'Korewa' . If you didn't know, Marie speaks the language fluently being a half-Japanese. I'll definitely be posting it when I get it.

And lastly , I leave it with some shots from her rather recent event "Alice Summerthing" with Lifehouse , Last Goodnight and a few other artist. Lucky Americans again...........


Marie !


Great shot!


Jason Wade from Lifehouse


Bryce Soderberg also from Lifehouse


Kurtis John of The Last Goodnight(Pictures of You)

You don't normally see artists do this, but who can blame Marie, she is a big music fan and she is human anyway. It was said she went close to get pictures of Lifehouse. Who wouldn't?


Credits to the photographer from Flickr.

Been trying with Germany's Next Top Model, but the language barrier is very quite significant and reading subtitles and trying to watch at the same time is hard! But I'll be having a review on Grey's Anatomy spin-off Private Practice in a week, hopefully.

~deyao~

A Song In 24hrs

Been having a job lately, which explains the long pauses between posts and the lack of thorough reviews. But I'm free for the moment and been doing some viewing on youtube. But that day I came across a Marie Digby video I haven't seen before and it was pretty impressive given the length of time she had, and yes it was 24 hours. I think she was invited to sing in a baseball game and she needed to create a song with little time to spare. She did it and it's not a super great song, but it's good. 24 hrs...It's called When the Lights Go Up At Fenway

Then, there was videos posted on the online concert I watched about a few weeks ago. Was very happy to find them, but I really liked the way she sang the last song, Unfold, what a way to close the show.This is such an amazing song. My rating for all her versions of Unfold after listening to them for at least 20times each.
Rated No.1 - Bathroom version. haha.
Rated No.2 - DeepRockDrive version. Video below
Rated No.3 - Song in the album. The song is a bit too fast, just can't feel the touch of the song at times.



Footie post for the first time in awhile next. Transfer talk !

~deyao~

Marie Digby at DeepRockDrive

I've experienced a live concert before , but not a live online concert. And as I said before, two live performances in a space of 5 days , this was certainly beyond even a dream. Freshly back from her tours in Singapore and Malaysia, Marie was back in the US, and she went to the Vegas for her live concert for the entire world. Anyone with an internet connection could have watch her live performance.
A frequent visitor to her YouTube channel and her MySpace, the news was delivered. It was presented by DeepRockDrive and brought by Pepsi. Despite her recovery from jet-lag and the heat of both countries, she showed no signs of any shortcomings. 3pm in Las Vegas time would be good for people in the US, but it was 6am on the next day for people in Malaysia. But no worries for anyone, Wesak Day came to the rescue.
Up I was at 5.50am, anxiously waiting for the show to start. Internet connection and power supply please don't let me down, this is almost once in a live time opportunity. At the end, everything was above my expectations, the video and sound quality was excellent, and the most important thing was the comparatively slow Streamyx didn't disappoint me.However it did let someone else down.
At least some quick thinking left me some souvenirs. Print Screens/Screenshots. Now I can share it with everyone. Click to Enlarge!!
Here's the first screenshot I took, clock at the bottom for evidence. As you can see there are quite interesting interactive stuff, virtual claps and chat box where text could be seen by her. The video was showing her tuning her guitar.
As you can see at the right hand side, you could vote for the next song. The majority song would appear on her screen and she would play the song. Since Fool was my current favourite, so I voted. And sometimes, people do think the same way as you. And so it was Fool as the first song. YEAH!!! So happy...such a nice a nice song. But things were short lived, the next song I voted for was left for the very end.
Well, I voted for "Better Off Alone" and it was never played until the very end. Haha. Then she played her hit single Say It Again. That was a pretty obvious choice. Oh yeah, the guitarist is Lance and her drummer is Craig who has played for Josh Groban.

As you can see, there was plenty of interaction between her and the fans. She responded to some of the questions between songs.

Then it was to the piano for Stupid For You.


Next up , it was Umbrella. Then, it was two very emotional and difficult songs of all, Spell and Miss Invisible. Worst still, it was back to back.You could see her pouring so much emotions on Miss Invisible. She explained her story of Miss Invisible, which is practically a page out of her journal. When she was 13, she ate lunch alone at the library and later went to the bleachers (benches) in front of the field as you couldn't have much a view in the library. She said she was to be blamed for not making the effort of making friends knowing there were many others like her.
After that, she spoke of her relief when she was given Girlfriend, a more lively song. In the mean time, as being half-Japanese, she spoke a few lines in Japanese to show she speaks fluent Japanese. She sounded exactly like one. I was very impressed.haha.She didn't translate what she said though.

And lastly, she closed it with Better Off Alone and Beauty in Walking Away. And like all concerts, there was an encore with a fitting song, Unfold.
She really deserves a big thanks from all the fans. Which artists in the world does a free online concert. Her performance was wonderful and very dedicated. I wonder sometimes, first album is about her personal stories, when those stories run dry, I am thinking what is she gonna come up with. Thank you so much Marie!

~deyao~
My next post would be on ANTM cycle 10 without revealing the winner.

Marie Digby in 1U

Didn't expect myself to be blogging about her for this many times. But really, an album which impresses me this much plus watching her perform LIVE twice in 5 days , I think there's quite a bit to talk about. So here I went to her free showcase on 14/5/2008. Thanks to Loon Hung for accompanying me to the event after long uni hours, or else I don't think it would that great. Well, Marie being a 'leng lui' convinced him to go, so I had no problems persuading him to go with me.haha!
Here's the advert for the event.

My goodness the grand prize was there up for grabs, meet and greet passes....thats like unbelievable. However, consolation only for me, I'll take it any day. Saves me some cash too.
The event apparently was going to start at 8pm so I was telling Loon Hung , we need to be right in front , so by 6.50pm we were there, on the 3rd row. Well 1 hour plus wait wasn't gonna be bad, but all the pre-event activities dragged it all the way till almost 9 until it started. We were like waiting forever and standing so long, the crowd was mad and everyone could barely move.
So things finally kicked off, shutterbugs as usual raised their cameras like crazy, the screaming was deafening .
So here are some photos from the event. I sourced most of them from around people's blogs and flikr pages cause their pictures were so much clearer with their high tech gadgets and becoz most of them have special zone passes which are so near. So credit to all the photographers.
Here's the a shot to show the entire stage. Btw, she brought her guitarist , Lance.


You could see she was pretty excited being in Malaysia the first time and playing in front so many fans. She kicked off obviously with her hit single "Say It Again", which probably the crowd's only song they fully knew.



Marie tuning it up! No short of enthusiasm at all.


Marie performing "Stupid For You" on the piano. The song which portrays her tough time of asking guys out.Haha!



Marie did a lot of communicating with her fans. I think she complained many times on our "lovely" hot weather.



Marie performing her emotional "Unfold" and "Beauty In Walking Away". Those so called fans were like busy taking pictures, and I couldn't see another person singing along. I mean this are her "it" songs. You could really feel the meaning of the songs when she sings them.



She gave a lot in her performances, but sadly I could see many of those fans not knowing what song she was singing . Cameras make no mistakes, she is that beautiful! She also sang Fool (my current fav) and her song for Gap, Paint Me In Your Sunshine.



Close Up!


Working her fingers on the guitar! She closed the showcase with her trademark song, Umbrella. She pleaded to the crowd to sing along, well I think many of them only knew the "ella-ella, under my umbrella" part. Lol.

The closest I got, when she was walking to her autograph session. Luckily she had I huge bodyguard.


I'll try to get pics from loon hung if possible and would upload them if they are good. So here's the 1 of 2 review by me. Next would be her DeepRockDrive online concert which was held 3pm in Las Vegas, so it was 6am on Wesak Day for me. Nevertheless, I had some screen shots and hopefully I could get them up soon. Hope you liked the pictures.

~deyao~