By V.J. Mooers
I was scratching around Busan looking for live music, and lucked into
the Bulgarian connection holed up at Haeundae -- a great band in the
basement piano bar at the Marriott Piano Lounge. That's where A2 from
Sofia bang out the tunes, with an incredibly full sound from just a
three-piece group, albeit with the help of a synthesizer, a Gibson Les
Paul electric strung with those slinky Ernie Ball strings and three
incredible powerful vocalists- who've done some amazing things all the
way around. Call them Murphy's Angels.
The A2 band was created by Angel Andonov in 1985 and played in the famous
Bulgarian music Festival "The Golden Orpheus" and had worked
with a variety of singers. In 2001, Angel, who plays synthesizer, guitar
and does vocals, was joined by the creative talents of Jessy (Jasmin
Svilenova) and Lili Chicone, who both sing and play synthesizer. They
have good harmony and are smooth as cream on a chocolate sundae on a
hot summer day. They're so polished they make it look easy. Jessy looks
and sings like a young Barbara Streisand, and ex-model Lili does some
pretty mean Alanna Myles Blue Velvet.
Besides doing anything from Eurythmics, Deep Purple, Madonna, Shakira,
Santana, Pink Floyd, Clapton, Beatles, stuff from the 60's or classics
like a great version of New York, New York, they have a huge repertoire
which also comprises Latino songs, several Russian songs, and can do
instrumentals. But the covers- hey, I closed my eyes and was reliving
Rod Stewart at the Montreal Forum, Tina Turner and Celine Dion live
at the Aitken Centre. Creedence or Eagles or Sade songs sure are a nice
change from the usual crapola dance-pop copycat barrage or bad rap lyrics
that we're inundated with daily like unwanted spam mail.
Feeling small? Try this on for size. Angel Antonov performs grandiose
concerts in front of the Saint Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Sofia,
is famous for his work with Bulgarian folklore singers Stefka Sabotinova
and Valja Balkanska, has played Cruise Liners in the Caribbean and recently
in Malta, Denmark and the UK and has done three cassettes and two CD's.
He won second prize in the festival in Koshite, Slovakia in 1982, second
place in 1996 in the "Melody of the Year" on Bulgarian National
television, in 1998 got the winner prize in the John Kennedy Center
in Washington with the song "Ludo Mlado". In 1998 he also
won first place in "The Silver Eros" festival in Plovdiv,
Bulgaria and has received many prizes in the Bulgarian music festival
"The Golden Orpheus", the owner of "The Golden Phenomena"
award for 1995. His song Friends was a huge hit staying 3 months on
the national radio charts and he's toured concerts in Germany, Austria,
Greece, Russia and Yugoslavia.
Feeling inadequate? Angel Andonov is an actor and composer of two musical
movies. One, Undergound Sacraments - was sold to ten European television
stations. He worked as technical director in Radio 99 and was a speaker
on the radio show The Dark Side of the Moon for two years. He became
an audio clip maker and sound director on Bulgarian radio "FM+"
and created over 3,000 advertisement jingles, and won the prize for
best audio clip maker for 1994. He's worked for TV Channel 3 and was
writer and host in The Music TV show.
Thank you Jesus for "Old Europe" and it's lack of burger asses
and androgeny. Lili worked for several fashion magazines and worked
in TV Shows, advertising and video clips. Sofia's most popular disco
hired her as a dancer and a year later she won two national competitions
for "Miss Beauty", was in training for figure skating, sport
gymnastics and classical step dance. She had the famous Bulgarian singer
Etien Levee as voice teacher. On a personal note, she's 23 and Angel's
46 and they ARE happy, have a young son...and they're so, so nice.
Then there's sweetheart Jessy, who's been pre-occupied with music since
childhood, and has this incredibly high IQ and flawless awareness. It's
hard to interview her because she interviews you. In 1998 she won the
TV Competition for young talents "Hit-1". She started performing
in Sofia rock Clubs in Medicus and was coached in vocal techniques by
Etien Levee, but says, "You can't really study how to sing- it
just comes out". She has great range and also writes and composes.
And they rock. "We like Korea out here at the beach," Jessy
said, "people are very nice to us- unlike in the studio- there's
audience contact." She's looking very Spanish in a black shawl
when they do Guantanamera, but they change their hair everyday- no flies
on them. A talented band that does more than decent renditions of Dire
Straits, Kinks, Blondie, Supertramp, Joe Cocker, Tracy Chapman and doesn't
miss a riff or note is a real treat at the beach. Catch A2 - they're
here live 'til the end of April...maybe longer.