Toronto Concert Review – Nov 8th, 2012

Solo Piano II Tour in PianoVision
Toronto – Nov 8th, 2012 8:00PM
Winter Garden

Good concerts are fun to attend, and provide a few hours of entertainment along with some happy memories. Great concerts, on the other hand, can change you as a person. Lire la suite

Recording Solo Piano II

Gonzales recently responded to a tweet about the mic setup used to record Solo Piano II: Lire la suite

Nardwuar Interviews Chilly Gonzales

Nardwuar

A mainstay in Canadian entertainment scene since 1987, Nardwuar (legal name “Nardwuar the Human Serviette”) is an energetic, bright, savvy, intense, and likable interviewer and musician. For a Canadian artist, being interviewed by Nardwuar is akin to having your song covered by Weird Al; quite an honour! Lire la suite

Gonzales’ Liverpool Poster

Event poster art is a unique subgenre of the overall art scene, and somewhat reflects elements of the time in which they were created. Gary McGarvey (aka Horse), is able to capture the essence of the artists he creates posters for, and is one of the most sought-after music artists in the UK and Ireland. Lire la suite

Twitter Activity – Nov 9

Great pre- and post-Toronto concert Twitter hubbub! Gonzales’ appearance on @metromorning was popular; you can use the search box below to find your tweet.

Q & MelodicA

Some Magazine describes itself as, « a new magazine somewhere between design and art. » They recently had the pleasure of interviewing Chilly Gonzales in a unique manner; with responses solely in musical form from a Melodica! Lire la suite

Emotional Fantasies and Escapism

« Fantasy » (or « phantasy ») comprises a large part of any entertainment genre; movies, music, theatre, etc. Escaping the confines of reality for a couple of hours is worth a great deal of money to many industries. Fantasy isn’t just the domain of the entertainment industry; Lire la suite

Rap’s Unspeakable Libretto

A rap rhyme review of “The Unspeakable Chilly Gonzales”

What if your inner voice just started speaking out?
And everyone could hear what you really are about
Would you have the guts to lay it down on wax? Lire la suite

Chilly Gonzales with the BBC Symphony Orchestra

October 20th 2012, Barbican Hall, London

The piano has become an instrument of the masses again. Thanks to one man, who brought the giant in black and white to life again: Chilly Gonzales. His recipe sounds simple: modification and adaptation. Instead of putting a good portion of pop into existing classical music and brewing a cheesy, unenjoyable pomp-chowder, he uses the rules of classical composition to create piano pearls in poplength and –structure. Lire la suite

Gonzales et K’Naan

Gonzales often says that his Solo Piano songs are 2-3 minute pop songs played on the piano. At the heart of that assertion is that fact that a good melody is universal – from Mozart to Smashing Pumpkins; it’s coded in our constitution. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Canadian artist K’Naan picked up a couple of Solo Piano snippets to use on his latest album. What should be surprising is that way, way more artists haven’t done the same! Gonzales recently tweeted that his piano ‘ghost’ appears on two track of K’Naan’s latest album

Here how « Armellodie » (from Solo Piano) was used as a theme for K’Naan’s song « Gold in Timbuktu »

K’Naan also used an « Oregano-like » sample as a backdrop to his song « Waiting is a Drug ». Gonzales indicated that he re-recorded the sample to better suit K’Naan’s song

There’s no doubt that the pure pop potential of songs from Solo Piano II will also be realized and sampled on subsequent records. Some people will abhor the idea of Solo Piano songs being used to underscore pop songs, but as Gonzales likes to say, the best way to save music is to make it a product of modern times!