Nightlosers is a romanian ethno-blues band, mostly remarkable for their ability to find common roots between country-rock, American blues and Eastern Europe genuine folk, thus conveying the same message through complementary ways of expression. Their sound is chameleonic - to induce the rock/blues/ethno state of mind, the blend is a well-measured recipe with a bit of passion, a bit of subtle self-humor, a lot of technique in whatever device that produces some sort of sound, from overdriven guitar down to poplar leaf -- and a good dose of temper. They are having concerts all over Europe as well as in the USA.
Their repertoire of traditional blues grew organically on stage. It grew out of having some fun during a jam session. Their first tape, 'Sitting on top of the World', 1994, was influenced by traditional folk music; these influences were taken further with their first CD 'Plum Brandy Blues'. The project is also called 'The Groove Distillery' since they invited many guest musicians. These musicians used instruments like cimbalom, taragot (a type of clarinet), leaf, ceramic birds... This recording is a brilliant testimony to the soul of the band. A delicious mixture of blues and folk music from the Balkan area, with some jazzy-funky grooving on top, and a whole lot of humour. Nightlosers' music is full of surprises and original turns.
HISTORY:
The band got together in 1994, in the city of Cluj, Transsylvania, Romania
The music they play is a combination of american Rhythm and Blues, Rock'n'Roll and elements of transsylvanian folclore: romanian, hungarian, gypsy and german folk music.
NIGHTLOSERS released three albums, "Sitting on Top of the World", "Plum Brandy Blues" and "Rhythm'n'Bulz" their most recent one, in 2005
NIGHTLOSERS performed in concerts and appeared in TV and radio shows in many countries like: Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czeh Republic, England, Germany, Greece, Hungary, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, USA
THE CONCERTS: important performances
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- 1995 The Coca Cola Super Blues Festival Bucharest, Romania (with John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers, Liz McComb and others)
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- 1995, 1998, The Sziget Island Festival Budapest, Hungary – the biggest Open Air Festival in Eastern Europe
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- 1998, The "Teacher's" Rhythm'n'Blues Tour, 14 cities in Romania - the biggest romanian Blues tour ever, powered by "Teacher's"
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- 1999 The Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Washington, USA
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- 2000 Moulin Blues Festival, The Netherlands (with Buddy Guy, Sam Brown and other artists)
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- 2000, 2001, "The Summerfestival Tour", Belgium and The Netherlands: a tour of over 25 cities in Belgium and the Netherlands
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- 2000, "Labadoux Folk Festival", Belgium: a world music festival with a rich tradition including artists like Warren Zevon, Fairport Convention, Thin Lizzy and others)
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- 2002,Romerike Blues and Roots Festival, Norway, with bands like "Ten Years After", "The Yardbirds", "Steppenwolf, Willie DeVille etc
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- 2003, Nottoden Blues Festival, Norway, one of the most important Blues festivals in the world
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- 2004, Coin Street Festival, London
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- 2004, Lisbon, Portugal, opening of the new school year at the National Film Academy
- 2005 Concert at the Timisoara State Prison, Romania
2007, Greece, club tour
- 2007 World Music Festival London, Queen Elizabeth Hall
PRESS REVUES:
Something of the Nightlosers
On a trip to Romania, Keith Shadwick chanced upon a band which blew his mind. Now he can't listen to anything else...
When on summer holiday in Transylvania, while you might expect the occasional brush with the local folk music in one form or another, you certainly don't expect to discover a band playing the most bizarre combination of blues, R&B and eastern European gypsy music that you've ever encountered in all your days as a music critic. But that's what happened to me.
It had all started so innocently, but then I guess Bram Stoker had thought that too, and look what happened to him. I was staying with my family at the guest houses of a genuine Transylvanian count - the young (just 35), charming and urbane Count Tibor Kalnoky - in the obscure hamlet of Miklosoara (that's Miklosvar to those of Hungarian descent), settled amid the rolling countryside of south-eastern Transylvania. I hastily assure you that we were paying for the privilege, and that the other guests (mostly from Central Europe) were as well. But the Count, deeply committed to restoring his family's estates to pre-Ceausescu glory and also to preserving the unique hybrid cultures of Transylvania, was a willing font of local knowledge.
Being a music-lover, he provided a large range of CDs to accompany his guests' evening meals when the weather was cool and we had to eat inside. The first track played that evening was Jimmy Reed's "Shame Shame Shame": it started fine, with solo bottleneck guitar worthy of Muddy Waters, but when the band came in there was a country fiddler playing jig patterns, a banjo plunking away and the bass and drums playing a country-mile two-step. Wild! And that was before the vocalist started (he had a troupe of backing female vocalists à la Bryan Ferry intoning "Shame On You" for a start). By the time the violin solo began I was anticipating more weirdness, but was then knocked off guard again by the accompaniment of a bunch of thigh-slappers doing a Transylvanian Morris Dance along with the band's electric guitars. The blues playing was superb, the singing completely authentic: these guys knew what they were doing. The recording quality was also impeccable.
The song ended and the CD carousel whirled, moving on to some more typical Transylvanian folk music. My attention wandered - it was feeding time, after all. About 20 minutes later, we were back to the same CD as the unmistakable strains of "Blue Suede Shoes" struck up, sung in a manner Hank Williams would have approved of, accompanied by suitably dirty electric guitar. But as the vocalist reached the refrain, the whole band broke into a fast polka. What?! This provoked me into laying down my knife and fork, picking up my glass of wine and stalking over to the CD player. There I discovered that the perpetrators of this madness were a group called Nightlosers. The name of the album was Plum Brandy Blues. Sounded like they were on the stuff at the time...
The next day, I asked our ornithologist guide, Bobby, what he knew about the group and it turned out he knew a bit. They were Transylvanian musicians from the University city of Cluj, around 100 miles away, and were very popular there. They played lots of gigs. "Come to think of it," he said, stopping in his tracks, 'they played at a huge outdoor barbecue here."
"How come?" I asked, feeling the presence of their mad music wrap itself around me as we stood in the grounds of the Count's deserted hunting-lodge.
"Well, an American stayed here a couple of years ago and heard their CD," (this is getting repetitive, I thought) "he liked it so much that he arranged through the Count to hire them to play here in the grounds of the Hunting Lodge. The guy flew his whole entourage over from America. The entire village came, plus other guests of the count." Bobby, standing on the porch of the lodge, gave a sweeping gesture with his arm. "All the village was grouped here, it was summer, and the band played for a long time."
"Did everyone enjoy it?" I asked. "Oh yes. It was good. Everyone danced and sang and the American was very pleased too." I stood there envisaging a whole village of people doing the Polka to "Blue Suede Shoes".
"Bobby I've got to buy a copy of that CD before I go back," I cried. "Where can I get one?"
It happened we were going to Cluj for a couple of days. Bobby said we'd be bound to find one in a shop in their home town. I scoured the place with my family on a boiling hot afternoon (my sons had now become similarly infected with Nightlosers fever) and eventually found a large record shop. No Nightlosers. I asked an assistant. "Sold out" was his off-hand remark. "Any more CD shops here?" I asked. "No."
Five days later, the quest was rewarded. In Bucharest, with a few hours to kill, we found a big music shop. They had five copies. I bought two. When we got back I hit the internet in the hope of contacting the band to the strains of "Pretty Thing" (played with a rumba beat) and "Stormy Monday Blues" (given a slinky cowboy feel)[…]
One thing I know for sure: put them on at the next Meltdown series and they'll steal the show.
Contact web:
www.nightlosers.ro
www.myspace.com/nightlosers
