Phoenix
You may not have heard of a rather interesting Romanian band called Phoenix. They've been in activity since 1962 (almost 45 years now) and they play
a unique folk-rock in the Romanian music. Some of their songs may remind you of Jethro Tull but as far as I can tell, they are some of the most original bands,
not just in Romania, but in general. Their official website in here hasn't been updated for a while, but their
fan club's website is slightly more recent.
The lesser known
There are many bands today who take the top places despite being utterly crap. Yes, I'm talking about Linkin' Park too. Others deserve their place up there, but are over-hyped.
To be honest, I didn't even know Nightwish had a bassist until I counted the band members on a friend's T-shirt and found out there's one more than I was hearing. And in all this time,
people miss the interesting bands out there. So, without trying to make a comprehensive list, a few bands you may want to hear:
Foreign Feathers, a band with a wonderful Irish folk. Very interesting vocal arrangements
Paddy O'Connor & Friends, same applies for them. Despite not being as ellaborate in vocal arrangements as FF, they have very sincere and clean music
Porcupine Tree, a band with a Pink Floyd-ish sound. I kindda like them. Official website
Nicu Alifantis, a Romanian artist who used to be very popular in the '80s, but lost much of the stage light in the modern pop-glamour days. It's hard to say what he plays. It's like folk,
only very elaborate. It's like rock, only very sensible and gentle. It's like pop, only much smarter. Sometimes it's like jazz, sometimes it's like blues. Some of the best lyrics around,
many of them written by Nichita Stanescu, one of the most respected Romanian poets. And his web site is a damn work of art if your browser can display it.
Opeth, a band who is currently starting to get more known around the world. Worth to listen to them, and visit their homepage if you have the time.
Harmonica links
Waiting for some sort of a dedicated harmonica page around here, I just pop out two nice links here:
Jack's harmonica page is a page with a lot of songs arranged for the harmonica. Also available are books if you have a hard time remembering or writing down everything
Hohner's harmonicas page. Somewhere at the middle is my favorite model, the
7565/56 Meisterklasse which I will hopefully able to buy some day. I used one two or three times and I remained, um, impressed.