The Parlotones

Infobox musical artist
Name = The Parlotones


Img_capt = The Parlotones
Img_size = 300
Landscape =
Background =
Origin = flagicon|South Africa Johannesburg, South Africa
Genre = Rock, Indie rock, Alternative
Years_active = 1998 – Present
Label = Universal Records
URL = [http://www.parlotones.co.za/ "www.parlotones.co.za"]
Current_members = Kahn Morbee Niel Martin Pauw Glenn Hodgson Paul Hodgson |

The Parlotones are a South African indie band, based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Biography

Parlotones singer and songwriter, Kahn Morbee , started learning to play the guitar at the age of 17, where he began a journey into song writing that would eventually end up defining The Parlotones sound. In the summer of 1998, Morbee was introduced to Neil Pauw, a drummer who had attended the same high school as him. On hearing Morbee's songs, and realising a shared vision for music, the two decided to start a band together.

At university Morbee while actively campaigning for gay rights met guitarist Paul Hodgson. One day after both of them were thrown out of the library for playing guitar, Morbee asked Hodgson to join himself and Pauw for a jam. He came to a practice, liked the songs, and joined.

At the time Hodgson's younger brother was still in high school and could play guitar, piano and bass, so the band asked him to bring his bass to a band practice. With that the band line up was complete. The Parlotones played as a four-piece for almost three years until July 2002 when they asked John Boyd to join, adding a subtle synth and sound effect element to the band, as well as contributing to the engineering during live shows.

During 2006, The Parlotones earned a number of remarkable praise, the most recent of which is signing a worldwide license deal with the international division of Universal Music. The deal, which covers the territories of France, Japan, Germany, Holland, Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom, was set in motion by their single ‘Beautiful’ being used in the FUJIFILM TV advert for Ireland. Other international achievements include being play listed on one of Germany’s biggest alternative rock radio stations Motor FM (7.5 million listeners). Their single ‘Overexposed’ has been Gold play listed, which is the highest rotation the station offers.

Video play of their music video for ‘Colourful’ on MTV Dubai got the bands name on to the ‘hot list of opportunities’ of MTV Europe.

In 2006, they won the SAMA award for Best Rock Album when they released their album “Radiocontrolledrobot”

The band’s single ‘Overexposed’ was used as the theme song for FHM World’s Hottest Woman short film

In 2007 The Parlotones signed with the international artist agency Primary UK. The agency, which has a massive international reach, books for such names as: Panic! at the Disco, Allen, The Cure, Fall Out Boy and The Streets.

The band finished recording their new album, entitled [http://www.powerzone.co.za/scripts/power.dll?subrt=pzfndnews&news=86734 A World Next Door To Yours] in July 2007. It is due for release in South Africa on 28th September 2007 . The first single from the album, "A Giant Mistake" was released on 1st July 2007 to much critical acclaim.

The Parlotones bassist Glenn says: " The sound on the new album is still distinctly Parlotones. It's leaning towards being a little edgier than Radiocontrolledrobot, but still caters for everyone, having an equal mix of upbeat and slower, ballad-type songs. This album sees Kahn's songwriting taking on a whole new level, with him drawing inspiration from his favourite cache of artists, ranging from The Beatles and The Stones to Coldplay, R.E.M., and Snow Patrol."

The band played at South African leg of Live Earth on July 7, 2007.

Kahn Morbee's real name is Dingaan; named after the Zulu King who murdered King Shaka Zulu

Europe, Asia & MTV

* The first single to be released in the UK was ‘Dragonflies & Astronauts,’ which was on 15 pop/rock radio stations in late June 2007.

* The single ‘Beautiful’ has gone to radio in 14 countries across Europe. Japan, Finland, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, France, Ireland, Asia and Turkey are amongst the various territories currently sampling the bands music.

* In early 2008 they were selected as featured artists on the MTV Asia website, www.mtvasia.com, which receives hits from all over Asia from users such as Singapore, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Japan. The music programming team at MTV Asia decided to feature The Parlotones on the site after hearing about the group from African colleagues at MTV base in South Africa. The Johannesburg-based channel has championed the band internationally since 2006, when The Parlotones won an on-air competition to find the hottest up and coming band in South Africa, to be pronounced MTV Alert Artist of the Year.

* Dragonflies & Astronauts was aired on MTV 2 in the UK.

* The band’s video Louder Than Bombs premiering exclusively across Africa on MTV base in October 2007.

* Other MTV Networks including MTV Dubai and MTV Europe have also given the band editorial support including airplay for ‘Colourful’ on MTV in Dubai while MTV UK and Ireland gave their backing to The Parlotones’ first sell-out UK tour.

* The cutting edge video for "I’ll Be There" remained on the MTV base “A list” for the whole month of April 2008 and stayed at the number one spot for two consecutive weeks on weekly TV show Base Countdown Africa. The network is also planning further programming featuring the band on MTV UK & Ireland and MTV base (DStv Channel 322).

=46664 Concert 2007=

On December 1st 2007, the band was scheduled to play at (and open) the Nelson Mandela 46664 concert in Johannesburg, but to the disappointment of thousands of fans failed to arrive [ [http://www.thetimes.co.za/Entertainment/Article.aspx?id=648866 The Times - Article ] ] . The band protested blame for the misunderstanding saying that they informed the concert organisers from weeks in advance and right up until the concert that they had a paid-for prior commitment, but would fly through directly after. The band claims the organisers, Real Concerts, were non-responsive until it was too late. The band released the following statement:cquote|With regards to 46664 and The Parlotones not performing we would like to take this opportunity to release facts on the situation.

A few weeks ago when Real Concerts approached the band to perform,we told them the band would love to but had already been booked for a show in Cape Town. A deposit had been paid so The Parlotones had to do the show.

We told them however that The Prlotones could make 46664 if they flew back immediately after their Cape Town show but they would only arrive in JHB by 7pm. So we asked for them to be put on the line up after 7pm.

When our offices got the 46664 line up last week we found that The Parlotones were opening the show at 2pm and we immediately contacted the Real Concerts offices to once again stress the band had another show booked and couldn’t make it up to JHB in time for their 2pm slot.

We repeatedly called the Real concerts offices and sent numerous emails but were told Linzi (Real Concerts) was not taking any calls on Thursday and Friday and no one got back to our emails. (Linzi had however answered a call from an unknown number at our offices, one she doesn’t have in her phone, so this was obviously a lie in an attempt to avoid talking to us)

We got a revised line up on Friday night and still The Parlotones were on at 2pm…so we did the only thing we could do and we sent an email back to Real Concerts telling her the band won’t make it as they are in Cape Town.

Still no response.

We were very surprised and taken aback when we got a call Saturday afternoon from Linzi asking if the Parlotones are really not coming! We repeatedly told her that we had informed both her and Roddy both telephonically and via email of our situation but she avoided responding.

The situation was like banging our heads against a brick wall…no matter how hard we tried we couldn’t get hold of anyone and we couldn’t get a response.

The Parlotones were very keen to help out whenever needed, they were available for many many interviews and their name was used to promote the show.

The Parlotones were also the only band on the line up to agree to do a charity visit to an orphanage and this after they had just landed from a flight and done over 15 private parties and numerous live performances.

It really isn’t fair for the band to be reflected in such a bad light especially since they were happy to do the show free of charge and are known for their charity performances with Starfish and many other fund raising events.

We understand that Roddy Quinn of Real Concerts is informing people the band cancelled just before the show on Saturday and can state that this is totally untrue with original emails sent to his offices weeks in advance to prove this.

References

Band members

Discography

Albums

*"EPISODA" 2003

*"RADIOCONTROLLED ROBOT" 2005

*"RADIOCONTROLLED ROBOT (International Release)" 2007

*"A World Next Door To Yours" 2007

*"Dragonflies & Astronauts"

EPs

*"BORDERLINE PATROL" 2004

*"Dragonflies & Astronauts" 2005

*Superstars""'

External links

* [http://www.myspace.com/theparlotones Official Myspace]
* [http://www.parlotones.co.za/ Official Website]
* [http://theparlotones.com/ Official International Website]
* [http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=ghiacand&search_query=parlotones The Parlotones YouTube Channel]
* [http://www.powerzone.co.za/scripts/power.dll?pagename=pzbandmain&band=826/ www.powerzone.co.za]
* [http://www.sovent.co.za/parlotonesalbums.htm www.sovent.co.za]