Nizlopi - Biography

Nizlopi are a two piece band: Luke Concannon (guitar and vocals) and John Parker (double bass affectionately named Stephanie, human beatbox and vocals). Based in Leamington Spa, United Kingdom and educated at Trinity Catholic Technology College, they are becoming increasingly popular with their fresh brand of folk music. The band is named after a Hungarian girl that Luke had a crush on at school.

History

Half These Songs Are About You

Nizlopi released their first album, Half These Songs Are About You, in 2004 under FDM Records, and was generally very well received. It features the singles JCB and Girls.

JCB

The JCB song is Nizlopi's most successful song to date, after reaching number one in the UK on its second release. The song was written about Luke's troubles with dyslexia at school and his escape to accompany his dad at work, and was released as a single in June 2005, reaching number 160 in the UK Singles Chart. The single was then re-released in the UK on 12 December 2005, reaching number one the following week on 18 December 2005, selling more than twice the number that the closest contender, Westlife. Some bookmakers put it in the running for the honour of Christmas number one but it was beaten by the winner of the second series of the UK version of The X Factor, Shayne Ward's debut single "That's My Goal". The video has received lots of airplay, mainly on music TV channel VH1. It is an animated video, made by Laith Bahrani (a.k.a. 'Monkeehub'), who also animated an unofficial video for an acoustic version of "Creep" by Radiohead.

Girls

Their next single, released on 3 April 2006, was track 2 on the album, "Girls". The band have described the song's video on radio interviews as "Tim Burton-esque". The video was directed by Karni & Saul of Flynn Productions, and is the first that the band appear in. It was released, in what is now traditional Nizlopi strategy, on the Internet first.

ExtraOrdinary

An EP, containing six songs and titled "ExtraOrdinary", was released on 4 September 2006 . It was late due to the delayed commercial success of their first album and the resulting later release of the second album. The six tracks included two which had been released before; 'Helen' and 'Yesterday' which were previously released on the JCB and Girls EPs respectively.

Live Shows

Nizlopi are renowned for crowd involvement at their gigs, giving an energetic performance. Often improvising, inviting people up on stage to sing and dance or unplugging and going into the crowd. They took part in 'healthy concerts' or 'gigs in digs' where artists play in someone's house.

Nizlopi Official Website