Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Finland has lost one of its Eurovision stars. Seija Simola passed away August 20 but made public only today. She would have been 73 next month. She was one of the brightest stars in the music business until her unfortunate Eurovision adventure (read more here ).  Rest in peace, your voice lives forever.

Karoliina Kallio os Waldo's people fame turns 38 today! Her career started already as a kid in 1990 in a talent contest. Finnish national finals, Idols and other stuff followed until 2008 she joined Waldo's People line up just in time for Eurovision. In 2011 she tried also The Voice but only got to the first live. She's been singing backing vocals, gigging and became a mother in 2014.  Congratulations!

  It's almost September and Rai still hasn't decided nor let us know who will be hosting the Sanremo festival next year. If you think it's not important who it is, you are wrong. It is crucial. For the viewing figures and most of all for us following - would you like to spent five loooooong nights with someone you don't like or can't stand? Didn't think so. Sanremo already is a five long nights affair and if spent in a wrong company it just seem to drag on ever longer.... After various Mika s, Antonella Clerici s, Massimo Ranieri s and lastly Amadeus after Fabio Fazio and Fabrizio Frizzi are certainly out (phew) the past days has been all about speculation it will be Carlo Conti again for the fourth year in a row. The rumor is he will have next to him another figure from competing channel, Mediaset's Silvia Toffanin . If this year he had the Queen of Mediaset Maria De Filippi, Toffanin is the wife of Silvio Berlusconi's son and Mediaset'...

Past few days Eurovision fansites and blogs have went gaga over the Eurovision Asia contest announcement (and the hypotetial America Eurovision contest) but this blogger is like Meh . As excited as about the Junior Eurovision or don't even mention the dancers or choirs thing. Not that into you, sorry.  While the American one, already announced and quickly vanished from radar in the 2000's , is very unlikely to happen now either, the Asia one seems to be taking shape this time around. Labeled as the Asian-Pacific version of the Eurovision song contest it might be a bit interesting. However, don't expect more coverage from this blogger than I do for the Junior one: one before and one after.  After all, outside the fandome bubble, who is really interested? Even the promo video has been watched just 43.000 times in two weeks. Considering about the zillion people living in Asia, it should be 4,3 million by now..... (And whatever happened to OurSound ?) I'm oldfash...

  Stiko Per Larsson has won P4 Nästä 2017 and becomes the first confirmed act for any national final for the Eurovision song contest 2018. Let the season begin now with first internally selected artists being announced before the new year, as well as lists of artists and songs to take part in the coming national finals. Portugal here we come.... But back to Stiko. He will follow the (not so fortunate so far) footsteps of previous Svensktoppen Nästa aka P4 Nästä winners that have got the free ride to Melodifestivalen semifinals. He's 38 and he plays acoustic rock with a lot of folk thrown in, and in Swedish. He has already released five albums since 2008 but he is most known for his walking tours; he walks performing with his guitar for shelter and food from one place to another and along the way collects money for the children in need. His walking tours have taken him from south to north, from west to east, from Trondheim to Stockholm, from Stockholm to Copenhagen. Walk, pl...

SVALA goes for pastel fashion while Hovig has natural pastel colors Bubble Artsvik Camouflage Lidia Colorful Polina Sporty Ilinca  Edurne. Enough said. Dima looking fashionable Francesca  having a coffee before saying anything about the fashion choices.... Douwe in Lady & the Vagabond OMG. Ira is filming a new video.... as are Navi band. This week's covergirl is Claudia. How was your week?

Valentina sung at the beach with her band..... ... and Slavko gave it bums up Piero was striking a pose.in Sicily... ... as was Sergey somewhere Nina Z got to the beach as well as did Imri. Again. Did you notice the bird? Isaiah enjoyed the pool life instead Amir gave us amazing new song this week. And another amazing photo! Omar visited Turkey Nina B looked gorgeous and Nathan widened his horizons Anja dreamed of being a real viking Dima manages to look cool even in the dirt Emma enjoyed Roman sunset and we are back to Valentina's stage.  This beats every Eurovision stage she's been on to....  maybe?

After a long but entertaining evening from Castrocaro Terme here's who's maybe the next big thing in Italy.  The Castrocaro festival had a four member jury; Sanremo winners Giò Di Tonno and Silvia Mezzanotte, conductor and producer Fio Zanotti and DJ and talent scout Claudio Cecchetto. Each had one vote after each duel and in case of a tie Cecchetto's vote would determinate, him being the chairman. Duels? Yes, the duesl were sorted out live just before the performances when the presenters Marco Liorni and Rossella Brescia picked up a balls from the lottery macchine. Then the two chosen ones presented their cover songs, each cover was by an artist that had participated in Castrocaro in the past. A lovely way to remember those who's started it right here and went on having amazing careers. Greta was drawn out first and the singer her assigned was Zucchero. The faith also put the two groups against each other in third duel; a boy band and female trio. Greta...