Football Fever

World cup fever and summer heat have hit UB, with beer gardens on every corner and stores running out of cold drinks. Here's a multi-lingual cover of the "Waving Flag" done by the participants of Universe Best Songs, the Mongolian translation of American Idol.

And if you view the video on Youtube itself, don't forget to activate the Vuvuzela button with the football icon at the bottom for a complete football experience.

I think I heard the girl say "habibi" in Arabic at around 2:15 into the song. Universe Best Songs participants seem more interesting than I'd thought.

"Home"

I can't embed it. but if you follow the link it's one awesome film about our planet earth.
and it kicks off with a Mongolian long song!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU

Mongolian Ethno-Jazz Band "Arga Bileg"

Just a quick post to announce that Arga Bileg, a very interesting ethno-jazz band, is holding their CD launch gig tomorrow at 6pm at the State Philharmonic Hall. Tickets are available in advance from the venue box office for 10,000₮. I've been waiting to see them live for quite some time.


Here's a video of their song "Gemtei dee" featuring Erdenechimeg, a vocalist from the modern long-song band Shurankhai.



They also composed the soundtrack for "Dev", a Mongolian horror movie recently released. Here's a piece from the soundtrack.

Ozomatli to play Ulaanbaatar, XXXXX

So Ozomatli's here in UB to play a free concert at 7pm on Sukhbaatar Square later today.  A message has been circulating through the online Mongolian community saying the band insulted Mongolians by referring to Ulaanbaatar, China in the event announcement on their MySpace page. The band has issued apologies on Twitter and Facebook, blaming the default settings on MySpace for the error.

The band is now playing in Ulaanbaatar, xxxx.