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. Nizlopi are renowned for crowd involvment 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. The duo also ran an auction on Ebay to have a song written for the highest bidder in November 2005. The band are named after a Hungarian girl that Luke had a crush on at school.
Nizlopi have so far released one album, Half These Songs Are About You, which was generally very well received. It features the track JCB Song which has a highly-acclaimed accompanying video. 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.
Their next single, to be released on 27 March 2006, is set to be track 2 on the album, Girls. The video will be directed by Karni&Saul of Flynn Productions. The quirky video has been released, in what is now traditional Nizlopi strategy, on the internet first. Link below.