Skip to main content



Here are my preparations for the gig on the 11th. Lots of guests to keep track of, lots of time to play. Very little money. That's life. It's my birthday. It's an investment for more gigs. Wish I could do a whole gig with a story teller who had a great story though... Would be brilliant. Just did a duet at a Buddhist course. I'm a member of SGI-UK. Playing improvised guitar as a live score to a sketch. Felt really good to get to play experimental improvised guitar and have people actually enjoy it - loads of people said afterwards that the guitar playing fit so well with Aletta's movements and was "timed perfectly"! - Aletta did the animal effects for Dr Doolittle and it was loads of fun to play to her story about an evil nun, eating soap and pretending to be a tree...



Anyway, on this gig there's the talented writer and songwriter David Green - I really like his email address name more - should be a stage name - Daid. I want to play tabla to two of his songs, maybe get him to learn one of mine that fits with what he does. Also there's Mel who I play with in the mini impro collective Meleliale - so we'll be two halves of that doing a structured improvisation about getting emotional at Clifton Down train station. Maybe Eli will also make it...



I want to play some chilean stuff - so there's some covers from 3 Chilean musicians - Joe Vasconcellos, Victor Jara and Angel Parra. I really should contact Claudio from his little studio on Gloucester Rd to do the percussion for them... Can't find his number. He's a good percussionist, I'm not sure if relaxed enough to play live though. But I think he'd enjoy at least playing to the Chilean 6/8 beats here and there, that no-one else really gets.



Would be great to get the Refugee band Sanctuary together again to play our title song - which we played with great success at the refugee week gig this summer. They are the two Zimbabweans, mbira player Fidelis, Cecilia, who toured the world then left it all to come here as a refugee. Finally she's starting to get into music again though. And Juan Gabriel from Colombia who seems to be playing the most interesting gigs in Bristol. But that would be sooo many busy people to chase after....



Hugh and Tim I know mostly from the Cube Orchestra and various unrehearsed jams at the Greenbank where we grew to know each other's tunes. We're going to meet and try out some structured improvisations.


Then there's Marco Anderson - I hope - he's another buddhist and has a study exam the next day followed by a gig somewhere very far like Poole. If he does come, he might be a bit scared by the song listing below... But each song with a name next to it is optional. Even to me. I just know I'd rather start with a big list, and they will be fine if they want to either because we've played those songs/improvs together in the past or because it wouldn't take much to explain them in one rehearsal. Might even sneak in a completely new improv. Would be great to see team brick, marco and mel playing off each other - the most technically gifted people I know and all very capable of the maddest and most creative improvisations I've ever seen.



Actually this is me a couple of days later. Team Brick will be in France, so the madness will have to wait.


Last but most important is my partner Krishinda(who trained classically as an opera singer once upon a time) - who is singing on a couple of songs. One we wrote together - a bit of a bed time song from when my daughter Quimsa was small.


Todo List:
call tim/hugh for rehearsal arrangement (doesn't have to be today)
call david for rehearsal
Trace Claudio
flyers!


#Song list
#name (possibles) [rehearsals to go|not even touched yet]


Elegia (Marco?) 1
David 2 Songs 1
Andana 3 (chema?) 1
Birthchant (tim/hugh)
Shit! (Marco Cajon)
Cancion de Jaime
Beheading of the french aristocracy (marco or mel)
Head football
Marco 1 song (his),
1 tabla/cajon duet (please?)
Glasgow Gill (Marco Cajon)
Do Sunsets Cry? (Mel/Eli?)
Requiem (hugh, mel)
West end scavenger (mel/team brick/tim)
Edoardo Benitez (hugh, t brick, tim, marco)
Surrounded (marco, mel)
The Closet (t brick, hugh, tim, mel?)
Artecnio the Millipede (marco cajon)1
Dietro Via Zanon (marco) 1(end)
Interacción (marco cajon) 1
Sandrocchia
Baby's Day Out 2
Eskimo Cabaret/Paris 2
El Hijo Arrepentido (marco) 2
Angelita huenuman (marco) 1
Ciudad Traicionera (Chema?) 2
Let go (Marco? Krish? Martin?!) 1
Careful 1
That's the way 1


31 songs so far - 5 * 31 = 155 mins - 3 hrs music! Better to start with more...
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How could Scotland have a more resilient food system?

The question that's led me to write this has been how do we adapt long term, specifically here in Scotland, where I live now, to coronavirus and the idea that pandemics are here to stay if we stay this industrialised and globalised. How does a society look if it's to be resilient long term, sensible and ecologically regenerative? We do know a few things about this novel coronavirus that we seem to be slowly figuring out as it evolves and spreads, and I have almost a picture of how it might look in my head. Here is the closest I can get so far to it, on a regional scale at least: In the picture, each block is a community of several households and work spaces, and each green space is where they grow crops, or graze animals. So why this system? Around the time when it was obvious a lockdown was coming, I read a community organisation manual that mentioned how graph theory applies to limiting the spread of something like Covid-19. It advocates getting together with your clos
Post a Comment
Read more

Poem for peace, from a pirate recording in a Cairo Museum.

My love With peace I have placed loving flowers at your feet With peace With peace I stopped the seas of blood for you Forget anger Forget pain Forget your weapons Forget your weapons and come Come and live with me my love Under a blanket of peace I want you to sing, beloved light of my eyes And your song will be for peace let the world hear, my beloved and say: Forget anger Forget pain Forget your weapons Forget your weapons and come And live in peace These I believe are the words of a widow at the tomb of her beloved. I got the words from this italian website . It was used in a seminal Italian anti-war song " Luglio Agosto Settembre Nero " by the band Area (although I guess they weren't called anti-war songs then) - whose vocalist Demetrio Stratos indirectly gives the name to this blog, and whose music is the inspiration for a lot of my mine. It's adapted in turn from a greek folk song, but no-one knows who wrote the original words, except that Stratos was probably
4 comments
Read more