Drum Class on April 1st
Sitting in bed on Sunday listening to 'The Roots of Chichal' a mix cd of 1970's psychedelic Andean folk rock. Drinking coffee from a huge tankard and eating thick slices of fruit toast. Life is good.
Drum class went well yesterday, the advanced students continue to impress me with their courage. My beginner students as well...their shyness fades in the light of their achievements. The thing that impresses me most about any student, is when they show me the skills they have developed without me. Each month I give them something new to learn, odd numbered limping beats and hypnotic trance rhythms, split finger techniques and roll patterns. I have also begun to return to my own roots in drumming by exploring polyrhythms with them. All the cross rhythm patterns I spent years playing are now fresh again as I share them. Yesterday we played a rhythm I invented seven or eight years ago, which I have never notated properly before, but which is counted 1, 123, 123412345 and which works excellently when broken into segments for cross rhythm play.
There is another drummer on the program for this year's Adelaide Belly Dance Festival, offering a drum/dance workshop with his wife, so I figure I need to lift my game and try to offer something other than just an introduction to Middle Eastern drumming. The skill base of the casual students here in Adelaide is gradually increasing, I was pleasantly surprised by the other students in the workshop held by Mert last month. Mert did not teach the very simplest of skills to an unprepared class of beginners, he offered the roots of his own musical tradition, teaching rhythms by ascending numbers, starting from 2 and reaching to 10. If you think about it too much it seems difficult, but he assumed that people were capable of following his lead, and so everyone could. I have been spending a fair bit of my drum practice time working on the techniques he showed me, and I am tentativley encouraged by my early successes. The rhythms he taught have made their way into my regular practice, as well as my classes. Aqsaq, Devri Hindi, Samai (and all its variants).
With the Fringe festival over, and my recovery from the post show blues pretty much complete, I am already looking forward. I have booked my next recording session on Monday night, Operation Firehat rehearsal on Wednesday, rehearsal for the wedding gig on Saturday night, Harem party next Sunday...
Zebulon recording at LB Studio on Tuesday April 4th
Recording last night was a blast, doing drum overdubs on Taken North of Egypt, as well as my first studio recordings of At least I have my Ukulele, and Hungarian Homesick Blues. I experienced a great peace in the studio, a strong sense of being myself, of not being afraid to open up to my own way of being, of doing. I was PRESENT, which is something very rare for me. My overactive mind races ahead and lags behind but very rarely do I see the world, and myself, as it is.
The music speaks for itself. I am excited to know that one day you will hear it, and that it may change you, as it has changed me.
There is a feeling I get with art, whether that be painting, music, writing, sculpture, cooking, dance etc...I get the feeling that the artist hasn't created anything at all. They have revealed something that was always there, from the beginning of time, just waiting for that artist to reveal it. I don't create anything, I just listen, and put my fingers to the instrument, moving them about until I get the song right, like I hear it in my head. I don't invent stories, my novels are not products of my imagination, they are the result of listening to the story as it is told to me, it is a process of inquiry, a conversation with the story, with the song....does it go this way, or that way?
I hold the pen, I hold the brush, the instrument, but I am not the inventor of the things I create, I transpose, I translate I interpret. Inventing is done by God.
"If you really want to make an apple pie from scratch, first you have to invent the universe." Albert Einstein
Operation Firehat Rehearsal on Wednesday 5th of April
At the bar Gardy said that it was like coming home, being with us together again. He's in the post show crash now, feeling useless and depressed. Being together feels very good, preparing for the show on the 21st feels good. We played really well tonight, excited to have another gig to plan for, still buzzing from the grandeur and power of the Tale of Two Tribes.
It is such a marvelous thing, to be a part of a band, to have one's life purpose manifest in the circle. We rehearse facing each other, some sitting, some standing, all looking inward - into themselves and into the centre of the circle. Nick is still recovering from the car crash he had during rehearsals, he still can't work, still doesn't have a car, still waiting for the insurance to pay up even though there are wittness testimonies and CCTV street footage of the accident.
Gardy said he had been spending too much time at school, Stompy said he had been spending too much time busking, Nick seems, like me, worn out by the financial burdens of being a musician. Each of us is doing it hard in our own way, but Gardy summed it up in a simple way. He said that his financial abundance is measured by how many pizza's and beers he can afford on Sunday. He said he had $50 and was wondering how to spend it. I suggested a bag of weed and a ukulele.
Now I am at home in Nairne, listening to the songs I recorded on Monday night. I am transfixed by their beauty. I have listened already six or seven times today while at work. I have never heard any music like it. In the distance the 11pm freight train rumbles past, making the windows rattle.
The chorus of my song (At least I have my Ukulele) repeats:
we have each other tonight
and that's enough
we have each other tonight
and that's enough
without each other tonight
we are nothing, nothing at all.
April 7th
Homelessness is reaching critical levels all around Australia, the household debt level is getting to be unretrievable, here I sit, safe and warm in my own home, money in my pocket, food in my belly, music on the stereo, children in school, a good job to go to...what was I complaining about money for? I have a life so abundant that I can afford to only work 3-4 days a week while still paying all my bills (mostly on time), I am fit and healthy, my children are fit and healthy, I have music, art, fine food, good friends, a happy family. Yesterday the news announced the poison gas attack in Syria. My life is perfect and I really have to remember that. Last night I found a new chord on the Setar that makes it sound like a ukulele. Today I will smell the roses, today I will feel the sunshine on my face, today I will feel good about myself and be grateful for the good I have in my life. Today I will feel good.
April 9th
Last night was the first rehearsal with Solomon and Alice, for the Middle Eastern wedding on April 29th. You never know how things will turn out when bringing new people together, but last night was very promising. I worked with Alice on The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe children's theatre show last year. Rather than summarise, I will give you the review I wrote for the show.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Firstly, theatre is not like anything else in life. In life we get up in the morning, we work, we worry, we play, we eat and we sleep. Theatre is more like dreaming. When you walk through those doors, you have to leave the world behind. The vaulted ceilings, the deep atmosphere of shadows and light, the tiered seats and faintly glowing steps down to the stage; a theatre is not like any other room you will ever walk into.
When you walk in through the doors of The Living Arts Centre (the theatre at the Waldorf School in Mt Barker), the world is left behind and you enter into a realm defined by the imagination. When the lights go down on the audience and a girl steps onstage wearing horns and carrying an umbrella, we don't see a child in a costume, we see Mr Tumnus, the stammering faun of the world of Narnia. When four children play a game of hide and seek, we don't just watch them step through the wardrobe, we walk with them into a magical frozen land and the snow falls on us all.
Ink Pot Arts production of the classic C.S Lewis tale, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a deeply inspired re-imagining of a story we all know, yet are drawn to again and again. For twelve years, Ink Pot Arts have proved themselves to be an important and creative force in theatre for both adults and children. This year's offering is not just a continuation of that tradition of excellence, it is a magnificent presentation on all fronts, with a string quartet, a children's choir, evocative handmade costumes and sets, beautiful watercolour backdrop projections and technical sound and lighting.
At the first rehearsal, I saw several faces in the cast who had been with the company for the production of Jumping Mouse eight years ago. Some of these children have been involved with Ink Pot theatre for all those years. I was not in a room of inexperienced school kids, I was surrounded by actors committed to their craft.
By midway through the production, I could no longer distinguish between children and adults. The children were so focussed, so intent in their peformance that they showed themselves to be far greater than their years would suggest. I saw the adults grow playful, casting aside their seniority in favour of equality, allowed into the sphere of the children's trust and friendship. In the final rehearsal I saw seated upon the steps, not a group of adults directing a group of children, but rather a cast of actors working together to share the beauty of their imaginations.
When I saw the children crawl across the stage, imagining the tunnel entrance of Mr and Mrs Beaver, I saw the whole production as a grand extension of the brilliant and natural 'play pretend' of children everywhere. Theatre in all its forms is an extension of this fundamental experience of imagining ourselves to be something else. It is one of the essential things that defines human intelligence. First we know what we are, then we know what we are not, then our minds allow us to imagine what we might be. These children dared to show us their own incredible imaginations as Wolves, Dwarves, Heroes, Beavers, Leaopards, Birds and a faun.
The four siblings (the heroes of the story), were utterly fascinating to behold onstage. Their familial squabbling and playful jostling revealing the close friendships amongst them offstage. Each child brought to their role an undeniable individuality, an expression both of the character as they are written, and of their own feelings. The beligerence and repentance of Edmund, the shy innocence of Lucy, the intelligent curiosity of Susan and the reluctant heroics of Peter - each was given life and feeling by these four rather startling actors.
Only three 'grown ups', in the roles of Aslan, The White Queen, (also Mrs MacReady) and The Professor, shared the stage with the twenty or so children . These pivotal characters, played by trained actors, granted the children powerful role models for the improvement of their own acting, and throughout the rehearsal process, I saw many important mentoring relationships become established. The children became more confident in their own roles, their characters' idiosnychrasies coming forth as they learned to express themselves more fully. The powerful and sincere perfomances given by these three adults gave a sense of awe to the stage as they towered over the children as Aslan the Great Lion, The White Queen, the Professor, and Mrs MacReady.
The backstage staff, consisting of a stage manager with assistants, sound and lighting technicians, hair and make-up artist, set makers, costume makers, cake bakers and army of supportive parents are the often overlooked and seldom praised backbone of any production and these were no exception. Their tireless efforts are to be commended and their success can be measured by the level of respect shown to them by the children. The orderly running of a stage production relies upon the steady skills of these black clad workers, and no review of a play would be honest without acknowlegement of their efforts. The smooth switching of onstage sets, the rapid changing of costumes and make-up, the preparation and creation of props such as swords, crowns and magic wands, these are all the products of the hardworking and very devoted backstage crew, who in the final count, outnumber the actors onstage two to one.
The supporting roles of Mr Tumnus and Mr and Mrs Beaver deserve special mention as well. These three characters were presented with such personality and nuanced mannerisms that I shall recall their performances for years. The dreamy reminiscence of Mr Tumnus, lulling Lucy to sleep with his stories, and the comedic english accents and homely hospitality of the Beavers stand out vividly.
The supporting cast of wild creatures filled the play with their beastial prowling and skittering flight. The dance and battle scenes really let these characters hold centre stage. With the addition of a dance choreographer working with the cast, the spring dance scenes, and the two battles had an enthralling dramatic flow, allowing a wordless phyisicality to express both the joy of spring, and the terror of battle.
It is this union of narrative and dance that made the inclusion of a small orchestra such an natural and powerful addition to the production. With three violins, a flute, a clarinet, a cello, a lead vocalist with a choir and a percussionist (me), the play was woven with beautiful melodies and subtle rhythms, the scene changes seamlessly bridged with music and songs written specially for this production.
At the end of the day, it is however the public who decide what is good. The glowing review of one man in the orchestra is nothing when compared with the buzz of the full theatre. Four shows, over two weeks, and every show the house was full. The final performance spilled the audience down from their seats, children crowding the steps at the very edge of the stage. This is the voice of the people. From my vantage on the side, I could look back and across at the glowing faces of the crowd. I could see the wonder in their eyes, I could hear their silence as they listened to the children telling them a story. In the theatre, we are all children.
* * *
So that's where I met Alice.
For this wedding gig, we are rehearsing at Alice's house in Bridgewater, since it is the middle ground between us, and Alice, who is still in High School, does not have a car. Bridgewater is a magnifient part of the world, with roads winding through thick forested hills, old homes and hidden cottages everywhere. Both Solomon and I got lost on our way there, even Solomon's GPS sent him on a wild goose chase. Alice's father is also a musician, and behind their home is a purpose built rehearsal room, with guitars, keyboards, computers and music textbooks. We began our rehearsal with a violin dance tune Alice had selected that reminds me of some 15th Century Italian music. It is a revolving melody that seems to run in circles around itself, never quite resolving when you think it will, and then when it does, it has already swept you along in the new, faster repeat. Second we did a slow improv with flute, accompanied by the sufi rhythm HayAllah, then finally a 9/8 tune that we converted to an 8 for ease of playing, Zirgule Sarki, adapted to include a snippet of the classic Jewish wedding dance song Hava Nagila.
The music we were able to produce is very promsing, and with four or five rehearsals scheduled between now and the gig, we should be able to really put on a great show. Getting paid is good motivation to rehearse, and since this is the first Middle Eastern wedding that I have been invited to play at, I am keen to make a very strong impression. Alice has no specific training in Middle Eastern music, but her classical schooling means she can sight read from sheet music, and learn new material by ear. When I told her she would have to improvise, she gave me the face that all classical musicians give whenever that word comes up, but it was a bit of an act. Her flute improv during the slow sufi song was excellent.
Working with Solomon again is good, aside from being a master percussionist, he is an excellent band leader and song arranger, with a wealth of experience to draw from. He understands tension and release, he understands the needs of a dancing audience, he is great at giving clear signals for breaks and changes in the rhythm and his improv solo skills are magnificent. Actually, it is the differences in our approach to soloing that make us a good pair, as each of us presents different techniques as well as musical aesthetics. I find myself holding the root of the rhythm while his fingers roll and fly around in a much more advanced and colourful manner, yet Solomon is always keen to make sure he gives me space to also be heard and for my own sound to contribute to the foreground.
The sound...Darbuka, Violin, Jembe, Tar, Flute and Harmonica...it's quite an act.
* * *
Today was the end of term school show for Arabesque. There are sights that cannot be paid for, dances which no stage can present. Two little girls holding a long red sash between them, spinning against each other's momentum, then weaving through the crowd of dancing women, none of whom was younger than 50. Mothers teaching daughters the dance moves they have learned in class, grandmothers teaching granddaughters. A hundred women in that room, five men, and two boys. Four of the men were drummers, one was the husband of a dancer. It is a rare privelege to be a man at an event like this, to have the opportunity to see women as they see themselves. To hear rolling laughter and see cheeky smiles, to listen to the music they choose to dance to. Belly Dance here is a women's community, a women's culture, almost exclusively. There is one male belly dancer in Adelaide, and he does mostly samba these days. As a musician I have a key that allows me to enter this community, and as a teacher I have a position of professional respect within the school. Yet despite me being the only male teacher in the school, and one of only five men in the room, absolutely nothing is said about my gender. This community centred around the celebration of the body, does not discriminate based on gender, age, weight or skill. This community shares dance and music, and as far as they are concerned, everyone can play.
It has been a strange day. Sometimes I just wake up with the dread that I have done something wrong, or am doing somethig wrong, and everywhere I look I search for signs that someone is pissed off with me, or annoyed, or insulted. I woke up with this feeling and haven't been able to shake it all day. It's a knot in my stomach, a stone. Writing about it breaks it up a little, but my teeth hurt again. Talking about it with my woman helped a great deal.
April 10th
So I took that hangdog feeling of being a blundering idiot and went and played music in a new cafe which opened up across the road from my house this morning: The Pig and Thistle. I took my uke, my setar and my harmonica and sat by the fireplace serenading the customers as they came in for the opening day. My teeth hurt worse than ever now as I sit in bed, sipping licorice tea, which is good for gum disease. Still, my son sleeps peacefully beside me, I am listening to my favourite Venetian Snares album, Huge Chrome Cylinder Box Unfolding. I just try to make the best of a bad feeling.
This afternoon I went to a local playground with Wren where I met a young girl of about ten, named Adison who told me of life with her family who worked in Zoos. She spoke French, had lived in America, had travelled all around Australia and was preparing to live in Bali for the next year or so. She told me about the most beautiful parts of the country she had seen, and of the beauty of the night sky when seen from an aeroplane at high altitude. She asked me if I was a soldier (the kids at Wren's school ask me that quite a bit, I wear old 70's army fatigues at work, handed down from my Dad) and I told her that my father and all my uncles and grandfathers had been soldiers but that all the men of my generation were farmers, geologists, mapmakers and musicians, the benefits of growing up in relative times of peace.
Meeting children is always the nicest thing.
I have begun preparations for the Adelaide Belly dance festival, where I will be teaching a beginners fundamentals drum workshop. This year another drummer is coming over from Sydney, Nasser. It's a bit odd, I was looking forward to teaching an advanced workshop on polyrhythms in middle eastern drumming, but I have been relegated to the back row by the visiting drummer. Being the only darbuka player in Adelaide means that I am the big fish in a very small pond, but whenever another dummer visits, I am a small fish again. Still, I should put my wounded ego away and just be glad that I will have the chance to study with someone better.
April 11th
I dreamed last night that my friend Deliah and her family came to visit me at my house in Nairne. She was returning the two dulcimers she had borrowed. Then the dream shifted and we were all in a big American style pickp truck, taking the garbage bins out to the road. We were no longer in Nairne, but somewhere very far from any town. Snow was thick on the ground and falling heavilly. Deliah was driving. We put the bins out, I was nearly run over by a white car as I crossed the road. Drving back to the house, we lost our way and the maps did not have the tracks through the forest we were driving on. Deliah was a very confident and skilled driver, navigating the winding tracks, going off road to avoid getting bogged, and totally unfazed about getting lost in the woods in the middle of a snow storm. She was confident that she could get us where we needed to go, without maps or even roads.
It's interesting that this is the second dream involving snow I have had recently. It doesn't snow here. Well, it has snowed a couple of times in the last 50 years, but it is more like thick sludge than actual snow. I should call her tomorrow.
Tonight was Firehat rehearsal. Gardy wasn't there so we started writing a new song, a gypsy dirge Stompy came up with in 6/8 then 7/8 time, a kind of limping, lunatic greek carnival blues. My son Wren was with me tonight, leaping around on the couches in the upstairs balcony where we practice at the Govenor Hindmarsh Hotel. This afternoon he drummed a perfect Malfuf rhythm on my back. A large portion of his life has been spent on stages, behind stages and in rehearsal rooms. Music is as much a part of him, as he is a part of me.
* * *
Midnight. I woke up stressed out about insurance. My thoughts ran along the lines of ...'I can't afford insurance, I've never needed it before, it's all bullshit, musicians don't get paid enough to have to pay insurance fees, I really can't afford to keep being a performer if I have to pay some bloated corporation for a service I don't need...' and so on
I have lived for so long with the overriding idea that I am a pauper and an idiot that it is very hard to imagine myself as anything else. Whenever anything to do with money comes up, my only thought is "I can't afford it". This has held me in good stead for a long time, especially since it has always been true. I run so close to the line that extra costs are simply not possible. At the moment I still owe $500 to the mechanic, having just paid $440 for new tyres which leaves $240, my entire fortune right there....ah shit, money.
* * *
2:18am
Too depressed about money to sleep, I got up at 1am to try to find something else to occupy my mind. My glass of Sangria has emptied once, and been refilled. I have just watched the DVD of Tale of Two Tribes...I haven't smiled so much since the show ended. It really was the brightest, most brilliant moment of my performing life so far. It makes me very happy to see it again, to see the beautiful smiling faces of the dancers and to hear the wonderful music we made for them. It really doesn't matter that it crippled me emotionally and financially to make it, these kinds of emotional ups and downs are par for the course in a peformer's life. We are all in this together. Nick (the guitarist) still hasn't got a new car, his injured hand means that he still can't work. He refuses to go on the dole though and is living off the meagre scrapings of his musical income. I can see the weariness in his face, the burden of living without any kind of financial safety net, no income, continual rising expenses. It's a bullshit game trying to make money from music, but we are all here in this leaky boat together. I haven't shaved in a while, when I looked in the mirror today I saw a large number of gray hairs, only 37 and I'm becoming an old man. Stress is the real killer, fuel for the fire we burn to make this art. I drank less coffee today though, and my teeth don't hurt so much, so that's good news. Hopefully I can sleep now.
April 12th
Rehearsal tonight with Alice and Solomon. Alice is amazing, the songs she has found to play are exciting and challenging, and it doesn't hurt that she is also an eloquent player. The three of us are really creating something good. After practice I listened to the two songs I recorded on my phone; my son and and old friend were playing with Lego on the floor, talking about laser beams and how the wing parts of the spaceship fit together. They both fell silent as soon as the violin began to play. As Wren changed into his pyjamas tonight he hummed part of the melody, so close to perfect as makes no difference.
Solomon really pushes me, I am striving to grasp his techniques, hell, I'm struggling to grasp my own. (...off to practice Jembe...I sometimes forget just how much I love the Jembe)
14th April
I had a cinematic moment yesteday at work, listening to Ross Daly. Just at the moment a harp strummed a descending glissando, a gentle autumn breeze shook the tree I stood beneath and I was showered in a gentle rain of yellow leaves. There are some days when the soundtrack of my life transforms reality, making magic where once there was only normalcy.
17th of April
A few days without music, just relaxing at home over Easter. Sitting in bed until midday, writing. Working on my novel, working on a new story for Dungeons and Dragons. In the afternoons I have been painting, I went for a walk on the beach with Carrie. Playstation in the evenings, Arky and I have been builing an EPIC castle in Minecraft, complete with towers, hidden gardens, secret tunnels, floating islands and a pilgrim mountain trail to a cave at the bottom of a waterfall.
* * *
Sitting on the front porch at the recording studio, dark beer in my belly, a pipe in my hand, the beautiful colours of the sunset fading gently and the wash of traffic, like waves upon the shore of my ear. The ringing of the railway crossing bells, the chirruping of tiny crepuscular birds, feasting upon insects hidden beneath bushes, in grasses and floating on the still air.
Tonight, Stompy and I will record some of his solo music, I have no idea what, but I trust the magic. I packed my set of 3 Doun Douns, my Cajon, both my cymbals, my darbuka, my Tar and one harmonica, no wait, two harmonicas, and my steel box drum.
Today I practiced Setar. I have new song, based on an improv from last year, called October Flood.
I can hear Stompy singing as he approaches, long before I can see him, his voice rising loud and clear above the traffic as he sings...
When the moon hits your eye, like a big pizza pie, That's amore!..
18th of April
We recorded four songs last night. Once a Jolly Swagman (sat down to smoke a bong), You rock my soul, Sunny Afternoon (the Kinks), and an instrumental quasi-cuban swing number. A bit of time spent mixing, Stompy got to work on my ukulele songs, making them sound like they were recorded in an empty hall, or an old warehouse. There is something very lonesome, particularly about Homesick Hungarian Blues. I have about sixteen weeks before the end of August, my deadline for the album's completion. Still a few songs to record, still many songs to mix...a lot of work, including the album cover and sleeve design, including this document. I'm not sure how I will present it, I'm not very tech savvy, but the ideas percolating in my mind might be quite simple to achieve.
This morning, while my car was in the shop having new tyres fitted, I came to one of my favourite cafés in Mt Barker to play my ukulele and drink a cup of tea. It is an excellent testing ground for new songs, for new arrangements. Even though no-one is really listening, they are all still absorbing the sound, and there is an unspoken feedback between us. The tattooed waitresses rush about, the café owner chats with the regulars between flipping eggs and making salads. This place is more like a country homestead kitchen, the customers are ordinary people of all ages. This is no fashion café, it is a place to eat bacon with hot-sauce at the long table with other locals, parents catch up with their adult kids, old men cluster around the tables outside.
Today, I was a scruffy musician sitting by the window, typing. His songs were played for the day (his payment for the cup of tea), and his hat sits, slightly crumpled on the bench beside him. At a table outside, a grandmother, mother and daughter drink latte's while the young woman unwraps an Eeaster present, hand knitted socks and a beanie.
* * *
Just back from Firehat rehearsal. Tonight we practiced in one of the studios at Arabesque, a beautiful, tiny, old fashioned room with a 1940's curved window looking out into the courtyard, stacks of books on a table and a blank canvas resting on an easel. The Fringe season has forged us together as a band, the songs that were once super challenging are now routine, every song has an old shoe comfort to it. The new songs we are writing are a step ahead again, using stranger timings, more intense bass lines and better developed arrangements. We have been together just a little over year. It is a very good feeling to be able to rely upon each other, to be able to trust that the music comes first, that we are in this together for the experience we are creating, for ourselves and for the audiences.
After pratice we stood around in the dim light of the carpark, drinking cider and talking about sex, drugs and music. Dancers finishing classes walk warilly to their cars until they see that we are not strangers, our laughter ringing out between the tall brick walls on either side of us.
There are days when music makes me sad, anxious, resentful, envious and exhausted.
There are days when music makes me feel whole, liberated, relaxed, at peace and thrilled to be alive.
I must find balance.
April 21st
Going onstage with Firehat tonight as well as Drum Arabesque, and doing a solo spot, all at the SoulFire show headlined by Mat Jacob, a dancer from Spain. Pre-show anxiety comes and goes, great lists of things I must pack, things I must write, places I must go and the narrow timeframe in which to get these things done. Finish work at 3:30, go home, unpack car, re-pack car, Wren is being dropped off to me, get dressed, pack costume stuff, get petrol, get food for dinner, go to venue, do soundcheck, do rehearsal with dancers...relax...have a bite to eat and a glass of wine, relax as the show starts, enjoy the dancing, get up on stage and sing a song, drum a drum, and rock with the band, then another glass of wine, enjoy some more dancing, get dressed in lion costume, drum for Regan in comedy dance routine to 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight'...relax and enjoy the headline dancer...pack, drive home, fall into bed.
April 22nd
I dreamed last night, in full colour and totally immersive reality that the dancer Jenny Vincent died while dancing. She dropped dead during a parade, Simon Ankor was filming it. I saw it when it happened, and then later on in the dream, Simon, Sarii and I were watching the film together. I couldn't believe it, I cried a lot, in shock that someone so beautiful and young could die like that, and with no explanation.
* * *
The show last night, SoulFire, was amazing. The North Adelaide community hall was full of smiling faces, a wonderful crowd full of friends. Backstage, fifty or so dancers congregated in secret. Backstage...it is such a magical place that most people never get to see. The magic of the stage is somehow enhanced by seeing the preparation that goes into making the performanes look so perfect. I have always loved being back there. Gardy, Stompy and I hung out in the kitchen with Tony Hall from Yellow Blue Bus, (a local Ukranian folk band) telling horror stories from our debaucherous pasts. Tony remained rather quiet. For the show he played a Halo (a development of the Hung Drum), and seated in the centre of the dance floor, bathed in warm stage light, his quiet instrument somehow built layer upon layer of sound until the hall was filled with vibration and the audience sat transfixed by this extra-terrestrial music.
Note: the legend surrounding the Hung drum goes something like this. Alien beings communicated the instrument design and the specific metallurgical forging processes necessary to build it, to two brothers in Switzerland. The brothers required all customers to write hand written letters to request the instrument to be made for them personally, and they reseved the right to reject requests. Eventually, due to reverse engineering and mass production by instrument makers overseas, the brothers have since stopped making the original Hang, and now the market is awash with many approximations of the original design. None of the copies have been made using the original processes handed down from above. The Halo is a development by an American company, with a slightly different physical design to the Hung. This is the legend. What the truth is I do not know.
For my solo piece, I played Tamborine, the song I wrote about Regan. It felt good to sing a song praising the wonder of dance, at a dance show. Standing high upon the stage, a spotlight beaming down upon me, I gazed out upon the upturned beautiful faces of the crowd and sang for them. I have for a long time preferred the intimacy of a tiny room, of a low stage. Large rooms feel disconnected, the audience are too far away and the stage can be lonely. However, last night upon that high stage, with the crowd spread out before me, I suddenly felt I had found my place in the world. I felt at the centre of myself, at ease, I knew what I was doing, and in a life as filled with doubt and confusion as mine, these moments of confidence carry me through the fog of anxiety so prevalent in my life offstage. I played beautifully, my voice was in fine form, relaxed and confident, really one of my best moments onstage.
Note: Tambourine, Noun, A shallow drum with a single drumhead and with metallic disks in the sides. Derived from Tambor: A frame made of two hoops; used for embroidering. Also: a frame drum from South America.
I have long known of the connection between grain winnowing sieves, and frame drums. The two technolgies grew up side by side in early grain/earth/sun worshipping societies. Frame drums were used in religious rites associated with nature deities, the instrument usually being played by priestesses, throughout Sumeria, Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley. (When the Drummers were Women by Layne Redmond. Music and Women XXXXX). It had not occurred to me that weaving might have also played a part in the development of the frame drum. Embroidery is also very old tech. I postulate that basket weaving may be the precursor form of this developing hoop technology. A technology derived from grasses and reeds and developed predominantely by women.
Next, my students and I played North of Egypt, nine of us onstage (four men and five women). We have rehearsed quite a lot, and it shows, especially during the solos. The chiftatelli rhythm still gives them trouble, but you have to take the rough with the smooth. Drum Arabesque, the name feels comfortable, Adelaide's only Middle Eastern drum troupe. I guess I can allow myself to feel a little pride, I have created something beautiful in this world. I taught myself how to drum, and then I taught these eight students, and together we have brought this music into the city. It is quite amazing to watch them play what I have not taught, to see their own imagnations giving rise to new rhythms. As a teacher, I cannot give a student a single thing, all I can do is show, the work is done by the student and has nothing at all to do with me. Their improvised solos are sounding more and more unique, stranger and quite removed from the kinds of patterns you hear in traditional darbuka music.
During the intermission, Operation Firehat rocked the house. The booming echo of the room made the sound a bit muddy, and at one point we couldn't hear ourselves at all, a passing bubble of silence in the chaos of reverberating sounds. We dealt with this by rocking harder. Gardy commented that it felt like we were onstage during WWII. There is a beautiful old-timey atmosphere to the hall that does make it seem like you are in the 1940's, especially with the crowd seated at round tables, enjoying food and wine while the band plays onstage and dancers occupy the centre of the floor.
After the band's six song set, (Welcome to the show, Zembetika, Los Desdellos, Fumblin's with the Blues, Working Class Blues, Turn the other cheeky) We got to play a piece from Tale of Two Tribes, the dance where the two tribes meet for the first time, the battle dance to the song Gardy vs the Jungle Bunny. Oh those time travelling gypsies! Just before the song started I dashed backstage beaming with happiness to tell them how wonderful it was to see them all again. The face paint, the hair do's, the costumes, this is how I know them. I do not know them, or really even recognise them in their casual lives and casual costumes (all clothing is costume isn't it?). I know them by their movements, by the distance from hip to rib, to shoulder, elbow, wrist. By their smiles, their winking eyes and even by the sound their feet make as they dance. The length of their step, the reach of their arms, the circles they draw upon the invisible air. To get to play for them, just one, song, just four minutes upon the stage beneath the hot lights and the hot stares of the crowd...to be that person, that vision, to be that tribe, to be IN the circle instead of watching the circle...
...oh my crowded heart.
The dancer who was the reason for this particular gathering, Mat Jacob, from Barcelona, is certainly worth the hype. I always wish the headline dancers would do more than two dances at these kinds of shows, but that seems to be the convention. Mat is much more than a belly dancer, she really stretches the fusion style to make it very contemporary. The fine detail of her idiom, the deep knowledge of the shapes her body makes set her apart from dancers who speak from a strictly traditonal vocabulary. While most dancers strive to continually hold strong postures, to make themselves look tall, slender, proud, lithe...Mat used her body to make mixtures of unusual and beautiful shapes, hunching her shoulders and curling inwards, only to stretch every part of her self in the next moment, then turning upon the spot, growing taller, then shorter, her arms tracing designs above her head as she turned on the spot, her face and posture flickering between expressions like a flip book. I have seen precious few dancers who move as if they wrote the music, but Mat is certainly one of them. Her choreographies seem to be the result of years of careful study and refinement...really the product of a life of dance. I have probably said it before, but good dancers are professional listeners of music, and the best dancers not only have the best taste in music, they complement, they adorn, they accompany their chosen songs, making themselves a vital element to the music, as much as a singer or instrumentalist does.
There is one other dancer I will make mention of, Bridgette Anderson. I have known her for a couple of years through the school, but I'm not sure I've ever seen her do a solo dance. Not all dancers tell stories, but her dance was expressive and anunciated as a poem, recited with a clear voice in a silent room. I will not try to interpret her movements into written language....that would be a celophane fire, a paper moon.
Monday April 24th
Rain in the morning, listening to Sabha Motallebi, an Iranian Setar and Tar player. Crumpets for breakfast. The Bridgewater Trio, as I am calling us now, rehearsed on Saturday night, working out our sixth song for the set. We have worked hard to get everything together in a very short space of time and I must say that a huge portion of that effort has been borne by Alice. Drumming is easy, even when playing rehearsed songs it is just another kind of improvising. Alice has to get every note right, every time.
Last night I praciced ukulele as I do most days, the kids playing minecraft on Playstation as I strummed slowly through all my A minor songs then started practicing King of the Road by Roger Miller. My album feels like it is nearing completion, which is probably an illusion created by the mounting volume of recorded material I have already. I still have five songs and two poems to record, and then comes the monumental task of mixing and stringing all the songs together. Oh, and I still have to get the choir in, and my sister to do vocals, and Gardy has to do the bass on Street Dance, and I still have to do some tambourine overdubs on Taken North of Egypt, Street Dance...yeah, I've still got a long way to go and only eight sessions in which to achieve all this. I really want to stick to the release deadline of the end of Winter. I have the cover art done, but I still have to get the design and logo stuff done. Then comes the spring launch party...
It makes me laugh now to remember when I began this project and I thought I could get it all done in three days, staying at the studio day and night.
Thursday 27th
Tonight my daughter Coco is reading to Carrie and I from Unreal Banana Peel. For those of your who don't know it, it is a classic childrens book of poems, rhymes and silly songs. A lot of them are rude and there is a lot of nonsense between the funny pictures that go with the writing. Both Carrie and I grew up reading the book and we know a lot of the poems by heart, even though we haven't heard them in decades. Later, Coco taught me the cup song, and most of a school-girls rhyme with the accompanying clapping. Instinctive music, passed down through children, generation after generation.
April 29th
Sitting in bed listening to Venetian Snares, Rossz Csillag Alatt Szuletett, a breakbeat album made using eastern european classical music and 1930's gloomy jazz. One of my favourites. My other favourite is Huge Chrome Cylinder Box Unfolding, a blindingly brilliant breakbeat masterpiece of such complexity that even now after twelve years of listening to it, I still hear something new each time.
Last night was the final rehearsal before the wedding gig, Carrie came along with me. For the first time, we played through all the songs without referring to our written arrangemenet notes, playing faster on the fast songs, and more intensely on the slow songs than ever before. We'll go into the studio to record as soon as possible. It's funny, the bride booked the band 2 years ago, as well as booking Regan to dance at her Hens night, but 2 years ago I could never have put this trio together. My first choice for the second drummer had been my old friend Kahl Hopper, and I was dissapointed when he knocked back the offer to focus on his solo music Xanga. Now, I couldn't imagine working with anyone other than Solomon.
After the rehearsal we all had dinner together with her parents, a delcious feast of mushroom risotto, egplant and fetta, dolmade's, olives and wine with apple crumble and ice-cream for dessert. Solomon told us that this was the very first Australian dinner he had shared with friends. He has been living in Australia with his 5 year old daughter for 3 years, but has not made any close friends to share dinner with. He plays in other bands, exhbits paintings and sculpure in exhibitions, but everyone is always busy. The bands plays their gigs, then everyone goes their separate ways.
Years ago I used to share dinner with friends every friday night, it was a standing invitation to anyone I knew. I worked on a large organic farm with a revolving staff of international backpackers, I was a part of a housing co-op, I was still with my first wife...we drank wine and mead, ate food grown on the farm, sang songs and played games...it seems like such a long time ago now. Now, it is as Solomon says, everyone seems too busy. My life has certainly changed a great deal, for one thing I used to drink two bottles of wine instead of two glasses, yet there was something very grand about last night's dinner, six people sitting at a round table and everyone filled with the glow of gratitude.
Both Solomon and I expressed our thanks to Alice, for without her music, we would just be two dudes playing drums. Alice thanked us both, for without our drumming, she was just a lonely violinist. I thanked Alice's parents, Michelle and Tony, for hosting our rehearsals, and they in turn thanked us for the music, saying that it livened up the atmosphere of the neigbourhood. We didn't actually hold hands and say grace, but we might as well have.
* * *
In the evening...
I just got home from the wedding.
Standing with the Bridal party on the dark path outside the feasting hall. The Groomsmen and Bridesmaids arm in arm before us, all dressed in black. Sleek. The Bride and Groom behind us, laughing with the joy of their day. She wore a classic white dress with a huge bell skirt, and white henna adorned the backs of her hands. Her smile, a brilliant and constant fixture on her expression, her energy was impossible to refuse, we danced together waiting in line. Somehow defying the classic aspects of her dress, Donna's stark black hair and straight cut fringe transform her appearance from one of beautiful old world charm, to something very modern and individual. The Groom wore a very well tailored single breasted suit, in a dark shimmering blue perfectly complementing his skin tone, this man was born to wear this suit. The MC announced the Groomsman and Bridesmaid, who then entered the hall to great cheers, clapping and whistling. In line we took a step forward. The Best Man and Maid of Honour were called, the cry of the crowd rolled out like a crashing wave as they too entered the hall. Solomon, Alice and I share darting glances...strangely I do not feel any nervousness, I just feel like I am in a normal place, with happy people sharing in something as large as real life. Despite not knowing what will happen next, I am in the very centre of my confidence. The Flower Boy and Girl are announced; they are running around the tables having the time of their lives.
It is time for us. We enter playing as the Bride and Groom are called behind us. The room is full of standing people, clapping and cheering, a glittering crescent of beaming smiles. We played in a circle for a moment, moving gradually to stand at the edge of the crowd, watching as Donna and Ashmin walked in, arm in arm. For a long time we couldn't really hear each other playing, just the dim outline of music amidst the bright noise of two hundred people suddenly dancing all around us. Donna moved like a woman in love. She danced with everyone, leaping around with an incredible vibrancy...she believed in all of us, she gave us all permission to really get out of our everyday lives and dance like our lives depended on it, like it meant something. The band become separated in the pullulation of the crowd, turning our heads this way and that we tried our best to keep eye contact, to even see each other, trusting each other to do our part in creating this sensational energy.
It kept going, and growing, this wonderful shared dance, the first event of the evening. I have never seen anything like it, never been a part of such a wild and expressive glamourous flashmob. We played and played until everyone was sweating, until the Bride glanced up with her kohl rimmed eyes that told me it was time. We flourished, blooming in the sunlight of their praise, and let me tell you, there is no greater praise for a dance band.
The crowd untangled their way back to food laden tables, back to half drunk glasses of wine, back to the familiar circles of their carefully selected dinner companions. We took our places behind microphones and began again in earnest. Hicaz Zirgule Sarki, Bashana. Hayallah, Inanna's Lament. Though they look away, they listen, through their conversation I see them dance in their seats. In her throne, the Bride danced continuously, talking, laughing and feasting. During our slow song, I saw the Greek father of the Bride and one other man of his generation clapping in absolute earnest to the Chiftatelli rhythm. It means quite a lot to have an audience know what you are playing, who understand the culture and musical nuance.
We finish with a reprise of our first song, stepping away from our microphones and taking to the dance floor. Within seconds Donna is there dancing with Ashmin, joined immediately by the rest of the bridal party. Solomon, Alice and I share lingering smiles, we are all in the centre. Flourishing, we blossom in the praise of their dance, and let me tell you, there is no greater praise.
