Pasodoble

Sun 9 May

San Sebastián

Sunday morning, Plaza de la Constitución. A little band playing Basque favourites under the arcades, and passers-by who can't keep their feet still.

See the San Sebastián photos.

Skolvan Scottische

Download now or listen on posterous

Skolvan Scottische.m4a (3401 KB)

Jeudi Matin at practise - on a Wednesday morning, of course.

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Martin Carthy at the Oak

Thu 20 Nov
Royal Oak, Lewes

Martin's annual visit. Somehow I managed to grab a front row seat, so the pics are a bit closer-up than usual.

Buika at the Komedia

Wed 19 Nov

A glorious performance, a full set of coplas and boleros, some older, some newer, giving the songs the full melodramatic treatment intrinsic to these genres. She sang with just piano and drums, and the line-up and the cabaret ambiance suited her music much better than the full-on band and big theatre setting we saw at Sadlers Wells in March. Here her voice could be highlighted without having to dominate an over-amplified band, as at SW, and she could give full rein to her wide range of expression and volume. And what a range! She is unique in bringing a genuine jazz sensitivity into Spanish song.

See her web-site for info and clips; there's also loads on YouTube. And my little Flickr set has been picked up by her fans' blog . . .

Leon at the 100 Club

Sun 9 Nov
100 Club, Oxford Street

A family reunion (Beatrice and Ken, Peter and John, Brian and me) - thanks to the Geni family tree site - and another chance to hear Leon singing some of his current set. I should have posted on his evening at the Komedia in Brighton in May - My Life as a Songwriter or How I Failed to Become Rich and Famous - a wonderful, heart-warming, and very funny show - but here goes, better late than never, as usual.

Leon demands full attention from the listener - he must have the highest syllables-per-bar quotient of any songwriter on earth, so if you're not concentrating, you'll miss half of it. And it's all acutely observed, tightly woven, and witty, and constantly challenging, so it's well worth not missing any of it.

Just as when I saw him in Brighton, and in Lewes last year, I was convinced he sang the last two songs just for me - the Song of the Old Communist and My Father's Jewish World; well, this time, just for us. And The World Turned Upside Down for everyone, of course.

Thanks due to Robb Johnson for asking Leon to do support for his CD launch - as Leon said, it was going to be an evening of contrasts.

* * Coming shortly - Leon and Robb celebrate the bi-centenary of the death of Tom Paine with The Liberty Tree. This show just has to come to Lewes! * *

Listen to Leon's songs on his myspace, and get his records direct from his website.

The Sound of Glynde

From the monthly English session at the Trevor Arms, Mon 13 Oct. Some of the old favourites played by some of the old favourites, and recorded in mono on my iPhone. The audio files are hosted at Box.net.

Jeudis de Perpignan

Thu 7, 14 Aug
Perpignan

From 7 till midnight, every Thursday evening through the holiday period, the centre of Perpignan hosts a mini street music festival, with a wide range of traditional and popular music from France and round the world. This year we saw Spi and La Gaudriole do a cracking bal folk set that had the whole of the Place de la République dancing, klezmer, trad jazz, a fanfare from Bénin, songs composed by Catalan women, even a parade of geese led through town by an accordionist.

The final spot on our second night there was the cobla band La Mil.lenaria playing sardanas - what else? - accompanied by a tractor-drawn mobile carillon. The carillonist (?) sits in a cabin at the back at a keyboard, and it's really weird to hear a tune played by a peal of bells moving down the street. Their final piece was Lluis Llach's L'Estaca, the number one Catalan anthem from the 1970s, still going strong, belted out by cobla, carillon and the voices of a couple of hundred spectators, at midnight.

Couldn't happen in England.

Quartets at Molitg-les-Bains

Molitg-les-Bains (Pyrénées Orientales)
Mon 4 Aug

Well, duos, trios and quartets, part of the Casals Festival of Chamber Music, based at Prades. Haydn, Mozart and a Beethoven cello sonata - gorgeous!

[links to come]

Llibre Vermell de Montserrat

Abbaye de Fontfroide (nr Narbonne)
Fri 1 Aug

Jordi Savall and Hesperion XXI playing one of the masterpieces of medieval Spanish music - the Llibre Vermell is the Catalan equivalent of the Cantigas de Santa María.

Does the photo look a bit indistinct, fuzzy, out-of-focus? Well I'm afraid that's how the music sounded to me, from our seats at the back of this huge abbey - a very striking setting, but awful acoustics. I'll have to listen to their CD, and visualise them performing.

[links to come]

Espace Brassens

Sète
Fri 1 Aug

An audio tour, with commentary in Brassens' own words and often in his own voice (so no chance of an English version!), wonderful pictures from his childhood through to his final years, and lots of clips from his songs. Well worth a visit - but be sure you get there at least an hour before closing time, or they won't let you in.

[links to come]

Jim Causley

Thu 10 Jun
Royal Oak, Lewes

Jim is one of the best of the current crop of young folk musicians, and one of the early graduates of the Newcastle University Traditional Music course. We saw him last year with The Devil's Interval, an a capella threesome using powerful and challenging harmonies.

His repertoire is mostly traditional, quite a bit of it from gypsy sources. According to his website he reckons he's Devon Incarnate - not a bad description, musically at least. There's a few tracks from his latest album Lost Love Found on his MySpace site.

Los de Abajo

Komedia
Wed 9 Jul

Them from down there. A raucous, brassy mix of Mexican traditional rhythms, salsa, rap, hip-hop, and plenty of ska-tones. The line-up is similar to the Balkan bands - 5 brass, 3 percussion, lead and bass guitars. See the Flickr set. They even finished up with an acoustic promenade on the floor, just like Mahala Rai Banda.

Just think, 45 years ago I read the book for my A-levels - it's a novel of the downtrodden in the period before the Mexican Revolution, 100 years ago. Little did I know . . .

[book link via Amazon Associates - if you buy it I probably get 2p commission]

SkaToons at the Con Club

Con Club, Lewes

Sat 5 Jul

At last - I've managed to miss them 2 or 3 times already this year. You have had 2 or 3 gigs this year, haven't you, lads?

A string of classics, from ska, through reggae and soul, to funk and jazz, and back again. Great to dance to, and an enthusiastic following, including some suspiciously young ones. And they played Longshot kick de bucket during the break! Listen to their current CD on their website, and see a few more pics on Flickr.

[Funny that my first visit to the Constitutional Club is during Tom Paine Week; also funny that they don't do Harvey's Tom Paine bitter.]

Ben and Tab do the Farmers' Market

Lewes Farmers' Market
Sat 5 Jul

Ben Paley and Tab Hunter play Roscoe's Waltz - it's almost a Limousin mazurka!

Quality busking!

Mahala Rai Banda

Komedia, Brighton
Sun 25 Nov

A big, brassy, hoot! Rough at the edges, and fun from start to finish, which only came after they got down and did a 15-minute walkabout. See the gig photos on Flickr, and listen to a few tracks on their MySpace.

Blowzabella @ Lewes

Sat 17 Nov
Lewes Corn Exchange
A cracking gig at the Corn Exchange (ie, Town Hall), a few seats round the sides but otherwise played for dancing, which is as it should be - it is dance music, after all. The poor acoustics towards the back of the hall meant that some dancers didn't get such a good deal. As is often the case, the closer, the better, as you can see from the Ladies in Black! Here's some Flickr pix, and their web-site and you can listen on their MySpace, and also buy their CD Octomento and their book of New Tunes for Dancing from Jo Freya.

La Identidad (3)

And here it is in all its glory, via:

Keynote (Mac) > Powerpoint > iSpring (Windows) > slideboom.com > Blogger

The iSpring > slideboom combination is the only route I have come across that can post a Powerpoint file online with all embedded audio and video clips playing 'on click' - for free. The visual quality and the functionality are far superior to the video version I posted to TeacherTube. And I've somehow managed to embed it here - I hope I'll be able to remember how!

Many, many issues at each stage of the process, I'll outline some of the solutions I found in a later post. On the way I have had to update to Parallels 3 (fortunately via a free offer), buy MS Office 2007 (£7.50 via institutional licence), install iSpring Free (free) and sign up to slideboom.com (free).

La identidad en la música popular española

Thu 6 - Sun 9 Mar
Salamanca

Congreso de la SIBE - Sociedad de Etnomusicología

Four days in Salamanca for the Spanish Ethnomusicological Society's conference. A fascinating event which allowed me to indulge two of my passions simultaneously. Lots of interesting stuff which I'll attempt to keep up with here over the coming days. Here's a version of the presentation I used for my comunicación, complete with music clips, which functions more or less as the original Keynote I used at the conference.

I'll discuss elsewhere the technical issues involved in a) preparing the original presentation and b) converting it to display and download here. Labyrinthine.

Also up now are:

• Mayalde: slideshow from their concert with music clips, and photos
• Javier Paxariño: jam session at the Savor - slideshow with recording, photos
• photos of Salamanca and the SIBE Conference
  

I'd originally prepared my contribution in English, but when I got there I found that, although the conference was billed as a joint event with a UK group and an international association, the English-speaking contingent was much smaller than anticipated, so I rewrote the presentation and delivered it en español.

There wasn't much football, which was disappointing ;-) - all I managed was a chat with a waiter - though I did read in the local paper about a youth arrangement UD Salamanca have with Arsenal. It was a music conference, I suppose.

This world go crazy

Fri 5 Oct
Brixton Academy

Manu Chao live at last! Non-stop, high speed, high volume thrash, a 2-hour assault on the senses, especially the ears. The front 3 - Manu himself, the bass and the lead - are very physical musicians, always on the move, each very different in physique and stage presence, so there's plenty to look at, and there's a great deal of wit both in the music and in the lyrics (if only you could hear them . . . ), and the good-time feeling is always to the fore.

There were few of his earlier classics to sing along to - a Clandestino / Desaparecido sequence, a couple from Próxima Estación Esperanza - but most of the show drew from his latest record, La Radiolina. This appears to have a harder edge to it than his earlier material, and on the first few hearings seems to be less varied musically; there are plenty of catchy tunes and riffs, and pithy phrases, but everything is very short - 20 tracks on the CD - and there doesn't seem to be as much development, either musically, lyrically or thematically, as on his earlier records. I'll keep listening.

All of which matters little when you're caught up in the excitement of the live show, however. Manu's infectious enthusiasm and driving, powerful sound kept the crowd bouncing all evening. Crazy indeed.

What we didn't do on Saturday

Sat 16 Jun

More local music for local people:
Mike & Blanche at the Lewes Arms.
Chasin' the Blues at the All Saints.
Chamber music at Southease Church (well, we didn't hear about it until Sunday).

But we went dancing at Ditchling instead.