My friend Elaine has kindly allowed me to move bleaklow.com off the machine in my office and onto one of her machines. This means that the site should get a bit more faster, and I also don't have to sit melting in my office under the firely blast of the current machine ;-)
However things are going to be in a little bit of a mess until I get everything moved across, so please bear with me :-)
As I'd explained in a previous post, Meninos do Morumbi Oldham, the Samba band of which my son James and myself are members are going to be busking in Manchester on the last weekend of every month, with the money going to a housing project in Sao Paulo. Yesterday it was that busking time of the month again ;-) Kickoff was 11:30am at the junction of St Mary's Gate and Market Street, outside M&S in Manchester. We had an even better turnout than last time, especially of the dancers - Yay for the dancers! ;-). Unfortunately someone was already playing where we played last time, so we moved up to the other corner of M&S.
The M&S store manager appeared as we were setting up, but she was OK with us playing there after Leon explained we were only going to play 2 sets there before moving on up Market Street. Between when we started at about 12:00pm and when we finished at around 4:30pm we moved steadily up Market Street towards Piccadilly Gardens, playing a couple of times at each spot. On a couple of ocassions we caused Market Street (one of Manchester's main shopping precincts) to almost come to a standstill with a crowd of several hundred listening to us play, which was cool :-) Leon has been busking in Manchester for many years and he made a point of asking the street traders if they were OK with us playing before we started - the nice people in the burger van on the corner of Market Street and Spring Gardens got a large 'thank you' cheer as a result. Unfortunately the weather forecast was wrong and the Weather Gods frowned on us, so we got a bit wet as the day progressed, but hey, it's Manchester after all :-)
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We ended up in Piccadilly Gardens and I didn't think we would draw much of a crowd there, but people quickly appeared as we started to play - well I suppose we are rather loud :-) After we'd finished playing we took some photos for the band website that is going to be set up for us by the person who did the Brazilian Meninos do Morumbi website, if you haven't already done so you should check it out - click through the entrance page and click on the 'English' link on the bottom right of the page for all you non-Portugês speakers :-) After humping all the kit back down Market Street to Ian's van some of us decamped to a nearby hostelry to drink a well-deserved pint or two (sitting outside in the rain, under the 'sun' umbrellas over the tables - how very British ;-) before a curry in the Northern Quarter and then catching the train home.
On Saturday we invaded Mancester for our first ever busking session - and all for a good cause. Eraldo (the guy in the red jacket in the photo above) comes from Sao Paulo in Brazil where we was a member of Meninos do Morumbi, a fantastic youth-focussed Samba school in Brazil. One of the things he did when in Brazil was to raise funding to rebuild the house of one of the kids who attended Meninos - many of the kids come from the favelas, and live in pretty grim conditions. He and the other tutors of Meninos do Morumbi in Oldham teach us all for free, and in return they asked that we give up one Saturday a month to either busk or play at a performance, with all the money going to a charity that they are setting up to help improve more people's housing in Sao Paulo. I think it's a superb idea - many of the bands who busk in Manchester do so for themselves, but to be honest when the money is split between all the players it probably doesn't provide more than a couple of pints each. And as Eraldo, Ian (white jacket, above), Holly (between Eraldo and Ian), Leon and Emily all give their time for free I think it's only right that we reciprocate and give something back in return. The fact that the money is going to Brazil is even more of a bonus - after all it's their music we are playing.
We started at about 11:30am and played through to nearly 3:30pm - certainly the longest I've ever played. The weather was typically April - a series of heavy showers with sunny spells in between, so we got wet a couple of times. We were on the corner outside M&S, and the weekly protests were going on - first the Palestinian faction turned up, shortly followed by the anti-Iraq war protesters, finally topped off by a group carrying Israeli flags. It's a regular occasion - about half a dozen police turned up out of nowhere and tried to politely keep the two sides out of arm's reach of each other. The sight of two men standing 5 feet apart bellowing at each other through loudhailers seemed to neatly sum up the entire Middle East situation. However I did think the air horn that one of the Israeli supporters kept letting off whenever one of the other side tried to talk was an arms escalation too far. At one point one of the policemen sidled over to us and asked if we could play really loudly and we were only too glad to oblige. It had the required effect - whilst we were playing they all shut up - well, they didn't have a hope in hell of being heard over us. I felt quite the child of the 60s ;-)
The plan is for us to busk every month, so we've got quite a few dates lined up:
Ms Tessa Jowell, the UK's "Culture Secretary" has recently been embroiled in a scandal in which her (now separated-from) husband David Mills received a £344,000 "present" from the less-than squeaky clean Prime Minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi for being "helpful" in a corruption court case that Berlusconi is implicated in. The money was subsequently used to pay off the Jowell's mortgage, and of course the fragrant Tessa didn't think to ask where the wedge had come from - I mean you wouldn't, would you?
Just to round things out nicely it appears that she has broken an ill-advised law that she herself was responsible for introducing. A while back had a new licensing and entertainment law passed, which in addition to making 24-hour binge drinking legal also changed the way licenses for public entertainment are granted. It's the entertainment part that she fell foul of. According to The Guardian:
This cretinous piece of legislation affects me personally as it means it is much more difficult to perform in public, either in a venue or busking, and it amuses me no end to see the person responsible fall foul of it. It amuses me even more to think that any member of the present Labour cabinet has the gall to sing "The Truth Is Marching On" in public. Hardly a week goes by without another revelation coming out about how they have their snouts in the trough. I thought the Conservatives were pretty bad at the end of their reign, but it seems that "New Labour" are hell-bent on outstripping them in the sleaze, cronyism and corruption stakes. I thought that there was sufficient evidence stacked up against them at the last election for them not to be reelected, but I guess I'll have to wait until the next time round to see the back of them.
As anyone who plays samba knows, it's a bit of a noisy pursuit, and tamborim is especially so as it's so high-pitched. This makes practicing at home a little problematic unless everyone in your household (and the surrounding households!) is completely deaf. I found a tip somewhere on the web that I thought I'd pass on - find an old mouse mat, put your tamborim on top of it, draw round and cut out a circle, making allowance for the wall thickness of the tamborim. Make sure it's a really snug fit, and push it inside the underneath of the skin. It barely affects the feel, and makes the tamborim much, much quieter, so you can practice your virada without being banished from the house. The best sort of mouse mats to use are the thick neoprene ones - as you can see a former employer of mine kindly provided me with one ;-) and it's also a good idea to thread a bit of string through two holes in the mat so you can get it out easily.
Today I played my first Samba gig with the Oldham branch of Meninos do Morumbi, as part of this year's Oldham Carnival. Meninos are a Brazilian group from São Paulo in Brazil, and at the moment three of their teachers, Eraldo, Sivuca and Adriana are over in the UK teaching a group in Oldham, set up by Leon and Ian, that I've been going to since the beginning of the year. Meninos do Morumbi in Brazil is a quite remarkable organization. Set up by Flávio Pimenta it 1996, it provides training in Samba and other styles of music to 4,000 kids between the ages of 7 and 18 in São Paulo, as well as a wide range of other activities. The association is largely run by the kids themselves, and provides over 1,000 meals a day for the kids, for example.
As well as switching bands I've also switched from playing Surdo (and hiding at the back of the group) to playing Tamborim (and being on display at the very front!), and I don't mind admitting it's proving to be a real stretch for me. Not only is the Tamborim played fast, it also has some feindishly long and complicated patterns, plus we have to move around doing some dance steps and play the instrument everywere from down by our knees to up over our heads - as we are at the front and have the smallest and lightest instruments we have to provide a bit of visual spectacle as well as volume ;-) It's taking me a while to get the hang of it, but I'm really enjoying the challenge. Anyway, here are a couple of photos of us playing in Oldham town centre - I'm second from the left in the red top.
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We are playing again tomorrow in Oldham - first taking part in a parade and later on we will be playing a set on our own. It should be a good day, as long as the weather stays fine! If anyone fancies having a go themselves, it's a really friendly crowd and everyone is welcome, especially kids - my youngest son Mark (8) has started going, as well as James, and there are lots of other kids there too. Not only is there percussion training, there's also dance, and best of all it is completely free! Rehersals are at every Monday at 6:15pm in The Gallery in Oldham, next to Sainsbury's.
I'm kinda behind on my blogging, so I better play catchup! Last Sunday we played at our second Tsumami benefit gig at The Globe, a pub in Glossop that specialises in real ale, vegan food and live music. We normally go there after Wednesday practice sessions to try (usually in vain) to win the pub quiz. There were 35 other acts playing, acoustic sets downstairs and bands upstairs. The place was heaving - it took us a quarter of an hour just to get our kit up to the stage! The venue upstairs is pretty small - intimate I think is the correct term. There were about 15 of us playing, so the surdo section managed to fit on the stage but the rest had to stand in front on the dance floor. We kicked off, and as sometimes happens we all just gelled and we played a really solid set. As we were making our way off people were grabbing my hand and pumelling it up and down, saying how great we sounded. I had to dash after the gig, but Laszlo stayed behind and people kept coming up to him and saying that we were the best band there. One guy came up to Laszlo and asked if we'd like to play some other gigs. Laszlo asked him where he was thinking of and the answer was 'All over the place' - turns out the guy is a promoter. He said that he obviously listens to a lot of bands, but every now and then he comes across a band that sounds really good - and we were just such a band. Then Laszlo notices his hearing aid ... just joking ;-) Laszlo also said a guy who is part of a brass section wanted to bring along his mates to play with us, something Laslo has wanted to do for some time.
Perhaps it's time to pack up the day job and hit the road, I've always fancied having a go at some rock excess - groupies and smashing up hotel rooms sounds like it might be quite fun - mid-life crisis here I come ;-)
Yesterday the Samba band I'm in took part in a big bash in Manchester to raise funds for tsunami relief. There were about six bands there in total, well over 100 people. We met up in the Royal Exchange Theatre building. I'd never been in there before, and it is a most impressive building. It was the Victorian Manchester cotton exchange, and as Manchester was once the cotton capital of the world, the building was built accordingly. The building was very badly damaged by the 1996 IRA bomb, but it's been sensitively restored, and the theatre has been integrated into the original fabric in a very innovative way.
As well as us there were other far more well-known names from the northwest Samba scene, including The Manchester School of Samba and Sambangra, so it interesting for us hicks from the sticks to see how we stood up against the other more well-known bands. We all moved to the corner of Marks and Spencers, but as there were a group of PLO protesters there we had to move to the end of the building, after negotiating with the very friendly policemen and policewomen who were keeping an eye on things. We had joined forces with Laszlo's (our musical director) other group, Zambura from Bury, and as a result we were the biggest group, so we got to play first. Pretty soon we'd drawn a sizeable crowd, and the security chief from Marks and Spencer's came scurrying out to see what was going on. We had a license from the city council, so apart from scowling at us there wasn't much he could do. The folks from Oxfam got busy with their collecting buckets as we were playing, and after a couple of numbers we moved back to the corner of M&S that the PLO folks had finished with and kicked off again. After our Timbalada, Tony from MSS came up to Laszlo and complemented us on our playing, which really chuffed us no end.
MSS took over from us next, so we moved our kit round the corner before taking a break for lunch, which unfortunately involved a rapid visit to Macdonalds - so we really were suffering for out art ;-) After lunch and a handful of antacids we wandered back over to where everyone else was and joined the massed bands for a huge 50+ player jam session. The directors of each band took it in turns to lead a piece, with those who knew the piece playing it and the rest of us winging it and joining in as best we could - great fun. Once again we drew quite a crowd, and as we got a round of applause and cheers at the end of each number, I guess we sounded OK! We only had a license to play for two hours (we stretched it a bit!) so by about 3:30 we had to pack up. My 11-year old son James was the youngest player there, and he had a blast - he was on an absolute high when we finished. From looking at the sea of grinning faces of all ages, it was clear he wasn't the only one who had enjoyed it, it was a truly memorable experience.
Five minutes after we finished the heavens opened on us. Bearing in mind the terrible weather we have been having over the last few days, we were extremely lucky. We decamped to the cafe in the basement of the Manchester Cathedral Visitor's centre to count the dosh. I'd never been in there before, and one side of the cafe was made up of the medieval hanging bridge (no, nothing to do with executions!) which had been buried and lost as the city grew around and eventually over it. After discarding the pre-decimal currency and used watch batteries that someone had kindly donated, we raised the magnificent sum of £750, not bad for a couple of hours of work!
We finished off the day with a few drinks in a convenient pub, followed by a (as usual) superb meal in the Yang Sing before catching the train back home - all in all a top day.
I'm part of a local Samba band, and now summer is here (hah!) we are in the thick of our gig season. We rely on performance fees collected over the summer to keep us going over the winter months. Yesterday we played at St Swithun's Community Centre in Wakefield. The weather was pretty poor, but at one point we had a group of 8-10 year old majorettes dancing round and round us as we played, which was kinda nice.
Today we played at Tameside Canal Festival at Portland Basin in Ashton. This event happens each year and is in aid of Willow Wood Hospice which cares for terminally ill people in the area. Just as we ended our first set it started to rain, so we played the second set inside the marquee. Danny who dances with us on occasion was there, and he got all the kids (and a few adults!) up and dancing round the marquee in a huge conga. To top it off, a bagpiper in full highland regalia who was also playing at the festival came in and started jamming with us on our last number. Mixing Samba and bagpipes is not entirely unknown - there is a band called MacUmba who specialise in Brazilian/Scottish fusion. I thought we played pretty damn well, and when we finished to cheers of 'More! More! Encore!" it topped off what was a really enjoyable gig. As soon as we finished James and I had to dash off to get him to his swimming test, so I'll find out if we managed to attract any new members at the next practice on Tuesday.
Despite what you may think from the picture above I've not suddenly got old time religion and taken to bashing a Tambourine and shouting "Hallelujah brother!" at passers by, it's a Pandeiro, not a Tambourine. I've been playing Surdo in my local community Samba (1) band for a while now, and I fancied trying my hand at something different. Unlike the Surdo I play which is 22" wide by 60" deep and requires that you attach yourself to the drum with a harness that wouldn't look out of place at a fetish convention, the Pandiero is a mere 11" across, and as well as being far lighter is also considerably quieter than the Surdo - an important factor for maintaining marital as well as musical harmony. Unlike a Tambourine a Pandeiro only has one row of jingles, and they face inwards and have a third plate between them, like this (|) whereas a Tambourine's jingles flare outwards, more like this }{ (2). The result is a drier sound, more akin to a snare drum. The head is also tuneable, unlike a Tambourine which usually has the head tacked on to the frame.
Believe it or not the pandeiro is one of the more difficult Samba instruments to play. Those devilish Brazilians are far too devious just to play anything by just banging it. There are 4 main strokes - thumb, tips of fingers, heel of hand and slap, and these may be modified by damping the head with the fingers and thumb of the hand you use to hold the Pandeiro. On top of that there are other variations such as finger rolls, grace notes etc, and all played at 120+ beats per minute. I've been told by Laszlo who teaches us that it will take at least a year of playing obsessively to become even vaguely competent. The instrument weighs about 600 grams which doesn't sound much, but after playing for no more than about 5 minutes your hands and wrists are on fire. By the time I'm done I should have wrists and forearms that would make a Bulgarian lady shotputter proud!
(1) That's Samba as in Brazilian carnival music, not Samba as in a dance requiring a bouffant hairdo and sequins. And no, it's not the same thing as Salsa either.
(2) ASCII art courtesy of Bob Bemer, who sadly died this week
Yesterday it was my friend Sylvia's 60th birthday, so a number of us from the two Samba bands that Sylvia plays in (Ruídogrande and Zambura), met round at a friends house for a surprise brithday party. The cover story was that Sylvia was being taken out by her daughters for a meal, and they were popping in to say hello to an old family friend on the way. We all hid in the garden round the back of the house and as she came through the gate kicked off with a Samba Reggae. Sylvia's a pretty composed lady, and the look of utter surprise on her face was priceless. We ate, drank and jammed until eventually one of the neighbours asked us to shut up. A great evening and one I'll remember for a long time, many thanks to Rosemary for allowing us to use her house and annoy her neighbours :-)
Also on the Samba front, I went with Laszlo to see Esquilo Atômico play on Sunday evening in Manchester. The band is made up of people who have just completed Dudu Tucci's Roots of Brazil course. They were extremely good. Laszlo (who teaches us) is on the course at the moment. I recognised some of the stuff we've been learning recently, although I think it will take us some time to reach the same standard!
On Monday we played our first gig of the season, at a May-day festival in Belper. The weather gods were kind, and we had a good audience - the street was narrow so they couldn't get away :-) The fee was also a welcome addition to our coffers. I'm not actually in the picture - the big drum and the blue beater on the far left are mine :-)
I am a member of a local community Samba band Ruidogrande. Samba is Brazilian carnival music, and is percussion-based. This gives the inner child in me (ok, the outer child!) the excuse I've always wanted to bash the heck out of a large, noisy drum. I play the Surdo (which means 'deaf man' in portugese), which is the biggest (and therefore loudest ;-) instrument in the band.
About a year ago my wife made the mistake of bringing home a flier advertising practice sessions, and giving it to me as a joke. Hah, that'll teach her!
For more info, see the band website here. Other good places are the Worldwide Samba page, and the UK Samba page
