Well, seems my blog-entries are now more of an annual thing then a weekly or monthly. ;) Anyway, from march 2014 ’till last december I had an awesome job working with (street) kids as some kind of social worker in a borough just outside of antwerp. Our current city-governance and to be more precise the right-wing mayor of this town, ruled that the kind of job, the sort that I was doing, should seize to be! According to him and his rightwing idiot friends this kind of work(ers) should be made obsolete and in change they want more police-patrols. In other words…more repression – less prevention! Add some para-military presence in our town center (since the Charlie Hebdo affair) and fear and angst sells like sweet cake (or rather; waffle) again to the narrow minded belgian fools.
Nevertheless, I’ve been keeping myself busy with various other pleasantries. Working on some of me tunes…organising 45 hours of film footage shot in India into a nice neat “library” for future video-making. And decided (and already commenced) to write a book. It’s once again due to (non-belgian) friends who thought it’d be a splendid idea that I’d write down some of my “travel-memoirs”. But I reckon that after living nearly twenty years out of a backpack…one should have a bold tale or two to tell. ;)
In the meanwhile…enjoy the occasional tune that I’ll drop on here. luv & peace. (-°-)
For some reason I’ve had the chance or luck (or karma) to meet several of my musical influences. Mainly those who had a profound role in the -Asian Underground/Massive- music movement. Short meetings nevertheless, but they were all very spontaneous and a nice memory.
It was end nineties when a mate (through another mate) gave me a copy (on TAPE) of Karsh Kale’s “Classical Science Fiction from India”. It was this piece of music and Talvin Singh’s Grammy winning “O.K.” that started to influence me heavily and changed the way I wanted to play music. Along with the almighty Zakir Hussain they became my major inspiration to fondle and fiddle away on that magical instrument called “Tabla”. Of course since 95% of my “tutoring” is DIY, I ain’t too fab on it. Nevertheless, it was never my intention to play Indian Classical music but rather to use it (tabla) in semi-electronic sets and more as a “groove-instrument” rather than becoming a virtuoso on it.
First weekend of April 2009…for me, the last weekend of a 9-month stay in India & Nepal before I took off back to Europistan. My flight was leaving from Mumbai and had one last weekend to kill. Which is easy for me since Bombay (Mumbai) is so far my most favourite city in India and elsewhere. (There’s tons of shtuff to do, to see, to explore, to eat, to find, to discover, to listen, etc. And there’s this amazing venue in Lower Parel called “The Blue Frog” where they have artists on stage from around the globe! Check this place out when in Bombay!) While reading through “Time Out – Mumbai” under the cool breeze, created by the ceiling fan, my eye wandered off to an ad for the New CD release of the Midival-Punditz starring (their frequent collaborator) Karsh Kale and all this was happening at the blue frog…two nights in a row that very same weekend. My “last” weekend in India was going to be a musical one!
At the Blue Frog later that night… Although, through the help of my (then) girlfriend, I was able to hang out with Karsh and the Punditz for a few memorable moments, the real treat and surprise, however short-lived it was, came afterwards. While standing outside (the blue frog) for a cigarette (yep, I know, filthy habit) some guy asked me for a light. Since we were the only two standing there, we had a brief conversation. Can’t remember exactly what the guy’s role was but I think he might have been from Karsh’s or the Punditz’s management. All of a sudden there was this gorgeous lady walking up to us and introduced herself to me and greeted the dude I was standing with. Clearly they knew each other well. I got her name right though, Anoushka… We had a brief conversation about where I was from and about music. And then it hit me, I was standing there talking with the amazing Anoushka Shankar, daughter of Sitar-Maestro; Ravi Shankar. (-°-)
Enjoy the beautiful playing of Anoushka Shankar in this amazing performance!
Yesterday an Indonesian friend showed me the work of one of her friends who’s a dancer and choreographer (Gerard Mosterd). Although I’m usually too hooked up on music I seldom go watch a dance or theater performance. But after seeing this performance yesterday (on Vimeo) I might start going to some (performances). anyway, I found this piece really awesome and thought I’d share it with ya. ;)
I never intended to make a blog like this personal. But recent evolutions and circumstances have made the situation so that it is hard not to write about them. Since I’m a firm believer of Karma, everything that happens to me, I’m sure, is for a (good) reason. It is perhaps, for me, the only reason to stay more or less focused and put it all in perspective. Plus, there’s always! someone worse off than you/me. But just sometimes it seems that the errors one makes (hence the Karma) are met with a greater and often worse fate than first comprehended. But I guess that’s just the domino-effect. You know, the stone in the water and ripples thing…action-reaction, etc. The other “error” I often make is having “expectations”. One automatically presumes that, if ever in a pickle, people that are close to you might give a helping hand. Needless to say, this is utter bollocks. The only place where this happens is in the thought inside your head. In reality folks have it bad enough with their own lives, so they don’t really wonna adopt another set of “worries”. Which is fair enough, I guess. In the meantime, one draws lessons (thank god) from every ripple encountered and caused.
Luckily…Well for me at least, I can still be a bit creative. And music, I guess, is always a nice way of channeling whatever energy is inside of us. recently I’ve put up my 10th tune on “Soundcloud” so I included them in this post. They are also available and downloadable from my Bandcamp-page (4FREE).
Alienated from my country of origin (Belgium) - due to extensive travelling and residing long periods in the Mother land (India) - I decided (4 various reasons) to (re)settle in my native land.
My blog will contain some travel stories, music/film-sharing and occasionally some politics. Oh...sometimes I seem to suffer from a light touch of "La Tourette". Be warned. (-°-)
naVgatih 