Thursday, October 23, 2008

Schlomo

A funny thing happened on the way to the gig....no, really.
I saw three spides stop dead as they were walking up lower north street and suddenly one of them was getting into a car from the passenger side. Oh, dear. I looked over my shoulder a few times as the other two kept watch at each end of the vehicle. Mrs M phoned the police who perked up when she said that, yes, she did have the VRN and the make of the vehicle and they are currently just driving away. They had got in and hotwired the car in under 2 minutes. Hopefully the police will have caught the thievin' wee bastards and gave them a hiding, ahem, I do of course mean use the full force of the law upon them.

Schlomo and the human beatbox orhcestra.
Wowee, after seeing this guy a year or so ago on Later with Jools Holland I was blown away. He was making noises that I didn’t think were possible to make. Maybe he had swallowed a bird of paradise ? He was playing a bassline and the drums just using his mouth! Impressive. Sounded great too.

Then he started laying down different sounds on a loop sampler and building the layers into recognisable songs. Just with the human voicebox and mouth.

Last night was his latest gig in Belfast, this time with the human beatbox orchestra.
He came out, all shy and proceeded to wow us all with the sounds and beats he was able to make. That was for the first half of the show. The second half saw 7 more people come out on stage and then the fun really started. No instruments used and those 8 people made fantastic music. They played their versions of some recognisable songs, one from the Prodigy (not a fan but it sounded great) and I want you back by the Jacksons, though when they played a Stevie Wonder song the place went daft. Truly amazing.

Highlight of the night was when Schlomo asked what we in Belfast said as an exclamation, such as “yeehaa”, “Hey” etc. One guy shouted “Whataboutye”.
They only went and improvised a song around it! Though polite English accents singing what about you was odd. The funniest and best part being when the bass guy imitated the guy in the audience, who originally had shouted whataboutye, a few times to the point where I thought they had sampled it and played it back.

They got a well deserved standing ovation. You all missed out on this people.

AMAZING.

Go check Schlomo out on you-tube, go on….feed your head.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Goodbye Ray

My manager of 4.75 years retires today.
We are going out tonight to give him a send off, it'll be odd him not being here.
He may have been cantankerous at times and interfering, even annoying but he was always approachable and a damn fine human being. He has a wealth of knowledge that will be very much missed. Rather large shoes to fill and I fear that there is no chance of anyone doing so.

I'm sad to see him go but as he says himself he would have been away earlier if he could.

I was warned that he had a habit of engaging you in conversation as you had your coat on and were heading out the door. Yup, still was catching me out up to last month with that one. He bluffed it if he didn't know something, once I figured out when he was doing this I could really learn from him. It took me near a year to do so. He was encouraging, he praised me in public for good work I had done. Needless to say this didn't happen very often but when it did, the people that mattered where listening.

Ach, I'm just a big softy reminiscing here, plenty of time for that later tonight.

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Werk Schmerk

Normal service has been resumed after my 12 day sojourn to Crete.

Back at work...blah..

Photos will be dealt with at the weekend as I am busy this week.
I will post tales of my holiday with accompanying photos.

Needless to say it was 27c in the shade for the most part bar one day it was 22, overcast with some rain and one day it was 33c no rain just heat!
I have tasted Bougatsa and I need more.
Can I go back now please?
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