I've just got back from a little trip to Brussels and Luxembourg. I met some old friends, I made new friends, it was brilliant! I'll write a full entry about the trip soon, in the meantime, I made a video and wrote some music involving the train journey from Brussels to Luxembourg. Enjoy x
The recent announcement from Soundway Records of a new Africa Special compilation coming out at the end of this month has got me very excited!
My first foray into West African music from the '60s - '80s was when I won one of these compilations in a competition at an old job. This newest selection is the record label's first release from East Africa, it's also the first Africa Special release in three years so it's been a long time coming. I've already pre-ordered my copy and you can here: http://soundwayrecords.greedbag.com/buy/kenya-special-selected-east-afri/
With this in mind I'm going to recommend two albums today for anyone who wants to listen to any music from this fantastic era.
1.
The Anambra Beats - Ayamma
From the album "Nigeria Special: Modern Highlife, Afro-Blues & Nigerian Blues 1970-6"
This is the song that started my love for this genre and compilation series. This is the first track from the album(that I won from work). Everything about this song makes me smile; the tonality, the repetition, the key, the guitar rift, the trumpet solo, the main vocalist's throaty voice, it's a joy to listen to.
Every song on this compilation has the same heart and soul as this starter and it's a great place to begin your journey.
On a side note, the Nigeria Special series also has a disco compilation which is unlike anything else I've ever heard.
2.
Orchestra Baobab - Sou Sedhiou
From the album "Bamba"
Orchestra Baobab are a Senegalese band that have been around for decades. They went on a 15 year hiatus in 1986 but released a new album in 2007. It was this album that I first heard of theirs but it's this compilation of earlier tracks, released in '93 that I keep coming back too.
Although they are heavily influenced by Cuban Son music, my favourite song from this album is this fast-paced highlife soaked number. This song brings nothing but good feelings to me and it has possibly my favourite guitar solo ever (2:30 in). It's also been one of my main bass practice songs so I've heard it a lot and am still not sick of it!
As promised, here is the first guest composition - made by my good friend Will Purcell! Will and I inter-railed through Europe together in the summer of 2007. On that trip we went to Sziget Festival in Budapest. I have a vivid memory of going around girls and asking them to pour sun block onto Will's face whilst I filmed it... it was funny at the time alright. I asked Will to tell me about the video he made and here's what he said: "I wrote the track last night and filmed it today at The Danebury Iron Age Hillfort near Stockbridge. When writing the track I was in a very reflective state. Having recently watched the 'Utopia' series I was thinking about the world and it's resources, and the possibility/probability of them running out at some point. Therefore, all of the things shown in the video how we know them would be gone/changed. That's why it ends with the empty broken chair in the shed; it's broken/useless/now unused. I thought it was a fitting place as it was used functionally but now isn't, it's a monument to what was."
Thanks to Will for submitting this and remember, if you want to have a go yourself send any work you have to leewoodmusic@gmail.com
Has anyone else ever had that experience where you listen to a song for the first time that you absolutely love, play it repeatedly for weeks and then forget about it only to listen to it again months later and get the same feeling?
This has happened to me twice this week, both from CDs that I bought in December.
1.
How To Dress Well - Suicide Dream 1 (Orchestral Version)
From the EP "Just Once"
The recurring vocal theme on this track works so well. It's a heartbreaking piece that has such a heavenly feel to it.
2.
The Bulgarian State Radio & Television Female Choir - Polegnala E Todora
From the album "Le Mystère Des Voix Bulgares"
I can't recommend this album enough!
Some of the harmonies this choir throw into the mix blew my mind the first time I heard them. Sometimes discordant and they're not particularly amazing singers, but the timbre they create ingrained with their diaphonic cycles are brilliant.
I'm already an avid enthusiast of eastern European traditional music and this album has only cemented my love.
It's hard to put into words the emotions that come up whenever I think about the tsunami. To this day it causes insomnia, mood swings and terrible pangs of survivor's guilt. I guess that shows the power of such an event as I wasn't directly affected long term by it, unlike my friends and colleagues who lost their houses, possessions and loved ones.
Kuji on the map
I took a lot of photos during the first few weeks. One of them was even used as the cover of a BBC article. Kuji wasn't as badly damaged as Noda was 10 miles south, but a lot of lives were affected.
My photo on the BBC article
March 11th was my last day of work for the school year and I'd just finished my last lesson at 14:00. At around 14:45 the earthquake alarms started going off on all of the phones in the staff room. This caused my friend sitting next to me to start panicking and screaming. To try and calm her down I pushed her under a desk whilst I went under my desk and held her hand. The earthquake was 6 minutes long in total, there was a lot of screaming, it felt like forever. After the earthquake we lost all power in the school, the students were evacuated to the football fields in case the structure of the school buildings weren't intact. We had a battery operated radio on whilst organizing the students into their classes and counting numbers. There were warnings of a tsunami coming in 20 minutes. The air raid sirens were now going off around the town too, telling us to get to higher ground. The teachers all got together for a meeting, after much discussion they decided... to cancel school on Saturday. This is why I love Japan, even during natural disasters discussing work was the main priority! I was told to go home, I lived on the top floor of a four storey building so it seemed the safe thing to do. Driving home was crazy as all the power was out so there were no traffic lights operating. In the center of Kuji a sushi chef and businessman were directing traffic. I sat in my house and waited for everything to blow over for around 2 hours. My house wasn't affected by the tsunami but the commercial park 2 minutes away got pretty flooded. These photos were taken two days after.
A few of us stayed at Erica's that night. There still wasn't any power and we had no way of communicating with the outside world, or with friends in other coastal cities. As this was the case, myself and a lot of my friends were placed on the British missing persons list for some time (to the horror of my family), I actually managed to get in touch with my Dad by emailing him through a computer powered by a car battery as a sort of punk generator ( I have no idea how this worked). The next day we assessed the situation around the local area and decided to spend the night at our friends printing factory in a big group as there was still no power or running water and it made us feel safer throughout the constant aftershocks. The coastline of Kuji suffered heavy damage. All of the tourist attractions like the aquarium and the Alma diving museum were destroyed. In land, the damage was quite superficial, the river leading into central Kuji flooded. We found sea fish still alive on the ground about a mile from sea.
That night in the factory, we set up a huge gas heater (March is still very much winter in Iwate) and played folk songs and ate snacks - we had a good time. It was good to see my friends again. It felt very surreal considering the experience we just had and the things some of us had witnessed to be enjoying ourselves. I guess everyone has different ways of dealing with traumatic events.
Kuji river the day after
We listened to the radio at night. There were mentions of trains going missing and nuclear reactors but it was very vague. We knew a lot less about what was happening than most people in the world.
The power came back on in certain areas of the town very late that night, I remember looking at the Lawson store opposite us and seeing the lights flicker on slowly.
The next few days consisted of driving around, providing for shelters in the south. We went on a few runs to one of the schools my friend worked at that was now being used as a homeless shelter. One time an army helicopter landed in the field just as we had arrived. I caught it on my phone camera.
A lot of houses and cars in Noda were completely destroyed. The river passing through Noda became a sea of houses. It also didn't help that we were experiencing heavy snowfall as is expected in Iwate this time of year.
The aftershocks kept coming (and they still do), there were a few tsunami warnings over the coming months but nothing as serious as before. We had to evacuate our houses on several occasions.
I only wanted to write a short account about the events that happened as it's the second anniversary today and I'm sad I can't be there with all my friends for it. But I will say that I am closer to certain people in my life now because of what happened, and I'm thankful that my friends and family were there for me when I needed them. My heart goes out to all who were affected on that day.
For a few months in 2008, I took some time off work and travelled to the Ukraine and Belarus, through the Baltics and also into Scandinavia for a while.
Ukraine holds some very strong memories for me - mostly embarrassing ones. I fell down this drain when it flipped - Warner Brothers style - and I had to crawl out in front of a bus stop full of pensioners.
I fired an AK47 surrounded by a lake of bullets (not mine).
I had an Amish beard for a while. This happened...
And I got so drunk in Lviv that after going out with the hostel owner at a vodka bar on Ukrainian Nationalist Day, I ended up throwing his laundry all over the floor in city center and had an angry conversation with police officers in a language I don't speak(luckily I don't have any photos of this). Of all of these things, the most memorable moment had to be my short journey to Chernobyl.
It all started in Kiev the day after I fired the gun. The very creepy Danish hostel owner told me he had a "deal" with certain people to get tourists into Chernobyl (it was still illegal to visit Chernobyl at this time). In hryvnia (Ukranian currency) the one day trip cost around £100. That was a big chunk of my travel budget but when was I ever going to get a chance like this again. We left the next day, a group of five packed into an army truck with a guide. It's roughly a two hour drive from Kiev to Chernobyl, after which there are around five checkpoints to go through until you get to Chernobyl proper. As mentioned earlier in 2008 it was still illegal to visit Chernobyl as a tourist. But with Ukraine having as much corruption as it does, money changed hands each time we went through a checkpoint. The first strange thing I noticed when going through the checkpoints was that there were a lot dead birds on the ground surrounding the check points. I have no idea why but I'm guessing the check point guards don't have much to do but target practice. After we passed through all the checkpoints we came across the memorial to the firemen who died instantly trying to put out the fire.
There are small houses behind this statue, all abandoned, trees growing out of the roofs and windows. This is a reoccurring theme of Chernobyl. Nature taking over. I wasn't really sure where the truck was taking us but we were driving alongside a riverbed for a long time. Abandoned boats everywhere. When we finally stopped to take a look outside we were shown the reactor on the other side of the river that was half-way to completion before the meltdown. The cranes are still in the same place they were that day.
I had shaved by now.
After a few photos it took me a while to realize that just to the left of this reactor...
Reactor number 4 was a stone's throw away on our side of the river. Oh dear. "It's OK" I thought, "I won't be getting any closer to it". Five minutes later...
The coolest thing about this is that there were people in lab coats walking around the reactor going about their daily jobs. I hope they have good insurance! The next stop on our tour was the abandoned town of Pripyat. The main piece of advice we were given by our tour guide whilst walking the streets was not to step on the moss as it absorbs radiation for the longest time. Having said that we saw two other tour groups all wearing gas masks so a little bit more advice would've been nice. Pripyat is covered with trees and graffiti, it's incredibly eerie.
The photo above was taken from the top of the hotel which is one of the more famous buildings. Some of you may know it from Call of Duty... well I did.
Inside the hotel is proof again that nature takes over with trees growing inside rooms on all floors. Apparently there are over 10,000 wild boar living in Chernobyl. Like the DMZ zone in Korea it has become a kind of accidental nature reserve.
Whilst taking several photos from the top of the hotel, I noticed a structure hidden away in the trees.
This was our next destination, the Ferris Wheel is probably the most iconic "attraction" in this strange tour. We had to walk through a country lane to get to it - avoiding moss and grass along the way. I really want to know what the theme park looked like 30 years ago before the meltdown. It must have been pretty popular with the families here. As well as the Ferris Wheel there are a few more rides stationed around it and a ticket stall, some of the rides also have rusted drawings of Disney characters all around them.
This was the last part of the tour, unfortunately we didn't get to see places like the school or the swimming pool (dodgy and still illegal tour). When leaving we had to go through radiation detectors before being able to go back home to Kiev. Apparently the worst that could have happened was that our shoes would be taken away from us... a good enough reason not to step on the moss!
2010 - Iwate, Japan Karaoke was a great laugh. We drank, we danced and we sang. I've made a short film showing a few nights at karaoke in Kuji, see if you can guess the songs. Also thanks to Adam for letting me use footage of him dancing around like a loon! You are and always will be my party star.
On a different note, a few people have asked whether they can compose their own videos to showcase on this blog as special guests and to this I say, OF COURSE YOU CAN! The video can be of anything you want. They can be about travels, houses, pets, friends the list is endless! You can even send me a video you find interesting with no music and I'll try and work something into it... I don't really know yet, this is kind of an experiment. If you're interested send me a link to your video at leewoodmusic@gmail.com. xx
