My World Music Blog : June 2007

Bizerka are, at long last, getting pretty close to recording some demo tracks. It's been a couple of months since we started rehearsing and there's been a few ups and downs, but we're now at the stage where we feel we can put together a demo and try to get some gigs.

The aim is to record 3 sets of tunes either later this week or early next week. We've decided on a fairly Moldavian/Romanian focused selection to record for the demo as there's not really anyone else in Melbourne that we know of doing this repertoire.

The pieces will be:

• Murguletul / Briul pe opt
• Hasapiksos Horos / Biserka
• Cadaneasca / Briul pe Sase

They're even sounding vaguely authentic which is totally unexpected! I played the rest of the band some Taraf de Haidouks tracks that sound like a train full of crazy circus performers. We then ran through the pieces we want to demo and they'd transformed completely and had taken on a really good manic feel!!!

I'm really looking forward to getting out there and gigging again!

Last night M and I watched the Serbian movie Underground which was written by Dusan Kovacevic, directed by Emir Kusturica and using music composed by Goran Bregovic.

It's a pretty insane movie, featuring Gypsy Gangsters, love stories, black market profiteering and a chimpanzee mixed with the serious undertones of Yugoslavia during World War 2 and the following dictatorship of Tito.

All the time, a brass band (Fanfare Ciocarlia) are playing manic tunes as people drink or make weapons for the revolution. It seems no matter what's going on, the band is there!

Although winning many awards, I prefered one of Kusturica's previous efforts - Black Cat, White Cat which is another Gypsy movie, but with less of a serious edge.

Still, I'd recommend the movie if you have 3 hours to spare (yes, it's quite long).

We rehearsed again yesterday with Bizerka, getting things even tighter. The plan is to record a demo tape in a fortnight so we can get out there and start getting gigs!

We're being a bit naughty and throwing in a couple of well known pieces to ensure the audience at least recognises something. At this stage we're going to do both The Simpsons and South Park themes thrown into the middle of a set of tunes. I also wouldn't mind doing the old 80's tune Moscow which I still have the sheet music for and maybe even Miserlou which despite being a bit cheesy is well know as the theme for Pulp Fiction.

Last Sunday night, M and I went along to the 303 Bar and saw a young Gypsy band called Tzigas.

Despite being young-un's i.e early 20's, they play really well and have an excellent energy about them. They're also pretty cheeky, and it's good to see various band members getting out in the audience and dancing around!

Most of their repertoire is Klezmer, but there was a bit of Django and traditional Serbian music thrown in along the way. It's also rare to see a band with Tuba and Tea-chest Bass - overall, they're refreshing and fun!

We took a few photos of Tzigas performing live which you can see here. They're not great, but it was such a small venue it felt a bit strange getting in close to the band and taking photos.

Last night Bizerka had its first rehearsal with our new Cellist, Francesca. Despite being classically trained and not having played world music before, let alone "crazy gypsy circus music", she did really well!

She was a little quiet and reticent at first - and scared of throwing away the bow (a lot of this music has pizzicato bass) - but by the time we finished, she was getting into it, trying out ideas and doing some great "dirty" ground-bow in appropriate parts.

I think she's going to fit in just fine and it won't take long for her to get into the swing of things. And even better, she enjoyed it all and is keen to keep playing with us!

It's a long weekend here in Australia, which means a chance to catch up on some programming for this site + the chance to hear some good music.

On Sunday night, M and I are probably going to go and see Tzigas who are a local gypsy band. They're all young-un's and do a mixture of Klezmer, Hungarian, Serbian and other European traditions with a good amount of humour thrown in i.e they really enjoy what they do and are more concerned with making good music than imitating a tradition.

Their lineup is pretty interesting too with Tuba and Tea-chest Bass thrown in for good measure. When we saw them at Bar Open last year, M and I danced our butts off and had an excellent time!

It's been a quiet week for Bizerka with everyone being pretty busy, but we'll be back rehearsing on Thursday night with our new Cellist! We're all looking forward to having a jam with her and seeing how it all sounds.

On Saturday night, M and I went off to my friends 26th birthday party. It was a small, invite-only party with half a dozen musicians - the whole idea being that everyone would have a jam together.

In a very Big Brother style, a microphone was placed in the loungeroom and another outside by the fire which meant the whole evening was recorded - we even got hear it played back towards the wee-small hours.

The split was about half Jazz muso's, half World Music muso's and most knew quite a bit of both, so the results of the various jams had a disinctly improvised world flavour with lots of strange notes thrown in.

Occasionally we tried to find a traditional piece that everyone knew and it resulted in some very Django Reinhart-ish versions of Dark Eyes and The Basso which are both "gypsy" classics.

It was good fun and the birthday girl enjoyed herself immensely!

Last week I had another Katyusha concert converted to DVD format for posterity and long term archiving.

It's from a 2002 performance at the National Folk Festival in Canberra, Australia at the Troubadour Tent.

I've uploaded two clips from the concert - Sidi Bousaid/Gammel Hamburger (from Albania/Denmark) and Jersualem Ridge/Clumsy Lover/Coolies Reel (Bill Munroe/Ireland). Click the links below to watch these video clips.

> Sidi Bousaid/Gammel Hamburger
> Jerusalem Ridge/Clumsy Lover/Coolies Reel