My World Music Blog : October 2007

It's been a busy week for me - last Tuesday night Bizerka finally went into the recording studio and laid down some demo tracks.

Our aim was to get three sets of tunes recorded, but ended up having time to do four sets in two hours, so needless to say we were pretty happy. They were all live recordings i.e no overdubbing so the process was relatively painless (though we generally did three takes of everything).

We recorded a mix of pieces - nice fast ones to get venue managers excited about us, but also a more laid-back, swung Greek piece to show that we're not just playing one tempo.

The four sets we ended up recording were : Murguletul / Briul pe Sase, Sirto, Geamparalele din Bîrla / Niggle's Rachenitsa and Hasapiksos Horos / Biserka.

I'm going back on Wednesday to do the mixdown and can't wait to hear how it's all turned out.

Tomorrow night we'll start looking at some new tunes - we still need to learn another hour of music. I've put together some bits and pieces to have a look through with the band - an un-named Bulgarian piece in 11/8, a beautiful Armenian piece called Aghchka Jerazanke, some Klezmer sounding Greek tunes including Chorós tis Jígnas and a spoken word piece called The Geographical Fugue (which is actually quite a tricky piece).

On Sunday, M and I went off to one of the local parks to see a band called Klezmeritis who play a mixture of Jewish and Gypsy tunes. The weather was perfect for sitting on a picnic blanket and listening to some live music.

They played a mixure of well-known pieces, including Miserlou, Bulgar from Odessa / Grandmother's Dance, and Ot Azoy which had the audience singing along with the band.

They also played a few Moldavian pieces I recognised as Hora's and Sirbas.

For a change of pace, the Accordionist played Araber Tanz on the Turkish Ney - I've never heard that piece sound so haunting.

And for good measure they threw in a few American pieces including one by Sidney Bechet a New York based Clarinetist.

All in all, we had a good time listening to the Klezmeritis and would definitely go see them again.

I took a few photos and have uploaded them below for you to view.

Today M and I went off to Oktoberfest at the local German club! We figured we'd have a better time at a real German social club than in the city at an Australian-ised one full of drunk Aussies using it as an excuse to get absolutely hammered.

As it turned out, we were definitely in for a few surprises!

We bought ourselves a Stein of beer each and went to the downstairs venue which was serving traditional German food such as Bratwurst, Weisswurst and Kartoffel Puffers (Shredded Potato Cakes).

An couple of old German guys were performing traditional songs on Guitar and Accordion and provided a good half hour of entertainment until they finished playing.

We headed upstairs and caught the end of some dancing - which we think was Bavarian as it was quite silly and involved kicking each other's backsides!

After this things began to get a bit weird as a cover band called SilverBeat took over. They played such German classics as Quando Quando, That's Amore, Guantanamera and everything from Elvis to Tango, but nothing German for some reason. Nevertheless, people got up and danced and thoroughly enjoyed them.

After finishing a second stein of beer we took a final wander around the club and listened breifly to a 14 year old accordion player who calls himself the Accordion Maniac. Considering his age, he was actually pretty good!

All in all we had a good afternoon - and when we got back, M even dug out a pair of Lederhosen she'd worn in a show a few years ago when playing the Prince in Rapunzel.

Next Saturday we're off to see Klezmeritis at a local park which should be fun - I'll be sure to bring back some photos of that one!