Babylon rejoice.The day before yesterday was a long day, i went early in the morning to the european site of istanbul, to meet Jason Carter in his hotel room. We recorded different bass tracks to two of his songs, it was really nice to do, a good atmosphere of working together, getting something good out of it, and at the same time a lot of fun. After that we went to see two movies about music, one about the return of musicians to afghanistan after the fall of the taliban, called Breaking the Silence: Music in Afghanistan, produced by Simon Broughton, and the other one about music in the islam, called Sufi Soul. Sufi is a kind of denomination within the islam where music is used a lot as part of their worship. Very similar to some christian denominations. It was nice to see, and also to meet Simon Broughton afterwords.
There was a very boring meeting about musicians for peace. But in the evening there was a great concert (to finish the Freemuse conference) in Babylon, the hippest club of Istanbul. So we went there, and at first there were three amazing woman singing turkish music, accompanied by local musicians, it was really great, they were doing a lot of different metres, like 5/8, 9/8, 6/8, 4/4, and even a lot of people in the audience were joining in as if it was the normallest thing to do, and probably it is for them. There were some other musicians from the conference who played, and Jason played a piece of his own, and than we played a piece of mine (from dust you’re created....) together with an Iranian vocalist, Marjan Vahdat. It was awesome, a voice that is really touching. After that she did an awesome performance together with her sister and brother-in-law. At the end we had a dinner at half past one in the night.
In the mean time I have made some contacts with some local people, trying to find a place to play together with local musicians with local instruments like the Darbuka or the Saz. Hopefully it will come to that point within a few days.
Yesterday I visited together with a South-african friend the Aya Sofia and the Blue Mosque, which are both amazing, great architecture, impressive mosaics, beautiful decorations.
While travelling through Istanbul, there are still things that amaze me somehow. For example selling flowers on the highway, just in between the cars there is someone walking with a bunch of flowers trying to sell them to people who are trying to get home on a road that is supposed to be used by three cars next to each other, but is used by five or if possible six cars next to each other. Another time while cars are passing by at a speed of 80 km/h, a car pulled by a horse is at the same time moving on that highway. Police cars are always using their alarmlights, without the siren, even when there is no use in using it, which makes it probably of no use at all when it is really needed, (pretty strange). The turkish people are in general very friendly, and are very willing to help, but yesterday I was just walking on the street , and a shoe pollisher dropped one of his tools without realizing it, so I helped him, and than he offered me to pollish my shoes, but I was on my way to an appointment, so i didn’t have the time, so I said no, than he really seemed to get offended by my rejection. (although my shoes really need a pollish turn, so maybe next time when I am not in a hurry).
Greetings from the most romantic city of the world.
Back in Istanbul.The last concert we had in Kyrgyzstan nwas in a very nice venue, it was part of a cultural centre. It had a marvelous ceiling, with a beautiful chandelier. A nice stage, and a quiet nice soundsystem, although the local soundman didn’t know how to use it properly. At the end we had to stop a little bit earlier because some authorities demanded us to stop, without any clear reasons, so the gig was a little bit shorter, but not too bad. (in the end we played at a lot of different places, with all very unusual names, like Sokuluk, Balikchy, Cholpon Ata, Kadjisay,Bishkek Alamedin Erea, Novopokrovka, Kara Balta)
The last day we packed all our stuff and were planing to do some sightseeing in Bishkek, (it was the first day when it was snowing) but the car that was supposed to take us there broke down, so in the end we went at the end of the afternoon to Bishkek on our way to the airport. We did some shopping in a shopping mall. It was a big building with a lot of stuff, and in some way sorted by products, but in the end i found out that it was actually a big gathering of small kiosks, with all there own owner, and that everyone was renting a piece of the building of the owner of the building. That’s why a lot of products where sold at a lot of different places in the same building, although all the similar kind of products were on the same floor.
Before heading to the airport, we went to a nice restaurant were they had some really good nice ‘live’ music. Good balanced, not too loud, and well played. We had a very good pizza, did some debiefring of the tour with our two hosts, who did all the organisation and logistics. And we went to the airport, where we would leave at four o’clock in the morning to arrive at Ataturk Airport at five o’clock in the morning (the flight took four hours).
At the meantime i am already in istanbul for about four days, learning some basic turkish phrases, meating new people, seeing new things, travelling on my own through this huge metropolic city, which is very challenging.
At the moment TACO (the organisation who arranged our tour in Kyrgyzstan) is organizing a tour for a flamenco/classical guitar player, Jason Carter. He’s playing marvelous guitar. (check his website:
www.jasoncarter.net). The first day here, we had lunch and yesterday we had a nice meeting in his hotel and visited a concert of him in a small club in Istanbul. He’s actually in Istanbul because he’s speaking at the 3rd freemuse world conference on music and censorship (
www.freemuse.org). The conference has some nice speeches up to now, and on monday evening there will be a jamsession between all the musicians in Babylon. I’ll keep you informed. At the moment he’s busy with a new project, the helsinki project. He asked me to play some bass parts for a few of the songs, so probably tomorrow or monday, we will record some bass stuff, just on his hotelroom, very funny and a nice new experience. His music is a bit similar to Nitin Sawhney, and very nice acoustic guitar stuff.
piCtURes fROm IStAnbUl
Check the newest link that is on the right side to see some pictures
One concert to go in Kyrgyzstan.
The band I join for this period is called, Storybox, and it actually always exists of Charles de Buerger (vocal/guitar) from New Zealand, and his wife Rebekah (vocal) and for this time with Chris Middleton on drums, and myself on bass. And here in Kyrgyzstan we play also with a Saxophonist (Serik) from Kazachstan, but living here in Kyrgyzstan, and a local keyboard player, Arkadi. On the same time we have local support-act, which exists of two rappers and a guitarplayer/vocalist, called NL, for most of the time they played with tracks, but the last few concerts I joined on bass in some songs. The songs we play as Storybox are mostly songs of Charles, and some covers from Crowded House, Eva Cassidy. The places en venues we play are different, sometimes it’s a theater or cinema, and sometimes a church, and when we discover that there hasn’t been too much promotion we try to play outside, to get some more audience, which means that sometimes it’s quiet cold to play, but even inside the buildings where we play it is most of the time not very warm.
Last week we played outside under the arms of Lenin (statue). The infrastucture still looks very communistic, a lot of statues that remind of the cocmmunistic regime.
For those who do not know a lot about Kyrgyzstan, it’s a country with about 4,5 million people. The capital city is Bishkek, (which looks more like a conglomerulation of small cities) It’s surrounded by Kazachstan, China, Turkmenistan & Oezbekistan The climat is a land climat, there are quiet a lot of mountains with eternal snow. But at the moment it’s not that cold, yesterday we made a walk, where i was only wearing a t-shirt. The people are a mix of ethnic kyrgyz people which have a mongolian look, and than there are the russian looking people. In the past the mix was about 50/50, but now the majority is ethnic kyrgyz (80%).
We went for three to four days into another area of the country, we played in three places around a big lake. It was nice to experience life in a Kyrgyz family/house. A big hospitality, but to get more of how everything goes, it’s just the missing link of the language, only a very few speak english in a understandable way. The food is quiet heavy in general, at every dish there is something with meat, during breakfast, lunch and dinner.
The area around the lake was nice to see, mountains on all sides of the lake. The water is quiet clear. They say it is a kind of touristic area, probably more in the summer. The ‘beaches’ are more stoney than sandy. And i think you can make a lot of money with gardening, because almost everywhere green is growing on places where it ‘shouldn’t’. The traffic is is like in a lot of third world countries, really a kind of mess, but everyone seems to find there way. On one place we had to stop because they were throwing down stones from the mountain to prevent landslides. Probably the stones they could fall by them self at a later moment. Direction signs are quiet rare, and street names I didn’t see up to now.
Last night there was again a small earth quake, I was still awake, and it felt a little bit like someone moved my bed, but there was no one around. But this one was even smaller than the one thas was there last time. They say it is very rare an earthquake, but in two weeks time already three small ones, doesn’t seem rare to me. But if I say that I am living six meters below sealevel behind some ‘dijken’, they think that I am crazy. Istanbul, where i will be staying for a big part of the coming weeks, is located just between two cracks underneath the skin of mother earth. Scientist expect that there will be a major earthquake within 20-30 years.
Today I made some pancakes to have little bit of a lighter food. The last few days we tried to order them at restaurants where we were, although it was on the menu, they didn’t have it. Enjoy your meal, because lots of people are hungry today and will be tomorrow.
Black & White television is getting some colour.
After five days of Kygyzstan, slowly able to find my way, although it’s completely different than my expectations. The roads are most of the time horrible, it’s jumping & bumping.
The first two days we did some very tiring rehearsels, too long, and too slow, because there were actually no good sheets, I first had to write some proper sheets, and than the equipment really sucks, it’s like doing a cesarian section with a kitchen knife. We did a concert in a kind of very long and small class room with only concrete walls, which is used by a church. And later a concert in a kind of cinema, and the day after in a big church, where hey had food equipment, but didn’t use it in a proper way, which is quiet frustrating.
In some mentality things, there seem to be a similar kind of thing as in africa, almost everytime they are too late for appointments, and things are almost always going different, and they are very spare in giving us information on what is going to happen, which creates a lot surprises.
Most of the time we stay in one place, named Tokmok, and from there we go with a mercedez benz bus with our equipment to the place where we are going to play,
It’s like a big lesson for practising love, grace & patience
For breakfast and lunch there is someone who prepares it, and in general the food is good, but for breakfast they make quiet often things with meet, sausages or a similar thing, so we are trying to make clear that that is absolutely not necessary.
And in the evening we most of the time eat along the road in a kyrgyz restaurant, with a menu card none of us can read, so everytime the kyrgyz that are with us have to translate it for us to make a choice.
Tomorrow we will go to the mountains and visit three different places in the mountains where we will do three concerts within three days. So hopefully we will see something more of the country. The contact within the group with the Kyrgyz people is improving, which is giving more colour to live here, and to discover things that are similar. At the moment almost everyone of our group is having a cold, so a lot of coughing, sneezing.
Дфеукб фцукеявамло івак кіе аронггл уа гйцугш акег чамь аеи я
Later,
Welcome to a former sovjet union country, Kyrgyzstan.
Departing from the place where I stayed in Istanbul, at the Asian side of the bosporus, we had to go to the Europian side of Istanbul. At first a taxi, than a boat and than a bus, to arrive at Ataturk airport, it took about one and half hour. And even then there didn’t came an end to the city, as far as i could see, it was all appartment blocks.
After checking the internet I found out that all the Kyrgyz airlines are actually on the blacklist of airlines in europe, but fortunately we had a turkish airline, for what it’s worth. Because just 20 seconds before taking off, a part of the ceiling came down, not very big, but it was a good promise for the rest of the trip. But after four hours and twenty minutes we (Chris, Charles, Rebekah and me) safely landed on the airport near Bishkek (capital city of Kyrgyzstan.) But then it took about one and a half hour to get a VISA, so when ev’ryone else had already left the airport, we came out of it. It was already 2 o’clock in the night, because of the time difference we had skipped about three to four hours, but we will regain those on the way back. We were picked up by two people, and it took us more than one hour to get to the place were we are staying. So when finally getting in bed in a drowsy state of mind, I experienced a kind of sensation like taking off again in the plane, so I turned around, and tried to continue sleeping, but after a few minutes it came back, but stopped a little bit faster. So when i was sitting at breakfast after sleeping, they told me that there had been an earthquake, so that explained my taking off-sensation. Because I am sleeping in the room that’s most far from the exit, it’s kind of scarry if there will come another taking off senstaion. So next afternoon we started practising with two local musicians, who would join us on the coming concerts here in Kyrgyzstan. A keyboard player, and a very good saxophone player (graduated at Moscow’s conservatory). The sound system is quiet bad, but hopefully there will come some better equipment later, or at least at the venues were we are playing. At the same moment they told us that there is a political revolution going on in the country, so not the easiest circumstances.
It feels a little bit like being on a different planet, people that speak and write a language i completely don’t understand, a country side that looks very grey and boring, roads that are more liking a bumping circuit. It’s like living in a tv movie, when there was only black & white television. (Although the food seems to create quiet a lot of noisy colourful bowels.)
Merhaba,
Sitting at the top of our appartment block, looking over the Asian side of Istanbul, with at the horizon, behind all the minarets, the Bosporus and some silhoutes of the Europian side of Istanbul.
Just finished a small tour of five small concerts in Adana and Konya. On both places we stayed with some lovely families, with awesome funny kids, a lot of laughter and fooling around and a bunch of hospitality expressed in different ways, like good food and nice stories. The concerts were quiet low profile, but that made it also easier to make contact with the audience and drink some cay (turkish tea) together. In Konya was one venue underneath a low-price 'McDonalds' kind of fast food restaurant, which was completely frunitured into a turkish tea house. We did two gigs there, but in between there was a local cover band playing turkish folk songs, which was a nice-smokey atmosphere to taste/smell. They sometimes mix major and minor in a very surprising way, probably part of the music vocabulary.
Just outside of Konya (a city with almost 700.00 citizens, formerly know as Iconium) we visited the oldest remaining church building in turkey, already there since 327 AC. It had been restored two or three times, but still quiet impressive to know it's there already such a long time. Used by many people for ages.
The weather is getting quiet cold here at the moment, freezing during night times, and in Ankara there had been falling almost 40 cm of snow. A lot of travelling is going by bus in Turkey, especially the overnight busses, which are used for almost all the long distances, so we had two trips overnight, which didn't provide that much of rest.
At the moment we are just preparing and packing all the stuff to take the plane to Kyrgyzstan this afternoon from Ataturk Airport Istanbul. We don't know yet what Kyrgyzstan will bring. It will be another 4 hours of time difference. But all the rest is still a kind of surprise. There will be a local person who has arranged all the stuff. So hopefully she has done a good job.
later,
First impression: Big cities, smelling like Kathmandu, raining all the time, friendly people, hospitality.
On arrival in Istanbul it was raining. Took a very noisy bus to I-don't-know-where, where I was received with a good meal and lots of hospitality. Busses already open the door stopping and already depart before closing it. Lots and lots of appartment blocks, up to 14 levels high. It seems to be they are growing right out of the ground. That's probably why the population of Istanbul is the same amount as the population of the Netherlands. The smell of the big city reminds me of Kathmandu (Nepal).
After a short night of rest, we went back to the airport by taxi, (with a taxi driver that charged us much too much) to take a plain to Adana (mid-south; 1 hour flight). Adana is again a big city, about two million people living there. We were picked up by a nice mexican couple who took us to their appartment to relax for a while, had some turkish lunch (Donner-Kebab), not too bad, and a good turkish desert, cheese grilled and soaked in sugar.
In the afternoon we built up our set to do a small gig in a church instead of outside in the park (because of the rain). We did a small rehearsel, to play some songs in the evening for a nice group of turkish youth, which I could hardly understand, because most of them only speak a language I don't understand. But I understood their hospitality. Like now I am staying with a turkish and american guy in one appartment, and found a wireless connection to this page, for as long as it takes.
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