The past few weeks have been pretty tough on me as i'm finding the last few months of university quite difficult to deal with. It's hard to explain but i feel like a bird that wants to fly the nest but is trapped in it. I have 6 weeks left to go which isn't a long time and i'm basically going to get my head down and just work work work, which isn't a good prospect for me as i'm involved in alot of stuff and i'm already beginning to do what i set out to start when i came to uni 4 years ago. It's not been about getting the actual qualification, it's about the people i've met and the experiences i've had.
This week i've had one of the greatest musical experiences to date, it was just absolutely wonderful and magical and all other positive adjectives that i can think of. The percussion and dance group i'm in (Juba do Leao!) took to the stage at the RNCM after months of preparation. It's looked beautiful and sounded brilliant and the feeling was absolutely mind blowing. All day yesterday after the gig i was still feeling this thing whatever it was, it was like a new emotion that has no name. That may sound over the top but it really did effect me alot, just felt emotional and kept welling up and i don't think i'll ever be the same again. I want to be a sponge and keep learning as i have so much much to absorb and give, i haven't been doing music for a very long time and after this short time i'm feeling like this about it, who knows what the future will hold!
I've said it before and i'll say i again, in Juba there are some of the most down to Earth, funny, talented and just in general ( excuse the French) fucking real genuine people i've ever met, haven't got enough words to express how fond of them all i am.
But yes, now is the time when i need to get my head down and try to get all of this work done, the sooner it gets done the sooner i can get on with my life. Who knows what's around the corner and that's the most exciting thing, nobody knows and musically, i'm glad i've turned around those corners and discovered alot of different music. Music shouldn't be about commercialism, glamour, fame and the ' mainstream' until you understand that music should be about living and really appreciating what a powerful force it is. Human beings have been doing it for thousands of years and if you don't understand or appreciate how or why i suggest to pick up a drum or any instrument and open yourself up to a world of unpredictable wonder.
As i'm up with no hangover ( can i get-a whoop whoop!) i thought i'd update this blogaroo with a few exciting things that i'm doing at the moment and it just dawned on me how lucky i am to be a musician. I'm in quite a few things and i know lots and lots of really talented people.
I have 2 myspace pages, one personal one and one for my band 'Last of the Kiskadees':
At the moment we're working on a new set for my performance exam ( i study Popular Music & Recording at Salford University and i'm majoring in composition and performance), they're so versatile as for this assessed set in may i have them playing all sorts of strange things which will be revealed on the night if it all works out. It sounds absolutely wonderful at the moment, it's VERY different to what is on the myspace ( which is just acoustic versions of our past work). I have this experimental kind of atmospheric/trip-hoppy side to what i want to create musically and we're doing that at the moment which is exciting, i'm just very lucky to be working with people who are open minded and very on my wave length. I don't know what's going to happen after uni with our music as it's not really ' kiskadees' music, but we shall see ( are you allowed to have 2 bands with the same people?!)
Another project i'm in is called ' The Voice Collective' to quote the myspace:
'The Voice Collective is a young and dynamic group of singers from the Manchester area. Their unique a cappella interpretations of a wide variety of musical styles have captivated audiences across the UK'
I absolutely adore being in this, i joined about 3 and a half years ago and i can safely say if i wasn't in it i wouldn't be doing half of the things i'm doing now musically. We rehearse every Tuesday evening and if i've had a shite day it makes it better. The summertime is great with the TVC, sunshine, singing, festivals, everyone loves a good sing-song and we do awesome arrangements of wonderful choons. Here's the myspace link and a wee vid of us doing our thang!
I'm in a folk band called Marpleg ( which means please in Cornish!). The most useful phrase i've learnt is 'pinta marpleg' which means ' pint please!'. We started it for Mary's performance exam ( lead singer/viola player) but i reckon we're gonna carry it on after uni. I'm in it with a bunch of my close friends and it's such a laugh, and by far the most fun song is our cover of ' The Pirate's Gospel' by Alela Diane. We're working on a new set at the moment, one of the songs i get a creepy whistle solo!
When i was 15 i started drumming, i remember i would sit in this tiny room for hours after school/college trying to get my co-ordination, then after about 3 months of starting i played in my very first band, We were called ' The Berettas!' haha, good times. but when i came to uni i gave it up...until now!
Last summer i was involved in something called an 'Afoxe' ( Aff- Oh- Shay), you can read about it online as there is a massive story behind it, but it was a huge precession through the streets of Manchester with a huge bateria of drums, then came a brass section, then singers ( which i was apart of), then dancers. It was a special day and it got me into drums again, more specifically Brazilian drumming. You can see what i mean here:
Afterwards i got asked by Holly ( one of the organisers of the Afoxe) if i wanted to be in her group called Juba do Leão (pronounced 'joo-bah (with a soft 'j') doo lay-yow) means 'lion's mane' in Brazilian Portuguese and of course i said YES. I started off singing in it but now i'm getting into the drumming side. Holly specialises in a specific type of Brazilian music called maracatu, you can read all about it here:
It's fascinating and exciting, i'm getting seriously addicted to it and the people in it are some of the most friendly, welcoming and lovely people i have ever met. It's a new side to the music scene up here in the North-West that i had no idea about a year ago. At the moment we are rehearsing for a huge gig at the Royal Northern College of Music as part of Christian aid fund-raiser, it going to be A-MAZ-ING so if you know me, please get a ticket or you can buy one through the RNCM website.
Here's Juba in action!:
I also am involved in a few function bands so to cater your musical needs please visit:
I've found the music scene up here quite incestuous as i tell one musician that i'm doing this project with so and so, and they go ' oh i know them!' and it happens all the time up here. There's definitely a feeling of community. After the uni madness is over i'm going to make more of an effort to gig and put on gigs and just get involved in the scene more here. Manchester is a special city and i just want to dive in a discover its many secrets.
This is a new medium for me and i thought it would be a good idea as i have alot of opinions and musings on life which alot of my friends would probably be bored of, plus the wondrous joy of being able to edit what you mean rather than spewing out alot of inane babble is very useful!
I thought i'd start off by posting a great thing which could help alot of people. I get emails from Oxfam and this one particularly stood out for me. It's called ' the robin hood tax' and it seems like a great idea:
You can find out more about the campaign - and how to show your support for what they are doing here:
I've put on a few Oxjams in my time and used to be more involved with Oxfam and they always send me useful stuff, they're a good organisation.
After waking up this morning in a wine-induced stupor i checked the BBC iplayer for any new documentaries, like i usually do, and came across a Horizon documentary about 'infinity' called ' To Infinity and Beyond' (snort), there's a very ominous feel to it and a bunch of geeky maths professors talk about the mechanics of it, but it blew my mind, you should definitely check it out. The basis of my 'mind-blown-ness' was that they theorise that somewhere out there there's an exact copy of Earth with exact copies of all of us going about their lives and doing the same things we're doing. So somewhere out there there's another me posting this blog, but he/me could have taken a different turn in life and could be typing from a massive yacht rather than a terrace house in Salford! Carayzee-ness!
Hey i'm Dan, i'm a music student at Salford University in my final year. I'm originally from the deepest darkest Midlands and i'm hoping to use this little space of the web to generally air my views on life/love and the world.
So put your feet up and have a cuppa!
