Between: Living in the Hyphen

I'd like to introduce you to a great documentary film maker and very good friend of mine: Anne Marie Nakagawa. Anne Marie is visiting Montreal (she is based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada), promoting her film "Between: Living in the Hyphen". On Thursday July 27th, she screened her work as part of an evening at the Goethe Institute organized by the United Nations Association of Canada. The evening was a launch called "A Sense of Belonging", and it is part of a national inititive to promote diversity and to combat prejudice and racism.

Feel free to go to the NFB website (www.nfb.ca) and check out the film. It is very well produced, its content is insightful enough to touch anyone (no matter their background), and it is a very beautiful film to watch.

Every musician's month of July is riddled with...

JULY - Every musician's month of July is riddled with a mess of gigs, small tours and general playing frenzy...well, it is in my circles, if you're looking at Montreal's World Music scene. In July, we suddenly transform from money tight hungry players into overworked fiends: everybody's playing with everybody else. If a band doesn't have a tight tour itinerary, the players are bound to be sneaking away on their day off to play that extra gig.
And so July was that for me. I played the usual gigs with my Eastern European gypsy band, Les Gitans de Sarajevo, and topped it off playing with other artists : Juan Carranza at the Montreal Flamenco Festival (www.juancarranza.com), Hassan El Hadi (www.hassanelhadi.net), some Jewish parties and other private functions. Les Gitans de Sarajevo played Detroit city's Festival of Colors. It was an amazing experience and I met some great musicians from Amp Fiddler's project. We got to see Amp Fiddler (www.ampfiddler.com) perform and boy, so much groove can definitely soothe a Canadian's soul...real good! I also had the chance to do some small session works for a short film by Clyde Paquin, some arabic pop/groove stuff with Cheb Dino, and I also went into the studio to work on some of my own stuff with the ever so sweet and amazingly supportive Richard Soly. Richard does sound for the Montreal Opera and has worked extensively with string musicians. He definitely knows how to mic my violin. I will keep you posted on when the recording will surface!

The last gig of the month of July will be performed on Old Montreal's Quai Jacques-Cartier with "Nazir et le groupe Salaam" (Morrocan Gnawa music: www.gnawamontreal.com). This performance is part of Montreal's "Festival des Rythmes du Monde" and on Friday, July 28th we will also be playing along side artists such as Monica Freire, Sandra Campanelli, and Muna Mingole. Show starts @ 7:30pm and goes late. Check out the website: www.rythmes.tv and come if you're in town!

June: The definition of the word Inertia

The definition of the word "Inertia" can be summed up as:

An object that is in motion stays in motion while an object that is stationary remains stationary.

So here I am, stationary, attempting to get this blog thing accelerated into some kind of motion. Yup, May was a while back but we're here now, so shut up! If there was anything worth writing about, it happened in the months of June and July.

JUNE - I toured Greece with Alberta, Canada's Super Greek Band: The Rembetika Hipsters. We spent ten days there, playing a few shows (notably Anatoli's Restaurant on Skopelos Island) and had the chance to see the great Greek legendary clarinet player Petro Lukas perform at private club in the heart of Athens. Of course, we had to make our way up north to the province of Epiros, where we visited Niko's birthtown Polidrosso (a village only two mountain ranges away from Albania). We gave an epic performance at the only commerce in this town of 200 residents, The Kafeneio. We were rewarded with much lamb, french fries and lemons, salads and Raki. Alberta CBC Radio listeners will be able to hear a special "audio postcard" of the Rembetika Hipsters' recent Greece excursion. The short radio documentary will be aired on Radio 1's "The Key of A" Saturday, August 5 at 5 PM, and on Radio 2's "Our Music" Sunday, August 6 at noon. The Rembetika Hipsters wish to thank to CBC's Frank Rackow for piecing it together from the recordings we made while travelling in Greece.
I came back to Montreal happy, relaxed and ten pounds heavier. You can check out the Rembetika Hipsters' website at www.rembetika.com