I am not really reactivating this blog, but its name, Social Blus Hamburg, has become, surprisingly, more relevant than ever in the last few weeks.
I am back in Hamburg, where I am working and this work has a lot to do with internet and social media, but from a new point of view. More on that later, when the time is right.
I just have to work on the blues side of things, since the Mobile Blues Club is closed for the winter. But now, living close to the Hauptbahnhof, I guess I will be able to go a bit more out for some live music.
By the way, on the 4th of February there will be the Blues Celebration at the Fabrik, with Steve Baker, Abi Wallenstein and Martin Roettger as Blues Culture plus friends. I'll be there.
For the mean time, here a great video I found from Dave Matthews Band's concert in Rio last year, with Gabriel Grossi doing a great solo on chromatic harmonica around the 8th minute.
Tonight it was the night of Titus, a multi-instrumentalist from Munich. He played different guitars, lap steel, ukulele (as seen on the video), banjo, Stroh violin and accompanied himself on bass pedals and a foot snare. Curiosly enough, he has a Swan bass harmonica on a rack built especially for it. I played a song with him and a singer/guitar player called Benjamin in an impromptu jam while Titus was playing the lap steel, bass pedals and bass harmonica on the rack. Very cool.
One of the best concerts I went to. Ever.
Last Friday, near Bremen, thanks to a generous ride offer from Steve.
I have had several blogs over the past 6 years. Or, better said, different versions of the same blog with different aims at different times in different places and languages.
All started as a personal diary on the internet, in Portuguese, for myself and as an experiment. It later evolved as a link to my family and friends while I was abroad, semi-public (robots.txt: no follow).
The third step was to join an online collective of Brazilian creatives, www.nightripping.com. That was eventually closed down and refurbished to something else by Nix. It was the move from semi-private to 100% public, from a circle of insiders to a general public. Until this point, I was still writing in Portuguese.
The next big change came with my decision to do an MBA. The blog would continue to be an important communication channel with family and friends, but it was clear to me that my audience would change dramatically as soon as I started to connect with MBA colleagues from all over the world. I changed the language to English and focused more on my experience on the 3 different campi I visited: Warwick in England, Kingston in Canada and Mannheim here in Germany. I also set as a goal to publish information I hadn't found on the internet while researching for my MBA, so that I could help prospective MBA students with their choice and daily life. It is cool to see that already the third class of Mannheim MBAs is using some of the info I put together.
After the MBA my blog lost a bit of its purpose. I could write about my job search or my new employers, but writing about what you do in your job is more critical. I was still new at DHL and, later, at the consulting company. After that, my job search took a lot of energy and I spent weeks without posting.
But I want to change that now. I arrived in Hamburg on the first of July and know exactly what I want to post about. Hamburg is such a great city that it is not difficult to come up with ideas and texts. I renamed the blog, changed its skin and believe that the name says it all. I will write mainly about Hamburg.
I will write about Social Hamburg. And, for me, Social has two meanings. First, as a new in town guy, getting to know people and understanding the social dynamics of the city. Second, Social stands for communication, for social media, which is a field which interests me greatly and which is very important to me during this job search, as it is the main channel for me to find vacancies and also an area I want to work in.
And I will also write about Blues Hamburg, in the musical sense. As a blues harp player music is very important to me, especially music in the North American tradition: soul, funk, rock, jam bands, country, southern rock, blue grass, rock 'n' roll, jazz and, of course blues.
Let's see how this goes.
And later on I went to the Adelaide to a very cool jam session. Very nice room, friendly atmosphere, well organized, not too loud and fun.
I recommend it greatly. There I met other 4 harmonica players. Mano from Brazil (we have several friends in common, as he also comes from São Paulo), Dave, Phil and Huwey (not sure of the spelling).
And the bus stopping at the door brought me practically home, so it was a great evening.
No plans for tonight or tomorrow, so, if any of you have any suggestions, I'll be glad to read them. I might go to the 55 tomorrow, but am actually looking for something different.
Information:
The Adelaide
143 Adelaide Road, London, NW3 3NL
(Swiss Cottage or Chalk Farm tubes)
The Niall Kelly Band began hosting a weekly jam here 10 April 2007. Feedback and comments welcome.
E-mail: jamattheadelaide@gmail.com
Web: http://www.myspace.com/jamattheadelaide
And it seems that, this time, it will be Irish. First I found the following:
Irish Music Sessions: Community Corner:
The second Friday of the month.
At Hammersmith Irish Cultural Centre, London
From 7:30pm
Price: Free
And then, by chance, I saw that Brendan Power, harmonica extraordinaire, and old acquaintance, will be playing the same venue on Saturday:
Saturday, 15 September 2007
Brendan Power
At Hammersmith Irish Cultural Centre, London
From 8:15pm (Doors 7:30pm)
On Monday I'll probably go to the blues jam at the "Ain't nothin' but..." with two or three harmonicas in the pockets. Let's see.
It is a pitty, but the Spitz is closing now in September. I've been there on my first trip to London with Nix, a big fan of punk blues and we saw the Urban Vodoo Machine one and a half years ago.
NIX, I'll drink a vodka screwdriver in your name!
Well, I have decided on the last minute to visit my friends Ria and Eric in Utrecht, Netherlands, for their wedding. I got there at about half past eight at night, time enough to see a musical family presentation which was very impressive and to get a piece of the wedding cake, with a whole marzipan harmonica on it, just for me!
Yesterday we had a great brunch with the extended family, which I had to leave early to catch the train back to Germany.
After 7 hours plus on the train I arrived in Trossingen, my "hometown" in Germany. We are having a weekend of festivities here for the 150th anniversary of the Hohner company. I had the opportunity to attend to great concerts, specially Piaccordia with Marko Jovanovic on the diatonic and chromatic harmonicas and B.B. & the Blues Shacks, conseidered Germany's premier blues band.
Today I am looking forward to see the concerts of Blues Delivery and Blues Culture, with Riedel Diegel and Steve Baker, respectively.
I was a good decision to come, my friends and former work colleagues were very pleased to see me and I am happy for that.
I will eventually put some of the videos I shot online, in the meantime, take a look at the following links:
O que eu não comentei ainda é que bati um papo curto com o Kim Wilson. Me disseram que o cara era meio estrelinha e tal, mas foi gentil comigo. Vai ver que fio o meu cartão bonito da Hohner e a minha barba estilosa. Abaixo, a foto oficiosa.
Eu toquei com o Kim também, em breve coloco o vídeo. Foi legal e divertido ;-)
Aqui em Gaildorf ocorreu o Bluesfest (www.bluesfest.de). Evento de médio porte, com bandas renomadas, todo feito por voluntários. O Werner, da empresa que faz a distribuição Hohner aqui na Alemanha, patrocinou o evento e montou um stand para vender gaitas. Vendemos bastante, estamos satisfeitos.
Cheguei aqui em Schäbisch Hall, onde é o hotel, ontem e deu tempo de passear pela cidade histórica, que é muito bonita.
Depois para o show, das 19 às 3 da manhã, vendendo gaita e tentando aproveitar a música, que estava bastante alta. Fui dormir quase às cinco.
Hoje deu para dormir até o meio-dia, depois começar com calma os preparativos, o primeiro show começou às 18 horas.
A banda principal de hoje foi the Fabulous Thunderbirds e os caras são muito bons. O show é de primeiríssima, tudo funciona redondíssimo. Tendo que ficar no fundo da tenda, sem vista nenhuma de palco, não coopera muito, mas foi legal do mesmo jeito.
Quem também me chamou a atenção foi o formação Enrico Crivellaro & Raphael Wressnig Combo. A Marwa Wright cantou muito, claro, e Sugar Ray Norcia ontem também foi jóia.
Agora, 5 da manhã, estou no hotel, esperando o sono vir, já que durante os 18 km entre aqui e Gaildorf o motor diesel do passat resolveu fazer cú doce, de modo que eu fiquei espertão rapidinho. Não sei se conseguirei seguir viagem direito amanhã, a inejeção eletrônica estava cortando a potência nas 3000 RPM. Dá para levar o carro, mas não sei se não corro o risco de ficar na mão de vez.
Mas isso fica para amanhã. As fotos também.
Foi legal, como vocês podem ver:
Tem mais dois vídeos que alguém colocou no youtube em
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=millns+coulter&search=Search, se o link funcionar.
Se bem que, de repente, teria sido mais vantagem ter comprado o CD, sei lá. Afinal, €15,00 para um show não é pouca coisa, e os CDs custavam €16,00.
Hoje à noite tem blues de novo no Kesselhaus, uns tais de Bloss Bluez, de Freiburg. Sei que o gaitista é mais tecladista do gue harmonicista, mas não faz feio na gaita. Dizem eles que fazem um blues com elementos novos, inclusive eletrônica. Veremos. Começa em 47 minutos. Tchau.
Tou indo ver isso aqui de novo:
E amanhã tem mais um show. Amanhã o gaitista não é tão bom, mas faz um bom trabalho, e a banda parece ser legal também.
Fui! Começa em 10 min.
Outro dia eu estava esperando a minha lazanha na cantina "Mama Concetta" aqui em Trossingen, lendo uma revista de rock. Talvez a Rolling Stones, não sei.
Li um artigo interessante de uma banda ou comunidade musical Tuareg, chamada Tinarewin. Parece que os membros foram importantes em revoluções na terra deles e tal.
Nesse mesmo artigo eu descobri que tem um tal de "Festival au Desert", onde o povo vai assistir aos shows de camelo e espada. Esse eu gostaria de ver, deve ser muito legal.
Bem, os caras do artigo ficavam tirando um paralelo entre a música desses tuaregs com o blues. Paralelo originalíssimo, por sinal. Todo mundo gosta de fazer paralelo de qualquer música folclória melancólica com blues, até aí, nada de mais.
Mas aí eu resolvi hoje procurar esses caras. Lógico que eu não me lembrei do nome Tinaiwen. Mas procurei por "tuareg festival desert" e foi fácil.
E não é que os caras da revista estavam certos? Gostei da música, e tem tudo a ver com blues. Vou ver se arranjo o cd deles, e recomendo ouvir as músicas no site deles.
E vou testar aqui um negocinho de um site de venda de músicas. Diz o site, que é Fair Trade, o que é bom.
E talvez esse link aqui ajude ao Kenji, que trabalha com máquinas estranhas em mundos virtuais paralelos peculiares a ouvir alguma coisa. Se bem que, se não funciona aqui no meu blog, não deverá funcionar em http://tinariwen.calabashmusic.com/.
