Caboose

Every once in a while I get an email asking to use my photos. The first was from Satan’s Penguins (their own website seems to have vanished), a Swedish heavy-metal band.

They ended up using several of my Antarctic pictures on the cover of their album “Birds of Darkness“. The link’s to a review (found by a Google search today) that mentions “On the front cover, four shrouded penguins stand against the sunset.”, that would be these penguins:

(There are actually five penguins, the third from the left isn’t just very fat)

I’ve also provided photos for some educational activities in various places and a book about Greece published by the Danish Geografforlaget.

Last night I joined Monique, Kristel and Marion at Gamji Gate Auditorium for a free concert organised by the British Council and the Centre for Hausa Cultural Studies. They’d brought over a Muslim hip-hop group from the UK, Mecca 2 Medina, who were collaborating with a group of young traditional Hausa musicians from Kano, Arewa. The whole thing was called “Cultural Rap Rapture” and also included several local musicians.
(more…)

One of the things I’ve been enjoying a lot in Nigeria is the music, even if a few songs do get played just a little bit too much.

On Wednesday we were all (that’s all the VSOs attending the workshop) having dinner in a very busy local chophouse, I noticed a poster for a concert at the NAF Club in Kaduna. It was to be the launch of a local band’s first album but what caught my eye was that Zule-Zoo were playing (they’re one of my favourite Nigerian groups).
(more…)

Yesterday was the last day of the Folk Festival and probably my favourite day of this year. I finally managed to get to see The WAiFS, after failing to get into the club tent on Saturday night.

They’re an Australian band and everyone had been talking about them since Friday night. It seems (according to Bob Harris’s introduction) that they sold more albums at the festival than any other band.

Flook were also excellent, folk music with flutes instead of fiddles.

This weekend I’m mostly at the Cambridge Folk Festival, lots of good music, it’s not all old men with beards!

Last night I was mostly in the Club tent, they have a lot of variety there because each band usually only gets to play three songs. One of the bands, Note for a Child seemed very keen to give away CDs, you can even get them from the website.

On Monday night I met up with Dugly to go and see Beth Orton again, this time at the Royal Albert Hall.

The concert was good, although the atmosphere was probably better in Cambridge the acoustics are much better at the Albert Hall. It’s also a very impressive building, especially when you’re seated in the very top row of seats. As Dugly commented, it was like watching the concert from a helicopter.

Beth didn’t come up with any jokes this time but still seemed very nervous on stage.

The Guardian has a review on its site. Like them I thought the encores were the best bit of the concert.

Went to see Beth Orton (alternate site) in concert at the Cambridge Corn Exchange last night, fantastic. Wasn’t too keen on the support act, Ed Harcourt, but Beth was amazing.

I had been a bit worried that her voice wouldn’t come through well live, but it did. The mixture of old and new songs was good, the band were great, on the whole a very pleasant way to spend an evening. We just caught the final encore, ‘I wish I never saw the sunshine’ with Beth alone on stage, an excellent way to finish off.

I was surprised by how teeny she looks on stage after reading lots of interviews going on about how tall she is. She seemed quite nervous and shy doing the links between songs, although later on she told a few very bad jokes.

Albums:
Trailer Park
Central Reservation
Daybreaker

I’ve currently got Ronan Keating’s If Tomorrow Never Comes going round and round in my head. It’s probably because it was on Q103 (local radio is great) at the gym this morning.

Why is it that part of my mind insists on choosing music that the rest of me hates? Do I really want to know why? I knew I should have brought some CDs into work today.