There and back again...

Did some recordings, played a competition (that we shouldn't have joined), played a small performance, after that, Jules and I rushed over to Boston's bus terminal just on time to catch the last bus of the night --- thanks to Charlie's speedy and scary driving.

Half way through the journey, I was awaken by New York ---- no, not the place itself, but the smell. The toilet in the bus smelled worse than longkang! DIUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Luckily we stopped by a McDonald's on the way and caught some fresh air outside for 10 minutes. And sure enough, the driver was aware of the smell, he turned on the aircond big enough to let go of the smell ----- until we physically got back to New York, the smell came back...

It was drizzling outside the window, both of us pulled up our hoods and walked through the quiet Chinatown, went over to the R station, waited for the train for like 20 minutes before we hopped on to the train. We started to diss the stupid people that we worked with during the long wait, and didn't stop until we got home. Dissing behind is fun sometimes, especially when you can't say things straight to people. But of course, make sure the person you talk to is someone you can trust...

Among them people that we dissed was one of the most amazing violinists we've ever met.

Jeremy's voice still resonates in my head: It's like, this guy needs to chill the fuck out...!

Haw haw!

blah blah.......

Had my first rehearsal with Sirius today, damn fun! ... well, at least 100 times better than V4...

Ronnie is quite a crazy muthafucka, but is actually also a very nice person. Been hearing his name and his recordings with various big shots (including Tony Williams) throughout his careers. Glad to finally be able to play with him! Mike is a mutha on the cello of course, no doubt about that.

Tomorrow will be the next rehearsal.... let's see how I can hack that through, haha!!! no.... i actually practised the shit, so it should be fine.

* * * * * * * * *

Some people might feel weird seeing me putting the "love china" sign in front of my screen name of msn. But I mean why not? I want to see the Games to run smoothly and peacefully. I mean, I don't wanna act like I stand on whoever's side, but c'mon, Olympics game is a GAME, not a political arena, for god's sake just let it happen peacefully!

I mean, those of you who protest and shit, do you actually know what is happening in there? No? Then don't shout, because the truth might be very different from what you think.

Just let the Games happen smoothly!

(Some of you are probably gonna hate me for this, i don't give a fuck.)

Vuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's Kenny Garrett!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I watched two gigs tonight: the first one being Chris Speed's Yeah No in the Stone, and the second one was The Headhunters featuring Kenny Garrett in Iridum Jazz Club. Went to see both of them with Jules.

Well, as you can see, I'm very fond of the downtown scene, so the Stone was of course my idea, especially Cuong Vu was playing! The band was fuckin' explosive man. The songs they played were pretty accessible to the general public ---- more rock-oriented beats, pounding grooves... But that doesn't mean that it was bad though, to the contrary, it was great!! Some of you may think it's like some funk fusion shit, but no, it's not. It's more like noise/rock/avant-garde all bastarded together.

The line-up was Chris Speed on tenor, Cuong Vu on trumpet, Skuli Sverisson on bass, Ted Reichman on accordion, and Jim Black on drums.

It was so explosive, I guess thanks to Jim Black's intoxicating drumming. But of course, without Chris Speed and Cuong's beautiful melodic interplay, I don't think anything much will happen. One complain was Ted Reichman's accordion was most of the time drowned out by the others. Maybe plug in next time?

* * * * * * * * * *

After a quick bite near the Stone, we rushed over to Iridium to check out The Headhunters' last show in NY.

Kenny Garrett was just great, I dunno what else to say.

And the pianist, Geri Allen also, shit, fuckin' burning man!! Seldom see ladies playing in jazz clubs, but when they do, they usually burn your motherfucking ass.

After the show, we managed to talk to Kenny. I mean Jules went to see the show 2 nights ago, so Kenny already knew him and spotted him on the stage. I went up to say hi to him in Mandarin, he was surprised and then he took my card and said he will give me a call to practise his Mandarin. NOW HOW COOL IS THAT?!!! YAY!!!!!!!!

Here's a pic of Kenny on fire...

Random stuff

I find that I'm a pretty greedy person, I guess if I have loads of money, I might finish spending it in no time. The reason I said that is because I always like to borrow loads of DVDs and CDs in the library. Now you see, CDs are fine, usually I just rip them into my computer and I can return them; but DVDs are a problem, they need you to sit down, spend time and watch them before you can return them. Otherwise you have to copy them, but copying a DVD and copy it nicely literally takes an hour to do so.

I have to say I am pretty busy most of the time, no time to sit down and watch them, so naturally the items will be overdue without me realizing it ---- some DVDs from Queens Library are 3-day loans. Then what? Pay the late fees! And Queens Library has such high late fees it scares the shit out of me.

A good example was yesterday, when I returned four DVDs, they charged me $24 bucks for 2/3 days overdue!!!!

So I'd better becareful with this issue next time, no point wasting money that way...

* * * * * * * *

I feel very lucky that the members of Sirius String Quartet approached me to play their concert in May 8th in The Flea Theater. It will be their CD release performance, featuring one of the violinists, Gregor Hübner's music. Also featured are 2 pieces by my friend, the cellist, Mike Block.

I'm glad that I finally get to play in such a quartet with amazing players who have similar (if not same) musical interests as me, while testing their instruments limits. I was practising this one thing in Gregor's piece today ---- there is one whole movement of slurred repeated notes that has to be played with different left hand fingers on each, so in the end, it visually looks like a pipa player or something, very cool, though it's a bitch to practise. I got through it sooner than I thought because I realised I was toying with this unconventional technique since I was pretty young ---- dunno why, I just liked to fuck around with my violin.

Anyways.... kind of an update.... for myself maybe, dunno.... ciao ciao...

My buddy leavin'

Chen Han, u muthafucka!! You're leavin' all of us and go back to your old nest Rochester!!

Our next meal and beers will be YOUR TREAT as a punishment, motherfucker!!

But it's been fun living as roommates with you, your easy-going personality makes people feel easy to be around you. Late-night PS2 sessions man, those are some memorable moments!

Hope you have fun with your DMA programme... oh and, please don't burn your apartment again...

Being a musician's body double

i dunno how often this shit happens, but it certainly happened to me today.

i became chris' body double in a rehearsal for this thursday's gig.

jules said i should chill out because he did that shit before too, i dunno how true is that.

i mean, learning music for a person and he'll play the gig doesn't make so much sense to me.

but whatever... we'll see what would this become...

Rozemary'z Babiez... Franck...

So, we the Babiez finally did our debut in Studio A.I.R.!

Audience's (very small) reactions were very good and they said they could feel our shit. I was happy about it!

But I felt that mapping out the piece was kinda stiff for me, because there wasn't much freedom involved. My idea of making the music "elastic" (sounding different every time) obviously didn't work out for the other two Babiez.

...................................

Sunday (April 6) finally came, the tribute concert to Mr Kouguell was finally happening!

Nick was still gloomy in the morning when he came to get his music. He's been scary ever since we started to rehearse the shit. To tell the truth he scared the shit outta my friends. He didn't scold anyone, but just by looking at him was scary enough...

Mozart Dissonance was kinda shitty, Chen Han was toooo nervous that he kept on fucking up his part in every single movement! We all felt like shit after we played it. But I can't blame that guy, he's tried his best, and he was a last minute replacement. Respect!

Luckily my Franck Sonata was good (at least, I thought so). I dunno why I could bring out all my musicality in that one. I still couldn't get out of that emotion after I played it. It was some powerful, almost religious shit! I felt really drained after that...

The Vaughn Williams was nothing much to shout about, but it was nice... (at one point I went blank and forgot to come in, Chen Han was cold-sweating...)