Strange Costumes Part III: Playing the Field – The Music
- Kev cradles his bass paternally…….
It’s been a long time coming, but I finally found some time to put the finishing touches to the third instalment of the Strange Costumes ‘Altered Book’ project that I’m working on in conjunction with Atlanta-based artist and writer Shelley M House. There will be a video version of it later.
As with the previous two, the rhythms are very African influenced. To create the rhythm track, I recorded four or five ‘live’ drum parts using a multiple drum pad module that you play just like a normal kit. for each track, I altered the parameters so the pads triggered different drums and percussion effects. The final, multiple drum track is quite insistent and chaotic, so I opted to overlay a vocal in a sixties, psychedelic ‘lazy’ style, to balance the speed of the piece. The lyric is dictated very strictly by the words Shelley gave me, in her meter and order, and this, above all else, gives these musical pieces their unusual structure and form. I cannot escape into a chorus, and I have to find ways to fit words in that may conflict with the rhythm. It’s a lot of fun! You will notice that some of the lyrics are hard to understand. That is because I have gone for an overall feel for the track, and to clearly enunciate them may have compromised that. The music is designed to be listened to in conjunction with reading the lyrics within Shelley’s art pieces. I’ve reproduced the lyrics below, with the small changes I made highlighted in blue:
Fantastic information we find in the field.
Tasty instrument, hear it play, food he likes. (Tasty instrument, hear it play)
Searching shallow ends for frogs and fish, we get too close and find that edges have snapped.
In scenery sharp and strange we play;
very vivid, very thin, and very fond of fruit.
I hope the tree-top toucan can support all the weight.
See the colorful two, overlap and sway,
planting the seeds of the future.
Penknife and pine, the hungry fulcrum faintly tips.
Our friends are prying and peculiar. Stories are told. Perfectly attractive, bold and yellow, red and blue.
We pick out our decorations so carefully.
We find seeds and weeds for large appetites, all of them eating out of habit.
Muddy mouthfuls make it difficult to speak.
Entire worlds are reduced to hums and beats.
Hands and arms, legs and feet, tiny twitters, a deep low beat. (tiny twitters in a deep low beat)
Graceful games turn frantic in a storm.
Run and frisk, high and low, coming in and out of sight. Quick and urgent, they cry, they cry.they cry, they cry…cry…
Words by Shelley M House, Music by Kev Moore
The breakdown in the middle begins with the gradual layering of sampled African choral vocals, mixed with tribal drumming and nature samples steadily building in intensity to re-introduce the main theme. As the track fades, it departs a little from the trance-like single chord structure and I introduce some changes in the synth chords underneath, so that the lead guitar can be more expressive. The bass line remains the same however, and its always a nice effect, to keep the bass the same and change the underlying chords.
So there it is……enjoy!
You can listen to the first two parts of the series by clicking on the links below:
B•fly and the Sea-Anenomes
“….and so the B•Fly tour took the excited holidaymakers deep into the sea of blue slippers, searching for Sea-anenomes…”
Following Shelley’s recent post, inspired by what I saw as undersea creatures in her art, her mention of a butterfly and present of blue slippers, not to mention the Yellow Submarine poster in our kitchen, I came up with this comic book art Butterfly craft carrying intrepid holidaymakers into a comfy sea!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHELLEY!!!
Spain and Portugal revisited – 4 –
Today you find us still wandering around Cadiz…here’s a few scenes of the city and the playa.
A closer view of the ship above the Caleta gate
Temple of the Sun?
An old prison, I think, following restoration.
The ultimate in self-sufficiency - a bird that is its own cage!
The Boardwalk......just a part of the Cadiz coastline
Greeting an old friend...I spy one of the great Ocean liners that used to dock next to us when I sang on Ocean Village in the Caribbean.
…more to come before we say finally say farewell to Cadiz!
Spain and Portugal revisited – 3 –
Another delve into the photo album. It’s not a photo album really. It’s some information buzzing about on my motherboard. I think.
Today, wander through the Caleta Gate with us, as we traverse the causeway to San Sebastian Castle and Island, Cadiz. It owes its name to a Chapel erected there in 1457 by Venetian sailors who had been confined to the island due to a plague. The Castle and parapet that surrounds the island were constructed in 1706, the causeway linking it to the mainland added in 1860. Presumably the plague had gone by then……
The Caleta Gate and a tourist attacked by a killer tomato...
Miki gets to work while a stony-faced individual steadfastly ignores her...
Miki heads out across the causeway. Should I mention high tide? Nah.
We arrive at the gates of San Sebastian to find it...locked up tight. Perhaps the plague has returned after all....
Spain and Portugal revisited – 2 -
A few more peeks through the lens as we wandered the Iberian peninsula this summer…. by Kev Moore
Hold your horses....I need a caffeine fix!!! Miki on her bike in Cadiz
Talking of horses...Spain's answer to Deadwood - El Rocio
El Rocio has a church on every corner - yep, you've guessed it, someone had a vison here. You can just hear 'dem holy cash registers a-ringin', can't you?
Inadvertently, Miki strikes the advertising pose for Ocean Village, the ship I used to appear on. Biking around the Cadiz shoreline.
Spain and Portugal Revisited -1-
I thought I might publish a few photos from our last trip to South West Spain and Portugal this Summer. Although I haven’t had the time nor the inclination to do an in-depth travelogue, I felt, upon browsing through the photos recently, it might be nice to share some of them, so here we go…….
A new definition of "Houseboat"
Art gallery alfresco, or signs of the times?
Washday Blues
The Boomobile finally gets to meet the Rock of Gibraltar
It was great to finally see the rock from the Spanish side. My Dad was stationed off shore there when he was in the Navy in the 50’s, and I have sailed through the straits many times on Ocean Village, usually nipping out on deck before my show to see the steadily ascending lights that mark the rock in the night sky. Still staunchly British, it remains a thorn in the Spanish government’s side, and a quaint monument to Imperialism, and the Mastery of the Seas.
Kev Moore
Fair Exchange
Fair Exchange
You travel far
We travel further
You pay your money
Yet we pay none
Indeed, We’re paid to make this pilgrimage
To stages large and small
To stand before you, under lights
In every concert hall
You give, We give
Receive this gift of music
As we receive your cheers
That roll over the stage like waves
Year after loyal year
We never take for granted
The effort that you make
The hard-earned cash you’re spending
On the music we create
But I’ve seen the looks of happiness
That stretch into the distance
The glum into the glad profoundly rearranged
And I think it’s safe to say
The contract made, unspoken
Could be called a Fair Exchange.
© Kev Moore August 2009
Like Dominoes
Like Dominoes
The days fall like dominoes
One, Two, Three, Four
They are relentless, until the last
A cascade, a waterfall of time, unslowing
Enjoy the moments in between
Enjoy the seldom seen
If we could stop an instant and hold it in our hand
But it ripples through our fingers like a grain of sand
And the days repeat and disappear
Too fast to seize the moment
Too quick to grasp the portent
Until the end of our toppled life comes into view
A pile of days, all used by you
Like dominoes.
© Kev Moore August 2009
CHRISTIE, DCFC & BVB
Strange bedfellows, one might think, but there is a thread connecting the band I play in, the team I support, and the German club, Borussia Dortmund. The “thread” is one Rainer Frank, a lifetime German fan of Christie, and Borussia Dortmund. Rainer usually pops over to my blog to check out what’s happening with Christie, and he discovered we have a mutual love of football through the articles I made relating to my Derby County CD, “Fan Fayre for the Commons People”. The proud owner of the first copy that DCFC tribute in Germany, he very kindly sent me a BVB coffee mug as a present, which I thought just had to be shared with all you Cafe Cremers! Miki has very creatively presented it for you here. Generous to a fault, I am also to receive a BVB football shirt, when Christie next meet up with Rainer & friends at our concert in Kamenz next month.
Derby’s results haven’t been too hot of late, (dumped out of the cup by Rotherham, losing to Scunthorpe) and neither have Borussia Dortmunds, having leaked 4 against hamburg in the league, and 5 in a friendly against Real Madrid last night – but there’s one thing Rainer and I have in common when it comes to football – BLIND OPTIMISM!
by Kev Moore
photo by Miki
Fire in the Hole – Mojacar and Turre kissed by flames
Sensationalism, before the big one
It seems like a lifetime since I put cyberpen to paper here in Cafe Crem, and it was my intention to write about our holidays in cadiz and Portugal. But events overtook us somewhat, in the form of news of a fire on the outskirts of Turre, which caused havoc in the mountainside village of Cabrera, when we were just days from home. If we’d seen the sensationalist headline in the local paper, we’d have been sure to head home a lot quicker. But as it was , we didn’t have to re-live it through the tabloids. On thursday afternoon, 4 pm, the whole of the Sierra Cabrera mountainside erupted into flames, spurred on by 46 degree temperatures, and rampant Saharan winds.
The Nightmare begins
We watched in horror as the fire traced a path around the edge of the village, like a Lion circling its prey, and prayed, selfishly, that the wind wouldn’t change direction. Meanwhile, below us, a command centre of sorts was established to prevent cars from returning to Mojacar, which was under threat situated at the end of the Mountain range. Mojacuerians had been evacuated mid-afternoon, being unable to breathe in the noxious black smoke that engulfed the Pueblo. they were not able to return for two days.
Meanwhile, we observed what seemed to be only 2 helicopters, operating in relay, ferrying what looked like puny bags of water to drop on the flames below. It seemed to be an impossible task, even when they were joined in the early evening by 3 planes dropping fire suppresants. As night fell, the vista became hellish, and I felt like Dante surveying his inferno.
A drop in the ocean....
Even in the black of night, we could see clearly the delineation of the mountain ridge, silhouetted as it was by a ghastly orange glow, created by rampaging fires beyond our view. In the valley nearest to us, we held a vain hope that the fires were subsiding, but it was a cruel joke, the thick smoke veiling its deadly charms like a reluctant mistress. A gust of wind, though, and she revealed her garish display, our breath quite literally caught in our throat as we watched flames licking hungrily sixty feet skywards, the whole mountain afire. there were a brief few minutes when I began to consider what we should pack.
Damage control on the outskirts of Turre
Worried residents, unable to return home, gather below us.
Somehow, against the odds, and perhaps with Mother Nature’s assent, the thin red line of firefighters calmed this savage beast, and we felt we could go to bed, at around 3 am. Two days later, we drove down to Mojacar playa, and realised at last the primary reason for the roadblock. The Turre-Mojacar road was blackened on either side, and had that night been a tunnel of fire, impassable. It had swept up to the lower slopes of the village, damaging a mercifully empty infants school and in a cruel irony, across the cemetery too. It’s a miracle the whole town didn’t become one vast one.
More pictures:
Relentless....and closing
The flames march towards Mojacar
About Café Crem
Hello Boys & Girls from around the World!
Fancy a coffee with us?
Café Crem was created by Miki and Kev Moore in 2007 with the intention of gathering like-minded artists, writers and musicians together around the coffee table to discuss and share thoughts, ideas, art, etc.
This initial desire has surpassed our wildest dreams with a myriad of collaborations taking place between the various members, creating pieces of work that simply would not exist without Café Crem.
Have a wander though in our different rooms:
“Cafe Literati”, the Literary Room
“Café L’Arte”, the Art Gallery
“Ca’ Puccini”, the Music Studio
and, last but not least,
“The MiniBar”, our creative space for our kids and teens!
You are all welcome.
Contact Miki at miki@goodaboom.com if you want to participate!
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Cafe Crem’s Video of The Month
“A Round With Miki”, by Miki and Kev Moore
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