Krasa

KRASA ~ a name made from the Slavic roots of words for beautiful, the colour red, delight, fiery, alive, dazzling... (and which possibly ever so slightly brings to mind a certain anarcho-punk band?!). 

This is the new little trio that I'm playing in (and our business card, which I've just designed). You might find us these days on Devon street corners in red outfits busking for coins in the cold December sun. We'll be performing alongside esteemed musical comrades at the Feast of Fools, of course, but you can come and see us play for free next Thursday December 13th at the Sandy Park Inn, from 7.30pm. 

Here we are playing at a party last week... we all look rather serious and engrossed in getting the notes right, and there are people talking in the background (about accordions and morris minors and drinking too much, amongst other things!), but it gives you a taste.

These are two Klezmer tunes: Freilechs noch der Khupe & Papirossen.

Lisa Rowe is on fiddle, Tim Heming is on clarinet and bass, and that's me on accordion. Thanks to Pete Montanez for the video.

I'm still battling the excruciating performance nerves; it's a strange combination of wholeheartedly loving and wanting to play this music and simultaneously finding doing it in front of people terrifying. Strangely this is only when it's an "official" gig - I feel quite at home playing round a fire and thoroughly enjoy busking; perhaps I shall always remain a vagabond. But I forge on through the fear nonetheless, so come along to the pub and cheer us on if you're free next Thursday and live nearby.

Balalaika

WHEN I WAS YOUNG, we used to have a book called Trubloff ~ The Mouse Who Wanted to Play the Balalaika by the wonderful John Burningham, and I loved the story very much indeed. John Burningham's illustrations have a fabulous scratchy folky quality that embodies great heart. This is the amazon synopsis of the story:

Trubloff the mouse lives with his family in the village inn but dreams of becoming the greatest balalaika player in the whole country. So one night, when everyone is asleep, he runs away to join a band of gypsy musicians who promise to teach him to play. Trubloff's poor family are overcome with worry, but in the end, it's Trubloff's gift for music that saves them all.

I have always loved Russian music, in fact anything from the Eastern European folk tradition and most especially Jewish Klezmer music. This music moves me in a way I cannot explain, I think I might have inherited this love of oom-pah from my mum ... but as far as we know there is no Jewish blood in our family tree.



I try to play the accordion, as I have mentioned before.. specifically the Russian B-System Bayan :) ... there is something about the sound of accordion and clarinet together that really gets me. I often paint musical instruments, I like the shapes of them and I find that I can hear the paintings playing if I listen to a recording whilst making the image.


Anyhow, back to balalaikas... those triangular stringed instruments that can be seen not only in the arms of mice but also played in whole ensembles with instruments ranging from tiny tinkling things to great bass balalaikas.
As you know, our grand clear out is including the odd original painting sale and I have decided to sell my Balalaika watercolour for an extremely reasonable £80 :) ... it's a smallish little thing (7.5" x 5"), which I painted in 2005 and I'm selling it unframed. There it is in the fireplace with my first green accordion; a funny little man on the back of a wheeled reindeer, playing the balalaika in a snowy onion-domed Slavic forest. And here it is in my etsy shop if you should wish to own it. [Edit... the painting is sold!]


And if you'd like to hear a balalaika playing whilst you look at the painting, here's well known Polish/English balalaika player Bibs Ekkel in 1978 with Ensemble Tsiganka playing Papirosen, a Russian/Yiddish song about cigarettes. That's them over there leaning against the Gypsy vardo :)
Hoi!

NB - all images except those of my painting and accordion are nicked from the internet :)