The Road to Kfifan: The Return! (September 24, 2009)

This was the second incarnation of Road to Kfifan, which was due to take place September 19 in Sporting Club, but was delayed due to rain. Rayess Bek, who has not performed here quite the long time, was to make a spectacular comeback, but the weather made that impossible. It was still taking place in Sporting club, but to make up for his absence, three, not one, but three new acts were brought in. There was Ziad Nawfal, A.K.A DJ Panic, DJing, Serge Yared of The Incompetents and the pianist Vladimir Kurumilian performing reworked versions of Incompetents songs for guitar and piano, and the hip hop band, Fareeq el Atrash, who I was supposed to see at an event earlier that Monday which was also delayed by the rain, so I was glad I would be seeing them twice in one week. Though in the end, no amount of artists could replace Rayess Bek.

 -Before the Show: The weather was great, not a cloud in the sky. I did some socializing while Ziad Nawfal DJed. There were a lot of photographers and cameramen, the most I have ever seen at a show actually.

 -The Show: After a while, Serge Yared and Vladimir Kurumilian took to the stage. They played versions of Incompetents songs reworked for guitar and piano. They played some songs from “More Songs from the Victorious City” and also a couple new ones. Ziad Nawfal was there to do his spoken word bit himself this time for “The Damned Don’t Cry”. One song that stood out was “Monster Song” which I was seeing live for the first time. It was played on guitar, piano, and a toy piano with a crappy little microphone, so that was something unexpected.

 More DJing by Ziad followed. Later on, it was time for the Baalbak Project or Mashrou3 Baalbak to go on which is a group consisting of Zeid Hamdan, Hiba El Mansouri, RGB, and Miles Jay. Miles Jay could not make it, since he had prior plans to play with another mashrou3. Mashrou3 Leila, in Saida. So Zeid and Hiba took the stage at performed their own songs, no SoapKills covers. Zeid was operating his machines and playing guitar. As I mentioned, there was many a cameraman and photographer. People were mostly watching from a distance. After that, RGB joined in but before he started performing, he called for people to gather in front of the stage, and so they did, that little area soon became quite crowded, and I swear, it stayed that way till I left. RGB needs an active audience. He performed two of his songs with Zeid, “Ma3na L’Rap” and “Awwast Il Sherif”. Beats were played on the laptop while Zeid played guitar along to them. Hiba joined on “Awwast Il Sherif”. The special thing about this performance was that the first time I heard these songs live they were played acoustic (Crate Sessions), then they were played electric, but just with guitar, bass, and drums (Three Little Pigs), and now this was electric with sound effects and everything. I heard these songs performed in ascending fidelity.

 DJ Panic gave us all an interlude while Katibe 5 prepped themselves. Katibe 5 was not one of the groups I wasn’t looking forward to seeing, but still I wanted to check them out. They were very energetic, I’ll give them that, but I didn’t really find that “hook”. The fact that they rapped to prerecorded tracks was a bit of a turn off for me.

 Ziad bridged the gap between them and the next act, Fareeq el Atrash. This show marked the debut/ return of their guitarist Ghassan Khayyat. The set they played was similar to that they played in Zico House, nothing new, though the presence of guitar this time around did mix things up a bit (in a good way). As usual, all the members were very energetic and lively, though Ghassan could have loosened up a little.

 -After the Show: That was it. There was Trash Inc., Underdolls, and Jade after that but was not interested in them. I said my goodbyes, knowing that I would see Fareeq el Atrash once again that Sunday, and made haste.

 -Photos:

*Personal: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=323946&id=842365214

 *Other: Tanya Traboulsi:

http://photos-g.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs215.snc1/8220_288189230108_602430108_8916276_8143044_n.jpg

http://photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs235.snc1/8220_287744450108_602430108_8907494_1255734_n.jpg

http://photos-f.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs235.snc1/8220_287744455108_602430108_8907495_4441130_n.jpg

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=8907495&id=602430108#/photo.php?pid=8921487&id=602430108

 -Videos:

*Personal: I have a video of Fareeq el Utrush that I will edit in when I get to upload it.

*Other:  Fareeq el Atrash: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx5Bi8-4tOU

The Road to Kfifan, is a Wet One…

No actual concert-going occurred on that night, but some other interesting stuff did.

 -Backstory: I heard about this event around the time school was starting, but I was lucky that the very day this was going on was a Saturday, and it was the Saturday before a big vacation for Eid, so it was all free for the next couple of days! The main reason I wanted to attend this was because one of the pioneering artists of Lebanese rap, Rayess Bek, would be performing, and he hasn’t been here in a while, spending his days in Paris now. Plus, there would be Zeid Hamdan’s group, Hiba and The Baalbek Project (Mashrou3 Baalbak), which consists of himself, the vocalist Hiba El Mansouri, Arabic rapper RGB (who has taken the place of the vocalist Doshka), and the double bass player Miles Jay. Their performances are rare occurrences, so this would be well worth it. Other acts included Katibe 5, the three DJ team known as The Underdolls, Trash Inc., and the Basement nightclub DJ and founder, Jade. Tickets were 20 dollars which I thought was quite fair seeing as the proceeds would be going to the Offre Joie charity. Around this time, a film crew that were working on a documentary called “Yallah Underground”, about the steadily evolving contemporary Middle Eastern culture, mainly its music, were in Beirut for two weeks shooting footage. I had talked to the main man behind the project, Farid Eslam, earlier online, giving him a tip on this how, but to my surprise he already knew about it. They were quite prepared and had things all planned out, which was impressive. I was hoping to meet them that night.

 -The Unfolding: When it was announced that there would be a tent in case of the rain, I laughed and said “what rain?” I guess I should watch the news more often, because it did rain indeed. Saturday, September 19th, I showed up at Sporting Club, and found that there were not that many people, or actually no people, except for some of the musicians. Do I need a better reason to hang around? Even when they’re not performing, you can still have a good time with all of these people. And performing or not, Rayess Bek was there, and I had yet to meet him. So I decided on staying. I greeted those present: Rayess Bek, RGB, Zeid Hamdan, and Miles Jay. Katibe 5 were there too, though I did not pay them that much attention.

 Some casual small talk followed, with the occasional joke or two. I ate sheesh tawouk; the caterers they had hired were still there and the food was on the grill and they did not want it to go to waste, so all was invited to chow down. I talked to Rayess Bek for a while, but he was kind enough to sign my copies of both of his CDs first I had some things that I’d really liked to know more about, like: what happened to the old Aks’ser albums? His answer: out of print, unfortunately. Lebanese music history, lost forever. Some copies could still be collecting dust somewhere out there. Also, whatever happened to the product of his work with RZA for the PBS documentary “Dissonance and Harmony”? His answer: Financial issues. RZA’s producer wanted a lot of dough for them to be able to release this one song. Finally, when is his album with the Rayess Bek Orchestra due? His answer: It’s being mixed. I saw a cameraman shooting video. He could only be shooting for one documentary on alternative music in the Middle East. I asked about “Yallah Underground” and he pointed me to Farid. I greeted him and exchanged the same comment as I did with everyone else I had encountered: “Sucks huh? What luck!”, but as Zeid said later on: “No, we suck!”

 So after a while, the Yallah Underground crew which consisted of Farid and three other people wanted to conduct an interview with Rayess Bek, so they did it right then and there, with him standing in front of the Raouche rock with the occasional lightning adding a special touch to the shot.

 In the meantime I continued socializing, and Sporting Club’s bamboo ceiling did not hold that well, as mini waterfalls were gushing down, onto the floor, onto unsuspecting victims, such as my shoulder, one even onto the grill that the food was being cooked on. It was raining hard for a while, but then simmered down. Zeid said that everybody had to leave now, so we had to get out of the tent, but assured me that the event would take place once again when they could arrange for it, so I kept the ticket. The guys continued their interview with Rayess Bek and it was very nice seeing an interview with someone like that done live, right in front of you.

 After the interview, I was invited by the guys back to their hotel for coffee, which coincidentally was just a short distance away on foot. While we were heading out, I started doing one of the things that helped shape the identity of this very blog, and that was: yammering on and adding unnecessary details concerning a simple straightforward subject. This time it was on the fact that for me, even though there was no concert, I still had a great time hanging around with the artists, because they’re not just good musicians, they’re good people. Then Farid had an idea, and that was to interview me. Why? He’s nuts, the weather got to him… no seriously, as he said, it would represent the view of the young fans. I’m pretty young, and I’m a big fan!

 So we headed over to the hotel, settled down for a while, some of us dried off a little, had coffee, but I had a soda, and chatted about the scene in general and stuff.

 Laterish, I was outfitted with a wireless mic, and we headed out to a nearby street and started the impromptu interview. Questions and answers were made on the spot. There were some annoyances like one truck that we just couldn’t get out of our hair. It kept going up and down that street, God knows why, maybe it was transporting cargo from one end of the street to the other… After finishing up, I said my goodbyes, and we were schedueled to meet again that Monday in Ashrafieh for the International Day of Peace event that Fareeq el Atrash will play in.

 -Wrapping Up: With that ended an amazing night that could have been all the more amazing if the concert had taken place and Rayess Bek graced us with a long-anticipated performance. But it just goes to show that you can salvage any night if you have the right people around.

-Video promoting the event: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13HxwelzaNE

Show Review: Three Little Pigs – Live @ Zico House (September 7, 2009)

-Before the Show: I had first found out about this show from Zeid Hamdan himself, then on Facebook. I had known that the members were Zeid himself, the double-bass player Miles Jay, and his brother the drummer Ian Jay. There weren’t so many details on what genre they would play, whether Miles would play double bass or electric bass, and other little things I was curious about, but what I did know was that this was just a one time thing. Zeid had said that they would have to finish early.

 Once again arriving in my usual fashion, I found myself the only person there. I guess it doesn’t get that much traffic unless there’s an event going on? So after some waiting, someone asked me for the ticket money, which was 5,000 L.L, so I paid what I had to, but it would have been nicer to know what the price was beforehand, just saying…

 More waiting followed, and then, I spied a familiar face, or actually a hairdo. It was Nando Borges, protagonist of the internet video series “Flying Kebab”, and he was with some friends. I got up with the intent of just saying hi, they invited me to sit with them at their table, which was both really cool and nice of them, but also a regrettable move,  you’ll find out why later.

 We talked about a lot of things such as university plans (mine, he asked) and Nando’s dreadlocks (which took 3 or 4 years to grow), and Lebanese pop star, Elissa, and her video where she tries to get a guy with a big “car”. But I knew for a fact that the band Mashrou3 Leila have appeared playing live in an episode of “Flying Kebab”, so I really wanted to ask about that. So we discussed them for a while, like how I feel Raksit Leila is being overhyped (it really is) and how they seem to have really gotten the attention of both the die-hard undergrounders as well as the average listeners.

 Time passes, still no Zeid. They’re the ones who requested we be early, so why the tardiness? But then they arrive and they manage not to stall so much, only greeting some friends, and then hopping on stage to start their set.

 -The Show: Zeid was on electric guitar, Miles was on electric bass, and Ian was on drums, which consisted of just bass, snare, hi-hat, and crash cymbal. The first song started out with some acapella and beatboxing, and then faded into the music (if I remember correctly). I realized that this is reggae and ska that they’re playing! I love ska! They went on to do some reworked SoapKills covers, some reworked New Government covers, and some of Zeid’s own personal songs. For their cover of “Herzan” by SoapKills, they were accompanied by Zeid’s New Government bandmate Jeremie Regnier, who jazzed it up with his saxophone additions to the already ska-ed  up version of the originally synthesizer-heavy song.  Later, they were joined onstage by Lebanese Arabic rapper, RGB, who performed reworked versions of his songs that he usually performs with Zeid.

-After the Show: I had seen some of these songs performed acoustic in Walimat previously, but now they were amplified and brought to life, so that was nice. However, I could have gotten a better seat if I didn’t move to go sit with Nando and company, but hey, no big deal, it was fun.

 After the performance ended, I greeted Zeid and Ian and met Miles for the first time. I was always curious as to how exactly an American double bass player wound up in Lebanon, so I asked and he told me of how he came for his Egyptian oriental-jazz group, Bakash, but found the local scene interesting, and thus decided to stay. He disclosed that he is working on a solo record of double bass and buzuk that he is planning on self-releasing.

 Also present, Cristobal. I said hi.

 That was my first “ska-reggae-jazz-rap” show, but unfortunately the last of this kind, because Three Little Pigs was just a one-time thing, to my great dismay. Can’t wait for the reunion show.

 I said my farewells to Nando and his friends, and made haste…

 Fun Fact: The header for this very blog is an edited version of a photo I took that night.

 -Photos:

*Personal: http://www.facebook.com/omaralfil?v=photos&ref=profile#/album.php?aid=324250&id=842365214

*Other:

Courtesy of  Tanya Traboulsi:

http://photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs235.snc1/8220_292056020108_602430108_8986894_3080063_n.jpg

http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/2051/dsc5670.jpg

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/8103/dsc5684.jpg

http://img2.imageshack.us/img2/3857/dsc5688.jpg

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/3216/dsc5748l.jpg

-Videos:

*Personal: I have a video of their version of “Herzan” and I will post a link whenever I can upload it to Youtube.

Watch “Flying Kebab” here: http://flyingkebab.com/