Favourite song for now - 10000 steps

Omega - 10000 lépés

Tízezer lépés kéne csak,
Tízezer boldogtalannak,
Tízezer elfelejtett csók,
Tízezerszer elszakított.

Tízezer titkos, néma vád,
Tízezer év nincs, hogy tisztázd,
Tízezer szavad közénk áll,
Tízezer vad országhatár.

Tízezer lépés olyan sok,
Tízezer lépésre vagyok,
Tízezer lépésre ott vagy,
Tízezer lépés kéne csak.


Omega - 10000 steps

Just ten thousand steps are needed,
For ten thousand wretched,
Ten thousand forgotten kiss,
Ten thousand times torn apart.

Ten thousand secret, silent accusation,
Ten thousand years are not enough to clear them,
Your ten thousand words stand between us,
Ten thousand wild borders.

Ten thousand steps are so many,
I'm ten thousand steps away,
You are behind ten thousand steps,
Just ten thousand steps are needed.



And one different but beautiful song (in English, not as good as the original, but enjoy) from Omega. They are going to play in Košice with The Scorpions next weekend and I can't be there, so I'm listening to them in the last days to have at least some culture inside me :)

Beeing torn apart by Richard Bona

14.04.2008 - Richard Bona in PKO, Bratislava, Slovakia. What a concert! (Click here for interview after the concert)

First I was afraid if I wouldn't like the concert after an AIESEC conference I still feel the PCS (post conference syndrome see: http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/AIESEC note uncyclopedia is not a relevant, nor trustworthy source of information! see rather wikipedia!), longing for the great OC team, but the international atmosphere on the stage made me quite fast comfortable in my position as a listener ;)

I always loved the typical African singing voice which is for me so indescribable, and now I had an opportunity to listen to it. Though I heard less from it then I expected, it was still a marvelous event far beyond my expectations. His repertoire listed mainly traditional African songs and I would say Latino type of music.

The problem on the Jazz concerts in Bratislava is mainly that you have to sit. And this concert was definitely for dancing your soul out. That's why I say I was torn apart. Should I enjoy the well positioned tones following each other by solving their mystery or let my body flow with it. I lost to my natural desire very quickly an was hard to handle in my chair, though as usual most of the audience bewared a calm had. But the clapping, screaming, whispering in the background broke through and 30 minutes before the end of the concert the whole place was clapping and singing "sen sen sen"... so much that Mr Bona and his band stopped playing for around 2 minutes and made the audience enjoy themselves.

He is a great entertainer. He put a lot of great jokes in his concert and made us laugh a lot of times. Like "only women over 40 should sing now"... silence ... "oooh, when you are over 40 in Bratislava your finished" :)

He also gave a solo to his percussionist from Colombia, to have a solo. Amazing.

At the end of the concert there was a 3 minute long standing ovation, one song where the audience had to stand, and should dance... but that was already to much for this type of people... anyway the mood was good and after another 3 minutes of clapping it was said to us, that there is going to be no more music. Central European people don't complain after this. Used to the fact, that the end, means the end, and so the people where slowly moving on.

All in all I was moving all the time in my chair, one of the best concerts of my life, hope to have a good Latino party on Friday ;)

Small wonders of technology

I remember the days, when I was a child, and wanted an instrument I could intuitively play. And then once in a while I just moved my fingers randomly in the air, like I would know what I'm doing. I believe that a feeling is all you need to make something unique. It's most probably also a feeling that most of the "air" guitar players dream of + a whole lot of need to show them selfs off :)

A lot of times happened to me (before I bought an MP3 player) that I was just imagining, creating some kind of a song on the go. Usually of course it where just parts from different song I have already heard and I glued them together... but sometimes it was something new, that no one will hear again (maybe). Or some classical instruments playing a Sunday afternoon song, other times words were going through my mind forming verses which made sense, and I never had a tool to write them down. Maybe now, if I will be brave enough to take out my mobile and switch in on record, I will have something. But the older I get, the less of them appear. And I think it is a sad think. Trigger your imagination, if you can. That's what a dreamer tells you :)

All in all I drifted away again from the original topic, so here it is. The theremin. An electronic instrument you don't have to touch, to make music with it. Enjoy the movie, if you got interested. (when I look at the artist I have the typical feeling of calm waters are deep :))

The Stairways To Heaven Are Opened Again

Led Zeppelin Concert in London! Hopefully this means that a tour will also start sooner... :) It goes back a few years when I discovered this band, though we had a lot of CDs home from them. My father bought them.

I was listening to the Remasters album over and over again. Whole Lotta Love, Stairways To Heaven, Dazed And Confused, Achilles Last Stand. I can't say with words what I felt when I was listening to these and a lot other songs, I just enjoyed them. And a possibility to hear it life would be a dream come true.

A guy who taped some songs uploaded Stairways To Heaven on youtube. His words are more then motivating for me.
"To viewers who were not at the concert, grown men who have come from 5,000 miles/km away to be squeezed against each other at the urinals, were looking at each other, trying to receive another confirmation that they really were at this surreal gathering of the quarter century ...."

Some other reviews found on the BBC site!

Links I have found from this concert:

Good Times, Bad Times
Stairway to Heaven
Black Dog
The Song Remains The Same

Bratislava Jazz Days 2007 - Day 2 and 3

Ulf Wakenius and the AMC trio - I think this is called also mainstream jazz. It was a nice experience listening to them. There were a lot of improvisations, and Ulf as a ghost briliantly added to the whole impression. It was worth listening to.

Saxofour - as some ppl agreed upon. This was most propably the best band on saturday (except for the fans of hip-hop). Those for people were showing a brilliant adaptation of movie music. I have heard just once such a band, and it was not really fitting into my mood. These guys were incredible. I say it again INKREDIBLE!!! Not even with their profecienty and their improvisations, but also with their stage performance... Seeing 3 grown up people with their instrument hiding behind a reproductor, while the forth one is playing... or in another scene fighting with their instruments (always according to the movie theme). Lovely, funny, won the audience :) Let the Austrians blow!!!

Mark Egan Trio feat. John Abercrombie (USA) - Well I do not have to much written around this performance: calm solos, and the bassguitar was to deep for my taste. Anyway I believe that this concert was also worth the money. But didn't left any big impressions.

Hanka Gregusova Band - A young Slovakian singer. My opinion got corrupted, as I got an autograph from here dedicated to me :) But I have enjoyed the show a lot. It was amazing to hear her voice, I had the feeling that it fills the whole room, which is exactly what I love to hear :) She had also some very good musicians around here. I didn't like the sax player, though he was making a real though job up there. The pianist is also worth to mention for his great solos! It was really touching :P And the bass player had no real chance except of one, time, but that gave me back the confidence in the classical bass.

Us3 - too much hiphop in the first 15 mins, didn't stay till the end. Though we heard some sax and trumpet solos through the window outside, when we were leaving, so it could have been better... but had no mood for that.

Day 3

Bibi Tanga - french guy, was interesting sound. He plays the bass and so I felt like the whole music was based on this. Big surprise was in some cases the violin. The best song of that all was "At war" which had a text something like: "A country at war - fight love and freedom". While there was a beautiful violin solo. Also on thir site is the song Don't Stop.

Bill Evans Soulgrass - well this was amazing! I never thought a benjo, a sax and a violin. I was shoched more then once how these tree instruments fit into each other. Also the bass player was good, but had just one real solo and stayed mostly in the back. It was a bit country like of course because of the instruments, but if this is what country can be, that I may like it very much. I give an A+ for this concert also.

Friend 'n Fellow - It is still hard for me to believe, that this is their actual name: Constanze Friend and Thomas Fellow. Anyway they are a great duo. Just a guitar and one voice (in this case, though I seen some youtube clips, where they both singing). They made a huge atmosphere, the strongest one during the whole weekend. Small suprises like they played Deep Purple - Black Night, ACDC - Highway To Hell (not my favourite), Johny Cash - Rain Of Fire and the last song which I can't remember - but it was a love song and they played it 2 as fast as it is played normally. I laughed at this, cause again, an experince totally new for me.The song Elf with the German intro was one of the most touching songs of the evening. I loved it :)

Henry Tóth - I have almost forgotten him!!! Bad me, bad me. He was playing at the B stage in one of the breaks. Poor me, he didn't have as much time as the usual B stage performers(just one break). But that was more than enough to enjoy the beauty of his play. In felling a bit latino and sometimes very technical. He build up most of his songs on a slow, calm emotional intro going into a wild improvisation and coming out again. Nothing new, to say the truth, but he makes this extremely well. I enjoyed every second of it :)

Gyra Spyro - Hawaii, sunshine, holiday. Fun, but not my style. But I loved Bonny Bonaparte at the drums! Gush what a great drummer + a good voice also. Bad luck that after around just 6-7 minutes of his final solo half of his drums felldown... of course he finished it like a professional and so played a bit with his voice! Groovy :)


Other things - to many ppl, to few places. Quite disturbing, when you don't even have a place to sit. :(
+ they managed the sound almost perfectly. So it was more then fine quality, except of minor problems.
- beer to expensive 45Skk, Kofola is fine 25Skk (of course 0.5l)
networking possibilities :)

So this is my opinion of the first Bratislava Jazz Days I was on.

Bratislava Jazz Days 2007 - Day 1

It all started, when Mitsuora came on the stage. Well I didn't really know what to expect, I knew just, that she was from Hungary. The songs on the internet, which I have found are not worth mentioning, because of the low quality. So:

Mitsuora: I have never heard something like this before (I haven't heard a lot of music in my life though), it was a fusion of modern jazz and gipsy traditional singing. I am amazed, stunned and in awe. I always though about gipsy music in a high note as there was for sure a reason they were the entertainers of the Hungrian high society just a century ago. I have also heard some gipsy music on radio, till it when, though it never catched me that much. Most propably cause they were playing songs in hungarian. And in this case she was singing (most propably) the original gypsy way. And this music has a very strong rythm in it + all those unusual instruments. I love that :)
Will go for another concert as soon as possible!!!
see video (though just around 15-20 seconds of her music): http://kultura.sme.sk/c/3546008/Jazzove-dni-otvaral-i-Marian-Varga.html

Marian Varga - as a friend said, he has his glorious days behind him. He is still a big name in Slovakia, but the music was not really my style. It fitted as a movie soundtrack. Sometimes very gloomy depressive piano solos. In other cases I felt like on a typical movie interpretation of a middle age market scene. Not my taste mostly.

Tomasz Stanko Quartet - This concert was neighter close to my heart. They were playing good, the solo's where enjoyable, but I need a different kind of music. Anyway it was much much better then Varga.

Alvik - 2. stage: during the breakes on the second stage Alvik was playing. As it is stated on they website they are playing something between nu-jazz nu-soul etc. I missed the first break I didn't know what it will be about, but was afterwards there on time for the second break (left the concert of Tomasz Stanko quartet earlier, saw even Mitsuoka but I was to stupid to ask for an autograph :( Well I had my priority in seeing Alvik). It was more then enjoyable, music for dancing and freaking out. I love it. :)

Mike Stern - no comment, people have to hear him life! It was an awesome concert! I had the feeling at the slow parts as if John Shannon was playing (I heard him earlier then Mike Stern), the solos where amazing! I can't not write here the musicians:
Mike Stern - gitara
Bob Franceschini - saxofón
Dennis Chambers - bicie
Anthony Jackson - elektrická basová gitara
As a friend of my loves the bass, I decided to hear it out a bit. I was amazed how good Anthony Jackson was underlining the guitarplay of Mike Stern, it made the whole thing even more groovy :) But I could really not stop to praise these guys. I was stunned. And this was the only concert where I saw that the audience enjoys the music. Though the ppl weren't reacting that passionate when Mike Stern told, that they should buy his new CD, which he sells after the concert :)

There were no real emotions just a small applauce at one or two stages of the whole festival. Finally at the second half of Sterns concert the people started ti live and were finally clapping and screeming once in a while :)

Going insane

Today I had an unusual experience. I though I was hallucinating. I thought I'm going slowly crazy. But I wouldn't mind, if it would happen this way.
I was sitting in the crowded bus no. 39. people were talking around me and the bus was slowly clattering. Noise smog - I thing this is how modern people call this. And then I felt like an angel was next to me and that nobody is experiencing the same feeling. People were chatting before me, on my right side a girl was sitting calmly and on my right a Walkman was all that is worth to mention. And in this familiar though disturbing surrounding I was hearing snatches of an angel singing. Every few seconds I heard it again. Before me people talking, around me no change. I could not figure out where the voices come from, but was astonished.
After a few minutes of listening to the voice and the people before me I figured out, that the lady next to the window was singing. The experience for me was more than pleasant. It trow me out of everyday troubles and let me fly for a few moments.
I was playing an imagined piano in my head to her voice, till she stopped. I was enjoying the moment till it faded away from my memories. I am sad, that I can't remember.
I have experienced my love to a beautiful woman voice again.

Music - Portal

Once in a while I browse the net for amateur bands, to listen to their music, and find something new. Till now my favourite site in this way was http://fm4.orf.at/soundpark Here the bands could upload their tracks, and in the first month you are able to download them, and then just to hear them out. Anyway there are some good songs, though not many in a good quality. But I have found some bands I like.

But recently I have found another site. www.garageband.com I listened to the progressive best 40. Well I wasn't much caught by the most of the songs, but it didnn't matter much, as already the second song was incredible. Portal - Insurgent few (life) You can hear the song at http://www.portalband.com

I was amazed. Then looked around at their site, and found out, that they are needing some translators. So I translated their bio (took me ages) into Hungarian. and send it to them. In less then 30 mins I got a reply, that its fine, and the only problem si that they are making now a new site, as the new CDs is comming out. .. well problem is the bat word... opportunity - make a translation of that one, too, and get a goodie package with a CD, stickers and a T-shirt!!! Well thats motivation :)

They also told me that they might come to Slovakia during they Europe tour!!! Would be so happy to see them. :)

And thats the fun in finding amateur bands, which no one knows, and then you are the one, who is a contact person, and get top know them ;) Hell I love it!