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Cottbus City Limits

We’re in a cafe in Cottbus right now and due to go to Berlin tommorow and leave the countryside part of the trip behind. The trip is half over, feels like an epic, time is really slowing down for us.

We have been staying in a small town called Schmovgrov on the outskirts of Cottbus, which is the north Wendish capital, so after our trip to Buatzen in the Oberlausitz and general activity in Spreewald we have seen a lot of Wendish stuff in museums, but are concluding that the culture is on tourist-driven life support rather than thriving in any genuine way, and have yet to hear anyone speak the language. Got a Cd of some wendish dudelsack music which is awful and very funny, and also some great photos of our time in the Spree canals in a canoe. The few people people we have asked about the Wends looked at us as though we are acusing them of being gypsies or vagrants and I suspect there is still a lot of racism here towards the group, and hostility and suspicion towards the whole concept of a Slavic state within Germany.

People otherwise very friendly in Spreewald though, and the gurkens are actually delicious, despite our initial scepticism. We had elksteak, and pork with beer and cabbage, last night in Burg which was lovely. Have failed to find Erin a Wendish headdress that would not cost hundreds of dollars so have given up and bought her a cheap headband for one euro with which she is probably just as happy.

Berlin beckons with parks and museums and ease of transport not to be had in the backwoods where we are now.

We keep singing Cottbus City Limits to the tune (sic) of Nutbush City Limits by Tina Turner, which is not as funny as it was the first time, and wasn’t really then, either.

All are well,
Steve.

Troveresse and Carnevale

My aunt Helen Dell sings a mean mezzosoprano, and plays the portative too. (I didn’t know what one was until just now.) I was reminded of her musical pursuits at Dad’s memorial service when it was mentioned that she can sing some of Schubert’s Winterreise song-cycle (part of which she played for us).

So I googled her and look what came out!

Unlike her daughter Miriam Dell (who is actually a London train signals engineer but shares a name with an important figure in the NZ Womens Rights movement), my aunt Helen is the Helen Dell of internet note and gets top billing. She has as a number of different musical places you can check out.

1 – Her band Troveresse on Myspace (Melbourne medieval ensemble). You can listen to the tunes in the Myspace player. This band was formed by Helen to play 12th-and 13th-century French trouvères music but the range has widened to include Spanish and other styles.

2 – Her former band Carnevale, a trio. There are actual Mp3s up on the site you can download. I’ve deep-linked to the second one.

Carnevale: ‘Lamento di Tristano’ and ‘La Rotta’ – Anon. Fourteenth century Italian.

That’s all going straight to the sidebar, folks. If you enjoy medieval music, why not have a listen to some that’s family grown?  

Steve.

PS – I am not yet the Stephen McKenzie of inernet note, or even the S. J. McKenzie, my pen-name. I share those names with all sorts of plumbers, chemists and a variety of dead Scottish people. But onward and upward, I say!

Unbeknownst / Birthday

Hi,

I spent much of yesterday mucking around with mp3 editors and am pleased to say that decent version of two home studio EPs – Quicksand and The Weather is Far Away – are up now at http://unbeknownstrecordings.com. There’s a new link in the sidebar.

All the old Myspace and blogger sites are now down, btw.

I’ll be over at that site quite a lot, putting up more music, in the next few weeks. I’ve used half a percent of my download space already so there is tons of room and I think I may begin podcasting from there.

My birthday is next weekend. I’m going to have a home cooked meal (made by Lou and the kids) on Saturday and a Japanese meal on Sunday. I’m sure they will both be delicious, for different reasons. Just hypothetically, if any of you wanted to give me anything, you could wait til I get back in November, or give it to Louise in July.

There probably won’t be much to see here until Louise comes back from Australia in mid-July with baby photos.

See ya,

S.

Sad News for Movie and Music Fans

No. I’m not talking about Charlton Heston.

Cody’s Myspace page has been taken down. I’m not sure why, but it’s nothing sisnister. Mysapce is full of glitches. I suspect it was an error in the system whereby you have to validate the page in a certain amount of time using an e-mail address. I tried, but it never worked, so the page has been taken offline.

That means the VIDEO PAGE is now down – no more watching Erin’s zombie dance from last year or Cody swimming a lap. It also means that THE CODES first album is also offline. I’ve taken the links out of the sidebar. I still have all the files (video and music) if anyone is dead keen.

I’ll get another video page up and running at some point. Or maybe I won’t. 

I made the following statement to Roling Stone, NME and other key music papers:

Legendary Solomon folk band THE CODES have broken up, citing irreconcilable personal and musical differences. They leave behind a fragmentary trace of musical genius that has inspired artists ranging from Leonard Cohen to Beethoven. We tracked down the band’s driving force, Cody W, in his Honiara hideaway, and asked him about the band and future musical directions. But he was in bed. because it was a school night.