Marc Reck

This copied from our Mr Elephant website

Some exclusive live recordings this week from our 1st Live & Free event back in April, followed by a Mr Elephant Mixtape “Mr Elephant’s Journey Around the World”

Live Recordings

Smiley Mic lIve @ Mr Elephant Live & Free 1 – http://www.mrelephant.com/events/past-events/live-free-the-adam-eve-1-review

Check out http://www.smileymic.co.uk

Playing Django live @ Mr Elephant Live & Free 1 – http://www.mrelephant.com/events/past-events/live-free-the-adam-eve-1-review

Live every Monday at La Bastille – http://www.playingdjango.com/?p=414

Munchbreak live @ Mr Elephant Live & Free 1 – http://www.mrelephant.com/events/past-events/live-free-the-adam-eve-1-review

Some of the munchbreak crew are live every Friday at the yardbird – Buy their album at www.munchbreak.com

The Heels live @ Mr Elephants Live & Free 3 – http://www.mrelephant.com/events/past-events/great-performances-at-live-free-3-adam-eve-sat-june-2009

Check out their gig list at http://www.myspace.com/theheelsska

Mr Elephant’s Journey Around the World

1. The mighty Thievery Corporation start us off. A Washington DC-based production and DJ duo consisting of Rob Garza and Eric Hilton and their supporting artists. Their music can be characterized as downtempo/electronica with influences of dub, acid jazz, indian classical and brazilian styles fused together with a lounge aesthetic, and they really know how to produce bass!

2. Then it’s to the city of Birmingham with the inspiring Friendly Fire Crew, reggae collective, featuring the talented Paradox on the vocals and Robin Giorni on the production, with this proper track called “Web Of Deceit”

3. Down into the the south of Spain we find the beautiful voice of Yolando Rayo, with an equisite traditonal salsa track “Salsa Con Sabor”

4. Then its to the bright lights and big show tunes of Broadway, with Catherine Zeta Jones blasting out her rendition of “All That Jazz” from the musical Chicago (reedited for full dancefloor effect)

5. Thrown onto the streets of London with this dirty classic track from Noonsday Underground

6. Going Deeper into the capital for the inspired fusion of Tricky (with great vocals from Martine), with their seminal track “Black Steel” from the album Maxinquaye.

7. India speaks with the amazing vocal talent of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, taken from my favourite soundtrack of the 90’s – Natural Born Killers

8. Staying East we get treated to the combined musical skills of Shankar and the Epidemics.

9. Then lush African Marimba sounds from Batanai Marimba with a track called Shangara.

10. To the streets of Barcelona is where we find the Minimal Acoustic Band, and their track “Saraha”. Mainly using traditional didgeridoos from Nepal, and steel pans from Jamaica their fusion is/was a highlight from the Catalunyan streets.

11. Then its a quick trip back to the U.K to catch the hugely talented fusion that is Nitin Sawhney, with this title track from his Beyond Skin Album.

12. Then were off all the way across the globe to New Zealand with a brief stopover in Australia and a classic track from Crowded House

13. Over to now Europe for two short vists. One is to France to see the excellent French Hip Hop Sounds of Nuttea

14. And then over to Germany to check out a light hearted Dauerfisch

15. A business trip to Japan allows us to let our hair down and catch the pure funk of Major Force, with this wicked track taken from Thievery Corporation’s “Outernational Sound Mix Album”

16. Then its over to the west coast with a little bit of deck skills from Dj Shadow with this bit of Walkie Talkie,

17. and then NWA give us a slice of Compton life with the classic “Fuck Da Police”

18. Manu Chao is a Latin folk singer of Galician origin, fusing all sorts of …well you probably heard of him too.

19. Over to the continent of Africa to visit Mozambique for a Maputo based multi generational collective. Mabulu are one of a number of nu-generation African bands balancing dance music, traditional roots sounds, and the verbal acrobatics and conscious social lyrics of rap and hip-hop. This track is called Aids.

20. Then of course, The Pink Panther from North American composer Henry Mancini

21. And to bring us back home, we haved the inspirational soundtrack esque Barry Adamson, with the very cool “Jazz Devil”

One love

Mr E x

This copied from our Mr Elephant Website

Massive elephant noises to everyone who came down and filled the Adam & Eve with appreciative sounds to the great array of talent on show from our 3 special guests this month.

Flame of Fervour were dark, gritty, acoustic with a very cool sound and great musicianship, the flamenco & latin fusion of the Hidden Half ignited a huge response from the audience, and The Heels, once again, set the whole place on fire, with one hour of inspired musicianship, and plenty of crowd pleasing ska….literally a band so large the brass section wouldn’t fit on the stage!

Also very special shouts must also go out to Jack for coming to video, Tony the sound sound man for rockin the last two hours, and Tony from TheLab who came down all the way from Leicester to Vj all night long.

Not only did he perform with an unprepared selection of material (not that we knew til he said!), but he also used footage from the 2nd Birthday made in the kids animation workshop in his vj set!

…plus he also gave 2 workshops to our resident dj Marc Reck, and our guest Paulo Riddle, both of whom got to perform live as a vj on the night! Nice work Tea!

In what is deemed to be Birmingham Music Month, it was refreshing to see so many multi instrumentalists in one room, and experience so much diversity of music, all of which generated a real warm crowd response.

Our resident videographer Jack Brabant, will be posting his video of the evening and we also have more photos taken by Marc on his flickr page here. Marc also recorded some of the audio which will be featured on Mr Elephant radio in our new monday night residency next week on rhubarb radio – 6pm – 8pm, and check out his own set from the night, which was as wonderfully diverse and crowd pleasing as the live music.

For now we’ll leave you with a little footage of the Hidden Half. Our next Live & Free event is on Sat 25th July 2009, and as always it will feature great live music , a range of dancing music, and is free all night long til 4am.

One love

Mr Elephant x