Cavalcade!
'Cavalcade is about burning the candle at both ends, and the middle too.'
Today is a recovery day. I'm exhausted, my hands have bruises, callouses and cracked skin, and my arms feel like they're going to fall off .. but I'm very happy. My first ever Cavalcade weekend was simply awesome.
It all kicked off on Friday evening at Tolcross Primary, with a hall packed full of drummers - almost all of the Kings of Macumba, several people from Sambayabamba, some folks from further afield (including France!) and, of course, almost the entire Edinburgh Samba School.
Roddy Dickson from Sambayabamba was our guest mestre, and he brought with him a monster of a piece. Given that we only had one night and one day to learn it, I'd expected something fairly simple: maybe one main groove, with a couple of breaks and an intro. Instead we got three grooves, two breaks, an awesome sixteen-bar chorus for the repiniques, and a breakdown with a complex and totally sweet solo for the timba section (thanks Roddy! :D)
We spent two hours practicing on Friday night, alternating between singing the patterns and playing them, and getting to know our fellow drummers. It was amazing playing in a ten-strong timba section - when I joined, I was often the only timba player at gigs, and even now we have more timbas in the band, there are usually only a few of us around on any given night.
After getting chucked out by the janitor at nine o'clock, we decamped to the Banter for the evening's entertainment - Mikeoke! One guy (Mike) with an acoustic guitar, a microphone and a folder full of song lyrics (the 'eoke bit). I was gently persuaded (read: shoved towards the stage) to sing by Kate, after she spotted me picking up the lyrics for Wish You Were Here. I had a slightly wobbly start, but it was awesome to sing one of my old favourites with half the pub singing along :D
I headed home on Friday night, crashed into bed at midnight, woke up at 8am Saturday morning and headed out again. We spent about six hours solid practicing on Saturday, punctuated only by a break to inhale a beer and a heaping plate of chilli and macaroni cheese at the Banter, which had laid on a spread for us. Drumming is seriously thirsty and hungry work!
After the practice, I realised that while I was planning to stay the night at Adam's flat in Edinburgh, I had been so tired on Saturday morning that I hadn't actually packed toiletries, a sleeping bag or any change of clothing. This wouldn't have been such a problem if it weren't for the heat generated by about a hundred drummers in a hall with almost no ventilation - I was utterly soaked with sweat. I ended up driving out to Asda in Fort Kinnaird, picking up clothes, shower gel and micropore tape for my bleeding fingers, then heading for Hawke & Hunter for the showcase (with a slight detour to pick up a giant burrito of deliciousness at Illegal Jack's)
Hawke & Hunter, as it turns out, is really really posh. We walked in past the shiny reception desk, past the trendy bars, past the venue's entrance hall with its dark wood panelling and scented candles, and into a large hall with disco lighting and a glittering bar. In our scruffy drumming clothes, we felt a little under-dressed.
Kings of Macumba played first, with a floorshaking set that had me bouncing up and down like crazy. There's nothing like standing about ten feet away from a samba band in a club - the sheer force of sound is wonderful. Next up were Senzala Capoeira, joined at the end by one of the guys from Brazil! Brazil! for some backflipping, cartwheeling, single-hand-standing awesomeness. Then it was time for us to go on.
Eight hours of practicing is not kind on a hand drummer's hands, especially hands which are already a bit battered from several weeks of practicing twice a week and gigging every weekend. Towards the end of the practice the skin on my fingers had cracked and begun to bleed slightly. When we got to the club, my hands had cooled down enough that feeling had returned to them - I tried hitting my timba a couple of times, and even light hits felt like slapping a bad bruise. But we had a showcase to play, so I taped over the broken bits with micropore and grinned and bore the pain until, a couple of songs in, I'd finally managed to hammer the feeling out of my hands again.
Our set went pretty well - the dancers were awesome, managing to fit in three different costumes within a single set: grass skirts and double sticks for Maculelê, long white dresses for Maracatu, and glitter and feathers for samba. The energy of the crowd was great - club sets are always awesome, and even more so this time since half the crowd were drummers. It's wonderful to perform to a good crowd: the whole band tightens up and plays at their best, which makes the crowd even happier, which makes the band go even wilder - it's a great feedback loop.
The last band of the night was Sambayabamba, who were brilliant as ever and had the crowd dancing and demanding encores. After that we danced to tunes from our resident DJ Sally, then headed down to Hawke & Hunter's other club when the venue closed at 3am. It was 4am before the club closed and I joined a small party of worn-out sambistas walking home.
I woke up at 10am the next day feeling unreasonably fresh and lively, walked back to Hawke & Hunter to collect my car (which had miraculously survived being parked on a main road in Edinburgh for a day and a half without being ticketed - think I'm finally beginning to understand Edinburgh parking regulations!) and came back to Adam's flat just in time to receive a much-needed sausage and bacon roll from my awesome host. Cheers Adam :)
We arrived at Holyrood park a couple of hours before the parade was due to start, so we had enough time to do a quick warmup and runthrough. We started up, played our short bit of the intro, then the entire timba section looked at each other, held up their hands and winced. Well, except for the Macumba guys... who went the macho route and started slapping each others' hands :)
It was lovely lying on a grassy hill in the park in the sun, watching the parade roll past... especially the automotive section, with a long line of Ferraris, Gold Wings, Harleys and several beautiful Morgan TriKings. I might have drooled a little bit at the sound of fifty-odd Harley engines revving up ^^;
Eventually our slot came up, we shuffled into place, and then started playing to the cheers of the crowd. The practice had been a little wobbly, but Roddy had gone round each section reminding people of the patterns, and we had formed little groups on the grass to sing them and drill them into our heads. We didn't stop playing until the end of the parade an hour later. Even when the band got confused over an early signal, launched into a break halfway through a pattern, then clattered to a halt in a muddle, the snares still kept going with their steady backbeat and we built it back up from there. At the finish line, we poured in all the last of our reserve energy and finished with a bang. Then someone mentioned that we were meant to do a static performance...
We finished at about half three, put the drums in the van, and collapsed on the grass utterly spent. Then a van turned up from Elbow and unloaded a table, several tureens and boxes, and two cases of beer. People unrolled picnic blankets on the grass, and suddenly we had a little outdoor canteen. I tucked into a giant plate of lamb curry, dahl, and pasta with olives and big chunks of salami, accompanied by a very much needed cold beer. Half an hour later I came back with another plate. And then a chocolate brownie. Finally, watered and refuelled, I felt a little bit more alive.
Holyrood Park is a beautiful place to have a picnic, especially surrounded by great company in the shape of about a hundred drummers. We sat for a few hours chatting and tried to come up with a name for the piece Roddy had composed. He put forward a few, including 'Uproar in Kansas' and 'Flying Heider', but the unofficial name of the piece seems to have become 'Kinky Bum' after the surdo line's pattern mnemonic ('Oh oh kinky bum, give it to me...') Eventually, with many farewells and much hugging, everyone drifted off home.
It was about eight o'clock when I finally got back to Falkirk, jumped in the shower for a long soak to ease my aching muscles, babbled to Nate about the weekend's awesomeness, then headed for bed. Waking up today, it almost feels like one long and epic dream, if it weren't for my shredded hands. It's been one hell of a weekend :)
Today is a recovery day. I'm exhausted, my hands have bruises, callouses and cracked skin, and my arms feel like they're going to fall off .. but I'm very happy. My first ever Cavalcade weekend was simply awesome.
It all kicked off on Friday evening at Tolcross Primary, with a hall packed full of drummers - almost all of the Kings of Macumba, several people from Sambayabamba, some folks from further afield (including France!) and, of course, almost the entire Edinburgh Samba School.
Roddy Dickson from Sambayabamba was our guest mestre, and he brought with him a monster of a piece. Given that we only had one night and one day to learn it, I'd expected something fairly simple: maybe one main groove, with a couple of breaks and an intro. Instead we got three grooves, two breaks, an awesome sixteen-bar chorus for the repiniques, and a breakdown with a complex and totally sweet solo for the timba section (thanks Roddy! :D)
We spent two hours practicing on Friday night, alternating between singing the patterns and playing them, and getting to know our fellow drummers. It was amazing playing in a ten-strong timba section - when I joined, I was often the only timba player at gigs, and even now we have more timbas in the band, there are usually only a few of us around on any given night.
After getting chucked out by the janitor at nine o'clock, we decamped to the Banter for the evening's entertainment - Mikeoke! One guy (Mike) with an acoustic guitar, a microphone and a folder full of song lyrics (the 'eoke bit). I was gently persuaded (read: shoved towards the stage) to sing by Kate, after she spotted me picking up the lyrics for Wish You Were Here. I had a slightly wobbly start, but it was awesome to sing one of my old favourites with half the pub singing along :D
I headed home on Friday night, crashed into bed at midnight, woke up at 8am Saturday morning and headed out again. We spent about six hours solid practicing on Saturday, punctuated only by a break to inhale a beer and a heaping plate of chilli and macaroni cheese at the Banter, which had laid on a spread for us. Drumming is seriously thirsty and hungry work!
After the practice, I realised that while I was planning to stay the night at Adam's flat in Edinburgh, I had been so tired on Saturday morning that I hadn't actually packed toiletries, a sleeping bag or any change of clothing. This wouldn't have been such a problem if it weren't for the heat generated by about a hundred drummers in a hall with almost no ventilation - I was utterly soaked with sweat. I ended up driving out to Asda in Fort Kinnaird, picking up clothes, shower gel and micropore tape for my bleeding fingers, then heading for Hawke & Hunter for the showcase (with a slight detour to pick up a giant burrito of deliciousness at Illegal Jack's)
Hawke & Hunter, as it turns out, is really really posh. We walked in past the shiny reception desk, past the trendy bars, past the venue's entrance hall with its dark wood panelling and scented candles, and into a large hall with disco lighting and a glittering bar. In our scruffy drumming clothes, we felt a little under-dressed.
Kings of Macumba played first, with a floorshaking set that had me bouncing up and down like crazy. There's nothing like standing about ten feet away from a samba band in a club - the sheer force of sound is wonderful. Next up were Senzala Capoeira, joined at the end by one of the guys from Brazil! Brazil! for some backflipping, cartwheeling, single-hand-standing awesomeness. Then it was time for us to go on.
Eight hours of practicing is not kind on a hand drummer's hands, especially hands which are already a bit battered from several weeks of practicing twice a week and gigging every weekend. Towards the end of the practice the skin on my fingers had cracked and begun to bleed slightly. When we got to the club, my hands had cooled down enough that feeling had returned to them - I tried hitting my timba a couple of times, and even light hits felt like slapping a bad bruise. But we had a showcase to play, so I taped over the broken bits with micropore and grinned and bore the pain until, a couple of songs in, I'd finally managed to hammer the feeling out of my hands again.
Our set went pretty well - the dancers were awesome, managing to fit in three different costumes within a single set: grass skirts and double sticks for Maculelê, long white dresses for Maracatu, and glitter and feathers for samba. The energy of the crowd was great - club sets are always awesome, and even more so this time since half the crowd were drummers. It's wonderful to perform to a good crowd: the whole band tightens up and plays at their best, which makes the crowd even happier, which makes the band go even wilder - it's a great feedback loop.
The last band of the night was Sambayabamba, who were brilliant as ever and had the crowd dancing and demanding encores. After that we danced to tunes from our resident DJ Sally, then headed down to Hawke & Hunter's other club when the venue closed at 3am. It was 4am before the club closed and I joined a small party of worn-out sambistas walking home.
I woke up at 10am the next day feeling unreasonably fresh and lively, walked back to Hawke & Hunter to collect my car (which had miraculously survived being parked on a main road in Edinburgh for a day and a half without being ticketed - think I'm finally beginning to understand Edinburgh parking regulations!) and came back to Adam's flat just in time to receive a much-needed sausage and bacon roll from my awesome host. Cheers Adam :)
We arrived at Holyrood park a couple of hours before the parade was due to start, so we had enough time to do a quick warmup and runthrough. We started up, played our short bit of the intro, then the entire timba section looked at each other, held up their hands and winced. Well, except for the Macumba guys... who went the macho route and started slapping each others' hands :)
It was lovely lying on a grassy hill in the park in the sun, watching the parade roll past... especially the automotive section, with a long line of Ferraris, Gold Wings, Harleys and several beautiful Morgan TriKings. I might have drooled a little bit at the sound of fifty-odd Harley engines revving up ^^;
Eventually our slot came up, we shuffled into place, and then started playing to the cheers of the crowd. The practice had been a little wobbly, but Roddy had gone round each section reminding people of the patterns, and we had formed little groups on the grass to sing them and drill them into our heads. We didn't stop playing until the end of the parade an hour later. Even when the band got confused over an early signal, launched into a break halfway through a pattern, then clattered to a halt in a muddle, the snares still kept going with their steady backbeat and we built it back up from there. At the finish line, we poured in all the last of our reserve energy and finished with a bang. Then someone mentioned that we were meant to do a static performance...
We finished at about half three, put the drums in the van, and collapsed on the grass utterly spent. Then a van turned up from Elbow and unloaded a table, several tureens and boxes, and two cases of beer. People unrolled picnic blankets on the grass, and suddenly we had a little outdoor canteen. I tucked into a giant plate of lamb curry, dahl, and pasta with olives and big chunks of salami, accompanied by a very much needed cold beer. Half an hour later I came back with another plate. And then a chocolate brownie. Finally, watered and refuelled, I felt a little bit more alive.
Holyrood Park is a beautiful place to have a picnic, especially surrounded by great company in the shape of about a hundred drummers. We sat for a few hours chatting and tried to come up with a name for the piece Roddy had composed. He put forward a few, including 'Uproar in Kansas' and 'Flying Heider', but the unofficial name of the piece seems to have become 'Kinky Bum' after the surdo line's pattern mnemonic ('Oh oh kinky bum, give it to me...') Eventually, with many farewells and much hugging, everyone drifted off home.
It was about eight o'clock when I finally got back to Falkirk, jumped in the shower for a long soak to ease my aching muscles, babbled to Nate about the weekend's awesomeness, then headed for bed. Waking up today, it almost feels like one long and epic dream, if it weren't for my shredded hands. It's been one hell of a weekend :)