(no subject)

[alonewiththemoon]

Another nice fun show at the Middle East last night.  This is very good to have right before the pageant.  Drum solo was somewhat random but I don't think sucked.  Note to self:  no hair tosses if there is a flower in your hair, tangleage ensues.  Audience was lots of fun.  I'm dancing the Sunday of Labor Day weekend and I'm looking forward to staying out and dancing all night after I perform :-)

Picked up Wash Ya Wash 6 from emusic and I have to say I am disappointed so far.  I am hearing a lot of remixing of previously recorded songs into new ones, in ways that don't always work.  There's a song that's almost the same note for note as a Gizira Band song, I think it's just a slightly remixed version of the Gizira Band recording (I've danced to it so I know it pretty well).  Composer Mohammed Ali throws awful synthesizer lines into perfectly nice folkloric songs on an unfortunately predictable basis.  All his compositions sound the same to me anyway, even after working with a couple of them intensively.  A couple of songs are alright, Cocktail Oriental and the balady improvisation.  Drum solo is fine too, but the world does not need more six minute drum solos.  It needs more really excellent three minute drum solos, in my opinion.

Comments

[nepenthedreams]

Well, you picked them. I picked & chose what I downloaded, so I liked Cocktail Oriental (too long though) and Balady Improvisation. I do like the Gizira Band song only because I only have this version of it - and it must have resonated with me because I had seen you dance to it before. That whole familiarity thing.

I agree - who does 6 minute drum solos? I even saw one the other day - a 10 minute drum solo on emusic. WHO DOES THAT? I mean, I would but the audience wouldn't have the patience for it, I think.

[nepenthedreams]

by which I meant, you picked out the best of the lot and I agree with your picks.

re-reading, it sounded like I was saying "You picked them so live with it!". :-)

[alonewiththemoon]

No, I got what you meant :-) Sometimes it's hard to tell what a whole song will be like from the samples so I took a chance and downloaded the whole thing.

I saw somebody do an 8 minute drum solo at a show here once. It had a lot of variation, but the audience--of mostly dancers, even--was clearly exhausted by it by minute four or five.