Louie Bellson died

Sad, sad sad. Check his webpage if you don't know him (which means that you're not a drummer). A lot of greats have recently passed... e.g. Max Roach, also not very long ago.

A somewhat more personal post...

Hi everyone out there!

Looking at my blog, I'm getting the impression that all I do is show off - look what a cool drummer I am, look how I'm travelling around the world, look, I go surfing...

I don't want to show off. I document things that make me happy and mean something to me, that's all. Anyhow I believe that this might be the overall impression that gets across, and with this post I'd like to change this a bit, by writing something serious for a change.

I herewith publicly announce that I'll "bury" the last year. It's actually a bit more than a year (but I'll keep calling it a year here), and it wasn't the greatest time for various reasons. Some bad things happened, not so much to me, more to others, but bad nevertheless. I think that, as a person, this last year changed me quite a bit, and hopefully for the better. I learned various things, one of them being that we all don't live forever, and therefore we have to live now, look ahead, and be careful to avoid wasting the time that we were given. I did waste a lot of time during this last year. I thought and did things which were just stupid, and feel sorry about it now (because it wasn't always cool for everybody involved), but I cannot change that anymore. That's a part of what I now understand; I've been thinking too much - about things which happened, AFTER they happened, which means that I've been thinking too much about the past. We shouldn't do that.

There are several BIG changes ahead - 2009 will surely end as the "year of change" in my personal history. I wanted it this way, and I'm happy about it. Now is the time to concentrate on the future.

Phew...

The next posting will probably be about fun again - drumming, surfing, whatever :)

The first Melbourne post

I guess that, with a bit more than a week now passed, it's about time for a first blog post.

Except for work (of course :) ), the week was music oriented. I went to see Rene play at the Espy on the day of arrival, we played a jam session at Dizzy's, an open stage at a place whose name I keep forgetting, and another open stage at the Spleen bar (where I accompanied Rene on a cardboard box and a beer barrel).

On the weekend, there was the big ending of the St. Kilda festival, with all kinds of stuff happening in the street; a guy set up quite a big drumkit to make money playing (I guess?), and for a dollar you could play on it. So I did :)

Here's me, looking forward to playing, and him, happy with the money:


Here's him, telling me not to break his precious cymbals:


And here's a couple of people watching me. In fact he told me not to stop when I wanted to, because people started putting coins in hix box ... so now I know that I have an alternative career possibility if I ever decide to quit computer science :)


Finally, a video of me having some fun with polyrhythms. Thanks to Mattia for taking these pics and shooting the video!


Check out the guy paying for my "art" at 0:55 :-)

Big waves ahead!

- literally, because I'll go to Melbourne again, and for sure I'll be surfing the waves in the Torquay area. Metaphorically too, because I'll move to Norway, to join the Networks and Distributed Systems group at the Department of Informatics of the University of Oslo. I suppose that this blog's content may shift a bit, from "mostly drums" to "mostly elks" or something like that...

I love the Rebirth Brass Band, and I love the Maple Leaf

I just returned from New Orleans, where I saw the Rebirth Brass Band in the Maple Leaf Bar once again. After all these years, they still play there every week, and if I would live there, I'd probably be there to see their show in this place every week too. It's quite an experience, which can never be fully captured by a video.

Ali G Translator

i was recently told dat my blog entries is too borin - so, fa a change, i'd dig to share somethin wicked wiv yous. as some of yous may know, i ave a link to da ali g translata on my webpage, askin people to translate their emails before dey send them to me if dey dig my respect. so now, fa da first time, a colleague wiv a sense of uma translated a standard invitation to review a papa fa a magazine. in da house's an excerpt:

--
(..)
i believe dat da subject matta is within your general area of expertise and int erests and i would dig yous to serve as a reviewa fa da papa. a copy of da papa is attached at da batty of dis note.

if available, i would appreciate it if yous could review da papa and borrow me your assessment as soon as possible.
(..)
if yous cannot make dis date or is not available to do dis review, please let me know as soon as possible. if y ou is unable to do dis review, suggestions fa alternate reviewers would be mostest welcomed.
(..)
***i would appreciate it if yous ack da receipt of dis note.***


thank yous well much fa your elp wiv (..)
--

RESPECT to Ioanis Nikolaidis!

Gig announcement: 9 and 11 December

After the nice gig that we played as session opener in Treibhaus earlier this year (see this old posting for pictures and even a short video), Nina Braith invited me to join her for two more gigs, together with a keyboard player from Vienna and, once again, Matthias on bass. Thanks Nina!

The gig on 9 December is in Treibhaus at 21:00, as session opener (like last time). The gig on 11 December is going to be a little longer, in Hofgarten, starting at 22:00 and lasting until approximately 00:30. I hope to see you at one (or both :-) ) of these gigs!