Dave Bullock / eecue : Programmer | Photographer | Admin | Human

Recently I picked up the clarinet again and have been practicing various Klezmer songs, including one of my wife's favorites: Papirosen. A sad song about a boy selling cigarettes on the streets during WW II in order to stave off hunger and avoid the fate of his sister who died from exposure.

I found this brilliant rendition on youtube by a duo known as the Klezmer Gourmets.

I was shocked and saddened to read in the comments that the violinist Michael Kahan was stabbed earlier this year by a 'discharged schizophrenic' in Macnhester.

This song will now be twice as sorrowful when I play it. Rest in peace Michael Kahan. 

Recently I picked up a new-to-me Selmer CL-200 clarinet. I love the warm sound it produces thanks to its all-wood construction. I have been practicing every day and enjoying it greatly.

I started playing clarinet in elementary school and played it through middle school. Sadly I stopped playing in high school, perhaps having to do with not wanting to be a band geek. A few years ago I bought a cheap plastic clarinet which I played once and put away.

Several weeks ago I had an urge to play again so I pulled my old clarinet out of storage and started practicing again. Surprisingly I hadn't completely forgotten my old skills and within a few days I was reading and playing music again.

I found a cool site created by a klezmer band in Manchester that had tons of klezmer PDF sheet music and MIDI files to download. I downloaded and printed every single song on their site and choose about a dozen to start practicing.

After deciding I really wanted to get into playing clarinet again, I started to yearn for a better instrument. When I played in junior high I had a nice old wood clarinet. It had beautiful tone and the grain was lovely.

I started to look around for a good deal on a nicely serviced wood clarinet online. I ended up finding the Clarinet Closet. The Clarinet Closet services used clarinets and sells them at a reasonable price. I certainly could have found a cheaper clarinet on ebay, but I wanted to buy from someone who actually spent the time to service and play the clarinet.

I opted for the cheapest wood clarinet they had for sale, a Selmer CL-200. It set me back about $260 plus shipping. I paid via paypal and the clarinet arrived in the mail just 2 days later. It's amazing that you can ship something through the USPS and it arrives twice as fast compared to UPS for half the price.

I love the clarinet. The SL-200 has a beautiful tone and feels great, especially for a student level / intermediate instrument. At some point I may upgrade to a higher level clarinet, but the CL-200 will suit me perfectly for some time.

Once I master a few dozen klezmer tunes I'm going to look for a violinist, organist and perhaps a DJ / producer to start a modern klezmer dubstep / drum'n'bass group. That should be interesting!

A close-up of the bell of my new wood clarinet shows the Selmer logo.

Here are some photos I took of Ozomatli at the first Grand Performances of the summer:

More photos can be found on blogging.la, blogdowntown, flickr, and in my Grand Performances Ozomatli gallery. 

So I've been really getting in to Dubstep in the last few months, and I've decided to start a site about it: dubstp.com It will be similar to junglescene.com, in fact it currently just forwards you to the Dubstep and Grime forum. As soon as I'm finished with my current rewrite of eecue and junglescene I will create a separate, but closely integrated site for dubstp.com.  

Xeni has more Coachella coverage over on BoingBoing.  

Here are some photos of Black Thought and The Roots:

You can view more photos from Coachella 2007 on blogging.la and flickr.

Here are some photos from Lupe Fiasco's set:

You can view more photos from Coachella 2007 on blogging.la and flickr.

Here are a couple of the shots I just took of Ghostface Killah:

More photos on blogging.la and flickr.

Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, performing as The Nightwatchman, his solo project:

And another of Pharoahe Monch, this time in the Artist Area being interviewed:

More photos on blogging.la and flickr and more coming soon.

Here are some of the photos I shot during Pharoahe Monch:

I am going to try and catch Ghostface Killah, Ozomatli and Red Hot Chili Peppers later. Here are the rest of my Coachella Saturday photos on flickr.

Xeni Jardin is live blogging from coachella as well and has this very detailed post up on BoingBoing.

So I missed my chance to get shots of Amy Winehouse from the photo pit, and I only got this lousy photo from backstage. After that I shot this photo of Stephen Marley from a filming platform:

I got a whole bunch of shots of Bus Driver, who put on a great show. I was really impressed. I haven't seen him on the mic in many years, and his passionate performance was enthralling. His DJ even threw in some drum'n'bass. Good stuff:

You can see the rest of today's Coachella photos here. 

Here are some of the photos I have taken so far today:

I caught a few minutes of Flostradamus featuring Kid Sister:

I then had some water and headed back over to the main stage to watch Brother Ali and Toki Wright:

I got a photo of the large bottles of CO₂ on the main stage... I'm guessing for an effect during Bjork's set. My EVDO is getting a much better signal now so the photos are uploading faster. I'll be shooting photos of Stephen Marley and Amy Winehouse and uploading them in a few hours, probably around 8pm. Keep and eye out for updates here, flickr or blogging.la.

Here are my: Coachella Thursday Photos and Coachella Friday Photos. 

I took some photos last night at Coachella:

You can see the rest of the photos here. I should say, in the interest of full disclosure, that I programed the Coachooser for Goldenvoice.  

Do I hear a country song a brewin'?