Sunday, March 20, 2011

To: Vibrations Being More Than A Cell Phone Option.


(Photography by Arnaldo JJ, see more of his work on http://www.flickr.com/aanarudo )

So that essay I had been frantically seeking out in the last few days had been sitting in my reading packet all this time. Might want to delve into that magic before I go sleep.

I was looking back on some entries I had hand-written back in 2005 and saw how much I put emphasis on the sacredness of open-mics, the open-heartedness of sitting in circles around floating stages, the ritual of acoustic guitars and dejembes. We always call it 'vibes', and I took that concept for granted. It's the way Aristotle breaks down binary forms for us. You know something exists, because you know what the absence of it means. I have come to know what the absence of that means, and now I know what 'vibes' did to impact my life as both performer and audience.

Maybe it's the way most stages are here. Very fourth wallish and separatist. It becomes all about you and what little talent you have and not just about your physical closeness or your ability to embrace your audience and them to hug you back on that level. It lacks love, it lacks common thread tying in the room, it lacks warm colours, it lacks brimming energy, spontaneity.....vibes. I think drums store heartbeats, and if they're absent we're not breathing right. Guitars are blood vessel strings, people in circles spin soul, and the performer is forced into a serving, giving of oneself type love.

Maybe it's the benefit of a small island. People are familiar, we can generate the home atmosphere as the need arises. Here is plastic, distant and impersonal. The first instrument I bought when I came here was a drum. I only use it for Church when Trinidadian priests fly over on mission. I know I needed a drum to keep that part of myself alive. There is an alchemy of live roots music, that knocks on your chest and says yes, I am already what is inside of you. A certain dance that is difficult to control once your body wakes to it. I miss that. The most.

p.s. Vagina Monologue opens on THURSDAY for two days ONLY!!! You can vibes me for tickets, come out and support the effort, come out and bless my beginnings.


What I'm on about? Check out this music.


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