The Long Way Back (And Forth)

Random Babcia

This will be my Last Post before the weekly PzU round up, and possibly my last before I am found floating in the Baltic, mutilated by multiple spoons, for failing to do the washing up as required in the Articles of Being a Useless Man, sub-section three.

Author go Koszalin make party drum bass... wait a second... I've spent too long dissecting articles and prepositions and forgotten I am a Native Speakerem. This reminds me that with every day passing in Poland - and it's been just over six months now - I have a sneaking feeling that I am forgetting as much English as I am learning Polish. In that case, nothing to worry about!

All blogs reveal a little and hide perhaps a little more of the author. As I'm not exactly trailblazing with the spectacularly unoriginal back-story of chasing a woman to a foreign country and working as an English teacher, there's little left in the cupboard to pull out as required. Nevertheless, as I crossed the Vistula this evening and cast my eye out over the pale jelly fish-like ice formations crusing down-river, I felt now was the time to reveal un secret.

I am off to Koszalin this weekend, to "make party drum and bass." Drum and Bass is a music characterised by repetitive beats, industrial and urban sounds and emerged from the illegal rave scene of the early 90s. About ten years ago I was a connisoeur of easy listening classics and Irish folk music, and often used to make work pass quicker by serenading customers and colleagues alike (whether they liked it or not).

A crime against motor-vehicles?!

Somewhere along the way I started to MC to drum and bass, speed garage and trance/dance. MCing is a hosting of drum and bass music with a microphone and is the showman bit of the DJ/MC relationship. This progressed and eventually I went to play publically a fair bit around the UK, in Germany and France and so on, before entering semi-retirement a few years ago when work took over.

I was never more than a D-list MC but it was an interesting chapter in a book I have yet to close.  It's given me a lot of practical skills in pronunciation, rhyming, projection, understanding the way humans come together to lose identity. It's taken my interest in music from Afrobeat to Dancehall, Irish folk to fiddle music . When you've stood in front of 800 people, knowing that the next hour of their lives is pretty much in your hands, you learn a lot about yourself one way or the other. (I am writing this as I listen to Bryn Terfel sing Welsh hymns, so that tells you all you need to know about this particular musical adventure).

In Poland my good friend Maciej is a regular DJ on the Polish club scene and hosts nights in Wroclaw. Now that I have moved to Poland for good and have got a bit more time on my hands - and an urgent need to explore Poland as much as possible - we've a few dates lined up in cities and towns across Poland.

The first night is in Koszalin this Saturday and I'll be taking the 15.37 from Wasrzawa Centralna direct to Koszalin on TKN (Potential assassins, don't say I haven't given you a head start). It's a long and winding road, taking about 8 or 9 hours in total on the Friday, then nearly 10 hours on the Sunday return trip. I should have plenty of time to complete my Magnum Opus, "Volume 1 of Polish Agricultural Highlights and Lowlights as Seen From a Slowly Progressing Window."

The second gig, in March, is in Wałbrzych, a pretty town about 30 KM from Wroclaw, and for your delectation I present the posters for both events in this blog - if you're about feel free to come on down. I also do weddings and Bar Mitzvahs.

So that explains my absence for the next few days and my Moriarty-like ability to pop up in small towns and cities across Poland for very brief periods of time over the next few years.

Talking of Moriarty, I've been re-reading Arthur Conan Doyle's back catalogue as free Ibooks on my Iphone. I've just finished The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and have started on The Lost World. I think by weekend's close I will have finished  that and The Hound of the Baskervilles, which scared me rigid as a boy. He has such an elegant turn of phrase, he really does. It's a joy to re-discover them years later.

Finish with a Babcia and that's this post done, I reckon. Dobranoc.