Date: Tue Aug 17, 2004
Subject: Brisbane 2004 Winter Tour

Hi folks,

Bangkok has become my interlude between chapters. Yesterday I was in Brisbane, tomorrow I'll be in Tokyo, and now I'm in Bangkok, city (for me) of Thai massages, great food and a visit to my travel agent to pick up the next air ticket.

Back to early June... After more than 2 years away in Japan and India, I flew back to Brisbane with some trepidation. I had no idea what to expect - some of the gigs I'd had booked had cancelled and I wasn't feeling too optimistic. My first impressions after such a long absence were the wide open spaces and the wide loud people. My first gig (in Byron Bay) had a very small audience, more gigs were cancelled and I was feeling distinct "non-culture shock" (shock from lack of culture). But it was very nice to be back with my old friends and to enjoy the relaxed atmosphere, great fresh food and those wide open spaces.

Despite all that, I managed to keep myself busy jamming with all my old musical friends and I really enjoyed making cross-cultural music again. In Japan and of course in India I've been playing Indian classical music almost exclusively, so it was a fresh change to be playing with Persian, Turkish, Tibetan, jazz and Flamenco musicians again. I've really become fascinated with trying to adapt tabla to those different styles of music. Suddenly there are no rules except our own musical sense, which can be both challenging and liberating.

The solution to "non-culture shock" came when I decided to organise a series of EthnoSuperLounge home concerts. The house I managed to move into in Brisbane was perfect for home concerts, with large spaces inside and a big deck outside. The four home concerts were : Bhakti (Indian jazz bhajans and Persian music), Indian Ocean Session (South Indian female vocals with Zimbabwean mbira), Jazzy Tibet (Tibetan vocals/music with electric guitar and sax) and finally Turkish Flamenco (Turkish vocals/music with flamenco guitar) - all featuring myself on tabla of course. We didn't use any sound system so the audience were really part of the music. Their silence added power to the music, and occasionally members of the audience joined in (generally invited musicians, of course). There was also plenty of question and answer about the music being performed. My favourite comment was "I've never enjoyed music as much as that." (Kudos to musicians - Cieavash Arean, Yani, Vijaya and Menaka Visvanathan (and Sen), Mbira Soul Music, Tenzin Choegyal, Matt Hill, River Petein, Feridun Avar and Andrew Veivers, plus the guest performers, audiences and housemates!)

Apart from the EthnoSuperLounge home concerts I performed in a few Indian classical functions at BEMAC (Brisbane Ethnic Music and Arts Centre) and Yoga in Daily Life. I was especially honoured to have the chance to perform tabla solo (accompanied by my guru-behen Liz) at BEMAC in honour of our late Guru-ji. It was part of a series of Indian classical concerts there involving members of the Brisbane Indian community, and the positive response to my tabla solo was really encouraging. I'm so happy to get the chance to show Guru-ji's style of tabla and to try to carry out his wish that tabla be recognised as a solo instrument. I also got another great chance when I was asked to perform with Afghani sitar player Khalil Gudaz and tabla player Bobby Singh, two of Australia's top Indian classical musicians.

I'll be back in Australia from late November to early January. The positive response to home concerts means I'll definitely try to do more of them and we'll hopefully get some really good recordings for a new EthnoSuperLounge CD.

In the meantime I'll be in Japan for 3 months. I have a number of Indian classical concerts, starting with a 7 show tour of northern Honshu with sitar player Michiro Kimura. After that I'll be staying mostly in Tokyo with my new love Orie, and trying to play as much music as possible. I've been really inspired by making world music fusion in Australia with EthnoSuperLounge so I'm going to try my best to meet more world music artists in Japan, and hopefully start a Japan EthnoSuperLounge.

[For further info on the musicians and organisations above, please find the relevant links at www.ethnosuperlounge.com/links.htm]

Love to all
Shen
Aum Mani Padme Hum