Date: Mon Jul 16, 2001
Subject: Busy busy busy

Hi there friends around the globe,

I've just finished a really busy period culminating in three concerts in the last week.

First on Saturday July 7 my new group "Shango Shakti" did our first gig, at The Big Bang. The Big Bang is organised by my friend Elliott Orr, who started learning djembe and talking drum about the same time I started learning tabla, back in 1994. We moved into a house together, playing in a percussion group called Bubada Dubada, and started this regular gig called The Big Bang, which has grown into a Brisbane institution, usually pulling about 400 people. Shango Shakti is a trio with myself and Elliott and a guy called Peter playing samples, vinyl and effects, so you can imagine a percussive groove/ambient dub sound. One piece we did featured a sample from a train trip on the Doon Express from Varanasi to Rishikesh, along with a bit of a certain Varanasi sarangi player and an amazing solo by guest vocalist Tony, also from Bubada Dubada. I was pretty happy with the set, especially as it was our first - there's plenty of room for growth.

Then the next night (a very cold winter night - it got down to 4deg!) I had a small Indian classical vocal concert at a local yoga space with Ustad Ghulam Sadiq Khan and his son Ghulam Abbas Khan of Delhi, who were hosted in Brisbane by local singer Rahim Zullah. The Ustad really is a wonderful singer, and it was a great opportunity for me to accompany him on tabla. While the turnout was quite small, there was good feedback from the few diehard Indian classical fans who turned up.

Friday the 13th was the date for "Ragas by the River", a big production featuring many top local Indian artists, organised by Brisbane Ethnic Music & Arts Centre (BEMAC) and directed by myself. I originally booked this concert by email from Varanasi, with the idea to feature a dance performance with live musical accompaniment (most Indian dance performances I've seen in Brisbane have used a cassette, which is pretty lifeless). Anyway, the show opened with Matt Weekes (student of Govinda Goswami in Varanasi) on sitar and myself on tabla, joined after one piece by saxophone and double bass. The next set featured vocals by local South Indian, North Indian and Aussie Indian singers culminating in an all-together Bhajan jam. For the final set all the musicians moved to the side of the stage for Aishwarya Singh, a 14 year old Bharat Natyam dancer to take the spotlight. I had to practise about 15 minutes worth of South Indian mridingam bols to accompany her dance, and I think we pulled it off pretty well. After a 3 month leadup and heaps of practise and rehearsals, it's a real relief to that it's over and that it was successful. Special praise must go to Vijaya Visvanathan, an amazing singer, and Kamala Shakti, the choreographer - it was a pleasure to work with her and I hope to do more, bigger, better shows with her in the future.

Apart from all that, I've been maintaining daily practise - at least *something* every day, including vocal practise. I've been teaching a few tabla students and I've also restarted my vocal percussion classes, singing a bit of Sargam and tabla bols with a small weekly class.

SO I'm Busy Busy Busy - I must have settled into Brisbane life again. But I haven't forgotten all you folks I was hanging out with in Varanasi and other places - I look forward to meeting y'all again after not too long.

Much love to all,

Shen Flindell

Aum Mani Padme Hum