Hey y'all! So last week I went to Bahrain to play at the 2009 Bahrain Grand Prix. I travelled out with the awesome Funkstylerz breakdance crew, girl dance group Decibella, our inimitable host Gil Kolirin and loads of other artists and entertainers to provide the entertainment for the race goers between races. I had an awesome time, the people were ace and made the shows and the whole experience one i'm gonna remember for a long while. Here's a video of what i got up to, there's loads missed out cos my camera kept running out of battery but you get the idea!! Hopefully i'm going to be in the amazing Bahrain many more times in the future... vroooooom!! Pic By Christopher SC Odukwe
Bahrain F1 Grand Prix 09 Video Blog
I'm waiting for vids and pictures which i will post on here, but for the time being click here to view some of my pics from the week of sun, hoolahoops and cars!
I've been playing music with my brother John since we were 15, starting out in a band called Inelcerub which lasted a couple of fun filled years. I play drums and started because none of the drummers John tested out for the band could play the songs right - usually Nirvana covers. Since i'm crazily into them, knowing all the songs on guitar, bass, words n drums, i would get frustrated watching them play it wrong and ended up taking the seat and learning to play for the sake of joining the band, it took a while as of course no one wants your little bro in your band when you're 15! Still it was ace fun but we split up.... Many years later the foundations of Swimming we being made by John and we started to rehearse some of the early material and getting together the right people to make up the desired sound. We released an ep and a couple of singles in 2008 through Izumi, a Brighton indie label, as well as playing loads of shows and making one of the winners of the Glastonbury new band comp, which was cool. We are about to release our debut album - The Fireflow Trade, through our own Colourschool records. It's out on 11th May and we will of course be touring for that, as well as spending time in the studio working on the next album.
So as for what we sound like - here's a brief biog and some things others have said about us:
One of the most refreshing acts to have emerged from the UK in 2008, Swimming are rapidly developing a devoted fanbase on the basis of their intense and mesmerizing live shows. Artfully blending the power and and energy of Pixies with the ambient soundscapes of Boards Of Canada, their talent for sonic experimentation never detracts from their innate gift for melody.
"Washed in sound with a great big brush, Swimming's canvas is wide and handsome, big as the sky, colour dripped from above, layer on layer, like an Aurbach take on Pollock" Artrocker
"Take the Pixies' energy, the ambient soundscapes of Boards Of Canada and add a penchant for melody and experimentation and you've got yourself one great band in the making" - Rock Sound
Here's what people are saying about the album:
"a technicolour acid-pop gem" Toonwaves "...hyperactive and exhilarating" Uncut "Swimming are on the verge of being the breakout band of 09" Rocksound
Heres a vid of our single Panthalassa, out June 09
I'm gonna be pretty busy with all things SWIMMInG// over the coming months. Have a listen, i hope you enjoy, and look out for the live shows featuring some rock out, dance off beatboxing action!
So hello Peteboxeteers! This marks the beginning of new new stylee blog making! I'm now going to start publishing video blogs of my goings on! And here's the first... I recently went to play the Young Prague 2009 Choir Festival. It was my second year there and what a show it was! These guys are seriously amazing vocalists and musicians and i was fortunate enough to be invited to show them what i do. Here's a short vid from my trip...
So, i'm going snowboarding on friday! Awesome! Problem is my knee has recently messed up a bit. I can still walk/run/jump/skip (which i really like doing btw) and generally be active. It's when i keep it bent for a while and straighten it that causes a problem and indeed, severe pain. I was a bit worried about the prospect of not being able to hit the slopes, as you'd imagine, but am gonna go for it. Now, i don't have a grand delusion that any of you out there would find my health remotely interesting, but i wanted to write about this as today i had a bit of a realisation, or perhaps more accurately, an awakened appreciation of something which i guess i never really think about - our (uk) health system. I have a knee complaint. I can still do stuff as mentioned and my main concern is that i might not be able to go snowboarding. The timeline of my nhs dealing goes like this: I first went to my GP on 27th Jan. He referred me and i got an appointment with a consultant today - 2 weeks later. I was xrayed and assessed and have been booked in for an mri scan on thursday... Pretty damn quick and thorough i thought and I couldn't help feeling not only grateful, but overwhelmingly privilaged that i live in a country where this can happen. Now i don't want to make sweeping statements about anything and open myself up to people explaining where they've been let down etc, but this is my experience and i feel very lucky to have it. Having been to third world countries i am always very aware and consider the things that i have that others don't, from my lovely new macbook pro i use to make music, down to having food on my plate. These two are so far apart - my macbook, though it is for work, is a luxury. Food on my plate, i take for granted, in fact it is inconceivable that i would ever go hungry. Likewise i expect there to be a system in place if i hurt my knee, let alone have a life threatening illness/injury. It's just crazy to think of the amount of people in this same world that don't.
Now i don't want to go into how i think the world should change, but i think it's really important to take the time to consider how lucky some of us are to have systems in place to support us when we need help compared to other people. I certainly do. x
Well here we go. So far i have avoided the task of spending time each day penning my recent activities/thoughts/new jokes i've heard/general updates etc in blog form. It's always seemed a daunting task, not only to find the time to do it, but to actually write something that anyone would find interesting! Well after using these reasons as excuses to excercise a little blog laziness, i'm gonna give it a go. And it starts here - 2nd Feb, 2009. I imagine anyone reading this will have some idea of my career so far - started 4 years ago, is still going now... stuff has happened in between... but this is now and blogs are updates of what's new, not old so i'll miss the 'how this moment came to be' and focus on what this moment is bringing. Right now i'm sat at my desk, writing on my new macbook pro - the hub of my home recording studio and sexiest electrical device in my room. I've been working on music all evening, i'll tell all about what soon enough. So, this week in the life of THePETEBOX? I started off working on new songs with my band - SWIMMInG// we're making a demo for the new album, although the old album hasn't been released yet... one thing i'm learning in this business - patience. I then did my first show of the year at a venue called Gilgamesh in Camden. The event was a party for the world's online gambling community as London played host to an online gaming trade show all last week. It was pretty cool - i was providing the musical entertainment alongside a dj, while a few other folks had a harder task in their role - a sword swallower, a dancer whose partner is a snake! and some generally skillfull cabaret performers dancing/stilt walking/girls looking hot type business. My show went down a treat despite the sound being pretty bad n i met some cool characters, my favourite of which was a chap called Yishai Habari, very cool guy. So that was it, the start of my years gigs. I had a day off to watch my bro conduct an orchestra (how cool is that!) and spend the day at the London Dungeons (again, very cool) then was off to Norwich for a show at Media with the awesome club night Sub:Bass Invaders. The place was hotting up from the heavy sounds of the other dj's dropping dubstep n DnB, then i did my thing n got down to some partying! Sunday's are always pretty 'slow' after a show. Residue of booze still floats about the brain n the throat is always a bit gruff (due to booze rather than the beatboxing) and it's usually spent travelling back from the show destination. So onto this week - more work on the Swimming demo, some meetings with some folks n seeing what the days will bring. So there it is - my first blog. Kinda feels like i'm writing to noone at the moment, gotta work out how you actually get people to read this! Hopefully you will be doing n i look forward sharing my doings and musings with y'all.
Pic By Christopher SC Odukwe
