Monday 26 October 2009

Try Poe Try gets the green light and next Thursday is more than another night


Last night, something that has the potential to define my career in Spoken Word was given the go ahead.

Something called ‘Try Poe Try’ has lingered in the imaginations of myself and the legendary Dr.Stew since February 2009.

The journey that led up to yesterdays moment has been extraordinary and one day I will share that epic with you all.

But right now we have our venue and the first show of Try Poe Try will begin this November.

In the more immediate future, Thursday I’m hosting a night of Spoken Word, African Drumming, Jazz and improv performance... Same venue and night minus Wale Ojo... yay! ... I mean.. nay! ;-)

Friday 23 October 2009

Host With The Most Optimism

Life for me right now has a strange atmosphere... You know, I personified that question but I’m not sure if it is just me. There’s loads of politically charged tension about as well as other funky energies burning in the people around me.
I’ve felt a lot of anger and strange tension at the average person I pass in the street recently.

Last week I saw a dead body in the road, a man was shot four times in a “blood thirsty vengeance” from a shooting the week before... All this blood has painted my doorstep.

ANYWAY... Sorry...

I logged on to write about my hosting experience last night with Wale Ojo and I’ve taken it somewhere else... sorry about that, it wasn’t as bad as Nick Griffin on Question Time or "nigger-bots" in Transformers 2 ... but it was rather shambolic... although the feedback was positive, people did enjoy it and I guess, that’s most important.

The problem with mixing a spoken word night with a music night is you tend to attract two different audiences. The people who show up for the music wants to drink and dance... the people who show up for the poetry wants to sit and listen.


We did however compromise at the beginning of the night by having Catherine Brogan do her set backed by a musician on African Drums. Which went well... but as the night wore on complications grew and the audience seemed to become either frustrated or confused.

I try to sway from making generalizations but apprantley musicans don't respect poets.



When Wale came on with his band the first thing he said to the audience was “OK, Now we’re going to show you how to do it!”

OK, I guess poetry is not the way “to do it”

Ironically almost everyone left.

YAY POETRY! :-)


Thank you Zainab, Bridget, Andreas and Dr.Stew for repping.x

Still love you Wale! ;-)

Thursday 22 October 2009

The Art Of Hosting.

Tonight will be my second ever shot at hosting a Spoken Word show. I've come to realize that hosting is an art within itself, within that is the art to stand in front of people and be... well, yourself.

********Content of Ray being himself has been removed***********

This gig I'm doing tonight is rather hastily put together as I've only had 2 days to prepare it without ANY budget.

I think the first thing I'll say when I open the show will be "honestily, I have no idea what to expect tonight... It might be like a really bad, low budget B movie that's so shit its good"

:-)

This is the audience I stood (and unprofessionally sat) before last time I hosted. It was a show put together for Freshers students at Westminister University, it was a total success.





Will let you know how the show tonight goes.x

Wednesday 21 October 2009

ACTIVATE!

AT LAST! As of today I have committed myself to active blogging.

Short stories, photography, spoken word material, digital downloads and releases, gigs and journeys will be documented here.

So hello and welcome to the shapes and disfigurements of Raymond Antrobus.