Beano's space

It's been a year since my last post, talk about being out of touch...

 

It's been an eye opening year, a year of change.  Some good, some not so (besides starting to enjoy alcohol at home, I've picked up and quit smoking in the past few months), but hey, I'll just write them up in my imaginary "been there, done that" scratchbook.

 

To my surprise, besides tricking people into buying expensive bulbs, I could still find the time to play a few Clapton tunes and take some pics when I'm out.  Hopefully my photography has improved since my last post, but it's up to you all to judge:

 

Behold, 九寨沟:

 

 

 

 

 

And finally, my feeble attempt at a pano:

 

 

 

Who says in this digital age nobody uses film anymore?

 

I've picked up my dad's old camera, stuck a good ol' roll of b&w film inside and started shooting.  It was not all fun though, after I was finished, I couldn't find a store where they developped b&w film anymore, shame!

 

Thanks to my neighbor's help (and his chemicals) I finally got these negatives scanned, well over a month after I finished the roll.  But I like the results, maybe I'll shoot another roll sometime soon...

 

 

 

...lazy lately, well to be honest not only lately...

 

Anyways, finally today we had some nice weather and the temperature is cool enough for me to come out again to do some shooting...

Dug out my old music collection some time back and found my old SRV records.  Yesterday, all of a sudden I remembered a song called "Life without you".  I used to listen to that song a lot and I just wanted to share it here.  I never gotten round to learn to play it...but I just might one of these days...

 

Life Without You

by Stevie Ray Vaughan
recording of 1985
from Soul To Soul (Epic EK-40036)

Oh oh now baby, tell me how have you been
We all have missed you, and the way you grin
The day is necessary, every now and then
For souls to move on, givin' life back again, and again
Fly on fly on, fly on my friend
Go on, live again love again

Day after day, night after night
Sittin' here singin' every minute,
as the years go passing by, by, by, by
Long look in the mirror, we've come face to face
Wishin' all the love we took for granted,
love we have today

Life without you, all the love you passed my way
The angels have waited for so long, now they have their way
Take your place

 

One thing I can't complain about Shanghai is the lack of events being held here.  Over the past 3 years I was lucky enough to attend several races like F1 and the MotoGP, but more than that, I was able to go to concerts of amogst others Eric Clapton and the Rolling stones.  Seeing large concerts is one thing but being able to feel the interaction of the performer with the audience in smaller venues is a whole other experience.

 

By chance, several weeks ago I saw an advertisement for the 2008 Shanghai Jazz festival, although just a newcomer to the world of Jazz, I knew that I had to attend this event, mostly because in my subconcious I'm thinking of Stevie Ray Vaughn at Montreux and am secretly hoping to be able to whitness someone on the rise to stardom.

 

I was not dissapointed.  Sure, Lauwrence Ku and his band gave a mighty boring (but musically excellent) performance.  But it was only after Sugar Mamma, when Eugene Bridges walked up, that I really woke up and paid serious attention.  From the first note he hit, on what looks like to be a mahogany top ES335, you could tell how deep his foundations went.  This guy was dripping with blues, and what amazed me the most whas that unlike all the other performers, he didn't seem to have to think about what he was doing.  He just closed his eyes and the music seemed to flow out of his hands.

 

Of course, after his performace, my mental bar has been risen to such a heigth that I didn't bother staying for too long.  Let's hope I'm lucky enough to be part of more of such events in the future.

 

As usual, here are some pictures...