Cube Blog

Well I turned up late this week whereby I was greeted with the words, “Talk of the Devil”, this is getting to be a consistant occurence in my life, so thank you O Dark lord. Anyhow what I saw before me was a bunch of ‘musicians’, I use that word in the loosest possible way, scribbling away on the floor like little children .
To my surprise it wasn’t the Orchestra members filling out their giro applications but a way of sculpting a piece of music by writing a keyword to dictate how you sould try and play. Here Marcus demonstrates:
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How we played a Hillbilly Hoedown (amongst other suggestions) with a tambourine, dabuka, tablas, sax, keyboards and two electric guitars you should hopefully be able to find out soon via our Web sites download section.
Gareth was so sickenly good on his Sax that It drove him a kind of sick green colour. Hugh and Stuart also rocked out on their twin geetar attack But they also knew when to take it a step back and be cool Daddio . Not sure if Tomoko has been listening to a lot of Miles Davis recently but she definately hit a Blue period .
Have to say the Japanese can be really cool if they wanna.
Some of the music performed during this piece was quite beautiful, almost Orb like at one stage, kinda trippy and we showed how we can transend different moods and musical styles very quickly and easily, and this is the beauty of The Cube Orchestra – We’re doing something that nobody else is, and though it might not make people green with envy, it sure did something to us Cue pats on back all round.
I feel the urge to mark a few people on their efforts (Its a novelty for me, I don’t do any at skool), Zero marks for originality to Marcus for writing the word CHEESE, I guessed it was you straight away. 10 points to Ale for playing the Table like a mo fo and for the improvised singing at the end, which included the line “We played like yer mother“. Hugh 8 points for the ambient keyboard playing and Mr Hopkinson -5 for sitting downstairs and messing about on the computer instead of doing groovy dj stuff.

The Orchestra is busking at College Green THIS WEDNESDAY (17th) from about 4.30-5ish for as long as we want, so come on down and watch or if you are a member of the Orchestra join in.

Ciao for now, Your biggest fan, Richie Paradise.

Greetings.
You know there’s been alot of chat recently amongst Orchestra members, and Cube High Brass, about where the Cube Orchestra is headed for and for all our chat we’re still not sure! Well not true, we’re going to be more pro-active. Lined up is something to do with The Here Gallery, a bi-monthly rescoring of a film and playing along to some improv/avant garde dancing.
Ale Our Chilean multi instrumentalist member has started the ball rolling on that one.
Did I mention we’re a great example of Multi Cultralism? This weeks meeting saw the introduction of Tomoko seen here helped by Hugh into his bass . She’s joined us from Kobe in Japan. Admirable bass work my friend from Nippon. A warning to Tomoko though, I’ll be practising my rudimentary Japanese at any opportunity, Typical Baka Gaijin.
For those who like sport, the Australians have taken it to a whole new level, well the Cube Orchestra’s resident True Blue has followed suit and taken improvisation into a new stratosphere, whilst we’re wasting our time playing Belinda read a book.

This weeks turn out featured the ‘Hardcore’ and I have to say it really was pretty good what we did. I was also struck by how cool we actually are too, as you can see Mark was also struck by that very fact
I felt the urge to bust a groove .
Marcus recorded the results, hopefully that’ll find its way onto the web sometime soon, The man has an unhealthy obsession with Angelo Badalamenti, its the vibes baby I guess.

With solid rythm work from Marcus,Hugh and Ale, and yours truely, the horns were left to go for it, which they did with an aplomb
, though Mark did at one stage, fall asleep but then, he is getting old and it was close to his cocoa time.

A great time was had by all, especially after Ale suggested we freak out towards the end, groovy daddio, groovy, we just didn’t want it to finish.

Here’s to next time, Comrade Richie Paradise

Or Feet;

To start with I am NOT a foot fetishist, I actually left a job as a stockman in a womans shoe shop as I was beginning to get tooo into womans shoes but that was an aesthetic thing. If I’m gonna have a fetish it’ll be something old skool (ok it IS something old skool)

Anyhow Croikey its hot, as our antipodean cousins might say, just like Belinda in fact
seen here with Hugh and Gary. An interesting Orchestra Cube this week. A much better turn out with two newbies (as Dr. Cox from Scrubs might put it)

Bethan on French Horn and (apologies if this is wrong) Izzie? on Flute, ladies you did yourselves, and your Brethrin, proud. Gamely joining in the occasional beauty (our second interpretation of E.T) and the occasional horror (our first interpretation).

Song titles were popular this week. I offered ‘Half way through I noticed my flies were undone’, which was based on a true story. And then we hit a purple patch

where we did ‘An ode to feet’, inspired as we all had our feet out au naturale or in jesus creepers.

The extended horn section were magnificent today, full of wind, especially during our duel piece. Belinda challenged me to start a piece and Mark suggested Peter wouldn’t allow me to use my hands so it was hi hat and bass drum for most of it. Everybody gave it some. Did I mention how good those horns were?
Mark is getting a reputation as a musician pimp seeing as he keeps turning up with random but welcome additions.
We ended with ‘An Ode to the Tour de France’ which developed into ‘An Ode to Twin Peaks’ via Marcus’ vibe like keys and my brush work.

It’s all about the Vibes baby, all about the vibes.

Remember how hot I said it was? See if you can spot the difference betwen these two photos.
CLUE the first one was taken before I had started drumming and the second taken at the end.

That’s right. In the second picture my shirt is RED.

Ciao, Richie Paradise

PS four of us groovy guys from The Orchestra are playing at The Croft this friday, it’s louder improv known as Sculpture. It’d be nice to see you. A Bien tot.