Percussive weekend

Without any prior planning, this turned out to be quite a weekend for percussion in my life. 

On Saturday, Lisa was given tickets to Blue Man Group's "Megastar 2.0" tour stop in Tampa.  This was a great show. I'd never seen BMG before and really enjoyed it - rock music, humour, creativity and social commentary.  I'd be remiss to leave out the opening performer Mike Relm.  He has an awesome blend of audio (scratching and sampling) and video.  I think the clincher is that he has a look and vibe that is not what people (well, me, anyways) typically connect to the type of art he creates.


Saw a great film too called Favela Rising.  A favela is a slum of Rio de Janiero.  There are over 600 of them.  In one of the most violent, two men look for a way to change their environment through music and culture. Their group, Afro Reggae, is a vibrant blend of dub reggae, hip-hop and the percussive sounds of any object that will make noise.  I would recommend the film for its musical content, but also for the social and inspirational message.  

For the class discussion portion of the blog, compare the life works of Anderson Sa of Afro Reggae to Paul Farmer of Partners in Health and Mountains Beyond Mountains fame