got through

got through to the program director mentioned below. all is well!
       going to debut the single on that radio station ASAP for some hometown support in Nkomazi for the crew!!!
   I am working my ass off for those peeps. gladly.

Minutes

Stay tuned for a more in depth report on cell phone minutes, or "air
time" and how it is used as currency in certain areas of Africa.

Radio Nkomazi

Siboniso Hadebe
Program Manager
Ligwalagwala FM


Your email bounced. If anyone reads this from there, let him know I emailed, and it bounced. 
         I look forward to talking to you about the record!!!! you will be crucial in helping this thing get some local love and support, so thank you for taking the time to meet with Colani, and listening to the stuff. 
    I should have something for you very soon to debut!!! Lets have a hit in Nkomazi!
thanks man. 

Continuing

I am continuing to work on the record that was started in nkomazi... It feels really good to open up these tracks when i have a second and hear those voices again.
    I hope to see all of those guys and girls soon. I really wound up liking everyone a lot, and we all got along well and worked well together.
            I hope to have some final mixes of the tracks that were fully completed at the school hall or in the huts.... soon. I will have a minute to work on this stuff soon.
       Glad.

nothing

Nothing could have prepared me for the depth and range of emotions that I felt while I was in Africa.
   It would take me days or months to write the words that would be required to describe all of it.
I am working on getting some of the videos posted, so they can speak for themselves. The interviews outside the school, as audio, should be posted soon as well. Please check back, so you can hear some of these amazing people, in their own words, and to get a better sense of why I would walk away from certain days of recording with tears in my eyes, and a new sense of purpose and resolve in my heart... along with the sounds made by amazing artists still swirling in my ears and brain.
           you will be hearing some of these sounds soon, on this blog.
Check back.
-Joel

Why dont I have her books?!?

http://deutsch.ucsd.edu/

Why dont we ALL have her books?!?

Home and at Avatar

At avatar studios. up in the C room. "Scary monsters" was recorded in this room, as was "lets dance" and "like a virgin".... so many others....

Now that room has recorded the Parkington sisters and it is going to be an amazing record. 

It is amazing to be back. 

Firearm check in

At Johannesburg airport.

Black cat

Snacks

Emt

paradox

The way I have ben describing the nkomazi region is that it is a place filled with paradoxes, like a place where heads and tails are on the same side of the coin, however impossible that sounds here in NYC, it makes perfect sense there in Nkomazi.
      The good and the bad coexist there effortlessly, and forces I once would have thought of as "opposing" seem to sit next to each other in the shade on a hot day while people are sold over the border, children die, people sing and smile and work and fight and hug and drive and live all at the same time....

realization on day 1

This was on day one. I had just met everyone, and they were doing group warmups... I knew this was going to be amazing right then and there, like right when this picture was taken, and it is. The people, the record.. everything about the project: amazing. 

Talking 2

More talking about recording.... as always. and clowning around... always, also.

Talking, as always, about what we will do next

Me and Tshepo and Colani talking about recording. 

license plate detail.

Another LUNCH shot

Another shot of the daily lunch. No "cutlery" or "serviettes", just Pork braai, a loaf of bread, and "pop" [or "pap" pronounced "pop" anyway]  which is the grits meets polenta meets corn much cakes served on the brown bag in this picture. It looked like this every day and it was delicious. really. the crew also had grape fanta which seemed to be a real treat because nobody buys soda drinks like that there. 

School yard

Just a random view of the school yard. looking from the door of the hall I was in.

Bongani

Bongani waiting between takes. His LOW voice is incredibly striking. 

playback

listening to some of the stuff I had programmed around the vocal takes. Headphones only, so it was one at a time to experience the ruff mix in stereo. 

Main voc

This microphone got really worked. Every single main vocal was recorded with it, and now it lives in langeloop, mpumalanga, nkomazi, South Africa. with such amazing voices, this microphone totally rocked for us. 

the crew at the store

The crew at the store that assembled when we showed up. They were psyched to get their pictures taken. This was in block B or C. Way out of "town" and very, very rural.

random view

Zoom 2

This is how we set up one of the Zoom H4n recorders each day:

Duct taped to a school chair in 4 channel mode with 2 SDC mics and the built in mics rolling ALL day at 16/44.1. it worked really well with a 16gb SD card we had 12 hours of recording time at that resolution. 

remote control cars

These kids were playing with these amazing cars that a guy makes in the village. They are made out of coat hanger wire type metal.. like welding rod. they have cans cut for wheels, and a piece of the metal comes up to the kids hand and they can steer with it. thats the "remote control" part. They had set up a course to drive the cars through here. I got one of the cars, and its coming in may with someone who is coming back to the states...

Homemade Peri peri

Tshepo brought me a baby wipes container with his amazing Peri Peri sauce in it. I ate a bunch of it at the village where we were staying, but there was no way of getting that back in the country.... such a bummer. 

Next time I am going to DHL myself a barrel of the stuff......

Braai

Some nice breads, and some salad (which was really rare), along with the Braai. oh, and my "appletiser" which is like martinelli's sparkling cider. 

Getting online

This is how I was updating the blog in Africa. a Vodafone USB 3G stick. There was like one specific place I had to sit to get reception with it. 

me and the crew again

At the listening party. The whole crew. 

Francisco and Braai

Francisco and the African BBQ, or "Braai."

Crocodile river

As you enter Kruger park. Over the Crocodile river.

High Accident zone

These signs were like every 10km. 

Language ATM

Air Time (minutes)

This concept has still been making my mind explode: "air time", which is what the locals call "minutes" for the cell phones there. Air time is used as CURRENCY there, very much so. The same way we use a debit card instead of cash, people use cell phone minutes to get things as varied as lunch, a blow job, drugs, or any number of things like gasoline or whatever.
     When my laptop drive died, I lost about 7 pages of interviews and notes on the subject, collected over the course of my time in the Nkomazi region. Some of the key facts: for a very minimal amount of cell phone minutes, which with Vodafone/Vodacom having a monopoly on things in southern africa, you can get almost anything. 7 to 10 Rand worth of minutes would probably get you a blow job. 7 rand is ONE dollar. One. Dollar.
     Air time is easily gifted between phones there, as there is a specific way to give your friends, or anyone with a phone number, more minutes from your phone. Thats how it works. There is no such thing as a monthly plan, and when I told someone that I simply had unlimited minutes for a plan that included 4 phones, he just looked at me like I said I had 10 million dollars in every pocket in every pair of pants I have ever owned.
     Air time moves across borders effortlessly, is not specific to your phone, only your SIM card and even that can be retrieved by having a voucher, or basically a receipt of the transaction in cash that shows you purchased X amount of minutes. With no stable bank system and the liability of having cash on hand, this starts to all make sense. Much like carrying a credit card/ check card rather than cash.
    I will be pursuing this concept much more, but I just wanted to quickly post about it today. it is really amazing to me,no matter how much I "get it" it just feels SO random and slightly future-primitive-meets-mad-max or any other crazy vision of a bleak future type thing.... paying with "air time" for drugs... its like a bad sci - fi movie sentiment that is actually happening and very normal to people in South Africa.

Map

Google map of the region

Notice that Swaziland and Mozambique are less than 20mi away in either direction.





View Larger Map

beauty

Kruger park. Super beautiful scenarios around every corner. 

Rhino buns

Driving around Kruger park, saw some Rhino bunz.

Driving on road

Me and Tshepo

Me and Tshepo at the school in Block B or C.

School again

houses

Some houses out in block B or C...

Rental car listen

Some of the most fun moments were during the impromptu listening parties of ruff mixes in the rental car... all 7 of the ccrew would pile in the car and we would crank it up. The rental car was the best reference we had at any given time. I was making the ruff mixes in francisco's headphones that I dont really know or iPod earbuds, which i know okay but they are , um, not my optimum scenario for monitoring during a mix. 

Tshepo and Bongani when we were recording "Brother, my Brother" one of the really beautiful acapella songs. this was reinforcing the bass vocal track with a double. 

School

Just a view at the school where we did most of our recording.

pictures of pipes

At the Samora Machel memorial at the mozambique border. Taking pictures and listening to the amazing sound of this "wind organ."

The best chips (fries)

The best Chips I ever had were made with this machine behind Tshepo's tuck shop. 

He also makes his own PeriPeri sauce... I am craving that sauce right now!!! tshepo, if you read this, for real I will pay to DHL some to me!!!

elegance

Tuck shop view

Got game

I got myself some game. Yeah.

Side note...

As a side note:
it feels FREEZING to me in my 70 degree apartment in brooklyn. Like freezing cold.
Seriously.

more pictures

More pictures coming soon.
    Dealing with getting a new internal drive for my computer. Updating from borrowed computer now.
With WIFI, I should be able to post a clip of one of the ruff mixes soon, hopefully. The voices are so amazing.
      The drive to Johannesburg was fine. The flight to Dakar ( senegal) was fine.
   Then the flight to NYC was fine. All is well. Starting the drive around here, and then getting on to a 767 headed for senegal and ultimately NYC... if felt like getting on a spaceship after the level of technology I had been immersed in for 10 days.
  Its amazing. 10 days feels like nothing in certain ways, and yet I feel an actual bond with ALL of the people that I was working with there... Juddy, Tshepo, Colani, Sizile, Nocker, Bongani, Cosana, Nomvula.... everyone.. Cloe and Skate also.
    As I said in the beginning : more pictures coming soon from  borrowed laptop...

Listening party

Tshepo showing off the ruff mixes Cd. I made one for everyone. We had a sick listening party. 

I woke up and turned on my laptop and the drive was dead. yes. the internal hard drive had died. 397 degree heat and dust at the school all week took it out. Africa took it out. 

SO, I had to transfer everything on my external drives and use the burner on Marika's laptop to make CD's for everyone. Everything worked out. When my drive died, we didnt lose any work, but we lost the ability to DO work, so no more recording, and we leave tomorrow (tuesday). 

We had a seriously fun listening party where everyone jumped up and lip sync'd to their tracks, and then after we all went in the pool, though only a couple of us could swim. I did lose an entire document I had been writing about the trip that was on my desktop, but I know the oints that I touched on, but i will re-write it when I get home and get a new drive in my laptop... damn. maybe I will get a solid state drive.... 

More soon. 

We are going to be stopping at some spots tomorrow on the way back to johannesburg....

more soon from HOME.

The engine from the plane

The plane that Samora Machel went down in. it is on display at the memorial....

Cash register and machete

Francisco and friend

Listening to stuff.

Bongani CHILLIN so hard.

Hilariously chillin in Colani's car.

random shot out the window on the way to the mozambique border... beautiful place.

Red Sand. Green hills.

Bongani ,Francisco, and Tshepo

Public phone

Public phone at tshepo's tuck shop. The crate is tied to the bars on the ordering window so they can hand the land line out to you if you are paying to use it, and you put it on top of this crate and talk away!

The rules are clear

At the langeloop(name of village), the rules are clear, and besides the age requirements... International.