Wonderful Sicily….a Thanksgiving Feast December 7, 2009

We missed all our families back home in the US, but enjoyed some of the most incredible food in the world on a daily basis in three Sicilian towns: Catania, Palermo and Mazara del Vallo.  True to my Thanksgiving-dinner habits I overate regularly.  Especially in the third town, a costal fishing port where we were cooked a fusion Tunisian-Sicilian style lunch by the Foundation San Vito, headed by Father Don Francesco.

But enough about the food, our hosts from the American embassy, Amy Bliss, Giampaolo Arghittu and Italo Malfitano made perfect additions to this traveling Bluegrass-bunch with terrific programming and even a personal tour of Polermo on our day off.

The concert we gave for the students in the High-School in Palermo was particularly exciting since we finally inspired some solo-square dancing in the audience!

We also enjoyed playing in a beautiful night-club on a Friday night in Palermo with a pro-DJ stand behind us and very smartly dressed crowd in front.  Hard Travelin’s the name of the tune….some days were hard, some weren’t so much!

Inside one of the ages-old Catholic cathedrals in Palermo, I discovered this marble wall-sculpture of the story of Abraham from the old testament.  This struck me since we had just left Yemen before the Muslim festival of Eid where we were told for the first time about that story’s significance with the sacred sacrifice of a lamb by Abraham, in place of his son.  We saw countless livestock on the streets of Sana’a being selected for slaughter, much like the turkeys at home!  At the bottom left-hand of the marble cutting, you can see the lamb.
-Taylor

Marble wall-sculpture: Palermo, Sicily. ME and Liz.



Ma’Salama wa Shukran Yemen! November 24, 2009

Well, our time in Yemen was simply fantastic! We all feel that we’re leaving way too soon. We can only hope we can return someday…sooner rather than later!

(Left to right) Ahmed Al-Khalidi, Qanoon; Bandar Sa'sah, Mizmar; Emad Sa'sah, percussion.

Some of us feel that the past couple of days have proven to be a highlight of our careers as musicians. We spent part of our day on Sunday at Bait al-Musiqa (House of Music), meeting and collaborating with some extremely respected local musicians. Extremely respected, and rightfully so. These guys knew what they were doing. I felt enlightened after I left Bait al-Musiqa, thanks to them!

(Left to right) Liz; Kunal Olleri, guitar; Sharooq Mohammed, vocals; Bandar Sa'sah, mizmar. Not pictured: Hussein Rami, oud.

We worked up three numbers for the concert that night, and as we did, it truly felt like we all understood each other on a level that goes way deeper than speaking the same language. As soon as we started playing and planning our tunes, a sense of familiarity set in. Discussions over form, chord progressions, solo order, etc…how musicians figure all of that out is a universal process. I couldn’t understand a word anyone was saying – but there was pointing, passionate discussion, and finally, consensus. Just like a Student Loan rehearsal!

The concert we put on that night was absolutely wonderful, and so much fun! The next day we played an outdoor show at a school, with students, family and friends in attendance. The show had almost a county fair feel, with food stands, balloons, hanging out, and the like. Afterwards, we met with some really wonderful students who are interested in music.

I must say that I really wish we had a longer time in Yemen, and that we could have an opportunity to see more than just Sana’a. I highly suggest that more Americans come see what the country has to offer. In these times, it’s so important to understand that the hype we hear on our *sorry excuses for news stations* is extremely over simplified, stereotypical, and not at all the reality of the situation. And this is why I love these cultural exchange programs so much. It’s an opportunity to bring people together that normally would not be able to interact, to play music together, to perform for one another, to meet each other, to air our grievances, to hear each other out, to discuss, to listen, to understand better, and ultimately, to live in peace. That’s what this is all about.

Thank you, Yemen!

Liz

First Day in Yemen… November 21, 2009

Soundcheck at the Yemen Cultural Center

At Lunch….

After the show…

Hello all! We departed Washington, D.C. on Thursday evening, and arrived in Frankfurt, Germany, on Friday morning with a couple hours to kill before our flight to Yemen. While our tickets merely read Frankfurt to Sana’a, our plane also stopped in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to drop a few people off and pick up one or two more…..we weren’t allowed off the plane, we just stopped in Ethiopia, were there about an hour and then flew on to Sana’a, Yemen where we arrived last night around 10:30 local time and not quite 24 hours after leaving D.C.

We checked into the hotel here and everyone went immediately to bed. This morning we had a brief meeting with the U.S. Ambassador here (everyone behave in front of the head honcho!) at the embassy and then traveled to the Yemen Cultural Center to meet with some local musicians and do an equipment/sound check for our show there tomorrow. Following the sound and venue check we had lunch at a local restaurant: lamb, long-grained rice, shrimp, hummus, fish, giant flatbread/tortilla things, and a whole bunch of other local fare that I didn’t really know what it was. We all agreed that it was good though!

This afternoon brought us to the Yemen American Language Institute for our first actual show of the tour. The audience (mostly teens and early twenties) was full of energy and cheered, danced, laughed and just generally seemed to have a great time. This was our first full show with Taylor on bass and it went fantastic! Everyone enjoyed it (including us!) and following the show we had to do the obligatory photos with all of the students there that wanted to meet us. It was great fun! Young people here are starved for Western Culture and it’s hard to get over how happy they were to see and meet us.

I think after the show today we are happier then ever to be here. It was a great first day on tour as well as first day in Yemen, and we are looking forward to the rest of our time here. That’s it for now, thanks for reading and thinking  of us!

-Mark

Welcome back! November 18, 2009

Hello friends!

The band is back on tour for the U.S. State Department. This time we’re going to Yemen, Sicily, Cyprus and Algeria. Needless to say we’re very excited, and can’t wait to get on the plane tomorrow!

Right now we’re  in Washington D.C., and we just spent a full day getting briefed on each country, interviewing, and eating bad State Department cafeteria food! I tell ya…they should NOT make you go through 15 minutes of security before eating at that place. I’m sure some of our friends at the State Department (like David the Grape Fairy!) would agree with me.

The Student Loan on the Musical Overtures tour, 2009

Some of you may have heard that Julio is unable to join us on this tour. So we have former Rhythm Road musician from the Hoppin’ John String Band, Taylor Bergren-Chrisman: Bass Extravaganzist, with us this time. I’m sure you’ll all have a chance to read his thoughts on the tour and on the band as he gets to know us better and realizes he made a huge mistake!

We’re so glad to start up the blog again! We can’t wait to tell you all about all our adventures.

Tomorrow we leave for Yemen. Another 20 hours later, we’ll get to Yemen! See you there…

Liz

So long Samoa. Fun times in Fiji. March 18, 2009

Where have you guys been?

In short, we’ve finished up our in Samoa with a second primary school concert. The kids were equally enthusiastic and just about as loud as the first group! We also got a chance to perform with our new friends from the Samoan National Orchestra, and it was enthusiastically received. Our final day in Samoa was spent enjoying the island beaches. Chad enjoyed another round of Golf and Mark even went snorkeling!

We’ve got plenty to say about Fiji, but our intenert access time is limited, so we’ll be posting our final two updates in the next couple days. After we return stateside we’ll be compiling pictures and adding general enhancements (and proofreading!) to our past posts. There will be plenty to share and plenty to see, so please keep visiting. While we won’t be overseas anymore, there are still plenty of adventures to be had in the Northwest. I’d like to think that “blog-grass” will catch on.

-Julio

Talofa! (Samoa, March 9-11.) March 14, 2009

After two days of travel which included an nine-hour flight over Australia, an overnight in Aukland, New Zealand, and a touch-down in Tonga, we arrived in Samoa around 10:30 PM, greeted by a quartet of Samoan musicians who made baggage claim a bit more…well…musical. It was a great touch, though I initially wondered if it must be tiring playing for every flight that rolled in. Our embassy escort let me know, however, that only two or three flights come into Samoa daily, so on second thought, it’s a pretty sweet gig!

We woke up on Tuesday, March 10th for the second day in a row (thank you, international dateline) for a day off which included a bit of venue scouting, sight-seeing, a few naps, and walks along the waterfront. Our hotel, Aggie Grey’s, provides a spectacular view of the ocean, mountains, and horizon. While I may be a bit iffy around spiders, I didn’t mind a few small lizards hanging out in the corners of my room, as long as they didn’t mind me sleeping there as well (In the bed, of course. Not the corner). Chad and Mark squeezed in a round of golf, and both agreed that it was the most beautiful course they had ever played on. Now this is what we call a rest day!

On Wednesday, our first show in Samoa ended up being our biggest show thus far! As we completed our setup, the students entertained themselves (and us) with some fantastic group singing. Recalling the musicians singing in baggage claim, we quickly realized that we’d have to be on top of our game vocally with this crowd. The show was mainly a performance, but included some presentation and Q&A time. We kept the emphasis on performance though, since not only was the crowd huge, they were LOUD! The combination of the staggering numbers (1000+ students) and the sheer enthusiasm of the students made for a “Yee Haw” from the crowd that was borderline deafening for us onstage.

In short: Great crowd. Great gig. Great time.

A government-funded organization to promote music education and lessons, the Samoan National orchestra consisted of some formidable violinists (with one doubling as a bassist!), a guitarist, a choir, and a musical director with big plans for the future. We conducted a short workshop with the musicians, read through some small ensemble arrangements, and stuck around to chat with the musicians and parents afterwards. As an added bonus, the show made the cover of the national newspaper, with a color photo of Liz jammin’ “La Cucaracha” with the local aspiring fiddlers.

We ended the day with a dinner at the Ambassador’s residence, where we had a chance to chat with some American military and Peace Corps who were also making Samoa their temporary home. We earned our dinner by playing a few tunes, and returned to the hotel to prepare for our upcoming TV interview and public concert the following day!

March 5-8 Jakarta March 9, 2009

My first impression of Jakarta was very similar to my first impression of Bangkok in many ways. It was a much larger and more modern city than most Westerns assume, and you have to sit in traffic for about an hour and a half to go just a few city blocks. No worries though – our schedualers took all of this into consideration, so there was never any having to rush to avoid being late.  Not to mention that many events in Jakarta work on “Island” or “rubber” time – meant to be stretched.

Our first show was at the famed Rolling Stone Magazine office/venue. We shared the bill with two local bands: The S.I.G.I.T. and “White Shoes & The Couples Company.”  The White Shoes and The Couples Campany in particular seem to be making a real name for themselvs. Their pop/rock/acoustic sound has earned them much local fame, American tours, and even a slot on the upcoming South by Southwest Festival. The Show went great – it started two hours late, we got to do a bunch of media interviews, and it was one of the most energeic and singing alongest crowds we’ve ever played for.

The next day began with two very inspirational workshops. The first was at the Rawinala Foundation, where music is used as theropy for blind children. They played a great kind of music that was a mix of Western and Indonesian musics. So they had guitars, drums, keyboards, gamelans, and all kinds of cool instruments. We played for them, they played for us, then the workshop ended in a huge jam with all of us. We kept playing song after song as the staff and families danced along. The second workshop of the day was at Jakarta State University. There was a student group that once again mixed a lot of traditional music with Western, this time including beatboxing and even some freestyle rap. Very cool.

The next day’s workshop provided the most surprising moments of the tour so far. After we played and spoke for a while, we were followed by a group of Jakarta bluegrass musicians. Top notch at that. They knew all the standards, so of course there was a huge jam session at the end. Also, the event was at a park only a half mile away from where Obama went to school. Small world.

We were then rushed to the Java Jazz Festival. Over 65,000 people, over 1,000 musicians, and only one bluegrass band! As normal for any festival, there were crazy mixups about when we played and on which stage, but it was all worked out. It ended up being an excellent stage/time, because it was right in front of the entrance line, just a couple hours before Jason Mraz was to go on. So we had thousands of jazz and pop fans hearing us as they stood in line. I’m sure many of them wondered what kind of crazy new jazz they were hearing!

So after many many hours in transit (many!), we’ll see ya’ll in Somoa! (Many Hours.)

-Chad

Magic in Medan March 7, 2009

We’re about three fifths of the way through the tour, and I have a new favorite show.

In our first workday in Medan (we had the first day off), we performed two concerts. Our later show was poolside at our hotel, the Hotel Danau Toba. It went incredibly well and we had the amazing opportunity to jam with members of the Band Komunitas Jazz Medan, who joined us on drums and guitar for “Don’t Bring Me Down.”

The earlier show, was a “Street Jammin’” gig with Medan street performers. In attendance, were dozens of locals and easily over 100 young children. While the kids did not immediately warm up to us (As is normal for me, I smiled and waved and a few babies cried in response), they became more responsive when Mark started offering high fives and Liz took a couple enthusiastic fist bumps (*ouch*).  As the kids warmed up to us, we began handing out Student Loan bumper stickers. Immediately, several dozen children mobbed us to get their hands on them. We fortunately had enough for all of them, and in a matter of minutes Student Loan stickers adorned everything from walls and shirts, to foreheads and shins.

What started out as light rain escalated quickly to a smattering, a drizzle, a steady downpour, and eventually an absolute deluge. Our concert crew demonstrated some quick thinking and rather impressive acrobatics as they set up a tent to keep us dry, but the rain apparently took it as a challenge. Eventually the stage was set up and the street musicians began their short set. They sang an original song and an Indonesian traditional song, and we didn’t let leaky umbrellas and an unrelenting rain stop us from enjoying it. They were fantastic, and we would have been even more impressed if we’d seen what awaited us on stage.

By the time we were ready for our set, the rain had turned to a full-on downpour and there was nowhere for me to stand to keep my feet dry, leading to me abandoning my waterlogged shoes and opting for bare feet. We did our absolute best (with some degree of success) to keep the instruments dry, and the electric upright bass simply wasn’t going to happen. With microphone cables sitting in standing water, a leaky roof, a river up to our ankles running under us onstage, and myself on acoustic guitar, we gave Orange Blossom Special the best shot we could. It probably wasn’t our best, but the crowd immediately erupted in dance and applause, needing no prompting whatsoever to get into the spirit of things.

My guitar skills not being quite ready for more burinin’ fiddle tunes, we slowed it down and opted to follow with “Wagon Wheel,” and closed with what has nearly become the anthem for our trip, “Country Roads.” We managed to save the instruments from water damage, but keeping our clothes dry was a lost cause. Chad later said that there’s a certain point where the heavy rain turns from frustrating to fun. We had definitely passed that point. Soaked to the skin, we gladly stuck around for photos, high fives, “Obama bumps,” and pinky handshakes with what may have been our most enthusiastic and crowd so far. The adults and especially the kids had a great time, and we even had an entourage of excited attendees (mostly children) follow us to our vans.

Pure magic.

-Julio

Vietnam: Too short, but sweet! March 6, 2009

Note: We had some minor blog technical difficulties, and were also out of internet area for a few days. As you might realize, we’ve fallen a bit behind. In the next few days we’ll be updating frequently to catch up! Sorry for the delay!

Our late night arrival in Vietnam gave us our first taste of tour-enduced exhaustion. Up until now, we were flying high and having fun taking it all in. However, the two week mark came around (I believe two weeks is exactly the time Monak, our tour manager, gave us), and we all were starting to feel a bit weary.

Another group of friendly and helpful people met us at the chaotic Hanoi airport, and we grabbed our luggage and ventured off into the insane city traffic in our bus. And by insane, I mean crazy! The traffic in Hanoi cannot be properly described with words – you must experience it yourself to truly understand it.

Offer me $1,000 on a dare…I wouldn’t drive there. Granted, everyone has their price. But I’m not sure what mine would be.

***Julio’s side note***
We’ve seen more motorbikes in the last few weeks than we’ve seen in our lives. Perhaps more amazing is the surprising number of items being transported via motor bike/scooter. After seeing some particularly memorable ones in Hanoi, we stopped to recall a few.

Top 10 memorable items transported via motorbike:

• A family of five.
• An armoire (at least six feet tall)
• A live pig
• A television (balanced on the handlebars, powered off)
• A sizable bass amplifier
• A few dozen jugs of antifreeze
• Several bushels of bushel baskets.
• Approximately 50 cases of mangoes
• Lumber (10 foot slats)
• A full sized refrigerator

***Julio returns the mic to liz***

Thankfully, we were able to sleep in a bit the next morning, which alleviated some of the exhaustion we were all feeling. Our first (and only) workshop in Vietnam was at the National University for Art Education in Hanoi – art, music, and theater teachers in training. We got some really great questions from the crowd. Everyone seemed really interested and enthusiastic about bluegrass, which many people had never heard before.

After the workshop, we went over to the American Center and gave another short performance, followed by a very nice reception. I was interviewed by a newspaper writer who had never seen this kind of American music before. She seemed very appreciative that we were showing people a different side of American music, because most people are only familiar with rock/pop music. Julio was interviewed by Vietnam TV, which is a major television network in Vietnam! They asked really tough questions, including, “If you had one sentence, what would you tell the students about the purpose of your tour?” As Julio wrote in a previous blog entry…this was one of those “where am I?” moments.

As what seems usual on this tour, the people we met in Hanoi were gracious, warm, and friendly, and we met plenty of people that will be very hard to forget. But there was not too much time to process our day in Hanoi, because the very next day we were off to Ha Long City.

The drive through the countryside evoked some deep thoughts. Most of my knowledge assumptions of Vietnam come from my high school education of the war and pop culture references…not necessarily the best sources, not to mention that the war ended almost 40 years ago. However the images I had in my head were definitely realized during the drive: jagged mountains in the distance, rice paddies, palm and coconut trees, rows of farmhouses, big-horned cattle plowing the fields, and farmers with their distinctive conical hats. Along with these images, though, I had time to think about my experiences in Hanoi. Despite the country looking like I was expecting, I was coming to realize that Vietnam is an entirely different place than I thought it was. I believe our country’s perception of Vietnam is vastly outdated.

Ha Long Bay was gorgeous. We stayed in the tourist section of the city, which overlooked the water and the mountainous islands. I actually thought that the city was much smaller than it turned out to be, because the tourist section of the city is kind of split off from everything else. When we went into the “real” city for our show, we got a better idea of what Ha Long was like.

We played a show that night for around 200 people, who were all quite shy but seemed to enjoy it just the same. ☺  Then, back to our hotel, and then back to Hanoi the next day!

Our tour in Vietnam ended very well. We played in a beautiful theater that had an incredible sound system. The crowd was enthusiastic, with a couple of “yee-haws” and “woots” thrown in here and there. We got to meet some audience members after the show, which is always great…we love giving away free stuff and talking with people!

It seemed like our visit to Vietnam had ended just as it had begun. The first day we were there, I would hear “you’re in Vietnam,” but I would think, “…uh…Burma?” with some vague recollection of once being in Thailand. Everything is getting strung together in my head – I’m very glad we are keeping a blog (I’m keeping a personal journal as well) to keep it all straight. Our visit here was short – only three full days! It’s unfortunate that we couldn’t stay longer, but there is no time for lingering, and no time for regrets on this tour! Thanks to everyone who made the shows and workshops possible in Vietnam. It was a wonderful experience!

-Liz

To Mandalay and Back March 1, 2009

We’ve gotten a little behind here on the Student Loan blog so I will try to update you and hit the highlights of the last few days. Here we go:

We traveled to the city of Mandalay in Myanmar on February 23rd where we checked into our very nice hotel. They even had warm baths with rose petals in them for us when we got to our rooms! That afternoon we toured Mandalay visiting a shop where the handmake goldleaf for the temples, a street where all the shops are marble carvers, a local youth traditional music and dance troupe, and a school run by a kind and wizened Buddhist monk.

The school was (for me anyways) the best part of the day. The monk (I wish I remembered his name!) started the school many years ago and it has since grown to fill a much needed void in the local community. There are 10 monks at the school, 100 monks in training, 250 teachers, 7000 students, and 400 orphans who call the place home. There were 5 computer labs (how many schools in the US still don’t have computers?) and a health clinic that serves 100 people a day. They can even do eye surgery there! It was a very moving experience and it was amazing to see what one dedicated monk with a desire to help others could accomplish.

The following day (Feb. 24th) we did a 3 hour workshop with the Myoma Mandalay Music Group. This was a really fun group and they were filled with all sorts of questions about our style, instruments, playing techniques, etc. We also listened to some of them perform which was a fun treat and then spent a bit of time after the workshop meeting people, taking photos, and so on. It was a great time!

That evening we were scheduled to have an outdoor performance for about 300 people. The local government would neither grant nor deny us permission to play (nobody wanted to piss off the higher ups) so there were a few question marks as to whether or not the concert would actually happen. We had a security attache’ who had several meetings with government officials and in the end the concert took place as scheduled (although we never actually got permission to have it). This was the first performance by a western group in Mandalay in over 40 years and everyone was very excited about it. As we began playing the crowd grew larger and larger until we had well over 450 people inside the venue and several hundred more who stayed outside and watched through the fence for fear of government retribution. They loved us! As soon as we finished playing we were mobbed by the crowd who were grabbing us for pictures, hugging us, shaking our hands, getting autographs and just generally ecstatic. We spent well over an hour meeting people after the show. All in all a huge success and a wonderful day.

On February 25th we traveled back to Yangon and did an unscheduled performance at the American School there which was fairly short and unadvertised but still managed to have at least a hundred people at it. We had dinner at the home of our guide from the embassy and then returned to our hotel to spend our last evening in Burma.

Burma/Myanmar was a fantastic country to visit and way above any of our expectations. The view we get of Burma in pop culture (Rambo 4 anyone?) was not at all what we actually experienced and while it was quite obvious that the government is paranoid and overzealous, we found the Burmese people to be kind, warm, friendly and just generally wonderful. Add to that the beauty of both the landscape and the Buddhist temples (which are everywhere and some are as much as 3000 years old) and Burma is one of the greatest places on earth. The morning of our departure arrived with sun-up on the 26th and we made our way to the airport to travel to Vietnam and the next chapter of the tour.

-Mark