K23 Orchestra

No último ano, altura em que estive em San Diego, conheci uma banda um pouco por acaso no Art Walk, uma festa artística de rua do meu bairro de Little Italy. A banda chamou-me a atenção e acabei por me sentar no meio da rua a vê-los tocar. No fim assinei a mailing list e comprei-lhes um cd. A banda não trazia propriamente nada de novo, não inovava muito no estilo. Tinha uma parte instrumental bem trabalhada, num funk jazzístico que me cativou desde o início. Boa precursão, bons rifs de guitarra, boa linha de baixo, boas sequências no teclado. Mas o que mais chama a atenção nesta banda é o vocalista, que é também o letrista e mentor. Por cima daquele jazz funk cadenciado o vocalista debita frases de poesia falada, que muitos poderiam cair na tentação de chamar hip hop, mas que eu insiro mais na categoria da spoken word. As letras são poemas sobre a vida, as pessoas, o mundo, com alguma crítica social e política ou apenas com uma visão desassombrada e irónica da vida. Ele é frenético, sarcástico e observador. Ainda o outro dia ouvia o cd que comprei e que regista um concerto da banda e lembrei-me daquela figura negra e esguia debitar versos uns atrás dos outros. Como digo, a banda não me apresentou nada de novo, mas era um som agradável e competente com boas letras urbanas e que ficou da minha aventura nos EUA como uma pequena descoberta.
Mas o que é melhor desta banda, o que mais me faz lembrar que algures no sul da Califórnia existe uma banda chamada K23 Orchestra, são os emails da mailing list que vou recebendo. Nestes emails o vocalista anuncia novos concertos, na zona de San Diego e um pouco por toda a Califórnia e estados adjacentes, tal como tece considerações sobre concertos anteriores e descreve ironicamente as intermináveis viagens de uma cidade para a outra na carrinha da banda. É uma espécie de diário que ele nos deixa sobre os assuntos relacionados com os K23 Orchestra e que ilustra com particular sentido de humor as incidências da vida de uma pequena banda. Os textos de Alfred Howard, o guro dos K23 Orchestra, são bastante bem escritos, num estilo corrido e leve mas com um grande sentido crítico e de observação. Nem sempre leio os emails até ao fim, mas sempre que o faço dou o meu tempo por bem empregue e termino a tarefa com um sorriso nos lábios. Vou deixar-vos algumas passagens dos últimos emails que recebi desta divertida banda do sul da Califórnia. Deixo-vos também o link para a página oficial da banda e para a do MySpace para que possam explorar um pouco, ouvir algumas músicas e ver alguns videos. Procurei no site a inscrição na mailing list, mas não a encontrei, pelo que se estiverem interessados devem enviar-lhe um email que ele por certo aceitará as vossas inscrições. Não se preocupem que eles não vos massacram com mails todos os dias. Não irão receber nem um por semana. Desculpem-me a quantidade de excertos que para aqui transcrevi, mas estão aqui deliciosas crónicas da banda. Espero que gostem.

Site Oficial
Página da banda no MySpace

Download de Concertos:
The Blue Cafe
Wakarusa
Joshua Tree
Artwalk
The Loft, Tempe Arizona


Aqui ficam então os excertos:

“Once again the K23 has been nominated for San Diego's best Hip-hop group. This is your opportunity to vote for us and make us more enemies in a hip-hop community that already doesn't like us. Voting is very easy and takes about .5 seconds so we would appreciate it greatly if you went to sdmusicawards.com and cast a vote. Please feel free to write us in for any other category as well, we gave best country band a good run last year and we're hoping to take best pop this year.”

“…the room we were playing in was the size of my Grandmother's living room and had some of the same furniture in it, and the stage was about the size of my Grandmother's kitchen counter making Josh actually a member of the audience as well as the band. His keyboard and organ were set up in the doorway leaving about a foot of space between his back and the doorwoman. Thus, anyone over 93 lbs. trying to meander into the club through the slender corridor (made of his back and her front) they were destined to bump into him. One older cat fueled by excessive hipness and bunches of alcohol even sang a song into his ear during one of ours, about what I don't know, though I can only imagine.”

"As for the remainder of you, we'd love for you to come down to the Belly Up on Friday, August 25th for the official CD Release Party. It will be an event to remember. Vegitation and Deadline Friday will open, there will be live art while we play, we'll be headlining the venue for the first time so we literally need every single person we know to come down, even the people who don't like us. Anyone who I ever made fun of in an email, this would be a great show to come down and exact your revenge (not only would this pack the house, but I would probably be seriously injured). That guy at the protest who wanted to beat my ass for reading an anti-war poem, why don't you come down and bring a friend or two, we can rumble during set break as part of the entertainment (by the way go to google and type in "failure", you'll see that I was right). To all those people I owe money to, this would be a great show to come out for, we can talk and I can hopefully put off my debt for another month or so, but it would be good to see you. To anyone who was mad at our keyboardist for hitting a bear in Idaho (this includes the bear) this would be the show to come to come down and voice your opinions (this should help us get some tree-huggin twirlers in the place as well as some free thinkin vegan anarchinst, which is exactly what we're going for, this might even get and a couple of bears down to the show, bears are generally large and will fill out the room thus impressing the venue). To anyone who has left something important at my house, but not important enough to come back to get it (basically all the movies, cds and clothes that I own are actually other people's who forgot them in my room), I'll bring a big trash bag of your stuff to the Belly Up and you can claim it. It's like a free yard sale with a great soundtrack, what more could you want. So pretty much what I'm trying to say here (sorry for the screaming tones of desperation) is please come to the Belly Up on Friday August 25th, if you need a discounted presale ticket for $10 email me (k23orchestra@hotmail.com) and we can make arrangements or if the Belly Up is close they have them at the box office. It will be our first show in town since early July and I personally promise it will be a great vibe all evening."

"I just found out that my mom is going to fly out for the show, so I urge you all to come out. If room is not full of people I'll get lectured about how I made the wrong career choice and should have walked the route of Doctor instead of starving artist, not to mention an unwelcome side of embarrassment served up in the presence of mom."

"We all have stinky feet from time to time. In fact this might be the grand unifier, a commonality that all humanity can share, just like facial expressions. Blacks, Whites, Asians, Hispanics and other (I love that term in that context), all of us beneath the sun as one with smelly feet. I bet even after a hard day of being ridiculously attractive, Scarlett Johansson comes home with a stinky foot. But I digress………..the scent emitted from Josh's "no sock" sneaker after only the first day of the journey was just out of control. Banished instantly to ride on top of the van, with a discontent highway wind asking why he had to suffer though this, Josh's dirty shoes will go down in the history of the stinky foot."

"Al Goes swimming!!! On the surface this doesn't sound very significant, but let me give you a list of things that have occurred with greater frequency over the past 3 years.

Tool Releases Albums

U.S. goes to War

Carrot Top made me laugh

South Park put out an episode that both me and my Grandmother could enjoy

I purchased lobster

I'm about as graceful in the water as George Bush reading Hamlet from Memory (and though I haven't seen this I think it is a safe assumption). It was like the answer to one of those "How hot was it jokes." It was soooooooo hot, al howard went swimming. I also didn't drown which is pretty sweet as well, thanks Yuba River."

"The Dirty Gig - Though this may be the header for more then one on the list, our Quincy Cali gig was particularly rough. Any time you're standing next to a dog terd and the fly chooses to land on you, you know that you desperately need a shower. It was a combination of hot camping, hiking, 9 hours of driving, fried food, lack of sleep and free beer. If you were to lick your finger you could write "Wash Me" on my chest (though I would have asked you "Just what exactly do you think you're doing?") So all apologies to anyone I hugged in Quincy, I did it with both love and trepidation."

"Last time we were in Arcata we were hanging out in the parking-lot of their Coop, eating our Dutch Crunch sandwiches (those were the days), when this kid came up to us and asked if we had a cigarette to spare. Someone went to answer "no" but before that could happen, my friend Anthony, who was traveling with us, fell to the ground laughing. I was wondering what was so funny, but before I could wonder any further I looked down and saw an open zipper with one ball coming out for air. Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! I did the bad car accident look away, checked back to make sure that was what I saw and that it wasn't a paper sack through a pocket hole or something, was greeted a second time by the atrocity, then looked away permanently. I'm pretty sure Anthony said something like "S*^t Son, you need to put your balls away and forget the cigarette….. Son!" Anthony's fun to have around. 6 months have passed since the original Nut-boy experience. But low and behold, as we stood outside the Humbolt Brewing Company, a mere 2 weeks ago, none other then Nut-boy strolled up and started talking to us about the subject of spare change and how he could use some. The odd thing was that Nut-boy was rockin my style, un-kept afro, plaid pants, fraying shirt and a hoodie. He looked like a mirror of what would have been if I hadn't quit drugs. This time nut-boy's boys were locked up and behind a zipper, our little nut-boy is becoming a Nut-man. I'm so proud."

"Somewhere on a winding highway between Idaho and Montana, a Black Bear darting out in front of our van. At the time we were going about 70 miles per hour. We We hopped out of the van and lookedLswerved, broke and unfortunately hit him. back in remorse and he lay lifeless in the middle of the road. Josh, who was driving, was on the verge of tears (and as much as a strong force told me to make fun of him a higher force made me feel teary eyed as well). We waited, contemplating what to do. We weren't sure if we should walk back there and check him out, what if one of his buddies was pissed off and wanted to fight Josh (which we would have allowed, Josh is from Lakeside, he can hold his own). After about 10 minutes of standing there, tearing up on the side of the road, the bear jumped up and ran extremely fast into the forest. He just needed a power nap. Hooray, we were very happy and drove on, much slower, and with a crack in the side panel of our van with some bear fro puffing out. Somewhere in northern Idaho there is an angry vengeful bear plotting for the K23's return. "

Link