it all starts at Budapest airport, Geza comes to pick me up at the landing,
he rings a 666 taxi...hell we head to Budapest its late in the evening,the beauty and majesty of Saint...Cathedral
strikes me immediately, Jews-Protestant-gipsies-catholics and the river Danube have helped produce an equilibrated
mixture of elegance coupled with sense of history, this same cultural mixture that has the vibration fuzzing all over the place.
We stop at Margaret bridge, this is going to be my pied a terre during my stay,
a quick one and we head for a walk, funny enough the sound of people talking is so similar to that of some northern city of Italy that i seem to understand what people say ....but....but... a more careful listen and I realize this language has nothing to do with Italian nor with any languages I ever heard....luckily I am not alone, still historians and anthropologist are battling to understand where this population and its language has come from(Mongolia...Finland...who knows).
The next day I am set to see Keiser of Crate Soul brothers who has invited me to spin some records
at their now regular spot, the A38, which is a restructured boat from the communist era
now transformed into a breathtaking terrace overlooking the Danube.
The Crate Soul Brother opens it up, we cheers, he is producing an extremely complex texture made of
Rare grooves, Afrobeat, Dub and Broken flavours, I stand behind him, we nod and smile,people try to understand....
Keiser nods and smiles....in a while.
Trans global underground follows, we have a couple of paffs and sit down with a beer, Hami of TGU is playing
some indian flavoured stuff,sometimes adding some exotica a la Les Baxter states Keiser,
his mate and associate at TGU follows, some two step a couple of Russian hard core remixes...we play table soccer,meet new friends specially Kork from Tilos radio and his girlfriend an excellent forward.
Kork invites me to spin at Sizget music festival the next day,
i meet a guy from Peacc who tells me this city in the south of Hungary is extremely cool and he knows
a couple of Italian artist living there...i say i wanna go there at some point...the breeze of the Danube caressing.
Then I am on, i remember some of the tracks, we are back on jazz: Art Blakey,Roy paci and Aretuska,Jaguar Wright remixed....people dance...than Keiser joins for a back to back we decide to go for socially minded tunes
Marvin Gaye,Gill SCott Heroen,Marlena Shaw....Keiser drives me back home again on a 666 taxi...hell.
The next day I take a boat from Margit island and head for Sizget. The festival is huge, is like an island full with something like 80.000 people there is no corner in the whole area where you are free of music....
I arrive at the Tilos tent, Kork and his mates are finished with their set,I join them for a beer and meet with
Suefo his girlfriend and one of her friend.
We drink a beer and head towards the main stage where Massive attack is lined up...we wait half an hour and still they are not out,
we decide to leave(we are told the concert was not that good anyway) and head for the main stage wheer Goran Bregovic is lined up... on the way we stop for a tzigan concert. The music is really engaging all unplugged and played by something like 15 people in original costumes...splendid...everyone is dancing, we walk to Bregovic and there we are, the crowd is up for it and they deliver...a stomping half hour...we dance and cheers to the music, again something like 13 piece band with the horn section with those that special Balkan instruments 3 choristers the drummer and a percussionist...we eat bread and onions,and a special sugar bread...I am happy like a kid. we talk about Trojan records about our feelings with things and music, the girls keep on disappearing only to re-appear briefly...
Suefo invites me to join him the next day.
I arrive at the record shop where Suefo works,quick breakfast, and we head towards the Tilos radio, their show is on at 2pm,
its name is Mana Mana....now maybe not all of you know that
"... originally the track "Mah na Mah na" was deposited in Siae with the name 'Viva la sauna svedese(viva the swedish sauna)' it was the soundtrack of the documentary 'Svezia inferno e paradiso(Sweden heaven and hell) 1958' by Piero Umiliani later pubblished in the US as the B side to the track "contestazione(....)" taken from the same documentary.
"manamana(oh no oh no)" are the words pronounced when the two Italian actors see swedish girls coming out of the sauna...
now this 40 seconds part of the documentary with a simple cut and paste and subsequent stretching are re-pubblished as a 45 in the US and gain enormous success when Benny Hill decides to adopt them for his show...
the rest is history with the muppet show, Leroy Holmes,Giorgio Moroder and countless others"
(taken from an interview by Francesco Adinolfi with Piero Umiliani)
(the original mix containing also contestazione has been published by Easy Tempo in 1995: mah-na Mah-na - The original mix).
Well we think that the right tribute to this precious people,
was that to open again our web syte,which was developed as a concept and thus finished, to pubblish the radio show playlist.
You know the link www.oocities.org\playsit0803
Keep on those cosmic links and vibes,
keep on digging,
Keep the effort to make this earth a more ethical place.
B.I.G UP to Keiser(Tibi) of the Crate soul brothers, Suhaid @ West balkan, Dj Balance for having me as guest @ Mokka,
Geza for being a splendid host and for giving me the original version of 2001 A Space Odissey Soundtrack on LP
and Suefo, Kork and the girls for giving me bliss.
Jazzghisa On behalf of the whole Zerogravity crew.