Hello. Thanks for coming. Please, sit down. This may take a while.
My name is Jacob, I am studying percussion in Ghana from now until February and this here is my 'blog'. It is now officially up or running. It has been a while since my last post in which I exclaimed that my world tour had begun. In a display of marketing genius, I then didn't post anything for two months – just building suspense and hype. Now that I have you all good and hyped, let me fill you in on what's been going on.
In July, I travelled to the US with my mother and sister to attend a conference. This part of the story is family holiday stuff and not going to be told here. In short, we spent a few weeks hanging around LA, San Diego, Santa Clara and San Francisco. I had some milkshakes. All was good.
My original plan was to remain in the US after my mother and sister had travelled back to Australia – I was on my way to Ghana but couldn't arrive there until early September. I planned to travel to New York and hang around there for four weeks doing I'm-still-not-quite-sure what. As it happened, romantic affairs (of the heart) changed my plans somewhat. I was missing Penelope (my lover) and didn't like the idea of not seeing her for another six months so I decided to fly back to Melbourne in mid August for two weeks. As my flight to Ghana was already booked via New York, I had to return to the US. Trying to delay our impending separation, Penelope and I both went to New York for nine days. In New York we walked around a lot, drank milkshakes, ate pancakes, went up the Empire State Building, ate at a fancy restaurant, saw some music and bought some 'flip flops'. It was a lovely nine days and New York is good. That's all.
Then I flew to Ghana and Penelope went back to Australia. We were sad.
Now, I've been in Ghana for a week and a half. I got here for the last couple of days of the Kusun Study Tour which meant that I ended up helping the students out with their final performance, playing some solos or something like that. That was interesting. The tour then ended and the students gradually left. For the first week or so, I was really just hanging around, waiting to move into another room and enjoying Ghana. Once everyone had left, I set up in my room... and that's about it so far. Things move fairly slowly here. I watched Ocean's Eleven and The Rock, that was good.
So, that's where I've been and where I'm at. Here's where I'm going.
I'm planning to travel to Senegal or Gambia at some stage in the next month, but need to get some info. Penelope is coming to visit in November and again in January and my friend Sam (not my lover) is coming in December. I have just today started having some lessons with Theofo (my teacher), which is what I'll be doing most days while I'm here. I will have lessons from other teachers too, but am still warming up to that. I've been training with the Kusun ensemble (the band that teaches on the study tour) and will keep doing that. Additionally, I will be writing music.
My professional business colleague, Kanchana, and I have a nifty little musical outfit called Fat Gold Chain. We produced and released our debut EP in about April or May or something earlier this year (we're happy to sell it to you, if you would like). We're pretty much on a gigging hiatus at the moment as I am in Ghana and Kanchana is in Australia, but while we're apart we're planning to release regular Fat Gold Chain material online. I'm going to produce a weekly podcast which will basically be something new that we have made. A song or something, you'll see. I have a grand concept of creating enough material for about 5 albums, each with different themes and together telling the story of Fat Gold Chain.
Sounds wanky, huh? It probably is, but I would like to do it all the same. We'll see how we go. Regardless, there should be a fair bit of Fat Gold Chain activity on this here internet.
So, while I'm away, since you're interested, there are three things you should do to make sure that you're up to date with me and Fat Gold Chain.
1) You should subscribe to this blog
2) You should subscribe to our blog at fatgoldchain.com
3) You should subscribe to our podcast (I'll post a link when it's in iTunes).
I am aware that 'should' is a very strong word and I am using it as aggressively as I know how. So there.
Also, to finish with a shameless plug, check out Fat Gold Chain and listen to our music – our EP is available for download from our website or iTunes. If you really love it and want a physical copy of our EP, please send us an email.
Thanks for reading, feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Please subscribe.
If you want to, of course.
But do anyway.
Love from Jacob.
No comments:
Post a Comment