This has been a marvelously musical weekend, so much so that I feel I ought to commemorate it somehow.1

First up, Thursday night was a concert by Αψιλίες (Apsilies), in the Tropentheater.2 Great musicians, although the concert had a slightly uncomfortable feeling. There is something odd about an audience sitting silently listening to carefully-amplified musicians on a stage… playing rembetika. Much nicer in a café with a bit of background noise (although not too much!), a full table, and a steady supply of wine. Anyway.

During the concert guitarist Dimitris Mistakidis (whose album of rembetika songs arranged for guitar we have) let one of his secrets slip, as a result of which I can now play a creditable Εφουμέρναμε ένα βράδυ (We were smoking one night) — turns out it’s very easy in open tuning (that was the secret), and matches my vocal range rather well.3 The song is about smoking hash on a water-pipe, and having to hide everything because a policeman comes in: “Hey policeman wait, let the pipe burn, so the Turk can smoke, he’s such a nice little Dervish.”

Then on Saturday I spent a few hours chopping wood at a friend’s garden-house. Excellent therapy after a rather stressful week at work, but also a great opportunity to repeat some rembetika lyrics ad nauseam, so that they really stick. As a result of which, I can now sing Στην υπόγα (In the basement).4 Unfortunately I’m not sure exactly what I’m singing: the slang is so thick (and so dated) that Olga couldn’t decode it all for me.5 But it’s a similar sort of story: as the song starts someone is beating a mangas (a “rembetika dude”) in the basement behind the barracks, but it quickly gets derailed by concerns that the water pipe has gone out and has to be relit, and that Mitsos (good name for a mangas) is room-stoned.

Latest addition to my vocabulary on the back of these two songs: ντουμάνι (doumani), meaning smoke, which appears in both of them. Tells you something about rembetika themes.

Then last night we went to the cleverly-named Restaurant I-Grec6 for an Easter music session. Played a lot, drank a lot, saw some highly impressive belly-dancing, got home at three in the morning. Which counts as early by Greek standards.

Last but not least, after all this rembetika-related enthusiasm we have decided to attend the Music Village this year. It’s a music festival which takes over a village in Pelion for two weeks, with all manner of courses and workshops to follow and (of course) lots of concerts to see too. We’re going for the week with “Folk and popular Greek music” and I expect I’ll follow the rembetika course (given by two members of Αψιλίες, as it happens). Olga is still vacillating: rembetika, accordion, or theory of improvisation… the “problem” appears to be that there will be too much wonderful stuff to see and learn and do. So that’s exciting. Remains to be seen how we will pay for it, and what rearrangements I’m going to have to make to get the time free (after already bending the rules slightly to get our New Zealand trip in December) but we’ll manage somehow.

Notes:

  1. And I note that the last entry was published more than a month ago; folks at home who use this blog to reassure themselves that I’m still alive might be starting to worry a bit. [↪]
  2. The Tropentheater promotional information on these guys has a strangely loose relationship with the truth; there is some suspicion that they might have confused them with another group entirely in writing the biographical bit. Or someone was just feeling creative that day. [↪]
  3. Unusual, because my vocal range is hardly a “range” at all, unless you squint at it sideways in a dim light. Thankfully the rembetika atmosphere tends towards the dim and squinty, and purity of tone is not a necessary virtue among rembetika singers, at least the male ones. [↪]
  4. I say “sing”… well, more or less. See above note about my vocal abilities. [↪]
  5. Google translate is amusing, but not helpful, in these sorts of situations. [↪]
  6. Ok, only clever if you’re Dutch, and if you know that it’s a Greek restaurant in IJburg. Satisfied? [↪]