elephant songs #0 – surprise prologue

Madras, South India, 13 January 2012 A few days ago I had an enjoyable hour of chatting and playing on Yugi Sethu’s talkshow, in the company of friend & multi-talented singer Yogeswaran Manickam, also known as Yoga. The show is scheduled to be broadcast next Saturday, 21 [...]

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bullet, hanh?

I noticed them for the first time in 2004. Beautiful design, and a sound that makes a Harley hang its head and weep. I decided to one day ride a Royal Enfield Bullet to Europe, passing through all those countries I’d so far only seen through an [...]

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oto.3 these days (and: movie edit!)

After editing the footage of riding through Nepal, included in “mountains! please?” iMovie was no longer the intimidating dark cloud that had stopped me from putting up clips of the oto.3 concerts in Amsterdam in the early summer. So here it is [...]

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till the cows come home

Oohhh I like it here. Warm and welcoming and friendly. Mister Gautam showed me my room in the Government Resthouse – a small palace, slightly crumbling in a grandiose way. A bath room full of big black ants and their deceased kin, a western toilet, and hot [...]

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test ride day one – my way is the highway

Got up in my Nautanwah hotel just before sunrise, brushed my teeth, paid my rs 50, and pushed the bike out of the courtyard. It was still there! Even the petrol! Was feeling a little apprehensive about leaving it there last night after some semi-aggressive guy kept [...]

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siddhartha’s way

Taking off from Pokhara, I easily found the Siddhartha Highway. This road was constructed in the 1960s, providing some of the much-needed employment for the two thousand Tibetans that ended up in Pokhara, having been relocated there from refugee camps near the Tibetan border. After the Chinese [...]

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mountains! please?

Last night in Pokhara, and I realised I didn’t know where to get a nice thukpa. This was after the restaurant I counted on for acces to their wifi network (conveniently available from my hotel room but in need of a password) turned out to be already [...]

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lalala – a week in kathmandu

Two crows in a tree are fighting over a flattened rat. I don’t quite get the excitement (just how nutritious can that dried out piece of fur still be? maybe it’s just status) but it’s an entertaining spectacle I’m watching from behind my breakfast (omelet on toast [...]

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monday match

Dancer Irene van Geest and myself felt honoured being asked to curate a Monday Match, a night in the montly series of music & dance improvisation at the Amsterdam Bimhuis. We were very happy to get a large & inspiring cast together: Peter Cseri, Lily Kiara, Silvia [...]

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underwear gig @ studio 7, 12 august 2011

Before rushing off to the Buurtboerderij to jam on Pumporgan tunes with Dirk Bruinsma, Jasper Stadhouders, and John Dikeman, I had the honour of playing in Sharon Smith’s rock band in Studio 7, put together by the inimitable Katie Duck. El Torrero on electric bass (an object [...]

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dikeman & van der weide & van hulzen @ fat form, 6 august 2011

Breed begrip: an instant jazz trio on a rainy roof in Amsterdam Bijlmer. Enveloped by the smell of chocolate brownies, the sound of heavy summer (?) rain, and the curious attention of a varied audience, saxophonist John Dikeman, cellist Raoul van der Weide, and I, drummer Robbert [...]

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riding the bullet in south india, february 2011

Nayana organised a Bullet for me when I was in Bangalore a few weeks ago. On this visit, I was lucky enough to borrow it again, so I could find out how I liked a somewhat longer trip on a bike like that. And do I really [...]

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those fucking fish, what is it with those fucking fish, man

It’s unbelievable. You look at the sea. You swim in the sea. You stick your feet wash your hands cool your skin get salty make love get sunburnt in the sea. But then that’s not actually in the sea. It’s more on the sea. In-the-sea is another [...]

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  • ELEPHANT SONGS

    Elephant Songsis a band with an always changing line-up: new musicians join drummer Robbert van Hulzen each time he stops in an interesting place on his way from Chennai (South India) to Amsterdam (Holland) on a vintage Enfield motorcycle loaded with drums. Fourteen countries, 15,000 kilometres, who knows how many months.
    Elephant Songs is the optimistic inversion of the old story of the blind men and the elephant. Everyone experiences music differently, but we can always create a piece of music together, whatever we call it and wherever we come from. Each fresh combination of musicians plays music that is the result of a few days of working together, playing tunes from Robbert's Elephant Songbook and pieces brought by the other members-of-the-moment.
    Elephant Songs often involve odd metre rock grooves, filmic melodies, South Indian rhythm games, homespun harmonies, and an imperceptable balance between composition and improvisation.
    Of each meeting, a track is published on nocount.org; after arriving in Europe, a full album will be released.