Naughty Noor Nice: a great Holiday warm up!!

It’s holiday season…again, and that means I could look forward to another episode of Naughty Noor Nice!

NNN is a lovely collaboration of people that seriously enjoy music and want to have fun playing it.

It is about a little bit R rated, humoristic view on Christmas. Although I guess that the rules of the venue, my trusted Blu Jaz café 3^rd floor, already take care of the R restriction.

Naughty Aya Sekine

Noor Mohammed Noor

Nice Joanna Dong

Or is it

Naughty Joanna

Noor Noor

Nice Aya

I never remember. I was even more confused with who was being who, that evening because Joanna and Aya looked like the embodiment of Yin and Yang. 

Anyway Noor, though very nice is always Noor, or is he…?

For more good looks and a bit of a serious note the band had added Hiro Maekawa on Bass.

Though even he could not always keep a straight face.

NNN + Hiro presented a long list of songs with cleverly altered or fully rewritten lyrics, and a large number of guests, to put up an entertaining Christmas show, that will be number one on my list for a long time to come

The show started off with a blizzard visit (apologies for the Dutchism) of James Flynn, 

who, together with Joanna, aside from promoting his show for this evening at the Sultan, set the tone for the rest of the evening; naughty on a slippery slope!

To the level where Joanna had to step in

 and step up! 

After quite a bit of fun we were surprised with a visit of the man himself.

I don’t want this to be a gossip column but I got the impression that Santa and Joanna had spent quite a bit of time together this past year.

Santa was only the introduction to more guests, Lily Anna Nuris came to decorate the stage with color. 

Noor received assistance from “drummer boy”  Teo Jia Rong.

 

Leonardo Mendoza stopped by for some of his cool solos on his Electronic Winter Instrument,

as Sebastian Ho (3x) stepped up the stage to add more cheer.

As said an awesome holiday show, which make you wonder, wouldn’t the rest of Singapore want to see this too. It’s a perfect way to warm up some of these cold faces.

 

 

 

 

MAAD rush for Mars and the United Nations

 eclipse - the dark side of Mars

Marcel had told me it was only going to be 30 minutes, but I did not expect it would start that timely. So we arrived probably 10 minutes into the set at the Red Dot museum, where Mars and the United Nations:

Thorsten Vieth on keyboards, 

Shahferi Ahpek on drums, 

Roman Tarassov on lead guitar, 

Michael Avery on bass, 

Marcel Heijnen on vocals and guitar.

 They were playing a half hour gig as part of the regularly returning MAAD Pyjamas arts and crafts fair.

So with 20 minutes left there was just enough time to rig up the monopod and take a few photo’s and listen to the band perform some real fun covers and originals. Not a lot of time for even a short story, but I hope you enjoy the shots.

Tony Lakatos & Jeremy's Organ Trio go solo!

I don’t know if any of you ever had to do without using your, as I heard someone call it, primary hand. It’s to say the least challenging I can conclude. But I also understand that it is hardly the worst thing in the world. I also had the time to anticipate and prepare and think of all kinds of ways to make it work. During the course of my temporary handicap I have to say I became a lot handier with my, I guess then, “secondary” hand, even to the point where I was able to manage chopsticks without any practice.

I moved my mouse to the left hand side a long time ago and typing with one hand is becoming easier by the day. Biggest computer challenge is cntrl alt del to start my computer at work, that is still a bit of a stretch. 

Last weekend I decided to go see Jeremy Monteiro’s Organ Trio:

Jeremy Monteiro

Rick Smith

Wen Ming Soh 

featuring Tony Lakatos.

I have not seen a good instrumental only Jazz gig in a while and was in the mood for one. 

Then of course I came to realize that my pictures and blog are a big part of the after fun and I had to address the problem of taking pictures with one hand.

I decided to try it with a monopod. Since I take most of my photos from a seat, a monopod could work out, I thought. As far as the one handed operation is concerned I think things were fine, I’ll leave you to judge the outcome.

I stayed for two sets that night, and it answered all my hopes for some good solid instrumental jazz. The organ trio was awesome.

Jeremy sounding cool as ever

but I am almost more impressed by how much fun he appears to be having every gig 

Wen, again tucked away in the far dark corner of the Sultan’s stage was providing a show nevertheless. 

Rick, who is always good for soulful solos, 

seemed to have found his soul mate in Tony, musically but also by the narrow bar of beard both men feature.

I left the Sultan content. I listened to some good live music and singlehandedly operating my camera with a monopod seemed to have worked out as well.