kora

I was looking through some old pics I took on my dodgy phone camera and found this photo of a kora player Ba Cissiko, from Guinea in west Africa. I recorded his band at the Opera House a few years ago.  The kora is that thing the guy is holding in front of him.  It's made from a gourd and plucked really quickly with both thumb nails.

I wish I still had the rider for that gig as it was something else. In Guinea they speak French, and whoever had translated the rider into English must have just used an online translater, because there was some really weird stuff going on.   The technical requirements included requests for the facade and ring roads.   Not normally the language of tech specs.  One assumes the facade was meant to refer to front of house and ring roads was referring to auxiliaries.

But the best bit was the request for 8 foot baths on stage.  Martin audio foot baths even.  Fold back, foot baths, they're all the same!