Friday 15th October
I was up in time for breakfast at the Hippocampos on the Friday, and had my netbook on the table like some kind of demented international businessman. The email forwarding that I had carefully set up before setting off seemed not to be working. I emailed Liz about it, and wandered down to the harbour for a coffee.
Liz heroically restarted my home machine, and went through the forwarding settings on the end of an international phone call in absolutely heroic style, and proper communications were sorted out. I find Skype and email in Greek bars really useful, and wasting time blogging about what I am eating and drinking is also quite satisfying. I am nerdy.
After a pleasant lunch at the Roloi, I wandered along to register for the conference. I overheard one of the musicians pretending to complain about "three whole days in D Minor". After registering, and chatting with quite a few people, I went for a walk around the town. I was surprised to see To Steki, scene of so many splendid meals and jam sessions in earlier years, was closed. It turned out that Argyris died, I think of influenza, which made me quite sad. The donkey in the picture belongs to Xristos, who I think was co-owner, but has gone back to working with donkeys. I greeted him a couple of times, but I don't think he recognised me. Then I went off and had a proper siesta, to prepare myself for the evening.
We started the evening at Dalakos' Cafe in the market place, with a good crowd of the regular musicians playing many favourite Rebetiko tunes. One of the locals, in the picture below, enjoyed it so much he bought us all drinks. I made some recordings, which have quite a lot of cheerful chatter on them, as well as the music. And then we went off to Loulou's. On the way, I heard Ed Emery plying ceilidh music on his baglama, which was interesting, to say the least.
The majority of conference goers opted to eat outside Loulou's this year. I had a couple of beers with my "lamb and potatoes". From the size of the chops, they were mutton, not lamb, but they were also delicious. When people finally got round to playing music, they moved under the awning, which meant all the conference people were unable to get close.
I couldn't get decent recordings, so I wandered away and talked to some interested tourists who wanted to know about the music. That gave me an excellent opportunity to record a spontaneous outburst of Irish music by Ed Emery on baglama, Peyman Heydarian on santouri and someone I don't know using a wide Greek drum as a bodhrán. They were joined by brave Sir Nick with his tetrachordo bouzouki, and made a fine sound. When they stopped, I gave up and went back to the hotel.
