Get Up! March BAM Show Recap

Photo by Jose Ivey

 I know it’s been over a month since the BAM show, but the wheels just keep on turning. Meaning, it can be challenging to find a spot in the day to write. Then before you know it a month has gone by. Of course I could have just posted some photos and let you all gaze upon them until I had time to write, but of course since I’m just sitting down to update you all, I just thought of that. SMH Well, that’s life, but I have to admit it’s pretty good.

The week of the BAM show was packed. I started off with a warm up show at RockbarNYC for Rick’s b’earthday. Rick is one of the owners of the bar and after seeing the band play there in November, he asked us to return for his 50th b’earthday extravaganza, Mamapalooza. The hairs in the büshe that night were Jeff, Matsu, Ganessa and I. Well, what I thought would be a good show, turned out to be a powerhouse show. Dare I say one of the best shows we’ve ever done. The four-piece was rockin’ for real and some kind of magic happened that night. I sang “Punanny Politixxx” during the set and got at least one republican to fall in love me. Now that’s pretty good considering the lyrical content. LOL!

The rest of the week was packed with rehearsals and outfit shopping and yoga classes. I was non-stop up to the day of the show. I think I got my hair cut Saturday morning and that was all I did that day besides perform. My haircut was the most chill time I had all week.

I decided to drop in a few new songs at the BAM show. One song was so new, that it wasn’t all the way finished, but I wanted to test the waters so to speak. The other songs weren’t totally new, but many people in the audience had never heard them before. Then of course there are those people who come to BAM every weekend because it’s free live music, who I know had never seen me before. So for them it was all new. You have to play for everyone and that’s what I do all the time. To me it doesn’t matter if you have heard the songs a million times or if I have played them as many times, I aim to make it feel new every time.

BAM Jumbotron/Outside of venue

Soundcheck went kind of slowly so we were kind of late getting upstairs to change, eat, etc. I was hoping to eat before the show, but I did not. Sadly that’s not the first time that has happened. I really can’t eat a whole lot before a show anyway, but I was looking forward to it. Oh well. On the up side, Risha did some awesome makeup for me. It was totally a Black Swan look for the night and I love Black Swan! Who knew it would be like that? I really loved it.

The show was supposed to start at 9pm sharp, but I wasn’t done with everything until about 9:10 or 9:15. Michele the production coordinator swooped me downstairs and then we hit the stage.
I know that folks said they were coming, but I’m still a little surprised when I see so many people. I know the show was free, but I’m not going to say that’s the only reason why the place was packed. I know it might sound strange coming from me, but I was saying that for a while. Kind of playing it down, but I’m not doing that anymore. As a friend said, “Shelley you sure do know how to sell out a free show!” LOL! I do indeed.

I did something this time with the set list I have never done before. I opened with “Go Head & Rise.” This has been my closing song for years and for good reason. It’s a huge number that people really get up for at the end of the show. It screams closer. But it was time to move the song over and make way for some new babies.

Photo by Jose Ivey

Back in the early days of the band I would close my show with “Release,” also a huge number. But when I wrote “Rise,” “Release” was moved to the top. It worked then so I thought I would try it again. Especially for those folks who have been to see me a bunch of times, I knew it would a switch to hear the song at the top.

After releasing that steamroller to open things up, we moved right into “Out of My Mind” without a break. That one I dedicated to my girl Hollie since she really loves that song. I’m also realizing that lot of people really love that song and I really love that song too if I do say so myself.

Photo by Patranila Jefferson

We took a short break after “Out of My Mind” to get a little sexy with “Give it to Me” and then we kept talking about the coochie, well at least the hot topic of who should be minding the coochie on “Punanny Politixxx.” That was a whole lot of fun. I know folks weren’t sure where I was going when I asked them to sing, “Stop playing politics with my punanny,” but soon everyone was on board. Even the men!

After that I dropped the brand new joint I mentioned above. As I said, the song isn’t finished, but I wanted to give it a twirl. Tentatively the song is called “Today is My Day,” but since it’s not all the way done, we dropped a bit of D’Angelo’s “Greatdayinthemornin’” in the middle. All the real D’Angelo heads got it. I think it went over the head of others, but people seemed to enjoy it. If you were there, do you remember? Have any feedback?

Photo by Patranila Jefferson

We rolled right out of “Today is My Day” into “I Am American” without a break. This is another crowd favorite and always a lot of fun to sing with the folks. Next stop, “In Your View.” Although we don’t close with this song, this is honestly my favorite joint at this time. I can’t wait to record this song. I can’t wait!

Finally we closed with “Power on the Floor” another sort of new one. I did it at DROM in November for the first time and it saw some light at Rockbar, but tonight I had a whole crowd to play with so it was really time for church. I’m really excited about this song too. The chorus of the song says, “If you recognize you’re on the ground/then you can get up!” The folks at BAM were really feeling it and the two young girls in the front sitting on the floor were the first people to get up! So I told the folks, “If the babies can stand up, then you got to get up!” Folks stood up and were dancing and chanting and it was beautiful.

Photo by Sara Zuiderveen

We came back for an encore with our #1 hit in Asia… No not really. But “blak Girls” is a hit. I don’t think I can really get away with not doing it in a show. It is the anthem for all kinds of women and I love when the boys sing it too.

Photo by Al Santana

This last run at BAM was great. I sold out of panties (yes I had panties) and even moved some of these good old CDs. I am really starting to feel like myself again. I am starting to see the light again. I’m starting to feel light again. It’s been a long two years, but I’m starting to talk about recording again…Finally. I’m not going to make any big declarations about when you will see the next album. I’m not going to give you any titles or special guest names. I’m not going to give you any specific info, but I will say this. The wheel is turning. The road has been bumpy, but the wheel is turning. Thank Goddess the wheel is turning. [Insert church style organ and walking bass! *wink*]

Hairs in the bushe @ BAM 
Shelley Nicole - Lead Vox
Jerome Jordan - Lead Guitar
Jeff Jeudy - Rhythm Guitar
Matsu - Drums
Ganessa James - Bass
Shawn Banks - Percussion
V. Jeffery Smith - Horns
Achuziam Maha-Sanchez - BG Vox
Ki Ki Hawkins - BG Vox

Photo by Sara Zuiderveen

Lighting up BAM Café! (Nov. 20th)

 Hey Everyone,

I know we are well into December, but I had to take a step back in time to November and the show at the BAM Café. This was our second time there in as many years and we had another incredible time. I can always count on BAM to be a full house and lots of fun.

That night we shared the bill with Dawn Drake. I have to give her a big shout because we probably would not have been at the Café this year if not for her.  Thanks Dawn!  That night, the O'Jays were also in the house. The Opera House that is. So they were playing right next door! I have to admit that I think that was pretty cool. Jerome got to see some of the show from back stage. I tried to get him to bring Eddie Levert over to the show, but alas that didn't happen.  A girl can dream.  LOL!

BAM was the last blaKbüshe show of the year and now that I think about it there really weren't that many band shows this year. But I will talk about that more in my Year-End Review. Since it was the last show I knew I had to make it great.  It's been such a busy fall that I wasn't able to get the band together to rehearse as many times as I would have liked or write a couple of new things as I had hoped, but I knew it could still be great.

Earlier this fall I was part of an awesome fashion/art show called BlackSnow featuring the clothing and artwork of Black TheMicahlight and Opie Snow.  I was also honored to have an incredible brotha named Oraje do my hair for the evening. After that night I knew I needed them on the team for the BAM show.  If you take a look at the photos you will see that both crews did not disappoint.  Micah and Opie hooked me up with the fly leather pants. I had a pair of copper leather pants just sitting around asking to be tricked out and they did the damn thing.  Then Oraje lit up my locks! He hid a battery pack in the back of my head and with the flip of a switch my hair was aglow.  It was my Avatar moment for sure.

So what happened at the show? Fire happened! I had a big b'earthday this year so I pulled out a joint from my childhood that made me want to live in New York. We covered Odyssey's "Native New Yorker" and the crowd was loving it.  It's just one of my faves. Just makes you want to get on the dance floor circa 1977.  It was a pretty high energy show, but we did drop it down to the blues side with "Gut Bucket." I realized we hadn't done that song for over a year, which is crazy because it's killin' if I do say so myself.  That song is straight out of the bayou.

Of course we hit the blaKbüshe classics "Out of My Mind, " "Long Train Running," "I Am American," "Go Head & Rise," and of course "blaK Girls." But for this show we did the remix and I got my rhyme on. I'm no Lauryn Hill and to be quite honest it makes me really nervous to rhyme because I really respect the art form and I don't consider myself and Emcee, but I did it and it wasn't too shabby.  *smile*  I won't be getting any calls from Jay-Z anytime soon, but I held the flow!

Since there were two acts that night there was no time for an encore, but it was an all around incredible show.  We had the crowd on their feet and it was an all around rockin' good time! I'm so excited about the possibilities in 2011.

Gotta give love to the band! Jerome, Jeff, V. Jeff, Matsu, Ki Ki, Ganessa, Shawn & Amma did the damn thing! Love, Love, Love to them!

If you want to see more shots of the show check out the blaKbüshe Facebook page.  Remember you can "Like" there or follow us on Twitter @blaKbüshe.  Thank you to everyone who came to the show. I can't wait to see you all next year. Lots of new things in store.  Oh and if you want me to come to your town please let me know. I feel the travel bug coming on. I want to see you too!
 
Peace!
Shelley

BAM Café. Either you were there or you missed it!

BAM Café is one of those shows that I know about a year in advance, but I still feel like I’m running up into it. I can’t speak for all artists, but when I book shows at venues like BAM I want to do new songs or some clever covers that no one would expect. Seems like that would be easy enough, but those long lead-time shows always sneak up on me.

I managed to squeeze out one new song, but I know for many people in the café much of the music was new because they hadn’t seen me in a long time or ever before.

Leading up to the show I really wanted to write something new, but songwriting for me is not an exact science or really a science at all. It’s often all spirit. So I have to wait for spirit to move. I keep writing while I’m waiting for spirit to move, but as songwriters we are sometimes just writing knowing full well that what we are writing at that moment will not see the stage anytime soon or ever. There is a thing that happens when you know it’s right. I’ll break down the new songs in context of the show.

I had been thinking for a while that I wanted to have programs for the show. I didn’t want them to tell exactly what I was going to play, but to reflect the different movements of the show. When I finally got that together it was the day of the show. At that point I knew my programs were going to be very simple, but it was really just a reference for the people. It read as follows:

The Band
Shelley Nicole’s blaKbüshe

The Work
Womyn’s

The Set
The Blues
The Funk
The SolaRoc

The Players
Shelley Nicole
Jerome Jordan
Ganessa James
Shawn Banks
Matsu
Achuziam Maha
Kiki Hawkins
Jeff Jeudy
V. Jeffery Smith
Dexter Taylor

The day of the show was gorgeous! It was about 75 degrees. The spring energy was wizzing around. I left the house and went to make copies of the program in Park Slope. I had great timing because the bus was coming up the street as I walked out of the house.

I got to the stationary shop, which was giving me Tea Party flashbacks because we used to copy all of our flyers there before it because dirt cheap to make nice 4 color flyers at Overnight Prints and the like.

After waiting for my programs I left the shop and headed back to the bus. On my way I walked by a clothing and accessories shop that was having a moving sale. I was stopped dead in my tracks by a cape on a mannequin outside the store. It was gorgeous! It was hand painted with stars on the front by the buttons, two dancing women on the back and a killer hood. When I see things like that I often wonder what past era I lived in because that cape harkened back to a lost time. Well I guess I am a witch after all and any good witch worth her salt needs a hot cape!

I looked at the cape and then looked at the price and knew I couldn’t do it. But as I was walking away I saw the moving sale sign. So then I had to go in and see how much it really cost. I’m not going to tell you the price, but I am going to tell you that it was 75% off! What?! Now you all knew you can’t walk away from something that’s 75% off that is calling you from jump. Then I started doing the calculations in my head. You know how it is. You start thinking about your bank accounts and how you can move things around so nothing bounces or around this time of year we start thinking about when that income tax check is coming in. You know what I’m saying. Lol. I paced in the store for a while, tried on the cape, put it back on the mannequin, walked around a bit more, talked to the saleswomen, told her about my show that night and she sold me, but I was ready. Also there was another woman eyeing my cape and I couldn’t let her walk out with it. LOL! So I went back outside, took the cape of the mannequin, bagged it up and took it home. I rarely do that kind of stuff for myself. It’s a one of a kind piece so I’m very happy about it.

I got lucky with the bus again. It was coming right as I approached the stop. I headed home and finished getting ready for the evening. I called Gaetano earlier in the day and asked if he could meet me at BAM at 7:00pm instead of 7:30pm. He was cool with that. I don’t live far from BAM so at about 6:15pm or 6:20pm headed over.

When I get off the train at Lafayette Avenue, I exited the station and headed down the street to BAM. I was feeling good. There were a lot of people out front. Seems there was a show at the Opera House as well with Sonic Youth, John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin and Merce Cunningham @ 90 (dance company). I made my way upstairs to the café and met Paul who, with his crew, was doing sound for the evening. Paul informed me that my friend Mabili had left flowers for Achuziam and me. That was nice. Soon Gaetano and Scott arrived and we were ready to start putting my face on.

Little by little band members started to arrive. I think Dexter was first and told me he had never been to the café. That was wild since he’s lived in Brooklyn as long as I’ve known him, which is a long time. Paul, the soundman, told me that we might get a short sound check when the Opera House let out for intermission, but we had to make it really quick. So that’s what we did. It turned out to be a little sneak peak of the show and many of the people who were at the Opera House decided to come back to my show after theirs let out. That was cool.

After sound check I went back upstairs to finish getting myself together. We ended up starting the set late because the Opera House show didn’t get out until about 9:30pm or 9:35pm. So as soon as it was over we jumped right in.

I started the set with an a cappella prison song called “Black Woman.” I have to thank Chaney Sims for that. She is a singer and friend of mine who sings the blues. One night I heard her sing a song called “Go Down Hannah” and it blew me away. Right at that moment I knew that’s how I wanted to open the set. Not with that song, but with something that was quiet and powerful. So with my shaker in my hand, no shoes on my feet, I opened the show with a vocal libation. As soon as that ended Jeff started right in with a new song called “Out of My Mind.” I put my shoes on, took off my jacket and the rest of the show was on.

I had written “Out of My Mind” or so I thought sometime last year. I visited it for a hot second when Jeff and I were working out another new song called “I am American.” As the date of the BAM show was approaching I revisited it again. We tried it at one rehearsal, but it felt like it was missing some glue as Ganessa put it. So I want back to the drawing board, rewrote some of the lyrics, sent out the rehearsal recording to the band and asked for feedback. When we got back to rehearsal the next week Jerome came back with musical examples of Massive Attack, Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Kendricks and we used their inspiration to create some glue for the song. I love that!

Next I called up Dexter (guitar), Jeff (guitar), Jerome (guitar) and V. Jeffery (horn) to do another blues joint that’s kind of new to the people called “Gut Bucket.” When you have 90 minutes to play it gives you an opportunity to open up and showcase people. So I gave all the guys a solo on that song. It was really fantastic and fun. From there we stayed in the Bayou with an up tempo blues version of “Long Train Running” by the Doobie Brothers. I have to say that’s one of my favorites.

We soon left the swap and hit the folks with a cover of “I’m a Woman (I’m a Backbone) by Rufus feat. Chaka Khan and went into what is now becoming a blaKbüshe classic “blaK Girls.” We got sexy with “Give it to Me” and then brought things to the political side of the show with “Can’t Blame a Tree.” Jerome did a killer solo on that song! Wow! Then we moved straight from “Can’t Blame a Tree” into “Box,” but not before Matsu did a crazy drum solo. Again all I can say is wow! During “Box” I was playing bass and I noticed that people were looking up at the ceiling. I didn’t know what was going on so I looked up and saw that the sculptures of bodies hanging from the ceiling were bouncing from the vibration of the bass and it looked like they were dancing. Wild! Then we moved along to the next newest song, “I am American.”

This is one of those songs that only the chorus was floating in my head for some time, and it just floated and floated. Then Barack Obama won the presidency and it all came rushing through. I tell you people, it’s all spirit. So at the show I pulled out my picture of President Obama with PROGRESS on the bottom of it because we made progress last week with him lifting the ban on travel to Cuba. It’s about time! He also visited Trinidad last week. Now when was that last time a U.S. President visited Trinidad? I just love that guy!

We closed the show with “Go Head & Rise,” which included Jerome jumping on the speaker while playing. It was dy-no-mite! We got a standing O. I kind of feel like that part was a blur because when I came off stage Tom said, you’re getting a standing O! I looked back, but I was in a daze. Jeff and I came back and did a two-song encore with “Blackbird” by the Beatles and then the down tempo, grimy version of “Long Train Running” so the whole crew joined in.

It was a beautiful night. I could see that the room was packed, but I later found out that the room was to capacity and there was a line downstairs. Some people couldn’t get into the show, which on one hand is great, but on the other hand really sucks because I would have loved for everyone who was downstairs to be let up.

I think the quote of the night goes to a new friend who came to the show and had never seen me perform before. When we first met I was very unassuming. I am usually like that so it’s sometimes a shocker to people when they see the show. So after everything was over she came over and said “Bitch, you didn’t tell me you were a star!” She was dead serious, and I was cracking up! I supposed I should think of myself that way all the time. Not a diva, but a Star.

I had a lot of friends old and new in the house. I almost did the Romper Room magic mirror shout out to folks, but then I realized that that was going to date me big time! HA! So I opted out of that. But I have to give a special shout to Rob Fields who I later found out was twittering parts of the show while he was there. Thanks Rob. That’s how I can stay off of Twitter and still be on it and in the loop at the same time. *wink*

Till the next show...Be good to yourself.