The Road To Europa: Prague

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Join us Tuesday July 5 for KlezFactor’s Europa CD Release at Supermarket (268 Augusta Ave.) in Toronto!

And then there was Prague. The final show in the Europa Tour was on Friday night and we arrived in Prague from Dresden in the evening. Fin, traveling with us, was going to stay with friends closer to the city so we met up with them and he got a ride while Daniel, Flo, Paromita and I went on to Kralupy Nad Vltavou to stay with Ondrej and Halka (and their kids).

The next morning, we were gradually getting ourselves together to prepare for the show in the morning but lo and behold, Ondrej, who was joining us to perform in the concert, got a phone call at about 11am from a lady at the Jazz Dock (our venue in Prague). Would we be able to make it down to do an interview and film a segment for Czech TV, their national broadcaster?

The band had hoped to do some walking around town but Fin wasn’t with us and neither was Alex, who had stayed the night in Dresden and was taking a train into town that morning. We decided that Flo, Daniel and I would drive into town, meet the Czech TV people and meet Alex and Fin at the club afterwards. We also wanted some time to sightsee and would do that in between the TV shoot and our soundcheck.

We hurried ourselves at Ondrej’s place to get down to the Jazz Dock at the time we were asked to meet the TV crew (i.e., the interviewer and the camera man). We made it but then sat down to wait for them to arrive. We arranged ourselves to play and performed “Bulgarian Dance (Kopanitsa)” for the camera a couple of times in a pared down version for guitar, violin and clarinet. Afterwards, the interviewer and camera man conferred and asked if we could play something more Jewish. Without Alex or Fin, we were somewhat constrained by what we could play and we ended up playing another piece for the cameras.

Following that, I did an interview (in English) where Daniel and Flo were asked to be doing something in the background. While the segment wasn’t aired until after the concert, click here to see it (hope you understand Czech)!

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Alex arrived from the train station (we had also made arrangements for him to stay in the city on Friday night since he needed to catch an early train in the morning) soon after we were done with the Czech TV folks and he met us at Jazz Dock as we set out for a little sight seeing. We saw the Charles Bridge (and the various entertainers there) and I took the guys to the Jewish quarter (seemingly appropriate).

A one-man band on the Charles Bridge

A one-man band on the Charles Bridge

We returned to the Jazz Dock where Ondrej and Finlay joined us, rehearsing soundchecking for the show. Once we were set up and had a new set list for the band (to include the songs that Ondrej was joining us for), we went out to dinner together before heading back to the club.

The show was great! Highlights included Ondrej singing eggnoise’s song “Gubbinal” which we blended with “The Golem of Bathurst Manor” (see above), a crazy version of “Asakh Noten” (see below) and other mishegas.

We actually recorded the show with multi-track audio and, while it took a while to get the tracks into a format that I could work with, there’s enough good material there to release a “Live at Jazz Dock” EP* in the coming months!

And that was the tour. It had been a fast-paced and exciting week of making music in Germany and the Czech Republic! We had a fantastic gig in Berlin, one with a smaller turnout (but still having a lot of energy) in Dresden followed by a marathon day recording. We had an appearance on Czech TV in addition to our great show in Prague but it was time to head split up. Flo was going on holiday with his family, Fin was heading back to Berlin and then to England, Alex was heading to the south of Germany and Daniel was heading back to Berlin. Paromita and I stayed with Ondrej and Halka for another night before going back to Berlin but not before going on a beautiful hike around the villages where they live.

Antonin Dvorak's birthplace

Antonin Dvorak’s birthplace

But work was just beginning on Europa.

 

*An EP is a shorter album with three to five songs or an “Extended Play,” with more music than a single but less than a full album.

 

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Europa is released July 5, 2016! Join us at our CD release concert!

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