Don't worry, be happy... and the grand-daddy of beatboxing should know!

You won't be surprised to hear that Bobby McFerrin's 1980s hit single Don't worry, be happy is already in my collection of Bouncy Happy Tunes. Few songs are as cheering and chilled as this one!

But I'd never listened to any of his other music, until last night when I casually clicked on the Bobby McFerrin YouTube playlist. And what a revelation. I'm not a music critic, and the only words I can find are inadequate cliches like "Wow" and "Oh. My. God", so I won't even try. If you don't already know this music, just click on some of the links and listen.




Even if you do know some of McFerrin's music, you may not have made a connection between it and beatboxing - one of the most amazing music forms - a sort of awe-inspiring acapella hip-hop. Back in 2008 I enthused here about ReepsOne, a young beatboxer who left me joyfully stunned when I listened to him making his mouth-music in my friend's sitting room. ReepsOne won the UK Beatboxing championship the next year, but of course there was no such competition back in the '80s. Yet listen to Bobby McFerrin's version of Blackbird above, and you'll see he's obviously the funky grand-daddy of beatboxing!

How can people possibly make such unbelievable, beautiful sounds with only their voices?!

Flow x

Better than Telly

Leo Brazil and his Twitch

I went to a house gig last night.

Now, when I say 'house gig', I'm not describing the type of music: I literally mean that the gig was in a house. Yes, a house on a street, with a front door and windows and a kitchen and all the usual housey things. The sitting room was set up with rows of chairs, and the musicians were squeezed into a tiny sort of 'stage' area in a corner under a frilly standard lamp.

My friend Bar organises these gigs, in the house where he lives with his partner Jaq. He bills them as 'Better than Telly' nights, which is a great reminder that we can do more with our evenings than sit in front of the goggle box. I won't go all political on you (or not for long) but they're a fantastic antidote to the credit crunch, crazy Christmas consumerism and all the recent greyness!

Last night we heard Terry and Julie play great blues, then Leo Brazil playing a solo set of his bouncy, bluesy, funky, pyschedelic songs. (And look, doesn't his video have a very appropriate animation?!) Last time, it was Bar himself and the London acoustic hip-hop band Squab, with their totally gob-smacking human beat box guy, Reeps One.

If you look at either of the You Tube clips below, you'll see that this really is just an ordinary, smallish sitting room...

James 'Bar' Bowen

Squab

Better than Telly? Yeeaah - too bloody right! Now I'm wondering what exciting things I should do with my sitting room this Christmas!



Flow x

P.S. I promised you a new word every week. So here's this week's: Pasticulate (V.) To wave a spaghetti-entwined fork about while making a passionate point during a meal-time conversation.