Quick update

For those who got concerned the blog hasn't been updated in a while --

I'm back in Helsinki, safe and sound. Quite a lot to write about during the last part of my trip so I just haven't finished it yet. I'll put it up ASAP.

It's just... hard to find the words, I guess. Homesick already.

-J

CHORUS. Jul 7th - Jul 10th

On the activity front, at first not too much and then too much to report. Hard to keep up with maintaining the blog; I’ll upload pics later when I have the chance. See, Samir’s in town. And when Samir’s in town, Samir’s in TOWN.

-J

EDIT: Pics added.

...

Mon 7th Jul 2008

Allow for some streams of consciousness first. And streams, of course, as we all know, all lead to the almighty Kemijoki.

The main determining factor in my daily schedule has been my oud lessons, since that was one of the main things I came here for. Unfortunately, Ziyad has been suffering from pain in his neck that has prevented him from playing at all, so he texted me apologizing that he had to cancel again, and we resolved to see what the next day would bring.

Not that I didn’t have enough to digest as it was, with the amount of information from the first session that we had. I figured since I was given extra time before our next session, I’d continue transcribing our previous one further. From a western perspective, the biggest difficulty – and the one that I came here to find even partial answers for – in playing the oud or Arabic music is, how do I make myself sound genuine? The fact that the oud as a sound and instrument is so foreign to the western ear, and that it has a characteristic tone that immediately screams “Middle East”, often gives the untrained ear the first impression that the player is automatically a master of the instrument and style if they’re able to get a sound out of it in the first place. So while personally, I feel that a little bit of the technique is there on a good day, I came here pursuing substance.

And not that I’m a musical purist by any means, either; I wanted to get deeper into it all, to quote Ziyad, “to know the rules before I break them”. My main assignment for the next lesson was to create my own taqasims in both the C Nahawand (Aeolian/natural minor, for the occidentally inclined) and C Rast (Ionian/major, but with a microtonal 3rd and microtonal 7th, both between minor and major) maqams; however, the Arabic way of improvising within scales is very different from the western one. I’ve spent a large amount of time sitting with my headphones on, writing out phrase after phrase of Ziyad’s examples so I could internalize the way notes are approached, how decorations and ornaments are applied, and so on. I figured the best way to get an ear for it all was to do it without an instrument, meaning I could be immersed in study and still take in the vibes of Hamra at one of the cafés. Not a bad deal. Sly Iznogoud iz mek a naice learn inva ironmental planning!

I met Jean and his girlfriend Nayla at Café Younis in the afternoon for some coffee and general hanging out, after which Jean and I took a taxi to FWD Studios, which is where he works. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a studio with an atmosphere quite the same, roof top terrace and everything. Seemed very professional, with a great energy between the guys who worked there. Jean played me some tracks they’d done. They do love their effects on the electric guitar here… After the studio tour we headed over to Jean’s place to watch some live videos (Bona, though this time with Bobbi McFerrin) before I went back to Samir’s to practice.

Jean and the owner at FWD Studios

The FWD lounge

The rooftop terrace at the studio

In the driver's seat, or riding shotgun?

Maureen took me on a tour of Hamra’s selection of cafés and bars later that night, giving me some background information on each place. Apparently, pretty much every joint in Hamra has a very particular crowd – one for those leaning more towards the left, one for those on the right, one for the pro-government people, one for this, one for that… you name it. I got the impression of a division accentuated in times of conflict. I’d been happily oblivious to any of this until now, just sitting in any place I felt like (and resolved to continue doing so, regardless). There truly is something for everyone – Irish Pubs, Lebanese restaurants, American chain cafés like Starbucks, urban lounge-type dives (Rovaniemians, think old Café Tivoli like it was always supposed to be; Helsinkians, think Saunabar a couple of years back) with AUB students chilling to ambient music – everything. We ended up having a very interesting conversation comparing Arabic and western/Finnish culture and the generation gaps in both. Fascinating.


Tues 8th Jul 2008

Got up earlier than usual, which made me proud to no small degree.

I’m not one for big cities. I’m from Rovaniemi, and from the outskirts of Rovaniemi, at that. I enjoy a big city up to a point, but then the country boy inside starts demanding peace and quiet. When I need to focus and concentrate on doing something like practicing, for instance, I like my solitude, and privacy and especially silence. This is what gets me even about Helsinki at times, which, compared to Beirut in terms of size or noise or especially general chaos, is peanuts. So you could say I’ve had some difficulties concentrating on practicing here at times.

I’ve felt a bit torn between the inner (militant) disciplinarian, the over-achiever, the humble overworker having a hard time giving himself a little rope every once in a while, and the Curious George wanting to see as much as possible now that I finally am here. Ziyad’s neck to the rescue. Because of the cancelled lessons, I’ve had more time to relax and kick back and try and convince myself it’s actually ok to not do as much as you can all the time. In hindsight, I’d say it’s done me good, would you believe it...? Sometimes it seems just really hard to let go; given this kind of a chance to come to a place like this to study music I think I almost started pressuring myself to make the most of it. Which, as we all know – in theory, of course, forget practice (pun intended) – is counterproductive at best.

As the noise from the street at Samir’s place seems to generally calm down towards late afternoon, I decided to try and reverse my daily routine – observe and/or study away from the instrument in the morning and practice towards the evening. I took my laptop and sheet music pad to Graffitti in Hamra, a bar Maureen had showed me the other night, which she’d said was very peaceful during the early mornings and afternoons for quiet work and study. Ended up spending quite a few hours there with my headphones on, jotting down more notes, mental and musical, from the first lesson with Ziyad.

After frying my brain with maqams I ventured out to fry it in the sun, as it would later prove. I walked to my old middle school, the American Community School between Bliss Street and the Corniche, to see if I could actually get in and go reminisce in the halls I used to drag my heels contemplating the finer points of the gospel according to White Zombie vs. that according to Machine Head. Unfortunately I got in just a little too late as the school had closed 20 minutes before and the guard wouldn’t let me in. Better luck tomorrow. Still, taking pictures from the outside, it really stopped me in my tracks that the gate actually had a huge “Welcome Back” sign painted on it. Someone’s having a laugh on me somewhere.

The A.C.S. gate

My father has a thing with Hard Rock Café beer pints. I Walked Like a European along the Corniche to Beirut’s HRC to get him the standard souvenir I always do when I travel (the Hard Rock Café didn’t exist yet when we lived here). Ate a burger, medium rare gone medium raw, and went back to Samir’s since I started feeling really tired.

More Corniche scenery

Hard Rock Café

I took a nap and practiced for an hour or two, but realized I really wasn’t feeling too well. Miekka -5, lactophilus +3, a 5 on the D20 says not enough defence points, roll over and power down Sir. Decided I’d try to sleep it off instead of going out. Thanks to multiple ritual sacrifices at the altars of the lords Imodium and Burana I started regaining my vitals after a night tucked under two thick blankets, no air conditioning, and literally freezing my royal ass off. Which, in this heat, was a bit… odd. I'd guess it was some kind of a combination of sun stroke and some digestive disorder or other.


Wed 9th Jul 2008

After waking up late with the sheets soaked in sweat but feeling brand new again, I spent most of the day in Mar Elias, taking my laundry to the shop, taking it easy, eating and practicing. Very thankful I felt so much better.

An old friend of mine from ACS, Saamira Halabi, sent me a Facebook message out of the blue saying she’s in town for the summer from Pennsylvania where she’s doing her PhD, is teaching an intensive six-week Arabic course for foreigners at the American University of Beirut, and that would I like to come and talk to the class about Arabic music and play the oud for them? After talking to her on the phone, catching up and going through a checklist of all our classmates and what-are-they-up-to-nows, I promised her I’d be there, but that I’d ask Ziyad if he was free so the class could get the real thing first-hand.

A '69 VW Beetle for sale. Groovy, baby!

Ziyad was playing in BIBA in Gemmayzeh again, this time as a duo with his percussionist, so I made plans to go see the gig, and after texting me asking what I was up to, Maureen joined me. Great gig once again, though this time listening from the audience’s side of the fence, the acoustics of the place truly are difficult. Ziyad was running his oud into not only his EQ and Line 6 Delay Modeler again, but also into a laptop for some further processing, but he had to give up on the fancier sounds by the third tune and run it more or less dry since the place just wouldn’t play with him. Shame, as I would’ve been very interested in hearing what he’d had in mind. It turned out Ziyad wouldn’t be free the next day for the AUB lecture, so it looked like I’d have to pull myself together and cook up something.


Thurs 10th Jul 2008

The American University of Beirut has a campus which I’d not be surprised could very well be the most beautiful one in the world. It’s like an entire academic universe tucked away inside a magnificent tropical garden, on a hilltop overlooking the Mediterranean. The contrast between the tranquility of the campus and the chaos of Hamra is pretty drastic. The fact that there’s this kind of an oasis in the heart of West Beirut, and one that has survived both the civil war and the conflicts since and before then relatively unscathed (bar some shell damage and a kidnapping or two) feels just surreal. The minute I walked in through the gate I found myself wondering how I’d never been here once during my year in Beirut. Took some pictures while I waited for Saamira, and after a quick lunch with her at the cafeteria her class begun.

The American University of Beirut campus

More AUB scenery.

I hadn’t prepared anything besides resolving to talk about Arabic music from the perspective of a westerner studying it; the hows and whys as I’ve understood them so far, the challenges I’ve faced trying to learn the music, the differences between western and Arabic music and so on. I sure wasn’t going to go in trying to come across as the quintessential CNN expert giving a factual guest lecture on Arabic Music 101. That woud’ve been Ziyad’s turf, had he made it.

It was a group of 30-40 students or so, all either in college or grad school or already working, from all over the world – Americans, Swedes, Portuguese, and many other nationalities – all wanting to get a grasp of Arabic for personal and/or career purposes. A very welcoming group.

I started out by introducing myself, the good-mannered and well-raised young upstart that I am, speaking a bit of my background and why I got into the music, then went on about the differences between Arabic and western music, introduced the oud, previewed my homework for Ziyad’s in front of a live studio audience with a taqasim in C Nahawand; after that the ‘lesson’ took on a very informal and interactive tone. Conversation, questions and answers where I was able. I mentioned that Ziyad’s band would be playing Walima’s again on Friday if anyone was interested. At any rate, once I was done I realized I’d been foaming at the mouth for over 45 minutes, and since I wasn’t burned as an infidel I think I did alright.

AUB.

The campus gardens.

After the lecture Saamira called me saying one girl wanted to talk to me more about the music, so I met her at the cafeteria. She turned out to be a Portuguese cellist, Maria Rijo, who’d been doing flamenco singing in Spain, was now studying in London, specializing in Middle Eastern music and especially Arabic vocal improvisation, which was why she was taking the Arabic course at AUB. She asked some more questions about how I’d got in contact with local musicians so I promised her I’d introduce her to Ziyad if she wanted to come to his gig on Friday.

AUB from along Bliss Street

After a failed attempt at picking up my laundry (fell asleep, shop had closed) I came back to the apartment to march headfirst into a bearhug ambush courtesy of Samir, who’d just flown in from Dubai with two of his friends who’d come to party in Beirut for the weekend. 12 years went whoosh. After laughing like two idiots in disbelief for an embarrassingly long time, I was introduced to the rest of the guys. Wissam was Samir’s ex-coworker from MTV Arabia, a Saudi with a serious brotherly rivalry going on with Samir, and Wanho “One Ho” Chung was a Korean who’d grown up in Jordan, considered himself Jordanian, spoke better Arabic than Samir or Wissam, and was now quite the Middle East celebrity doing Arabic stand-up comedy both onstage and on television. Then there was Majd, an old Beiruti friend of Samir’s who came to hang. Quite a crew.

The mayor of Samsterdam

Samir had threatened with a no-sleep-allowed nonstop 4-day party at his place, which he affectionately called Samsterdam, so I, not being too much of a party animal in recent years anymore (old, who, me?) was very interested where all this would lead, to say the least. The guys had already copped a buzz on the flight so with SaMTV on air nonstop, the scene started getting pretty wild pretty quickly and I tried to keep up.

This just struck me as... the cutest and saddest thing at the same time.

An interesting custom also came up – when you go to a club here, your group has to have a (more or less) equal number of guys to girls, apparently thus to keep the teams in the Game equally strong, so Samir had two phones running calling up friends of the more beautiful gender asking who might want to go clubbing with us. We tried to get into The hip club in town, the Sky Bar, but without a reservation we couldn’t, so we headed over to the Gauche Caviar in Gemmayzeh instead. Some drinks and laughs later we switched to the Mye, where another old friend of mine, Morgan Kays, joined us. Another reunion, some more drinks and even more laughs.

Wanho and Wissam.

A toast to 12 years with Samir.

We had to make sure we still had our metal moves. We did. Iz street cred.

With Morgan.

Morgan and Samir.

And what is the logical conclusion to a night out like this?

Three old high school friends, one acoustic guitar, a balcony and Alice In Chains, naturally.

...

VERSE 2. Jul 4th - Jul 6th

First, thanks to all those of you who sent me encouraging e-mails about this blog. Sara even told me I got the facts right, so thus far, consider me reliable.

I didn’t exactly know how something like this would be received; see, we Finns don’t talk that much, so this might be a bit heavy to digest for some.

For the benefit of Mr. Kite and those who recognized themselves from the above, I spent the last couple of hours laboriously shortening this down to the most crucial main points, elaborating at large where necessary, so behold, the standard Finnish version:

Begin conversation.
MAIRE FROM FINLAND: “How was Beirut?”
TOPI FROM FINLAND: [grunts]
End conversation. Drink some more in silence.

...

For the rest of us, here's a bit of back-tracking from the last couple of days. I'll go immerse myself in the words of Kahlil Gibran and get some more coffee.

-J


Fri Jul 4th 2008

Today was the first and only day so far when I was in a less than upbeat mood. I got up on the wrong foot with the internet, trying to upload pics to the previous entry, working from a slow connection, and Murphy being The Man upstairs, my computer crashed the second I’d uploaded the very last photo and written the very last caption. Remember, kids, thou shalt not blog without thine power supply. Since the last thing I want to do on a trip like this is spend hours glued to my laptop screen, you might say my mood went sour faster than you could say kiss’ommak.

Ziyad and I’d agreed to have my first lesson at 6 PM, but then I got a Facebook invite to Jean’s regular jazz gig at Hamra Terrace, where Ziyad was listed as one of the guests, also beginning at 6. He also had a second gig with his regular trio at Walima’s in Hamra at 10, so I put two and two together and we postponed the lesson again for the next day. Samir’s brother Khaled called me up to say that he’d call me again around – guess? – 6 PM so I could get my stuff (hiking backpack, regular backpack, oud and guitar) to Samir’s empty apartment in Mar Elias in West Beirut, so I spent the day just strolling around.

I decided to take the walk from Hamra along Bliss Street and the AUB (American University of Beirut) campus – which has to be the most beautiful university campus in the world – to the Corniche, which is the ‘beach boulevard’ in Beirut. Felt like the same stereotype Asian tourist Michael Hsu was mocking with my camera in overdrive, playing tourist and taking photos of just about everything.

A sea view towards East Beirut from the Corniche.

The Corniche towards the west.

The contrasts get to you. They really do. This is probably one of the few places in the world where so many seemingly polar opposites co-exist side by side. Some more successfully than others; at least the buildings don’t wage war against each other. Walking along the Corniche towards the new Downtown (aka former Beirut Central District or BCD), you’ll see totally bombed ruins of former buildings full of shell holes standing side by side with 5-star hotels luxurious enough to take on any posh hotel anywhere in the world and most likely come out on top. Nowhere did this strike me more than between the obliterated old Holiday Inn (a feared sniper look-out during the war) and the new Phoenicia Intercontinental, literally rubbing shoulders with one another. Back in ’95-’96 when we lived here, the entire area now bursting at its seams with architectural jewels was little more than a bulldozed pile of rubble and ruin. And, of course, the skeleton of the Holiday Inn was still standing even then. We passed that gruesome reminder of the war every single day as my father drove us to school.

The lavish Phoenicia Intercontinental. Note the destroyed Holiday Inn in the background on the left.

Three sides to every story... the Holiday Inn from another angle.

Then there’s the statue of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri. You’ll notice behind the statue the ruins of the old St. George Hotel. This is where the car bomb with which he was assassinated in 2005 went off. Makes you think.

Rafiq Hariri's statue looks on from the rubble of the car bomb that assassinated him.

Ana habibi, inta Hariri.

I continued along the seashore towards the new Downtown area, which struck me as very… I don’t want to say Disney-esque and quote the Lonely Planet guidebook, so I’ll use “Muscat-esque”. Immaculately clean streets, (even traffic lights for pedestrians), no traffic whatsoever with the center being a pedestrians-only zone, beautifully reconstructed houses. This is probably the most visible part of Hariri’s legacy. Yet there’s something a bit unsettling about the picture. Sitting in one of the myriad cafés by Place d´Étoile drinking another café mocca I couldn’t help but think that this had very little to do with the Beirut I knew. Beautiful? Unquestionably. Absolutely breathtaking. Still, it does seem to stick out of the rest of the cityscape like a, uh… manicured thumb.

Another seafront view closer to the new rebuilt Downtown.

Exhibit 1 from Downtown.

Exhibit 2 from Downtown.

Exhibit 3 from Downtown. The architecture is unbelievable. Note the absence of cars.

Downtown near Place d´Étoile.

The Rafiq Hariri Mosque (background) by day.

A typical modern Downtown street with its cafés.

And behold, my future was revealed.

I met Samir’s brother Khaled back at Place Sassine and moved out of the hostel into Samir’s place in Mar Elias in West Beirut. Another Lebanese hospitality trip, having an empty three-bedroom apartment all to myself for the rest of my stay – for free. After Khaled made sure I was settled in and comfortable, he left and I took a quick shower before I headed out and walked to Walima’s just off Hamra Street where Ziyad’s trio were to play at 10 PM.

That’s another thing about Beirut. If you like to walk from place to place, you’re a weirdo. Period. Beirutis don’t walk. They go by car or take a cab. Try to argue that a 25 minute walk is actually a great way to get to know the city, and the response you get is “fucking Europeans, man…”.

It was great to see Ziyad again, though I was a bit bummed I’d missed him guesting with Jean’s jazz band at Hamra Terrace earlier because I’d had to move my things. Interestingly, they’d done Miles Davis’s song “Nardis” with Ziyad playing the theme on the oud, and I’d toyed with the exact same idea a while ago. I always thought the melody was just begging to be played on an oud. We talked music and it seemed like word of my performance with the guys had traveled, which took me by some surprise. Met new people once again. Felt good. Ziyad’s band consisted of him on oud and vocals, a bassist on fretless and a percussionist on cajón. The two sets were a mixture of his original compositions as well as rearrangements of old tunes by the likes of Mohamed Abdel Wahab. After the dining tipped its scales more towards the wining, the people at the restaurant really got into it and it was impossible to see the band behind all the people dancing. By the end of their second set I was more than ready to hit the sack so I took a cab back to Samir’s and dozed off.

Ziyad's trio live at Walimat. Note the ever-present cigarette.

Sat 5th Jul 2008

Air conditioned bedroom sez the stocks in quality sleep went through the roof.

Spent the day having a look around my new neighborhood and practicing to prepare myself for my first lesson with Ziyad. Mar Elias seems like a very vibrant area of the city. Though relatively close to Corniche al Mazraa which has been the scene of a lot of the recent unrest, Khaled assured me it was safe and that if something started happening, he’d let me know immediately. Bustling streets, noisy traffic, once again newer apartment buildings side by side with older ones with bullet holes in them, lest anyone forget. I felt more at home, and besides, I was a (European) walking distance from Hamra.

Iz my babies.

Ziyad came by Samir’s at 6 PM and we started with the basics of traditional classical Arabic taqasim improvisation with three different maqams (scales). Ziyad didn’t bring his own oud to the lesson, so we kept switching back and forth. The first things he asked me to do was improvise something so he could get an idea of my level on the instrument, and once I did, I quickly realized that as far as authenticity goes, I wasn’t even in the vicinity of a neighborhood of a ballpark. Ziyad went over several basic ‘rules’ of the classical way of taqasim improvisation in his laidback drawl, punctuated with more “yani, bas…”’s than I could count. Maybe I should – I recorded the entire lesson. He seemed to have a very clear way of putting things, and the fact that he had also studied jazz and music involving harmony in general (Arabic music in the traditional sense has no harmony, but is based solely on melody and rhythm), gave us some common ground. We seemed to speak the same language. Not that I could automatically carry out what he was teaching me, but in principle, I understood. In the 90 minutes we spent I learned more new things than I probably had in the past two years. The whole tetrachord concept for instance was totally new to me.

After the lesson I spent some time at Café Younis interwebbing again, and after Jean texted me I went to his place to hang out and delve into his enormous music library. Talked, ate and listened to great music until about 2.30 AM. He asked me to drop by the next day to do some recording with him, which I gladly agreed to. I also managed to pull the rug out from underneath him when it came up that I’d seen BOTH Richard Bona and Jonas Hellborg live. I don’t think he’s quite recovered yet.


Sun 6th Jul 2008

Hmm. Woke up (late, what is it with me?). Played some guitar, did some solfege exercises and went to find something to eat. I realized that my coffee intake had diminished an unforgivable amount ever since I got here – meaning no morning coffee to get me started for days – so I rewarded myself with two espressos. My parents called to check in.

Went back to Samir’s to start transcribing Ziyad’s lesson from my laptop. Spent quite long writing notes of all his comments, trying to get everything down as exactly as possible. Didn’t finish it so there’s still work tomorrow. Ronnie’s girlfriend Maureen called me up and we decided to get some coffee and take another look at Downtown Beirut.

Taking notes.

With Maureen as the resident (Asian) tour(ist) guide, we spent a couple of hours taking photos, talking about our backgrounds, the country and its history, and had a long conversation on the war at Martyr’s Square. She also managed to take some truly amazing photos which I’ll put up as soon as I get them; my camera didn’t quite seem to cut it as well as hers. Also went up to Virgin Megastore’s roof, which was a great view.

The Rafiq Hariri Mosque by night.

Maureen dropped me off at Jean’s with my guitar in tow around 9 PM. We started working on a tune he’d done with Ziyad and some other players, which was an atmospheric mix of Arabic oud, flamenco vocals, flute, bass and electronica. Very interesting. I had to improvise all the guitar parts off the top of my head as I’d never heard the tune before, but we seemed to really think alike and speak the same musical language. Great guitar tone too, my Flaxwood direct into his computer with some tweaking and effects care of Amplitube.

It’s not the first time on this trip that I’ve felt like all the elements that I’ve dreamt of putting together in my own musical-statement-in-the-making are finally within an arm’s reach. Both Jean and Ziyad seem to be so hardcore into so much of the exact same stuff as I am, it’s unbelievable. Even the fretless stuff I’d done in Frankfurt which I showed Jean was received with nothing but enthusiasm. Wish I’d had that guitar with me here. Jean kept telling me I should really move here so we could work more. Seriously considering.

Recording at Jean's home studio.

A great, relaxed session. We were both very happy how it turned out. Again, quite an honor to get to record on the same track as guys like this. Jean said we might do another one with just oud, bass and guitar before I leave. A chicken sandwich and some videos courtesy of a sick Turkish trio later, I was in the cab (getting better at bargaining already) on my way back to Mar Elias.

As the icing on the cake I think I finally resolved what I’d play at a certain audition in September. Water closet maketh the heart go ponder.

...

VERSE 1. Jun 30th - Jul 3rd

I’ll try and update the blog regularly, but I can’t promise I can do it daily. Writing takes time and needs a quiet moment. I’ll be backtracking every once in a while. I’d also imagine my entries will vary a great deal in length, more details at first and a lot less later.

Setting the scene – the first couple of days

Mon Jun 30th 2008

My flight landed in Beirut at 2.25 am. The first thing you notice coming to Beirut is the heat, the humidity and that familiar smell I can’t quite describe. It smells like… well, Beirut. I also got a preview of things to come on the flight, sitting next to a Lebanese family who reminded me once again how friendly and accommodating the Lebanese are. After getting through customs I met my friend Sara el-Yafi who came to pick me up with a Chinese-American friend of hers from Harvard, Michael Hsu. Turned out to be a hilarious guy (over)driven by curiosity for just about everything.

The thing with navigating in Beirut is, street names, excluding the main ones, are pretty much useless if you want to get somewhere. Nobody knows. People find their way according to landmarks, not specific addresses. So of course nobody had any idea where Bed & Breakfast Mehanna was – finding Rue Cheikh el Ghaby 64 in Achrafieh might as well have been trying to find a needle in a haystack. After getting a tour of Hizbollah-influenced south Beirut, we started asking for directions in Achrafieh from people on the streets. Asked one guy, who gave us some directions, and when we accidentally came back to the same place twice, he appeared in front of us in his own car, took Sara’s phone and called the hostel, and lead us there. Only in Lebanon.

Not so surprisingly, my hostel booking seemed like a total surprise to the couple who owned the place. They turned out to apparently be renting out rooms in their old family apartment after their children had moved out. Charming. My room was right next to their personal bedroom, so forget privacy for anyone. No air conditioning, but otherwise more than decent for $25 a night. Spent the rest of the night catching up a little with Sara and getting to know Michael, eating a snack somewhere in Achrafieh, then blasted Nightwish until 6 am in Sara’s car, who’s a huge fan. The irony made me laugh out loud.

My room at the hostel.

We planned to visit south Lebanon with Sara and Michael – who had surprised Sara the day before, calling to say he was flying in with 24 hours notice on his way to Lahore through Damascus. Didn’t sleep too well because of the heat. Shower, then went out to try and get a grasp of my surroundings. It seems like every time you arrive in a huge city, the first impression you get is a bit intimidating; although Beirut has changed immensely since ’96, the one thing I didn’t remember for some reason was that it was this chaotic.

The view from my balcony.

The traffic is legendary. It’s pretty much total anarchy on the streets – cars driving two (sometimes three) ways on both lanes, stopping mid-traffic to reverse all of a sudden, you name it. Honking seems to be the only common language everyone speaks. After getting a shawarma and some coffee near Place Sassine, Sara picked me up with Michael and Antoine, and we went to have a traditional Lebanese lunch at ABC mall.

Lunch Lebanese-style.

Antoine, Michael and Sara.

We picked up Sara’s ex-roommate from Harvard, Yelda, and headed for the south. The Hizbollah-controlled southern part of the country isn’t a place I’d necessarily venture into on my own, but with local friends who know what they’re doing showing us around it felt safe so we went. We drove to Beaufort Castle, which has been fought over for centuries and in turn controlled by just about all the sides of just about every conflict here. It’s unique in that you can see so many sides from the top of the mountain – Lebanon on one hand, Israel on the second, and the disputed Shebaa Farms on the third.

At Beaufort Castle in Southern Lebanon

A dusky view of Lebanon.

It felt more than a little surreal to stand in the bullet hole-filled Hizbollah guard post, yellow and green flag and all, at the top of the Castle. Makes you think, more than a little.

At the Hizbollah guardpost at Beaufort Castle.

Sara wanted to take us closer to the Israeli border as well, but the Hizbollah checkpoint wouldn’t let us through since Michael and I had foreign passports. Apparently, they don’t want to take responsibility if something happens to us, and we didn’t have permits from our own governments to go there. No reason to try and be foolishly courageous so we headed back to Beirut. Dinner with (and on) Sara’s parents and brother at a Thai restaurant, then back to the hostel, shower and sleep.



Tue Jul 1st 2008

The plan for the day was to go to the Bekaa valley, again with Sara and Michael, in central Lebanon to visit the ruins of Baalbek, which is the best preserved temple of the Roman era in the world (also known as Heliopolis). One of the signature sights of Lebanon. Got up, took my oud with me since Sara suggested it’d be an experience to actually play inside Bacchus’ temple in Baalbek, popped in at the internet café up the street to check my mails. The rates here seem to vary a great deal – this one was 1000 LL (Lebanese Lira) an hour (less than 0,50 €), but the cafés in Hamra take up to 3000 LL (2 €) /h. The country operates with both US dollars and Lebanese Liras, but because of the inflation caused by the civil war, the value of the Lira has gone from about 2,2 LL to a dollar before the war to 1500 LL to a dollar after the war. Makes sense to use both currencies.

On the way to Place Sassine to find breakfast (same shawarma, same coffee; a creature of habit, who, me?) the security card of a jewelry store noticed I was carrying an oud so he stopped me and asked if I played. After a typical foreigner-Beiruti conversation involving his broken English, my less-than-elementary Arabic and rusty French, and a great deal of body language from both parties, it turned out that he was also “an average oud player”, as he put it. “Yani, not good, bas…” I asked him to play something for me, so he did. He played and sung some Fairouz songs while I filmed him, and I timidly improvised something for him. Curious passers-by stopped to watch and listen. Although he commended my playing and especially my left hand technique, this whole episode sort of epitomized why I came here: the depth of phrasing and authenticity in his playing, even though he said he was “not” a good player, was way beyond my level. It’s a cultural thing, it runs that deep. It has to be. Although I was taken aback by what he played, I was even more certain that I did the right thing in coming here. Took some pictures together, and we both probably made each other’s day.

"Yani, not good, bas..." - oh, come on.

After Sara picked me up and we fetched Michael from his hotel we headed for Baalbek, over the mountains and eastward. I was planning on going to listen to Jean Madani and Ziyad Sahhab playing at the BIBA club in Gemmayzeh the next day, but on the way I got a message from Jean saying that I should come and play with them. “It’s mainly improvisations. Oh, and – guitar, not oud.” Flattered but getting a bit nervous, I found myself promising to play. Quite an honor to get to play with musicians like them, and I hadn’t even met them yet; crazy or not, how could I say no?

Driving over the mountains, we stopped in Chtaura for some food. Again, the driving was interesting, to say the least. When we reached Baalbek we were immediately surrounded by pushy merchants selling souvenirs. Ended up buying a prayer band, while Michael got himself a Hizbollah t-shirt. Wasn’t going to wear it ever. The tour guide turned out to be a hilarious guy; I’d never had this much fun at any historic site in my life. We were bending backwards laughing, all four of us, the guide included. Took a lot of goofy pictures and ended up in deep conversation inside Bacchus’ temple, the scene of more (apparently very creative) orgies than even I’d like to think about. Played a little oud inside the temple, which was another Moment for me. Afterwards things really got out of hand with Sara and Michael dueting on tunes from the Little Mermaid by heart. A truly memorable tour.

Who's your Venus?

"Täällä on paljon rakkautta ilmassa." -Anonymous DJ

Perspective.

The temple of Bacchus.

Having a Moment.

Kimmo Pohjonen and KTU have nothing on this...

Baalbek by night.

Back towards Beirut, we stopped at Chtaura again to drop Michael off, since he was going to take a taxi to Damascus to get to his friend’s wedding the next day. After some very impressive bargaining we left a very emotional and happy Michael with promises to keep in touch and head for Beirut with Sara. Ended up pondering the ins and outs of relationships over burgers, and comparing thoughts on heavy metal drummers before I went back to the hostel to sleep.


Wed Jul 2nd 2008

Slept late, maybe too late. Got up in the afternoon to find the power’s out. Couldn’t see a thing in the bathroom so I put off showering and decided to practice the guitar a little, since I hadn’t played in over a week. A bit nervous about the gig, but also excited. Spent some quality time with a metronome on the balcony, then plugged into my laptop and played some more. Still no electricity, so had a dark shower, hit my head on a shelf and got a nasty cut, and headed out hoping I wouldn’t get a headache.

I walked past a house that had burned – burned cars and police everywhere. This being Beirut, my first thought was, a car bomb? Turns out the Total gas station across the street had had a gas leak, its generator had exploded and set the neighboring building and quite a few cars on fire. The house had totally (no pun intended) burned, with two people hospitalized. I guess I seriously sleep soundly, if I can sleep through an explosion just a block away. Took a taxi to Hamra, the main street and ‘heart’ of the city, in West Beirut.

...and I actually slept through this?

The likely thing is, if you’re a foreigner, taxis and shops will try to rip you off. A taxi from Achrafieh in East Beirut to Hamra in West Beirut should be about 5000 LL (just over 2 €), but chances are you’ll be asked for 10000 LL. With a servis taxi, meaning the driver can pick up other people as well on the way if they’re going in the same general direction, the rates should be 2000 LL, but again, they’ll want at least 5000 LL from a foreigner. On the other hand, compared with the initial starting fee of 7,20 € in Finland, before the taxi moves an inch, it’s not that bad. Bargaining is the way to go, of course. Same thing with me trying to get a Lebanese phone line instead of sending expensive SMS’s and calling people from my Finnish cell. An MTC line with no credit cost $100 in the first shop I asked, “last price”. The second shop sold the same MTC line for $110, including $47 worth of prepaid credit. People tend to SMS each other here a lot; makes sense at $0,09 a message vs. calling at the outrageous $0,50 a minute.

Beirut has many faces, depending on which area you visit. West Beirut seemed much more familiar, and much closer to the way I remembered the city. The school I went to (A.C.S. or American Community School) was and still is in Hamra, so for the first time during my stay, I started feeling at home in my surroundings when the taxi dropped me off on Hamra Street. Memories, memories. Bliss Street, the Corniche, Hardee’s… this was the Beirut I remembered and had missed. Bought a map and went to eat.

Grabbed a cab back to the hostel, changed clothes – while they’re not out of the question by any means, generally shorts aren’t considered smart attire here – took my guitar and took a servis taxi to Gemmayzeh and the BIBA, where I was supposed to meet Jean at 8.00 PM. The taxi driver – who ripped me off big time – stopped in midtraffic when someone stopped the car. Turned out to be Jean, who recognized me from his own car (ah, the power of MySpace); a quick change of cars and we headed for BIBA. Got acquainted over Almaza beers, and waited for Ziyad, who later showed up looking more like Kim Thayil from Soundgarden than Kim Thayil from Soundgarden himself. After the owner of BIBA, Nino, showed up, we did a quick soundcheck (bass and electric guitar straight into the PA, not even a DI, while Ziyad played his oud through a Boss EQ pedal and his new toy, a Line 6 Delay Modeller) and realized that the room was a difficult one. Very muffled, very heavy on the low end. Talked some more with Jean and Ziyad, both of whom turned out to be very nice guys, Jean a bit more bursting with energy than Ziyad, who was more laid back. Still had no idea what we were going to play, but the atmosphere was very welcoming, so I started to relax. Talked to Wissam, who works with Jean at the same music production company, as well as Ziyad’s fiancée Marie, who’s an actress and local television series star. Very nice people, felt right at home. Ziyad still looked like Kim Thayil, although Jean told me Marie had just forced him to cut his beard.

The gig started eventually, and while I thought I’d only sit in on a tune or two towards the end, Jean invited me onstage right away. “C minor”, and off we went. The music took on the form of atmospheric, open Arabic free improv, but not in the sense of free jazz. Moods, yani. Decided to just listen at first and gradually find my way in. Ziyad started with a solo oud improv, toying with reverse delay effects from his pedal, and I could’ve just listened to him for the rest of the evening. One of those what-the-hell-am-I-doing-in-this-company moments. Felt my way through the twists and turns, took a solo. After the song Jean said, “Fucking great solo, man”, and I was able to relax a bit. Second song started, Am - F/A - E7b9 something Ammaj7 something something, ok… got approving looks over a montuno impression. After the song I got off the stage to listen to what the guys would do by themselves, closed my eyes and zoned out. For the last tune Jean invited me back, “Come back for a last one, yalla. You lead.” Started jamming on a riff from a song I’d written for Unveil, “Quicksilver”. Ziyad went off on a tangent with his effects and we were done. Whew. Still alive. That was interesting. And to think I’d soon be studying with Ziyad. Both Jean and Ziyad seemed very happy.

Performing with Ziyad and Jean at BIBA in Gemmayzeh.

Beer, more talking with the guys, Marie and her friend Ranya who is also an actress and Nino’s girlfriend. Ziyad and I planned to have a session every other day around 6 PM so I’d have time to practice on my ‘days off’. Agreed to start the next day. We also talked about going to visit his luthier in Baalbek the next week, so I could get myself a better oud than the cheap Moroccan one I’ve been having to keep together with glue, band-aids and pure intentions for quite a while. For an instrument with eleven strings, I wouldn’t mind one that actually stayed in tune, either.

Headed out for a late bite in West Beirut with Ziyad and Marie and met the rest of the guys at the restaurant. Got a tour of the former civil war –era demarcation line between the Christian East Beirut and the Muslim West Beirut on the way. Marie also promised to lend me a copy of the film “West Beirut”, a classic on life during the war. After a very enjoyable dinner which included lessons in both Arabic and Arabic wordplay, I got a ride from Nino and Ranya back to my hostel.



Thurs Jul 3rd 2008

I was supposed to move to my old high school friend Samir’s place to stay today. Samir and I had a band in 9th grade, my first band ever. Roadkill Café, baby! I played lead and he played rhythm. We had two original tunes, “Mr. & Mrs. Chips” and “Shallow 306”, had a live set also including “Paranoid” and “Little Wing”, a drummer who almost always found ‘the 1’ and a singer who thought he was Perry Farrell from Jane’s Addiction. At 15, he wouldn’t sing “Paranoid” since he didn’t like the lyrics. We thought we owned Beirut.

Samir’s working for MTV Arabia in Dubai these days, so he’d arranged with his brother that after his empty Beirut apartment had been renovated, I’d move in to live there for free. Another example of Lebanese hospitality. Which creates an interesting situation: Finns by nature don’t want to impose themselves on anyone or be of any trouble whatsoever, and feel uncomfortable asking for just about anything. Ei tartte auttaa. A Lebanese friend can’t stand and absolutely will not accept the idea of you coming to visit their country and staying at a hostel. If they have the possibility, they absolutely refuse to let you stay anywhere but at their place. I was recently lectured at length on the unacceptability of being a typical Finn in situations like this (or in Lebanese situations in general) by another old friend of mine, Morgan, so I knew better than to decline. I accepted his offer happily.

After getting up I went out for a walk and got a call from Samir’s brother, saying that the apartment wouldn’t be ready until tomorrow, and that he was very sorry for the inconvenience. Not a problem, couldn’t help but smile at the un-Finnish gesture. I decided to stay at the hostel for another night. Another former A.C.S. friend of mine, Ronnie Chatah, called me up so I passed by the hostel and picked up my oud for the lesson with Ziyad, and took a cab to Hamra to see Ronnie at his place. Smiles, hugs, catching up – it was like 12 years hadn’t passed, aside from the fact that we’d both grown longer hair and actually developed some hair on our faces.

A reunion with Ronnie after 12 years.

I got a message from Ziyad asking if we could postpone the lesson until tomorrow, so I hung out with Ronnie and his girlfriend Maureen at his dorm, which was unlike anything I’d ever seen. Right off Bliss Street in the heart of West Beirut, in a building that used to be a music school so there were was a grand piano and a double bass lying around the communal living room. Every one of the 12 people living there had their own room, most of them with their own terrace (Ronnie had made his into his private living room, couches, TV and all). It was far from fancy or luxurious, but the vibe and atmosphere was the kind that made you want to move in. Luxury comes in many forms. Ronnie said the place was regularly frequented by foreigners either living more or less permanently or just for a longer period in Beirut, and that he was the senior inmate having lived there for two or three years. And this included being stuck there during both the Summer War in 2006 and the recent clashes in May when he and Maureen were trapped in the house for days while there was fighting on their very street and they had snipers on their roof. Scary shit.

Maureen, Ronnie and Yours Truly.

The rent, he said, was around $300, which seriously got me thinking. I started asking about the possibilities of renting a room there if I manage to come back to Beirut later and spend a longer time studying music here. A pure dream of a place to live in. If that happens, I definitely know where I’ll try and get an apartment first.

Ronnie was leaving for Berlin tomorrow, so I left him to pack and spent the rest of the day at Café Younis drinking espressos and lattes and writing this. Took in the atmosphere in Hamra, enjoyed every second. It really is unique. Went back to get my oud, visited a record store and found a treasure chest of Oum Khalthoum DVD’s, got a very pleasant phone call, ate, went back to Café Younis for a quick e-mail check and started to head back to get some sleep.

Hamra by night.

Managed to rip off the taxi driver by accident. I asked for his fee to Place Sassine, he said 10000, I said 7000, and he agreed grudgingly. I said I’d guide him to my hostel from Place Sassine. Once we got there, and I started giving him directions, he started complaining that my hostel is actually in Karm el-Zeitoun, not Achrafieh, and that Achrafieh apparently ends at Place Sassine. Had he known we were going to Karm el-Zeitoun, he probably would’ve wanted more. I gave him the 7000 and bid him good night. Sly and clever Iznogoud make a very naice businessing ee yes!

-J