Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, is supporting the performance saying: “Music and other creative activities can provide the much needed opportunities and motivation for young people to reach their potential and stay on the right track. I am pleased to be able to support Shlomo’s event and I wish him well with his future outreach projects.”
There are only a few tickets left so get in quick! More information on the event page.
We played at the QEH (sold out!) on Friday.. my birthday was on the Monday so I got to celebrate twice!
the new members of the vocal orchestra getting ready to go on
I did a duet with Fyfe Dangerfield of the Guillemots.
I’ll stick up some audio on the podcast from the Fyfe collaboration soon (i’m currently going through all the audio from the arctic - got SO much quality stuff!!
also did a duet with MC Zani (current national beatbox champion)
the new Vocal Orchestra on stage at QEH
they brought me a birthday cake and made me ‘beatbox’ out the candles!!
taking a bow
me DJing afterwards
It was my first ever DJ set, which i decided to do to celebrate my birthday and as an excuse to play a whole load of 90s classics. my mixing is awful though, so it was simultaneously the best and the worst dj set ever done.
only a few tickets left for brand new vocal orchestra at QEH… get in quick if you still want to come!! Also you’ll get to see my DJing debut in the foyer afterwards… will be bringing out some 90s classics!!!!
I was performing with DJ Yoda, an amazing scratch dj and video artist. We created an audio-visual show for MTUM earlier in the year, and Bestival asked us to bring it to the mainstage.
Yoda getting set up
view from the stage
We were on right after human league, before hot chip and winehouse.
Apparently we played to around 30,000 people…. last major festival of the year.. what a summer
Episode 3 of Shlomo’s Babelbox Podcast is out now, and it’s a Glastonbury special.
The podcast includes a backstage audio diary following Shlomo’s performances on the main stage in front of tens of thousands of people, plus highlights from the two-hour show on Park Stage. Features music and interviews from DJ Yoda, Get Cape Wear Cape Fly, Martha Wainwright, Martina Topley-Bird, Ed Harcourt and loads more.
It’s 3pm. The show starts at 6. Emily Eavis has given us free reign of the Park Stage for two hours.
I’ve got the Vocal Orchestra and a heap of guest collaborators and I need to rehearse. We find a bar backstage with a decent soundsystem and get to it. Before I know it we are ready to go on, Park Stage is totally rammed!
The sun has come out and the people are smiling. Pavan from Foreign Beggars is helping me host the stage. I hear him saying my name followed by a cheer and next thing I know I am beatboxing to about 10,000 Glastonbury punters.
I kick it off with a short solo set to introduce the crowd to what I do. As I power up my looping setup, there is a loud popping noise followed by silence. I’m told that I have blown the generator for the entire Park Area. Oops. Now I am freaking out – so much work has gone into this show. This can’t be the end of it! The audience aren’t having any of it… they remain enthusiastic, singing and cheering until the power eventually comes back on. Phew!
No time to lose now, I skip straight to my drum n bass looping song to get everyone moving again, and then bring out the Vocal Orchestra. They are on fire today.
The Vocal Orchestra
What follows is a unique mish-mash of guest stars performing spontaneously. The music ranges from folk to jazz to hip hop to tabla to scratch battles to raucous sing-a-longs. If you would like to hear some of the music you will have to wait for the podcast – we did an audio diary of the whole weekend which will be out soon. There are some pics below, mostly taken by RJ Fernandez, more to come.
Martha Wainwright sang a version of ‘In the Middle of the Night’ with me on beats
Martina Topley-Bird sang ‘Police and Thieves’ by Junior Mervin with the Vocal Orchestra as backing band
Ed Harcourt presented me with a fake diamond encrusted golden microphone onstage… I think he wanted me to look as bling as Jay-Z! Then he sang ‘50 ways to leave your lover’
It was a moving experience, I came off stage exhausted but happy – I felt like all the collaborations and musical experiences from the past year as resident at Southbank have armed me with all the tools I needed to rock a two hour improvised show. It was probably the best show I’ve ever done, certainly the most fun show I have been a part of. I can’t wait to do it again. Watch this space!
Hi, Shlo here. So you might know we are hosting our own stage for the Saturday evening at the Glastonbury Park Stage this year. The idea is that my beatbox choir (Shlomo and the Vocal Orchestra) will be the backing band for a series of guest-star collaborations.
Emily Eavis is curating the Park Stage and she has invited several of the festival’s key artists to collaborate with us.
The lineup is a secret but you can probably guess some of the names by looking at previous Unconventional Means lineups, then throw in a few of this year’s headline artists and you have yourself a show!
If you can guess the artists referred to in the following clues, email your name, phone number and answers to competition@shlo.co.uk by 5pm on Friday 20th June and you will be in with a chance of winning two free tickets to the festival.
1. Locating superhero attire
2. Preacher with creators
3. Two offspring of folk-rock dynasties
Southbank have invited me back for another year as Artist in Residence. This is great, as it means I’ll be based there at least until next Summer.
Jane from the Southbank Centre asked me who I would like to collaborate with for “unconventional means” next year. I said Stevie Wonder. She said why not. Then she asked me to write a “brain-dump” list of artists starting with Stevie. Here’s the list so far (it’s not quite finished yet).
- Stevie Wonder
- Paul Simon
- Joni Mitchell
- Keith Jarrett
- Peter Gabriel
- Sting
- Bebel Gilberto
- Björk
- Nitin Sawhney
- Ozomatli
- John Scofield
- Sigur Ros
- Mariza
- Squarepusher
- The Prodigy
- Unkle/ James Lavelle
- Van Morrison
- Alex Turner
- Thom Yorke
- Bobby McFerrin
- Damian Marley
- Danger Mouse
- Easy Star Allstars
- DJ Shadow
- Eels
- Four hero
- Roni Size
- Alex Kapranos
- Fat Freddy’s Drop
- Portishead
- Imogen Heap
- Lauren Hill
- Gilles Peterson
- Heritage Orchestra
- Ojos De Brujo
- Tinariwen
- Susheela Raman
- Mike Patton
- Gonzales
- Gotan Project
- Herbie Hancock
- Ladysmith Black Mambazo
- Matmos
- De La Soul
- Annie Lennox
- The Specials
- Brian Eno
- Candi Staton
- Camille
- Baaba Maal
- Anoushka Shankar
- Tony Allen
Here’s an MP3 of me jamming on my new ‘hernia rig’* (2 loopstations and a kaoss pad) at the QEH last month. It’s from my solo set, before I collaborated with Mad Professor.
I’m calling it ‘Kernia’. Check it out here: Kernia.
the hernia rig
*it was named the hernia rig by Tony Birch (my right hand man, best production manager in world) after he nearly killed himself trying to lift it!
