Sunday 30 May 2010

in and out of KL.

Now last summer over the course of the festival season I was pretty busy.
What this meant was that quite often I'd arrive at the place I was performing litterally moments before I was due to step out on stage.
I wasn't the only one.

I know Kate Tempest, Ross Sutherland, Inua Ellems, Jamie Woon and Joshua Idehen (to name but a few) were all in the same boat.

Well if you are still in England then you must have realised, Summer is back, and this time it's personal.

The reason I know this because one of my sisters sent me an email telling me how it was so hot she couldn't even go outside.
Apparently it was like 25 degrees C in Leicester.
Seeing as how I set my air-con at around 20 I wasn't really that impressed but it's all relitive eh.

Anyway what with the arrival of summer and with poetry being the new rock-n-roll an all,
I figured I'd do a gig.
not just a gig; but a far away gig.
One where I'd inevitably be cutting it close.

So here it is, performing in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Flying out from Phnom Penh 4.45 saturday
coming home 2.55 Sunday Malaysian time, (1 hour in front).
21 hours total.


Having lived in Cambodia for the last 6 months KL felt like I'd arrived in the future.
All be it a strangely malign future who's chief arcatect was a 16 year old Gun-Dam robot enthusiast with an obsesive desire to create a searies of Urbainian-style satalite cities scattered across an intensly confusing network of vast, sprawling, seemingly endless super high-ways.

The gig was the first monthly slam at Map. Anyone living in or going to KL would do well to check it out.
Elaine Foster runs it and it's a very possitive night in an amazing space.

After the gig I went out for a drink with some of those in attendance. We went to a place called Boathouse that felt like it was in Bristol but looked exactly like the room in Warrior King where they eat the endangered animals.
I kept expecting Tony Jar to kick some one through the wall screaming, "Where are my elephants?"
unfortunatly that didn't happen.

pretty pricey an all.
In fact if you're sick of having all that money in your pocket then I recomend going out for a drink in KL.
I think it worked out about 18 Ringit per beer.
If US$1= about 3.23RM you can do the maths eh.

Here's a little video I made so you can see what I did.
Mostley just motorbikes, taxis and airoplanes, oh and one poem.





I'm back in Phnom Penh now that due to it's geography is physically 1 hour behind KL
and due to it's history is Artistically 20 years behind the rest of the world.

Time to get cracking on that renaissance.

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