Music for Media, Film, TV and Advertising.............and You

---

The Blue Elephant

Traveling and Recording in Asia and the 'Arte' of dragging 250 kilo of equipment across India.....you think it's easy?....lol

It was great arriving in Colombo, another world away from India...well, it seemed that way at first, they DID have ice cold beer....something incredibly hard to get in India. We had been given an address of a cheap and nasty Hotel in Mount Lavinia, just outside of Colombo, but it was full. A taxi driver said he knew of another cheap place to stay, we went with him; the place seemed ok so we booked in for Two weeks. It took us that long to find out we were living in a brothel...lol. I remember saying to Will one day "Have you noticed that no one booking into this so called Hotel, has any bags with them"?

We caused quite a storm in Sri Lanka, we got involved with a Colombo night club owner who organized a few gigs for us. This was really great because we had very little money left. We actually played a couple of classy Gigs, one at the National Cricket club, where just by coincidence England were playing Sri Lanka, another gig was at the Hilton Hotel In Colombo, were we found ourselves playing for the extremely rich and somewhat boring 'High Society' of Colombo. It all went to our heads a bit, not having earned ONE CENT in India and also not really trying too hard to do that. In fact our lives had picked up so much, we decided to stay in Sri Lanka and see what happens. We had jobs, money and we had rented a really nice apartment off a guy named Jude, a Bible bashing Christian Buddhist with a severe attitude.

We later found out that Jude had rented the apartment without the owner, who lived in the USA, knowing anything about it. When the owner, Jude's Auntie, found out he was renting HER apartment to strangers, she treatend to Retun to Sri Lanka from New York City.  Jude shat himself and tried his best to evict us, although we had a contract for three months. One day he secretly turned off the water supply, it was June and 45 degree's and without water it was unbearable.....I ended up fighting with him once after coming home one day and finding all my stuff evicted from my room!

Things however, were pretty good for both of us. We were getting paid for playing at various gigs, parties etc. We made friends, mixed it large with the rich and famous of Colombo, and regularly seen staggering out of the Hilton Hotel's 'Blue Elephant Disco' at 5 O'clock in the morning totally pissed out of our heads...lol. Jesus, what a contrast from India! Watching the locals shit in a field next to our house in Mamallapuram.....to working in the Hilton Hotel in Colombo, Sri Lanka......and eating’ Steak' everyday, not the done thing in 'Vegetarian Tamil Nadu'....the cows weren’t so sacred in Sri Lanka...and for the blood thirsty KB members.....that wasn't really a problem. Life was good at that moment.  We had found 'Meat and COLD Beer' an air conditioned Bar and a snooker table.

A couple of months went by....so did the jobs, money and food.....things started to take a turn for the worse. We had no ticket home and no money to buy one, we had exhausted all our (?) family/friends resources....to the point that most thought we were taking the p**s. We thought that we would earn enough to pay for tickets home, don't forget, it wasn't just us that needed to get back, but also all our recording gear, computers, instruments etc....we had like 250 Kilo's of equipment in four huge boxes and the only way to get that back to Europe was DHL or FEDEX it....and those who know....it isn’t cheap!!

To make matters even worst, war had broken out with the Tamil Tigers in the north of Sri Lanka, It was time to leave Colombo.....we didn't do wars!! The Airport in Colombo had been attacked, with many people being killed and most of the Airplanes from Europe completly destroyed. A state of emergency was called out for on Television by the prime minister. There were soldiers on every street corner and a sense of paranoia I had never experienced. That was it for both of us, enough is enough. We borrowed the money with one last bullshit story (there was only one person who believed the 'we were in a war zone story') and bought tickets to Milan, Italy, where a good friend of ours had offered us her home to compile and finish the music, so plans were made to get out of Sri Lanka and head back to Europe.

I traveled to Milan alone, Will stayed on in Colombo to organize shipping all the gear back to Europe. It was a long and tiring trip, full of reflection. I don't think I spoke a word to another passenger. A friend of mine picked me up from Malpensa Airport and drove me to Agra on the Italian/Swiss border overlooking 'Lago Majorie' an absolutely beautiful part of the world. This was to be home for the unforeseeable future.

We spent about six months mixing, arranging and re-writing everything we had recorded in India and Sri Lanka. We were missing just one thing......the 'Voice' to front the music.

We both envisaged a Female singer. I proposed Mattanja as Lead Vocalist and left by train for Holland to talk with her about taking the lead role with Karma Bonita. She agreed and we started work straight away. Will followed on a few months later. The team was now complete.

The three of us locked ourselves away for Six Months in an old Farmhouse in South Holland. We worked 24 hours a day at different intervals recording, writing and re-arranging the music. It was a difficult time, money had gone from scarce to completely invisible, relationships with others were abandoned due to the stress of finally completing this project.