It doesn't happen often, but once in a while, a non-mainstream band comes to Dubai and the non-mainstream music fans in Dubai get excited and turn up in full force.
The concert took place in The Music Room and it was fun, but the sound system was not up to standard.
Here's a video that was released a few days ago showing highlights of The Black Lips tour in the region, featuring Erbil, Dubai and Cairo.
The Dubai gig involved a mosh pit and crowd surfing, but I managed to stay safe and sound on the side of the stage, and took some of these photos. I know these aren't your typical concert photos, but hey, who needs typical?
Doc Daneeka is based in Berlin but originally from Swansea. He ust finished touring in the US and Canada Tour with Addison Groove, alongside dates across the UK, Europe, China, Australia and New Zealand. One of his most recent gigs was at Sonar in Barcelona.
Doc Daneeka's brand of syncopated beats, polyrhythms and bass are almost impossible to avoid getting physical to.
His music has gained support from artists and DJs such as Mary Anne Hobbs, Jackmaster, Oneman, Sinden, Skream, Gilles Peterson, James Zabiela, Martyn, Roska & Untold.
I've been listening to his music for the past few days and it's all very groovy. If you want to listen and dance to some new music in Dubai, I strongly you suggest you go to The Music Room this Friday.
Event details Date: Friday, 29th June 2012, 9.00pm-3.00am Venue: The Music Room, Majestic Hotel, Bur Dubai (location map) Ticket: AED 60
Red Bull Music Academy is a symposium of music and knowledge. Ever year, aspiring and inspiring music makers from more than 30 countries meet in a new city to swap creative visions in lectures, studio sessions, and take part in signature concerts and club-nights.
RBMA will be in Dubai this Friday where they will host a master class to an invited group of musicians, producers and DJs from across the United Arab Emirates conducted by Benji B and Nickodemus who will share their music expertise with the attendees.
Additionally, Nickodemus will also work on the Dubai chapter of his Global Minute project which will have local artists perform over one his tracks and be part of an exhibition and international release.
A GLOBAL MINUTE is a multi-media Hip Hop project that has been started by DJ/Music Producer Nickodemus and artist Justin Carty. Through music, paintings and video from various cities throughout the world, they hope to get a closer insight of these cities, seen through the eyes of local MCs and artists they collaborate with along the way.
The aim of the project is to finish a one hour album and video as well as paintings of every MC/vocalist involved. Here's the video for "A New York Minute" and I'm looking forward to seeing the Dubai version.
I will leave you with this Benji B mix recommended by DJ Solo, a taste of what to expect on Friday night.
Event details Date: Friday, 23rd Friday. Doors open at 9pm. Venue: The Music Room, Majestic Hotel, Bur Dubai (location map) Tickets: AED 60
DUST is a recent addition to the party scene in Dubai, aiming to host events that aims to provide music lovers a different experience with a diverse music policy ranging from hip hop, to boogie, to bass music and back again. Basically what you can't experience at many clubs in the city.
Here's a short clip from DUST's launch night last September to give you a taste of what to expect.
The Beirut Groove Collective (BGC) was established in 2009 by two of Lebanon’s pioneer DJs - Ernesto Chahoud & Rami Obeid, with the support of other artists - Ramsay Short , VJ Nadim Saoma, Filmaker Helena Forsell and painter/trombonist Tom Young.
The goal of the BGC was and is simple: to document, promote and preserve the best in African and African-influenced musical traditions - particularly Black American musical strains - jazz, rhythm and blues, soul, funk, rare-groove and hip-hop.
BGC began a humble attempt to do something new in Beirut - organizing “house-party” events with a premium on utilizing unique alternative, community-oriented spaces such as a ramshackled fairground as a means of drawing parallels to the underground funk and soul parties that used to occur in the major urban centers of America and Africa in the 1970s.
Here's a short film about BGC and hope it will encourage you to check out their gig at The Music Room. I know I'm looking forward to it.
Event details Date: Friday, 17th February. Doors open a 9pm. Venue: The Music Room, Majestic Hotel, Bur Dubai (location map) Tickets: AED 50
Mashrou' Leila (مشروع ليلى) is a band from Lebanon that started off as an experiment and has been steadily gaining popularity and exposure over the past few years. I started to listen to their music very recently and I'm enjoying their songs and and videos. If you are in Dubai, you can watch the band performing live at The Music Room (Majestic Hotel).
They sing in Arabic and their music is a blend of Eastern and Western influences. Unlike many music acts from the region that try so hard to be 'very fusion' and just end up looking and feeling very contrived, Mashrou' Leila seem to be very at ease in what they do and I'm looking forward to seeing them live.
Ghadan Yawman Afdal / غداً يوماً أفضل (Tomorrow is a better day)
Here's a small essay by Raafat Majzoub that really gives you a great insight into the band:
Mashrouʼ Leila is not a bandʼs name. It is not a proper noun per se; Mashrouʼ Leila is Arabic for ʻan overnight projectʼ lusting out a microphone, a violin, a bass, two guitars, drums and keyboards. It started out as a music workshop at the American University of Beirut in 2008, an open platform for students of architecture and design, somewhere to experiment with sounds and make things audible. Haig Papazian, Carl Gerges, Hamed Sinno, Omaya Malaeb, Andre Chedid, Firas Abou Fakher and Ibrahim Badr have enjoyed this sound fetish savoring its façade of nonchalance and feeding on its lack of genre – sustaining their collective as Mashrouʼ Leila, an experiment.
You can hear Leila, cascading melts of masculine vocals only suspended with thrusts of violin, beats and bass – attacked by neurotic melody that means no harm – sometimes tender, even sometimes on pause. Through the music, you can smell where Leila has been, in bed sheets, on sidewalks, jasmines in rifles and spilled coffee on dresses as she made you play with aubergines, dancing her dance.
Music has constantly been their place to play with things, to match and mis-match, a project. In the various performances, Mashrouʼ Leila is a constant attempt to taste and produce, more than happy to harvest anyone from the audience as a guest in their encores. They have performed around Lebanon since 2008, playing in various venues in Beirut, taking over supposed public piazzas as well as clubs, pubs, hybrids and the such – they also played in Zahle, Sour, Jounieh, Saida and Deir el Qamar, each of which pushed forward their thinking about how to go about their music, lyrics and performance.
It is only when Mashrouʼ Leila goes live, that you can actually catch a glimpse of Leila. As it talks to you of Beirut, the city that tastes of the absurd, the product of its day-to-day experiences, its stubborn security and lack of the latter, its musical bombshells, incoherent sexuality and thrusting pleasure…narcotic pain – as it brings forward hints of Arabic Tarab, rock, to folk pop, electro, you can see Leila in every man and woman in the silent- come-raving audience. In this trajectory, they participated in music workshops and concerts in Amman and Cairo to maneuver their way into a pan-Arab music scene, to know and to announce, more importantly to grow, musically.
In March 2009, Mashrouʼ Leila won the Lebanese Modern Music Contest jury prize and public vote organized by Radio Liban in partnership with CCF, Incognito and the Basement. They have recorded their debut album with B-root Productions, which was launched in December 2009. The music in the album is a reclamation of the aftertaste; sequel-ing a dose of Beirut.
As the youngest and most exciting band on the Lebanese scene, Lumi embodies the glamor and the chaotic dynamic of their city Beirut.
Lumi, comes from the French word lumiere, meaning light, which represents an optimistic response to the gloomy environment they are surrounded by, a call to live freely and to fully enjoy it.
Marc Codsi and Mayaline Hage started Lumi in 2005 with the need of expressing their exciting, joyful and sometimes dramatic days in Beirut!
Here are a couple of their tracks. I love their energy and really looking forward to watching them again. See you there.
Event details: Date: Thursday, 3rd March 2011 from 10pm-3am. There will be two bands playing before Lumi (Rock Spiders and Shine). Venue: The Music Room at The Majestic Tower Hotel, Mankhool Road in Bur Dubai (location map) Tickets: Dhs 50 Phone: +9714 359 8888 Event on Facebook
Republica: Tim Dorney, Saffron, Andy Todd (image from Gulf News) This week's Music Monday is dedicated to Republica. Remember them? Described as a "techno-pop punk rock" band, they had two hits in the 1990s, Ready to Go and Drop Dead Gorgeous. Well, it turns out they will be performing in Dubai on 13th January at The Music Room (Majestic Hotel). Besides their two hits, I really have no idea what else will they sing. Their website has no updated information and I'm worried their set will comprise of various versions of their two songs. Which will probably be hilarious and weird.
Ready to Go is one of my favourite songs from the 1990s and always puts me in a good mood. I also remember loving lead singer Saffron's hairdo, but alas, my curly hair would never allow this slick look .
I'm contemplating going to their show, but will probably depend on my mood on the day. For now, I'm just happy to jump and sing along...
"It's a crack, I'm back yeah standing / On the rooftops having it / Baby I'm ready to go / I'm back and ready to go / From the rooftops shout it out, shout it out"
Saturday, January 19, 2013 at 8:51PM 
Inside The Music Room
Lazzy Lung
Lazzy Lung
Lazzy Lung
Jared Swilley from The Black Lips
The Black Lips
The Black Lips
The Black Lips 
Ian Saint Pé from The Black Lips
