THE BAYS IN MEXICO
June 16th, 2005 by rui
“The Bays are a unique musical project”
A bold statement for anyone to make about any band, but when the late, great John Peel says it about The Bays you have to concede that a) if anyone would know he should and b) he may well have a point.
Peely, who narrates this film, goes on to explain The Bays’ ethos, while the screen is filled with imagery of The Bays performing at various festivals – including The Big Chill.
The ethos goes like this, essentially – The Bays play musical instruments in front of crowds of people, who often dance at the noise they hear. Oh, and they don’t rehearse, they just improvise. That pretty much sums up what they do and what they’re about.
In an industry that’s obsessed with product, marketing, packages, promotion, retail support, advertising budgets and all the other paraphernalia that comes with selling things in shops, The Bays don’t make any sense, and for that reason alone, they’re a breath of fresh air.
So far so good, and we’re only 30 seconds into Tom Oldham and Jake Harris’s documentary film about The Bays’ trip to Mexico.
This is not your everyday story of rock&roll excess on the road. Rather, it’s the story of 4 passionate and focussed musicians travelling to Mexico in the Spring of 2003 under the auspices of the British Council, to meet young Mexican music students and play a concert of improvised dance music with them.
The glamour of rock&roll touring is highlighted with such ker-azy scenes as ‘musicians waiting for their bags at the luggage carousel , rock stars waiting in the departure lounge, word class drummers sleeping on the plane’ and the like. Chris Taylor accurately and amusingly describes travelling as being ‘like being ill’.
…improvisando house…
So says a radio ad in Mexico City, as the vibe of the film changes as the band arrive in Mexico City.
Andrew Missingham from The Hub, speaks intelligently about the British Council’s motivation for taking The Bays to Mexico (again using that ‘unique’ word) and explains the concept – The Bays audition and workshop and rehearse Mexican music students for a couple of days, then play a concert with the best of them.
Mexico gets a taste of the cutting edge of contemporary, UK music and culture, The Bays get to play with some potentially interesting new musicians, some lucky Mexican music students get a shot of inspiration that they simply wouldn’t find with their teachers or fellow students, and 2000 Mexican music lovers get to jump around to musicians improvising stuff that’s normally spewed out by machines. Everybody wins.
As we move to auditions things start to get interesting.
The students have come from near and far – most having never heard The Bays, so once they’ve signed in for the day, they get to watch Andy G beating the hell out of a drumkit at 165bpm while Chris rumbles the low frequencies and Jamie and Simon wibble and and whoosh at their keyboards, mixers effects and theramin.
‘if anyone plays any solos we’ll ask you to stop’
The Bays explain their musical style to the students and try to teach them how to be a Bay. After auditioning 40 students, a shortlist of 8 is selected, including ‘a drummer who plays like keith moon, an ethereal singer, and a man who plays a, er, box’
The second day’s workshop starts to stretch both the students and the teachers.
Chris Taylor’s introspective musing on the nature of improvising music is honest and self-effacing, Andy Gangadeen’s thoughts on sharing knowledge without telling people what to do is extremely generous.
After a day’s rehearsal with the select few, the band embark on a whirlwind of press & radio interviews and then it’s off to the venue to soundcheck and prepare for the gig.
I’m not going to say anything at all about the concert footage. Just watch it – and try to stop the hairs on the back of your neck standing to attention. I hope someone considers making the whole concert available in some format.
The young musos’ obvious enthusiasm, energy and excitement post-gig is infectious, and singularly justifies the entire project. I’m willing to bet there are at least a couple of improvised electronic music bands (Los Bayos?) taking their fledgling steps along a musical career in Mexico City right now, as a direct result of that 3 day visit.
The film is creatively shot by Tom Oldham, and tightly edited by Jake Harris. They have has a real ear for a quote, an eye for detail and wide visual vocabulary – stop-frame photography, high speed, slow mo, split screen are used inobtrusively but effectively.
So to sum it up using the word cool as much as possible – it’s a really cool, well-made and intelligent film, about a really cool, intelligent band, doing something really cool and worthwhile, in a really cool hot country.
I’ll leave the last word to The Bays themselves…
‘ahh there’s something dead in the road’
‘you’re joking’
‘a big dog, yeah’
‘that was no dog’
‘what was it then?’
‘dunno but it was wearing trousers’
The Bays in Mexico was screened in the Mediamix tent at The Big Chill Festival 2005, and will be screened as part of the London Raindance Film Festival on Oct 5th 2005 at Cineworld, Shaftesbury Avenue from 5pm.
