Cicada Sounds

About three weeks ago our friend Mar­garida Tree, owner of One Yoga Planet in Ft. Pierce, called us and asked if we could per­form for a fund-raiser being held for a local Stu­art man called Brother Judah.  She shared that it was for help­ing a fel­low musi­cian and really cool guy pay for med­ical treat­ments for lung can­cer.  Once we spoke to Deb­o­rah Sil­ver, the fund-raiser orga­nizer to solid­ify the plans,Manuka Honey mem­bers were absolutely all on board.

This past Sat­ur­day, June 19^th, Manuka Honey kicked off the event to a packed house there at the Blake Library in Stu­art.  For the dura­tion of the event, from 1 – 4 pm, some­where around 300 peo­ple came to show their love and sup­port for this man.  Fol­low­ing Manuka Honey’s per­for­mance were the belly dancer’s, and yes they were a BIG hit.  Margarida’s sis­ter, Yvonne, who teaches belly danc­ing at One Yoga Planet, brought a troop of dancers that wowed the crowd with their per­for­mance.  She fol­lowed up their per­for­mance with a beau­ti­ful solo dance.  Brother Judah’s young stu­dents sang a sweet heart­felt song for him while he looked on from the side of the stage.  And to cap off the day all of his drum­ming stu­dents and fel­low drum­mers cre­ated a fan­tas­tic drum cir­cle.  The res­o­nant sound of all the drums exploded within the auditorium.

Although we hadn’t pre­vi­ously met Brother Judah until the day of the fund-raiser, we felt hon­ored to spend the day with him and all the peo­ple that love him and sup­port him through his heal­ing process.  Through­out the day we learned that this drum­mer taught racial tol­er­ance and fam­ily val­ues through his drum­ming out­reach classes to the local school chil­dren, and the Boys and Girls Clubs.  You could tell by watch­ing him that his nature was to give, and here he was learn­ing to receive.  Not only were Brother Judah’s young stu­dents there in full force, so were his adult stu­dents and peers, and every­one had a blast!  Once again, I have to say how hon­ored we felt to be a part of such a won­der­ful com­mu­nity event and to send heal­ing, energy, and love to a fel­low musi­cian in need.  We hope to meet again!

By Cheri Abrams

“For those about to rock, we salute you.” – AC/DC

Beloved w/Piccolo Bass

A most wel­come addi­tion to our instru­men­ta­tion has appeared. Recently Ken and I were talk­ing about the space within our music for a gui­tarist, which we had inter­viewed for with­out suc­cess. He had been track­ing the Onori pic­colo bass on E-bay and decided to go for it. Using the Logic Pro clean elec­tric gui­tar effects trio, we imme­di­ately heard the sound we were look­ing for.

Ken’s clean rhyth­mic gypsy jazz play­ing per­fectly com­pli­mented the new song Beloved. With Ken’s bass play­ing trans­lated to the higher octaves, and my often used left handed bass piano chords and mod­u­la­tions, the song took on a whole new sound; a light­ness and sweet­ness to our ears! The ben­e­fit of branch­ing out and try­ing dif­fer­ent roles with cur­rent musi­cians within the band, is that we know exactly the sound we’re look­ing for.

In search­ing for the right musi­cian before we found it was often a tough call. Either the musician’s play­ing was per­fect, but the lifestyle didn’t fit with ours, or that con­nec­tion wasn’t quite there, and the sound didn’t mesh. I am so happy for this gift of the pic­colo bass, that Ken gave him­self and the band. I do so look for­ward to explor­ing the new dimen­sions in sound this bass will take us!