Monkey see, monkey do, Monkey die.

Yeaterday, at about 2 o'clock, while on town just to make time go by, I heard the beat from some street musicians. I liked the beat, so I followed it to a square, where I saw one guy with a saxophone around his neck, one guy in some goofy looking sun glasses, and one guy with a woollen cap.

The beat, obvious beat boxing, came from the speakers, but none of the three were making the sound. "Odd", I thought.
Still liking the sound of it, I decided to sit down, take out my camera and shoot some pictures. Starting to love it, I noticed the girl on my side were holding up some CD's, waving with them and probably selling them.
I bought one of the CD's, sat back down, and thought I'd film it.

In the middle of a few songs, they presented themselves as Mr. Woodnote and the Bonobo Hobos, and explained how they do the music. The saxophonist/beat boxers' (Mr Woodnote's) microphone is commected to a loop station, which loops recorded sounds (no shit?) and can add sound effects to recorded sound. They had no pre-recorded sounds with them. In between of every song Mr Woodnote recorded the background beats and riffs needed, and during the song itself played some additional sax, while the other two, Theo and Lil' Rhys, did the text.

1½ hour later, the band was banned from Oxford.. Forever. "Why?" you may ask. The thing that they were selling CD's without permission. They made fun of the fact of their banning before starting to pack up their things. Wanting to thank them for the best 1½ hour of my time here in Oxford, I went up to them, thanked them and then asked Mr Woodnote;
"So, if you're banned from Oxford, where will you be playing next?"
"Well, were going to Bristol to play at a street party tonight."
"Hmm.. How do one get to Bristol from here" At this point, they already knew I'm not from around
"Well.. we do actually have a few spare seats in our truck, we could give you a lift?"
"Sound splendid! When do we go?!"

And about one hour later we were on the road towards Bristol. I was in the same truck as Theo and Lil Rhys, Mr Woodnote, his brother and girlfriend (the girl who sold CD's) was in another truck, heading the same way.

In he truck the two told me we were going to stop in Swindon, to do another gig on the streets. So we did, and I did my thing with the camera. The only thing the city council people thought in this city was "The music you play is good, I love it! But coukd you turn down the volume a little bit?" There was a gut who went up to the performers and asked if he could try some singing, he could, and he was really good! A few moments after the first guy left, there was another guy, this one maybe in his late teens, who came up and wanted to sing.
And if the first one was really good, this second one was nearly a god! He was fantastic!

After this, we packed down and went on to Bristol, where the boys performed at a street party for the seconf year in a row.
Well actually, last year it was a house party on the second floor of a building, but the band then caused so much jumping around and dancing, that the floor bended and radiators fell of the wall.. So this year, everybody thought the street was a better choice, but thus, there were no less dancing (or drinking)!

Having to catch the last train back to Oxford, I asked Woodnote how to get a cab from here to the station. He just flipped up his phone, called a number, told the person he talked to to come to "this place" and pick up a guy with a checkered hat.

We waited around for about 5 mins and then the car was there. I said farewell to my newfound friends, with a bunch of photos and videos in my pocket that I promised to publish on internet, and a joke-promise to introduce the band to the finnish audience. Whoops :P

On the train station I had to buy a ticket, and find out from where the yrain left. Since it was about 10pm there were no staff around to ask, so I went online on my phone and spoke to a good friend of mine who is back in Finland. With a low battery on my phone, there were no time for small talk, so I just asked her to tell me this and tell me quick.. Poor girl.. But she sorted it out for me, platform three and 22.33.
The result of that train was 22.40 and platform 11, but that was the train companys fault, not my wonderful friends' :P

There were obviously some repairing of the tracks going on, so we had to take a bus from Didcot Parkway (where ever that is) to Oxford. On the bus platform, where I had to wait for half an hour, I saw a few guys in the same situation as I was in, and decided to talk a bit to them.
We ended up sitting close o each other on the bus to Oxford, and that made the trip seem really short.
Well in Oxford, I had to walk from the railway station, since the buses in my direction weren't going that frequently, and the bus that my bus card works in didn't go at all.
I got home at about 1.30am, yet to have listened to the CD. I popped it in my computer this morning and weren't disappointed.
About now, my housemate is back from London, will find me not being in the house, and she has no idea what I've been up to. :)

When the video is uploaded, I'll add it up to this blog post, and edit this last sentence out :)