Dennis Morris Music+Life

 Absolutely fantastic expo of Dennis Morris photos in Paris at MEP - Maison Européenne de la Photographie - allez-y si vous êtes à Paris (jusqu'au 18/5)!

Dennis Morris was 13 years old in 1973, taking photos in and around Hackney and other parts of London. He heard Bob Marley and the Wailers were going to perform at the Speakeasy Club (who weren't as widely famous at the time), so he decided to skip school and wait at the artist entrance, hoping to meet his idol.

Dennis' quote from the board at the expo: "Finally, they arrived. I went up to Bob and if I could take his picture. Bob laughed at my Cockney accent and said, 'Yeah mon, come on in.' Between songs he asked me what it was like to be a black kid in England, and I asked him about Jamaica. I felt he really took to me."

The singer was so impressed by the teen that he invited him to join them and take pictures on the tour.

"The next morning, I said goodbye to my mum like I was going to school, went to his hotel and jumped in the back of the van. Bob just turned around and said: 'Are you ready Dennis? Yeah, ready!' I replied, clicking my camera. And the adventure began."

13 years old. That's the photo there. Such an adventure! Still going on too. I also loved the photos of London's Hackney, Southall, and more in the early and mid 1970s.

Deezer

Just a quick snippet given I haven't written anything here in 3 weeks, need to get rid of the cobwebs and give this blog at least a semblance of life ;o)

Lots of things have been going on in April, and I'm not going to go over everything now, but this is my favourite find of the weekend, I went to Paris and Orleans and to visit some friends and family and one of my best friends converted me to Deezer - I'm loving it!

Deezer is a (French - woohoo!) online music service, way better than Last.fm or Pandora in that being a radio is only one of it's functions - it's also accessible wherever you live - and completely free! In addition to being able to search and listen to any title from a very large array of different artists, users can also create their own playlists and upload all their MP3 so that your whole music library can be available online anywhere, anytime. It also ha a strong community element, where you can make friends and then be able to listen to their own playlists, enabling people to hook up with people with similar music tastes and discover more bands.

My friend told me of a couple of occasions where he saved parties from dying by overtaking the host's computer, logging into Deezer and launching one of his wild party music playlists full blast ;o)

I'm just starting in the Deezer world, but check here if you want to be my musical friend!

That's my mate Jo aka BMF