CAIRO - OK. Thank you very much. Take care and bye now. No… Not you. Sorry for the misunderstanding, but I was on the phone with my late aunt, may she rest in peace. I also love my late uncle. We were very close… you see, he passed away before I was born and since then we were like best friends. Never mind that… I shouldn't involve you in a family affair! It is very personal, just like the story I have for you this week, which should remain between you and me. It's about a band and its debut album so no-one should know about it, in case they might go buy it and of course I wouldn't want this to happen. I have to be my vicious cruel self. The band in question is called Salalem, so is the band in answer! I remember that before I was born the band members once told me that they used to sit and play music on the stairs of their university, hence the name, because Salalem means stairs and also means musical scales. This makes sense because the guys, as band members usually do, play music! What a coincidence! So Salalem released an album called ‘Kelma Abeeha' (An Obscene Word) of all names, and that's because it happens to be the title of one of the eight songs included on the album. I met the band's lead singer and its bassist, Mohamed Jamal (Jimmy) and Ezz Shahwan, respectively. Who else? Ali Mohamedy who is like the band's number one groupie! Of course he wasn't silent – he was making weird noises throughout the interview! The remaining members couldn't come because of many reasons – a couple of days earlier guitarist/backing vocalist Osama Saad lost his briefcase with many things in it, including LE8000, so he was depressed. What about the others? Acoustic guitarist Amr Gioushy (solo) sleeps early because he has a daytime job, drummer Sherif Nabil was playing music with someone on that evening and finally singer/guitarist Mohamed Ali (Walkman) was distributing copies of the album. Salalem was formed in 2005 and while Jimmy categorises its music as Egyptian pop, Ezz thinks it's “anything that comes to mind provided that we can play it”. We can't argue with this man because it is he who wrote the epic ‘A Chair, A Couch and Big Mango, I Love You'! But don't you worry… none of his masterpieces was included on the album – he personally admitted “usually Walkman writes the songs, composes them and we arrange and produce them together. However, four of our originals were written by others – Amr Ali, Hossam Helaly and Mohamed Fayez. The latter wrote two tracks for us. Sometimes Walkman co-writes with Jimmy.” Jimmy added “in our concerts we play like 75% originals and 25% cover songs. We focus on old songs and ones taken from movies”. Ezz continued “We are a fun band and the majority of the crowd smiles in concerts because they can feel the fun.” The title track is about someone who is having a very hard time surviving and it reminds band members of how tough it was for them to make it in the music scene until they finally financed their debut album personally. This leads to a very important question – why does Ezz call Ali “in-law”? We understand that recording eight songs was quite a financial burden for the band members, but how did they choose these tracks out of like 30 original songs? “Our choice was based on a survey conducted on Facebook among our fans,” Ezz said. Salalem thinks of it as more of a live band rather than studio musicians, so “two of the songs were recorded live in concert”. Surely the guys have some expectations and Jimmy added that “the album documents a phase of our career and now it is over. The next one will be more mature because we learned a lot over the years. Besides, when we approach the organizers of any international festival, having an album will be an advantage – it will give us more credibility as one of the very few Egyptian bands that have recorded an album.” On the other hand, Ezz had a different opinion… He was the only band member who wanted to invest the money spent on the album on recording one song and making a video to promote it. “I believe that a video clip would have given us a wide exposure. In the month of Ramadan we made a TV commercial for Vodafone and it gave us good exposure, which I wanted to invest somehow by appearing in our very own video. However, all the other members preferred to record an entire album instead.” I think that both options are good, but exposure is not only through television my friend – what do music critics do? They tell readers about good bands like Salalem. Hey, if you would like to listen to, watch, or even contact the band members, you can try one of the following: www.salalem.com, www.facebook. com/salalem, www.twiter.com/ salalem_or www. youtube/salalemonline When asked what they want to tell people, Jimmy said “to buy the album because although it's only LE20, the money will cover some of the expenses. If people download it for free from the Internet we will not get any money at all.” He has a good point and we all should have faith in this ‘tubeless singer', whatever that means! Walkman called to say ‘hi' and also added a couple of words: “I really want people to listen to the album. I hope that those who are not exposed to various kinds of music will like the idea and the genres we play. I also believe that love is contagious, so when an individual loves the album his or her friends most probably will love it too. I trust that individuals will help in marketing this album.” As for Solo, he said: “I want people to talk about ‘Kelma Abeeha' and like it.” Trust me, with a name like that, many will be talking about this album. Have I told you that Ali has Tom and Jerry bed sheets and cuddles up to a doll called Koromba to go to sleep? He personally told me that he also calls it Auntie Mizo! Send Ali your rattles to: [email protected]
