Author: nikkie

From an early age, music has been an influential force in Nikkiesha’s life. From the time they discovered Michael Jackson and wanted to sing and break dance like the King of Pop, to being so consumed that Nikkiesha and their siblings performed talent shows in their living room while their parents were both audience and judges, they knew the importance of music. Nikkiesha (Nikkie) grew up with music around them! In addition to countless talent shows, their home was literally seconds away from a panyard - Panosonic Connection Steel band Orchestra’s panyard. On many late nights, when they should have been asleep, Nikkie’s parents would find the seven year old perched at their bedroom’s window listening to the orchestra practice for the largest steelpan competition in the world: Panorama. Nikkie’s older brother played the tenor pan for the orchestra. It was witnessing their brother practice which ignited their mesmerized obsession with the instrument. Nikkie took any opportunity to try and play the song their brother was practicing. They didn't care how much noise they made, or how many times they got into trouble for beating their brother’s tenor pan. Nikkie couldn't resist the pan’s allure. Their love and passion for the steel-pan never died after the age of seven, as twelve year old Nikkie, determined to be a part of the steel-pan culture, began running away to the panyard, and giving the rehearsal director hell - picking up the orchestra’s panists’ sticks and beating any of the unattended steel-pans. At the time, they were unaware of the difference between beating and playing the pan or any other percussive instrument. The rehearsal director started them off on the Gurndig - better known as the Double Guitar. The Gurndig is similar to the rhythm guitar in a rock band. He told Nikkie if they can learn and master how to play the Gurndig well, they could then move onto their desired pan: the shiny chrome tenor, the soprano, the lead pan in the orchestra. Knowing they weren’t going to stop running away to Panosonic's panyard, Nikkie’s dad decided to become the orchestra's manager. As Nikkie got older, they began listening to R&B, Blues, Jazz, Rap/Hip-Hop and Rock music. To their great enthusiasm to hear and experience different forms of music, after migrating to the US, Nikkie was exposed to sub-genres and even more diverse sounds. Inspired they began to play different instruments: acoustic guitar, the congas, and the drum-kit. Eventually spending more time behind the drum-kit, Nikkie began playing with various rock and punk groups. Most notable, the woman fronted rock trio Telenovela Star whose single, "Car Song" was the theme music for The N Channel’s Beyond The Break. After many years of playing behind the drum-kit, Nikkiesha is bringing all that they have learned to create and produce their first album, which is a tribute to their late mother and brother.

Teletextile Live on Broad Strokes, Wednesday, October 26

Live next Wednesday, October 26, 2011, the NYC band Teletextile will be playing an acoustic set on Washington Heights Free Radio (WHFR) Broad Strokes. This will be a fantabulous night, as Teletextile will explore the gamut of sound through voice, harp, guitars and drums. Show starts at 8:00pm.

I saw these guys awhile back at Fort Useless, and I was immediately drawn to their well thought out melodies. I mean every instrument is orchestrated perfectly to build the song. And it’s not a pretentious attempt at showing off their great musicianship, nor does it forget the untamed expression of raw passion.  Both of these ingredients: great musicianship, and their inability to never forget this raw human connection to music, makes their songs unforgettable.

For those of you that don’t know,  I have a radio show called Broad Strokes, and it streams live off the web every last Wednesday of the month. My dj name is Calypso Sally, but I don’t just play Kaiso, lol.

I try to play a broad range of genres, stretching from indie rock, pop, alternative, noise rock, hip hop, reggae, dance hall, metal, calypso, funk etc.  It’s sort of a mixed bag.  I also have live acoustic performances like next week Wednesday’s broadcast.

In the meantime, you can check out last month’s show where I featured women musicians that not only front the band, but also are the rhythm section. You can check out last month’s broadcast HERE.

Last Month’s Playlist

Ear Ring by Rainer Maria
End Bender by Magnetic Island
Filthy & Free by Shilpa Ray & Her Happy Hookers
Next One Is Real by Pink Noise
Bloodletting by Spylacopa
For Those Things That Past by Let Fall The Sparrow
Just Give Up by The Evil Us
Rivers End by The Evil Us
Release by She Keeps Bees
Pretty as Pie by Helms Alee
The Major by Made Out of Babies
Transformer by Marnie Stern
I Don’t Know How to Act Here by Teletextile
Just for You by Object

Bringing you stories, live events, and much more, WHFR tries and remains independent of any corporate sponsorship.  So, if you like what WHFR is doing, you can donate by contacting us at info@whfr.org.  DIY forever baby!

Broad Strokes’s Schedule:

If you’re in a band or you know a band and or singer/song writer that would like to do a show, contact me at: roarplanet@gmail.com.

Broad Strokes Live and Direct this Wednesday, September 28

Live and direct this Wednesday, September 28, I, Calypso Sally, will be spinning some of the dopest women in rock tunes on Washington Heights Free Radio (WHFR) Broad Strokes. It’s gonna be a blast from ear to ear. Calypso Sally in the house! Flooding your eardrum with just a taste of women who not only front the band but also are the rhythm section. Talk about hotness galore!

Anywhoo, for those of you that don’t know,  I have a radio show called Broad Strokes, and it streams live off the web every last Wednesday of the month. My dj name is Calypso Sally, but I don’t just play Kaiso, lol.

I try to play a broad range of genres, stretching from indie rock, pop, alternative, noise rock, hip hop, reggae, dance hall, metal, calypso, funk etc.  It’s sort of a mixed bag.  I also have live acoustic performances.

You can check the last show HERE which featured women rappers rocking the mic.

Last Month’s Playlist:

Boys Wanna Be Her by Peaches
Hey There Girl by Yo! Majesty
Dead Nigga Blvd, Part 1 by Meshell Ndegeocello
You Ain’t Hard by Maimouna Youssef
10 Dollar by M.I.A.
Ruth Speaks featuring Vee by Flo Brown
Go Then, Bye by Speech Debelle
Voice Yr Choice (Tobacco Remix) by The Go! Team
Fake French by Le Tigre
Still Dope featuring Empress Starhh by Doom
#8 by Jean Grae
Normal by Envy
Shove It featuring Spankrock by Santogold
Ch Ching by Lady Sovereign
Che Sara Sara featuring Miss Saigon by King Britt

Bringing you stories, live events, and much more, WHFR tries and remains independent of any corporate sponsorship.  So, if you like what WHFR is doing, you can donate by contacting us at info@whfr.org.  DIY forever baby!

Broad Strokes’s Schedule:

  • October 26th, Teletextile plays live acoustic set at WHFR’s studio.
  • November 30th, a first listen/live interview of the west coast band, Let Fall The Sparrow.
  • December 28th, TBD

If you’re in a band or you know a band and or singer/song writer that would like to do a show, contact me at: roarplanet@gmail.com.

14 Cracks

a collection of leaves left so someone can find them
someone else, alone, you can find sitting quietly
while all that is inner is raw with an explosion
calmly spelling it with the lips, then the hands:

We are not lovers, nor are we friends
but yet we stand together as fear pins us down
fear of the what in emptiness
feared enough to never run, frighten enough to run in place
with perhaps, half ifs, the but to put safely
in the mind as it were a vitamin melting on the tongue
with new thoughts, new ways of thinking things as they were

I push them down though
down, down, down
while it struggles to rise and evaporate.

IGNIS!

When I hear you howl|
I hear you inside me|
I hear you ghosts talking

about yesterday’s melody|
You dream about yesterday’s fatuus
slow as today’s coming close
as me meeting sunrise’s dust|

Has already been done|

So much so I’m walking
for my turns of nothing
but nothing never keeps
never coming getting
getting even with nothing
but my two tacos, just
a hole that hungers
that permeates a want
that thinks about getting closer|

And when I get closer|
I watch what will tip me over
running over, in a splendorous lie|
If you can, if you will, I dare the mirage|

Calypso Sally live on the interwebs tomorrow night!

Live tomorrow, Wednesday, August 31 at 8:00pm, I, Calypso Sally, will be spinning some dope tunes on Washington Heights Free Radio (WHFR) Broad Strokes. It’s gonna be a boombastic-tellyuh-fantastic night, since I’ll be flooding WHFR’s stream with the freshest hip-hop tracks, showcasing women rappers (even when they’re not categorized as such). I think they’re real, and have the ovaries to play by their own rules. As scandalous as it will get, they have a message of not being afraid to take on the status-quo in their own ways of expressing, class conscious, feminist, genderqueer aesthetics…

Anywhoo, for those of you that don’t know,  I have a radio show called Broad Strokes, and it streams live off the web every last Wednesday of the month. My dj name is Calypso Sally, but I don’t just play Kaiso, lol.

I try to play a broad range of genres, stretching from indie rock, pop, alternative, noise rock, hip hop, reggae, dance hall, metal, calypso, funk etc.  It’s sort of a mixed bag.  I also have live acoustic performances.

Check out the live in studio session of Holy Moly! this past June, HERE.

These guys are mad talented, and really down to earth folks. Their tunes make me want to stomp my feet and drink some gin, and as you will discover from the broadcast, I don’t like gin, hee, hee. I can’t wait for their record to drop!

Bringing you stories, live events, and much more, WHFR tries and remains independent of any corporate sponsorship.  So, if you like what WHFR is doing, you can donate by contacting them at info@whfr.org.  DIY forever baby!

Broad Strokes’s Schedule:

  • September 28th, Calypso Sally spins, the first women, fronting and/or backing bands.
  • October 26th, Teletextile plays live acoustic set at WHFR’s studio.
  • November 30th, a first listen/live interview of the west coast band, Let Fall The Sparrow.

If you’re in a band or you know a band and or singer/song writer that would like to do a show, contact me at: roarplanet@gmail.com.

I’m in Trouble!

If anything, what tonight has taught me is that I depend too much on an unreliable device, and most frightening of all is that my memory isn’t as sharp as it use to be.

I wanted to say it’s because I’ve gotten lazy, which is possible, but when you’re kinda both a visual/audio person it is sort of suspect, especially when most things today entertain both simultaneously without having a huge satellite dish on your roof (as a kid I always thought that the peeps who had huge satellite dishes were either trying to communicate with the dead and/or aliens) you just need to know how to work a damn handheld device (yeah, that sounds dirty).

I googled memory loss, because I freaked out that I couldn’t remember an address I saw in my email enough times that even a five year old would remember (okay maybe not a five year old, but whatever).

And of course smoking cigarettes came up, and of course I suddenly hear the stern warnings of my doctor who refuses to call me X, but prefers XYZ which just adds to the sternness of her tone because the only person who called me XYZ was my mom, and it usually meant I was in trouble. Which reminds me of this song by Turbo Fruits, but I’m totally detouring by association because I’m hooked on cigarettes, and I don’t want to deal. Also I’m very bored, which means I blah, blah, blah, and smoke some more. Maybe I should take-up a sport… Ugh.

Golden

I’m a part of your syntactic voice
that speaks to you when you’re
alone and wanting a God to save you.

I’m a part of your sentence
that brawls a branch you crawl on for
survival, the one you call onto
when each and everyone forgot
your name, building your totems.

I’m a part of your debt
that you forgot existed
and want to bury with gold
want to repay me with sterile isolation.

I’m a part of your secrets
that beckons me near afraid
you’re the intruder in the dark
that grew apart from me.

Fire Outs!

Don’t you remember the first time
oh but I reminisce when we didn’t know
what we were doing, but doing it anyway.

What happened?
Did the fire burn out?
Even as I carry a cause
so burns a joyousness.

When I look at you
as I speak in tongues
when we’re together

it hurts surrendering
to the vanishing pitch
mixtapes with our own voices

thoughts gathering together
it hurts surrendering to waves
crashing in, to an exuberant boom
promise of a spark extinguishing.

Grain of Sand

Strands of hair, blowing in your face: own your way
reflect your cyclosis directions, a translation wanting
to mend, it twist and bends to a surrendering shoot
tell me where last you’ve cast your spell
tell me who last uprooted your growth
whip your ends into an eventual murmur
trembles, typify…

Swept!

lips taste of a soft invitation
after all lips are begging of a request
to kiss you there, there, and here
where you least expect it, where you
want to be touched most of all
where you are center center
and the spotlight makes you come
as you’re electric with each strand of
hair that stands up, now with a tremble
you want more, but can’t bear your wail
being exposed, in front of your armor
a culture of selves pirouetting a levity
jigsaws into place, a pattern that is unseasoned
one that burns with desire, one that is swept up.

 

Be Rid of You

You can keep your sentiments
and all your love attachments.

You can keep your loneliness too
because I have my own.

You can keep everything that draws your face
or expects you coming through the door

I’m going to free myself of you, all of you
I will free myself of you and all your things

that lingers alone and anticipates
when I don’t need them anymore

I will free myself, free myself
free myself from you!

Dirt

not flowers with their imagined hearts
not tending to exploding boobs on a brutish hand
not fabricating in my favorite telenovela
all made-up like an ironic trophy wife
does nothing but make me
miss all the sex…

I want you in the morning
while you’re all dirty
before you claim your discovery
covering your stems, trampling your pieces
filling them with the sum of this sickle tree.

I want you in the morning
while you’re all dirty
so I can feel by some miracle
I can feel like I can touch you

before we’re both filled with this fruitless mirage
this purposeful pursuit for the world’s perfection
where everything seen is judged whole.

Chance.

I pray even when God doesn’t exist
as I tiptoe to the bathroom, as I dance
on a tight rope, the only God I knew
was unforgiving of my trespasses.

Even when I stare at God, my demon
Oh My Lord,through my half emptied bottle.
I pray even when the Word is forsaken
I pray when my existence doesn’t borrow
relies not on accidents…

She made me love more.

I woke up, but I was already too late
gone she was from my spent desires.
To find your rhythm, find you no more
to find you… Wanting your kisses
like dreams, to whisper secrets in my sleepy ear
but found you when longing knows nothing about
sensibility, all it knows is my accordion love
listing each and every discovery of your light.

KiKi

It saddens me that I didn’t extend a hand to you
when that elbowed reach would have embraced your love:
your offering to the world. I pretend to understand why
when nothing could have kept you safe from all that is out there.

All I have is these scattered moments searching for a reel of cinema
my mind recollects our last true adventure, where, where
you stole the dance floor with your moves, I watched you dance
and wanted you to teach me what came to you like lightening striking a tree.

Dedicated to Bacci, rest in peace.

Holy Moly on Broad Strokes this Wednesday, ooh la la

I know it’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything substantial, but I’m still here. Thinking about writing and not having enough time. Anyway, I will be on the air this coming Wednesday, June 29 at 8:00pm for my radio show Broad Strokes on Washington Heights Free Radio (WHFR). With me this month will be the alternative/folk band Holy Moly.

I saw these guys at one of NYC’s best DIY spots Fort Useless awhile back and they are truly amazing.

You can listen to last month’s broadcast HERE. Learn how to learn HERE.

Last month’s Playlist:

Cannons by Little Scream
Wish I knew by Magnetic Island
Night Nurse by Gregory Isaacs
Calgary by Bon Iver
Zebra by Beach House
Amnesia by Blu
Where Will I Be by Emmylou Harris
The Sparrow Looks Up at the Machine by The Flaming Lips
In a Strangeland by Talk Normal
Drinking Again by Aretha Franklin
Over You by Raphael Saadiq
Ribbon by She Keeps Bees
Holy Holy by Wye Oak
Cyrstalised by The xx

Bringing you stories, live events, and much more, WHFR tries and remains independent of any corporate sponsorship.  So, if you like what WHFR is doing, you can donate by contacting us at info@whfr.org.  DIY forever baby!

Also, if you’re in a band or know someone who is, and would like to be on the show, please email me at roarplanet@gmail.com.