Welcome to Elyas Khan's Website!
Let's get straight to it - you want to hear and you want to see... for the rest, please feel free to dig deeper... there is A LOT of info on this site! (for instance this new journal goes all the way back to 2001!)
To start you out, here's a small selection of videos featuring Elyas and also his band Nervous Cabaret:
Hanging out at the World Beatbox Championship 2009 - June 1, 2009
Got a note from NYC beatboxing pal
Adam Matta last week. The
Beatbox Battle World Championships were being held in Berlin this year, he was about to hit the city and suggested I come down. I checked out the various promo videos out on youtube and was happily surprised to see that old friend and lower east side alumni
Kid Lucky who was hosting this year.
Kid Lucky and Adam Matta Backstage
Great news, I hadn't seen him in a number of years and he certainly was not expecting me to show up. Suffice is to say that major manly squealing and fits of laughter accompanied by spasms of festive hugging ensued as we caught sight of each other. We recalled the old days when we met in Tompkin Square park, smoking, drinking, prepping for for the
Sidewalk Cafe open mics or taking our instruments and following the legendary likes of
Sabir Mateen and
Daniel Carter around the city and into Queens to tour and jam at an assortment of rent parties, gallery openings, weed spots, subway platforms, bars and happenings. Sabir and Daniel would take their saxophones and play up to five different events a night back in the day, sometimes for not a dime. These guys had played with
Sun Ra,
Cecil Taylor,
Sonic Youth and never lost faith in music and played as mentors to a countless numbers of young enthusiastic musicians who flooded the city every year. I was thrilled to learn that both were doing very well and touring all over. The worst and toughest part of their long careers being well behind them.
Elyas and Kid Lucky
Kid Lucky clipped a three day pass on my lapel and we were off.
Adam was getting his breathing together and demonstrated some wonderful Egyptian Orchestral beatboxing he'd been working on. I was floored. This was going to be fun. The competition was split into three categories: Men, Women and Group. There were fifty people in the mens alone which would eventually be cut down to 16 and then the finalist over a period of three days. Here are some pics of the first day. My camera was at the studio so I had to borrow another. No video I'm sad to say. Look up the youtube page etc... for updates and results. Adam was up first and he smoked 'em.
Adam Matta OnStage
I'll be catching up with Lucky in Prague. Peace!
Met this BeatBoxer named
DAQ - real nice guy.
Nervous Cabaret on Rear Window Radio - May 29th through June 4th - May 28, 2009
