Your Local Bahraini Guide!
HalaBahrain Magazine Magazine November 2009 - Vol 2 - Issue 5
Mandi & Bukhari Lunch! A tasty meal at Moh’d Noor’s
Places to Go Things to Do
Make a Splash
Events
We check out the long awaited Wahooo Waterpark!
Tradition And much more! HalaBahrain HalaBahrain Magazine Magazine | November | November 20092009
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Editorial
Getting Busy! Dear Readers, We’re down to the cold part of the year! As everyone starts hanging outdoors, the events and activities start to pile up! Yup, it’s hanging out time and everything from car races, to parties and concerts, to everything else outdoorsy becomes popular! We’re a few days away from our the last obstacle to entering the World Cup! Yes, our game with New Zealand is scheduled on the 14th, and it’s definitely a day to have circled on your calendar! If we win this, it will be Bahrain’s first entry into the World Cup, ever! Expect 3 days of celebrations if that happens! We got a chance to check out Wahooo! The waterpark opened up last month in City Center, and is a great place to splash around! We also interview Hashim Al Alawi, composer and musician extraordinaire, cover events from this month, and a lot more! Again, we would love to hear from you; send us your mail with thoughts about the magazine, and you could win a prize!
HalaBahrain Magazine Lifestyle - Technology Entertainment - Events
©
The Team Editor-in-Chief Ammar Al-Aradi Creative Director Fardan Raffi Public Relations Mazen Madhloom
Copyright Information © All Rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher. Liability: While every care has been taken in the preparation of this magazine, the publishers cannot be held responsible for the accuracy of the information herein, or any consequence arising it. HalaBahrain is a fully registered online publication with the Bahrain Ministry of Information, under registration number EQHBH210
Till next time,
Ammar Al-Aradi Editor In-Chief
HalaBahrain is published monthly; to view the magazine, for a free subscription, or to download a copy, please visit www.halabahrain.com. For advertising and all enquiries, please contact admin@halabahrain.com
admin@halabahrain.com
www.HalaBahrain.com admin@halabahrain.com
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Upcoming
News, Events & Happenings
6-29 November (Fri & Sat)
17-21 November
Show ‘em What U Got Location: Virgin, City Center Timing: 7:00pm-8:30pm
Jewellery Arabia Location: Bahrain Exhibition Center Contact: +973 - 17550033
13 November
20-21 November
HOG Rally Location: Aali Mall & around Bahrain Contact: www.10thmehogrally.com Elissa in Concert Location: Bahrain Int’l Circuit Timing: 9:00pm-11:00pm
Yo! University Festival Location: NYIT Contact: +973-13681833
Yes, we’ve got one busy month ahead of us! To start off, the HOG (Harley Davidson Owners Group) has descended upon Bahrain from all corners of the Middle East for a huge gathering and rally! Rush to A’ali mall on the 13th to catch them, and follow a huge drive down to the BIC for an Elissa concert! For those into the shinier things in life, Jewellery Arabia is back for a four day exhibition of all things expensive. University-goers should have a blast in the first inter-college festival in Bahrain on the 20th & 21st, with competitions and performances galore!
20 November Models Night Location: Aqua Fuego Contact: aquafuego@live.com 24 November Elham 21 Location: Bahrain Fort Museum Timing: 7:30pm-9:30pm 27-30 November
Elham returns for it’s 21st chapter featuring vintage art and music. There’s a lot out there this month for all you party animals, too! This Eid (possibly starting around the 27th) features the Bahrain Int’l Beach Festival over 3 days, featuring artists from Ministry of Sound, Café Del Mar, and locals! There’s also the Guru Josh party, who brought you the hit Infinity, and for those looking to dress up in their best, the Hollywood Night event down in eQual lounge. Urban music lovers will need to check out the HipHop festival on the 3rd of December, bringing in HotRod of G-Unit, Big Page, as well as local artists DJ Outlaw, May Alqasim, and more. Finally, we haven’t forgotten you adrenaline junkies; take your car down to the BIC on the 4th to enter the CRC National Sprint, and drive on the track against competing vehicles. Whew, what a month!
Bahrain Int’l Beach Music Festival Location: Marina Club Contact: +973-17746848 28 November Hollywood Night Location: eQual Lounge Timing: 8:00pm Contact: +973-36734737 29 November Guru Josh Location: Gulf Hotel Timing: 8:00pm 3 December Red House HipHop Festival Location: Marina Beach Club Time: 8:00pm onwards Contact: +973-17813777 savio@redhousemarketing.com 4 December CRC National Sprint Location: Bahrain Int’l Circuit Contact: crc.events@gmail.com
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HalaBahrain Mail Got something to say? Whatever it is, let us know, email us on: admin@halabahrain.com. Best letter of the month wins a brand new Apple iPod Nano!
Yes, they are great, our very own nutcase metal/rock band! Don’t worry though, there’s so much more talent in the country and we’re on a mission to expose it!
———— FROM: Jack SUBJECT: Eid Images Amazing photos of the Eid in Adliya. Top notch as always. Thanks, more great photos in this issue too! ———— FROM: Josephine SUBJECT: Yummy Breakfast! Your article on Bahraini breakfast was lovely! It had me licking my lips for a few days until I managed to go down and get some! Lets have more of these reports, it really is great to see this side of Bahrain in the media! Sure thing! You think breakfast was good? Try out the lunch from this issue!
———— FROM: Anil S. SUBJECT: Subscription Please send your magazine to our office address every month (address hidden to protect the innocent) Er.. Which part of online magazine didn’t you get? ———— FROM: Ahmed Awadhi SUBJECT: Cinema Any idea when the Bruno movie is coming out here? Our advice? Buy the DVD from one of your local Juffair street dealers, only 1 dinar and totally un-cut. Oops, we didn’t just say that did we? Lets hope the Ministry isn’t reading o_0.
HalaBahrain Magazine | November 2009
FROM: Haneen SUBJECT: Go Bahrain I just want to write in support of our team playing for the World Cup! We love you guys, make us proud! We appreciate all the work you’ve put into getting this far, and whether we make it or not, we’re all cheering for you, go Bahrain! Yes! One more game everyone! Make sure you’re all watching the game on the 14th, at 10:00am Bahrain Time! This can be our first ever entry into the World Cup! GO Bahrain!
Letter of the Month
———— FROM: Danza SUBJECT: OMG!! I love you guys! I’ve never heard of Thee Project before but the interview cracked me up, and those photos were crazy! I checked out their music, it’s amazing! Really good to see talents like these coming out of Bahrain, sometimes you wouldn’t think their from here! Thank you again and please keep up the amazing work!
Win me!
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Arabian Knights of Comedy Auditions were held on the 23rd of October at the Clipper Room, Regency, to find the best new comedians; of those, three were chosen to perform alongside more experienced comedians from Bahrain the following week! Hosted by Imran Alaradi, the acts brought a ton of laugher to the crowds, & had them in tears! Keep your eyes open, more local shows coming soon!
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Events
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Events
HOG Rally
The 10th Middle East HOG Rally (Harley Davidson Owners Group) is in Bahrain! Hundreds of Harley’s from all over the Middle East come down for 4 days of rallies, cruising and showing off those polished engines, to wrap up with an Elissa concert at the Bahrain International Circuit on the 13th of the month! We’ll bring you more coverage next issue! (For more info, visit www.10thmehogrally.com
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Events
2000CC & National Sprint
The second race of the 2000CC season kept more adrenaline fans happy! As the weather starts cooling down, more and more people start to head to the BIC for a fun filled day! Feel like driving and not just watching? The National Sprint had a good number of cars and bikes on track, and next month’s race should be just as exciting, so come on down! For more info contact CRC on crc.events@gmail.com
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Fun
Yes, it’s open! At first we thought since the weather’s getting colder, we won’t really have a chance to enjoy it until next summer, right? Wrong! Being the first indoor and outdoor waterpark in the Middle East with full temperature control means we can get down and have a good time, any day of the year! With rides for all age groups, whether you’re a thrill seeker or just someone who wants to lie back and chill in the water, Wahooo has all you want. Even if you’re not planning on getting wet, it still makes for great atmosphere, and you can have a bite in the restaurant terrace, with footpaths and bridges taking you all around the park with lovely panoramic views.
Wahooo!
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Fun
Win Tickets! We’ve got tickets to give away, courtesy of Wahooo! Just answer the questions below, and get a chance to win: 1st prize: Family Pass for 4 people 2nd prize: Passes for 2 people 3rd prize: Pass for 1 person Email your answers to admin@halabahrain.com before the 30th of November to win! 1: Where is Wahooo! Located? A) Bahrain City Center B) Yateem Center C) Bahrain Mall If you haven’t had a chance to check it out yet, head down to City Center and get ready for one helluva time; Full day tickets are BD9.5 for guests over 1.2 meters, BD6 for those under, and children below 3 years old are BD3 only. Wahooo has also introduced Guardian Passes which allow any non-participating adult to accompany a child into the park for the special price of BD3 only. If it’s your special day, the park is now also open for birthday parties! Park timings are from 10am-10pm every day, so drop by and get ready to make a splash!
2: What’s unique about Wahooo? A) Temperature controlled pools all year round B) It’s the first waterpark in the Middle East C) The restaurants in the waterpark 3: What is the price of a Guardian Pass? A) BD9.5 B) BD6 C) BD3
For more information on the waterpark, call 1717 3000, or visit www.wahooo.com.bh HalaBahrain Magazine | November 2009
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News
Bahrain News City Center Cinema
We’ve gotten the word on it, and it’s finally ready to open! Yup, a little bird told us (we can’t tell you who) & has confirmed that the new screens will be ready just before eid! That’s an extra 20 massive screens of movie watching, and trust us, the sound system here is like nothing you’ve experienced before! Fingers crossed and waiting..! Remember, you heard it here first!
Abu Dhabi F1 The Abu Dhabi F1 has come & gone, and it was a great show! Tons of entertainment, with acts from Hussain AlJasmi to Beyonce, a hotel with the race track right through it, and people sailing up to the track in their yachts. Definitely one hell of an event. Welcome Abu Dhabi, to the world of Motorsports! So which do you think is the more fun event? Bahrain F1? Or Abu Dhabi F1? Send us your thoughts on which is better and why, and you could win a prize! (Send your emails to admin@halabahrain.com before 30th of November) Durrat Owners Move in!
Show off your Talents Nescafe’s Show ‘em What U Got competition is up & running! Think you have a talent you need to show off? Well make your way down to Virgin Megastores every Fri & Sat before 7pm to sign up and perform on stage! The best performers will be selected and chosen to perform in the finals in December, and compete for cash prizes and the chance to take their talent further!
The first few owners of residential property on Durrat Al Bahrain have started moving in! Yes, the keys have been handed over for the first phase, with more to come soon! On completion, this beach front property is expected to be one of the biggest towns in Bahrain!
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Food
Mohd Noor
Feeling hungry around lunch? Want something other than the regular burger and pizza? Well head down to Mohd Noor for a very ‘Arab’ style lunch. Mohd Noor has been around for years, serving some of the tastiest Arab rice dishes around town! Just on the edge of Exhibition Road (near McDonalds), they open around noon every day, but if you’re planning on catching the best food, make sure you get there by 1:30 or 2:00pm at the latest, otherwise most of the good stuff runs out! Specialized in Mandi & Bukhari rice (Hence the name, Mohd Noor Al Bukhari), it is definitely worth getting a bite if you want to understand a little more about Khaleeji’s; the food here is tasty but HEAVY. After a good meal, you’ll find yourself getting sleepy, which explains why many of us are relatively unproductive during the few hours after lunch time! Sure, they have some lighter meals, but it’s the slow marinated rice that keeps this place busy during any given lunch time. Pass by, grab a chicken mandi, with a side dish of spicy sauce, sit on the floor and dig in with your hands (make sure you wash first)! Sure, they have chairs, tables and spoons, but if you want the real authentic feeling, that’s how you do it! It also makes perfect sense when you want to lie down and sleep straight after that tasty meal. Yummy. Makes us want to grab some lunch right now.
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Food
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Sports
Bahrain to the World Cup! One more game, and we’re in! Yes, on the 14th, our team will play an away game against New Zealand, the winner of which will qualify into the World Cup! Should Bahrain win, will mean that it is our first time to ever qualify for the World Cup! The game is on Saturday the 14th, at 10am. Yes, it is that early! Make sure your Bahrain flags are ready, red clothes ready to wear, and support your team! Good luck Bahrain!
Message to our team: We’re cheering for you all the way! Our hearts are with you, and no matter what the results of the game are on the 14th, we’re proud of you for getting this far! Good luck! The HalaBahrain Team HalaBahrain Magazine | November 2009
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Local Talent
Hashim Al Alawi The level of talent in Bahrain never ceases to amaze us. We all know Bahrain doesn’t really have any formal music education in terms of school or even colleges, but today we speak to Hashim Al Alawi, a composer, producer and sound engineer who worked his way up into the field with no formal training at all. Mainly self-taught, Hashim has over the years come up with a number of compositions, albums and scores that have caught the international eye, even running up World charts! Bringing a fusion of our own Middle Eastern sounds with modern Western genres, Hashim’s music has a fresh and unique feel to it. We catch up with the self-made producer, composer and sound engineer, to find out what makes him tick..
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Local Talent So who is Hashim Al Alawi? Hashim Al Alawi Is an old, free, and creative spirit trapped in a young body. I'm a music composer (but don't know how to read music sheets), a studio engineer (who occasionally uses the real knobs and sometimes gets the wiring wrong), a Oud/Nay/Piano player (who never had any formal training in any of the instruments), and an IT geek (And yes, i’m a Mac user). Cool, how did you start with music, and arts in general? I got my first Casio keyboard MT-100 when I was about 6 years old. I guess that’s what got me ‘interested’ in sounds and melodies. In public schools, music basically did not exist, and some teachers pushed students to perform live shows with classical and traditional types of music, which just made us (the school music band) better at what we do. Yes, we hated it. But looking back at that, it really made me appreciate music the way I do today. I learned how to play the Nay & Oud around 11th grade, and me and a few friends formed Takht Sharqi, as the first music group with Kanoun, Nay, and Tabla players. The group didn’t last for long, as our gigs were limited to the Bahrain Music Society, which is no more. One of the group members is on his way to becoming a famous singer, so it’s so nice to see that something good came out of it. That’s great! So you started at 6 years old! Tell us a little bit about how you developed your skills It wasn’t really until I went to college in the States that my eyes were opened to a different perspective of music production, engineering, and composition. Texas has some of the best music schools, so the music community there was supportive and eager for collaborations and live gigs. I learned as HalaBahrain Magazine | November 2009
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Local Talent much as I could about music sequencers, synths, technical details, the different theories about audio engineering, and the business of music. I (tried) saving every penny to buy a midi keyboard, a PC, and an audio card. That’s all I needed to make my music back then; it wasn’t long before the setup grew and became more complicated though, with different types of sequencers, ProTools, and more. I made my first album in 1999, called ‘Desert Beat’. The album introduced the Oud and Nay into electronic/ambient genres, and was, on a personal level, a big success. You know how it feels when you release your fist album, right? That’s great, did it get much exposure? Well, this was also around the time websites like IUMA.com and MP3.com were starting to take off, and some of the tracks from Desert Beat were going on top of the charts of the World, Ambient, and Electronic genres. It was a great way to connect to other people in the business and let your work become heard. One day, I got an email from a film and documentary director named Steve Martin, from Vitalvisuals, Tennessee to collaborate on a documentary; Muslims in Appalachia. It was that project that indulged me into the film music or film scoring business, and it became such a passion (and a continuous challenge if I may add) that it changed my paradigm about working with pictures and helped me understand of all the emotional musical elements that bring life to the scenes. Great! So that was in the US. How about challenges you faced as a musician in Bahrain? Ah, None! Haha, no actually, there are many challenges that hinder local musicians from bringing out their talents. I’m sorry to say, but the efforts being put into talent shows backed by government ministries (whichever they may HalaBahrain Magazine | November 2009
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Local Talent be) is very limited. What truly boggles my mind is that everybody knows that, and I bet if you ask any musician here the same, they will give you the same answer; there is no support, period! Sadly, nothing is changing. I do however like the fact that there are independent groups such as Elham who try to make things happen. Even with the little support they have, they try to bring out those hidden talents in Bahrain out. True. Well, we heard that you've managed to come up with a number of productions here. Can you tell us a little bit about those? I’ve recently worked on doing the Sound Effects Design concept for the 3D Animation of Khalid Al Muharraqi’s Al Khamees Mosque, which showed last Ramadan. I had to go and shoot sound effects of birds, different water streams, trees, winds, crickets and chicken (I was in the middle of a pitch black date farm at 3AM to get those sounds). It was truly a fun and exciting project, and it’s always a pleasure (and a challenge) to work with Khalid. I’ve also been doing sounds for radio ads, TV commercials, music for corporate videos, IVR (Interactive Voice Response Prompts), and working on my next album which should come out mid 2010. Nice. You recently built your own studio; why your own and not use a ready built one already? People think it’s outrageously expensive to build a recording studio, and this is true, it can be. But when you know what kind of music you want to make, you can build your studio around that genre; you don’t need the latest & greatest equipment! How many great records were made on old 4 tracks? Also, building your own studio teaches you the ins and outs of everything in a studio environment, it just makes you better at what you do. Plus, when you have that amazing idea at 3 am, you can just go to the studio and nail it. What do you want to achieve through your music and your studio? On a personal achievement level, I want to compose, produce, edit & mix my music for motion pictures. I hope that one day music becomes a vital part of any great film/documentary/video production in Bahrain. It saddens me to see all the money and effort going into everything else, with music usually getting the lower end of things. And sometimes it’s just put on the back burner; "Let's search for some mp3 from the internet and just use that". It’s always an after thought, it seems. But… I have a feeling this will change. On a studio level, I’d like to get more involved in the business of audio and music. I work with different clients: production companies, private businesses, animation studios, telecom companies. Hopefully, I’d like to venture into more of such projects; it’s always fun when you do what you love to do. HalaBahrain Magazine | November 2009
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Local Talent What have you been working on recently? I’ve composed and produced music for a couple of documentaries that showed this summer in Bahrain. They were a visual translation of a book about some of the disasters that happened in Bahrain from the 1800’s to Gulf Air’s tragedy. I did a number of tracks to portray emotions like sadness, anger, war, tragedy. You can find many of these projects and samples on my website, www.mellostudio.com And your future plans? They are actually in the making, but I can’t tell much about them as of yet! What do you think of the music scene in Bahrain in general? I actually think it has a very bright future. The annual festivals, such as Spring of Culture and the Bahrain International Music Festival are a big invitation to art and music lovers to enjoy true entertainment. However, again, I don’t see many Bahraini artists in those festivals, and I assure you, it’s not because we don’t have Bahraini musicians. We do, they just need a bit of a ‘nudge’.
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Local Talent
Do you have advice for anyone who wants to follow their passion for music, or art of any kind? I just think that whatever form of art you want to get into, you should first and foremost take it upon yourself that you will do this for the rest of your life, so you might want to take it as seriously and passionately as you can. Do it and continue to do it. Always remember that whatever work you do, you always have to put your heart and soul in it; never mind what people tell you, you are your own judge. Listen and learn; it’s a never-ending learning experience, but the more you do it, the better you get at it. Great advise Hashim. It was great talking to you! Can you leave us with one last thought about Bahrain; where is your favorite place to hang out here? Haha, that would be Senior Pacos in Adliya! And thank you, likewise, it’s been great :)
To read more about Hashim and hear some of his music, check out www.mellostudio.com
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