A few years ago I posted about a vintage radio shop called “Moqtanayaty”. When I first wrote about them they were located in Kuwait City but since then they’ve moved their shop three times, first to blockat, then to Hawalli, and now they’re back in the city again but this time across the street from Mubarakiya in a building called Burj Al Hamam Tower.
The place sells old vintage radios, boomboxes, record players and even some cameras. Everything they sell works and if you have an old radio that needs repairing they even have a repair guy. If you’re interested in checking the place out, here is their location on [Google Maps] and you can find them on instagram @vintage_radio_
A few weeks ago I ordered a new turntable (Fluance RT81) from Amazon since the one I had was from the 60s and sounded great when playing old stuff, but not so great with newer music. Once the record player arrived I decided I’d look for a new pair of speakers that I would just use with it. I ended up passing by Xcite and narrowing down my options to the KEF LSX and The Sixes by Klipsch. Both sounded great, The Sixes looked retro which matched well with my player but they were also fairly big and bulky. The KEF were a perfect size, but they didn’t have the retro look of The Sixes which I liked. In the end, I decided not to buy either one because the KEF cost KD340 and the Klipsch KD240. I already had my B&O Beolit 15 speaker which I wasn’t using, so I decided to connect that to the turntable instead and save myself some money.
No bullshit, a few days later I log into Reddit from my browser and noticed someone had sent me a direct message with the chat feature. I check Reddit from my phone daily but the app I use doesn’t support chat and so I didn’t know someone had tried contacting me. The message was two weeks old from someone at Xcite asking me if I’d be interested in reviewing the KEF LSX. I right away replied back with my phone number hoping I wasn’t too late. A few days later I headed to Xcite to pick up the speakers to review.
Full disclosure, I have a long-standing relationship with Xcite who provided me with this speaker to keep. They’ve been very supportive of the blog from the very early days and they’ve lent or given me a number of items over the years to review, as well as hooking me up with discounts. I’m a huge Xcite fan.
The KEF’s turned out to be a perfect size for my turntable. They don’t overpower it and although they don’t look retro, they did fit in looking very cool on my cabinet. The speakers come in five different colors but I opted for black since it would match my space better. All the colors are clad in a fabric made by the Danish contemporary textile designer, Kvadrat so the speakers look and feel very premium (they’re also pretty heavy).
Each one of the KEF speakers has it’s own built-in amplifier so I had to connect each speaker to a separate power outlet. The reason for this is the speakers can be used wirelessly and placed in different areas around the room so they each need their own power supply. The KEF has four sources of input, Bluetooth, WiFi, optical input and a 3.5mm auxiliary input. I connected the record player through the auxiliary input and as soon as I played one of my records I was completely blown away. I didn’t think records could sound so good or clear, that partially had to do with the fact I had previously been listening to records with my vintage record player but it also had to do with the fact how good these speakers sounded. For their small size, the speakers were crystal clear and fairly loud. I could hear so many different layers of instruments and even at max volume, they never distorted or sounded muddy. In fact, the speakers sounded so good I started researching KEF speakers for my home theater.
For those of you who are interested in wirelessly connecting to the speakers, other than Bluetooth they support Airplay 2 and have Spotify and Tidal built-in. Although I’m using it with an analog connection to my record player, I do have the speakers connected to my WiFi network so I could connect to it with the KEF app. The KEF app allows you to manage all the settings of the speaker including the volume control, input port as well as various detailed sound options.
Speaking of the volume control, there are some downsides to these speakers with the main one for me being the lack of a physical volume knob. The only way to lower or raise the volume is with the included remote control or through the KEF app. I guess that’s practical if you don’t want to get off the couch, but with my vinyl player I tend to spend a lot of time up next to it swapping records and flipping them over, so I want to be able to reach out and raise or lower the volume without having to pick up the remote. The other negative is the lack of deep bass. Although most reviewers online state the unit has good bass, that really depends on the music you listen to. I wouldn’t listen to electronic music with these speakers, not unless I attach them to a subwoofer (it has a subwoofer output port). But since most of my vinyls are composed of old music from the 70s or MTV Unplugged sessions, the speakers performed really well without needing a subwoofer.
At KD340 these speakers aren’t cheap, but then again you wouldn’t be looking at KEF speakers if you wanted something cheap. The best way to really appreciate these speakers is by listening to them in a quiet environment because no matter how many YouTubers say these speakers are great, you’re not gonna know what great sounds like unless you hear them in person. Personally, I think these speakers sound incredible, so much so that I’ve been trying to figure out how to make more use of them since I don’t use my turntable a lot and I really want to listen to these speakers more.
If you’d like to hear the speakers, they’re on display at the large Xcite in Avenues and their Al-Rai location. The speakers are also available on their website.
I was gonna start this post by poking fun out of Saudi Arabia because they’re advertising music concerts all over Kuwait as if they’re a weekend destination now like Bahrain or Dubai. But then I found out yesterday they announced the Jeddah World Festival and now I feel sad, sad that we don’t get events like this in Kuwait.
It’s currently the Jeddah festival season and they’re holding a bunch of music concerts with artists like Chris Brown, Martin Garrix, Marshmello and Afrojack performing.
Just a few days ago Backstreet Boys performed in Jeddah to a sold-out crowd and you can watch a clip of it above.
But now Jeddah upped their game yesterday even more by announcing the Jeddah World Festival which will be one of the largest music events to be held in the region and will be broadcasted live on MTV in over 100 countries. They also announced the first wave line-up which includes Nicki Minaj, DJ Steve Aoki and singer Liam Payne. The second wave line-up will also be announced soon.
Vinyl Destination is a curated destination for vinyl lovers in Kuwait that was created by Farah Bishara (DJ Bonita) simply because we didn’t have any record stores in Kuwait. Even though CDs are dead, vinyl is still pretty much alive and no store sells them. When Virgin Megastore closed down we kinda lost our last music store since all our favorite music shops from the 80s and 90s had closed down including:
Bells (got my first CD from there, Paula Abdul Spellbound 1991)
IVC
Soul II Soul
Subway
Swan Lake (got my first tape from there, Ghostbusters soundtrack 1984)
The Video Club
White House
Vinyl Destination started off as a pop-up event back in October and since then it popped up a couple of times before going into hibernation for the summer. But recently, Vinyl Destination launched an online store. There is a pretty decent selection for sale, not too many and mostly one of each vinyl, but not a bad start and they’re also priced pretty reasonably from 10 to 15KD.
I’ve been a fan of Shure earphones ever since I got my first pair back in 2004 and have owned a number of different pairs since. But, I’ve always had to order my Shure’s from Amazon because I could never find them locally until now. Last week I found out that the local musical instruments store Salmeen carries Shure earphones and for the most part, they aren’t that overpriced. Here are the prices compared to Amazon (not including tax or shipping):
If you’re interested in getting Shure’s, Salmeen has two locations, one in Salmiya and one in Avenues but they also have an online shop with all their items.
This is going to be a fairly long post but trust me, if you love nostalgic Kuwait related posts you’re going to want to read this because it’s just so random and really interesting.
A couple of weeks ago I was over at the Australian ambassador’s house (Jonathan) who is a music buff and while there he showed me a record which he knew I’d be interested in. The album was called “Jazz, Jazz, Jazz” by a Sudanese band called The Scorpions & Saif Abu Bakr and inside there was an interview with the band members. Turns out the band used to perform in Kuwait back in the 70s at different venues including the Hilton Hotel, the Sheraton Hotel, and the Marriott Hotel. Check out the clipping below:
And can you tell me about your journey to Kuwait?
We went by ourselves and without visa but with the help of our friend Saif (who was also our singer during that stay). And we went there without instruments or anything. At the airport we arrived and waited for Saif to pick us up. Of course, they asked us at the airport for our visas and who we were, but we replied not to have any. Saif wanted to help us to get in, so he called the son of the Prince who liked our music. Saif and him were friends. Following, the son of the Prince came in person and said “These are my guests, give them visas”. This way, we entered the country and made a contract with the television. We went to the shops to buy instruments and from there straight to the TV. After getting paid by TV we went back to the shops to also pay the instruments. That was our first time in Kuwait. But we went once more. The second time we also had a contract with the Marriot Hotel; to us it looked like a ship. This time we had a visa and stayed for a long time. We had an organ player from Jordan and a guitar player from France.
That KTV performance is actually online and you can check it out below:
So this is where things get even cooler. I get all excited about this and start taking photos of the record album and posting them on my Instagram account. A couple of hours later I get a message from a follower saying:
This is so weird. Saif is a colleague of mine and seeing this and reading it, it just seems like it’s another dimension. We knew that he was a part of some band, we just didn’t know to what extent. Where can I get this record/Cd?
Saif was still in Kuwait?? I quickly shared the message with Jonathan who suggested we invite him to dinner. So I had Saif’s colleague talk to Saif and see if he would be interested to meet. I ended up getting his contact information and Jonathan set up the dinner for us.
Me with Saif
A few days later we got to meet Saif and he was just full of interesting stories. Saif was never meant to come to Kuwait, when he turned 18 he decided to leave Sudan and head to Germany. So he headed to Lebanon first so that he could take the train to Germany. Once he got to Lebanon he met a girl and so decided to stay there for a month, he needed the money anyway and he figured he could earn money performing music while there. He then left Lebanon and headed to Syria and from there he got convinced to head to Kuwait and try and earn money there.
Once in Kuwait he met up with an old friend of his called Adam who used to play football for Qadsia club. Adam hooked Saif up with a job as an English teacher for air traffic controllers and as a side gig, he would perform music on Kuwait TV talk show. One day one of the guys at KTV comes up to him and asks him if he could put a band together because he wanted to record a performance for the station. Saif tells him he could and called up his friends in Sudan whom he used to perform with called The Scorpions. That’s basically how the whole story with that KTV broadcast came to be.
The Scorpions & Saif Abu Bakr Performing at KTV
But that’s not the end of it. Saif used to perform for a Kuwaiti event organizer back then called Hussein Abul. Hussein was the guy who brought the likes of Boney M, Demis Roussos, James Brown and Santa Esmeralda to perform in Kuwait. When James Brown came to Kuwait, Hussein gave Saif the job of driving James Brown around since Saif spoke both English and Arabic. Since Saif spent a lot of time with James Brown, a friend of his told him to ask James Brown if he could perform the track Super Bad at his events. The first two nights James Brown performed he didn’t play Super Bad but it was a really popular song with the locals and so a lot of people were requesting it. So Saif explained that to James Brown who said he didn’t mind. During rehearsal that day, James Brown tells his band that he wanted to play Super Bad but, one of the two bassists in the band didn’t know how to play it. James Brown tried to help him out by humming the rhythm he wanted but the bassist couldn’t get it right. Out of frustration James Brown asked his band if anyone else knew how to play the bass on Super Bad, and Saif who was sitting there watching the whole thing said he knew how to play it. James Brown was like are you sure you know how to play it? Saif and his band used to perform covers all the time and he used to practically play Super Bad every night at hotels. So even though he was under pressure now to perform in front of James Brown, he knew the song inside out. He ended up playing for James Brown who was so impressed that he asked Saif to perform the song with the band over the remaining events in Kuwait.
One interesting fact I found out, Hussein had also supposedly signed a contract with Michael Jackson to come to Kuwait. But before Michael Jackson’s event, he had scheduled the popular band Osibisa to come to Kuwait as well. But Islamists caused an uproar over one of Osibisa’s tracks because it contained an Islamic verse or something like that, and Hussein was banned from organizing events ever again. Hussein supposedly ended up leaving to Brazil where he now lives permanently.
Saif with Pele in Kuwait
Anyway, Saif eventually ended up leaving Kuwait to study but then came back once he was done. He’s been in Kuwait ever since and currently still teaches English at a local aviation school but still performs in Sudan every now and then with his old band. He lost most of his old photos during the 1990 Iraq invasion but I shared two remaining ones in this post, the Pele photo above and the band performing at KTV above that. Jonathan the Australian Ambassador is also gonna try and bring the band together again to perform in Kuwait and once that happens I’ll let you guys know.
Kuwaiti musician Fatima Al Qadiri was behind the musical score of the Senegalese film “Atlantique” which just won the Grand Prix award at the Cannes Film Festival a couple of days ago. It was Fatima’s first original score and if you have Netflix you’ll soon be able to watch the film and hear it since Netflix announced yesterday they were acquiring the international rights for the movie:
Netflix isn’t done pushing back against Cannes for rejecting its movies — if anything, it’s escalating the fight. The company has acquired international rights for two winners at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, with its crown jewel being Mati Diop’s Atlantics. The tale of a perilous love in Dakar won Cannes’ Grand Prix, the second most prestigious award at the festival. It also stands out as Diop’s first feature-length movie as well as the first movie helmed by a black woman to be in the running for the Palme d’Or.
The other title, I Lost My Body, won the best film award at the Independent International Critics’ Week section of the festival and also took the Nespresso Grand Prize. The animated flick from Jérémy Clapin is an unusual one — it follows a cut-off hand as it flees a lab to get back to the young man that it belongs to, and the woman that changed their lives. [Source]
I guess what I love the most about this is how all the people who gave her so much hate over the years probably feel really stupid right now. Score It magazine published an interview with Fatima where they discuss the film’s soundtrack and you can check it out here.
Galaxy Juice, the local psychedelic indie band (and one of my favorite local bands) just released their latest EP, ‘Pantagonia’. Galaxy Juices’ style is influenced by the likes of Pink Floyd, Tame Impala, The Flaming Lips, Animal Collective and Radiohead but with an additional distinctive Middle Eastern touch. They describe their latest EP as being futuristic, weird and shimmering, and a pulsating and bright blast of Psychedelic Pop.
I’m listening to ‘Pantagonia’ right now and really liking it, it’s super chill, check it out [Here]
David Guetta performed last night in Saudi after the first Formula E race of the season took place there. How did Saudi Arabia suddenly become more open than Kuwait? If they legalize alcohol in Saudi before us that would be both the funniest and saddest thing at the same time.
In case you aren’t aware, Spotify has now launched in Kuwait and anybody can sign up to it (no need for an invite). You have two options, either a free account that has limited features and ads, or the premium account. Strangely, the premium account in Kuwait is $4.99 a month which is half the price of the US.
I’m not sure if its because the music library for Kuwait based accounts is a lot smaller, or if its a launch promo to get people to sign up. Whatever the reason, Spotify is here so if you want to sign up, click [Here]
The music streaming service Spotify is now officially available for Kuwait and the Middle East. Previously to get Spotify to work in Kuwait you needed to go through a VPN to create an account and then use a US credit card or gift voucher to get the premium features to work.
Signing up is currently invite-only, but you could request an invite by clicking [Here]
Update: Looks like they’ve temporarily disabled the invites so the signup link might not work for you.
Update2: They’ve disabled the invite form completely and Spotify also contacted me to let me know the following:
Spotify’s ultimate goal is to be available in every country. We know how passionate music fans are in MENA, so we are looking forward to launching there soon, and connecting artists and fans across the region. Watch this space…
Update 3: Spotify is now active in Kuwait and no invite is needed. You can sign up for a free account or a premium account which is just $4.99, that’s cheaper than the US version.
My favorite local band Galaxy Juice released a new music video last week called Pantagonia. It’s a track from their upcoming EP and like all their previous music videos, it’s pretty weird and trippy so check it out above.
Imad Alhamad is a Kuwaiti living in Dubai and he recently released his debut EP ‘Black Rabbit’ under the pseudonym ‘Ray & The Fool’. His style is alternative rock and the EP is available to listen to on Soundcloud (below), Spotify and iTunes.
If you’d like to stay up to date with Imad’s music, you can sign up for music alterts on his website [Here]
Does anyone have a Bang & Olufsen CD player they want to sell? Doesn’t matter which model, if you have one let me know! I’ve got like a million CD’s and just an old Technics discman to listen to them with.
When JACC first told me Herbie Hancock was coming to Kuwait, the name sounded familiar but it didn’t ring a bell until I was going through some of his songs and came across Cantaloupe Island and Rock It. That’s when I realized, I already knew his songs, I just never knew they were his!
Herbie Hancock is considered a jazz legend whos been making music since the early 60s. He’s won 14 Grammy Awards including album of the year as well as winning an Academy Award for original soundtrack. Next weekend, Herbie Hancock will be performing live over two nights, Friday October 5th and Saturday October 6th at the Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Cultural Centre. Tickets start at KD35 for the bronze and go up to KD75 for the VIP seats. Once again I’ve teamed up with JACC to giveaway 4 platinum seat tickets worth KD265 to two of my blog readers. So there will be two winners for this giveaway and each one will get two platinum tickets for the Saturday evening show!
To win tickets for this giveaway I’m trying something new this time. The previous method of leaving a comment was driving me insane because I’d get an email for every comment left here. So imagine getting over 400 emails in under a day, it made me hate holding giveaways. So for this one, I’m trying something new so check it out below.
[gleam url=”https://gleam.io/oZLw2/herbie-test”]Win Platinum Tickets to Jazz Legend Herbie Hancock![/gleam]
As usual, please make sure you use a working email since that’s how I will be contacting the winners. If a winner doesn’t respond within 24 hours, another winner will be randomly chosen. Good luck!
