holy hell

Alright, I really dropped the ball and stopped posting for nearly a month. Apologies to my millions of loyal readers. Of note, I spent a weekend on the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands during the international celebration of carnaval with my program footing the bill. Pretty amazing. I have a bunch of really great pictures of the parade that I will put up on my still-in-its-embryonic-stages-flickr account. Long overdue pictures from Andalucia will also be up shortly.

This weekend was undoubtedly the best of my time in Spain so far. Spent Friday night checking out a few different classic Spanish flamenco bars. There weren't any espectaculos, it was more just flamenco music coming from the speakers and a bunch of Spanish flamenco fans hanging out. On Saturday I began my two-day (thus far) residency in the Parque de Buen Retiro, the main park in the city. I played and sang for almost three hours, joined by a friend on saxophone for the second half of that time. Between Saturday and a return engagement earlier today I managed to earn close to a much-needed 40 euros.

On Saturday I was approached by a guy who had been listening to me play and he invited me to some sort of jam session in a garage in the neighborhood of Lavapies. Knowing that the usual suspects who I might bring along would be occupied, and having planned on staying in to relax and do some homework, my more conservative instincts were overwhelmed by curiosity. Needless to say, I ended up in what is an illegal bar (the owners were constantly looking out for police) talking a colorful cast of characters including an older American expatriate who asked to be called "Rusty" with whom I watched the full lunar eclipse, the former harmonica player for Manu Chao's original band, Mano Negra, and the Zimbabwean son of Oliver Mtukudzi's manager. Managed to play a few songs of my own and listen to a few different groups play a bunch of fun, laid back, latin-tinged rock. Music and merriment for all involved (until the owners got scared that the police were around and started shutting down the place).

In other musical news, I may be playing bass with a Senegalese kora player I've run into a couple different nights and I'm in touch with a group that puts on monthly open mic nights in the neighborhood of La Latina.

I'm currently in the midst of midterms and booking lodging for the most incredible spring break ever - two weeks in Paris, Morocco (Marrakech, Essaouira, Fez, Rabat and Casablanca) and Lisbon.

I've continued to write music reviews for Big Yawn. Here are links to my two most recent reviews:
Lucinda Williams - West
The High Llamas - Can Cladders