Cuba Travel Diary - Buena Siesta Social Club

No trouble loading this one, even though the flag behind might have been a bit of a give-away. Perhaps it's because these particular well-ripended socialists seem to lack a certain rica cha in their general demeanour.

The lead singer (maracas) must have something of a sideline going as a ventriloquist...can you spot his lips moving?? And the guy using the green box as percussion is the very picture of punctuated inertia. My own inclusion in the conjunto did little to pep things up.

I was to hear several similarly close to flatlining renditions of Vacilón on my Cuba travels. In the municipal museum in Trinidad there is a small gift shop at each level of the tower. I was amused to observe how the staff turned on a recording of this tune every time a group of tourists emerged from below, and then immediately turned it off as soon as they had passed on upwards.

One Cuban song I must have heard umpteen times on this trip and, unlike several others I could mention, never grew sick of, was Dos Gardenias Para Ti. Many will have heard the Buena Vista Social Club version, but Diego's is still my favourite.

Several non indigenous ditties were also given the Cuban twist on numerous occasions. Besame Mucho of course, but one also came across bolero-isations of tracks like I Just Called To Say I Love You and, more successfully, that super éxito of Italian pop, La Tua Storia Tra Le Dita.

Nada Haces Por Mí

Mexico is one of three nations which spring to mind sharing a pronounced pop-cultural obsession with efflorescent females.

Juan Carlos Lozano's video for his new solo rolo Nada Haces Por Mí, ever-present these days on Telehit, can be found closer to the tasteful French end of this slightly suspect scale than the pervy Japanese position at the other extremity. Lozano himself sits at the leading edge of Mexican ambient electro-pop/rock having headed up both Moenia and Morbo before setting off on his own with this catchy track.

Bésame Mucho no7 - Vienna School

And here we have the lady who started it all, Mexican concert pianist Consuelo "Chela" Velazquez, elaborating on the simple lovestruck teen ballad she had composed some three decades earlier.

Bésame Mucho no6 - Kenny G and Stevie W

Takes a while to get going, but worth the wait as it features Stevie Wonder on the harmonica.

Bésame Mucho no5 - Nihongo Flamenco

Mis respetos.

Bésame Mucho no4 - Bossa Nova

Now this is more like it...

Rosa Passos doesn't look much like the girl in this video, i.e. and when she passes each one she passes goes ah. More's the pity...

Bésame Mucho no3 - You're not doing it right

Back in the early 90s I used to think Thalía was cute, probably before I'd heard her sing.

I can't listen to this clip without thinking of Marilyn's "Happy Birthday Mr President". And as for the outfit, was she sending some sort of subliminal sartorial message to the producers of El Clon?

It's a wonder she still has a recording contract. Hold on, no it's not — she's married to Tommy Mottola, who traded down a bit in terms of vocal talent at least after his split from Mariah Carey.

With so many versions of this classic song out in the ether, there were bound to be a few turds, and I will surely spare you the majority of these, however Thalía's rendition — with it's excruciating pauses and overworked notes — has a certain negative bewitchery of distinction.

Bésame Mucho no2 - You're doing it right

This is the version through which Consuelo Velásquez's song achieved worldwide fame — recorded by the Chilean bolero-singer Lucho Gatica in 1953, 22 years after it was originally composed.

Bésame Mucho no1 - Live in the Parque Central

This famous little ditty was composed by a 15-year-old Mexican girl in 1931 when, so she said, she herself had yet to experience the pleasure of her first kiss.

Here's it is performed very capably by Maestro Hugo Cruz, the star musician of Cuban-emigre band Orquestra Casa Blanca in Antigua's Parque Central last Monday...Santiago day. Having positioned myself at the rear on the Cathedral steps, I had to run round to the front to capture the rest of Cruz's solo with its gypsy-inflected encore.

Aplastadita

They just keep coming today...

This one was all the rage back in the late 80s and we heard it performed live at the Manhattan, now, for better or worse, the front end of La Bodegona.

Somos Antologia...

It's obviously bad music day here on the Innerdiablog. This excruciating cover version was the opening gambit of Antigua regulars Antologia on Tuesday night, shortly after the bomberos had departed.

Milking La Tetita

Just when we thought Justin Bieber was the most annoying thing to emerge from the 'yutubeh', along came this...



Wendy followed up her breakthrough Huayno smash with Cerveza, both clips viewed by over 3m people, though judging by the comments beneath them, not universally well received.

Undeterred, the Peruvian teen has taken her rechinazos folclóricos around the globe, appearing live with Calle 13 and Jiggy Drama. The invite to WOMAD might take a while yet.

Personally I think the arpista in the backing group ought to consider a solo career, though he might need a stage name as he currently answers to that of Hugo Chávez.

The Spanish media in particular has been taking the Miguel, the hosts of Sé Lo Que Hicisteis going so far as to compose their own traditional Iberian ditty in response to Sulca's threat to show up in the old imperial heartland:



I'm quite partial to this dark beer trance remix of Cerveza:

Musical interlude

Tcha Limberger at the Crooked Billet (2)

Here's the first of my clips, from early on in the set before he switched to guitar. Check out the bloke with the handlebar moustache in front of the band. He looked like he'd stepped out of one of the old photographs hanging on the wall.

Tcha Limberger at the Crooked Billet (1)

Tcha Limberger is something of a one man Hot Club of Paris, having an extraordinary talent with both the violin and guitar, which are a fair approximation of those of gypsy jazz legends Stéphane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt respectively.

My father had signed me up for this musical meal some time before I actually showed up in the UK. The proprietor at the ever-wonderful Crooked Billet had enthused on his latest bulletin that the Limberger Family was quite the most mesmerising act ever to have appeared at his venue.

We had a bit of a wait for the music as my father had allowed himself to be persuaded to turn up at seven to permit the meal to be served before the band appeared, but as he suffers from the 'sickness' of allowing too much spare time for any appointment*, we'd been sitting for some time before Tcha took his opening bow. (By which time I'd almost ruined everyone's evening by tipping over a glass of water which landed very close to the double bass lying on the floor beside my father.)

Blind from birth, this obviously gentle-natured young man explained that the absence of his famed father Vivi through a variety of unpleasant ailments, had precipitated a late change in lead guitarist and some minor alterations in the repertoire as well. I suspect that this involved a shift away from the up tempo numbers we had been expecting towards some rather poignant pieces of Russian and Hungarian folk music, to which Tcha added his own soulful vocals on several occasions. The experience was moving as well as thrilling. I have some HD clips which I will upload to YouTube in due course.

I also had the excellent fortune of picking one of the best fish dishes I have ever eaten as my main; a baked slab of succulent cod topped with a tempura prawm and doused in an oriental broth with pak choi and Chinese mushrooms floating at the side:



* My father's former partner Bob Monkhouse used to drive him nuts by turning up bang on time for trains, planes and automobiles. He never missed one, but he never gave himself a cushion either. As I'd taken the car into Reading on Monday afternoon and we were due to set off at 18:10 for the Crooked Billet, I found my father waiting for me by the doorway rather fretfully when I returned at 17:50. After a few years of hora chapina I'm finding it hard to adjust!

Social media phenomenon

"No me digas que no tienes que ir al baño, cuando te miro te la pasas facebookeando"

Yet another surprise hit in the Spanish-speaking world which owes its success almost entirely to promotion across multiple online platforms and word of mouth recommendation..and Esteman's exitazo is actually about the social media. His (Facebook?) friends provided the background dancing in this video that he financed himself, and which was viewed many more times in Spain that his native Colombia:

Prawn cocktail

Camarón shows off his talent for knocking on tables ('compas') in the coolest of fashions, before taking centre stage. Paco de Lucía is also looking dapper in that jacket. I once heard him explaining his stage name in an interview: there were so many Pacos around in his vecindad that he chose to identify himself as the one whose mother was called Lucía.

The location much reminds me of that wonderfully grotty (yet extremely snooty) old sherry bar La Venencia in the Calle Echegaray, which I visited when in Madrid last June. No big surprise that the poor 'Prawn' died from lung cancer.

Shame that image and sound are a little out of synch.

Musical interlude...

Fondly remembered from Temporada de Patos.

La Cumbia del Rio

The original version of the tune that became an Internet phenomenon...somehow. (Ok, it's pegable.)

Now the Pikadientes de Carborca have been signed by Sony, but I'd sure like to see them behind a procession here next Semana Santa!

A musical interlude for our 'anniversary'

It's twenty years today since V and I first met, so here's one of 'our songs' as a bit of a musical interlude.