02022-01-24 | Uncategorized
Luz on 2022-01-22 @ 12:03 at 12:03
Just curious as to how Lisbon was chosen to move too? I read some time back that Portugal was one of the most under-rated countries in all of Europe to visit and/or reside.
I was just following my gut, Luz. I had never been to Portugal before last year. The Portuguese language is difficult for me. I have been to Brazil several times and my friends there always laughed at my attempts to speak the language.
And yet… I have long enjoyed Fado music, I love the way Portuguese sounds, I heard great things from people I know who spent time there, and didn’t I want to experience something new and different!?
Having spent a few weeks in Portugal last month I can’t wait to go back to experience more of the place and the culture. By the end of next month I will have an apartment in Lisbon. In the preceding post I wrote about having one leg rooted and traveling with the other. Soon each leg will be on a different continent. I will keep you posted.
anne on 2022-01-23 @ 9:20 at 9:20
just reviewing the band members(U2) “Top 10 songs songs that have saved my life”
curious, any profound songs that shaped your life?
I considered this question all weekend. I wore out the album “Lotus” by Santana and listened to “Samba Pa Ti” many, many times. I remember hearing the album “My Goal’s Beyond” by John McLaughlin in the mid-seventies and being obsessed with it for a while, because he was using an acoustic guitar together with a drumkit and I realized that perhaps one didn’t need to play electric guitar in a group. Hearing Miles Davis play trumpet was devastating… I stopped playing guitar for a little while because i felt that nothing I might play could possibly be as beautiful as the sound of that trumpet. I think his trumpet is why I use so little vibrato when I play guitar, at least compared to most guitar players. It’s also the reason I love Brazilian singers. They don’t use vibrato either. Sade also doesn’t sing with vibrato.
What else? Listening to Indian music, especially sitar players. The band Oregon, with guitarist Ralph Towner. “The Köln Concert” by Keith Jarrett–a totally improvised concert. And we haven’t even arrived at the Eighties yet…
02022-01-24 | Uncategorized
JaneParhamKatz wrote:
I have seen that you can carry “home” solidly within your own heart. That warm joy of the beloved familiar is actually enhanced as you expand your experience of new places, each adding to your “home” feeling.
Steve wrote:
I am not a nomad, I am much more like a tree.
I feel that I understand both sentiments. I lived in the same house for over 29 years (1 Feb 1992 – 3 Aug 2021) but for much of that time I spent about half of each year touring. One foot was solidly rooted while the other skipped all over the place. My experience of this was that each seemed to enhance the other. At home I would reflect on what I experienced while traveling and on tour I felt rooted by the time at home.
Perhaps I am neither a tree nor a nomad but can be either for some time. This seems to be a general human pattern: give some people preference A, some the preference B, and let some oscillate and see where that takes them. The As, the Bs, and the Jokers of natural selection?
I was reminded of a song. Hadn’t heard it in a long while and listened to it right away. It still sounds very fine, slower than Marvin Gaye’s original and more sad: Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home)” by Paul Young, with the mighty Pino Palladino.
02022-01-20 | Uncategorized
Alison asked: “Old house?” Does it feel weird saying that?
No, it doesn’t feel weird. I am reminded of the house quite often, either because of memories that stir, or because I wonder how the house or landscape might have changed since August. Maybe this seems strange, but while I love that place I don’t feel the desire to be back there. Thirty years is a long time to experience something… would forty or fifty years make the experience better? Packing up and moving was hard work and I would not want to do that when I am ten or fifteen years older. On the other hand, moving should be easier now that I got rid of a lot of stuff and have some practice. :-)
Doc mentioned having dinner with James Bobchak and talking about me.
James is a great guy and I have many fond memories of him. Did he mention the “solo” he played in Pittsburgh in 1997? We were touring with the XL band and I had told everyone that they each would get a solo in the show and could do anything they wanted to. In Pittsburgh James decided to do this:
When the time for his solo came, he put down his guitar, stood up, walked to the middle of the stage, and flexed his muscles in body builder poses. We had no advance warning of this “solo” and it was quite difficult to keep playing while everyone cracked up.
Do you have a question? Leave it in the comment section of this post.
02022-01-18 | Photos
Eh Fi Amal is the 99th album by the wonderful Lebanese singer Fairuz. Ninety-nine albums? They must be counting each compilation and also live recordings but still that’s a whole lot! Her singing and the arrangements and production are beautiful.
PS: the object is a loudspeaker by Round Sound. Below is a photo of the pair in my old house.
02022-01-16 | Photos
After some tinkering with the recipe, because every oven is different and I am no longer baking at altitude, I arrived at the kind of bread I like.
