Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Back from Hiatus


Damn. I haven't posted in three months. I know everyone out there was totally worried about me and disappointed that I wasn't posting up free music. Thanks for the ONE comment asking why I hadn't posted.

So, why haven't I posted? Well, I'm a teacher and the end of the school year is one big strees out. So, I tried to focus on finishing the school year. Then, once school was out I jumped on a plane and spent six weeks in Guatemala and Belize. Now, I'm sure you are all excited to hear the rare latin heatrocks I collected during my travels but there is one problem. There is no vinyl in Central America. At least during my entire six weeks I didn't see one round piece of vinyl anywhere. I tried too; trust me. I used my weak Spanish to inquire at every record shop I encountered and was basically laughed at each time. It's all about the compact disc in Central America and I could go on to explain why, but I'm sure you could all figure it out.

Don't worry my friends. My trip was not entirely devoid of music. Every bus ride was a look into the music of Guatemala. If you look to the left of the rear view mirror in the picture to the right you'll notice a bird's nest of wire and a nice radio amongst it all. Truthfully, there wasn't that much music that excited me. In fact, after being on a few busses that simply played static at loud volumes, I became convinced that most of the people on the busses weren't paying attention.

There was one song that caught my attention. It seemed to be on the radio every time I was on a bus that was not playing static. Each time it came up I worked up the courage to ask someone who the artist was. I was usually told it was reggaeton, like I was some sort of alien for not knowing that. I then replied by explaining that I knew it was reggaeton, but wanted to know who was playing the song. Again, reggaeton was the answer.

Eventually with the help of a fellow traveler and a bootleg CD salesman on the side of the street, the mystery was solved. Yeah, this song may be old news to many of you. In fact, I related this story to my partner when I returned. I played her the song, but she wasn't too impressed because she'd been watching the video all summer on the Spanish channel here in California.

Sorry, no mp3 for you this time. Just a youtube video link. Don't worry. It won't be another three months until my next post.


Atrevete-te
by Calle Trece

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

A bit late to your post but in fact 'Honey from the Bee' was the first record to be recorded digitally, prior to Ry Cooder's 'Bop 'til You Drop'. Recording was at Sound 80 in Minneapolis (where portions of Dylan's 'Blood on the Tracks' were recorded) on a 3M machine of some sort. Check it out.

1:18 PM  

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