MisterBryans

Thumbs Up and Sometimes Down For 07

Timba Evangelist of The Year: DJ Melao. He blogs, He DJ's, he goes north to Alaska

Local Hero Musician of the Year: Roberto Linares Brown. aka El Seña

Blogger of The Year: Yoani Sanchez at Generción Y.

Wanker Blogger of The Year: Bababu  Dittoheads with a blog named after Desi Arnez's lame cover of the Miguelito Valdez classic.

U.S.Music Biz Blogger of The Year: Lefsetz

Most Underrated Cuban Salsa CD of The Year: Sama y el Expresso Oriente

Most Practical Blog Post of The Year: Gabriel's Timba Geeks Survival Guide. A must if you are  going to Havana for music.

TV Show Of The Year. The finale of The Sopranos. Tony fades to Black

Concert(s) of The Year. Tipica Toronto's debut in March, Toumani Diabaté at Harbourfront, Yoruba Andabo at the Phoenix

Concerts I'm Miffed I Missed: Oludum at Harbourfront, Interactivo in London U.K., Kassav at the Danforth Theatre

Poetic Justice of the Year. Lord Black of Crossharbour - Guilty!!!.

Worst Politiciian of The Year: Stephen Harper. He was merely annoying until 2007 - when he got embarrassing.

Best Politician of The Year: Adam Vaughn

Facebook Story of The Year: The Great Canadian Copyright Fiasco

Local Radio Story of The Year: Sergio Elmir's Dos Mundos on CIUT

Kerfuffle of The Year: Harbourfront Security Gets The Raspberries

Unrequited Technolust Object of The Year: the iPhone

David and Goliath Story of The Year. The Canadian $

Underappreciated Toronto Resource of the Year: The Live Music Report

The R.I.A.A. Goes Stupid

It's easy to bash the Record Industry Association of America's fruitless campaign to sue downloaders into compliance with laws that no one obeys, but this (couresty of Gabriel) takes the cake.

It seems that the RIAA now want to make it illegal to even make a copy of a CD.

Techcrunches Duncan Riley puts it this way

If the Judge rules that the RIAA is right, any person in United States who has ever ripped a legally purchased CD will become a copyright thief and a potential target of the RIAA, and that means just about every iPod owner in the country.

Gee, how many iPods have been purchased in the United States? (Partial answer: as of April 2007, 100 million iPods have been sold around the world.)

Reminds me of that famous Vietnam war saying - 'we have to destroy the village in order to save it".

New Music From Klimax

photo by Roger Humbert of Live Music Report

I was loading up some more MySpace sites when I came across two new songs ('estranos' they call them) from Geraldo Piloto and Klimax called 'Dale Cuatro Malas' and 'La Matricula'. Niiice! Wicked old-school timba that only Piloto can bring.

Go check it out.

(I think Piloto told me there would be a new album in the spring.)

MySpace

Although I much prefer Facebook to MySpace as a network to belong to (cleaner interface and much more potential for outside applications) - the reality is that MySpace is still the best medium for music artists of all types. It's acts as a decent substitute for a artists 'real' web-site which is very important in music genres where internet access is still at a premium.

So I've created a list of MySpace sites (down on the left side of the blog) which I'll try to update as I go along. Feel free to send me some URL's that you think I should list.

Update: Gabriel had this post on Cuban groups and Myspace last March.

Felix "Pupy" Insua with Yoruba Andabo

Toronto Oct 12 2007 - Phoenix Concert Theatre

It was one of the more dramatic moments of 2007. Two days before Yoruba Andabo were to arrive in Toronto for the first show of their Canadian tour, we got word that Canadian Immigration were denying entry to four members. Yikes! What to do?

Not wanting to give the audience 3/4 of a show, co-promoter Sophie Giraud had the excellent idea of augmenting the line-up with one of the original founders of Yoruba Andabo, New York based Felix 'Pupy' Insua.

After some fast talking with the Canadian consulate in Havana by the tour promoter, the entire Yoruba Andabo line-up did eventually get permission to enter Canada, thus setting up a very historic reunion of past and present - Pupy dancing rumba/guaguanco with Yeniset.

Blazing

Between Sympatico's new 2wire Gateway modem and a much needed clean-up of every-song-file-i-had-ever-loaded - my clunky old iMac has got some serious new life.

Oscar Peterson in 1964

Oscar Peterson, Ray Brown (base) and Ed Thigpen (drums) performing the song Cubano Chant.

Courtesy of El Tono de la Voz

New Years Message from Telmary

photo by Sophie Giraud

Quisiera en este fin de año
Poder armar un árbol dentro de mi corazón
Y  en él colgar, en lugar de regalos,
Los nombres de mis amigos
Los que viven lejos y los que viven cerca
Los más antiguos y los más recientes
Los que veo todos los días y los que rara vez veo
Los que siempre recuerdo y los que a veces olvido.
Los de las horas difíciles y los de las horas alegres
Los que comparten conmigo pocas, muchas horas, o todo su tiempo
Los que sin querer herí y los que sin querer me hirieron
Los que conozco profundamente y los que conozco superficialmente
Los que me deben y a los que les debo
Los que me enseñaron y los que  se dejaron enseñar por mi
A todas esas personas que de algún modo han llegado a
mi vida como un simple amigo, uno más, y luego dejan una marca,
un huella que los hace ser únicos, inolvidables.
Para todos ellos, para todos ustedes:
Que la amistad sea un momento de reposo en la lucha de la vida
Que el espíritu de Fin de Año haga, de cada arma una flor,
de cada lágrima una  sonrisa,
del rencor la sabiduría de perdonar...
... y de cada corazón, una casa para recibir
FELICIDADES

Con mucho cariño de

            Telmary

Yoani

The first article (with video) to appear in the U.S. media is a revealing portrait of Cuba's most famous blogger.

Update. I was wrong about the Wall Street Journal being the first to write about Yoani Sánchez. ABC's Estaban Israel filed a report back in October (around the time that I found Generación Y), but it contains few of the details and background info that makes the Wall Street Journal's article so engrossing.

Other thoughts. Many of my Cuban friends think Joani is a 'plant', and it's a funny quote when she answers this charge by saying that she hopes she doesn't have to go to jail to prove otherwise. I always felt she was genuine because 1) I tend to be a naive Canadian and 2) her posts seemed to capture the essence of many conversations that I have had down there in the last four years.

For those without Spanish skills, Yoani posts in English as well.

Oscar Peterson (R.I.P.)

photo by Michael Reichman

Real sad news. Oscar Peterson was our music giant. In the world of jazz he put Canada on the map.

Here's the Wikipidia biography