MisterBryans

Hoder and Yoani: Tough Week For Bloggers

This is the first anniversary of the incarceration of Canada's most famous blogger Hossein Derakhshan's, (aka Hoder) who has been in an Iranian jail for reasons that no one is clear about. Jesse Brown at TVO's Search Engine has the latest info.

Last Friday, Cuban authorities detained and beat up Yoani Sanchez of Generçion Y. Here's her post on what happened.

From Celeste In Ottawa (Click to Enlarge)

Nice tune from El Tosco

That comic, Antolin, was in Toronto last week. Couldn't understand a word......

There was a live/pre-release mix of this tune from NG la Banda kicking around a while ago, dunno if the song ever got recorded properly. It's a good one.

One Year

(Photo of me and Sarita blowing out the candles - courtesy of AJHW)

Looking back, I'm not entirely sure that anyone (myself included) was really convinced that a weekly club night dedicated to Cuban music would actually work. A year later it seems obvious that it was something whose time had come.

The three dance schools sure make a difference. Sarita Leyva, Vladimir Aranda and Albena de Assis (Afro-Latino Dance Company) now have many students who are familiar with the music of Manolito, Van Van, Pupy Pedroso etc etc and who have found a home on Sundays at Babaluu

No doubt the 'embargo' (or bloqueo if you prefer) of Cuban salsa music still exists within the Salsa establishment, but it is far less unanimous than when I started playing Cuban music 7 or 8 years ago. The dance teachers listed above are part of the reason why things have changed...but also many of the salsa schools now teach casino rueda, (badly or not is another question) and many of the salsa teachers are familiar with afro-cuban dance. As well, most of the local salsa musicians are from Cuba and many of the bigger live salsa shows have been Cuban artists.

Also, very importantly, the website/blogs have created a different climate. This site, CubainToronto.com,(Cuban events updates) and Muchoswing.com (with it's clips of the latest Cuban dance and music from Havana) have all provided places for the audience to go for more info.

Another reason why the Sundays at Babaluu have worked is because Cuban people are more and more intergrated into the Canadian system, and there are enough Cubancanadians - usually younger - who will go out on a Sunday night.

Musically speaking, as a working DJ, it's been a great opportunity to play a weekly 4-5 hour set digging deep into the catalogue of Charanga Habanera, Bamboleo, NG La Banda, Pupy etc etc, to mix it up with the latest Cuban reggaeton, ....and if something doesn't work, well no probs, we just move along to the next song. We have 'broken' songs in that room (Havana de Primera's 'Cuando el Rio Suena', Charanga Habanera's 'Gozando en La Habana') which is something that every DJ aspires to do.

So thanks to all who have made the evening successful.

Cuba Bla Bla

Here's a new blog for all you Cubophiles. it's called El Yuma and is written by Ted Henken, a university professor from NYNY. Another aplatanado. So far he has written mostly about bloguera Yoani Sanchez, who is a friend it seems, but it sounds like Henken knows a lot more about Cuba than just the dissident bloggers. Lets see what he writes about.

Speaking of Yoani Sanchez, I dont know if you caught this a few weeks ago, when Yoani, denied permission to travel yet again, unloaded on the poor sleepy bureaucrat who had the misfortune to be the one who had to give her the bad news.

Beware the wrath of a highly intelligent, highly pissed off Cuban woman. With a hidden camera.

Meanwhile, the U.S.- Cuba thaw continues sort of, as the Latin Grammys have announced that Omara Portuando will be one of the presenters for this years gala on November 5th....However, a Miami friend, who is very familiar with the changing U.S. immigration policies vis a vis Cuban artists, cautions that we shouldn't expect of flood of Cuban musos coming to the U.S. next year for summer tours. More like a trickle, especially of older, more established artists, who present less of a threat of defecting while in the U.S. (I think the phrase is 'flight risk.')

Myself, I'm going back to Cuba for the first time in a couple of years. Leaving for Havana on the 17th. Yessss! I desperately need sun, and I need to be in a room with Manolito, or Havana D' Primera or Van Van, surrounded by Cuban dancers. It's been waaay too long. I hope to do some meetings, and I will also attend a wedding of two friends who are getting married. Two friends (Christian Muñoz, well known timba photographer and Jensy Menendez) whom I introduced - come to think of it.

I'm Baaaaack!

Apologies to for total lack of updates but sometimes real life takes over from blogging...

One of the most time consuming projects that I have ever embarked upon is almost over. Namely, digitizing my music library in order to use the Serato Scratch Live DJ software. Going back to the original (and mostly unsorted) CD's, dumping the music over to my external hardrive, and then selecting the songs that i need for my DJ'ing - it's amazing how much time it takes. But the work is more or less all done now, so i can now enjoy DJ'ing without lugging around a trillion CD's that i continually misfile or misplace.

The main difference in using the Serrato software comes in the retrieval of the music. For 10 years, I had developed a system whereby i could dig through my box of CD's and find what i needed, knowing that a particular song was (for instance) track 4 on this or that CD. I didnt really even have to remember the title of the song, and because Spanish is not my main language, i sometimes didn't really even know the proper title of that song, I just knew where it was and how to find it. Now, most of the time anyways, the songs are in alphabetical order which means......that I'd better learn Spanish asap.