Los Saicos - 1964-1966 Peru

A friend turned me onto Los Saicos playing just this one song, Demolición.

Later, I went out and found their album, which has been remastered in 2006 by Repsychled Records.  Some great, raw sounds.  Next up, I´m off to try to find the 2009 documentary about the band, Saicomania.  Hector Chavez, producer of the documentary, tells me I can find it in Quilca (Lima).

Finding new music, without a computer

There are some things Google is not (yet) very good at finding. For example, Google is still not very experienced at finding good music for me.

To find new music, I like simply talking to people and asking them if they would recommend something for me. While travelling in Peru and Ecuador, there is a mónton of music that is completely new to me. Here are some of the recommendations I´ve received from a Peruvian, a group of Argentinians, and two new Chilean friends:

From my hand-written, scanned notes above, here are some of the artists that have been highly recommended to me:

• Eva Ayllon
• Lucha Reyes (video)
• Charly Garcia
• Andrés Calamaro
• Los Cafres
• Fito Paez
• Los Pericos
• La Renga
• Gondwana
• Chancho en Piedra

With the endless sources of music that exist, here is why this method of just asking people works well (it sounds obvious, no?). Asking someone provides two mostly qualitative filters that other computer-based recommendation engines (last.fm, Pandora) can´t yet provide.

1. I ask for recommendations from people who I think will have either similar musical tastes... or from people who might have some insider music knowledge. Last.fm does show people other users with similar musical interests, but what I like about just asking people is that there is an element of randomness thrown in and I might find something completely new.  Also, I can get a sense of how excited someone is about a certain artist. I don´t know of any current efforts by Google, last.fm, or Pandora, to use ´´excitedness´´ or other emotions to refine their recommendations.

2. The more someone knows me, the more likely he or she will be to know what kind of music I will like. Even asking strangers for recommendations, with just a short conversation they can quickly widdle down a long list to something that´s customized for me.

(3.) There is also an ´´anti-filter´´ effect associated with asking for recommendations. People can recommend music that might not be readily available for streaming or downloading on the internet. In Peru, I have received plenty of recommendations of artists that I can not readily find (for streaming) online.


p.s. I also love using hypem.com with its social-filtering abilities to find new music.

Please leave a comment with your own recommendations because I know my lists are incomplete!

abandoning iTunes, finding new music sources

One day at work, our IT department told us all that we could no longer use any third party applications on our computers without explicit approval. This included iTunes. When I heard this, I panicked, I got bitter, I thought about leading a revolt, but in the end I hesitantly uninstalled my sole means of computer-work-environment survival, iTunes. As difficult as it was, uninstalling iTunes opened up a whole new world of musical discovery for me.

I used Pandora when I was lazy, Last.fm too.  I fell in love with The Hype Machine, which lets people listen to the music people are blogging about. My other favorite listening method was to subscribe to a podcast´s RSS feed in Google Reader and then stream the mp3s from there. When there was a specific full-length song I was looking for, somehow YouTube was (strangely) almost always the easiest way to find it.  All these ways of streaming music allowed me to continue listening to music without iTunes. And what I first looked at as a hindrance became a new channel to musical discovery.

Today I wanted to share a source I just came across, which is NPR´s podcast of free live concerts.  In my opinion, this is a gold mine.  Have a look at the list of concerts you can stream or download and you are sure to find an artist you like.  For me, I´m going to be listening to the hour-and-a-half Neko Case concert, and watching the Rodrigo y Gabriela video, and Dan Deacon, and Radiohead, and The Avett Brothers, or Doc Watson.



UPDATE ... January 11, 2010.  Pandora will not work from a Peru IP address, and the last.fm website appears to no longer be free, so I´m back to loving The Hype Machine for my music streaming.

Mister Bato, a Cahuita Legend

From the stories I heard, Mister Bato was capable of almost supernatural powers, including the ability to hold his breath underwater for hours and lift objects weighing more than 200 pounds.  Once, he rescued some construction equipment that had spilled into the river.  The townspeople asked him if he could recover it from the river bottom so Mister Bato dove down, and resurfaced two hours later with the equipment in hand. For payment, Mister Bato did not ask for much: "Solo nececito una botella de alcohól".

Walter "Gavitt" Ferguson, a Cahuita musician and songwriter, sings about a different story here in the song "Cabin in the Wata".  In this story, Mister Bato again employs some crafty tricks to try to escape his outcome when the Costa Rica National Park Service insists that he may no longer keep his cabin on the land that will be turned into the Cahuita National Park.

Mister Bato thought, 'If I can't have my cabin on the land, then I guess I'll build my cabin in de wata'!


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Cabin in the Wata
by Walter "Gavitt" Ferguson


This modern generation,
Every day the people getting smarter:
Now they made me to understand
Bato build a cabin in the wata.

   Oh, the cabin in the wata
   Mister Bato was the author
   He was a fine constructor, really never knew
   The bugger was a builder

   Oh, the cabin in the wata
   Mister Bato was the author
   I knew he was a diver, but I never knew
   The bugger was a builder

The Mistress at the National Park
Mr. Bato said it was a rumor;
She decided to take a walk,
Lo and behold: a cabin in the wata.

The lady was getting hot
When she saw the cabin in the sea
Jumping like red beans boiling in pot,
And she tell him must pull it down immediately.

The building was quite erect,
Imagine it was standing in the sea!
The lady called him an architect
“¡But you going to pull it down immediately!”

Now they come to a big dispute,
Bato said, “Me born in Costa Rica.”
“You could a born in Ethiopia
Me no want no cabin in the wata.”

Kiaky Brown was telling me
About the Cabin in the wata:
“Bato build something in the sea,
Must be build it with the devil and he daughter.”

   Oh, the cabin in the wata
   Mister Bato was the author
   He was a fine constructor, really never knew
   The bugger was a builder

   Oh, the cabin in the wata
   Mister Bato was the author
   I knew he was a diver, but I never knew
   The bugger was a builder