Goodbye Dan

It’s been a week since I read the saddest news about Daniel Cho. He was in Europe touring with Regina Spektor as her cellist when a fatal accident happened, early this month. So hard to believe.
Dan was an incredibly talented musician, over the years he got to work with many of the best, both in studio sessions and live performances. His music and his playing can be heard on his myspace and countless youtube videos (like this one).
But music aside the Dan I had the chance to know a bit was one of those good people you come across in life on lucky days, so kind, easy to talk to. Responsible, calm, optimistic, considerate. His strongest love of his family, his baby daughter not yet two..
I last heard from him in January, when he wrote to let me know he’d done a session with Regina some months ago somewhere I used to work and he’d been told I had moved elsewhere. I was bummed to have missed them by only a few months but figured I’d have the chance to see him play again sometime, maybe chat a bit afterwards. Wasn’t to be.
My deepest condolences to his family and friends.
Daniel Cho memorial page.

He liked this photo.

PS 2023. I've come back to re-read this. Every one in a while I remember. I did not know him much, but what happened to him was so impossibly unfair.. he'd been struggling as a musician for a long time, working on other things to make ends meet despite his incredible talent. And when things finally picked up and he could do what he loved this happens... a father to a baby daughter.. Anyway, I see that no links in here work anymore -time works fast. It's also hard to find anything from him on Youtube so though I have all my videos there set to private I've uploaded one to Rumble here. 

I remember Carina Round telling me before this concert that Dan did not know the songs and had only listened to them while they drove down from New York. Pretty genious if you ask me.

Siiii!!!!!

Ganamos!!!!...Guess sometimes the good guys win after all.

Far from Madrid, in the middle of nowhere at the moment, and still one could hear people celebrating!.

PS Last football post ever here!. Well, actually it's way more than football, Spain's in quite the shaken state at the moment, and these things have an impressive impact.

Najwa Nimri @ Be open Festival + Miquel Barceló @ Caixaforum: Humanimals

Najwa Nimri onstage^ (with her signature golden mike)
.. and "backstage"

Great set with many drops of improvisation and new takes on her songs, specially her itunes exclusive "Te brillan los ojos". Najwa's latest cd "El último primate" is a brave bet in every way, just miles beyond the usual.
I recorded a bit but sound was too loud for my camera.
Other acts in the festival included Anni B Sweet.


Fiat B Open festival, Madrid 10/04/10

Then the parallelism Najwa/ Miquel Barceló. A few weeks after the show I visited Miquel 's exhibit at Caixaforum, illustrated by this distant (said) self portrait as ... a primate, one of his most recent known works.

His exhibit covers a wide period of time, but it seems that as of late he, as Najwa, is somehow -stamp an "edited" here, there was my usual hence and forth about, this time, the old human/animal thing, concept, metaphor, solitude, cruelty, strength, deception, civilization...ending up with the made up humanimal thing ...I'll spare everyone-.
Curiously, in her "Como un animal" video Najwa holds a gorilla just like the one Miquel painted.

Tomorrow's the last day to visit Barceló's exhibit -I believe-, and tomorrow his huge sculpture of an "equilibrist" elephant, placed in front of the Caixaforum building, will be removed from its present location. Though it looked perfect there.

And talking about art in Spanish, I saw a great movie recently (finally!!): "El secreto de sus ojos" ("The secret in their eyes"). Some animals in it too.

Theoretical Girl @ Sala Siroco, Madrid

Setlist:
I was surprised she didn't play any song from the new album she's recording, in fact she opted for repeating part of the setlist for the encore (she let the audience choose).

Unfortunately the sound in the venue wasn't half as good as would have been desired, and her opting for the company of a canned itunes band instead of an acoustic set, took away quite a bit too (for me, not a fan of that). But her talent, beautiful voice and possibilities were there.
Amy sporting a very rock'n'roll simbol with her hand:

Hope she doesn't mind my posting this bit of sheet music of her song "Good timing" that I was happily surprised to find on the floor near the stage (I'll clear up that I don't usually pick up stuff from the floor... but I'm powerfully attracted to music staff lines). It sounds really pretty on the piano (such a nice melody, the lyrics not my thing though ;), and I hope she doesn't mind sharing (though I'd understand that she would, then I'd just remove it). And I won't go on again about how underrated by music industry itself sheet music is and how many people are interested in it but actually...yep, it'd be great if artists would share these. And I mean the real thing, not some bad lame adaptation as it's most often the case. Even as promo, in the same fashion as free tracks...Just an idea.

Audience:

Theoretical Girl @ Sala Siroco, Madrid7th May
Tags:Theoretical Girl Sala Siroco, Theoretical Girl setlist