Daisy Chapman at the Bristol Harbour Festival - BBC showcase

Really lucky that the first day of my UK holiday was to be spent in Bristol, by serendipity on precisely its Harbour Festival weekend, just in time for Daisy Chapman's 3 song taster at Millennium square. I had previously found out about it, didn't miss it.

The first song I ever listened to from her, the cover of "Our mutual friend" on her youtube, is such an impressive performance, flawless, dazzling:

To me one of the best voices out there. Those voice loops, she makes it look so easy, which it can't be. The small number of views is hard to understand, specially since this version is much better than the one on her album (and that a big chunk of those views is mine!). I can't say I connect with most of her songs though, but some like The green eyed are ace. Unfortunately she didn't play either that day. Sunday she was doing a longer gig but I had already moved to greener pastures... scarily narrow these English roads & crazy drivers btw!. But sad to have missed it.

Uploaded "Madame Geneva" and mini interview to my youtube channel.

Back from England now. Would like to post more pics of the Festival etc but have had major issues with computers & external hds (crashed, learned a lesson about keeping back up copies updated -DO!- and using outlook -DON'T!-), struggling with the new one at the moment, I'll get there.

Post finished on the 20th August-

PS It is always hard to write the next post after a post like the previous one. It feels weird to retake the regular posting, to go back to usual. But it's life, doesn't mean these things are forgotten. The NY Times recently published an article on Motherlode here, reflecting on the blog his wife has started to write after the accident. Coping with goodbyes, we all have to learn to. All kinds of goodbyes in life, some natural, some tragic like this one, some brutally unkind. We all take it our different ways, best we can, we have to.

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.