The other night I went to a pannel discussion/opening at the Solomon Contemporary, for a new show, “112 Greene Street : A Nexus of Ideas”. The show was put up in response to a competing exhibition revolving around the same concept, at the David Zwirner gallery, just down the street.

These 2 shows are focused around a building, located at 112 green street, that, in the early 70s, functioned as an artist-curated performance and art gallery/space/building, that fueled an incredible degree of freedom and experimentation. The space is now famous for the long list of figures that involved themselves within these walls, including Gordon Matta-Clarke, Richard Serra, Richard Nonas, Tina Girouard, Dickie Landry, Dennis Oppenheim, Suzanne Harris, Laurie Anderson, and hundreds of others.

The event began with saxophonist/photographer Dickie Landry entering the packed room from the outside hallway, playing his solo saxophone in a dramatic fashion, almost as a prayer among friends. The room was filled with aging artists, 60 and above, most of whom were active participants in its hayday, and a smattering of younger folks excited to get a glimpse of its historical energy and excitement.

The discussion was led by Alana Heiss,, with 8 or so of the artists sitting on a sculpture-stairway, along with a video monitor of the hilarious co-founder Jeffrey Lew while on Skype from Florida (who was smoking a joint throughout the entire discussion).

The discussion was extremely lively, with no sense of the occasional nostalgia/remember-the-good-old-days that these events can sometimes turn into. It was filled more with entertaining stories, and quite a bit of simply trying to remember events, and putting the pieces together.

What was most striking about the memories of the NYC art world 40 years ago (!!!) was the local, small-town environment of it all. Allana drew a map on a piece of paper, with the lofts of where everyone involved in the space lived. It was a tiny neighborhood of artists that functioned under the age-old boundaries for a village — anywhere you could hear the church bell.

The city is no longer able to support young artists in that kind of organically communal way — we are spread out across the entire city, from washington heights to alphabet city to park slope to bushwick to greenpoint to astoria — and beyond. Within each of these neighborhoods, there IS a sense of communal creativity, and local energy…. but all artists must now traverse hour-long commutes regularly. The good side of this is that, despite the increasingly inhospitable financial burdens of the city, it has not squelched the city’s newest crop of young creative minds…. it has merely given them new obstacles to surmount.

The other night I went to the cd release party for Zongo Junction, the newest in a slew of young afrobeat bands. Their friends Ikebe Shakedown opened for them, and both bands sounded excellent, getting people up and dancing in no time. The horn sections were powerful, stacked deep with solid soloists, nice arrangements, and a focused, unified voices emerging from the large horn frontline. And both bands were backed by equally unified rhythm sections, creating their hocketed beats in a fun and natural vibe.

It occurred to me how often you see new large ensembles in New York City these days — it seems every day, a new group of 9 or more musicians is popping up (Gato Loco not excluded!) I was speaking with my friend Ron Anderson the other day, a great musician who has been slugging it out in the city since the 80s, and he mentioned that there are more great musicians in the city since….. well, perhaps ever.

And they all want gigs.

So, despite worsening financial odds, but out of an abundance of overqualified musicians, large ensembles with great players are put together — because all these musicians want to PLAY! And who can blame them? In the old days of big-bands, musicians would learn and thrive, blending and shaping a unified sound amongst 15 or 20 of their peers. It’s a powerful effect, both for the musician and the audience.

Last night we played a really fun show at the Bowery Poetry Club. We shared the stage, for the second time, with up-and-coming afro-beat band EMEFE. The first time we played with them, I wasn’t able to catch their set. But this time I was there the whole time.

I often question the “recent” Afro-Beat revival. I can’t help but link it to the revivalist fads of Ska and Big-band swing in the 90s — nothing more than a passing fad, rekindling a nostalgic vibe from a long-gone era. One of my band-mates walked in the room, turned to me, saying, “Whoah! I feel like I’m back at No Moore, circa 1999!” And then it hit me. This “fad” has been a constant presence among young, serious New York City musicians for well over a decade now.

EMEFE is one of the newest groups to bust on the scene. Led by a young drummer, Miles Arntzen, the group had some really nice arrangements and tunes, and great energy and joy emanated from the stage. It definitely brought me back to the days at No Moore and Wetlands, when it felt like such a new and strange thing to witness in Giuliani-era New York City. But the scene has come a long way since then. The younger generation, having been exposed to so many of these groups over the last decade, is much more mature and sophisticated. Afro-Beat does not mean replicating Fela’s music to a tee. Instead they were able to bring their own flavor, sound, and ideas to a music that is now a genre less tied to its founder, and more to a sound that welcomes ingenuity and personality. And they were having FUN doing it, too.

check them out, http://emefe.bandcamp.com/

Gato Loco has been on an epic and magical adventure. Bordeaux week 2 was beyond our expectations, and I think I can honestly say that everyone in the band fell in love with this city. The tiny beautiful streets, the epic and overwhelming fountains, the life-changing ice-cream, the joy and enthusiasm of the people, the delicious and ever-flowing wine, the cuban cigars, the underground late-night glass-breaking scene……

We continued with a few more children’s shows, as well as a performance at a mental hospital, that proved to be quite beautiful and inspiring. The Winter & Winter crew showed up on wednesday, and we spent the afternoon in the courtyard garden of the Musiques De Nuites offices, a beautiful, open location, where we were to play a party that night. It was our first day as a full band meeting our new recording crew, and everyone worked exceptionally well together. It was a scolding hot day, and when we showed up Stefan Winter was standing on the roof of the building, looking like a safari explorer, hanging tarps and giant umbrellas over the stage. Thomas Schmidt was rolling cables along the wall, shirt unbuttoned and giant smile on his face, and Mariko was preparing dozens of bottles of water in the shade. This was obviously a highly experienced, hands-on crew, one that we could trust and be comfortable around. Clifton was immediately wowed by Thomas’ razor-sharp ears, and the rest of us felt comfortable with Mariko and Thomas’ relaxed energy. This is absolutely critical when you combine a tightly-woven 11-piece band with 3 new characters 6 hours before the first recording session. Personalities had to gel immediately, and they did.

The evening was great fun, and there was a large, enthusiastic crowd. People hanging from the roofs around us and holding up bottles of wine right and left; we had been playing 2-3 gigs daily for over a week, making the music razor sharp and filled with cut-throat enthusiasm. We were playing with the joy and nonchalance of a tight-ass band in front of a joyous, intoxicated, screaming crowd. The challenge, of course, would be to recreate that energy in a controlled environment over the next 2 days.

The next day, we set up the recording studio in a music school auditorium, on a nice large stage with the green-room converted into a control room. We started with a piece called, “5th Slip”, and we just couldn’t fire it up. Playing in a sterile environment at noon when you’ve been playing in front of stimulating and enspiring audiences at night for a week and 1/2 is hard. We got nothing usable for an hour. Then we decided to moved on to the next song, “Splinter”. Focused and regrouped, we slayed it in one take. The session was on. We cranked out 7 of our 10 songs in the next 5 hours. Steam wore out, and the brass players started getting tired around 7, so we sent the rest of the crew home except for Clifton, Stefan, Chia & Rich. It was now overdub time. We wound up scavenging the music school rooms, and found 4 timpanis and a vibraphone set that we used on 2 songs for added textures and increased madness. It sounded great.

That night we went to a little outdoor cafe and sat in the Bordeaux moonlight drinking several rounds of beers, back-lit by the opera house and the Garonne river further in the distance. We discussed the sessions, pros and cons; we discussed annals of jazz history, hearing dozens of one-on-one anecdotes of Stefan’s; we discussed NYC and it’s still vibrant music scene; Bordeaux was vibrant and alive and fertile for us crazy cats, 4000 miles from home, and we were settling into a thick and furry skin surrounded by this beautiful city. Things were good.

We arrived again at our makeshift studio the next morning by 9:30, and were cutting tracks by 10. Things went smoother the second day; we knew our producers better, and we were familiar with the problem of transferring our krazy kat live energy into a music school auditorium at 10am. We cut the final 4 tracks before noon, and broke for lunch.

We packed up the gear and shuttled off to Chateau Tranchere. This was the final, and largest, show of the festival, situated at the top of a hill overlooking the Garonne valley, with downtown Bordeaux in the distance. That night, after our opening band Contreband, a local swing/latin/21-piece marching band led by our good friend Mathieu Galy, played a blistering set to warm up the crowd, we entered the audience through the backdrop of the chateau, playing our rhythmic dirge song “Zero” into the middle of the crowd, with marching drums and horns only. We then ascended onto the stage. We had never played a set of music over 1 hour, and we were wondering if we would have the stamina of physical strength, energy, and focus to keep the momentum going the entire time. Not only did we play over 1 1/2 hours, but we left the stage to a screaming audience chanting for more. We played an encore of our song “Splinter”, which we had already performed 45 minutes earlier. I guess we need more repertoire next time.

That night we were all ecstatically high from the success of the show and the success of the recording sessions and the success of Bordeaux. The 3 of us that had been with the project since its earliest inceptions in 2006 (Tuba Joe, Greg Stare & Stefan) were thrilled to see so much hard work put to good use. The whole group celebrated by going down to our favorite fountain, the Monument aux Girondins, and wound up celebrating with many of our new-found friends til dawn…

…and by 11am we were on a train to Paris,, where we would play at La Dynamo, a gorgeous art/performance space in the suburbs of Paris, (run by Xavier LeMettre) and is the hub of the Banlieus Bleues festival. The show, in the midst of summer vacation, and during the penultimate game of the World Cup, had a considerably smaller crowd than the screaming madness in Bordeaux the night before; none-the-less, the small crowd was eagre and envigorated by the music, and the staff and space provided a more-than-comfortable atmosphere for our show to really rock.

Our trip home was less than stellar. Jesse’s ticket was mis-issued, and he had a 4-hour unbearable lay-over in Heathrow (London); the other 9 of us raced through Heathrow with what turned out to be a 20-minute transfer (between terminals, no less!!!), and when we finally found our way to the luggage carousel in JFK, good old British Airways had lost ALL of our luggage. I repeat : ALL!!!! Including a Tuba and a giant duffel-bag filled with irreplaceable percussion instruments. But all’s well that ends well….. Jesse was home a few hours later, and we all wound up getting our luggage door-to-door delivered later that night.

So much for a daily blog entry. The Gato Loco residency is rounding into its 7th day, and what a trip it has been.

The first few days were really rough, with a very busy schedule. Our first day had us playing an outdoor show at a small cultural center in Cenon, a small town/suburb of Bordeaux, that’s a 5-minute drive across La Garronne river, which divides Bordeaux proper from some of the smaller towns and principalities that make up the larger Bordeaux region. The old city/center of town is where our hotel is, and it’s gorgeous. There are lots of arches built by the Romans, and plenty of pre-renaissance churches and buildings. We consistently see small shops and stores with signs saying, “Depuis 1622″ or some such year. It’s quite a different history than in NYC, where it is rare to find a building older than 150 years.

We discovered, in a painful way, that we were terribly under-rehearsed. That night, Mattieu, our main guide and helper, offered us his own rehearsal studio for the night. We went to his apartment and loaded all the gear into a picturesque arched-ceiling rehearsal space (which he uses for his own band, Contreband). We shed all of our music HARD for 3 hours, and came out of that basement a rejuvenated, tight-ass, fire-breathing mambo band. Thank you, Mattieu!!!

The following day we had THREE gigs, each with a load-in, set-up, play, load-out schedule. It was a grueling and difficult 24 hours, but by the end, the whole band was miraculously in great spirits, thanks to how bad-ass we were sounding. The day ended playing in a library that was surprisingly fun, filled with great energy, great people, and GREAT wine!!!

A note about the wine : it’s incredible, and it’s everywhere. With lunch, with dinner, at schools and at libraries, in the restaurants and in our hotel rooms. At the library show, they had a great wine that was made 3 blocks from where we were standing. The following morning, a friend of Tuba Joe’s, Chris Issartier, brought a handful of us to his vineyard, Chateau Beau Rivage. He took us into the vineyards, and he took us into the barrel room, where we drank samplings of the 2009 wine, OUT of the barrels! Bordeaux wine is a mixture of several grapes, the most significant being Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec. In his cellar, we drank the individual grapes, before they are mixed together to create the final product. We then went back to the main chateau, and drank the wine from 2005, and from 2000, tasting the differences in age development. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Our residency during the festival includes a lot of community outreach shows. We’ve played 3 or 4 shows in schools, for about 150-200 children. These shows are great, and the children are REALLY well behaved, and attentive, and responsive. I’m guessing it’s because there’s not too much processed sugar in their diets. We’ve also played in cultural centers, libraries, a town square, and one theater. Every day we have lunch at a school that is out of session, and served home-made food by an incredible chef, Jackie. She’s from the Congo, and she told us that if we ate all of the food she served us, she would belly dance for us. Sure enough, she was shaking and dancing by the end of the meal. She is an incredible personality, with alot of positive beautiful energy that is translated through delicious meals.

The festival seems to be a big deal here, and we are seeing giant posters all around town for our shows. Musique de Nuit, the festival coordinators, have been documenting every show and every move we do, and so have we. We’ve been videotaping alot, with the intention of editing the footage down for a video and small “documentary” that we’ll have up on youtube in a few weeks. Also, there was a great review in La Monde, the largest paper in France, about our residency and shows. For those who can read french! . Also, a journalist for Sud Ouest, a fairly significant paper in Bordeaux/Aquitaine area, has been following us around, and will run a large article about us next week. And we did a radio interview for some local radio stations. Good media!!!!!

AND NEXT WEEK : we will do some larger shows, and will record our album for Winter & Winter. Stay TUNED!!!!

Well, the entire 11-piece Gato Loco familia has made it, albeit treacherously, across the pond to the lovely and inviting city of Bordeaux. Prior to our first delicious sip of authentic, locally grown wine, we had a harrowing journey.

Starting at JFK at 5pm, 9 of us assembled (Kevin Garcia and Ric Becker were both already in Europe, van-jumping from 2 different tours). We managed to get all of our equipment through the check gates, included the ENORMOUS tuba flight case. it was sort of hilarious. The flight to London was easy and carefree. We took full advantage of the free bar on cross-continental flights, and wound up creating a spontaneous party in the middle of the plane, with laughing stewardesess and passengers joining in joking, laughing, sing-alongs, and general shenanigans. It all ended when we awoke a baby, who proceeded to terrorize the entire plane with its baby ways for the next 20 minutes.

When we arrived in London, we had only 20 minutes to make our connecting flight. We stumbled upon the touring-band god-send, Nickie, a British Airways employee, who grabbed ahold of us and led us, running and sprinting, through check-in gates and security check-points, avoiding and skipping all the lines that would have made us miss our flight, and actively yelling at people to get out of our way. Thank you, Nickie, wherever you are!!!

Once safely on the ground in Paris, and through customs, (whew….), we discovered that the tuba case had not made the transfer. Of course. Jesse whipped out his french fluency, and convinced the overworked baggage handlers at the Paris airport (there was a line of about 30 people waiting to complain about missing baggage!) that this was of immediate importance. The tuba was then shipped over on the next plane from London to Paris, and arrived at 12:30. LUCKILY!!!! We had a train to catch from Paris to Bordeaux in less than an hour, but still had time for an impromptu rehearsal in the Paris train station. Video is coming soon!

I’m not really sure what day it is, or how much I’ve slept in the last 2 days (under 4 hours, that’s for sure), but we were all deeply thankful to arrive in Bordeaux and be meeting by the smiling Zoe and Mathieu, waiting for us with a van to drive us to our hotel. Tonight, we ate and drank well, as one must do in Bordeaux.

We are all exhausted. It was a long and stressful trip, and we are sleeping well tonight, bellies full of wine and meat, and are preparing for our first of many shows tomorrow.

Hidden far below the visible surface of the flying puerto rican flags, the everpresent merengue from within delis and coffee shops, and the constant rumble of reggaeton, there is, and always has been, a secret society of alternative latin bands playing in clubs and bars that are pushing the bounderies of El Barrio and the world-wide status of the Nuyorican new york-made salsa sound of the 60s and 70s.  Bands in the city like Chicha Libre, ¡Ya Esta!, and Zemog el Gallo Bueno have been creating new and necessary fusions for years.

Last night Gato Loco had the pleasure of playing on the same bill as the debut of a new band based out of north Brooklyn.  The Williamsburg Salsa Orchestra, led by Gianni Mano (previously of Radio Mundial) plays salsa arrangements of indie-rock tunes.  They covered tunes by local stars like TV On The Radio, Japanther, Animal Collective, and some others.  The idea sounds sort of silly on first hearing, and I would probably have expected the band to be cheesy.  But they pulled off really high-quality arrangements with an intense fire, energy, and absolute perfection that was breath-taking.  From the first timbale pick-up, that tiny little roll played with such conviction, I knew these guys were serious.  The percussion section, (led by Mano himself) was dynamite, the horn section was crisp and tight, and they had a powerful lead singer.  They plowed through the material like it was their own, and it was only on epic choruses to songs like “Wolf Like Me” or “Alala” that the audience realized these were covers.

The crowd was 98% hipsters, with fashionably off-centered hair cuts and perfectly torn shirts.  None the less, they were dancing more enthusiastically and passionately than you normally see on a tuesday night at 1am.  No one was too worried about dancing salsa steps, and everyone was making up their own moves while dragging others onto the dance floor.  It was a true fusion of classic Fania fire with ironic hipster fashion.

Another step forward in NYC latin infusion.  The latino culture that is everywhere we go, in all 5 buroughs, and is inescapable, makes another step forward into the clubs and bars of hipster Williamsburg.

Well, I’ve finally made the plunge.  I’m not sure if people, as inundated with the millions of blogs and websites and myspaces and facebooks, really need another place for personal thoughts and ranting, but…

Gato Loco is headed to France in just under 3 weeks.  We’re looking forward to a bunch of great shows, a great recording session for Winter & Winter records, some good classes and workshops with the people of Bordeaux, and LOTS of great wine!

So I decided to create a Gato Loco blog.  I figure that we will meet lots of new friends and fans while abroad, and this can be a great way to keep them in the Gato Loco fold, updated with our goings-ons after we leave their country, etc.  Also, to maintain updates with our friends and fans here in NYC.

So this is it.  I hope it proves a fruitful and positive place for thoughts and information!