QUITO, 4/2 & BOGOTA, 4/4
I am going to be completely honest. I just can't keep up here. I am living, and enjoying, what is certainly one of the greatest experiences in my life, this tour of South America. But living it and writing about it, would mean having to create a day of more than 24 hours in length.
I played shows this week in Quito and Bogota. They were excellent; I played my solo material to fairly packed venues, and managed to get people to listen. I played mini sets of Disciplines material with local bands, and people went literally apeshit. During the long jam on "I Got Tired", me backed by
Mama Vudu in Quito, I went thru the long, call & response segment, that climaxed with an actual mosh pit. I looked back and Xavi, the bass player of Mama Vudu, was crying, so happy with the fact that all this actually WORKED and people loved it. After the show it seems like all of Quito was hugging me. Amazing.
Earlier in the week in Quito I spent time in the studio with the band
Can Can,playing keyboards, guitar, percussion...generally freely experimenting and having a great time, with bandleader Daniel, or Pichu as he is known.
I checked out La Compania, one of the oldest, wildest churches in Quito...recently restored. Imagine every surface, wildly carved altars, covered in gold leaf. Horribly wounded Jesus with knee bones exposed hangs, and other statues...including one of a father "saving" a half naked black "savage"...super disturbing. The motifs of the church's interior are in some places straight outta the Alhambra, in other places purely Asian. Also, there is a magnificent painting showing the tortures of the damned in hell, so frightening that it made me want to repent right then and there. Evidently most Quito school kids go thru an ordeal of seeing this painting on a field trip to the church, causing nightmares for years afterwards.
At the show in Quito I also had the pleasure of checking out
Biorn Borg, another great band in town. Quito's music scene struggles to find an audience to support such talent, and venues to showcase it, but it appears to have tons of incredible bands.
Food and drink have been major themes in these visits. In Quito I had a home cooked meal at the home of Pichu Can Can; I discovered chochos, which are a kind of white bean not unlike soy. I had guatita, a delicious tripe stew. In Bogota, on the afternoon before the show, my buddy Juan Pablo, who put together my show, and who I only knew thru internet til a week ago, and Catalina from the Disciplines' label, took me up on the mountain outside the city to a Parillador, a kind of meat orgy. You order components--beef, sausage, chicken, pig intestines--and all gets thrown in a big basket and you and your friends pick at it by hand. Woah! The beverage is modular and communal as well: you say how many people you are at the beverage counter, which determines the size of your bucket, and then select your ingredients--which are poured into the bucket. Our mix was 2 parts beer, 2 parts Colombiana (a kind of cream soda) and one part Pony (a malt soft drink). The results are what they refer to as a champagne soda, it's so good I don't know why every culture doesn't offer a mix like this. Imagine Bacardi, Ranier Ale and Sarsparilla....
The old town of Quito is filled with churches. Maybe a dozen of them, including a completely incongruous gothic cathedral that has been under construction since the 19th cent. Basically the Spaniards plopped a church down on any sacred site the natives had...and, being up in the mountains, prime land for making astronomical observations, there were quite a few. The lines of the churches generally followed the lines of the old temples, and of course, later archaeologists discovered that the sites aligned precisely with the sun and key stars in crucial seasonal moments. Not that the Spaniards had any idea that was the case...
In both Quito and Bogota I had to be on planes just a few hours after being onstage, so I haven't had much time for reflection, let alone the luxury of time to write every moment down. Which is a shame. Because there were so many nice moments, having food, making music, hanging with Mama Vudu (whose singer,
Roger, is a very talented illustrator).
I have to at least thank Roger and his g.f. Denise (who is the singer of Can Can) for taking me into their home, and for Juan Pablo for all his hard work and friendship in Bogota (we bonded heavily on our mutual love of the group Toto among other things). And Pichu; and the awesome Quito alternative radio DJ Edwin, who was super excited about the show--he grew up in L.A., and saw the Posies there in 93. His parents are Ecuadorian, and moved back to Quito when they retired. He helped them move, and fell in love with the place and stayed too. He works as a teacher but has had what everyone will agree is the best radio show in Ecuador, every Saturday nite for the last 9 years. We did an interview and he was familiar with and a fan of the Posies, my solo work, etc...and sadly, a friend was in a car accident on the nite of the show and he never made it (the friend was in the end OK tho) as he took her to hospital and waited while she was checked on.
Again, I am suffering from fluttering eyelids after heading to the airport at 5 this morning, and spending all day on planes. Sorry I can't write more...and it's true that each little chapter, each country on this trip, has been like a mini lifetime for the duration of my visit...so many details. I just can't take the time to write the novella's worth of images that each city provides...as the next events come up and overwhelm my senses long before I have time to digest and reflect upon the events just past.
Love
KS
Buenos Aires
