On the Road to Find Out

When you’re hoping for an update on Brazil with a slightly oft-kilter but ultimately prescient nature you can’t really do much worse than David Byrne. Luckily, he has been writing about Brazil on his blog, which I can handily paste in here. He basically highlights the film “Saudade do Futuro” as one to look out for as well as mentions for Caetano Veloso and CéU. The first of these doesn’t really need any introduction, other than to say he still has it, but CéU maybe does. She is still getting bigger and bigger but yet to really break the US or England yet. She played in London for the second time this summer, and has been popping on all kinds of different albums, including new releases by Herbie Hancock and 3namassa. As Mr Byrne says, it really is only a matter of time before she makes it. Here’s what he had to say in full:

Brasil Update

The other day I watched a Brazilian film called Saudade do Futuro, a documentary about Northeastern musicians in São Paulo. This means the poor Northeast in Brasil, not Northeast as in Connecticut. The film is very poetic — there is almost no voice over, and almost no didactic explanations of what we’re seeing — but those techniques are made unnecessary because the style of music — forró, and especially repentismo — tell the stories of the singers’ harsh lives in the lyrics. The latter style consists of rap/rhyming duels, with the singers also playing pandeiros (tambourines with heads, to us northerners). They describe how they had to leave the Northeast — as Luiz Gonzaga did decades ago — and their struggles to survive in the big city. There’s a lot of humor and innuendo in the lyrics as well. Years ago I went to a forró club in SP and it was lovely — great dancing and live music blasting over a horrific PA system.

The filmmakers intersperse the musical scenes with poetic footage of São Paulo — the stock exchange, the street bustle, the commuter trains — that also have a kind of musicality to them. It all fits together in a way that is lovely but inexplicable.

I saw Caetano Veloso’s show here recently at Terminal 5. He’s touring with a band led by guitarist Pedro Sá. The music from his last two records is minimal and raw — rock with a subtext of samba. Lyrics about relationships gone bad, the US base at Guantanamo and drug addicts. Not exactly feel good stuff — but he manages inevitably to make it enjoyable and even beautiful. His pleasure in performing was infectious. It was the best sound mix I’ve ever heard at Terminal 5.

Sunday night I saw Céu, a singer who is one of the exponents of the kind of electronic-roots hybrids now coming out of Brasil. She does a very contemporary kind of music that’s informed by a myriad of historical (mostly Brazilian) styles. The band was, like Caetano’s, minimal — bass, drums, keyboards, and a guy who played samples by using discs as a DJ might… but in this case he played the discs manually, triggering sounds off his laptop. In the last few years she’s gotten hugely popular — well, everywhere except the USA. I expect that might change soon.

This is the story of a plane crash that happened in Bogota, Colombia this Monday just gone. The plane was 80 metres from the ground, attempting to land during an electrical storm, when it got struck by lightning, split in half, later breaking again into three parts, yet managed to stay on the runway. There was only one casualty, a 68-year old, Amar Fernandez de Barreto, who had a heart attack as he was being taken to hospital. 119 people were taken to hospital but not one with a serious injury. This is the description of the landing from one of the newspapers:

The aircraft skidded on its belly with its fuselage fracturing, its landing gear and at least one engine ripping off after attempting to land in a severe thunderstorm.

And this is a quote from one of the passengers of the incident:

“The pilot informed us we were going to land in San Andres, we buckled our seat belts, settled in – and a second later, boom! A big bang. When my wife and I stood and looked behind us the back of the plane was missing.”

This is a picture of the plane following the crash:

The pilot has been deemed something of a hero for this, managing to keep the plane steady and on the right track despite the electrical storm, the supposedly high winds, the lightning strike and the fact that the plane was in three pieces on the runway. It’s the kind of plane crash you wouldn’t mind being involved in. It would definitely make a good story for the grandkids!

More from this story can be read at Mercopress here.

Okay, so as I’ve mentioned before I am trying to live the same life as I did when I was travelling, which is of working as a freelance web designer and also of not tying myself to one place, or at least not for a lengthy period of time. This has proven a lot more difficult as my month spent in London proved one of the most expensive of my life (it’s impossible to live on a budget in that place) and meant that I will at some point have to step up the need to actually find regular income. In the meantime though I have managed to find plenty more ways in which to keep busy without getting paid. This has involved writing for PopMatter and Drowned In Sounds, as well as my regular contributions to Sounds and Colours. I have only recently begun contributing to these two sites but am trying to use them as a different means of writing about artists from South America, as well as to get free CDs and go to free concerts for other things. I recently realised that you can view all the work I’ve written on these sites in one place, and so thought I would share you the links, despite the fact that I’ve only written occasionally for both these sites:

My profile at PopMatter

And my profile at Drowned In Sounds

One of the articles I wrote for Drowned In Sound has now been translated into Portuguese by some Brazilian blogger, which can’t be a bad thing!

This is possibly my most-spoken phrase in Porto. It translates as ‘a coffee and a cream’ which doesn’t really make much sense until you find out that “uma nata” is the short-hand version of “pastel da nata” or cream tart in our vernacular. It’s probably the best thing about Portugal, mainly because it is unbelievably delicious and there doesn’t seem to be any maximum quantity of them that you can eat in one day, but also because they cost next to nothing. Well they cost about 40 cents to be exact, which along with a 50 cent coffee means I don’t even need to spend more than an Euro for this little duo.

Which also brings me onto one of the other things I have been enjoying about Porto, and that is that it is surprisingly cheap. A decent bottle of wine can be bought for one and a half Euros, that includes white wine, red wine, and my new favourite, green wine. An unbelievable bottle of wine can then be bought for 3 or 4 Euros which is about the same as a litre bottle of beer. Which basically translates into the fact that I’m drinking a lot more wine these days. Port has had to take a back seat as unfortunately the weather has been far too hot to even think about drinking a glass. Which is where green wine comes in, pretty much the most refreshing of all the wines I’ve ever tasted. Up there with the glory of white zinfandel for a summer’s evening.

Another way in which Porto wins in the money-saving stakes is its love for staging free events over the summer. On Sunday I went to see live jazz in the park which sounds like something my gran would tell me was going on but was actually especially good, with a free jazz trio from Cape Verde and Cuba freaking the hell out as everyone lay around the stage smoking grass and drinking beer. Very nice. There’s also free Brazilian music at another park that I haven’t got round to checking out yet, and also free cinema at the History Museum, though as at the moment the only film they’re showing is A Night at the Museum I haven’t bothered going to yet. However, it’s always nice to have some cheap options, and when they are free well it just doesn’t really get any better!

I wouldn’t say that the street art in Porto is as impressive as in Sao Paulo or Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, but there is plenty going on, and some really nice ideas. Here are a few of the really nice pieces that I’ve seen.

These are by Costah, part of his ‘icons’ series:

Gandhi

Gioconda

These are by Ricardo Días, and are part of his 1000 Tsuri project which will see him paint 1,000 of these cranes around Porto as a sign of rebirth

And finally this by a guy called Best Ever who might not actually be from Porto, despite leaving quite a few marks on the city.

I figured it was about time I did my tourist thing and got out with my camera here in Porto. So far I have made it a habit of having a general walk-around, scoping out the area, which almost always leads up to sitting in a cafe drinking coffee, then beer, then having a bit of cake, then going home to have a rest. Anyway, this time I did it proper. These are a few of the sites in Porto:

Clerigos Tower – this was originally the tallest structure in Portugal, but that was in 1763 and a lot has happened since then

Kids playing in pool opposite the city hall

Livraria Lello – possibly the oldest bookshop in the world, although I might be making this up

Walking up the hill to Clerigos Tower – the tower used to look over the whole of Porto, acting as a guide for sailors

Couple of old guys passing the day outside one of the many churches in the city. This one was Igreja do Carmo

Another church – Igreja do Trindade

Hey, just wanted to publish this photo of yesterday’s harvest:

One of the best things about this place is the amount of fruit and herbs growing in the garden. Every couple of days I am able to get a punnet of fruit together like this one as well as plenty of herbs. In the basket on this occasion were:

• Blackberries
• Strawberries
• Raspberries
• Yellow raspberries
• Kumquats

And sitting right next to them are arugula and there is some parsley, basil and chives knocking about there somewhere too I believe.

My house sitting assignment has finally begun proper. The little dog-rat has been taken by one of the owner’s friends, which leaves me with the job of looking after just Neil the Alsatian and the plants, both pictured here:

Yesterday was my first day of watering the plants. It took about 2 hours. I think this is going to have to improve slightly. Problem is that it’s just too hot here, everything needs a lot of water every day just to survive.

One of the great things about staying at this place is the room I’m staying. It was originally the cinema room but they’ve taken the projector away – I can only presume they think I’ll destroy it with my fat hands. Still, it’s probably the biggest room I’ve ever stayed in and happens to be pretty damn blissful in the evening when I can get the balcony open, as per this here picture:

Now I just want one more picture of Neil, a dog that is so unbelievably friendly that when you get near him he jumps on you, smashing your ribs with his huge paws while pretending to bite your hands. I can probably understand why some people are a bit scared of him. He is really though one of the softest dogs I’ve come across.

Since I returned from Brazil I have constantly been looking for ways to live without having too many overheads, figuring the paltry amounts I get for web designs would not spread too far. One of the most appealing ways of achieving this has been the idea of house-sitting. I started out with the Mind My House website after seeing a huge selection of available houses in France, Spain, Portugal and grumpy, old England, but those old-aged pensioners are just too damn reliable apparently. Well, that is until they forget whether they fed the dog or when they last took their medication, or that they’ve left the house without the keys. Anyway, I was more than happy then to find that my good friend Couchsurfing came up trumps when a couple advertised they were looking for house sitters on one of the groups. I’m obviously far more reliable than all the other unreliable, cheap-skate, new age hippies on the site!

That is why I am now in Porto. I couldn’t tell you how hot it is but every time I stretch to reach another key on this keyboard I break out into a sweat, have to drink a glass of water, towel myself down and then take a shower (I started this post yesterday!) Rain would be more than welcome. Not least because the hills are quite literally on fire. Eucalyptus trees are unfortunately prone to exploding when they get a bit hot, it’s all that oil they’ve got in them, and that means that the forest fires are smothering the horizon in grey at the moment. When the sun dropped last night and the wind changed direction we all went to sleep with the smell of sickly sweet burnt wood in our nostrils.

The particulars of this house sitting assignment are to look after an alsatian and a little rat/cat/dog (I think it’s the last of these), Neil and Lula respectively, as well as the myriad of plants, herbs and vegetation dotted around the house and garden. I’m already used to picking fresh berries for breakfast and herbs and salad for my lunch and dinner.

I’m off to explore the city, which on the map seems very small indeed. As with much of Portugal it’s very historical with a real lack of modern franchises (McDonald’s, Starbucks, Subway, etc.,) so they’re obviously trying to preserve it. On the agenda is to try the local port, seeing this is the only place where the real stuff comes from.

Sounds and Colours, as mentioned in a previous post, is a website I have been working on for the last couple of months. It seems like now is the time to get the word out on this thing! The site features interviews, mixtapes, news and reviews of all aspects of South American music and culture. At the moment the focus is Brazil, with a strong bias towards everything musical. In August we will be looking at Argentina.

The basic idea is to create a site about South America in a way that’s not been done for. The majority of sites that are about South American music in particular tend to categorise it as ‘world music’ or ‘latin american music’. These tags are just too broad to ever really embrace all the amazing styles of music from this region. The same also applies to culture with Brazil largely described as ‘carnival’ country, Argentina as the home of ‘tango’ and Peru as the place to visit ‘macchu picchu.’ There is just so much more going on and we are hoping to get the word out as much as possible! Keep on eye on this blog as well obviously as the Sounds and Colours site for the latest on this new project.

Sounds and Colours