Rey Gamba_

10. October

Today is the day.....the release of the new Radio Head Album Download will start soon!
You can set your own price for the album :-)

Today is also the day of....... the release of the first Sellband single from Maitreya
Get a sneak preview with the backstage pass

MAY 2007 = FLAMENCO MONTH

Because there is still no Flamenco on SellaBand, i will frequently put up some video's in my video tab. Okay Flamenco is not for the average music lover, but if you can set yourself open for it, then this type of music goes straight into your heart and can give such powerfull emotions. The spanish call it "duende" a word that is not easy to translate.

±±±±±±± May 19th 2007 ±±±±±±±±
The fourth video is from Vicente Amigo
Vicente Amigo Girol is a Spanish Flamenco composer and guitarist born in Guadalcanal, near Seville. He is usually considered one of the greatest flamenco guitarists, in succession to Paco de Lucía. Although the "Flamenco Puro" fans will dissagree, cos he is a "Flamenco Nuevo" Artist, mixing flamenco with jazz and using non common flamenco  instruments. He has also played as a backing guitarist on recordings by flamenco singers Pele, Camarón de la Isla, Vicente Soto, Luis de Córdoba and the rociero band Salmarina, and he has acted as a producer for Remedios Amaya and José Mercé. His work, Ciudad de las Ideas, won the Latin Grammy for the Best Flamenco Album in 2001 and the 2002 Ondas award for the best Flamenco Work

> See the video on Youtube

±±±±±±± May 12th 2007 ±±±±±±±±
The third video is from "Ojos de Brujo"
The name of the band is Spanish for "The wizards eyes"
They are a populair band from Barcelona who mixes Flamenco with latin, hip hop, worldmusic and other genres. They call their music hiphop flamenkillo

Because of this mix they are more mainstream and are already succesfull all over the globe. The video is an animation from their first hitsingle "Tiempo de soleá", lot's of these artistic animations did follow when releasing new singles. However , they are definitely not pure flamenco. Xavi Turull (the percussionist) said: "...we don't pretend to do flamenco. What we are doing is using the richness of flamenco and the richness of other music to build up something different. Maybe sometimes I would say that flamenco is the strongest ingredient, but we don't pretend to be doing flamenco."

> See the video on Youtube

Some more videos of Ojos de Brujo
- Sultanas de merkaillo
- Silencio
- Ventilador R-80
- Ojos de Brujo live at Jools Holland

±±±±±±± May 7th 2007 ±±±±±±±±
In the second video you can see the guitarist Paco de Lucia
Paco is a legendary flamenco guitar player who was one the pioneers of the "Flamenco Nuevo" (New Flamenco) In the 60´s and 70´s he started adding new fresh sounds into the dark old flamenco like jazz and blues also adding other instruments like violins, flute, piano etc.

As every pioneer he was very much critised by the old conservative flamenco cummunity and he had to proof that not disrespecting the flamenco. And that he never did, he always stayed loyal to the compas. Paco opened.the road for many modern flamenco artists.

In the begining he played a lot with singer Camarón de la Isla ( Camarón is spanish for "Shrimp" so he is a bit smaller than the Gamba :-) ;-) ) Together they made 10 records and put down the basis for a wide variety of flamenco based music that we now call Flamenco Nuevo.

This is a video from the two of them together, recorded somewhere in the 70's

Here is an other, more recent, video from Paco de Lucia with a more jazzy sound performing with his band at the famous Northsee Jazz festival in The Netherlands.

±±±±±±± may 6th 2007 ±±±±±±±

The first video i´ve put up is "Viejos de Jerez"
Meaning: the old men of Jerez but also used for exceptional sherry from over 20 years of age.  In this video you can see a performance of "flamenco puro" by senior male singers and dancers.

Jerez (de la frontera) is a city in the south of Spain famous for Sherry and Andalucian horse (riding) and there is the official academia for Flamenco.

When the summer comes it is hot hot hot in the south so there are two months that are more or less a holiday month. People stay indoors during the day time and start living during the evenings and the nights. During that period there are many fiestas in Andalucia (almost every village has one or more) in honour of saints or whatever it takes to have a fiesta :-). Mostly these start late in the night and goes on to the next morning. All the people (young and old) of the village will come out talk, eat, drink, dance  and have fun. Flamenco performances are a part of the fiesta or feria cos this is the music of the people. There are even partyanimals that travel two months through Andalucia and having a fiesta every night by going from village to village.
I did put this video up because it did me remember to those occasions that I was on such fiestas and saw these kind of seniors giving themself fully to the passion of the flamenco till break of dawn.

 =>   & amp; nbsp; See the video at Youtube

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