Concerts

Concerts I would love to see or have seen:

1. Bjork‘s Vespertine tour in 2002 – she played almost exclusively in Opera houses. I have the Minuscule DVD, which gives some insight into the Vespertine tour.
2. Vicente Amigo – I ordered the new DVD of a live performance by Vicente Amigo in his hometown of Cordoba, which is hopefully the next best thing to being there…

Side Note: I bought a region-free DVD player that also converts PAL DVDs to our NTSC system for under 300 bucks. It plays any NTSC or PAL DVD from anywhere in the World. Why people buy region-limited DVD players is a mystery to me…

3. Paco De Lucia tour in 2004 – I was deep into La Semana and did not want to get distracted by going to any shows. I would see Paco anytime. Who knows how much longer he will tour.
4. Brian Eno – I have nearly all of his albums, but have never seen him live. He performed in Europe last year, but you know, my jet was being repaired…
5. Jon Hassell (nice link to a fan site here) – I love the trumpet and his album Fascinoma is one of my favorite CDs.

This list could go on and on, but 5 is a good start….

Vizcarra Negra


The photo shows the back of my Vizcarra Negra, which I sold today. This guitar has a very interesting story:

Remember the Pimentel Guitar that turned up on Ebay a few months ago? Well, this Negra is related to that guitar. In 1990 I had two Pimentel guitars. The first one played better and was used on Borrasca and some of NF. The second one had a most gorgeous body made from old, old Brazilian Rosewood. Senor Pimentel told me he found the wood in his attic when he moved to a new home sometime in 1989 or thereabout. He said he had aquired the wood in the mid-Sixties and had simply forgotten about it.

When my first Pimentel was broken to pieces by an Airline around 1994 or 1995, I approached Keith Vizcarra and we worked out this plan: he was to attach the neck of the second Pimentel to the body of the first Pimentel – because that neck was completely broken – and then rebuild the body of the second Pimentel completely, adding a new Vizcarra neck and his V-pegs.

I played this new Negra on every track of Leaning into the Night, except for The Winding Road/La Primavera. I also played the guitar on some of the pieces for christmas + santa fe.

I haven’t played the guitar in over a year and had promised myself that if I did not play a guitar for a year I would sell it. Maybe the next guitarist will put it to some use. I am not a collector, it seems. There is one more guitar I might sell next year. The one-year mark is approaching for a Blanca by Eric Sahlin, which he made for me in 1995 and which was used on every single recording since then – up until La Semana that is…

If you are interested in the Sahlin, look to these pages in January or February. I will put up a notice and a photo of the guitar at that time. Eric has a six year waiting list, I might add, and this guitar is in great condition.

Subscription Thoughts

It would be cool to hire someone to go on tour with us and capture music and visuals of the band with a digital video camera. The occassional magic moments at soundcheck, or special performances that happen outside the usual tour – like when we played for dinner at the restaurant Sol Y Luna in San Francisco in the mid-nineties. Or, when I used to invite a few dozen people to unamplified solo, duo and trio performances at my house. Stuff like that.

It would feel rediculous to put a price-tag on each of these video clips and music files like – well, this one is slightly longer than that one, but the sound quality is a bit worse – shall we say 85 cents?

What do you think?