Saturday Morning

My day started with an early Morning walk to Chinatown.




And following the reds in Chinatown I found these orange chairs – there are dozens of them – in Mint Plaza. Would be interesting to do a timelapse from a bird’s eye view of the plaza and seeing the orange chairs move around… maybe just one photo per daylight hour, over the course of several months…

Friday Coffee

Last night’s performance went well and I had a great time. The slide show might need fine-tuning, but it is working. The audience enjoyed the combination of guitar-playing, the visual imagery and the Q & A. I think it is a pretty original concept and it keeps getting better. I could not see the screens which are in the corners of the room, but Jon said there was plenty of nice synchronicity happening between the music and the visuals… ah, the brain always wants to make sense of things, find an order to things… so predictable and wonderful. I feel relieved, because it’s a totally new slide show and I am using a different program (((Apple’s Keynote instead of Adobe Lightroom))), but it is working well and, I think, creates a nice step forward.

Did not enjoy Caffe Greco on Columbus yesterday morning, so when Jon suggested a new place he found near the hotel I was ready. It’s called Blue Bottle and here is the page for the cafe, which is near the old mint just SoMa – South of Market. After a cappuccino we also had to try the siphon coffee – see this explanation I found on the interwebs. Very nice. And a nice show, something of a tea ceremony, but with coffee. Perhaps more chem lab than bamboo hut, but highly recommended.

Link to New York Times slideshow about this siphon bar. Blue Bottle sells a set up for $140, but amazon seems to have a similar siphon pot for about $50. And Matt, you can find lab coats here. You should be able to get the whole enchilada, siphon pot plus lab coat for around a hundred bucks. Hm, maybe you should also consider lab glasses to safeguard your eyes? Please do send a photo!!

Friday Goa

Today I want to show how a piece of music changes through the years.

I will use Morning Arrival in Goa as the example. The first recording dates from the Spring of 1993, for the album The Hours Between Night + Day. I remember that I had the chord changes written out, but waited to create the melody until the rhythm guitars, the percussion, bass and keyboards were already done. After the melody was established I added the electric guitar Seagulls and the foghorn I had recorded, because the theme of the piece became the night ferry from Bombay to Goa, which I had the pleasure to take in the Fall of 1978. I traveled fourth class, which meant sleeping on deck, but also meant that I was awake and up to witness the sunrise, and the lighthouse…:

Next comes the version we recorded live for the album ¡Viva! I used the Midi-Flamenco guitar Keith Vizcarra made for me in 1993:

The next example is the version from Leaning into the Night. The arrangement was written by Oscar Castro-Neves, who also conducted the orchestra:


Here is a polaroid scan from August 1996:

This one was recorded for the album The Santa Fe Sessions. I changed the guitar arpeggio to Bossa Nova-style plucking. Davo played the udu:

This is the remix that appeared on nouveaumatic, with a new slap-bass by Jon Gagan:

Here is a live recording from late 2005 with Jon Gagan, Davo Bryant and the string quartet. (Diary entry):

All versions except for the last one are available on CDs and from the usual download outlets. You can download version 6 here.

Thursday in San Francisco


Put my hoodie on to keep my head warm in the cool San Francisco Morning air. Walked to Columbus Avenue for my morning coffee. The tip of the Transamerica Pyramid was in fog and I found a nice angle for a photo.

Now back to the slideshow, which is still not finished… and yes, I am adding those two images.