South American tour diary (abridged) and saw Steve Hackett play

[polara]

PLEASE FORGIVE THE MANY GAPS IN CONTUNUITY AND SOME WEIRD TYPOS. I'M TIRED WHEN I WRITE THESE, BUT FIGURED Y'ALL MIGHT ENJOY READING ABOUT THE ADVENTURES OF MY RETIREMENT PLAN TO COSPLAY AS A TOURING MUSICIAN.

March 8

I’m on the balcony of my little Vrbo apartment in Buenos Aires, and the sun is low in the sky as the sounds of traffic and children playing echoes amongst the concrete towers. I’ve been here for a few days, but I’m only now starting to feel settled in any way. Where do I start?

On February 22nd Mom died. It wasn’t a shock, as vascular dementia had taken a toll, but as this condition isn't dramatic, we didn’t know what week or day she’d go. I was cycling through the center of Cannes when I got the call. Thankfully my brother is there in Decatur and could sign the various forms and such, and we began notifying the family. There wasn’t much I could do from Europe, so I went along to the Nice Carnival with my friend, not feeling festive but thinking that seeing people alive, being creative, and celebrating would help. I guess it did, and while I'm not sold on an afterlife, if there is one, I hope she got to see a bit of the Carnival.

At least Argentina is welcoming. It was good to see Victoria again, and to eat food with spices and flavor again. We’ve rehearsed three times and done a lot of work on getting the presets on our digital guitar modelers to be balanced and complementary from song to song. I love seeing and hearing parakeets in the trees, and every day is warm and breezy. Tonight is the first show, in downtown Buenos Aires. Over the month besides our seven shows we’ll also go see Drink the Sea, a supergroup with Pete Buck and Alain Johannes, and we were given tickets to see Steve Hackett, of Genesis, as V knows someone in the band. I have no knowledge of Genesis aside from a fee 80s hits, so I need to some homework.

March 11

Last night we played at Velazco, a cozy bar full of old LPs and art. We had trouble with the backing tracks not playing the first note or click: that made starting a song interesting. I’ll re-do all the tracks today with an extra two seconds of silence at the beginning. But apart from some minor volume things it was good. The audience was small but even the staff seemed into it and gave us a lot of compliments.

I’m in Vs tiny apartment for the day until we take a bus to San Luis overnight. It’s a huge money saver to travel at night. I liked San Luis before, and it’s a cool venue with good vegan burgers and a good sound system. The local support act broke up so they’re scrambling to find another.

I feel better now that we’ve started performing. The rehearsals were okay, but I had too much time to worry about banks and taxes and stuff before. Now it’s time for movement. In our true rock n roll decadent way we’re ready. After I checked out of my apartment we went to the library for l supplies. V got volume 5 of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, while got Time’s Arrow by Martin Ami’s. \m/

March 14

It’s March 14 and we arrived yesterday in San Luis. The bus ride was okay, eleven hours through the night. I was able to sleep for most of it, but sometimes the roads were rough, and having the guitar and backpack under my feet was awkward. I don’t like to have the guitar out of my sight: it’s a Fano and in fact the first of that model, built and signed by Dennis Fano. It’s so fun to play I’d miss it if it were ever damaged or stolen.

San Luis tries hard. There are some charming old buildings, a tourism office, some good restaurants, lots of trees, and it’s quite walkable. There are also more police on the streets than I’m used to seeing, and loads of graffiti. The hotel is okay, probably quite nice when it was built decades ago but with no updates since then. Clean and functional but well worn. 
We handed out flyers in the square to promote the show, practiced the set, and had a good dinner. I’m at the pool while V practices, and we’ll do the set again this afternoon. The opener bailed so we’re doing two short sets tonight.

Tomorrow we’ll have an empty day before catching a night bus, and I don’t know what we’ll do. Maybe take a taxi to go for a hike. Next week will have vocal recording and photo shoot, just one show in San Isidro. The following week is heavy with travel, hitting four cities I think. 

March 15

Last night was the performance at All Right in San Luis. If you’re not yet well-known and touring, it’s crucial to have a local artist on the bill. That way you get the draw of the unknown plus the draw of the known. Unfortunately our local support broke up the previous week. We unknowns posted like crazy on Instagram and handed out flyers in the city square and along the street.

Sound check was okay, but the guy running sound liked a lot of low end, and it was sounding boomy through the mains and kind of loud through the monitors. We went on to an almost empty room and a few people trickled in, seeming to like us well enough. There was also the late-night covers band in attendance. The mix was fighting us a bit, as even anything on the low E string got lost (why don’t sound guys roll off below 80hz?) but the late band liked us. We had a drink and slept hard.

This morning we had to leave the hotel but had 9 hours to kill before the bus to Buenos Aires so we’d booked a taxi driver who did local tours to show us the surrounding area. It was n unexpectedly great day. We went up into the mountains, which felt like another sharp and shadowy world, with grey rocks and dusty green scrubland ribboned with shining rivers and cloaked in damp clouds that slithered over the peaks.

Now we’re slumped in the hotel lobby until it’s late enough to get a sandwich and head to the bus station. 

March 21

San Isidro is a neighborhood on the north side of Buenos Aires and seems pretty nice. It’s where we found ourselves on Thursday, playing at Cerdos Voladores, which I guess means flying pig, or something close to it. It was an okay gig but we spent a lot of time arguing, mostly from fatigue.

We were tired after spending most of the previous day in a photo session and at the U.S. embassy. Because the building in which we have two apartments belonging to V’s family is next to a demolition site, from 8 to 5 there are jackhammers, sledge hammers, and various other hammers um, hammering continuously. The cacophony of car horns, unmuffled motorcycles, and construction had me mentally frayed.

Then the experience at the embassy was a trip. I had to go there to get the papers authorizing Mom’s estate to go to probate notarized. No DocuSign or any other kind of non-physical authorization was admissible even if I was living in another country. The $150 notary fee at the embassy plus $100 to ship via DHL was still more practical than flying to the U.S. to get the magical sacred ink stamp of a notary, though.

We’d worked with Nico, the photographer, on a music video before. Met him at a vast cemetery to take pics all over the crumbling, somber grounds until the guards told us to vamoose. We both had done some modeling in our youth and had been in enough videos and shoots to know to just assume the pose and do what you’re told. Then we went on a a city park to strike awkward poses, stare straight into the sun, lie in the grass and not make a face as insects devoured us, with poses treading a line between morbid and romantic. The next album is called The Wedding, and we wanted to have a vaguely Cocteau Twins, Cure, Sisters of Mercy kind of ambiguous life and death, blood and sky balance. We ended after dark and had an excellent meal.

Yesterday we saw the unedited photos and a few were spectacularly good. That was a boost. And today we went to Museo de Arte Latinoamericano, which was fantastic. The Diego Riveras and Frida Khalos were fine of course, but they also had the biggest retrospective of Olga de Amara in 30 years, which blew me away. The imagination and skill of contemporary Latin American art is amazing and I frankly can spend days exploring new art here, while I can only tolerate a few minutes in the High Museum or MOMA.
Now I’m practicing, after working out some vocal lines for the new album on keys (for some reason I prefer writing on keyboard.) Monday we’ll go to see Drink the Sea, a supergroup featuring Pete Buck and Alain Johannes, then it’s off to Uruguay for our first gig in that country.

March 27

Uruguay. Well, I like Montevideo. It’s rather pretty and on the Plata. Had a good dinner on a place that had Grandaddy on the PA and met a really cool guy who was a luthier and connected us with a venue for future visits. The gig wasn’t much. The PA was sketchy and the opener was nice but more like pop karaoke than a band. So back to Argentina we go. 
After four trips, I am comfortable saying Buenos Aires is not for me. It has a reputation as a world capital, the Paris of South America, a cultural icon. I suppose if you’re there for three days at a boutique hotel it’s all that. If it’s your home base for a month in a normal apartment though, it’s a city where everything is cracked and covered in graffiti, it smells like sewage, drivers don’t stop at intersections because there are literally no stop signs, and the sound of un-muffled motorcycles, pneumatic drills, and car horns never stops.

Yesterday I watched a cruise ship the size of a city glide past Montevideo as I walked down a silent street past a monumental, once-lovely building that had been shuttered and abandoned, sprayed with graffiti, and now gave shade to some people pushing grocery carts of gazing into space. 

March 30

We saw Steve Hackett play last night. I was aware of his existence as the guitarist for Genesis at their most arty and ambitious. But I’d never listened to him. Tonight he was with Genetics, who are primarily a Genesis cover band, I guess. They must be huge, as they filled Movistar Arena, probably 10,000 people.

V is friends with two of the Genetics guys because they’re all in the Guitar Ensemble of Buenos Aires, so we had free tickets with some other people from the ensemble. The show was…well, terrific. Great sound, great playing, very entertaining. We skipped hanging out with the band after the show. Charlie Garcia, Argentine legend, was backstage.

The next day we met some of the ensemble for JS Bach’s birthday. Five if them were going to perform Bach pieces on the subway. There wasn’t much planning, and much negotiation with police before we - ensemble, friends, and fans - got onto a train. It was moving - literally and emotionally - and hilarious in equal measure, as five guitarists battled train announcers and blaring horns. Then it was time to get ready for more gigs.

Second time in Corrientes, a small city consisting of a wide, landscaped boulevard along the river and a sprawl of cracked and crumbling concrete once one ventures a block further. 
After the constant noise of the big city I had splurged on a room at the Marriott for our two days here. It was a scramble to work out this bit of the tour. Last week we had gigs Thursday in Corrientes, Friday in Resistencia, and Saturday in Roque Saenz Pena. Then the first two canceled because of some kind of permit thing for having concerts. V was on the phone for a day and we ended up with Thursday in Resistencia, followed by RSP and ending in Corrientes. The geography was tricky but two of the cities are neighbors so it worked out.

The Marriott was nice. Quiet room, a pool, and clean. We did a lot of hanging out in the sun, separate guitar and vocal practice, reading, and swimming. Well, wading in Vs case. The gig itself was last-minute and only a handful of people were there. Some hyperactive guy who had been doing a mural at the entrance decided to unscrew a light bulb after two songs and that tripped a breaker so we had a long break to troubleshoot. People were smoking so my voice was shot afterward. The sound guy played a bit of the recording off the mixer and we realized we sounded good.

Now we’re in the bus station waiting for the bus to RSP. You never quite know when the regional buses will run, but we only have to wait 45 minutes. I’ll try to get some sleep, as we got back to the hotel around 1 and woke at 7 

April 2

Roque Saenz Pena is so odd, at least to me. V thinks I might be the only American to ever visit. It is far to the north, in Chaco, and as close to Paraguay as I’ll ever get. Most of Argentina is crumbling concrete, but RSP has the look of a place decimated by a plague or alien invasion. Quite empty, lots of overgrown vacant lots and empty buildings, and brapping little scooters carrying couples and helmetless families along cracked streets in scorching heat.

We played here a few months ago and returned to the same hotel (the only hotel) and music venue (probably the only one.) The hotel feels like it was abandoned shortly after its 1990-ish construction and has since gone without renovation or repair. The carpets seem to have been used in a slaughterhouse, doors don’t quite close, paint is peeling, and there was what looked like a hobo cave in the wall of the pool area.

The club, run by a gentleman named Beto, always has good music on the PA and cheap beer flowing. It was so hot that he suggested we set up his second PA outside and play in front of the club. We sounded good, though he kept bringing me up in the mix, forcing me to turn my Quad Cortex down and work the volume knob on the guitar. There was a decent turnout and people were recording videos and liked the music. As we ended at close to 3:00, the police came to shut us down. Rock and roll. Then a badly intoxicated goth fell down over the monitor. His goth girlfriend was walking better despite having only one leg and was yelling at some of the audience angrily. They sat at a table and were calmed a bit, but her friend who looked very much like a nighttime professional also had a scary vibe so we were glad to leave.

Now waiting for a bus to Resistencia. Last show is tonight in Corrientes, then we get a day off in Resistencia before heading back to Buenos Aires.  

April 5

Back in Corrientes at Espacio Sexto. We played here last time, and it’s sort of a house, sort of a rambling compound, sort of an underground music venue, and has a kitchen that serves the best empanadas ever.

We’re the first band on the bill, which is fine as we were playing until 3 this morning in another city, and we didn’t sleep much on the bus. Sound check was decent, and the other bands seemed really interested in what we did. As egotistical as it sounds, we’re unusual and we’re professional so people notice even if they don’t like the music. We get set up quickly, we know the material, the sounds are dialed, and we can actually sing. 

April 8

About 45 minutes from Amsterdam now, after almost 13 hours on the plane. It’s amazing what we can get used to. A few thoughts.

The last gig was good. The volume was loud and there wasn’t much room in the mix for vocals, so we were pushing our voices. V was a little hoarse by the end. We did pics with fans and Alex, a guitarist who likes our music, gave us a ride back to the apartment. It’s always sad to end a tour though.

We went to Resistencia in the morning as the flight to Buenos Aires was out of that airport. It’s not a remarkable city except for the quantity and quality of outdoor sculpture. If the essence of a place is represented by its art, Argentina is awesome.

But if it’s represented by social equality, it’s less awesome. The poverty in the country is unsettling. I suppose Brasil was even worse, and what I saw of Chile and Uruguay wasn’t wonderful, but most things in Argentina seem to be hanging together with tape, wire, and hope. I’m rereading David Mitchell’s book Unruly, and in this history of England’s monarchs he points out that these rulers were essentially brutal thugs who ruthlessly gained and held power. Human nature doesn’t change. The most powerful and wealthy of us are still brutal thugs who will stop at nothing to fulfill their insane craving for dominance.

V and I got along better than ever and seem to have a good groove musically and personally. We’re going to focus on marketing the band, using the repellent but effective media known as « social » and working her connections in South America. I’m looking forward to finishing the album. I’m also looking forward to doing a lot more cycling. I’m not going to do any more consulting work, as the addition of five or six hundred thou from mom’s estate provides extra cushion and my time on earth isn’t forever.

And now to land in Amsterdam and run to my Copenhagen flight. 

Edited April 9 by polara

[mrjamiam]

First, my condolences on the loss of your mother.  That was the previous winter for me, although without the different continents complication, so the empathy is fresh.

Next, thank you very much for the story and pictures.  I always like a travelogue, and for this one to be musically oriented and in some places I'm fond of (BsAs and Montevideo) is a real treat.

Rest and recover and look toward the next adventure.  Congrats on real retirement!

[gtone]

Cool story! Sorry about your Mom though, I lost my Mom last yr, so know full well the extent of your loss.

Steve Hackett is the bomb! He always had a big following in South America it seems. Glad you got to check him out.

Cheers!

 

[a.bandini]

It is great to hear from you and see/read these stories.  It looks like an incredible adventure and memory.  

 

[murkat]

Great write up! Quad Cotex!!!