MTDs

I saw De Sol and Ozomatli at the Paradise last night with my brother. Incredible show. It had the energy of all those ska shows I used to go to with an amazing undercurrent of musicianship and sabor that I haven't felt since my days as a roadie for Los Lobos. Awesome. Random observations:

• At one point the singer and bassist from De Sol got together to share the same mic at one point in a song. You know, the ol' Steven Tyler / Joe Perry thing. Mark has done that a few times at Focusin shows and... I don't know, man, call me homophobic or whatever but I just feel awkward doing that. The toxic twins could pull it off well, but the De Sol guys looked like they were about to make out. But...
• You can get away with a lot of stuff that would really be corny / dumb / cheesy... if you do it with international flair. Like De Sol- at one point they did this very cool a capella thing where they all sang some rousing Spanish chorus with one nylon string guitar as accompaniment, and then each one would take his turn rapping or singing alone. The ones that sang in Spanish sounded really cool... they sang things about Mexico and I think one of them said his grandparents liked to smoke big joints. And then the token gringo got up to the mic and rapped in English something to the effect of "I have ancestry from Mexico to Germany / I live a park called Asbury / ...". It was decidedly not as cool as what everyone else was doing. But I ain't complaining-- these guys were great.
• De Sol closed with an old Tito Puente song, Oye Como Va... performed exactly as Carlos Santana did it. A spot-on rendition that got the crowd to go nuts, but my brother and I both turned to each other and said 'is this the equivalent of an English-speaking American band closing with Sweet Home Alabama?'
• Ozomatli is one of the coolest live acts out there. 10 dudes (!), rotating instruments... guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, dj, a few rappers, lots of various latin percussion doohickeys, and a HORN SECTION. And at the end of their set they marched off the stage and formed a drum circle in the middle of the crowd. They're playing Brooklyn and NYC soon, among other places. Get thee to an Ozo show!
• Ozo was, however, loud as all hell. It was so loud that they had a lot of feedback problems, which really doesn't help one's already ringing ears.

"Uh, hey, Bennett... there are these things called earplugs..."

Yeah.. uh... I'm aware of that. But... I dunno, man... earplugs are like condoms for your ears... man. Sure, they keep you safe and all and protect your extremeties from various maladies like chlamidya and hearing loss... but you just don't get the full experience wearing 'em, ya know? I guess they have some more tolerable varieties... the lighter ones that don't just filter out all sensation... I've worn 'em in my time, and after last night I probably should get back to wearing them. I woke up this morning (I know there's a morning after innuendo to be made here) and had a little bit of a panic attack when I got in the shower... my ears were still ringing from the night before (I know, I know... BAD!) and the running water just didn't sound the same... as if some of the higher pitches just weren't there. Eek. One thing I pride myself on and one of my major justifications for going to music-ish school in the fall is my hearing... I'm always the one that gets irritated by a monitor in the next room because I can hear the high pitch whine a CRT gives off from pretty far away. How can I become a sound engineer if I can't hear part of the audio spectrum? My mixes will sound like mud! Sure, maybe Monet could pull off painting even in his older years when his eyesight deteriorated... but a) I'm no Monet and 2) I don't have years of experience with mixing / recording so I probably can't fudge things like EQ quite yet. I conducted makeshift hearing tests in the shower- cup my ears and see how that affects the sound of the running water, snap my fingers in various places around my head to see if I still heard everything properly, but all I did was second-guess myself- that's not supposed to sound like that!- and get more worried.

I think I'm alright now. Will I learn? Will I remember the headache and ear ringing and panic attack that ensued, or will I ride the Valhalla Kittens tonight and Raymond tomorrow and band practice on Sunday bareback as always?

Good thing I took those two semesters of American Sign Language in college.