Sunday, December 27, 2009

Preparing for JB


I was gonna put this at the end of the blog as a "by the way", but when I uploaded the pic, it wouldn't move to the bottom of the blog, so I'm starting with it. So, a couple of weeks ago, I was searching around for different pics of our guys, and I found this pic of Sergey (2nd trumpet/flugelhorn) playing with Gogol Bordello! (That's him, smoking and playing, haha). Awesome.

Anyway, back to the normal post. Since we're all quiet, you might think that nothing much is going on as we're preparing for JB, but you be wrong... That's exactly why I'm not writing.

First of all, let me say that Jessie Kawata is an amazing designer and the amount of stupid things that have been going on with the poster are annoying the hell out of me, as with her. As you can see at the top of this page, the poster is done, but someone keeps whining about something or stopping the process for some reason or another and we're just trying to get them printed already... Plus, we wanted to paste them around the city, but apparently that costs a lot more than we were prepared for, and since it's wintertime, we figure that maybe people won't be walking outside so much anyway...? We've decided to put our money into more targetted promotional media.

Secondly, we're trying to find an opening act. Who knew it would take this long... We have to make the exact right decision for us, and also make sure that the people we invite feel like it's a good fit for them too. And for some reason, it's been difficult for Ilya and I to come to a perfect decision and find the right act. And, it's cutting it close...

Jimmy and Ilya have finally agreed on a setlist, which is quite exciting, and it also enables us to start preparing the right songs, rather than just prepare in general. In that, it's hard for me because I'm away from the band, so I have to be disciplined enough to rehearse my voice in general, practice those songs and exactly the feeling I want for them (I came up with some new ideas and variations in some of our old stuff), to practice the Cuban guiro which is a new instrument for me and I'm very conscious that I have to find the right groove, practice the Puerto Rican guiro which our amazing friends from Tres Panderos sent me, figure out the new coro arrangements with Ilya (because now Andrey is singing with us), practice my movements onstage, actually plan with Lesya how some songs will look visually, especially practice the JB songs so he'll be pleased with them, and most of all, practice my rhythm while singing - which is a daily feat for me. And that's just me. Can you imagine what Ilya has to do as a bandleader?

Two other people we have to find that are crucial - one is video crew, since we're planning to record the whole concert live. Our good friend Adrian Garcia gave us a good tip, and otherwise, I've got some backup crew from Poland that could eventually come. And, the last thing is to find the right MC........ and so far we're more behind with that than with the opening band. Because that's the trick. We can easily find "any" MC and "any" band, but it's about finding the *right* ones.

And of course, we always welcome more money. I just watched Julie & Julia today as I was making promotional stuff for the concert, and she got people to send her stuff by the sole act of writing a blog. Well, in case anyone has any spare money that they have no idea how to spend, you are welcome to send it our way. I assure you, it won't go to waste. ;) hehe

Dislocados is out of work for one week while Caribbean Club takes a break from live music for the first weekend of 2010, so there's more time for practicing and a bit less time for earning a living.

So, here I am, practicing and practicing. In fact, 24hr/day connected Ilya isn't even ever online anymore because he's practicing all the time. We're going into lockdown mode here.

Meanwhile, EVERYONE is telling us they want to go to this concert, but they all want to wait to buy their tickets, which is making me really nervous. And, we did what I thought you should do - make the tickets more expensive at the door than beforehand, and make the salsa school dance teachers push the tickets on their students, but still ppl are being lazy. That's weird, right? What can I do? Any ideas? I could use some audience participation here like on Julie & Julia... :P ;)

Ok that's it for me now. I have to record my voice and send some stuff to Lesya that I made up that we'll be doing at the concert. I'm out, see you in a bit.~


Wednesday, December 16, 2009

We just made a new poster for our CDrelease/Jimmy Bosch concert!

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