Markina Moon (Better Get Hit in Your Soul)

In Spain now, funnily enough (last posting I was off to Amsterdam, remember?)...just played a 2 hour marathon solo acoustic concert last night at the Uhagon Kulturgunea in the charming Basque village of Markina, just down the road apiece from Gernika (as in Picasso´s Guernica, you know the painting/story)and Durango (as in "Romance in..."--not! Actually, one of the epicenters of 16th century Spanish witchfinding)--a concert that left me sweat-drenched and ecstatic, after plucking 30-40 tunes out the air, from potential repertoire of hundreds--

as here, soul deep in the land of la Guitarre, this particular mariachi/lonesome guitar strangler has always found a very keen appreciation for what I can manage to generate/wring out of what is essentially a plank of wood with 6 strings laid across it...in fact, on one of my first Spanish concerts, in 1993 in Sevilla, many of the finest flamenco guitarists of that city converged backstage in the old Teatro after my performance and embraced me as a fellow guitar slinger in arms, hugging me and shouting boisterously and planting kisses: ¨Gary Lucas--I Lufffff You!¨ (true)

But of course Basque country is not Spain per se, and many Basque people do not regard themselves as Spanish at all--and without getting into it too deeply, one hopes that one´s music will always transcend the deep philosophical/political divide (far too many divides in this beautiful wide world of ours)...

And so far so good--I could have played all night to the crowd in Markina, such was the welcoming vibe.

The night before I played a similar 2 hour concert before a similarly engaged audience (you could hear a pin drop both nights while I performed, before the applause would well up) before a full house at the University of Leon (definitely Spain) that was just as well received...I love playing here in Basque country, and of course, in Spain...such a fantastic spirit on the land and in the faces of the people I play for, such a hot soul fire a´smoldering there (I adore the Latin temperament, for sure)...

Added to my repertoire mix last night was Alberto Iglesias´ incandescent love theme from the film "Sex and Lucia", which was commissioned by my pal Glenn Kenny for his wedding to the lovely Clare several summers ago, and which brought forth cheers last night...Tomorrow I play in Bilbao at the Palacio Euskalduna, a concert hall where I played a very well-received show a few years ago (thanks to Jose Serrano, Luis Gomes, and the folks at the Serrano agency for bringing me over here again)... and it should be a good one, I´m quite looking forward to it (today is a day off where I managed to crash out for more than 3-4 hours, which is the average amount of sleep I´ve managed to get nightly for the past few months...I´ve been very busy)... I did an interview and live performance yesterday on National Basque Radio (EITB)´s show La Jungla Sonora which was a lot of fun, quite a delightful interview in fact, the host Joseba was well up on my music, and asked a series of questions that ranged over my entire career (he´d been reading my blog obviously, as he even had a question about my web mistress Tanya Weiman, whom I gave big props to on the air for dragging me kicking and screaming into the digital age with the gift of an old computer--my first!--in ´97 or thereabouts), and I obliged him with some live music on the National steel (including a Beefheart tune, and a Gary Lucas/Jeff Buckley composition)...consecutive translation was provided by the lovely multi-lingual Esti, who afterwards escorted me and my charming tour manager/driver Ainhoa around the huge modern new EITB facility which sports a spectacular view of Bilbao (Ainhoa is the best tour manager ever, really friendly and smart and capable, she is making the long drives over the lovely countryside a real pleasure--plus she has singlehandedly turned me on to the culinary delights of pintxos--the Basque version of tapas...and together, along with this cool Irish dude Martin we met last night who took us to the best pintxos bar in Markina, we chowed down on the best of the best pintxos, my favorite being tender pink Serrano ham on bread drenched in olive oil and topped with a marinated Portobello mushroom and a fried quail´s egg...yum!! Just the fuel I need to get in a concert-playing mood...in fact once I finish writing this blog posting I´m going to head out of this Bilbao internet cafe in search of more pintxos!)...

When last we parted dear readers I was heading out from NYC to Amsterdam to record a commissioned piece for National Dutch Radio's Co de Kloet for his program on NPS...Co is a tremendous Beefheart and Zappa fan who as a fledgling journalist first met Frank Zappa when he was 15, and Don Van Vliet a few years later, and both of them took to Co immediately and brought him into their inner circles (this is some achievement!). And Co has continued to beat the drums loudly for good adventurous music and music making everywhere as a broadcasting journalist who is considered quite the national treasure in Holland...and what a 3 day fun-filled pleasure it was making music in the studio with Co at the controls--he´s a tremendously engaging warm-hearted and enthusiastic guy who has long supported my own music (he taped and broadcast Dutch concerts by both Gods and Monsters, as well as my Beefheart tribute project with Phillip Johnston, Fast ´N Bulbous, last year on his NPS show). For 3 days I was picked up at my hotel in Amsterdam and driven to VARA studios in the Hilversum heartland--Hilversum being the Dutch media center where I´ve taped many a program for their radio and tv networks, going back to Bram Van Splunteren´s VPRO program in 1990, the Lollapalooza show a year or so later on a double bill with PJ Harvey, not to mention numerous appearances on Maryoke Roorda and Mary Lou Busch´s radio programs, etc. (I´m old--I´m solid gold!)...for 3 days I worked with Co´s tape of his interview with Don which he conducted by phone in 1993, in the lavish studios of VARA which normally are the purview of the Metropole Orchestra... Holland has always really supported the arts in a big way, and I was totally inspired working there, and got busy right away recording my own music to underscore, accompany and comment upon the 1993 radio interview Co had conducted with Don Van Vliet, which represents the last known lengthy interview with Don where he sounds totally lucid/compos mentis, not at all the fragile voice heard on Anton Corbijn´s excellent "Some Yo Yo Stuff" documentary of a few years later.

The work went amazingly quickly, I played my heart out and utilized both my electronic fx, 1966 strat, and 1928 National steel guitar for my score (I had worked out the major themes in NYC beforehand but left lots of space for spontaneous improvisation), in tandem with occasional judicious and welcome input from producer/director Co---and I must say when we had wrapped after the first day the rough mix of the piece really blew us all away, what can I say, I feel very very proud to be part of this project! Co is planning a final mix soon, cant wait to hear it, and I´ll be the first to alert you as to the premiere broadcast date. Stay tuned...

Despite the soggy and gloomy skies of Amsterdam last week I really was in my element there, feeling a tremendous sense of joy always strolling the canals and meeting old friends for dinner...lectured and conducted a guitar masterclass for the Music Conservatorum in their adjunct class rooms near the outskirts of the city, had an overflow crowd for this one, very enjoyable talk, tremendous questions from the many gifted students and other visitors who showed, including PaulB and his wife Esther and daughter/guitarist the lovely Bibiche, the three of whom had visited Co´s inner sanctum while I worked on the commissioned score for the Beefheart interview and watched me record several other spontaneous compositions, they wrote some nice comments and posted photos on my myspace page about the experience, check it out on the comments page at http://www.myspace.com/garylucas...met the orchestral arranging whizkid Tom Trapp up in Hilversum also, an American ex-pat who speaks impeccable Dutch who is knee deep in all sorts of rock/classical fusion projects and arrangements (he recently scored strings on a Steve Vai cd)... Beatrice Van Der Poel wandered by the VARA sessions as well, she is a friend of Co´s and my friend Bien Van Heek´s who Bien had urged me to get together with, and voila there she was--quite an accomplished Dutch vocalist/songwriter who has released several well regarded albums in Holland...

Had a wonderful celebratory dinner with some old old Dutch friends I hadn´t seen in years, including Bien and her family; Flip Nagler, the documentary producer of "Guitar Unbound", the first tv doc. on my work that showed on the Dutch Kunst Kanaal tv channel; plus the fantastic painter Joep Ver, who´d come all the way from his domicile in the Aveyron to catch my show at the Paradiso the next night. This was the Dutch premiere of my "Sounds of the Surreal/Monsters from the Id" project, and the Paradiso art staff rendered a beautiful poster for the night featuring the green-tinted visage of young mama bruja Barbara Steele from "La Maschera del Demonio" (a/k/a "Black Sunday"), which I will soon be raffling off in a new contest herein...special thanks to Jan-Willem Slighting for making what must be my 21st show at the Paradiso happen there once again--probably my favorite joint to play in the world (btw, a special DVD double bill edition of "Sounds of the Surreal/Monsters from the Id" is available now through my website featuring pristine prints of the 3 surrealist films by Fernand Leger, Rene Clair, and Ladislaw Starewicz that comprise the source material of "Sounds of the Surreal", and excellent transfers of the classic horror, fantasy and science fiction clips I utilize for ¨Monsters from the Id"--plus of course my original solo guitar scores on the soundtrack, recorded live at the Porgy and Bess Club in Wien last September at the Austrian premiere,special thanks to Christoph Huber for hooking that one up... also, the DVD comes with a special audio commentary on the project and the films themselves--plus a surprise extra or two!...thanks to Paul Chisefsky for helping me realize the DVD, which has been a long time coming, ever since I first received the commission to create "Sounds of the Surreal" in 2000 from the Film Society of Lincoln Center)...

Home again then for a couple days in which I was immediately immersed in finishing a score for the film maker Erik Anjou´s new documentary "For Love and Glory", on the history of Ivy League football...such talented musicians as the Klezmatics´trumpet maestro Frank London and Gods and Monsters/Television drummer Billy Ficca added beautiful touches to my score...and as an Old Blue, a charter member of the Yale Marching Band (check the photo on my website of me playing the Theme from "Shaft" at the Yale Bowl in 1973) and an avid Syracuse Orangemen fan during my wayward youth, I have to admit getting a little misty about this project, Erik did a yeoman´s job pulling interviews out of folks like Tommy Lee Jones and Calvin Hill, and integrating them seamlessly with marvelous archival photos and clips, to make a really compelling look at the sport that should thrill many a Monday morning quarterback as well as touch the hearts of even those indifferent to the game...

This was immediately followed by a day of rehearsal in Manhattan and two days of recording in New Jersey with the supernaturally gifted Indian vocalist extraordinaire Najma Akhtar, who flew in from her native London for more work on our ongoing acoustic project...I first met Najma last spring in London, and as a longtime fan of her work (I loved her "Atish" album, which really pulled me through some hard times many years ago...you may also know her work with Page and Plant on their "Unleaded" album and tv special of a few years ago, where she sings the late Sandy Denny´s parts from "The Battle of Evermore") I had immediately warmed to the idea of working with her (special thanks to Gary and Terri Nesbitt who had the idea to bring us together in the first place)...

Last May I invited Najma onstage to sing with me at Luminaire in London, and we clicked immediately, she really rocked out with amazing improvised wailing that hit me right in my soul...and I began sending her finished instrumental compositions of mine to add lyrics and melodic lines to (this is the same way I worked with Jeff Buckley, and the way I prefer to work with most of my song collaborators)...we did 4 tracks last fall that came out splendidly, so much so that Najma invited her friend Robert Plant over to her flat to hear the results about a week before the Led Zeppelin reunion in London--and he gave them his enthusiastic blessings...needless to say, I was over the moon about that one :-)

For these sessions we invited in a fantastic tabla player, Dibyarka Chatterjee, whom I´d first jammed with at the "Songs of the Spirit" show right before Xmas up in North Adams Mass., along with Salman Ahmed (an old friend of Najma´s)...I really loved Dibyarka´s fire on the tabla and the way we grooved together at that show during our impromptu jam, and sure enough, at our rehearsal at Euphoria Studios in NYC and at the recording sessions at the waycool House of Vibes Studio in Highland Park NJ we locked in synch together from the get-go, like true brothers in arms...

Najma and I also invited Klezmatics founder the fabulous Alicia Svigals for these sessions to play her magic violin on some of our new songs--and she fit in perfectly with the overall spirit, she is a truly mesmerizing player...special thanks to studio owner and sound whiz Kurt and his wife and bro´ (who all play together in the excellent group The Gripweeds) for being so meticulous and getting such an amazing live sound...the tracks sound incredible, the recording went off fairly effortlessly, we just flowed and flowed as one with the music (the way it always should be)...Najma was in awesome form,as usual--she has such a purity about her voice, tone and presence... and can conjure up otherworldly portmanteau effects and elegant ornamentation with her voice effortlessly...

Now I can´t wait to play with Najma live and take our music forward directly to You--

Please come and check us out on May 3rd at Joe´s Pub in Manhattan, where we will make our live debut at 9:30pm, I know Dibyarka will be there with us also...I tell you, this concert will be something really really special...music straight from our collective heart and soul...

and the music is still swirling around in my head here in Bilbao (I hopped on a plane here the day after our last session day in New Jersey, remember?)

Now it´s time to go in search of those pintxos!

xxLove

Gary

ps just to say, stepped out of the internet cafe right into the mad whirling kermesse of Carnivale in Bilbao...not just here, but all over the Basque country, all over Spain, tonight and tomorrow...a kind of early Halloween, fireworks setting alight the night sky, strolling couples in matching velvet plumage/ruffles and regalia, bedecked and bedizened as 15th century nobility, lots of mountebanks, montagnards, monteneros, a walking framed portrait of the Mona Lisa with face cut out to allow the bearer´s mug to peep through...children running riot, little brujas in pointed black hats prancing 'oer the streets of Bilbao... intoxicated joker hysterical face just around the corner...like one of Goya´s Black Paintings come to life.

I love it here...