Light On

Getting ready to head out on Wednesday to play the 5th Jecheon International Music and Arts Festival in South Korea in the lovely town of Jecheon outside Seoul with "The Golem"...

the last couple of weeks since I've been back from my trip to Latin America have been sent basically decompressing--catching up on sleep, tying up loose ends here, paying bills (oy), rehearsing, seeing movies, live music, basically searching for stolen moments away from the usual hustle before my next trip lighting out for the territories...

Lulu, Caroline and Gary, Mojo Coffee, West Village, 7/09


still, nothing quite beats the memory of the delightful time spent in Apulo Colombia recently with Andrew Loog Oldham, Esther Farfan, and Caroline (and not forgetting their dogs Gruff and Daisy!)...

Movies: Best I've seen recently (but pretty damn depressing admittedly) was a double bill of Matteo Garone's "Gomorrah" and Paolo Sorrentino's "Il Divo" up at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center (my favorite theater in NYC in fact--where I will premiere my new live score for Tod Browning's silent thriller "The Unholy Three" on October 22nd--save the date!)...

Despite the pervasive gloom engendered by this peak into the seamy netherword of Italian politics, I quite enjoyed these two films, which were really adult cinema (ie, what used to be known as "foreign films") at its best--a commodity which seems to have pretty much fallen off the map in this country unfortunately over the last few years...

I am so looking forward to performing in Italy again in September at the Madame Guitar Festival in Tricesimo near Udine, I love Italian culture in general and any time I play in that lovely country is a blessing...

this year I find myself listening nearly incessantly to the music of Paolo Conte which I rate right up there with the best music ever made, his music never fails to move me, uplift me, entrance me--I bought his "Reveries" album several years in a store in Saint Petersburg that carried bootlegs of seemingly every album every made (like that Robert Klein routine), music divided and catalogued in the store by decades, however obscure (found a double album of Harpo Marx's music there for instance--yes! also Circus Maximus' first album, great 60's jazz-rock band, Jerry Jeff Walker's first group, containing that staple of 60's FM freeform radio, "The Wind")--anyway, "Reveries" started me off on a journey that has taken me deeper and deeper into the world of Paolo Conte--I would recommend his "Best of" album on Nonesuch here as a good starter for anyone interested in checking out his work (but hey I own about 15 of his albums now--in fact the lovely Italian singer Marina Conti gave me his "900" album for my birthday--thanks Marina!!--and it's hard to pick a particular favorite--they all have something magical to recommend them--he really is the greatest)...

Sunset out our window, West Village NYC 8/09


Also enjoyed Woody Allen's "Whatever Works", I am quite partisan about Larry David (could watch reruns of "Fawlty Towers", "SCTV", "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and "The Daily Show" endlessly), and found this film quite sweet and funny...unlike the new Harry Potter film, which was a gigantic snore...yet the critics seem to adore this particular HP (apple)sauce, and dissed Woody's new film...oh well...

and then there was "In the Loop"--yes!! Funniest film in ages, so true--go see it!! Peter Capaldi is brilliant as the Scottish spinmeister Malcolm Tucker, James Gandolfini is great as usual, we loved it non-stop throughout, and the thing of it is, it is so close to the way things actually ARE, it's really not such a laughing matter when you get right down to it...but--what the hey, laugh through the tears, laugh till it hurts-- this film will put a big smile on your face guaranteed--climb the mountain of conflict and see it :-)

Reasons to be Cheerful pt. two: my new album "Rishte" with the amazing Indian vocalist Najma Akhtar is #7 on the World Music Charts Europe this month (yeah!!)...

and there is a really nice feature about the making of it at Spinner.com.

Lulu sleeping peacefully just back from the vet, 8/8/09


Have to dash--we're lighting out with Lulu for vanilla pancakes at our new favorite cool Village hangout Smorgas Chef on West 12th Street, a delightful joint with the best Swedish cuisine...this year saw the demise of a slew of great restaurants in the Village due to greedy landlords abounding, much regret at the closing of our beloved Portuguese restaurant Alfama (had dinner there on their final night, beautiful Fado music playing live--good news is they will reopen elsewhere, stay tuned), also Monster Sushi, Mama Buddha, Sung Chu Mei, Chez Brigitte, Bourbon Street West, Da Andrea--

but some great new ones have opened also, including a branch of the fantastic Chinese restaurant Grand Sichuan on Varick Street...

and let us not forget the Waffels and Dinges truck that parks on the corner of Christopher and 7th Avenue occasionally--

soft and chewy Belgian waffles. plus toppings of fruit, dulce de leche, melted Belgian chocolate, mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...


xxLove


Gary

ps just read the sad news about the passing of Mike Seeger in the Times this morning...while not as well known as his brother Pete he was equally gifted, a real treasure of American folk music, and was a hell of a player on all sorts of instruments. I first encountered him backstage at Symphony Space when Peter Stampfel and I performed as The Du-Tels at a New Lost City Ramblers reunion show and dug his dry wit and masterful performance style, last saw him backstage at the New York Guitar Festival at Town Hall a couple years ago on one of David Spelman and John Schaefer's themed tribute shows (to Mississippi John Hurt)-- a real gentleman and a scholar and educator, Mike's re-discovery of the great Appalachian banjo player and singer Dock Boggs is on a par with John Fahey, Bill Barth and Henry Vestine's re-discovery of Skip James--a blessed event in American roots music...the whole Seeger family really is one of the great benign American dynasties...though socialist to the bone, they would no doubt hate to be described this way :-)...I loved working with Mike's niece Sonya Cohen on some of my earliest recordings (she was so great on "Out from Under"), and Peggy Seeger is one of the greatest performers and songwriters, and should really be better known...

Speaking of the Seegers, Dean Bowman and I are bringing our Chase the Devil duo to Peter Seeger's annual Clearwater Festival in Washington Square Park at 3pm on 9/11, and if you're in the city come on down...