Curitiba

I'm in Curitiba now, and am feelin' much better. I like this town, feels good. And i got a DJ gig in a really cool little bar... it's called Kitenete, some guy posted some photos here. And the owner is gonna take me to all the best record stores tomorrow! I'll stay til saturday and then continue on to Florianopolis.

Goiânia (Noise)

For some reason I've gotten into the habit of
updating this thing as I leave places... I've
been in Goiânia (which is pretty much smack in
the middle of Brazil) for three days... I went to
that festival, pretty cool... saw lots of bands,
a couple of which I liked. Tonight I saw
SEPULTURA, "a banda rock mais conhelcida do
Brasil!" All I could think while I watched them
was, "_______ was better" and I filled that blank
with Megadeth, Testament, Metallica, and a couple
of other metal bands I used to listen to, back in the day...

Tomorrow afternoon I fly back to Sao Paulo, and then grab a bus to Curitiba.

Salvador (Bahia)

Oh yeah so I´m in Salvador, in the practice studio of THE FUTCHERS (www.myspace.com/thefutchers). I´ve been in Salvador since Monday... and tomorrow I´m leaving for Goiania. I´m going to the www.goianianoisefestival.com.br

basta Rio!

Alright I´ve had enough of this place... I´m booked on a flight to Salvador this evenin´. The gig the other night was cool, the bands were cool, real nice kids... I also found one of the coolest neighborhoods ever: Santa Teresa. Up on a hill overlooking the city. It was dubbed rio´s most "bohemian" neighborhood by Lonely planet... whatever that means...

There are lots of artist types with funny hair walkin around in their sandals... I guess that makes it Bohemian... I was really into the rickety old tram that brings you up there, that feels more like a roller-coaster at times, with the little barefoot black kids jumping on and off and all around it... and the beautiful, crumbling old buildings, and great little bars and restaurants. Rather than "modernizing", people up here have chosen to preserve. Beautiful place, if I ever come back here I´ll be staying there without a doubt.

still in Rio... still raining

I'm still in Rio and there's not much of a music scene in this town. They all
told me, but I didn't wanna believe it. There's a pretty cool band called Os Azuis
playin around the corner tomorrow night... it's been raining almost
the whole time i've been here, so what i'd hoped would be a more
sane healthy kinda stay here (on the beach, hiking, surfing, stuff like
that) has been more of the usual -- drinking til 5 and sleeping til noon.

Still in Rio

I´m gonna stay here for a couple more nights... at least... I´m stayin at this cheesy, but cozy & friendly joint: http://www.ipanemahouse.com/

Last night a guy from here in Rio was complaining about that song Copacabana... it was hilarious... who the fuck is that song by? Neil Diamond?? Turns out it´s one of Rio´s more violent neighborhoods these days... Ipanema is known because of a song too... it´s kind of an upscale area, which makes me wanna puke with all it´s fancy yuppies shopping for boring clothing... but at  least it´s safe.

Blogs are for dorks - Rio de Janeiro

Okay, so it wasn't hard for me to be convinced that blogs are totally lame. Actually, I had sort of already convinced myself. But a friend of mine's confirmation drove the point home.

SO... I'll keep posting here but mostly just to send links to photos and such... and give a quick update on where I'm at.

Here are some pix from Sao Paulo

I'm in Rio de Janeiro and it's raining. Which is fine, cuz I've got 500 emails to go through...

I've got a Brazilian cell #... +55 11 8214 4715

Almost forgot... Last night

So last night was good too, by the way... I spun some records in the Astronete around 12.30 -- but just for about a half an hour. I only had the little box of 45s that I bought during my week in New York, along with some Slovenly stuff. I think I did alright, the people that were there seemed to be into it. (This is kind of a boring post, but that probably has something to do with my being bored. I'm at the Inferno club and there's a hardcore punk band playing that is pretty good but they've been playing for an hour already. I had had enough 20 minutes ago.) After me Claudio played and ruled again, though it wasn't the same as Thursday -- the sound ain't bad at Astronete, but Las Vegas's system was really pounding. Next came a duo onstage -- a drummer and a singer playing a moog. They make a horrible first impression by starting their set with a Nirvana cover. They never really made up for it. All night I'm getting a crash course in Portuguese from the Brazilians I'm trying to interact with. Despite my knowledge of Italian and Spanish, it ain't going too well. Like with French, I can understand much of written Portuguese. But I've got no clue how to pronounce it. Or decipher it when it's spoken to me. I'm trying, but it's telling that the phrase I remember best from last night's lessons is "foda se" -- FUCK IT. It was dawn before I snapped the last picture on my Holga and stumbled back to the air mattress at Claudio and Naomi's.

Saturday night in Sao Paulo

Claudio talked me into staying another night here (it wasn't hard) and I'm gettin ready to head out again and see what's happenin out there. The streets are loud and full of people. I'm gonna grab me another Brazilian pizza and head to the Infierno bar.

 

Tomorrow we're going to eat in an Italian restaurant on top of a tower with a view of all of Sao Paulo. Actually, supposedly this city is so damned big that even from way up there you can't even see the whole thing... it never ends... it's the 3rd largest city in the world after Mexico City and Tokyo, I believe.

Brazil - Sao Paulo

I made it to Brazil after a crazy trip which I wrote nothing about except in emails to friends. Here's a good synopsis of what I've been doing since I left Reno in late September:

- buffalo (visit grandma, dad)
- memphis (goner fest - garagerock festival)
- italy (naples, rome, milan... visiting friends and takin care of business)
- valencia (play a gig with my band, record, hang with friends, take care of business, DJ the funtastic festival)
- milan (do laundry, mail a package, see a friend, catch a train to...)
- zagreb (visit a croatian friend I know from Amsterdam)
- belgrade (meet up with my friends from Rome's band, THE INTELLECTUALS, they play here and...)
- sofia (that's bulgaria, second gig of the little balkan minitour)
- crete (one of the southernmost and largest greek islands, to meet up with the "Ship of Fools")
- rhodes (another large greek island, south of turkey. spent a night in the beautiful 'capital' and then caught a ferry to...)
-bodrum (turkey. hung out a few hours here, ate a kebab, checked out a bitchin museum in a castle, caught a plane to...)
- istanbul! (amazing gigantic town, 20mil people (who knew there were so many turks?), met up with a guy from a garage band I found via another friend on myspace, ate a bunch of great food, drank a lot, walked a lot, saw a lot, wow! gotta go back)
- new york city (stayed a week, halloween, the Cavestomp festival to the THE SONICS (they were great!!), friends from Reno and all over comin' too

Here I am now in Sao Paulo, Brazil! I have a 1-way ticket, I'm going to relax and enjoy the spring (!) and investigate tour possibilities for the bands on my label... THE SUBSONICS... THE SPITS...

I'm recovering from last night... first off went and had some Brazilian pizza, which is surprisingly good, they cook it in a wood-fired oven, with a sesame-seed crust, and topped with the hearts of palm trees. Mmm. Bohemia is my beer of choice down here, a nice lager.

Then to the ASTRONETE club, great place owned by my new friends Claudio and Noemi. Thanks to Joe & Xtine for putting me in contact with them... I'm staying in their place, and I'm DJing in their bar tonight (with what few records I found in NYC)!

There was an AMAZINGLY good Clash tribute band playing the 'Nete... they rocked!! Then I ran over to a club called, er, LAS VEGAS (! - don't you think RENO is a better name for a club? It rolls off the tongue much more nicely...) and, wow, there's a band on stage tearing up "Psychotic Reaction" by the Count Five! And as soon as they're done, Claudio starts his record and I swear he was watching my applause for the band because the beat was synced with my claps. Ridiculous! He's a great DJ and I shook it til 5am. Now I gotta recover for tonight. And figure out where I'm going tomorrow. I'm thinking of heading to Rio...