Free as a bird

July 7, 2006

As I walked the last 50 meters to Club Salsa, I spotted bunch of friendly faces including Sam, Rajiv, Euvian, Zhenzi and a colleague of Zhenzi having a drink at the Sauce. I decided that classes were not likely to have ended yet, so I walked into Sauce to join this party (one of at least three there tonight). They were not yet aware of the new DJ arrangement and some of them sounded a little disappointed when I told them I would not be DJing tonight. I drifted in and out of their conversation while they finished their drinks. At one point, Sam told me not to put something that was said on this blog. For better or worse, I wasn’t paying attention at the time so I don’t even know what I was suppose to not write about. After about 10 minutes or so, we made the final few meters down to Club Salsa.

I was feeling quite lighthearted about having no responsibilities tonight – more dancing and socializing for me. In particular, I had more opportunity to interact with Johnny and Serap for extended amount of time unlike past several weeks. Johnny and I had a good laugh over me being labeled a bully at the londonsalsa.co.uk forum. I also had couple of fun dances with Serap – this has to be considered one of the main highlights of tonight because I had maybe one dance with her in last 6 weeks or so thanks to DJing responsibilities occupying too much of my time on Fridays. In fact this alone was worth the price of admission. I also showed Serap some recent material I learned from various sources including the LDA. Serap mentioned that she’s working in concert with Sally, Jane and Lindsey for a show they will be doing for an event in Birmingham.

Until Cristian arrived shortly after 10 PM, Serap played few songs. Vishal took over as DJ around midnight. The pattern for music was about 6 songs that could qualify as Salsa (more on this later) followed by 2 or 3 non-Salsa. For me it’s not enough Salsa given that not all Salsa songs appeal to me. Also taking into considerations such as need for a break now and then, difficulty in finding suitable dance partner, and especially popular songs or the first Salsa song after a long break consisting of Merengue/Bachata/etc causing excessive crowding, it’s very easy to end up having only a couple of dances during a 10 song set with 70% Salsa. Assuming that the average song length is 4 minutes, this could equate to 15 songs per hour and 3 dances per hour. Ouch. That sounds poor. By comparison, I typically would average at least one dance per two songs if not more at places like SOS or Club Salsa on Mondays or Thursdays.

In all, I think I had around 10 dances with seven people at varying levels of difficulty. Relatively low number of dances, limited space and somewhat of a sedate mindset stopped me from pushing the boundaries strongly tonight. I arrived around 10 AM and left shortly before 1 AM. Yikes. My estimate of 3 dances per hour in the previous paragraph seems quite apt for tonight. Oh well. At least all of the dances were decent – many were quite delightful.

At one point, I got a decline for a dance supposedly because the song being played was Cumbia as opposed to Salsa. I would have counted Cumbia as Salsa in my reckoning above. I am unsure where Cumbia lies in the large spectrum of musical category of Salsa. Is it closer to Salsa music preferred by Cuban style dancers or is it further removed? The person involved this happenstance was a stranger, and I wonder if person with such discriminating taste would have enjoyed a club night like tonight. The answer could depend upon expectations (a la the Rocket on July 1st).

Fusing and mixing of songs has become the norm for Cristian – I don’t think this was commonplace last year, but I am not completely certain about this. I usually think of fusion songs as something to avoid altogether although I saw Vishal fusing two songs yesterday in a manner that I thought was more or less okay. This fusion job yesterday involved a song or song segment lasting about one minute and another song lasting slightly under two minutes, and the transition between the two felt quite seamless. I also may have felt less affronted by his fusion job yesterday because the songs in question might not have been strictly Salsa. There may have been less fusion job later in the evening – it requires matching of two songs and takes an effort to do it competently. Perhaps it is a passing phase that DJs go through – Vishal used to fuse songs all the time, but he does not do it as often any more.

Miscellaneous. Sam mentioned that I played some weird songs in the past. I am curious which songs she is referring to. Would these be the newfangled fusion stuff or ancient descargas or songs liked mostly by aficionados like Sergio or nondescript stuff by bands I don’t care very much about but have played anyway with (possibly mistaken) assumption that other people like them or yet something else? Maybe I’ll find out one of these days. It would appear that there is quite a number of Salsa remixes that I was unaware of – Sam pointed out that one of familiar tunes played tonight was a Salsa remix of a song by 50 cent. Maria asked me if I am going to the UK Salsa Congress. The answer is probably no, but I may want to think about it a little more. Rajiv and I talked about the LDA and Bachata. We both agreed that going to London for a one hour lesson is a major commitment. Some people have done this in the past and are still doing it (mostly the on-2 crowd). The subject of Tony and when he may do another tour came up. My best guess is that this won’t happen until after the UK congress. I suspect tonight was good for Vishal’s bottom line (I wasn’t the only one to note this), but the big question is whether it will be sustainable. Will many discriminating Salsa dancers continue to show up for Salsa offerings like tonight’s? They used to when Friday night was the only night for Club Salsa, but things are different now with Club Salsa being open 5 days a week. Also there is the question of whether people will tire of hearing the same DJ twice a week – this of course would be less of an issue if the DJ can and is willing to draw from a very large number of songs, which would help in surprising and entertaining people. If not, how will lesser dancers and non-dancers respond? How well is Club Salsa Saturday holding up, and can there be two consecutive successful nights in mold of Saturday for Club Salsa? I am guessing that there’s no point in trying London this weekend given the World Cup Finals – the Rocket last weekend suffered quite a bit because of a pair of quarterfinals match. Also most of my potential posse are out of town/country or otherwise unavailable this weekend.

Lastly I ran into DJ Enrique’s wife Nancy. Apparently they are about to move to Manchester in less than a month, and Enrique is interested in doing one or two last-hurrah DJing stint in next couple of weekends. I relayed the information to Vishal, who seemed very receptive to the idea of Enrique doing a farewell show so I suspect that something will happen to mark the occasion. I often enjoyed Enrique’s DJing and never felt particularly good about “stealing” his perch so I am really looking forward to seeing him back in action – even if it’s just for one last time. I especially look forward to his late night Hong Kong Mambo followed by Ran Kan Kan (or two) song sequence he used to play all the time. Of course I would not mind if he decides be less predictable and play other goodies instead.