Brand New Ballgame

August 15, 2008

Having only one night out in Cambridge and still be responsible for playing music on that same night might be taking a toll.

The Latin Collective started their four parallel sessions for both Mondays and Fridays. Vish said he'll be putting a few more wooden floorboards to increase space for this. The instructors were Joe with Andrea, Danie, Vish and a new big guy in the scene, who has been improving at a fast pace over past several months.

The music selection by Joe was a bit different. It reminded me of Vish at his best except most of the songs had not been played by Vish - aside from Merecumbe and Trucutu. I loved it. However, I might have been in the minority because the floor was not full during the sequence of songs I really liked.

By comparison the next set by Vish was generally more popular by larger number of people, but I found them uninspiring - too many Colombian sounding songs with pace ever increasing. Most of these songs were new-ish, however. By the time I got around to the DJ booth, I was frustrated with both the music and dancing.

Playlist

Yambeque - Sonora Poncena*
Babarabatiri - Willie Rosario (1)
Soy Dichoso - Ray Barretto
No Quiero Na Regala'o - Gilberto Santa Rosa (2)
La Quiero - Domenic Marte (3)
Sofrito - Mongo Santamaria (4)
Bilongo - Charanga De La 4 (modified shortened remix) (5)
Joldo - Sonora Poncena*
El Que Se Fue - Roberto Roena (6)
Bomba Carambomba - Angel Canales (-7%) (7)

(1) The reaction Cambridge has to this song puzzles me endlessly. I like this song a great deal, but most in Cambridge apparently do not. Then again I suppose there are quite a few of those. The Tito Puente version, which I also like, seems better received by the current set of Cambridge folks.
(2) I can't seem to connect with the audience. After this, I opted to simply play whatever I liked rather than trying to guess what they wanted because I couldn't figure it out. In retrospect, an amusing option might have been to play Micaela.
(3) Salsa wasn't working.
(4) Someone had requested a Cha Cha during my second song. I thought I had gotten to it fairly quickly given that I had started right after a Bachata and thus only played four Salsa songs in a row before going another route. However, he was gone by this time. Actually the reception was decent.
(5) Maybe playing whatever I liked and not paying attention to the crowd is working.
(6) Maybe not.
(7) I had asked Vish for one more song. It's a bloody difficult song to dance to - so I was playing it as a challenge. My attempt this time was no more successful than it was back in Prague this April.

Total = 10 songs. 1 Bachata. 1 Cha Cha. 8 Salsa including 2 new.

Vish took over next and mostly resorted to really tried and true type songs - somehow skipping La Vida Es Un Carnaval, Micaela, Me Libere and Playa No More still in the process. Hmm. That's quite good - it means he was trying hard. Unfortunately I still couldn't get into it. After a decent start, a dismal finish.

The line-up of people was curious - still seeing the effect of Pure Salsa Thursday demise: Jane, Richard, Rajiv, Cristian, Marie (I don't remember for sure?), new girl from last week who didn't stay long tonight, new girl from last week who seems to avoid dancing with me for some reason (who knows why? maybe I smell bad or maybe she doesn't like the way I dance with her or maybe it's the color of the outerwear - could go endless), a guy I met at Scala couple of times and apparently had been to CS beforehand to hear me play music (he complimented me on some of the songs once again including Bilongo), and the usual male suspects. I would characterize it as very male heavy.

I haven't seen Ivan in a very long time. I wonder what he's up to?

Well - all this spells one word. Six letters. Starts with the letter L. Or three letters. Starts with the letter S.