(no subject)
Good session in the studio at El Masnou on Saturday. El Masnou is a quiet seaside town north of Barcelona, dissected by the train line and the 'nacional' - busy two-lane highway that runs along the coast - both of which pass right in front of the beach. But away from them you find peaceful narrow streets of little 2-storey fishermen's houses with big arched wooden doors and white painted walls. Jordi's studio is behind what was once a little shop front - the back part of the house extended out into the garden; neat, compact, well equipped and organised. Now I'm getting used to the demands and possibilities of digital recording, and the way Jordi works, i feel more comfortable, but in any case we always get plenty done, because Jordi's fast and accurate and knows his stuff inside out.
Colum, Irish fiddle teacher from Aidn's music school, came along and laid down a violin part on 'London Fields' so now i feel I'm getting close to a reasonable-sounding demo of the song. For the rest we did the keyboard and guitar parts on 5 other songs. It's all coming along but painfully slowly as I can only get a day in the studio once every 4 to 6 months so I'm fine-tuning my patience, not a quality I was previously known for.
when we got back fr4om El Masnou the fiesta mayor of Sant Boi, the satellite of Barcelona where we live, was in full swing, the correfoc (fire-run) just about to start. It's an unforgettable sight as it comes up our street from the town hall square making its anarchic way up to the park. First you see bunches of heads picked out in the thin lamplight, bouncing up and down like grapes in a basket being shaken by a rough ride on a donkey (appropriately old Spain style simile): clouds of smoke drifting across the heads as the peñas (gangs) of demons come into view chasing them, whirling big catherine wheels on sticks which rain fat sparks in every direction, making people dance by shooting fire at their feet or scatter chaotically by charging the crowd, accompanied by ear-cracking explosions as the fireworks run out of juice and give their last shout; followed by marching bands of drummers pounding away at rhythms from sambas to the mission impossible theme .......... a wonderfully wild fire ritual - only missing the old element of water as it's been officially deemed that launching buckets of water from the balcomies on the assembled crowds is dangerous - and that was the bit I enjoyed most ..........
Yesterday was the last day of the fiesta so there was a firework display after dinner. Aidan didn't have school and Montse took the day off to look after him - luckily as it turned out because he wasn't well, but had recovered enough in time to go out for the fireworks of course ....... incredible show, which we watched sitting on plastic bags on the grass in the park: the basic model is the dahlia: rockets shoot up leaving a trail behind which is the stem and then burst into a hundred streamers which expand in the sky into an overarching dahlia shape made of gold dust, or electric green or red - what I like is the way they give you a sense of the depth of the sky, its 3-Dness, from the way they unfurl in every direction; and then the way they wilt and fade, as the tension goes out of the streams of golden or green or red powder and they sag slightly like banners as the wind drops and then glide slowly earthwards and turn into wraith-like trails of smoke lit palely by new arrivals springing up to burst in the air around them.
A 15-minute bombardment accompanied by Strauss, Wagner (the valkyries of course) and (I think) Haendel plus other unidentified classical and mock-classical pomp. Fabulous.
Colum, Irish fiddle teacher from Aidn's music school, came along and laid down a violin part on 'London Fields' so now i feel I'm getting close to a reasonable-sounding demo of the song. For the rest we did the keyboard and guitar parts on 5 other songs. It's all coming along but painfully slowly as I can only get a day in the studio once every 4 to 6 months so I'm fine-tuning my patience, not a quality I was previously known for.
when we got back fr4om El Masnou the fiesta mayor of Sant Boi, the satellite of Barcelona where we live, was in full swing, the correfoc (fire-run) just about to start. It's an unforgettable sight as it comes up our street from the town hall square making its anarchic way up to the park. First you see bunches of heads picked out in the thin lamplight, bouncing up and down like grapes in a basket being shaken by a rough ride on a donkey (appropriately old Spain style simile): clouds of smoke drifting across the heads as the peñas (gangs) of demons come into view chasing them, whirling big catherine wheels on sticks which rain fat sparks in every direction, making people dance by shooting fire at their feet or scatter chaotically by charging the crowd, accompanied by ear-cracking explosions as the fireworks run out of juice and give their last shout; followed by marching bands of drummers pounding away at rhythms from sambas to the mission impossible theme .......... a wonderfully wild fire ritual - only missing the old element of water as it's been officially deemed that launching buckets of water from the balcomies on the assembled crowds is dangerous - and that was the bit I enjoyed most ..........
Yesterday was the last day of the fiesta so there was a firework display after dinner. Aidan didn't have school and Montse took the day off to look after him - luckily as it turned out because he wasn't well, but had recovered enough in time to go out for the fireworks of course ....... incredible show, which we watched sitting on plastic bags on the grass in the park: the basic model is the dahlia: rockets shoot up leaving a trail behind which is the stem and then burst into a hundred streamers which expand in the sky into an overarching dahlia shape made of gold dust, or electric green or red - what I like is the way they give you a sense of the depth of the sky, its 3-Dness, from the way they unfurl in every direction; and then the way they wilt and fade, as the tension goes out of the streams of golden or green or red powder and they sag slightly like banners as the wind drops and then glide slowly earthwards and turn into wraith-like trails of smoke lit palely by new arrivals springing up to burst in the air around them.
A 15-minute bombardment accompanied by Strauss, Wagner (the valkyries of course) and (I think) Haendel plus other unidentified classical and mock-classical pomp. Fabulous.