pieces of a weekend in the city of angels
crazy busy weekend in the hometown. ups and downs. lefts and rights.
you know, we had a couple of our best shows ever this weekend, but it was my first show (or non-show) friday night at el cid that i was most thankful for. long story short, there were roughly 15 people there, and the promoter never even showed up. i might've even attempted to perform if it weren't for folks suggesting otherwise. geez i know i wasn't expecting much, but i was hoping for more than that. it was humbling. but it also gave me a real appreciation for the rest of the shows this weekend, to not take them for granted. and it paid off.
thanks to some wise advice from nancy, we decided to keep our set simple for pomona, and each do full sets (as opposed to the broken-up sets we'd been doing in the past). turned out to be our best show yet. not to mention a nice venue (intimate), great sound, and a nice crowd. the organizers of the event took great care of us as well. what made it even more special was that eddy zheng opened up for us.
and these guys rocked it...
one great thing about us being able to do full sets was that bao was able to do more of his nguyen pieces, giving them more context and tying them together. him and giles also did their collabo piece for the first time, and giles came up later to play guitar while i did "imagine." say word.
of course, i neglected to get any pics of myself performing. ah who cares.
so after the pomona show, i get a text from a friend who's in town from the philippines, to roll through to his hotel in universal city. so i shoot over there and kick it for a quick second. he so happened to be in town for the "filipino american visionary awards" at kodak theater, of which he was an honoree (i've heard some bad reviews of the event itself, but whatever... free plane ride!).
brothers and sisters, it's the godfather of philippine hip hop, one of my favorite entertainers ever, the master rapper himself: FRANCIS M!!!!
(i'm a cornball)
it's sunday afternoon and i'm tired. something's up with my back, which makes it even harder to lug my merch bag around. so i arrive at UCLA's Tom Bradley International Hall, where our performance would be. my first reaction was, "where is everybody?" thankfully, folks eventually trickled in, and most of the seats were filled by the time we began. the huge space made us have to approach each of our sets a bit differently, but overall, it turned out great!!! my old homie tom and his wifey millie came through. aj (xylophone) and anna (AB) also were there. even apollo (AB) and gary (AB NY) showed up. of course capsa and samahang were in the house. it was lovely.
there were so many other stories this weekend. much love to: phers1, nancy yap, lord zen, daren mooko, the committee, bruce hathcock (fairfax high baby!!!), all the folks at pomona college, capsa and samahang at UCLA, kat carrido, maya, rani d, jose gutierrez, and so many more. special shout out to my little (big) bro johneric (we gonna get there kiddo). and i love my momma.
