Category: Music

Oct

16

Guanajuato’s Cervantes Festival and Magic Realism

Posted by Larry Habegger

One night some years ago I arrived in Guanajuato, Mexico for the first time, knowing little about the place beyond its being yet another Spanish colonial city. When the bus couldn’t get anywhere near my hotel on Jardin de la Union because the streets were jammed with revelers, I got out, shouldered my bags, and plunged into the crowd.

Maybe it was the long bus ride that had warped my ability to make sense of my surroundings, or it could have been my diet of magic realism literature I was on at the time, but the scene I wound through that night presented the kind of phantasmagoria that can induce hallucinations. Was everyone in costume? Was it a warmup for Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead? Colors flashed by, shouts and laughter and the melodious rhythms of Spanish ricocheted off balconied buildings. Smoke from street stalls carried the scent of grilled meat. And I continued to push my way, gently because this was a happy throng, across the plaza to the hotel. Continue reading »

Leave a Comment | Filed Under Concert, Culture, Feature, Festivals, Mexico, Music, Nightlife, North America, Travel

Feb

3

Cairo Concerto

Posted by Larry Habegger

I returned from a short walk around the neighborhood on my first day in Cairo and was drawn toward the bar and restaurant in the open lobby of the Intercontinental Citystars. I wasn’t hungry or interested in a drink, I simply felt like wandering and seeing what was there.

Then the sound of music, energetic strings and the fast rhythms of a tabla pulled me on. It sounded live, so I poked my head around a corner looking for the source. Sure enough, tucked into a corner of the lobby that opened onto the restaurant a quartet of women dressed in headscarves were playing. One strummed a 12-stringed lute-like instrument called an oud, another plucked a flat zither-like instrument, a third bowed a cello, the fourth beat a tabla. Continue reading »

Leave a Comment | Filed Under Cairo, Egypt, Music

Jan

18

Triporati Expert Steve Knopper on NPR’s Fresh Air

Posted by Larry Habegger

Triporati’s Colorado expert Steve Knopper appeared with Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air on Wednesday to discuss his new book, and no, it’s not about Colorado or travel, it’s about the American music industry. Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age chronicles the mistakes made by record companies when faced with changes in the way people buy, listen to, and share music.

Steve is a contributing editor for Rolling Stone. The flap copy on his book says: “Knopper, who has been writing about the industry for more than ten years, has unparalleled access to those intimately involved in the music world’s highs and lows…From the birth of the compact disc, through the explosion of CD sales in the ’80s and ’90s, the emergence of Napster, and the secret talks that led to iTunes, to the current collapse of the industry as CD sales plummet, Knopper takes us inside the boardrooms, recording studios, private estates, garage computer labs, company jets, corporate infighting, and secret deals of the big names and behind-the-scenes players who made it all happen.”

And his conversation with Terry Gross is great. Listen here.

Leave a Comment | Filed Under Books, Music