While loitering in Buenos Aires for a few months at the end of last year I got a rare chance to check out Juana Molina in concert - home from one of her many international tours. She's famous for her amazing looping music... and the hype is no hot air. Check her out on youtube, but if you want to see something really silly and ultra cool look no further than this:
The rain fell in sheets this morning. I saw the neighbourhood tomcats skulking home like drowned rats, feeling very sorry for themselves. It’s grey, moody and cool, and just right for a Lazari breakfast, but that’s not important right now. What is, is that being Cape Town and summer, it’s going to be bright and sunny by about 2pm, just in time for you to feel like going out tonight. And The Waiting Room’s the spot, where you’ll see me do a set with Lindi Suttle... the girl who definitely isn’t living in her mother’s shadow!
(pic Shanna Jones)
And speaking of rain, in two weeks I’ll be in the land of gold and mid-afternoon storms: Wed 3rd March at Kitcheners with the wonderful Shannon Hope and Naming James, Thurs 4th in Pretoria at Café Barcelona, Fri 5th at Tanz Café in Rivonia with Son of a Thousand Blues frontman Federico Fernandez, who’s launching his solo project F.Spot that night (and Shannon again), and Sat 6th at the historic Radium Beer Hall with Laurie Levine. All the details at http://www.ianhenderson.com
There’s a kind of pretty symmetry to performing with Argentine Federico on my first jozi tour of 2010, cause I’m just back from two months writing, performing and day-dreaming in Buenos Aires… city of cafés, Juana Molina and the widest main street in the world, which I once crossed like this:
Been fiddling (actually exploring deep undersea tunnels) with loopers for my solo show and came across Andrew Bird. What a beautiful freak! And he sings like Jeff Buckley. I have to see him live. Hopefully that would have the same impact on my year that gaping at Luke Doucet and Melissa McClelland in the smoky little Mercury Live bar did last year. Speaking of Mercury - we played a wonderful show with Dear Reader in the main hall on Saturday. Lovely shit.
I sat in Depasco at the bottom of Kloof from 8-9am on Friday, drinking coffee, and counted four cars going to work. Four! It's the middle of January! That's Cape Town for you... all play and no work! Which is just as well, really, because we've been giving you something else to do. Friday was an awesome little night out at perennial favourites Zula Bar, with the lovely Louise Day and her band in support.
And coming up at the end of the month, Andy Lund and I are joining Dear Reader for a rare Cape Town performance on 30 Jan at Mercury Live. And before I get a hundred emails from THE BIG CITY complaining, here's something else: first weekend in March. Joburg. Pretoria. Happy?
We've talked about it for ages, the enigma that is Mystery White Boy (No prizes for guessing where that came from! If blogs aren't useful for throwing one-sided insults, what are they good for?) and I. Insulting my music with his outrageous stage show. Well, it's upon us. Grand Daddy, "Yo" (I mean, c'mon?), next weekend, 18th & 19th of December in Cape Town.
Yesterday I was really looking forward to come home. Today I'm miserable to be leaving Buenos Aires. Bipolar! I'm not even surprised any more. The cheerup remedy and farewell gig go down Thursday night in Palermo Soho. The party's being thrown by Nicky from Proyecto 34S and it WILL be cool... so out of the woodwork all you new Argie fans - let's make it a night to remember! And Nicky's coooking. Saffersnacks.!!! Yup. We'll sing the sun away. South Africa, you'll be sleeping. See you soon... love, Ian.
Thanks to Russ Nerwich, the first person I hooked up with in Buenos Aires was soul-brother, tarrot mystic, guitar player-extraordinaire... and proprietor of the Mantengase Hostel, Mariano Mojoli. On Thursday evening I was invited to play a little acoustic gig there with Javier Mareco. Well, that's what the flyer said... but things work a little differently in BA! Javier's a fantastic bass player, but it was his first solo gig, and he was more than a little nervous for the singer part of singer-songwriter, and thought it would be a much better idea for me to play after him. So I duly got handed the 2.30am slot! Um. Yes. Any idea what your singing voice feels like at 3am? Buenos Aires serves up another first.
Took a bit of time out from the hectic madness that is Buenos Aires and headed down to the winter (spring... summer?) wasteland that is Ushuaia. Buenos Aires and Cape Town are on the same latitude but there's another 3000km of land south of BA. Madness! And the mountains are covered in snow and the water is ice-cold and definitely not kitesurfable and it's a whole lot of über awesomeness! We don't have anything like THIS in Africa...
Staying in "Tango B&B" and the host is a retired musician who keeps up his chops playing concerts for his guests on Sunday night with all the tango standards. Of course since he knew I was a musician I got roped in too...
