The Most Popular Music In Portugal

Sinatra's Got Nothing On Fado Singers

Portugal's a tiny country of just over 10 million people, so I guess it should come as no surprise that I've never heard of the extremely popular traditional music genre of fado. How popular is it? Well the reigning king of fado is a 40-year-old singer named Camané. Earlier this hear hen he recently released Sempre de Mim, his first album since 2001, and it went straight to the top of the charts being certified gold within three weeks! Fado stars (or fadistas) are the Frank Sinatras and Barbara Steisands of Portugal. Check out the link to learn more about fado and it's origins.

In my quest for fado I went to Café Luso in Lisbon's famous Bairro Alto - a nightlife haven. I arrived around 12:30 and was immediately impressed with the cave-like interior of this tiny club. It couldn't seat more than 70-80 diners and it's fairly typical of fado houses around Lisbon.

The music is very melancholy with the fadistas striving to wring maximum emotion from each syllable. This is a very structured genre similar to classical where the rules are well established. The music itself had heavy Spanish references with moorish overtones. Vocalists are the superstars as with other sung genres and the best fadistas find a way to blend tradition, interpretation, and innovation into a pleasing twist on the time-honored theme.

Fado's not really my cup of tea, but as with all forms of experimentation, I had to experience it to know even that. Tonight my musical tour of Lisbon continues.

More Later,

Dave

Seize The Jacket

Life Lessons In a Mall Dressing Room

Some say that understanding comes to you when you are ready for it. I guess that's one way of looking at it. I prefer to think of understanding and knowledge as a vast sea in which we live. It's around us all the time wether we notice it or not. Yesterday I noticed a bit more.

It all started two days ago at the massive Vasco de Gama mall across the street. I was in a store called Zara looking at jackets. I really like jackets as style definers and I was on the hunt for a new one for fall. Zara had several to choose from and I was having a hard time choosing. In fact this was my second trip to the same store to shop jackets.

Suddenly I saw one I hadn't spotted before. I went to the dressing room, put it on, and it all just sort of came together. I was so inspired by the look that I pulled out a camera and snapped a few frames. (I've never done that before.)

I thought maybe I should buy it right then, but then I wavered thinking what if I found another I liked better elsewhere in the mall. I put it back and left.

Over the following hours I never did find a jacket I liked better, or even as well as the one at Zara. In fact the more I thought about it and looked at the photos, the more I realized this was the jacket I really wanted. By then it was closing time so first thing the next morning I went back to buy it. I didn't immediately find my size on the rack so I asked a salesman if they had it. He went to the back and came out to say it had been sold that morning and they didn't have anymore in my size. Now I wasn't devastated, it's not that big of a deal, but I was disappointed. And that's when I became aware of a little piece of understanding that has been floating around me all along. And here it is.

Throughout life we are presented with opportunities to have, do, be what we want. These opportunities always come with the price of making a choice. You can have the red or blue balloon, but not both. You can a be a dentist or an artist, but not both. And many times it's the choosing that we find hard and frightening since we're afraid of making the wrong choice. What I realized with the jacket lesson is that just making a choice allows you to move on and experience more life and more choices. Choice A leads down one path and choice B down another. Neither is wrong. Neither is better. The important thing is just to choose.

The salesman said they'd have more jackets in later this week and you can bet when I go back and find my size I'll be taking it home this time without a second thought.

Cheers For Now,

Dave

Living "La Vida Lisbon"

Imparting Some Portuguese and Moroccan Flavor to LYRE's Debut

With the main VIP in my life spending most of the past 4 months in Europe it has become increasingly difficult to maintain the kind of relationship we both seek to have. And since The Babe's planted in Lisbon until who-knows-when I decided to re-enlist the cat sitter, throw 150 pounds worth of clothes, recording gear, and instruments into bags and flight cases, and move tracking and mixing duties to the Tivoli Oriente Hotel in Lisbon.

Travel was pretty uneventful except for the airlines loosing the one bag with all my clothes, toiletries, a MIDI keyboard, and some fairly expensive microphones in it. That pretty much set my schedule back by a day as I scampered around the mall buying enough stuff to get by and trying to remain positive. The case did make it to the hotel this morning with just a broken zipper and all the contents in tact. I can't wait to see what kind of positive thing ends up being attached to this rather negative experience. I did become suddenly aware of and grateful for the fact that this is the first time in a lifetime of travel that I've ever had a bag misplaced. Seems I'm doing way better than the industry average.

With jet lag subsiding I'm turning once again to work on the album. I'll be posting to the LYRE Notes Blog almost daily and giving out links to some new Flickr albums while in Europe. I'll be making the most of this time by getting out to experience as much live Portuguese music as I can. I also plan to do some surfing and make a musician's pilgrimage to Morocco to see what north African tones and rhythms I can soak up.

Cheers for now,

Dave

This Is Your Life. Eat It Up!

A Bite of Portugal

Woke up ready to take a big messy bite out of life. Walked over to the waterfront, rented a bike, and rode as hard as I could until the endorphin rush and pure joy was almost overpowering. Found myself in some barrio in Lisbon with only a scant idea of how I got there and knowing full well that I own my day. I hope everyone of you can find this in your own lives.

Much Love,
Dave