SUNDAY OCT 19 - San Sebastien ES

TOUR THE PLANET...
SUNDAY OCT 19 -
Alitalia AZ0096
Milano Malpensa Airport, Italia -to- Bilbao Airport, Espana


(What else!??)
SONG FOR BILBAO - Pat Metheny Group - Travels (1983)
SONG FOR BILBAO - Micheal Brecker -Tales from The Hudson(1996)
Micheal Brecker/Pat Metheny/Jack DeJohnette/Joey Calderazzo//Dave Holland/Don Alias/McCoy Tyner


(Picture Of Bilbao by AC's new iPhone..) Finally I make it to Espana...wow!! I studied Spanish starting at about age 10, one course of it at Queens College in Georgetown Guyana, S.A. simultaneous with French, which sadly I never revisited (yet). Man - that was REAL schooling. Math, geometry, geography, science, english, spanish, french, gym, all at age 10. Wow. Imagine me in a little uniform - I loved it. I push back intensely on the idea the "uniforms cause uniformity" -do I see like I don;t live my own life, cut my own path? They were just cool, I was "in" and going to a real special school that my dad and uncles had been to...anyway, as usual, I digress. !!!

The point is -- I learned some spanish then, always loved it -- and then did 3 years in high school when I finally moved to NJ in 1978 (after 2 years in Brooklyn NY). So -- Spain/Espana -- always read about it , studied a little bit of the literature and dug the food, culture etc. So - a personal milestone to be flying here, the last big Euro-country I haven't seen, the last big colonizer/imperial power as well. man they killed some motherfuckers. Jesus.

All that's left to see here is all of Scandinavia, Belgium, and the tinies like Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco , and then the south-east europe like Greece, Turkey. With Adrian I just returned to Hungary, and went to Russia for a week with the Trio this aug/sep. I've been thru a bunch of Eastern Europe touring with Al DiMeola, and played concerts with Project/Object and/or Don Preston Akashic in Germany, Holland, England, Northern Ireland, Czech Repub. and Austria...

So Today we flew from Milan into Bilbao airport. So finally the place I imagine from the music will come to life...actually I have to say the song makes me think of brazil even tho' i've known for quite some time it's in Spain. I bet there's a Bilbao in Brazil, it just sounds like it, even tho they speak PORTUGUESE there not spanish. I bet you could stump Palin with that one.

After setup and before Adrian got there for soundcheck I got to step outside and get some amazing San Sebastian air and sun. WOW, again the SUN in Espana is incredible...really..otherworldy feeling as it hits your skin - what is it?? ! Is it psychological??? They really rock that in all their "come to espana" vacation ads etc, almost a cliche. well - I'll tell ya - the sun is intense!!

I got just within a block or two of the venue - right across the way I saw what I needed -- a fresh live fruit/veg tienda [shop]. I was happy to say I was able to do the whole thing in spanish "las uvas son Bio?" [are the grapes organic] since i saw the BIO sign...awesome, they were, and huge,juicy, incredible. Lotsa great grapes on this trip, and they have all been from pretty close, like France, Spain, Italy, etc..which always feels good.

Though that just reminded me (as I write this in the van days later) I snagged a VERY ripe kiwi at the breakfast buffet today and better have it -- wow that's good...not PC at all...Even tho' I sometimes inspire chuckles, and comments about about "eating nothing" and "empty calories" ..I am having such a great, energizing, super-diverse, food tour...enjoying the amazing fruits grown in europe like pears, apples, plums, olives, avocadoes, dates, grapes (and raisins), oranges, grapefruits, clementines, pomelos, and stuff imported from way south like bananas, kiwis and even a decent pineapple in Worgl.

As it's super easy to get organic food here -- they call it BIO (for biologique, basically french for 'grown naturally', biologically,not chemically), I have no problems getting great protein like fresh raw almonds, one of the ultimate protein and calcium sources we know of....also easy in the great truck stops to get some of my fave other high protein nuts like brazils, hazelnuts, cashews, the occasional peanuts, plus I always travel with pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and some green foods...

SONG FOR BILBAO
a bouncy, fun groove sets it up - and a rare song by Pat Metheny in a way - the classic Roland GR-300 synth sound he has made his signature for 28+ years jumps right in and takes the MELODY LINE instead of showing up later in the song for one of the solos.... rarely does he do that...... after a long piano solo by Lyle Mays Pat goes for it, what a happy, sunny piece of music, like the region of Espana itself. I had the version from "Travels - Live" in my ears as we landed, then later as we drove the highway out of Bilbao area to San Sebastien thru beautiful remote hills...the newer version from the very awesome TALES FROM THE HUDSON by the late MICHAEL BRECKER. Pat, like Adrian is one of my favorites because he has tried just about every guitar advancement that has happened -- and writes on so many different type of axes.

VERSION 2 - MICHAEL BRECKER What a great record -- Jack DeJohnnette, McCoy Tyner, Dave Holland, the sorely missed Michael (died early in 2007), and Pat again, on the GR-300. A killer take on this classic tune. I love the GR-300, Pat, like King Crimson of course was one of the first to have it on a record with "Offramp"(1982), but many of you can evoke a memory of it instantly by thinking of King Crimson's "Sheltering Sky", the screaming melodic guitar-synth that comes in over the strummed chords...also it's doing the huge pads on the front of the Police's "Don't Stand So Close", and the reggae-stabs on "Spirits In the Material World". Just a brilliant synth. wow. I still remember hearing that for the first time...and Adrian and Fripp made it a signature sound in their 80s work.

Adrian's GR-300 can be seen in many 80s Crim videos, and also on the back of one of his greatest records "Desire Caught By the Tail", and it still sits in his gear-closet in StudioBelew. He got it IN japan on a Talking Heads tour - probably the first one to leave the country! See - what's unique about it - still -- is that there is NO PITCH ANALYSIS, the custom guitar has hex pickups-- that are using the STRING ITSELF as an oscillator source, you are processing the sound of the strings. So-- you can do everything you do on a regular guitar - -slides, pick scrapes, harmonics, and get something sensible back out. Similar to what is going on with the Roland VG99 technology, which I'm so happy to be a part of bringing Adrian back to - it's certainly a key piece in his new and changing arsenal- allowing him to do alternate tunings, offset parts, and soon backwards delay and other special effects...this too is NOT A SYNTH, instead processes the six individual string signals in amazing ways. BTW I am writing a book on Guitar Synth history.... more on that later...

ADRIAN BELEW POWER TRIO:
the gig tonight was at a theatre called Teatro Victoria Eugenia. They are introducing this set to the new EU audiences. For a theatre, people were pretty rocking but it always feels restrained when people are seated, and adversely affects the band a bit. This was also a special gig 'cos our booking agent in the EU - Wolfgang Scheel was visiting with his wife Julia. It was great to get to hang out with them a bit and have them enjoy a full show. they loved it and he's even trying to juggle his schedule to come see another show!

The stage was huge, but as usual I set the band up in a tight formation center/downstage.



(SOUNDCHECK IN SAN SEB.) It was a great sound system, and being so close they were able to generally avoid the "lost in space" aspect one can get on a huge theatre stage. Having a little spanish under my belt helped negotiate some gear wackiness, and it was deemed a good, enjoyable gig by the band, tho' everyone prefers a rock club !





As usual -- 'e' killed the crowd, people are always blown out by this new tune, the backbone of his upcoming new CD, the first one he'll record with the trio. The Crimson material went over extra well here in Spain, it seemed.

Julie has a nice loud Ampeg stack, and Ade had a pair of 4x12s (1960 A and B). they just sound great, now I am thinking abt getting a 4x12 for my Boogie head, but maybe, strangely the Line6 cabs..which sound amazing the couple times I have used them with DiMeola.

we stayed in this amazing , modern architecture hotel, very cool....clean edges, wild! And having just left a 2 day visit with my architect sister Lisa, I was hyper aware of the endless creativity of architecture... spain is well known for it's forward-looking ideas in building design, art in general, I mean they cough up Goya, Dali and Picasso for starters....