Friday Night Is Music Night

Via my son (again), very much in the style of the Bon Iver he recommended a few weeks back. There seems to be a lot of good accoustic stuff coming out of the States.

The Shins - New Slang. Strange lyrics :

Gold teeth and a curse for this town were all in my mouth.
Only I don't know how they got out, dear.
Turn me back into the pet that I was when we met.
I was happier then with no mind-set.

And if you'd have took to me like
A gull takes to the wind.
Well, I'd have jumped from my tree
And I'd have danced like the king of the eyesores
And the rest of our lives would have fared well.

You may recall I posted music here - and blogged here - about the King of the Boogaloo, Pedro Gutierrez aka Pete Terrace.

However he wasn't the only contender for the throne. Here's Pete Rodriguez, 'El Rey Del Boogaloo'. Let Powers and Princes contend.


"Hear me now, let's get it straight. Boogaloo, baby, I made it great. Because I gave it a Latin beat ..."

I Like It Like That.



When he wasn't ruling his mighty Land of Boogaloo, he could salsa with the best of them. Don't get him mixed up with Pete 'El Conde' Rodriguez, by the way - quite another kettle of chillo.

I'm a sucker for any Latin American music containing the words 'Ay Ay Ay'. El bugalu lo bailo !



This seems to have turned into a Latin post, so let's move a little further South. Some twenty five years back, long before salsa classes arrived in the UK, I picked up at a car boot sale a thin vinyl LP on the Discos Fuentes label, from Medellin, Colombia, a place better known for cocaine and gang warfare. Early Sixties at a guess. 'Cumbias Y Gaitas Famosas de Colombia' it was called - and blimey, you can still get it on the Web from the same company, though the track listing seems to have changed a bit.

Here's one of my favourites, in glorious lo-fi (after all, I don't want to provoke the wrath of Sr Fuentes and his extended family).

Ay Ay Ay ! Suena La Timba !