The End of the Beginning...

The End of the first Maya Productions trip.....

Well I rapped up my trip with an asado (BBQ) at Abel’s house. He took a good 8 hours of his time to sit me down and explain the origin and elements of the true Argentine Tango, as well as explain a couple of his own songs. It was amazing. He also let me videotape him teaching me all the different strumming styles of Argentine Folkloric music…. Priceless.. It was a night I’ll never forget.
Before leaving the country, I tried to say good bye to as many friends as I could but it’s amazing how established you can get in 2 months,,, ha ha, I’m still calling people.. Everybody was so nice to me…. As far as the Artists go, each one had at least a Master copy of their project as well as a DVD with all the raw data from the project.

Run Down:
-Spent 2 months and 2 weeks in Argentina with a 6 day detour in Brazil.
-Recorded 6 Full CDs ranging from 7-16 songs each…Actually 8 disks total if you include the Cultural Event recordings in Rosario, and a live album I did for my friends band, but those will not be seen on the Maya Productions site as they do not fall into the category and requirements of the project
-Almost done with the Graphics for each project. Basically I tried to create a template for their CD covers that incorporates pics from the recording sessions and elements of their music.

Thanks to everybody that followed the trip and my apologies for not always being on top of the blog.. The Web site will be updated with in the next month so everyone can enjoy this amazing music that was recorded…………..

Proyecto Étnico
Ruben and Marcelino 

Proyecto Étnico And Espectáculo de World Music

Proyecto Étnico

The Proyecto Étnico was an amazing project performed by Ruben Carrasco and Marcelino. Their goal was to record as many of the native instruments of Argentina as possible with each track focusing on different instruments. The sound came out great. I like how this project kept each track to 2-3 instruments allowing an intimate focus on the distinct sound. This project was recorded in about 6 hours. We used Marcelino’s house in Buenos Aires. The only real problem we ran into was starting the recording around 4pm. I found that the Clicks and Pops that I would periodically suffering from in the past recordings were from power fluxes, in other words when everyone comes home from work and flicks on their lights etc. I get pops. So I had their whole project littered with pops… AHHHH A lot of tedious work to fix but it but, it turned out great in the end.



Espectáculo de World Music

This was a project performed by Ruben Carrasco and Norma Peralta. This is sort of an Argentine fusion mixing indigenous instrumentation and Post Columbian and World lyrics/vocal scales. This was recorded in a 10 hour session at my friends Walt and Fernanda’s house. We got some great tracks and some really interesting expressions.

Celia Medhurst

After finishing up with the Albá Llaléc Project, I worked with Celia Medhurst and her guitarists Oracio Barzola and his son Leonel. I met Celia through Abel, the first artist I recorded, she is his mother. We had 2 full day sessions that were a lot of fun! She was really great to work with. We recorded 10 origial tracks consisting of original Tangos, Zambas, Milongas, a Chamame, and Vals.. The first day session was at Celias house. We due to Isolation issues, we decided to record all the guitar tracks first with scratch vocals and then do the real voclas later. We recorded guitar from 10am to 9pm and finished. Abel was there and acompanied on a couple of tracks aswell.. Around 9:30 the guitarists left and Celia and I decided to make an attempt at the vocals.. She was great.. After recording scratch vocals for almost 11 hours she still had it in her to try and lay down some tracks. By 11pm we worked through about 70% of the songs and I called it… I was tiered and had to tell this 70 year old lady that I needed a break and we should continue tomorrow… ha ha haaaa.. It was embaressing.
The next day we reconviened at 4 in the afternoon. We finished the rest of the vocals as well as Oracio’s song and got a good mixdown of the project.

Nobique, One of the instruments of Alba Llalec 

Me and Marcelino in his backyard after new years...  

Norma Peralta 

Action shot baby!!!! 

Typical session with Mate on point 

Guitarist for Norma 

Alba Llalec Sessions

Alba Llalec is a trio that sings and plays only pre-Columbian instruments. It’s a father, Marcelino, and his two sons. They survive off of performing, giving lectures at schools and selling artisans at shows and indigenous events. Their origin is Toba y Guarani (de Paraguay).
The sessions went great. Four days of recording and editing.. Ha ha.. There was a lot of editing….!!! Trying to capture the true essence we recorded with out a click track which lead to some vary interesting time issues.. It was a blast though.. The music turned out great. I’ve also been blessed with tons of lectures and insight on music and cultural belifs from Marcelino who is definitely turned into a teacher and good friend.

The invited me to spend new years with their family and it was even more amazing. They live in the Barrio of San Jose, that is a place ill never forget. Imagine 20 square blocks of people sitting out side their house drinking beer and Mate until 7 in the morning with Cumbia blasting from every house and a war zone of fire works that never stopped for 6 hours straight.. and that’s just the beginning… They light off big paper balloons with candles in them that float around for about 5 minutes then burst into flames. It was amazing.. And to top it off I have a new family that I feel will always be apart of my life… cool peeps….

Norma Peralta

The Norma Peralta sessions came out great. She did a mix of folk and tango with Vocals and Guitar and she did some more traditional Coplas with voice and caja (a thin round drum). I set up in the everything in a apartment in down town Buenos Aires that belongs to her son Paublo. We managed pretty good sound from the rooms. All hard wood floors and pretty high ceilings. My biggest battles were birds and barking dogs that wanted in on the recording. We managed to cover 11 songs in two days. Some really good stuff. Both days were 13 hour sessions and Paublo and his wife were was nice enough to let me stay and stuff me with beer and pizza (typical Argentine food). I woke up at 8 the next morning and bounded out the final recordings until 9 and bailed…..

Tech problems: I’m having trouble with digital pops.. I think its and issue of hard drive performance. I cleaned up my hard drive and started recording directly to my USB drive and it seems to have gone away..

Abel 

Finally Started

Finally Started

As some of you know my dad came with me to check out South America so after filming in Rosario I took a break to travel around with him. We took off to Mendoza on the west side of Argentina against the boarder of Chile. Mendoza is Argentina’s wine country, like Napa, except it has the Andes Mountains as it’s Back drop. There we kicked, rappelled down water falls and drank lots of wine…  Then we headed over to Brazil to meet my cousin in Sao Paulo. We headed down to this island called Isla Bella where we kicked it on the beach and hiked in the rain forest. Then my dad headed back to the states and I got to work.
The first week has been nothing but meetings but it’s finally paid off as THE SESSIONS HAVE STARTED!!!!!!!!!!! Monday I got started with actual recordings. I did a two day session with a solo folk artist named Abel Barzola, it was amazing. This guy is a genius. We did 9 original songs of Argentine Samba and Tango. It sounds amazing. I´ll try to get the music up on the site ASAP. We are waiting for song registration to come through. We did the session in my good friend Haby Hilals rehearsal studio, so we achieved decent sound isolation. The best part was that he really wanted me to understand every word and from what and where the true tango came from… Amazing…!!!!! Lots of amazing lectures..
Next up is and artist named Norma Peralta. She has her own style of Spanish lyrics using indigenous and exotic scales over a tambor (drum). Then after Christmas (Merry Christmas every body) I head to the house of Marcelino Avalialet to record him and his sons. They have a project using only Pre-Columbian instruments.. They sound amazing…

Personal note: I’m really pumped that I’m really touching the people that the company was designed for.. It’s amazing to see the reaction of somebody that’s been playing for 50 years hear them selves recorded for the first time….. Argentina is treating me well, Summer is in full effect, got a nice tan going on and probably gained 10lbs,,, ha ha… Merry Christmas…

Moving on....

I made it through the convention... It was a 4 hour drive up from Buenos Aires to Rosario where it was held. The stage was an outside memorial for the soldiers lost in past wars. The convention was an amazing experience. Unfortunately things didn’t fall into place as hoped by the organizers and some people didn’t show up. I filmed what I could and got some great musical recordings and pictures. Fortunately I was able to make lots of contacts from the South of Argentina on up to Peru. In fact I might cut Argentina short and head up to the mountains in Bolivia in mid Jan to record three different communities in the mountains about a days drive from La Paz. Right now the concern is electricity as there is none, and I need to test to see if my rig will run all off a running car battery.. If not I’ll have to down size and continue with out my full rig..
Health is good, spirits are up and I’m ready to get out of the city… Next stop is down south to the bottom of the world and then work my way up to Bolivia….

Some tech problems….
Floating grounds are unpredictable, sometimes I get a buzz and sometimes I don’t. Also if you plug in one way, you can get shocked through your equipment..(not fun) happens to me a lot… Ha ha.. But there is no polarity symbol, or a sign, or one side of the plug bigger than the other. You just have to plug it in and hope for the best. If you get shock, then you flip the plug over and all is good.

La Convencion 

I´m Here!!!

I´m here!!! I landed in Buenos Aires after an amazingly smooth flight. I then headed up to Rosario, a beautiful city about 4 hours north of the capital with my friends Fernanda Gonzalez, Walter Saleme and my dad Larry Burich. Here we are meeting with the organizers of the convention "America Se Identifica" to discuss the audio and video recordings of the event. It starts tonight at 8:30pm and ends Sunday at 11pm. The stage is a beautiful monument overlooking el Rio de Plata.
There will be Music, Dance, Theatre and Literature readings. I´ll try to post as many pics as possible.

Complications have been minimal, so far. The every body has been really kind. It is raining however and the convention is outside. He he.. We´ll see how that goes..

Equipment list for those gear heads out there.

Cameras: 3ccd Panasonic, and a Sony TRV series
Audio:
13 microphones: Rode NT5, NT2, Sure Beta 57, 57s, Beta 98, AKG drum mic kit including a D112, ++++
Laptop is a Sony Vaio K37, After a 2 month battle with Alienware, I had to run to Frys and buy the best I could find as I was leaving in 3 days.. Don´t Buy Alienware!!!
Interface: Presonus Firepod, Monster 2500 power conditioner, and a Behringer 8 channel headphone amplifier.
Monitors: KRK rocket 5 series
Misc: 5 pairs of headphones, a ton of cable, two boom mic stands, a 300watt power transformer , a gang of adaptors,

1 WeeK to Go....

Well it's exactly a week before I leave. I'm starting to get really excited. A year of planning and it seems like I just started getting ready last week.This whole idea started out from lots of rejection when I went to Argentina last year to visit a friend with a laptop and a microphone. I sought out the Indigenous offering to record their music in hopes to produce a CD for some people. I thought how cool would it be to give the gift of recording. I have been in love and involved with the Americas Indigenous music for the last 5 years. I'm also very sensitive to the past and present social situation of the Indigenous of the Americas as well as the rest of the world, but aggressive political activism is not my strong point. So, I want to support the music I love and do my part to amplify the voices and struggle of its creator. But I was met with skepticism and doubt, and with good reason. As many foreigners throughout the years have come and stolen music or one way or another profited by and exploited the many resources the indigenous cultures contain not to mention the atrocities that started in the 1400's and continue on today. So there I was with a big smile on my face saying I wanted to record you with no real reason or goal. I couldn't tell them why because I hadn't really thought it out yet, it was just a feeling. So I left practically empty handed but with a challenge. It was obvious to me that leaving with nothing wasn't really nothing, it caused me to start to put my emotions to words and plan a way to make it a reality, in fact I knew that this project would become a major part of my life. In other words, I found my calling…So, here I go on my second attempt, this time with a real plan, a team behind me, and planned recording sessions. Also, instead of one mic and a laptop, I'm bringing 11 mics, one super laptop, studio monitors, the works. I'm not messing around!!! Also, before this whole experience I would have gagged listening to myself say this, but I feel an amazing spiritual presence around my quest. It's telling me that I'm moving in the right direction as well as preparing me for a lot of personal change on this trip... So stay tuned....

Maya Productions, Music Across Boarders

Maya Productions, Music Across Boarders
It’s Nov 2 and besides voting all I can think about is this up coming adventure. Maya productions is starting to take flight and everything is happening so fast and so slow at the same time. Thanks to Kim Spurgat and Helle Linburg this project is getting off to a great start and with persistence and some luck it will see it’s full potential. Well I just wanted to crack the ice with this blogging thing, more updates to come as the leave date gets closer. More soon...