Just as you can never see every single showcase at WOMEX, it is almost equally hard to take in every booth at the trade fair. Each one has something special to offer: new music to discover, friends to greet, connections to be made, and (yes) parties to attend, because there are lots of little celebrations going on throughout the day. This is the first time I tried to blog the fair, and I have to admit it is only a small sampling of what was going on. But hopefully it does give some feel for the event. It's lively, it's fun and you never know quite what to expect. I decided to give a "most cool booth" award only AFTER I encountered the winners (Country & Eastern)! I thought they were such interesting folks, and their offerings were heartfelt, diverse and original. I think you'll agree.

A symphony of crickets. Now THAT'S world music!

The World Music Expo, or WOMEX, is simply put, a great convention. Besides getting to hear some amazing acts from just about everywhere, it's also a very convivial gathering. And although there are numerous great musicians booked into the formal venues, sometimes the freshest experiences come from spontaneous performances at the stands in the trade fair.

So to kick off my WOMEX blog series, here's one such occurrence.

To set the scene: it was almost time for the trade fair to close. There I was, talking to someone in my booth, and suddenly I realized that a young man had sat down on the floor and started playing an instrument that looked like a cross between a steel drum and a flying saucer. I grabbed my Flip camera and caught the moment.

It turns out that the Hang was invented in Switzerland in 2000. So it's just a baby in the world of instruments. And that also means there's plenty of room for the instrument -- and ways of playing it -- to grow. Rafael has a group called The Art of Fusion, (their CD is called "Rhizomism") and I've put his contact info at the end of the vid.

Feels like it's raining Magyars lately. I got an email from David Sasvari in Hungary the other day. He really likes the music programming on Link, but thinks we're light on the Hungarian videos. So he sent me a few links, and that's how I found this video.

Even though I think this video is visually incoherent, I think "Csináld csináld jól csináld" is a cool mashup of Hungarian and Balkan sounds. Balkan Fanatik is a find, for sure. Thanks, David!

A few weeks ago we had the way cool video "Little House" by Napra as our video premiere. Well, they had some great live performances on their DVD, but they could not get broadcast-worthy format of that for us. So here's where it's great to have a blog! Check out this totally killing band doing a distinctly modernized version of an "Ugros," a traditional Hungarian folkdance.

That's some amazing playing, and IMHO this band deserves more exposure. Miklos Both is a true guitar monster, and they could open for just about any rock act, and more than hold their own! This performance is from 2008, at the Palace of Arts in Budapest.

I got the chance to catch Cape Verdean diva Lura performing at the party for her latest CD "Eclipse." She gave a terrific show -- a kind of survey of the many kinds of song and dance rhythms from the island. I wish I could have gotten better footage (had to use the awful "zoom" on the Flip) but I think you'll get the idea. She's a great dancer and her singing, which was uniformly excellent, communicated her love of the Cape Verdean heritage. The band was as solid as it gets, and played a wonderful lilting version of "Mascadjon" from the new CD.  We end with a snippet of the very sexy "Vazulina."  Enjoy. 

This just in from a friend who thought it was worth sharing.  He's right.
Istanbul's Sulukule, the world's oldest Gypsy settlement, known for its music & dance clubs, is being demolished by developers to make way for gentrification. If you have ever been entranced by the sound of Turkish Roma clarinet, read this and weep.

Good-bye, Gypsies: The Loss of 1,000 Years

Let's get some of the PR out of the way.  Yes, he is currently on tour, and yes, he has a new recording out called "Alkohol." BUY IT. It rocks, it has soul.  What more could you want?

Without question the most successful musician to come out of Sarajevo, Goran Bregovic has brought the sound of the Balkans to millions, first from his soundtracks for such films as Emir Kusturica's "Time of the Gypsy" and "Underground," followed by a plethora of collaborations with top flight musicians as disparate as Iggy Pop and Sezen Akcu, (remember "Prawy do Lewego" with Polish diva Kayah?) and more recently by touring with his "Wedding and Funeral Band."  His music is special to me, just because it touched me deeply during the days after 9/11. It seemed to reach out and say "I know how you are feeling." So I was a teeny bit nervous meeting him. I needn't have worried.  We laughed a lot! Maybe I should have brought along a bottle of Slivovitz.

The video for Jeremija was filmed at the Guca Brass Festival and Competition in Serbia, and if you want to know more about that giddy event, check out our documentary "Guca".

And speaking of Balkan Brass, we have to mention that it's getting to be quite the hip club thang, pushed by Deejay Shantel across the water (as in:Disko Partizani) and other mixmasters this side of the pond as well. --And right here in NYC we have our own Zlatne Uste Brass Band, that can pump it out with the best of them.

I headed over to Drom the other night to catch The Shin, a great band from the Republic of Georgia. The place was packed, which made it hard to get good shots, and as usual, the club was dimly lit, even on stage. Even more frustrating, I am finding that while this little Flip camera shines in an acoustic setting, just get an electric bass in there and that's all you hear. Fortunately, though, the band had a folk dancer, David Ninoshvili, who turned in some pretty dynamic moves.

I was sitting in a tiny space by the stage, so I had a great view of Ninoshvili's footwork.  I captured a fair amount, but at one point (after my batteries had run out!!!) the man actually got on his tippy-toes (yes, just like in "Titanic") and proceeded to go through some truly punishing choreography; he wasn't wearing anyting remotely like ballet shoes, which have a built in box to protect the dancer's foot. Don't mess with those Georgian folk dancers.

Also: just found out about a great site : http://www.radiovideotrad.com

Check out their videos-- the accent is on ethnographic, but from Cajun to Balkan Brass to Bellydance, most of them are a lot fun!

Today I want to discuss very bad world music videos.
While it's a given that it's hard to find the really GOOD videos, every now and then you find that truly awful video that crosses over from simply bad into a category all its own....and then, perversely, you end up wanting to share it.

So my first entry is by Bond, those Classical Babes.

"World music," you say?  "How is Bond world music?" Well, they are playing a classical piece to a Latin beat, and they are in Havana right? (And those Cuban hotties aren't dancing the minuet.) That's why the video was sent to us in the first place. "Oh why pick on those nice string playing women" you may ask. Well, my answer is: They can take it. They've made their dough and they know just what they are doing. And as someone once said, ANY publicity is good publicity. For me, I'm enthralled by the sheer kitsch of the video-- the premise itself is sooo specious-- oh those happy dancing Cubans, those big-finned cars from the 50's and sixties-- those crumbling Havana facades....It's just like Buena Vista!  Add to that the Babes playing their instruments IN THE OCEAN (guess no one is playing an Amati) with little Cuban boys doing aquatic dance moves, under a thundering sky! As Dan Akroyd used to say: There now, that wasn't so good was it?

As my blog progresses, I would like to share more of my favorite terrible world music videos. -And I hope that you will reciprocate and send me some of your faves too. I will only publish them if they are truly awful, so pick carefully!

I'd also like to mention two more cool web destinations: 

Lucid Culture is not really a world music site per se, but has complete listings of NYC live music plus (they are live music supporters) reviews of the CLUBS so if you are going to visit the Big Apple, you know what you might hear and what kind of scene you are letting yourself in for. This site has very definite opinions, which I enjoy.

..and Condé Nast has a treasure in John Oseid's blog "boom box" which will also keep you current on world music releases and performances not just in New York, but wherever the intrepid Oseid travels.

As promised here's part two of my visit with Julian Kytasty. It concerns itself with the folk tradition, and Julian gets pretty whimsical. But of course, he settles back into some good old Slavic Darkness at the end.

I'd also like to start calling your attention to some of the great blogs and websites on the net that foster World Music. You have to  know these are all labors of love!  First and foremost, RootsWorld should be on anyone's list for great critical reviews, knowledgeable essays, (hey, I've written for them!) and even for those hard to get CDs from all over the world. Check it out, you'll be wandering around on that site for days!  

And if you can't get to a cassette shop in Ghana, the next best thing is Awesome Tapes from Africa, where you can hear the stuff that NEVER gets here....it's just TOO funky. Highly recommended listening.