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D'Arienzo Dung. Tanturi Turds. Crap de Calo.

Having returned from yet another Neo-Tango Milonga at Dancing Master in Irving, Yours Truly gives a hearty thanks to those DJs worldwide who, unlike Robin Thomas at last saturday night's Fantango Milonga in Austin, play music that doesn't suck ass.

[Of course, it wouldn't have been quite such an egregious sin on the part of Robin and the Fantango organizers had there been even a MODICUM of variety to the evening's selections, but with the number of songs written since the alleged birth of hack-n-slaymeister Jesus H. Christ easily countable on a single mano's digits, the evening was just about as musically unengaging as it could possibly have been (shy of replacing Robin with DJ "Anal" Bede and his nefarious shuffle button).]

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Though I'd love to go on and on about why Austin's Fantango just might need to be put out of our misery if it continues along this geriatric, visionless, and unimaginative path (can you say "Nito," followed by-heh-"Elba?"), I won't. We'll wait until next year and see what happens.

What I CAN say is that Fantango's main event--with the single, and admittedly noteworthy exception of a large, elegant crowd of energetic dancers--has little to recommend it over a small-scale, local milonga like DFW's First Saturday Neo-Tango event. As I'm sure Fred and Ginger will hasten to point out, the Neo-Tango milonga is really somewhat of a misnomer, focusing not so much on neo-tango per se, as on a variety of tango styles--including the warhorses of the 20's onward--recorded by ensembles that are still alive and well and dependent upon our patronage to feed their faces and continue making recordings. This is a nice approach to take when DJing tango events because, simply put, there is just no defensible reason to be playing shitty recordings by the Big Eight orquestas of tango. And folks, whether you're too musically ignorant to know it or not, those recordings ARE shitty. This isn't some subjective area of individual taste, either. This is the simple fact of the matter, stated for your edification by He Who Knows Such Things. You may now justly inquire: how does Your Infallible Arbiter of All Things Musical define "shitty?" Two part answer:

1. Recording quality. If it's recorded in mono, or the earliest days of stereo, it's almost certain to be awful. The fidelity is terrible, and even the extensive efforts at cleaning up these recordings, however heroic and admirable they may be for historical purposes, can't save them. A gold-plated turd is still a turd: just a steaming pile of auditory feces with a cool sounding name (pardon me sir, but for your dancing pleasure would you prefer D'Arienzo Dung, Tanturi Turds, or the Crap de Calo?)
2. Performance incompetence. Despite the tendency of the musically, and musicologically, retarded to worship at the altars of these ensembles, and with their (very!) few exceptional instrumental and vocal participants notwithstanding, the level of musicianship in these ensembles is generally extremely poor. Low-end musicianship = shitty recording. And in the case of the Big Eight, one can find better instrumentalists playing in most high-school level conservatory prep programs throughout the US and Europe. These ensembles (the overrated Argentines, not the conservatory prep students) often play HORRIBLY out of tune, and generally perform with such an amateurish sense of timbral balance and dynamics (insofar as either can be gleaned from artifacts of such abhorrent fidelity) that they would be laughed off the stage at any modern-day concert competition.

"But . . . but . . . but we WORSHIP THEM SUPREMELY, Mr. PseudoLatino sir! Our tighlty clinched rectii are here to inform us that these ensembles are the PINNACLE of TANGIC ACHIEVEMENT!! Who the fuck are YOU, mister maaaaaaaan, to declare them unworthy--unfit, as you imply, to slurp, in prostrate ecstasy, the talentless, stillborn remains of god-I-wish-I-were-really-heterosexual-Ricky Martin's seminal fluid from the danglingly unselective labia minoris of Anna Nicole Smith."

Who am I? 'Tis simple. I'm the guy with all the facts on my side, and the Big Eight worshippers are the guys with all the religion on their side. Same old story. Facts vs. Religion, and the religious will always manage to see the Virgin Fucking Mary in the middle of a piece of Burnt Toast. Let's be clear: Di Sarli recordings suck. Canaro recordings suck. Most old (and some more recent) Pugliese recordings suck. Troilo recordings? You'd be better off listening to Kindergarten kids fart in unison.

Want an example? Let's try a wonderful vals, utterly butchered by your beloved Canaro: Soñar y nada mas. The opening strings are completely out of tune, can't even play TOGETHER (listen to the complete SLOP of the first 12 notes, and the semi-slop of the next 12), and have the square, shapeless phrasing of your local high school marching band. Just terrible. Then comes the little flourish to set up the bandoneon entrance (13-14 seconds into the recording): Splat splee whap whee THWUNK! Cringeworthy audio feces already, but keep listening! The bandoneons play the main tune, and then--during the last two measures of every 8-bar phrase--those same strings enter, playing an ear-piercingly out-of-tune countermelody with all the finesse of the fat lady you're always managing to sit in front of when you go to church. You know, the fat lady that sings every hymn at the top of her 44DD lungs using an intonation that's killing pit bulls three blocks away? It's that out of tune and shapeless. And it didn't take me 11 years' worth of ear-training to recognize such atrocities. They are there in plain aural sight, for everyone to hear (I'd tell you to ask the pit bulls, but they're dead).

And that's only the first 30 seconds of this three minute turd-fest.

Sure. I'll grant you that the singers do a passable job, and that they make the recording almost listenable. But only passable, and only almost.

But . . . wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles . . . we keep playing this SHIT milonga after milonga? Why? Why perpetrate this GARBAGE when there are ensembles producing superior performances TODAY; ensembles that play IN TUNE and with zest and superior musicianship; ensembles that need our support in order to continue producing superior recordings of these wonderful old compositions and to add new compositions to the repertoire. Are we truly so incredibly musically inept that we can't dance to new recordings of old music, or dance to new songs--of ANY style--that we don't already know from hearing them over and over and over and over and over and over and over again?

Yours Truly hopes not. Yours Truly believes not.

But then again Yours Truly believes that Peace in the Middle East begins with Lady Valerie's favorite IHOP dinner: Pumpkin Pancakes and Artichoke Hearts on a bed of Romaine Lettuce and Oreos dripping with a creamy Coconut Ketchup Dressing . . . but that's another story entirely.

Until some other place and some other time,
I remain,
Your,

---pseudoLatino

Posted by earwicker at 11:59 PM | Comments (1)

Wandering Tangueros in the Lair of Flair

The Day has once again been salvaged by the Lesbian Rodent Quing (despite what the link may imply, Your Hero believes that a Quing is a Queen-King). The intermediate and advanced salsa classes were great fun, as usual, and I'm starting to get used to the presence of Fred and Ginger, Dancer X, Judge "Beijing" Judy, and Mother Teresa in Ramiro's Weekly Lair of Flair. Even King David made an appearance this evening, risking some RatWrath to dust off 'n sparkle up his inner Salsero.

The hour and a half spent at Tijuana B & G thereafter were also a hoot, and the place was jam packed by 11pm--with folks still arriving by the busload. At this rate, Tijuana will soon have to remodel just to accomodate the Sunday Night salsa crowd. Stay tuned as your favorite Salsa Wannabe keeps plodding His way onward into pseudoLatino legend by way of countless crushed toes and elbowed bosoms.

Hope your weekends were as stellar as mine, friends and neighbors.

---the PL

Posted by earwicker at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)