SOUNDTRACK: GABRIEL GARZÓN-MONTANO-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #147 (January 19, 2021).
Gabriel Garzón-Montano did a solo Tiny Desk Concert a few years ago, as the blurb quickly points out
If Gabriel Garzón-Montano’s solo Tiny Desk back in 2017 was an exercise in restraint and vulnerability, his home set is the polar opposite. It beams ingenuity and unveils multiple layers, figuratively and literally. In this performance he brought the full band, sporting all white from mask to toe and bringing to life all the sonics we hear on the record, last year’s genre-snubbing Agüita.
They play three songs.
Garzón-Montano morphs into three different characters from Agüita and stretches the boundaries even more, adding salsa flavor to “Muñeca” and delivering some bonus bars on the set opener, “With A Smile.”
“With A Smile” opens with just his face surrounded by flowers as he plays a pretty acoustic guitar. The flowers move away as the Gracie Sprout’s harp adds more pretty notes. As the song moves along with Gabriel’s soft and sexy voice, Itai Shapira’s bass and Lenny “The Ox”‘s drums come thumping in.
Like the rest of his band, Gabriel is in all white, including white Uggs and a long white coat with tails. The only color is from the sweater underneath.
At the end of the song he raps in Spanish, which has a really nice flow.
Taking advantage of of the rare opportunity to gather musicians in quarantine times, he says “It’s like being a child who’s allowed to do what they always wanted to do when they didn’t wanna get up for school, and it’s also felt like an adult who didn’t know what to do at 3 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon. I’m focusing on oscillating between those states with ease.”
For “Muñeca” he takes off the big coat and shows off the colorful sweater which has a fascinating cut, including tails. For this song, it’s a trio of bass and Daniel Rodriguez on drums. Rodriguez plays a funky middle with conga and cowbell as Gabriel gets up and dances. He picks up the guitar again at the end of the song for a little strumming outro.
Before the final song, Gabriel moves to the piano. He takes off the colorful sweater to reveal a sleeveless shirt underneath (which shows off his tattoos).
“Tombs” features the KROMA Quartet and everyone else on synths. Nicholas Semrad plays the lead, but everyone else adds melody. It’s a delicate song with an interesting and slightly creepy synth melody. About half way through this six minute song he gets up and picks up an electric guitar. He and Justin “Jhawk” Hawkins play a harmony solo together, which sounds pretty cool.
I am quite intrigued by this singer, and I love the description of genre-snubbing.
[READ: February 28, 2021] Pops
I have often said I wanted to read more books by Michael Chabon. And after finishing this I realized that the only novel by him that I’ve read is Kavalier and Clay and that was 21 years ago. So maybe it’s time to get into some of these other books.
Pops is a collection of (very) short essays. Most were written for Details Magazine (which folded in 2015), one for GQ and a final one I’d already read in the New Yorker.
“Introduction: The Opposite of Writing”
It’s not too often that you really enjoy an introduction, but this one was pretty great. In it, Chabon talks about when he was an up and coming writer and he met a well-established Southern writer. This writer told him that the secret to being a good writer was not having children. That for every child you have, you will lose one book.
Chabon had no children with his first wife but has had four with his second wife (the writer Ayelet Waldman). So clearly they have lost eight books between them.
The writer’s argument was that children take away time from novel writing and that novel writing takes away time from children. Chabon had always felt that his father was not very present (as one of the essays says) and he promised to be much more involved in his children’s lives). These essays suggest that he was. So how did he find time to write? He does not say. (more…)
