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Posted: **Fri Mar 11, 2005 7:55 pm**

Hi. I have now been to havana several times and have become good friends with Amado dedue Garcia of Clave y guaguanco, Emilio del monte Jr. who plays with cubanissmo, omara, el nene, alex cuba etc.. and the guys from Hermanos Bravo. If anyone is interested in contact details please get in touch. I'm sure these guys would love to teach others. Serious students only as I dont want to ruin my contacts for the future, Ta

Edited By ricky linn on 1110636806

Posted: **Mon Mar 14, 2005 11:35 am**

Cubanismo comes to Sydney next month for a series of gigs, one of which my band is doing support for.
Cant wait to hang out/jam with my all time favourite conguero, Anga.

Posted: **Mon Mar 14, 2005 3:27 pm**

Cubanismo are awesome, should be a great gig. It is Emilio Jr. who I have had conga lessons with but I also have met Emilio Sr. several times who is Cubanismo's regular timbale player. If either are on the gig say Hi from Richard in Scotland. If Anga is on the gig could you possibly find out if he still devides his time between Havana and Paris as my trips to Cuba are becoming increasingly expensive but I can get to Paris no problem and would love to study with him a couple of times a year.

Edited By ricky linn on 1110814287

Posted: **Mon Mar 14, 2005 5:15 pm**

Abakua...don't be dissapointed if Anga isn't touring with them. he just did the recordings. He is touring in Europe I heard with his OWN band now..I saw Cubanismo in Florida, Anga was not with them at that time either.....paz..."JC" Johnny Conga... :;):

Posted: **Tue Mar 15, 2005 12:51 am**

Hey Abakua,
Do you have a list of Sydney dates/venues for Cubanismo?
Cheers
Sean

Posted: **Wed Mar 16, 2005 12:45 am**

JohnnyConga wrote:Abakua...don't be dissapointed if Anga isn't touring with them. he just did the recordings. He is touring in Europe I heard with his OWN band now..I saw Cubanismo in Florida, Anga was not with them at that time either.....paz..."JC" Johnny Conga... :;):

One of the Cuban percussionists from here is originally from Paris, he phoned Paris the other day and confirmed that Anga is touring with Cubanismo for the Australian section of the tour, as has the promoter.

Either way, will still be a great night.

As for Sydney dates, they are performing at a 3 day festival which is now sold out and also at "The Basement" on the Thursday before 'Good Friday'.

Posted: **Wed Mar 16, 2005 8:51 pm**

Entonces "preparate"!...for at lest 2 hours of straight up Cuban Timba...the horn players When I saw them didn't even use charts, or the rest of the band for that matter. There music had been put to memory, and some of those horn lines that the 5 horns play go on forever, I call them "russian runs", because of the musicians having to study "russian classical" music in their training and it shows in there writing of horn lines(phrases)-"passages"......ese "Montuno Alegre".....Malembe!........"JC" Johnny Conga.... :;):

Posted: **Thu Mar 17, 2005 3:47 am**

Yeh man, 'preparate alright!!!'

I been practising like a mofo over the last few days, have even called into work sick for last week, hehehe. :cool:

Just making sure all my shit is 100% down.
I have looked up in awe to Anga from day 1 of my tumbadora journey so many years ago. He is my all time favourite master of tumbadoras.
I cant believe I will be meeting him/playing along side him after all this time.

Our band was chosen because it is the only authentic sounding cuban timba band here. Not trying to talk it up or anything, and I mean this in the most humble way, but close your eyes when our band plays and you will think you are listening to the latest timba band playing @ La Tropical, Havana!

Im sure the Cubanismo boys will be a bit surprised to hear something like us so far from their homeland and in a country that has no affiliation to the culture that is ours.

I am soooo looking forward to this gig,

Ive met and jammed with many of the worlds top bands/percussionists, but I would have to say it will be the personal highlight so far of my musical career, playing along side Anga.

I cant fukin wait!

Edited By ABAKUA on 1111031364

Posted: **Wed Mar 23, 2005 7:30 am**

Hey Abakua,

I saw "Cubanismo" over the weekend in Perth and I attended a workshop with their "Kick Ass" Conguero but.... it was not Anga! His name is Jorge Luís Torres Paumier alias 'Papiosco'. He has been voted as one of the best Timba Players in the world. He also plays with the cuban band "Klimax". Make contact with him and tell him that Freddy from the Perth workshop recommended to make contact. Some guys arranged a workshop here 'cause no one else did'... maybe you can do the same in Sydney.

Happy Drumming!

Posted: **Wed Mar 23, 2005 10:13 am**

Yo Steady Freddy!

You are correct, we met up today with the guys and Jesus Alemañy a little earlier this afternoon. Im about to head out with them and our band to have a few drinks.

We are sound checking with them tomorrow around 2pm. Will get some pics to link up.

Posted: **Wed Mar 23, 2005 7:59 pm**

Abakua, good luck to you. Glad to hear you will be able to play with Cubanisimo!!

PLs do post some pictures!!

T

Posted: **Thu Mar 24, 2005 2:33 am**

Update..

We ended up going out for a few drinks with the boys from Cubanismo, stayed out till 4am! Great bunch of people, havent laughed so hard in a long time as we swapped stories n stuff.
Cant wait for tonight...

The sax player (who has played and recorded with Charanga Habanera for last 10 yrs) has an early model Toyota which has been off the road for quite some time in Havana due to there being no engine parts to fix it, he needed a timing belt for his engine (for the second time its off the road for months - same problem) and brought his faulty one on the tour, he has not been able to find one anywhere amongst the countries he has travelled to on this tour, I deal alot with race engines and workshops, so I told him to give me the timing belt and I will see if I can get a replacement for him..
Just got back from my contacts, I have 3 new timing belts for him to take back to Cuba.

Posted: **Thu Mar 24, 2005 5:23 pm**

Abakua ...Sorry like I said Anga couldn't make it. But I'm sure the brother that took his place was a "mo-fo" too! glad you got a "taste of Cuba"....they are great musicians!....paz..."JC" Johnny Conga.... :;):

Posted: **Tue Mar 29, 2005 5:32 am**

Ok... What a week its been!

Cubanismo rocked the motherfu**ing house!

Our band and Cubanismo hung out all week, they stayed at our house and it was open jams from dusk till dawn every day!

We had drums, bata, tumbadoras, bongo, bass, piano, flute, sax, trumpet, trombones, chekere, singing all going on at the same time, people cooking, and lots and lots of Rum + beer drinking!

They had an awesome time with us during their time in Sydney and we earned their respect as musicians and friends, all of them, including Jesus Alemañy were blown away by our band. :cool:

As were we by them!

They invited us as thier guests to their other performances at festivals here on an island off the harbour, which were sold out!! 8000+ people in the crowd and I was on stage with Cubanismo!

The line up came from some of the best of Cuba..

My head is still messed up from the drinking and partying so from memory till my head clears a little we had:

Trombone - from Irakere Carlos Alvarez
Tenor Sax - from los metales del terror - NG La Banda, Rolando Perez Perez
Baritone Sax - my pana, Emilio 'Masa' from La Charanga Habanera + Charanga Forever
Trumpet - NG La Banda - Eduardo Rodriguez
Timbal - my compadre "Betun" from many bands, as well as being the Founder with Anga of OPUS 13.
Piano - Peruchin from NG La Banda
Bass- Roberto Riveron great friend, original bassist for Klimax and many other bands
Congas - "Papiosco" from Klimax.
Eduardo Lavoy on bongo
Mi consorte Pablosky Rosales alias "Choko" on Tres
Rolo Martinez, Laito Jnr and Jesus Cantero on vocals
And of course Jesus Alemañy
All up they were a 14 piece line up.

I spent most of the time with Roberto Riveron, Jesus Alemañy, Masa, Betun and Papiosco who is my soul brother, somos uno mentalmente y espiritualmente, much ache pa ti mi hermano.
Great people.
We were up till 7am most nights jamming and drinking.

At the end of the year once our band finishes its Australian/Asian tour, a few of us are going to visit Cuba again for a few months, I will be staying with Papiosco and Betun as they were fighting over who got to have me during my visit hehehehe. It was an honour to be in their company, and I was honoured when they took me aside and said that my conga playing skills are right up there with some of the best from Cuba, and that when I went back to Cuba to be prepared to play with and meet/study with the very best over there.

I have a shitload of photos and video footage on my digital camera, I will try to get someone to host the pics for me and I will post them up as soon as I can.
If anyone here can host them for me please let me know and I will email them to you.

Edited By ABAKUA on 1112103890

Posted: **Thu Mar 31, 2005 9:10 am**

Hey Abakua,
That is great to hear that you got to hang out with such high profile musicians and get their contact details you must be stoked, as it soooo rare for us Australian players to be exposed to international players. Congratulations!!!
Sean

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