Cape Cod Acoustics
  • Home
  • Your Lessons
  • Performance services offered
  • About Gene
  • Contact
  • Guitars, Ukes & Accessories
  • Acoustic Guitar Blog
  • Tips for guitarists
  • Guitar Gallery
  • More...

Florida adventures, Pt. 2  Key West

5/16/2022

5 Comments

 
PictureYours Truly, Julia's Secret, Key West April 2022
​No matter what the future holds I will always have a soft place in my heart for Key West. Over trips to that town and extended stays in the area for the last 15 years I’ve come to love the quirky character - and characters! - in that southernmost outpost of the continental U.S. I don’t know of any other place that has so much live music ranging from the single performer with a guitar (or in one instance, a keyboard; more on that person later!) to full bands and plenty of duos and trios. Make no mistake: in almost all instances that live music is available in bars and a few restaurants but sometimes there are concerts in larger venues.
 
I’ve heard the full range of musical abilities over those many years, ranging from guys who barely knew a half dozen chords, all played with the only strum pattern the player knows to absolute world-class musicians. I’ve tried to stick with an attitude I worked to embrace a decade or so ago: Hey, the guy has a gig, God bless him and good luck. Back in my younger days I was just the opposite. If a player was just plain awful I would quickly finish my drink and move on down the road. The change in attitude was brought about by not focusing on the player as much but by watching the audience. If people were buying food and drink and appeared to be having a good time, the player was doing his or her job so who was I to cast dispersion on their efforts? I usually succeed in holding onto that outlook these days although it might not seem that way after you finish this blog entry but please believe me, I wish only good things for ANYONE I hear performing. (One of the good things might be learning a few new chords, ha!)
 
This April I spent four weeks in town with my wife Kathy. We had some family and friends visit during that time, which was great because sharing experiences is an integral part of vacationing in my opinion. The spots we frequented for live music were, in no particular order: Two Friends, Blue Parrot, Little Room Jazz Bar, Smokin’ Tuna, El Meson de Pepe’s and Schooner Wharf. We totally ignored the places that are on most Key West visitor’s check list, especially the bars on what I call Vomit Corner on Duval Street (for obvious reasons): Sloppy Joe’s, Irish Kevin’s, Capt. Tony’s, others… Loud, loud guitar bangers who make it a point to spice up their acts by dropping the f-bomb as often as possible. In many cases the sound of the house PA systems actually hurt my ears. But hey, those places are always filled at night so who’s to say they are doing anything wrong?
 
We also heard lots of music while walking Duval and nearby streets and occasionally we would stop to listen for a little while. Sometimes we heard performers I might want to hear more of, but the places were either packed or the music was just too loud for my old ears. And then there is the subject of repertoire. It must be some kind of secret law that your set lists are required to lean heavily on the Holy Key West Music Triumvirate: John Mellencamp, Bob Seger and most importantly, Tom Petty. If you’re playing a place that encourages sing-alongs, “Take Me Home, Country Road” is an absolute must with “Sweet Caroline” a close second.
 
But hey, defaulting to my attitude described earlier, listeners appeared to be having a great time so score one for the guitar banger!
 
Look, I totally know that playing in a rowdy bar is about as far away from a concert experience as it possibly could be. If playing Petty’s “You Don’t Know How It Feels” with the immortal line “So let’s get to the point, let’s roll another joint!” pumps up the crowd (who will surely be thirstier after singing along), again, the performer has fulfilled his mission.
 
On the other end of the spectrum are the upper tier musicians who play regularly in Key West. The best of the best in my opinion is a keyboard player named Ericson Holt. I discovered him about ten years ago playing in the best “adult” bar in town, Little Room Jazz Club. That room has a nice stage, excellent acoustics and most of the musicians they book are very talented. Despite the name, the Little Room features not only jazz but sometimes blues and Ericson’s bluesy, weathered voice, phenomenal playing (closer to New Orleans style than straight ahead blues), great originals plus tastefully rendered covers make him an absolute must if you are a music lover and are going to visit Key West. He has a new CD available called “99 Degrees” and it’s great. Recently, Ericson won four of the top six awards in the inaugural Key West Music Awards and they were richly deserved. He is also one cool guy without trying to be and over those ten years of hearing him dozens and dozens of times (sometimes as a soloist, sometimes with his regular drummer Mick Kilgos) I’ve come to know him quite well. To my mind, he is the definition of a super talented work-a-day professional musician: approachable, dedicated to his music and performing it, and keeping a gig schedule that would burn out a lesser talent. Buy his CDs, download his music, or better yet buy them from him at one of his many shows. You will not be disappointed, promise!
 
A few of the single guitarist/singers I heard were close to Ericson in the ways I just mentioned. And a few of the bands I heard were very good also. Live music is supported in Key West on a level that is extremely rare and I will miss that scene as this most likely will be my last visit to that town that holds so many great memories.
 
The reason I say that this will be the last time is quite simple. The prices of everything in Key West - especially accommodations - has risen to unheard-of, borderline absurd levels. Yes, it’s likely KW is not alone in this but the difference between what was available a few years ago and now reached the tipping point for me. There are many thousands of rooms available in the town including hotels, condos, guest houses and short-term apartments and houses but a new vibe - greed - has crept in to the equation. I understand that accommodation providers will always price their offerings at what the market will bear and there seemed to be no lack of visitors in town, even at the back end of prime tourist season. Slick restaurants seem to pop up at an ever-increasing rate and posh resorts line the waterfront in some areas of town. Speaking with locals you hear the same story again and again: I have to work three jobs to cover my expenses. I don’t know how much longer I can stay here…
 
One has to wonder if Key West as I’ve known it is quickly disappearing. Back when I started visiting, the unofficial town motto was: Keep Key West Weird! There is a serious possibility that the changes in Key West will destroy the very reasons people wanted to go there in the first place.
 
But you still have time, if your pockets are deep. You can still go to the free Sunset Celebration at Mallory Square and watch the jugglers and acrobats. You can still find great half-price apps and drinks at many places to keep your food bills down. And you can still find some great music at the places I mentioned above. So, go. And if you do and make a point to catch Ericson Holt at one of the many places he plays, tell him Gene says hi, and that he misses you killing “New Coat of Paint.”
 
Peace & good music,
Gene
 
 

 
 

5 Comments

I'm baaaack....Florida adventures, Pt. 1

5/14/2022

0 Comments

 
After a long, long hiatus from blog entries I thought I’d proceed. It’s time. For those of you who have been faithful readers over the ten-plus years I’ve been posting stuff here, my sincerest apologies for being lax. I’ll try to explain just why.
 
As some of you know, for a number of years in the early 2000s I was the editor of a fishing and boating magazine and television show here in New England called On The Water. Fishing is a close third in my passions right behind my family and music. Having the opportunity to solicit, write and edit fishing stories, take part in television production, hold seminars at fishing shows, write guide books and interact with readers, writers and characters in that world was a blast…..for a while, anyway. It’s not worth getting into why I chose to leave that world (not the actual fishing part, I still do that on almost a daily basis!) but one of the main reasons was I found that essentially I was reading and editing the same story over and over and over. Some might say I was not enough of a hard-ass with the writers; I should have pushed them harder to produce more interesting and unique content for the magazine. But frankly, most stories about fishing tend to be the same with slightly different spins on well-known subjects. Also, advertising prerogatives began to overshadow editorial content. I was a dinosaur I guess… Thinly disguised “adver-torial” stories began to dominate magazine content (not just in fishing magazines, I might add) with the blessing of publishers, something that was abhorrent to me. Time to move on.
 
At the same time, music was calling me back. I never really was away from it, how could I be? My whole family on my dad’s side were professional musicians back many, many generations. My brother John had a wonderful career in symphonic classical music and he still teaches and performs from time to time. I think I did a pretty fair job of handing down my love of music to my son and daughter. And I’m blessed to be married to a lady who understands the hold that music has on me.
 
This blog is nothing more than an outlet for me to document things I’ve learned over the close to 60 years (!!!) I’ve been playing the guitar. Observations, hints, experiences, victories and defeats, they’re all here for anyone to see. It’s therapeutic - yes! - but I hope I’ve tweaked curiosity in my faithful readers and also contributed to some extent to their understanding and ability.
 
Which brings me around to why you haven’t heard from me for quite a while. Sometimes what I’ve posted is nothing more than random snippets of information and observations. Whenever possible I try to go into the writing of a post with a general outline in my head and a fairly clear idea of what I want to put across. I always welcome comments and suggestions. But…I don’t want to be like some of those so-called “outdoor writers” that I used to deal with at On The Water and just rehash subjects with tiny differences in subject matter. If I don’t have anything to say that will be of interest to my readers, I just wait until something that I hope will be interesting comes to mind. Sometimes that takes quite a while! So - again - sorry for my lapse in posting blog entries for the last few months and I sincerely hope you enjoy them. So, if you’re still with me, here goes. I’ll file it under something like “Music heard and played in Florida, 2022.”
 
Our first month was spent in Sarasota. It was our second time staying there for a month and we have come to really love that small city; the options for activities are many and often surprising. One of the best was a classical guitar concert by Peruvian-born guitarist Jorge Caballero and it was absolutely phenomenal. We had great seats thanks to a friend from Falmouth who subscribes to the seasonal concert series put on by Guitar Sarasota, a very active classical guitar society who sponsor five concerts every winter and early spring. My knowledge of current classical guitar masters is almost nil, something that is truly embarrassing. My last full concert of classical guitar music took place at Boston’s Symphony Hall in the mid 1970s, by the legendary Segovia, who passed away soon after. It was fantastic, one of my life-list concerts that I treasure.
 
Jorge Caballero is known for his transcriptions of full symphonic works by composers such as Claude Debussy and Rimsky-Korsakov. His physical technique was mind-blowing. I swear, his fingers appeared to be 12 inches long and he took on some pieces that would never be even attempted by anyone less than a master-level guitarist. His concert was in two parts and he concluded the first part with a piece called Capriccio Diabolico (Omaggio a Paganini) by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. Before he started that piece he said to the audience, “Wish me luck on this one!”  You hear this sometimes from musicians of all genres and I always take that statement with a grain of salt as it often means: Listen to this really, really hard piece I’m about to play. I can play it really well and I want you to know how good I really am!
 
But in this case, I had the feeling he really meant it. It is a monster piece requiring everything a master classical guitarist can muster and Jorge totally owned it, although I thought I heard a sigh of relief when he reached the end! I am looking into buying tickets for Guitar Sarasota concerts for next March and April when we will return for a full two months.
 
Also in Sarasota, we went to a great funky bar/showroom called the Blue Rooster that is designed as a New Orleans-style food and music venue. The food was authentic and tasty and the 6-piece ‘80s style funk-rock band playing that night was GREAT! There is nothing like a great band with horns. Sadly, soon after we left Sarasota the place closed for good as the 71-year-old owner wanted to step away from the business. We’ll just have to some other places for music and there are many of them in and near the city. I may even try to pick up some gigs there.
 
There are plenty of bars and restaurants in the Sarasota area that feature a wide range of music. It was gratifying to find that almost all the places we passed or heard about do not take the easy way out and default to karaoke in place of live music as often seems to be the case up North.
 
In Part 2 I’ll get into the music scene (and other observations) in Key West where we spent the second month of our Florida adventure. Yes, it was fun as always in that town but things are changing quickly there, and in many cases not for the good. I’ll get that post up in the next few days, promise!
 
And again, thanks for hanging in with me.
 
Peace & Good Music,
Gene
 
 

0 Comments

    Author

    Gene Bourque

    Archives

    November 2024
    September 2024
    July 2024
    June 2022
    May 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed