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RE: will you consider gypsy kings a ... (in reply to elroby)
quote:
kick ass flamenco,
yep i can hear that. no issue at all with what he's doing...in fact now a fan. someone doing their thing exceptionally well. really enjoyed the clip but somehow made this whole discussion even more ridiculous to me.... just offers a different slant on things...and the future potential of heavyweight metal flamenco guitarists...
a group of young streetwise guys in southern spain who grew up with flamenco watched Benjamins video.. somehow a couple of them got godins and some mesa boogie amps...crankin rasqueo's and high gain picado... the cajon player and palmero bought a double-kick rig and some electronic percussion the singer also liked listening to, say cradle of filth. when he was'nt in the mood for a cameron record or his uncle down the road, he liked a bit of screamo... add a bass and a marketing team
thing is they play strictly to compas and palo screamo letra's catchy salida's some times they use dancers....lllamadas... people love them they win eurovision or play glastonbury
no disrespect to Benjamin [ a kick ass player ] it just created something i find most here would find more threatening than the fakemenco artists mention
ottmar, armik and whoever...people identify the general 'sound' of the guitar as flamenco. but if that were to change....
Posts: 1945
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco
RE: will you consider gypsy kings a ... (in reply to estebanana)
Ole!
I've always loved the GK's-first time I saw them I got to open for them. Funny, many local flamencos turned out. I never heard any of them bitching that it wasn't flamenco. I saw them recently and the singing was still great, but truth is they pretty much phoned in the gig. Didn't matter. The crowd loved them anyway.
I think Ottmar was the one who pissed everyone off, and it was because flamenco guitarists realized they could play as well as him or better, but that he was the one making the big dollar without having payed any kind of serious flamenco dues.
Not that that makes much sense, since his music has little to do with flamenco. Truth is, he could have avoided it by not using the word flamenco in the title of his first record. I wonder if it would have made any difference in his success.
Why didn't anyone cry foul when Miles recorded what he called a solea? Maybe because to be jealous of Miles, you'd have to be a better player? What many flamenco people who are pissed at the guys who can't play flamenco but play rumbas may not understand is that the average Joe who likes Estaban, Ottmar, et al, in many cases doesn't like Vicente, Paco, etc.
Myself, I don't like the music of Ottmar, Strunz & Farrar, etc. I like flamenco guitar. But if someone starts waving hundreds at me, I'll fire up a GK's tune right now and stuff my wallet. Takes less practise time to boot.
I completely agree about vegas-and to a lessor extent Branson. Those guys have it figured out. Soon as I get rich enough, I'm gonna retire from my day gig and find a nice gig in a warm beach town and play solo, or if there's another cat there , we'll play rumba and make three times the money.
quote:
ORIGINAL: estebanana
I should have gotten an Ole' for bringing up Liberace.....
RE: will you consider gypsy kings a ... (in reply to estebanana)
funny thing is ..if Agujetas or any "serious" flamenco singer would have known that singing bamboleo in that combination with that many guitars would get them that kind of financial and international success they would have bamboleod their arse all the way to the bank..
and this guys... they can do fandangos, can do tangos, can do bulerias
Posts: 15242
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: will you condenser gypsy kings a... (in reply to machopicasso)
quote:
ORIGINAL: machopicasso
quote:
You also have people that only interpret fandangos, or sevillanas which are song forms closely related to flamenco, but not necessarily enough to define an artist as a "flamenco".
Wait, I thought fandangos was one of the "official" palos of flamenco. If someone only played bulerias, would he not count as a flamenco guitarist? Or did you mean to make a different point?
I was talking more of singing then guitar. My point is the people who interpret ONLY fandangos don't really consider themselves "flamencos" either....usually. It depends. Because sometimes there is a focus on fandangos then they sing a solea sort of badly and say "there see...I AM a flamenco singer" and it is not really fair, because you open a door for aficionados that know better to say...wait a minute you don't care much for solea? Something is wrong there, you are not really a flamenco singer....
I think anyone who sings proper buleria, Solea, or siguiriya IS a "flamenco" artist plain and simple. But by "proper" I mean they do it correct and well...whatever that means.
In terms of guitar, it seems you just have to be able to accompany most of the forms of singing to be considered a flamenco guitarist. To simply play a buleria complete with falsetas and compas is not enough, though you can be considered a good flamenco guitar student. But being a soloista or concertista can be a bad term or used as a put down of a player the seems to not show respect or care to cante and the art form at large.
In the case of gypsy kings you have some competent guitarists but the singers don't interpret buleria solea etc. So without the experience, even the guitarists are not truly exemplary flamencos. People keep saying ottmar is a rumbero yet his rumba strum is wrong, then he plays buleria his own way. sorry guys, he is NOT a rumbero, he is bad flamenco player meaning he has not learned the proper methods of toque yet gets away with performing concerts of his miss conception of toque.
He needs some more lessons and to study the way the guitar is used for cante to get some fundamental base from which to create. But already he has a dozen albums of his own compositions. And there are others like him. "boo hoo I never said I was a flamenco...." yet they keep on playing their thing and not trying to learn or improve. And when they get popular or some success they think it justifies their "art".
I have my own "fakemenco" cd I recorded years ago with another musician. I knew full well then as now it was "fakemenco" and am not offended by such a description at all. Watered down rumba spanishy guitar music etc etc. If you need to feel insulted after playing this type of thing, then you need some more education. The whole genre is clearly defined to me. PDL Starts with Entre dos Aguas...then begat Al Dimeola duet Mediterranean sundance version of the same song....even though Al can't strum rumba it is cool to use the spanishy chord chart to noodle solos over....now you have have the scores of imitators that want to copy and be like Paco and Al or Mclaughlin...boom latin world beat is born (strunz farah armik jesse cook etc... the fast pickers) then the poor saps that cant' pick fast still want to be on board the bastard sons of mediterranean sundance....so they use keyboard backing and spacy world sounds....ottmar and co. is born....then the rockin dudes want to join on unplugged....Rodrigo and Gab are born etc.....
Posts: 3467
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
RE: will you condenser gypsy kings a... (in reply to Guest)
One person's opinion, even that of an acknowledged authority, is still an opinion. There is no absolute ground truth here. There is room for different opinions. As to finding the thread monotonous, no one is forced to read it. To continue reading it after finding it monotonous is a personal choice.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
Posts: 1945
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco
RE: will you condenser gypsy kings a... (in reply to Ricardo)
I agree he is not a rumbero. But what makes you think he thinks he is, or wants to be one? I think he's a pop guitarist who used a flamenco guitar and his version of the technique to create what he does, which to me is pop music. After all this time, I'm sure he could have learned some flamenco if he wanted.
Gets away with playing concerts? Needs lessons? Why exactly? So he can be a third rate flamenco guitarist instead of a pop guitar figura? Tons of people LOVE the stuff he plays now. Some of his public will become interested in flamenco, which will only help flamenco artists. Most will not, and they never would have anyway IMO.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo
People keep saying ottmar is a rumbero yet his rumba strum is wrong, then he plays buleria his own way. sorry guys, he is NOT a rumbero, he is bad flamenco player meaning he has not learned the proper methods of toque yet gets away with performing concerts of his miss conception of toque.
He needs some more lessons and to study the way the guitar is used for cante to get some fundamental base from which to create. But already he has a dozen albums of his own compositions. And there are others like him. "boo hoo I never said I was a flamenco...." yet they keep on playing their thing and not trying to learn or improve. And when they get popular or some success they think it justifies their "art".
I have my own "fakemenco" cd I recorded years ago with another musician. I knew full well then as now it was "fakemenco" and am not offended by such a description at all. Watered down rumba spanishy guitar music etc etc. If you need to feel insulted after playing this type of thing, then you need some more education. The whole genre is clearly defined to me. PDL Starts with Entre dos Aguas...then begat Al Dimeola duet Mediterranean sundance version of the same song....even though Al can't strum rumba it is cool to use the spanishy chord chart to noodle solos over....now you have have the scores of imitators that want to copy and be like Paco and Al or Mclaughlin...boom latin world beat is born (strunz farah armik jesse cook etc... the fast pickers) then the poor saps that cant' pick fast still want to be on board the bastard sons of mediterranean sundance....so they use keyboard backing and spacy world sounds....ottmar and co. is born....then the rockin dudes want to join on unplugged....Rodrigo and Gab are born etc.....
RE: will you condenser gypsy kings a... (in reply to Guest)
Apparently Vivaldi and Miles Davis have also been added to the list of fakemenco and anything can be called whatever you wish to call it because everything is just an opinion and nothing in the universe is actually provable by facts and that leaves us all in a perpetual state of argument accomplishing nothing. Lets get back to picado speed and what strings can make a crappy guitar sound like an expensive one.
Posts: 15242
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: will you condenser gypsy kings a... (in reply to Mark2)
quote:
I agree he is not a rumbero. But what makes you think he thinks he is, or wants to be one?
Others in this thread have labeled him as a rumbero, as if to separate him from flamencos. Yet he himself calls his playing "flamenco" and in fact records and performs "bulerias" in concert. My point was that he is a composer and using flamenco forms as a base somewhat, without understanding much about those bases.
Sorry but I don't see the pop or even "new ageyness" of this. It is simply bad flamenco:
Posts: 1821
Joined: Jul. 26 2009
From: The land down under
RE: will you condenser gypsy kings a... (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
Sorry but I don't see the pop or even "new ageyness" of this. It is simply bad flamenco:
Do you think he had a mental lapse at 0:50. He seems to stay with the 6's feel in other bits. That happened to me last night actually. I had a gig in the city mall. I was playing a bulerias with another guy and i ended up trying to be too tricky improvising and lost the compas.
Posts: 15242
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: will you consider gypsy kings a ... (in reply to Mark2)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Mark2
HAHA ok, I'm crying uncle-I've never seen that vid. But that hardly represents the stuff that made him famous-that was pop music
No man, sorry to beat the dead horse. I listened to pop music back then too. Jewel counting crowes etc that was good stuff on the RADIO. Even counting crowes talked about a flamenco dancer in one song. No, I was HUNTING for flamenco and through media ads I found Ottmar, the NEW flamenco guy to join the ranks of Sabicas and Paco...no joke THAT is why I bought his album. He was hyped up in periodicals and journals about guitar back then. I even knew he played a Lester Devoe....the first non spanish guitar used by Paco and Ottmar I remember reading about. The first album of Ottmars that sold millions and made $. The bulerias on there made me want to break furniture. I sold that disc back to the store...one of the only 2 I have ever done such a thing with in my life.
Posts: 15242
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: will you consider gypsy kings a ... (in reply to Haithamflamenco)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Haithamflamenco
gypsy kings buleria
As I stated earlier....competent guitarists but what happened to the singing? I still don't get it why they never learned buleria or alegria or solea....
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