People love music. It’s one of the first and most important means of expression known to man. People fall in love, find a cause, discover friendships and cure their ills every day thanks to the power of song. As it is with our current societies, though, sometimes being a musician (or an artist, for that matter) must come with a degree of corporate compromise: money. Virtuosos or not, an artist has to eat, and sometimes he/she has to adapt to what’s popular at the moment. In the end, the people rule even though sometimes it would seem otherwise.
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Here’s a thought; In my daily commute of getting work done and my frag score up, I sink out and about into the internet. If you’re a regular here, this is no news to you. Anyway, one of my guilty pleasures is to peruse a couple of celebrity blogs… you know, those site where they [...]
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Blog / Español / Memoirs / Music / Rants / Video
Tags: 2009, crooks, hellboy, juan_carlos_navarro, Panamanians, personal_opinion, political_ads, PRD, rap_sheets, Rob-Rivera, Video, youtube
August 30, 2008
This is the set-up: a man that’s known both online and off as Rob Rivera is lying down in bed thinking about the things people like Rob Rivera think about when they’re lying in bed (answer: chocolate) perusing the TV channels of his basic cable service. Mind you, my TV set has been busted for months.
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Articles / Memoirs / Music / Panama Tourist Guide / Video
Tags: adversities, alternative_rock_band, Bocas del Toro, Bocas Town, chant, dictator, evolutionary_progression, future_generations, general_manuel_antonio_noriega, irony, Isla Colon, koppas, manuel_antonio_noriega, marches, military_dictatorship, money_and_power, Music, omar_torrijos, omar_torrijos_herrera, onslaught, Panama, panamanian_history, physical_threat, president_of_panama, Return of the Archons, señor-loop, Star Trek, tax_haven, torrent, way_of_life, wikipedia, youtube
June 4, 2008
Their first record in over four years, Panama-based alternative rock band Señor Loop returns with a rock-solid album full of emotion, force and resolution wrapped in an onslaught of sonic resolve: “MCMLXXXII” is the name of said album, and to listen to is is to walk down a landscape of Panamanian history’s past, present and future, woven together with sounds that entice and hypnotize. “MCMLXXXII” is, on almost every level, an evolutionary progression from the band’s previous album, “Madretambor.”
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Blog / Music / Porto Diao and Friends
Tags: adolfo, ancon theater guild, arias, bandas de rock, board of governors, booty, caravan, directores, el teatro, gastos, indie rock, jazz, jennifer aniston, john aniston, ladies and gents, last minute caravan, loggia, napolitan band, Panama, panama-city, pat quinn, Porto Diao and Friends, portodiao, ruben blades, sin embargo, tga, the vox, theater guild, theater guild of ancon, theaters
March 27, 2008
Just a quick heads-up for those of you in Panama City; as a member of the Theater Guild of Ancon Board of Governors, it’s my duty (to please that booty) and honor to humbly invite you to get to know one of the oldest theaters in Panama City, and the only one that mounts plays [...]
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Music / Panama Tourist Guide
Tags: berklee college of music, college of music, commemorative cd, compositions, creative freedom, danilo prez, endeavour, facebook, folkloric elements, geographical borders, herron, human species, jazz festival, lucky stars, movement composition, mp3, Music, musical institutions, new england, new england conservatory, panama jazz festival, Panama Suite, panamanian music, truth and justice
February 7, 2008
One of the big announcements that took place during the Panama Jazz Festival was the release of a commemorative CD celebrating five years of Jazz in Panama; a nifty album performed by the Danilo Prez Big Band and produced by Billy Herron and the Berklee College of Music called “The Panama Suite.” The name fits [...]
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Blog / Music / Panama Tourist Guide / Video
Tags: atlapa, colon, dave samuels, eternal-geek, fuller, jazz festival, jazz world, led zeppelin, mp3, Music, Panama, panama jazz festival, Panama Tourist Guide, quartet, Rob-Rivera, stairway to heaven, stanley jordan, tia, tia fuller, Video, wikipedia, youtube
January 30, 2008
I was at the production office of the 2008 Panama Jazz Festival on a sunny Friday morning getting stuff done with Yamile, putting out fires that often came throughout the course of the week we worked there, when a gentle young man, tall as a lamp post and seemingly fragile, sat down next to me [...]
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Articles / Español / Music / Video
Tags: Articles, Bajo-Tierra, colombia, Español, fusion_band, guitar_bass, incubus, limp_bizkit, linkin_park, Los-Dias-Adelante, Medellin, Music, myspace, rhythm_guitar, rock_fusion, underground_circuit, Video, youtube
December 26, 2007
Colombian band Bajo Tierra has apparently been rocking all the bitches in the biker shots since 1988 and all I can think is “where in the world was I?” This punk rock fusion band is right up my alley, as evidences by their first single off their 4th album in 20 years, named Los Dias [...]
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Blog / Music / Panama Tourist Guide / Rants / Video
Tags: Blog, Brawndo, El-Chico-Para-Ti-Soy-Yo, engrish, Idiocracy, Marcos-Beraha, Music, music_channel, myspace, Panama, Panama Tourist Guide, PanamaRock, Rants, Video, viral_marketing_campaign, youtube
December 11, 2007
I read an interview on Marcos Beraha a couple of months ago, and in it this engineer mentioned that he’s always had the need to express himself through song and, with the advent prowess of the Internet, it allowed him to purchase nifty sound recording programs so he could record tracks right from home. Out [...]
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Blog / Memoirs / Movies / Music / Video
Tags: action_version, Blog, claude_van_damme, ecstatic, embark, formative_years, jean_claude_van, jean_claude_van_damme, local_tv_channels, man_undies, Memoirs, military_organization, Minibosses, Movies, mp3, Music, nintendo, psyched, sister_said, straight_in_the_eye, street_fighter_ii, temper_tantrums, ticket_lady, unisol, Video, world_warriors, youtube
September 26, 2007
Neither I nor the world was ready for what was unleashed upon the earth on December 23rd, 1994. An avid fan of games as you can probably tell, a young lad named Robert was psyched when one of his favorite games at the time was getting a movie adaptation. As it was, I was an [...]
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Blog / Music / Panama Tourist Guide / Porto Diao and Friends / Rants / Video
Tags: Blog, brainchild, business_ventures, butterfest, christmas_toy, food_manufacturing, gunpei_yokoi, Halo-3, hanafuda_cards, happening, japanese_businessman, long_story_short, love-motel, maintenance_engineer, manufacturing_business, Music, nintendo_company, noriega, Panama Tourist Guide, passage_of_time, playing_cards, Porto Diao and Friends, project_maintenance, push-button, pushes, Rants, Shigeru-Miyamoto, snark, something_positive, taxi_companies, Video, youtube
September 20, 2007
If this comes off as ranty then it is because I feel particularly touchy when it comes to the capacity for injustice in man. I’ve been preparing an article on Noriega and the 1989 invasion to Panama, labeled “Just Cause,” and that, tangled along with things happening at work and my personal life that I [...]
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The new Queens of the Stone Age album, entitled “Era Vulgaris,” is like a targeted cruise missile: it comes in hard and fast, unavoidable and precise in its desire to destroy it all. Unapologetic. The album is a lot of this, and a “greatest hits” of rhythms found in their previous albums from the band, [...]
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Blog / Memoirs / Music / Panama Tourist Guide / Rants
Tags: Blog, clubs, Culture, koppas, Memoirs, Music, Panama, Panama Tourist Guide, Rants, señor-loop, society
June 16, 2007
A couple of weeks ago I went to this popular bar called Koppas. The time where I would go to trendy clubs and bars on a semi-daily basis is long and gone, but I had a good reason to step out of my comfort zone and expose myself to the sort of scenario trendy place [...]
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Blog / Movies / Music / Porto Diao and Friends / Rants
Tags: alcohol, bastardizer, blank-magazine, Blog, butterfest, Calavera, cell-phone-cameras, cell-phones, Culture, deftones, DKDE-Flesh, events, jen-carrasquillo, lenin-montano, lucho-romero, Movies, Music, net-distortion, Panama, panama-city, Panamanians, Porto Diao and Friends, Rants, Sk, society, Video, yamile
March 19, 2007
Day 2 of my Carnival Diary still pending, I just wanted to come in here and rant a little; it’s a practice I’ve somehow put aside as of late and I’m slowly trying to get back into the groove. Without further adieu then, I want to talk to you about 3 things that marked this [...]
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Blog / Music / Porto Diao and Friends / Rants
Tags: beer-and-blogs, Blog, butterfest, deftones, geekvoice, Music, Panama, panama-city, Porto Diao and Friends, Rants, Video
March 15, 2007
Just a quick reminder of the events the Porto Diao gang has lined up for all of our readers and friends. There has been some rearranging in the House of Porto, mostly because this March 23rd marks the first anniversary of the dastardly charmer. That’s right, a year ago Quique and I bought a server [...]
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