Mérida
After a run of two weeks through the Mayan Rivera, I arrived in Merida with the idea of staying here a few weeks. I was thinking that spending a more extended amount of time in the same city could help me book live shows for Black Sea Storm, and get organized for the following stages of the tour.
After playing the streets for the past five months or so, it was about time in my views to start playing real shows with a P.A., a mic stand and a microphone. When I happen to stay only three or four days in a city, and I don’t do my homework beforehand, as I start networking with people who may be able to open doors for me for playing shows, that is when it’s time for me to leave town for the next one. I decided that I won’t go away from Mérida until I play a legitimate show here.
My Good Friend Javed
As a great surprise, the most valuable help came from someone I already knew here in Mérida. A good friend of mine named Javed, who also happens to co-own with his family a restaurant called Nanishe. I told Javed on the day I arrived in town that I was looking for opportunities to play live. Javed replied saying he may be able to put me in touch with people who could help me out with booking a show in Mérida. A couple of days later he gave me the contact information of two of his good friends, Amanda and Ricardo. The couple owned and managed an independent art structure by transforming half of their house into a performance place.
El Teatrito Yucatán
I immediately contacted Amanda and Ricardo. They invited me to a free movie night they had at El Teatrito on a Thursday night. I first briefly met Amanda at the door of the building, before making my way to the dark theatre room. Once comfortably seated in front of the movie screen with a pillow to support my back, I was able to catch the last 20 minutes of a Mexican movie called “Violeta al fin.” I liked the pace of what I saw, and the colors of some of the shots were appealing to me. After the closing credits, there was a little debrief about what we had just finished watching. I thought that it was an excellent initiative to encourage people to talk about what they had experienced with the movie.
Face to Face Booking
Once the room emptied out, I had the chance to meet Ricardo. We then moved to the cafeteria area. He and Amanda explained to me how their structure worked and how they supported the artists performing at the theatre. I had brought my guitar with me so I could play a couple of songs to give
Ricardo had said earlier that they weren’t into the audition mentality, which I think is a great approach, but I want to play whenever I can. This is why I still had the guts to ask if they wanted me to play, although the shows were already booked. From a music business
Ricardo, Amanda, and other people still present in the theatre showed interest in the idea of me playing and encouraged me to do so. I played Kayıp Bir Aşk in front of 10 attentive listeners. There was a round of applause when I finished playing. Which was heartwarming. I was able to talk about my lyrics and a little bit about the subtleties of the Turkish language. After chatting for a few minutes, I asked the remaining audience if they would like to hear another song of mine. I played
Getting Ready
The next day I created a to-do list for myself to prepare the upcoming shows. The most critical items for me on the list were running the set as much as I can and add a new song to the acoustic set-list. There is one thing I have learned being in bands for many years. I need to practice way more than what I could consider as enough before the actual show day. Many times once on stage, I wished I had practiced way more. I don’t like to be in that position. I want to enjoy the show as much as I can and present the better version of myself as a musician to the public watching the show.
The beneficial aspect with the acoustic set is that I don’t rely on anyone to run the set. It’s all on me. Practice brings me to a level where I feel comfortable on stage, and then the real work and learning process starts right there. There is nothing like playing live. It’s like an official soccer game for a soccer player. No practice will ever replace the minutes played in a real game. For a rocker, I believe that it is a similar situation. At least it is for me. I really want to get myself to a place where I play live almost every night again, this is when I genuinely feel that I am evolving as a musician, because playing live often, starts adding up. Not only the set starts sounding better every night, but also the feeling of becoming a better musician is something that brings me a tremendous amount of joy.
Breaking the Bridge
It wouldn’t be fun if there weren’t any obstacles on the way. Saturday a week before the first Mérida show I had a thought. How great it was to have a full week to get ready for this first Black Sea Storm show. I was soon about to realize that my happiness was a bit anticipated. I managed to play all day on that Saturday. At one point I wanted to take a break from playing, I leaned back on the sofa I was seating on. I put my made in China guitar on my lap the guitar facing the ceiling. As I took a deep breath to relax, I heard a pretty loud sound coming from the guitar. I first thought a string broke. After checking the six of them, I realized that the guitar strings were OK. I decided to strum a few chords. The guitar was completely out of tune. I re-tuned it, and it stayed in tune fine. What had changed was the feeling while playing. It wasn’t the same. As if I had lost some of the low frequencies, and the action was getting even higher than before.
I, later on, realized that the top part of the bridge had popped off. Once again, I was paying the price of purchasing a cheap guitar. I had already changed all the machine heads on the actual guitar. This investment alone ended up equaling the price I had paid to acquire the instrument in the first place. And now the bridge was popping off. When I think that I had a Fender Jazz bass made in the U.S. for over 25 years and it never had a single problem. In situations like these, I always remember the English saying that states, “I am too poor to buy inexpensive shoes.” The thing with this low-cost Chinese guitar isn’t really about that I couldn’t afford a more expensive guitar. The fact that the guitar is a cheap one spares a lot of stress for me. When I play the streets, it feels more comfortable to play with such a guitar than pulling out a Taylor or a Martin out of my soft-case. I don’t mind taking the Chinese guitar to the beach, it gives me peace of mind when traveling with it. On top of all, the guitar is relatively light. I think I am going to continue the adventure with it if I can get it fixed properly.
Luthier Hunting in Mérida
After watching a few videos on YouTube on the bridge popping out of an acoustic guitar, I learned that it takes about 48 hours for the glue to dry to fix it. That meant that I needed to act fast, to have a functioning guitar in my hands for the day of the show. My first idea was to gather all the information I could from the web. I had a list of few places in Mérida where I could get the guitar to be fixed. Since it was Saturday night and all the businesses were closed, I decided to send a message to Javed of Nanishe. Since he was able to hook me up with the right people to book the show, maybe he could help me sort this issue out as well. Javed plays the Jarana an instrument from the state of Veracruz. He is a part of a collective, and they play shows. In a short amount of time, Javed was able to give me the contact info of a luthier named Manuel. I sent Manuel a message and told him what was happening. I also sent him a couple of photos of the bridge. He told me that the job would take him four days. That was terrible news for me. But once he mentioned the 48 hours for the glue to dry, that’s when he made a good impression on me as me to know what he was talking about. I told him that I was going to weigh my options and give him a final answer the next day
I got in touch with a few other luthiers, but my gut feeling was guiding me towards trusting Manuel. He told me that he could meet me at
Getting Excited to Play Live
As I am finishing to write this post, it is Wednesday, July 10th. In three days I will be playing live “inşallah”, I am looking forward to the very first official Black Sea Storm show in Mexico on July 13th at El