Going Back to Hermosillo to Record
After spending a few days in Mexicali, I decided to head back to Hermosillo to record with Kacho Olivares. I had met him the day I had committed to going to Mexicali while I was still in Hermosillo. Once in Mexicali, I decided to not pass on this excellent opportunity to record within a decent home studio with real rock instruments and amplifiers. My initial plan was to go to Tijuana after Mexicali. Still, I decided to head back to Hermosillo and record some of the songs I had been playing live for the past couple of years with the acoustic guitar. Although I had one more night booked at the Airbnb cabin in Mexicali, I decided to take off on Saturday night and ride the bus back to Sonora from Baja, California.
I arrived in Hermosillo Sunday morning on January 10th, 2021. The bus ride from Mexicali only took 10 hours instead of the 15-hour bus ride going in the opposite direction. Probably because no one is smuggling drugs from the United States to Mexico. There was only one checkpoint as opposed to three on my way up. It was an ultra-modern facility. I just had to take my belongings through a scanner then reload my luggage on the other end of the facility where the bus was waiting after passing its own separate inspection. It felt more like being at an airport than at a checkpoint in the middle of the Mexican desert.
When the bus arrived in Hermosillo, I was asleep. The bus making a stop made me wake up. TAP, the bus company I was using, stops at two different locations in Hermosillo. I had arrived at the smaller terminal without realizing that we had come to Hermosillo. After a good five minutes of looking through the window daydreaming, I suddenly recognized the surroundings of the terminal and realized that I had indeed arrived in Hermosillo. I unbuckled my seatbelt put all my traveling accessories in the front pocket of my guitar sleeve, and rushed outside with my guitar as the other passengers were about to get back inside the bus after their coffee break. The bus was heading to Guadalajara as its final destination. I wonder at what point I would have noticed that I had missed both Hermosillo stops?
My Airbnb host, Maria Laura, was very kind over the WhatsApp messaging. She let me check in early, which was a lifesaver. Most of the Airbnbs won’t let me check in until 3 PM. After a 10-hour bus ride waiting five more hours at a bus station just to check in to my room isn’t the ideal situation. Soon after I checked in into the Airbnb, I went straight to bed and took a nap. I wanted to rest as much as possible before starting the recording sessions with Kacho the next day.
Madre Tierra
I had purposefully booked the Airbnb to be close to my favorite vegetarian restaurant in Hermosillo to save time and money on the commute. The location of the room I was renting was perfect. I was only two blocks away from Madre Tierra. This is where Kacho worked as a delivery boy during the day. I usually don’t like to mix services; I am purchasing one with the other. Especially eating is something I have massive respect for, and I dedicate the time and attention it deserves. I want to be in a relaxed mood when I am eating. When you mix recording business with food, you potentially may be bringing stress into your eating time. There is also the risk that if something goes wrong with one relationship, the other may be negatively affected. On this occasion, I was going to make an exception to my own principles and mix the two activities. Madre Tierra was the most delicious affordable vegetarian restaurant in town, and I had met Kacho for the first time there.
Getting Ready to Record
We scheduled our first recording session for Monday, January 11th, 2021. I was excited to record with a producer for the first time with Black Sea Storm. Kacho also seemed happy to record with me, which I perceived as an ideal situation. Several stars need to align in my rock n’ roll book to get the best results with recording engineers and producers. It’s such an involved process to record someone else’s music that it’s not only about the engineer’s skills, vision, and experience. The crucial element is how much of her heart the producer is willing to put into your project. How seriously is she taken your project? Does she see it just as a job to make some cash? Or she sees it as an opportunity to bring her career forward. Once the recording is over, would she show her work proudly to other people in the industry?
With Kacho, it seemed like we’ve met at the right time in our rock n’ roll journeys. The two of us have been rocking for the past decades, and the so-called pandemic had forced Kacho to go more in music production. On my end, although I had been pursuing Black Sea Storm since 2002, this session was going to be the first time I would be recording with someone else. It was a situation where we were both quite experienced in playing and recording rock music, and yet there was this element of doing something new for the both of us.
I had already started doing my homework in Mexicali to get the first song, “Yollar Üstünde,” ready for recording. Being able to play a song does not mean that the song is ready to be recorded. Things like determining the tempo, knowing the song’s structure, and writing arrangements are crucial pre-production elements to not waste valuable time in the studio.
When I first write a song, the initial challenge is to play and sing the song simultaneously. As the time passes by and I perform the song live, I start to take the vocals to situate myself within the song’s structure. It means that after a while, I don’t count the parts anymore. It is why I need to listen to the song and write down the structure on a piece of paper and learn it before the recording session.
The performance is obviously the most essential component of a recording session from the musician’s perspective. Although I played these live acoustic versions of my songs for a couple of years almost every day, I come from the school that you never know your songs well enough. There is always room for improvement, and when I am taken into different environments to perform my songs, there are always new challenges arising.
Doing studio recordings is a bit like putting my songs under a microscope. I suddenly hear flaws I wasn’t hearing playing the song live. For that reason, I feel like a musician should own her songs as much as possible before going into a recording session. Practicing regularly is crucial, in my opinion. To perform one specific song better, but through practice and running the set, and thrive for becoming a better performer every day God makes. To me, there are many aspects of music that are similar to sports. And practicing is one of them.
Logistics
Kacho’s studio was located in Rancho Bonito, an entire gated neighborhood twenty minutes outside of the city center of Hermosillo. Since he was working at Madre Tierra during the day, we met at night to record. This meant I had to go from Los Arcos to Rancho Bonito back and forth with Uber rides late at night. The situation raised several challenges. First, Hermosillo is a pretty dangerous city, especially at night. Second, Los Arcos is a neighborhood known for drug trafficking in Hermosillo. Third, having a foreign name seemed to scare the shit out of the Uber drivers who will often cancel my rides for no reason. Fourth, due to the so-called pandemic, there were some strict measures and several checkpoints in-between Los Arcos and Rancho Bonito. One wasn’t allowed to travel for nonessential reasons at night.
Kacho lived in this gated community with his mom and brother. To enter the property was more complicated than crossing an international border within western Europe. The Uber drivers needed to enter their identifications in a box equipped with a camera and a spotlight. I needed to tell who I was and who I was here to visit. The security guards were hiding in a bunker-like structure; they could see the visitors without being seen. Once the agents would identify the visitors, they would check with Kacho or his mom via the phone if they were expecting the people waiting at the gate. Once the security agents received Kacho’s confirmation, they would finally open the gate. This is how I learned Kacho’s real name. Since I could not tell security agents I was here to see El Kacho, I needed to communicate his real name. Later on, I intended to call Kacho by his real name once, and he made me understand very quickly that he did not want me to call him by his given name. This is why I won’t share it here. Some nicknames fit a person perfectly, and this was one of those situations. Kacho was born to be nicknamed El Kacho.
Getting inside the property was for sure an involved process. After each recording session to go back home was even more complicated for me. We would finish our sessions between 2 to 3 AM. At that time, there were even fewer Ubers working. Being so late at night amplified the risk factor for Uber drivers. I would get at least a couple of cancelations before one would finally accept my request. Although I felt discriminated against, I did not think that the drivers were meanly racist against me. There weren’t many foreigners in Hermosillo to start with, so if someone with my physique named Ali called an Uber at 3 AM in the morning in the middle of the desert, I could understand that some people would get a bit nervous. I think it’s just human nature. It is interesting to me how political correctness will vanish when we as humans face potentially real danger. In these kinds of situations, the inborn human defense mechanisms tend to take over. So I wasn’t offended by the situation. I even thought it was better that strangers were a bit scared of me than the opposite.
I realize how much what I am doing with Black Sea Storm in Latin America is out of the norm in times like these. What Turkish band would be recording some Turkish rock in the Sonora desert at 3 AM in the morning during times with restrictions?
Finding a Uber wasn’t the end of the struggle. I needed to explain to the drivers through messaging that the pick-up would take place on a gated property. I faced several cancellations at this stage of the process. When that would happen, the reason for the ride cancellation wasn’t necessarily my background, but most probably because the driver did not want to go through all pain to get inside of Kacho’s gated neighborhood. Since the process at the gate was to call Kacho’s mom on her cellphone, the call would wake her up in the middle of the night. We decided with Kacho to change the process after a few recording sessions and meet the Uber driver outside the property. I would then coordinate the pick-up by messaging the driver. Since I did not have a phone plan, Kacho would share his hotspot from his phone, and we would walk, sometimes drive to the gate with my guitar and my heavy gig bag. As I mentioned earlier, the Uber drivers were usually suspicious of me, but there was also a danger factor as far as my safety was concerned. Since I had already had a bad experience with fake cab drivers in Mexico, I knew the danger was real without being scared.
Once we’d meet with the Uber, Kacho would slightly intimidate the drivers saying something along the lines of “-He is a foreigner, but he is with us.” First-time Kacho did that, I thought it wasn’t wise to communicate to the drivers that I was a foreigner. Since I am fluent in Spanish, there are times when people don’t even ask me where am I from. I even faced situations when they would ask me from what part of Mexico I am visiting the town I was in. I confronted Kacho about why he revealed that I was a foreigner upfront to the drivers. He explained his logic, saying that if the drivers knew that I was backed up by somewhat influential Mexicans in Hermosillo, they would not dare to do something bad to me.
I would usually get the weirdest Uber drivers during those late-night rides back to Los Arcos from Rancho Bonito. Mostly asocial misfits, probably because it was more difficult for them to work during the day when normality is more dominant. Some of the drivers were a bit scary with obvious mental issues, but I would meet fascinating talkative people on occasions.
One night I met a retired semi-trailer driver with a huge beard and a baseball cap. He fit the truck driver stereotype I’ve seen during the various tours I did in the US. He was 200% into old-school rock n’ roll. When he saw my guitar, and I told him that I was recording with a producer here in Hermosillo, he got excited and looked me up online while driving me back to Los Arcos. He then put some Black Sea Storm jams on the stereo system of the car. I think giving me a ride back home made his day. Before dropping me off, he told me that he was honored that he had met me. I told him that it was mutual and that I enjoyed sharing our road stories with one another. Somehow while talking about the song “Yollar Üstünde,” we had some sort of a connection. Since the song is about a touring musician, the conversation became about riding the freeways for a long time. A truck driver and rocker have different types of profiles on the surface, but when it comes to touring, we share the same space, and perhaps we also share a similar search for freedom through what we do.
Starting to Record
Kacho had a great musician-centered business model for his studio. He wouldn’t charge by the hour but by the song. He guaranteed that we would work on the song until we were satisfied with the end result. His strategy was to reinvest all the earnings the studio would generate into the studio itself to make it sound better over time. This is why he kept working at Madre Tierra to not depend on music production to make a living. In terms of gear, Kacho had all the rock instruments and amplifiers available. It was an excellent situation for a nomadic musician like myself. Although we had it all as far as rock n’ roll instruments were concerned, Kacho’s studio did not have much in terms of high-quality mics, preamps, and external compressors. He was using the preamp of his PreSounus mixing board, and the best mic we had in between the both of us was my Audio Technica 2050. Kacho made a great move by anticipating my first payment and went ahead and purchased a kit of Shure microphones for his drums with his credit card.
Guitar and Bass Arrangements
The idea with this recording session was to capture on a hard drive the acoustic versions of Black Sea Storm songs I was performing live. I had been touring with these songs for a couple of years now. I had the main guitar parts and the vocals ready, but since the recording opportunity came out of nowhere by surprise, I had no arrangements for my songs. I needed to write the second guitars and the bass lines, and I needed to write and learn them fast. Kacho was very enthusiastic about writing and performing the drum parts. He seemed so excited that early on into the recording session, I got the impression that he was doing the whole music production thing so he could play the drums. Later on, getting to know him better musically, I understood that his philosophy was to support the song by all means. He wasn’t an instrument-centered musician but a real musician and producer.
The first song, “Yollar Üstünde,” took us a couple of weeks to finish. It was a long process to record only one song, but we’ve learned a lot from that experience. The second song, “Ayrıldım Ben,” took us a week. Our aim after that was to record two songs a week. It was a lot of work. During the day, I was working on the arrangements, and on my freelancer gig, Kacho would be doing deliveries for Madre Tierra. At night we would record from 9 PM to 3 AM.
Writing the arrangements was one thing, but then I had to learn what I had written to perform it in the studio. The challenges were multiple. First, the parts were new, so I had to memorize them. Since they were new, I also needed to learn them well enough to perform them well. For the guitar parts, an extra challenge was to play those parts mainly in the higher spectrum of the guitar. I am a bass player, and I feel the most comfortable on a guitar with the rhythm guitar and playing arpeggios. I only play in the higher range, usually for arrangement purposes. When I record by myself, I take the time it needs until I perform those parts well. But in this situation, I had to perform the parts rather quickly because I wasn’t alone.
At the end of the day, all those little challenges were positives ones. This is how one gets to become a better musician, I think. Although involved, I truly enjoyed the entire process of being super busy with what I love doing the most in life.
Running Into Technical Problems
Due to bad luck and maybe also because Kacho’s studio setup was relatively new, we ran into many technical problems. The first issue we ran into happened in the very first session. My electroacoustic guitar was buzzing. I had encountered a similar problem when I was recording “Geçti Yar” in Uruguay. I was able to resolve the issue by plugging all my equipment into an electrical outlet located in the bathroom instead of the electrical socket of the room I was recording in. The problem did not solely come from the guitar but from two different sources adding up.
Kacho did not have a surge protector at this stage for his studio setup. He told me that one of the best technicians in Mexico had a shop in Hermosillo, his name was Adalberto Salazar. Kacho put me in touch with Adalberto. The guy lived over 10 years in the United States, working with guitars. The next day I went to the guitar repair shop called Salazar Guitar Garage. Adalberto was able to fix the issue the same day, a lifesaver to not waste valuable time with the recording sessions. He also had his own brand for guitar pick-ups. I am always thrilled to meet passionate people excelling in what they love doing.
I remembered Kacho telling me that he also lived over 10 years in the United States. I came to the realization that Kacho, Adalberto, and I, had all spent over a decade in North America doing activities related to rock n’ roll, and now the three of us were in Mexico pursuing our passion. I thought it was a good mix to have had the opportunity to experience the United States and be currently in Mexico, where a rocker needs to be creative to find solutions to overcome particular infrastructural and logistics-based challenges.
The second problem we ran into was that the Kacho’s PreSonus mixing board. It would freeze out of the blue. My intuition was telling me that there was something wrong with the electrical setup in Kacho’s house. Kacho was spending lots of time on forums to figure out what was wrong since other people around the globe were experiencing the same exact same issue with the exact same model of the PreSonus mixer. Kacho eventually came up with several hacks to reinitiate the mixer, but the solutions wouldn’t always work. We had a couple of sessions interrupted because of the mixer being frozen. To solve the problem, Kacho borrowed an audio interface from his girlfriend Flor to replace the mixing board. It served us well. The problem was that the interface only had four entries, and for the drums, we needed more simultaneous inputs. To record the guitars, vocals, and bass guitar, the interfaced served us well.
One night Kacho suggested that we play FIFA on his PlayStation before calling it a day. Although I love soccer, I wasn’t too thrilled by the idea. Since it was quite of an investment of time, money, and energy to be in Hermosillo. In addition to bringing my ass over, Kacho’s studio had its own series of challenges. For all those reasons, I did not want to waste a minute being in the studio doing something not related to Black Sea Storm. Kacho was able to convince me by letting me pick TRABZONSPOR against his favorite team Chivas. We both didn’t know how to play FIFA very well, so the game ended with a 0-0 draw.
Kacho was on entertainment mode and was probably wholly done with recording in his head for the night. After the game, he put on the TV. I can’t emphasize enough how much I hate watching TV. I despise that activity with all my heart. I officially quit watching TV in 2002 after the World Cup in Japan Korea was over. On this occasion, it was even more painful because we were in a recording studio, and instead of making music, we were goofing around. I get the whole Fussball culture present in tech companies to occasionally take a break from work, to get inspired, and go back to work more energized. For me making rock music is not work. I never get bored playing music. I can do it all day, every day. Playing music gives me all I need to be happy. I take regular breaks from intense recording or mixing sessions, but I usually jam or do other music-related activities.
During the Sonora Desert sessions, I recorded my 15-second Arpeggios of The Day, posting them on Instagram during our breaks. I actually think that those kinds of dead moments when I am not recording, during a soundcheck, before a show, or warming up before practice are perhaps the best moments to find new ideas. The pressure is off, but I have an instrument in my hands, and I am in a musical environment. I’ve come up with tons of new ideas during my career during those dead moments. Which are actually full of life in terms of creativity.
Arabian Reggeaton
On his big-screen TV, Kacho put on a channel broadcasting some music videos. The most uncommon combination of elements was united in a single one of those videos. It was a reggeaton band from a rich Arab country. They were doing reggeaton in Arabic. Up to this point, nothing that much surprising. But then, to show off their wealth, the Arabic regeatoners, instead of being around fancy cars, were riding brand new super fancy tractors and other agricultural vehicles. The imagery was just hilarious. Kacho and I started to laugh our asses off.
Kacho was sitting on my left-hand side, and on my right-hand side, there was a bucket full of Mexican beer. Kacho already had a couple of beers at this point. On my end, I quit drinking alcohol in April 2016. I did not have a drop of alcohol since then. Although I have a certificate as a Tequila specialist that I earned during my years working as a restaurant manager in San Diego, I could not be selling alcohol today. In fact, I can not sell something that I don’t consume myself. Lately, I even thought that I did not want to have anything to do with alcohol anymore. I never again wanted to put myself in a position of being an intermediary of any sort. If friends, not knowing that I don’t drink, offered me a bottle of wine, I don’t even want to give the present to someone I know who drinks.
In the middle of the Arabian Reggeaton video, Kacho asked me if I could pass him a bottle of beer as he had just finished the one he was drinking. I looked at the bucket of beer, and I hesitated, thinking that I was an intermediary to the alcohol consumption. Then I looked at Kacho; he was having such a good time watching that video. He is a tall, quite heavy guy. I felt bad for eventually breaking his mood and make him go and reach to the bucket himself. So I grabbed a bottle of beer, and I handed the cold bottled beverage to him. He opened the bottle and had a sip. The Arabian Regeatton action was getting more and more hilarious. We would both laugh at each new element that was thrown at us. At one point in the video, the reggeattoners showed off with some well irrigated green agricultural fields they perhaps owned, still riding their fancy brand new tractors.
Kacho was in the process of taking his second sip of beer from the bottle I had handed to him earlier. Just when he wanted to put the bottle on the desk where his laptop was sitting, he managed to spill the remaining beer contained in the bottle on his computer. The computer had all the Black Sea Storm songs we had recorded so far. I perceived the situation as a disaster. Kacho tried to dry up the laptop as fast as possible, but it looked like the computer was damaged. After he cleaned the device, we’ve noticed that the computer started to act weird. Kacho was unable to open the Black Sea Storm projects with Logic. Some of the keyboard commands wouldn’t compute. Kacho reassured me that he had all the files backed up in an external hard drive, but for the time being, we did not have a functioning computer anymore.
Divine Punishment
I was convinced that this was divine punishment because I had handed Kacho the bottle of alcohol. Kacho also believed that he was being punished by forces from above. Not because of the alcohol element but more because he had made fun of Arabs. He was on his knees, begging God to forgive him that he would never make fun of Arabs again. Seeing him like that was comical to me. I first thought he was joking and acting up, but soon realized that he was serious. I thought he was too hard on himself to feel guilty. The whole Arabic agricultural reggeaton thing was hilarious; anyone with a sense of humor would laugh at that video. The fact that they were Arabs just made the entire thing more out of the ordinary. I was convinced that the message from above and punishment was for me because as no drinker I had passed the beer bottle to Kacho. On that night, I decided that I would never again put myself as an intermediary person in the alcohol consumption.
The recording session got compromised.
After the spilling beer incident, the Sonora Desert Recordings got compromised. I was, of course, sad for the material damage that endured Kacho, but the possibility of losing what we had already recorded and not being able to record was what incommoded me the most. So many stars needed to get aligned to make these desert sessions even possible that in the case that we’d be forced to cancel, I did not have much hope to find a similar opportunity soon. Although I believe that there is always a solution, I was a bit devastated.
The next day Kacho called me and told me that he would go all out with his credit card and buy a new Mac Mini equipped with the latest fastest processor. My mood went from being depressed to a state of complete happiness. What really made me happy wasn’t only the fact that we were able to find a solution to keep it going, but more the warrior attitude of Kacho. I felt like he took the project to heart as much as I did, and he did not want to give up. It reinforced the idea that we were on the same page in terms of commitment.
As far as I know, Hermosillo is the only city in Mexico that has an official Mac Store. After charging Kacho’s credit card for the Mac Mini, the people working at the store told him that they did not have the actual computer at the store at the moment. It was going to take a couple of days to receive it. In parallel, Kacho went to a repair shop to try to get the beer spilled Mac Book Pro to be fixed. The whole situation put me back into the worried mom zone. Even a couple of days of waiting was a negative situation to be in for me.
We then got informed by the Mac Store that it would take them a month before receiving the Mac Mini. This was a kind of disastrous situation for Black Sea Storm. I started to think that the recording session got affected by the evil eye. I had the intuition that it was probably a bad idea to share so many pictures of the recording session on Instagram and Facebook. Sharing that many pictures got our sessions exposed to the evil eye.
I did not want to quit sharing pictures and video clips from the Sonora Desert Recordings because there was quite some interest in my post from Black Sea Storm lovers worldwide. As a solution, I decided to put an evil eye protector emoji on all the material I would be sharing in the future about the recording session. I wasn’t a very superstitious person early on in life, then getting into supporting a soccer team intensely in the mid-’90s started to make me believe that unseeable forces were acting on fate. The Sonora Desert Recordings made me believe even more in superstition. Since Kacho was a massive believer in the powers of the Universe and we were spending a lot of time together, perhaps we mutually influenced each other to be even more superstitious. One day I asked Kacho if he was able to fix the mixing board. He answered no, but I shouldn’t worry because today he had a good feeling about the energy coming from the Universe, and the mixer was going to work fine.
Good news came from the computer repair shop. They took apart Kacho’s Mac Book Pro and placed all the components into a special liquid to clean them. As a result, Kacho’s computer was operational again. We were still handicapped by the mixer, which would occasionally work, but with the interfaced Kacho borrowed from Flor as a backup, we were able to keep on recording.
Staying Longer in Hermosillo
We were able to make progress, but things started to take more time than initially planned. The pressure came from the fact that my Mexican visa was going to expire end of March. I was thinking of going to Guatemala before the expiration date. Since I still wanted to go up north to the US border to Tijuana, travel through the entire Baja California, to Cabo San Lucas, and take the ferry to cross to Mazatlan and ride a bus to Guatemala. The more time the recording session was taking, the more unrealistic my plan was because I needed to finish recording and do all the traveling before the end of March. I kept extending my stay at the apartment to give us more time to complete the project.
Making Progress
After recording “Yollar Üstünde” and “Ayrıldım Ben” we started to work on “Karanlıkta”, “Kesilme Topraktan”, “Kayıp Bir Aşk” and “Dünya’nın Kalbine.” Kacho would work on mixing and recapturing drum parts outside of the recording sessions, and I’d be working on finding guitar arrangements and bass lines. It felt like the experience gained recording the first two songs brought us to a new level. With Kacho, we were having conversations that reminded me of the ones I’d have in the past with bandmates. It felt more like we were in a band together than working with a producer. Along the way, we’ve learned how to get things done faster and better. It was a real challenge to attend that many sessions late at night and still work during the day. I was having so much fun that the involvement did not bother me. The only thing that wasn’t ideal consisted of the fact that our bodies would be already a bit tired when we started the recording sessions. I did not mind it too much for playing, but it was a problem for the vocals at times. If my voice is tired, it can easily be heard on a recording.
On February 25th, 2021, we were officially done with recording. We were able to record and mix a total of six songs. Seven tracks with the intro of “Kayıp Bir Aşk” being split on a different track. The entire process took us a total of 45 days. We had 28 recording sessions in Rancho Bonito, representing roughly 56 Uber rides minus the few times Kacho was able to pick me up from Los Arcos. 56 times I did not die! When I used to play shows in the US and Europe, the most stressful part of the night would be the show. In Latin America, on many occasions, the most stressful part of the night has been to make it back home OK after the show. Similarly, with these recording sessions, the most stressful parts of the session were those Uber rides in the middle of the Sonora desert late at night.
This was indeed the most challenging, lengthy, and stressful recording session I’ve ever experienced in my life. Our schedule and the logistics played a significant role in the recordings taking that much time. There is also the fact that we ran into technical difficulties, and I had none of the pre-production work-ready beforehand.
Kacho
I will always be thankful to rock music for allowing me to meet the most extraordinary people that there is to meet on this planet. When I look back, I come to the conclusion that through rock n’ roll, I’ve met the most amazing people and made life-lasting deep friendships. If I’d were to take out all the friendships I’ve made through rock n’ roll, my social life would have been kind of dull. Just for that reason alone, I think that my rock n’ roll career is a big success.
Kacho definitely is one of those extraordinary people I’ve met through rock music. The guy eats and breaths rock n’ roll. I was amazed how just from the two-track demos I’d record at home, he would get the song’s essence we will be working on. He would get what I was going for even before all the elements were there. Each time he’d have some downtime at work at Madre Tierra, he’d be mixing with his laptop or doing some research on recording forums to learn about gear or recording technics. Although we had very different temperaments, I really appreciated collaborating with him on this Black Sea Storm album.
Besides music, the guy is a great human being. He definitely comes from the dominant alpha male school, but somehow he’s able to canalize the excess of testosterone and energy to pour it into the love he has for people and his passion; I’ve never heard him talk negatively about anyone. Although he was younger than me, he had this caring, protective dad attitude towards me. He seemed kind of worried that something bad would happen to me during those late Uber rides. He’d always ask me to send him a message when I make it home, OK.
Hermosillo
During my stay in Hermosillo, I was able to establish a productive routine for myself. I spent my entire time between the house, the gym, Madre Tierra, and Kacho’s recording studio. Besides Kacho’s studio, everything I needed was within walking distance in Los Arcos. When Madre Tierra was closed on Sundays, I would occasionally go to Las Ruinas neighborhood to have lunch at Sera Verde, another delicious vegetarian restaurant in Hermosillo. During my extended stay, I was able to meet a good number of people. Often times when I was at Madre Tierra, people would randomly initiate the conversation with me. Perhaps seeing a foreigner in that part of the country intrigued them? Through those random encounters, I was able to meet fascinating people and have great conversations.
Hermosillo being a bit detached from the rest of the country was already a source of inspiration for me in itself. And socially, I could observe that people were honest, down to earth and sincere. It was refreshing and unexpected. There were even moments I thought I could live in Hermosillo if I were to switch to a sedentary life again. There is a feeling that the madness affecting the world does not affect Hermosillo.
Live Session
Kacho’s girlfriend Flor and her sister Dulce were into video production. They happened to be musicians as well. We decided to record six of my songs live. Kacho was going to capture the sound, and the two sisters were going to shoot me playing and later on put the audio and the video together. It was the first time I was doing something like that. I thought it would just be like playing a show, but it was more complex than a show for me. Although I wasn’t thrilled with my own performance, the result looked professional. I think I can build on this experience to perform better next time I do a live session. I also believe that having an ear monitor is crucial, especially when recording the vocals with a condenser microphone. Since I had no amplification, I played like I would on the streets, aiming to project as much as possible. Since a sensitive condenser microphone was capturing the voice, I wasn’t pleased with the result. I think it’s better to have the return of the mix and hear the whole thing the way it is being captured and adapt the performance accordingly.
After the session was over, I had the opportunity to talk with Flor. I knew through Kacho that she was a great guitar player, and before the so-called pandemic, she was making a decent living performing live. As we were chatting, she told me that she had an accident and went through involved surgery. As a result, she had the last two fingers of her left hand paralyzed. She then showed me some graphic pictures of her operation. I was in shock and saddened to learn about her story. It would be something heavy to face for anyone, but when you are a professional musician and music is your true passion in life, it makes the situation that much more difficult.
With a big smile on her face and the most positive attitude, Flor told me that she was relearning how to play the guitar as a lefty. Since all her fingers on her right hand were fine and the ones she needed to hold the pick with on her left hand were also operational. I was fascinated by her positive and warrior attitude. Her response to what happened to her in life was so inspiring that it reinforced my belief that there is no excuse to not keep rocking no matter what.
I had the intuition that her path would be similar to the one of a superhero. Who at one point reaches rock bottom and knows how to make her way up to the very top. I told her that I was convinced that great things will come her way because of her positive attitude. I also told her that I will pray for her. Once again, I had met someone extraordinary through rock music.
Time to Leave
After getting all my digital masters from Kacho and the sisters, it was time for me to leave Hermosillo. I had exactly one month to make up to the US border and ride buses until I reached Guatemala. It was going to be a challenge. Mainly because I don’t like to rush when I am traveling. Before leaving Hermosillo, I had a thought. I came to this place in the first place because I couldn’t find an affordable place to stay in Mazatlan during the new year’s eve period. I’ve come to Hermosillo with no expectations, just to have a cheap place to stay for a week. All of a sudden, all these positives things started happening. To me, this is the power of living a nomadic life. It allows me to force my destiny at times. We are who we are; sometimes, taking our skillset and experience to a different place makes things flourish unexpectedly in a positive way. This is one of the reasons why I want to keep it going as much as I can.
After getting all my digital masters from Kacho and the sisters, it was time for me to leave Hermosillo. I had exactly one month to make up to the US border and ride buses until I reached Guatemala. It was going to be a challenge. Mainly because I don’t like to rush when I am traveling. Before leaving Hermosillo, I had a thought. I came to this place in the first place because I couldn’t find an affordable place to stay in Mazatlan during the new year’s eve period. I’ve come to Hermosillo with no expectations, just to have a cheap place to stay for a week. All of a sudden, all these positives things started happening. To me, this is the power of living a nomadic life. It allows me to force my destiny at times. We are who we are; sometimes, taking our skillset and experience to a different place makes things flourish unexpectedly in a positive way. This is one of the reasons why I want to keep it going as much as I can.
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