Jamie Morris: The Official Site

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2007

I'm back after a long 33 hour trek home from Paraty. I ended up seeing two more cities than I originally planned thanks to the great bus system in Brazil, but I only took pictures in a couple of cities.

Feb 17-20 -- Rio de Janeiro
Feb 21 -- Ouro Preto
Feb 22 -- Mariana
Feb 23 -- Belo Horizonte
Feb 24-26 -- Paraty

Here are the photos! Stories coming soon...

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FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 09, 2007

Tonight I went to the Troubadour for the first time since I saw Bloc Party there 2 years ago. Miho Hatori was playing a solo show to support her first solo album, Ecdysis. It was my first time seeing her solo. I've seen her before when she was with Cibo Matto and also with Smokey & Miho a couple of times. Unfortunately, I have to say that I wasn't that impressed with her this time. I found her bizarre stories between songs much more interesting than the songs themselves. A couple of them were pretty good, but I'd rather listen to Cibo Matto any day. A local latino new-wave band called Los Abandoned opened up. They had a lot of energy and put on a fun show. I'm not sure when my next update will be. I'm going to be boring this weekend and then next week my friend Lydia will be in town visiting from Korea, so we'll be busy. And then on Friday morning I'm leaving for Brazil. Here's my itinerary:

Feb 17-20 -- Rio de Janeiro
Feb 21-23 -- Ouro Preto
Feb 24-26 -- Paraty
Feb 27-27 -- São Paulo

My visa is good for 5 years, so I should use it right? :-)

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SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 04, 2007

The contents of my piggy bank. I don't think it's been emptied since I moved here nearly 8 years ago. Rather than spending hours and hours rolling all of this coinage, I decided to try one of those new-fangled machines they have in the grocery stores. I took my big bag of coins and poured them into a Coinstar machine at my local CVS/pharmacy and I was pretty impressed with the results. It sorted and counted everything (except for a really beat up penny and a canadian nickel) in just a few minutes. After your money is counted, you can either get cash (less an 8.9% fee) or you can get a gift card or eCertificate (no fee!). I got a $34.91 Amazon.com eCertificate.

Today was also the first 80 degree temperature day here at the beach since... I don't know... October? I took advantage of nice weather and went for a 20-mile bike ride on the beach path. I spent the afternoon inside watching the Super Bowl like everyone else. This year on an HDTV for the first time. The first half of the game was pretty good. The commercials were a little disappointing. My favorite was the Chad Johnson SuperBowl Party ad that aired during the pre-game show and featured many celebs including David Beckham, a professional football player for Los Angeles. You can watch it here (after a 15-second IBM commercial).

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FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 02, 2007

I forget that The Temple Bar is just down the street. It's a small venue that has a lot of cool world music artists that perform there. Tonight they had a band that I've been wanting to see for awhile... Dengue Fever. I'm not really sure how to describe them so I'll quote their bio:

Dengue Fever is in the vanguard of an emerging global pop sensibility, making music that’s both familiar, yet eerily unique. Fronted by Cambodian pop star Ch’hom Nimol, who sings in Khmer, the Los Angeles sextet blends the rhythms of ‘60s Cambodian pop - heavily influenced by American surf, rock and early psychedelic garage bands - with their own eclectic mix of American and international styles. Unlike the world music bands of the late 80s, Dengue Fever is more concerned with a universal groove and breaking down musical barriers than with notions of authenticity. There are echoes of Bollywood soundtracks, Ethiopian soul, American R&B, Cambodian folk, Spaghetti Western weirdness and girl group angst in the mix, but the resulting concoction is all their own.

Anyways, I think they sound pretty cool and unique. You can listen to some clips on their myspace page. The show was great. They played for almost an hour and a half. My only complaint is that they didn't play a couple of my favorite songs, so I guess I'll just have to go see them again. Their lastest album is called Escape From Dragon House. You should buy it.

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