Gonzalo Silva
Busker
© 2004 Gonzalosilva (783707888521)
CD permanently out of stock. Sorry!
Spontaneous and unadultered performances of original songs that have stood the temperaments of folks in the subways of NYC, Boston, Montreal and Chicago.
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notes
THESE PERFORMANCES WERE RECORDED LIVE DEC. 15, 2003...
CHECK OUT MY NEW DEMO, EXCLUSIVELY ON MYSPACE.
http://www.myspace.com/gonzalosilva
OUT OF PRINT
THANK YOU
*AVAILABLE ON iTUNES*
REVIEWS ARE POSTED BELOW
see you underground.
reviews
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The time stops when you hear Gonzalo's Music
author: Carlos C ShilinskyBeing a bass player more than half my life, i heard a lot of musicans, you name it: Jaco, Wooten, Patitucci, NHOP, Scott LaFaro, etc ... but even do those are great players, Gonzalo has this unique gift ... even do i don't have the pleasure to know him personally, i can tell by his music that his heart, life, tears, joy, etc ... are in there, you can feel the honesty in his words, in the sound of his bass, his music. Absolutley beautifull music that came from him. I wish you all the best Gonzalo ! I consider myself very lucky to found Gonzalo's music, he definetly is a very special and gifted musician.
NYC in a nut shell
author: VidoniIf you want a piece of NYC to bring home, buy this CD. Gonzalo is the most underrated musician on the scene.
Amazing
author: Levi LynchThis cd is just great.I would say Gonzalo Silva is the Jack Johnson of Bass guitar.
Intense...
author: LawrenceHaving heard Gonzalo through a chance add on myspace i bought the album after hearing only 1 track. And after getting it and listening the amount of depth and emoition that can be heard is amazing and touching. Truly a great album.
Wish I'd heard these live at Park Street
author: ShawGonzalo had left Boston for NYC by the time I got back to my hometown, so I missed out on having my commute made more enjoyable by these delicately urgent offerings. A chance mention on my friend's blog brought this CD to my attention, and I'm very glad it did - much as this music helped Red Line customers while away the minutes between trains, it now helps me get through the hours at work.
A very fine effort
author: Rob LaceyGreat song writing. Great bass playing. Fine vocals as well.It would be hard to be disappointed with Busker. I am looking forward to the next disc!
Awesome CD!
author: Saja JaxI really enjoy listening to this c.d., Gonzalo's a great singer. I love to listen to it anytime I just need a little bit of calm. It is very relaxing and chill.
nice discover
author: CharlElieIt sounds exactly like what I heard sometime in the subway. Same sensibility, same kind of natural emotion. Fluant and simple as a friend singing for you some of his tender modulations. No manierism, no sophistication, jus t the way it is!
Great CD - listening is a very physical experience - truly spiritual
author: Maura StevensI love the CD - I find that I close my eyes so I can grab every word - very physical - very spiritual - very loving.
Excellent, Chanced and Enjoyed
author: Grae TurnerI like it a lot. The music, the vocals, the lyrics. All of it has a certain simplicity, and yet a real complexity that drives the album really well. It holds together solidly, and manages to keep me listening. Only problem I had was that it was short! Everything is perfect except the fact that it ends. All good things must come to an end, though.
...a true inspiration...
author: steveListening to Gonzalo Silva's "Busker", there is an immediate feeling of comfort and trust...a sense of intimacy in the very recording of the cd right down to the distant siren in "something has got to you"...it is as if Gonzalo has transported himself straight into your place for a little livingroom concert with friends. "Busker" is a deceptively simple sounding cd that just takes you somewhere...like one of those deceptively subtle films where you began watching it in "this" mood and not until the end do you realize you've been gripped by this thing and transported to "that" mood, to another place entirely--completely unaware, yet not unwilling! The musicianship, songwriting, and (deeply insightful) liner-notes combined offer an intimate experience akin to sharing some time with a busker -- "a searcher"...and this busker has found his voice, making this cd a true inspiration. If you consider music to be an intimate companion, you will not want to go another day without the experience of Gonzalo Silva's "Busker"!
An assertion of the purer self
author: A listener from CambridgeFor a long time I've been burdened by singer-songwriters who club-footedly probe their despair to its outermost limitation. Thank goodness one Saturday afternoon I happened through Boston's Park T-Stop in a good enough mood to buy a CD from this artist. Then the lingering questions became: What's up with Gonzalo Silva? And since when does a subway musician embody the pulse of the energy I feel in my generation? Busker is pure music-making, on the spot, and it's quietly fierce. Not jam band stuff: and there's nothing hit-or-miss about how Silva makes his music. His sound is at once solitary and intense in camaraderie. Always, there's a sense of nuance, especially in the phrasings, and in the ways he inserts quavers and slides. It seems weird people don't notice him right away, but I think they must be hurrying off to that ultraviolet lit jail cell known as, the office. Too bad. Here's an artist who has produced a more sophisticated CD, and now the responsibility falls upon the audience and the critics to recognize that effort--in this case to recognize the literate, stylized nature of Silva's work, and presence. Thanks S.!
Fabulous snapshot, a day in the life of.....
author: J BarnesThis album holds together thematically more than his other discs, probably because of the liner notes (good work!). To me, what sets this apart from earlier records is the perfection of his sound, now glinting and polished, combined with the lush but still very real execution of each tune. I still think the strongest songwriting on the album comes from the earlier songs (from the Berklee/Boston days), but their constant evolution and his perfection of his voice is what makes each album more exciting than the last. As a snapshot of GS's soul, this is his strongest work yet!
everything we used to hear at Park Street
author: ChandlerJust a terrific record -- even better than "Impatience." This CD has all the freshness of one of Gonzalo's performances down on the Red Line platform at Park Street (in Boston). We all wish Gonzalo well in The Big City of Dreams, but this is a reminder of what we lost when he moved to New York...and a fond reminder of some excellent impromptu shows.
Great Gamble.....he win's
author: Mahlon H. Greene Jr.The singer songwriter genre is the worst mine field in the recording industry. It is laden with a million mines, surrounded by chaotic fields of barbwires and leafy pittraps. The biggest pittrap of all, is the artist's voice, This becomes a trap when an artist attempts to sholder the burden of the song on the voice alone and thereby hope it carries the record. Gonzalo chose to steer headlong into that gamble but then he overcomes the trap of it.... ...mainly because his voice REALLY is good enough to carry this album. The next big hurdle is a lyrical barbwires, where an artist seems to think that they can pack their entire catalog of poetry into one album....kind of like that freshman at college who reads you one of her poems, you say you like it, and then she proceeds to rant for hours (much like my review...LOL) reading you her entire diary because she "finally met someone who understands...." Gonzalo sidesteps the lyric problem with angelic grace by producing a group of songs which are lyrically sparce always allowing plenty of room to realize the clarity of his communication and the depth of his emotion. Admittedly, these songs are all about his personal life, but not in a way to overexplains or spoonfeeds. Maybe its a little easier for me because I know the man behind these songs. But I think these songs transcend the person delivering them, by leaving certain key aspects open-ended, and that to me is the magic here, because when I listen one or two of these songs are about me, because I been there, we've ALL been there. The forever-battlefield of any singer songwriter is the presentation, I could go one for years about why this genre is a pain in the ass.... In a nutshell....Singer Songwriter has come to mean free wide open playing field no boundries, no limits, no out of bounds. ...and often No Focus, Unhampered by some kind of rigid form, and never stagnate on ONE groove, each of these songs take on a new flavor, WITHOUT stretching the listener's ear over a gap as wide as the grand canyon. The industry has, of late, has dragged the genre out of its introverted little shell and tossed it out into the undulating sea of industrial soundscapes and movie sample colage overkill, blurring the lines between jewel PRE-"Bling Bling" living in her car, into buku-promo budgets for Liz Phar who's trying to get a slice of sheryl crow's pie. (now, who wouldn't want a slice of that...) How do we go back to REALLY listening to some guy singing a song after that? It challenges the audience to slow back down, and let go of the media glut already overflowing their skull. and it challenges the artist to let go of the superstar image that the media glut has force fed us all. ...see Fight Club for further elaboration.... Gonzalo, in this album, made a brilliant decision to just track what he REALLY sounds like, Complete with open ended transitions, blips, switchups, digressions and even the occassional marr left in. To me, this is kind of like one of Bob Ross's happy accidents (remember Bob Ross.....HAPPY THOUGHT) Gonzalo tossed away all insecurity with this album, he discarded all shields and all restraint; While the WHOLE REST of the music world is ProTooling their ideas to death; Gonzalo just sits down and does what we ALL wish we could...PLAY! It comes across, it connects, its immediately relevant and a little more real, and a little more personal, and a little more important then just another one more of those tracks founded on thump-pop-click-quantized-new-fangled -whiz-ma-jig-WHAM!-thump-Thump-thump-LOOP Thank god someone had the balls to make this album. ...god knows the industry big wigs are not making a killing anymore; so I guess the Loop-o-Rama that has taken over the industry is OBVIOUSLY not succeeding in connecting with an audience. Unfortunately, I think the audience is not yet there for this kind of reality..... just watch reality TV for an hour, and you'll see that it is almost as fake and bs laden as the daytime soaps it was attempting to replace. Remeber "People work for years and years to become an overnight success." - A.Warhol The reason that Reality music, just like Reality TV, will forever be bogged down with mediocre response, is because, the audience doesn't want real they want escape, they WANT to BE the plastic Barbie and Ken doll... ...because the audience is comprised of people who are TERRIFIED of their own real lives....especially here in the north east.....if one were to wake up, drop the denials and look around at the overcrowding inflated rent traffic jam that the tri-state area has become....their will to deal and remain a part of it would likely evaporate instantly. This album can't change the world over night, BUT I do think it is a harbinger of a new ear-A on the way. There is a flood of REAL performers that are building up at the floodgates of a money drowning industry which is about to collapse, and when the rains come its ART-ists like Gonzalo that will be surfing the wave rather then drowning in the undertow. I envy Gonzalo for having the guts to make this album as real as it is, for people like me, like Hunter Thompson, Henry Rollins, P.J.Harvey, H.R.Crumb, Harvey Pekar, or Charles Boukowski. who ARE NOT afraid to face down their real life, and FORCE it, against all odds, to mesh with their fantasy life ...we get you Gonzalo...and garentee we are far better company then any size sea of adoring 13 yr old fans... "the amazing limitless possibilities, but only for those with true grit, ...and, man, and were chok full o' that." - H.Thompson Like I said earlier, about the singer songwriter genre, the playing field is not a diamond, nor a grid, there are no foul zones, no time limit no ball, no gloves, and no referees, so it's all you man, your imagination can...well.....anything. Gonzalo, I can't wait to see what you do next.
Portrait of the Artist
author: A Discerning ListenerRecorded live with just bass guitar and vocals, this effort from Gonzalo Silva is an intimate look at the artist. His unique style of bass-playing creates a complex and melodic context for his soulful vocals. The lack of production underlines the fact that Gonzalo Silva is an accomplished professional, performing with the assurance of a master. As Gonzalo explains in the series of essays that accompany the record, he is a busker, making his living by singing and playing in New York City's subways. Listening to this record, one is struck by the honesty of the performance; he is unselfconsciously feeling the songs as he plays them. No doubt this ability to go inside his songs helps him overcome the noise and distractions of the subway. In any case, when you listen to this record, you'll get an intimate sense of the artist. This could have been a better record with some additional production. At the very least, I would add some vocal harmonies. Someone of Gonzalo's calibre deserves a top-notch producer. Even so, I value the record as it is, for its intimacy and simplicity; these qualities are often left by the wayside in highly-produced records. "Busker" is an excellent record. Gonzalo Silva has once again given me one of the very rare records that I can play all the way through; every song is good.