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| Ruben Gonzalez, singer/songwriter |
We
first met last year at a show we both participated in at Word Up! Books in Washington Heights. He sang before
intermission, I read after. I attended one of his jam sessions in September. On June 19, 2012, we met before his show at the Nuyorican Poets Café. We popped into the Snack Dragon Taco Shack and were
greeted by the aroma of steak on the grill, soulful beats and sipped homemade
Raspberry Limeade as we discussed his career, creative process and his
panty-dropping music that he sings from his testicles in his neck.
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| At the taco shack |
Alright, introduce
yourself and tell us what you do
My name is Rubén González and I do a bunch of things,
mostly related to music. I’m a singer/songwriter. I’m also an instrumentalist;
I play bass, guitar. I’m also a teaching artist in New York City Public Schools
working with early childhood but also I arrange and direct a couple of
percussion orchestras for 3rd, 4th and 5th
graders in Brooklyn. That program has been going on for
years and years and it’s grown and it allows me to see music in a different way,
arrange for little hands, for little brains—it’s a lot of fun—at PS 130,
the one that I’m thinking of, the most important program, on Fort Hamilton
Parkway in Brooklyn. The principal is very supportive, we’ve got all kinds of
instruments, so I teach there and I arrange for them and introduce them to
music. Being a teaching artist gives me the opportunity to introduce young kids
to music the way I feel it, the way I would like to have been introduced [to it].
It makes sense now,
because when I first met you, your performance, I could see you performing for
children—you were very interactive, you wanted everyone to sing along and clap
along and now it makes sense… You said you play bass…
I play bass, I play guitar, I studied with my mentor Makanda Ken McIntyre when I came to New York City.
I was trying to learn about jazz and somebody told me to see this guy. I
went not knowing what to expect and I found the best teacher and mentor for me
at that point in my life. I studied jazz, musicianship, music and the ways to
see music, improvisation and also respect for the instrument. He’s gone now,
since 2001, but I take what I learned from him and what I learn from the
children that I teach and all the other classes that I took and I kind of melt
everything in a pot and I come up with songs.
So he was a jazz a
musician, what genre of music do you play?
Well in New York
we call it, and everywhere actually, Latin World. What I come up with are songs
that resemble Latin beats, Brazilian, Argentinian, some jazzy chords, some
rock, light rock, I have all kinds of songs. And I have a lot of songs that I
never play out [in public].
That’s one of my
questions, yes!
I don’t play them for different reasons – they may not be
catchy, they may be a little bit deeper and you know, you play The Shrine, the
gig that I had the other night, we can’t play a slow ballad about there is no
room for tears…I write a bunch of other songs with Argentinian rhythms that I
rarely play here.
So if there's one song, that you’ve never shared, that you would share, which one would it
be?
Ya Logré Olvidar. Ya Logré Olvidar is translated as “I
finally got to forget” or “I finally forgot”. I have sung it in public, but not
much. Basically it’s a song about how you are always pulled back to where you
come from. But the irony is one day I wrote a song for my hometown—I forgot all
about you; I forgot this, I forgot that, I forgot your beautiful people, I
forgot everything and at the end of the song I say, “You know what? I haven’t
forgotten anything.”
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| From the Shrine World Music Venue in Harlem, NY, June 9, 2012 |
Venues in New York, or maybe worldwide, do you have a favorite venue you like to play?
I
like to play at The Shrine. The Shrine in Harlem is awesome. I also like
to play at the Taller Latino Americano. Taller is on Broadway and 104th,
it’s a cultural center and they bring the best of Latin America, it’s been
around forever and a bunch of people, big and small, have played there. The
owner/director is a musician from Argentina, but I met him here and
he was part of the scene back in the 60’s with the poets from the Nuyorican.
They had a group called, El Grupo. And so my friend Bernardo Palombo was
a musician and songwriter, Sandra Maria Esteves, who is still a poet,
Nuyorican poet Jesús Papoleto Meléndez – it’s just great to be a part of
that culture, playing in New York City. People go there to listen.
So they respect the music…
They
do.
Again! You jumped ahead to
my next question! If you could Name Drop, name 3 or 4,
maybe 5 people that you have worked with that you think would impress.
The
musicians in my band are people that I respect and 2 of them are very
well-known in the percussion world—Baba Don Eaton, Michael Wimberly—they
are so gracious to play my [little] songs. They’re leaders themselves, in their
own right. They are masters. “Baba” means “father”. They are master musicians
in the African and Brazilian genres and they are so musical that anything that
I can throw at them they get it. I did play, our band, we were selected by Philip Glass, that’s a name, to play his birthday concert celebration.
Philip Glass is an avant-garde musician for the longest here in New York City. The Park Avenue Armory decided
to have a festival, but this time he curated; he decided who was gonna play in
the festival. He invited people from all over the spectrum and somehow, he
selected our band.
Somehow?
Somehow…
[laughs] And he had very nice things to say about us, I think he went
overboard, but he did say [we were] “a new direction in music”, “a fresh
outlook in songwriting”, and “ingenuity” – so nice. Philip Glass, he’s a great
guy too.
What’s your favorite word,
in any language?
Well
I like papa. I like papa because of my Dad. I like it because it’s so musical. And many times
when [songs] don’t have words, papa, the “p”, it’s a musical “p”. So that could
be my word, it’s very musical. I also like the word musica. :::singing::: musica
musica musica mu mu mu… When I translate it for the kids, it helps with the
same three syllables… I gotta tell you this, in talking about my father, he was
a musician too. And so were his siblings and his uncle. He didn’t do it for a
living but he did it very well and he wrote songs and at family parties they
would always sing… as youngsters they sang on the radio – the 2 boys, my father
and his brother and 1 sister. The sister never made it to the radio, I guess
because of gender but when they sang at home, 3 voices in harmony… I have a few
recordings.
Is there any eroticism in
your music?
Yes.
Is it overt?
Some
people say it’s overt. It’s there. It’s in my delivery. Not in the words so
much. [laughs] A friend called it “panty dropping” music…
(Impressed with eyebrows
raised) Really?
She’s
actually a friend of a friend, just for the record. And I was surprised, you
know? After my gig, we went out and she said that and many people have said
that about the way I sing…It’s funny how melody can take you places. Sometimes
words take you places but sometimes the melody—loud or soft, this note, that
note could put you in the mood.
Yes.
And
hit you here, down here and bring it up. So that’s how I connect it. Sometimes
I don’t realize I connect it with that, and many times I wanna go there. I met this
wonderful person in Colombia, by chance. He was a
voice repair person—he’s an artist, this guy is out of this world. He started
working on my body. Like you work on a car? He would work on my body. He would
actually pull my tongue out…
Wow!
He
stood on top of me and…he was like tuning me up.
A voice mechanic…
Yeah.
He gave me a few images to sing from. He told me where the vowels are in the
body…he said take your testicles and sing from them. Now put them on top of
your shoulders, in your neck and sing from your testicles here. Think about
them. Think about your bodily functions. You know, don’t just disconnect from
your body. And every time he asked me to sing back, it was a little better and
a little better…
Are you drawn to the
erotic in other art forms?
Poetry.
I guess it has to do with music, but poetry… theater also. You know,
performance. I love to dance. I’m not sure I like seeing other people dance… I
don’t think I have enough culture or education to watch somebody dance at the
level that I like poetry.
Body parts—which do you
find the most appealing, the most sensual, the most erotic: Head, shoulders,
knees or toes?
Head
and shoulders.
I said “or” but I’ll let
you have it.
Thank
you.
Have you been following
Euro Cup?
I
have, a little bit…
You have to choose another
national team, besides Argentina, which one would it be?
None.
Come on!
None whatsoever. But it would be USA because my children were
born here; it’s their heart. I love soccer, but other than Argentina, I hate
them all. Hate them all. Despise Brazil. Hate Italy. Because of family
connections I will choose USA, because of my kids, that’s
it.
I’m surprised. I’m from US
and I wouldn’t even choose that team.
Well,
right… In Argentina there is a strong
connection with Spain and Italy. My father-in-law is
Italian but it doesn’t mean that I go with Italy, you know? As a matter of
fact, sometimes I want them to lose. Argentina, baby.
Understood.
Complete this statement:
If my muse were an animal, it would be…
A
deer. The eyes… body, shape, the softness. The awareness of potential danger.
Tell us about your tour
this summer
Yes,
I’m going to Argentina, to see family and tour.
In July we have the 7th, 14th and the 21st,
three Saturdays. We’re playing with my alter ego in Argentina, Daniel Giovenco.
Very important person in my life. I haven’t seen him in 2 years. We always
write songs together. I took off 24 years ago to come to New York City, he stayed back. He
developed in his own way and I developed here. And every now and again we check
in with each other. The years that I stayed away for so long, he changed his
music so much. I came back and he was a star in our hometown; everybody knows
his songs, everybody. So I'm meeting with him and hopefully some other colleagues
and we’ll put on a show that’s like my show—very lively, talking to the
audience. I play a song, he plays a song. The first show that we have is a show
against the mining companies in South America. So we are there with the
activism right away. The mining companies are not only taking over the economy
but also the environment, high in the Andes. They do mountaintop
removal, which they have done here in the Appalachians too. They remove the top
of the mountain and they use cyanide to take the gold out of the actual
mountain. They have created pools in the middle of the Andes, places where no human
beings ever were, 1 mile by 3 miles pools of refuse, garbage. They swear the
pools will never break, but you know, if something can break it will. So there
are 2 [shows] in my hometown San Juan, hopefully in Buenos Aires, the capital, and then I
go to Córdoba.
Although
the interview-slash-conversation was over, Ruben wanted to make
a statement. I was all ears.
Ruben’s statement: There’s something very important in the
musical life and that is the writing of the songs. And you are also a writer so
might understand this much better than others. I have a bunch of daughters. I
call them daughters; my songs, my ideas for songs. And I keep books. And
everyday I make sure that I get to see my little children and have them grow. I
don’t give up on them. I don’t write the music. If I don’t remember [it] the
next day, it wasn’t good enough. But I keep a database, a bank, which is my
writing books, it’s a lot and it’s a mess… Each idea, I give two pages, room to
grow and then I turn the page. And sometimes the books are empty. But then one
day when I don’t have ideas I go back. So the songwriting for me, sometimes
it’s spontaneous, in the moment but many times you are looking for that muse.
If it doesn’t come, you have to bring it, and you have to be ready. And when it
comes it better find you with a guitar in your hands.
* * *
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