 |
| 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.
 |
| 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].
