Sara Jerez and Miguelito at Cafe Citron. February 20, 2010 (photo by Jani)

It's almost 6pm on Monday as I type these words. Pretty much spent the whole afternoon in various cafes catching up on email, reading blogs, news etc. Right now I'm at Barnes & Noble in Georgetown cranking out a quick blog with some pics that I meant to publish a month ago.

My friend Jani is a pretty loyal supporter of my flamenco shows. He's been coming around for years and fortunately for me (and you my loyal readers!) he loves to take photos so I gladly hand him my camera whenever he stops by! These pics are from the Saturday night flamenco show that took place on February 20, 2010. Enjoy!

Singer guitarist César Oretea. (photo by Jill Hatzai)

It's almost noon on Friday as I type these words. Still at home, but will be getting out soon even though it is a rainy day. Just wanted to quickly post a blog featuring the work of my awesome photographer friend Jill Hatzai.

She texted me last night saying she was going to Guarapo—a lounge in the Clarendon neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia which is practically a few blocks from my house. As much as I wanted to come along, I was so tired (which I'll explain in another blog). But the next best thing to going is seeing some fabulous pics of what I missed. Enjoy!

My FaceBook status from a few days ago.

It's 3-something pm on Wednesday as I type these words. Of course it's sunny and 64°F outside and like an idiot I'm indoors sitting in front of my netbook but there is a good reason. I'm at my old workplace from 10 years ago attempting to rekindle the memories and feelings from when I used to clock in and out here five days a week! Can you imagine me working in an office? Well, it's true...I did! But I only lasted there for 8 years before I came to the realization that the day job lifestyle was not meant for me.

Let's backtrack to my college years for a bit. As you probably already know, I was a classical guitar major at Cal State Fullerton. Had a full-time class load and was living at home (thanks Dad!) but I needed to make some money to pay for tuition, books, gas and going out. So I did what a lot of college students did at the time: got a job on campus.

The university library happened to be next to the Performing Arts building so I went in and applied and got the first available job in the reference department. Wasn't really thinking too far ahead about how this would look on my resume. Besides, how many musicians carry around a resume anyway? So I started out with shelving books and later moved up to filling-in at the reference desk. Not very stimulating work I admit, but it was easy enough and the hours were flexible so it worked. Long story short, I ended up working there for about three years. Then I got my degree, a Bachelor of Music in Classical Guitar Performance, and moved to DC literally the day after graduation where I had a music job waiting for me!

It's a little after noon on Wednesday as I type these words. As usual I'm at my neighborhood Barnes & Noble enjoying coffee and soaking in the vibe of productivity in the air. I'm surrounded by other like-minded people sitting in front of their laptops. Most of them are typing away furiously or otherwise trying to look busy. As for myself, I'm staring off into space wondering which ones are college students, which ones are teleworkers and which ones are freelancers.

I am one of those freelancers. But we don't have a particular look that gives us away. What about me? I've got a ponytail—an old stereotype for musicians which doesn't really apply anymore these days. I've got artificial long nails on my right hand—I'm guessing that most people don't recognize that as a clue that I'm a classical or flamenco guitarist or perhaps even a drag queen, take your pick. :-)

Most of the time when I'm here at Barnes & Noble, I'm here because I want to get out of the house and write a blog entry which bring us to today's topic: ME!

Yeah...even though I write about flamenco for the purpose of making people aware of the local flamenco community as a whole, the truth is that I can write best about my own personal experience so naturally most of the blog posts will be about ME.

Congrats to Lisner Auditorium on its tenth year of hosting the Flamenco Festival! February 21, 2010

It's probably Sunday February 28th when you're reading this, but I actually wrote this blog entry a few days earlier and used a feature in Movable Type to automatically publish the entry a few days later. Pretty cool in a geeky way, no? :-)

Anywayz, Lisner Auditorium's 10th annual Flamenco Festival has come and gone. I realize ten is just an arbitrary number to celebrate, but I still think it's something worthy of praise. It's not easy to fill-up a 1500 seat auditorium for all the festival concerts year after year. Kudos to the director and staff of Lisner Auditorium!

But while the festival presenters do have to strive to at least break even, it's not unusual to take a risk with performances to broaden the DC audience's exposure to flamenco. Dance concerts almost always sell well, but cante concerts are another story.

I can remember in February 2004 when singer José Merce came to DC and performed a cante concert with guitarist Moraíto and only half the seats were filled. Still a very good concert, but a little disheartening to see so many empty seats for such a well-known and respected flamenco singer. Same turnout with singer Rafael de Utrera in October 2004. The point is that as inspiring and important as cante is in flamenco, it usually doesn't sell very well with the DC general public—I can't speak for other cities around the USA, but I'm sure it's probably the same elsewhere, or not. (Flamenco aficionados from other locales, please feel free to contradict me and leave a comment below!)

Ginettte Perea and Sara Hart dancing Sevillanas at Las Tapas. January 31, 2010 (photo by Rachel)

It's 5-something pm on Friday as I type these words. I know I'm behind schedule on my weekly-promised blog quota but I have this past week's Snowpocalypse (aka snOMG2) here in DC as an excuse! Nearly the whole metropolitan area shut down for a week, not to mention the fact that we broke the historical record for snowfall for DC!

Anywayz, most of my readers I imagine are from the Nation's capital so I don't need to rehash what went on this past week. Question is: how did it affect the flamenco scene?

Well...just about all the venues canceled their shows. Although some, like Cafe Citron and Vinoteca took a chance and stayed open on the weekend (despite the record-breaking snow accumulation), they canceled the flamenco anyway. And although I could've used the money and would've enjoyed getting out of the house and performing, I would've dreaded dragging 100 pounds of sound equipment in the snow.

Enough about the snow! Let's look at some flamenco pics!

Pam de Ocampo dancing a seguiriya accompanied by guitarist Richard Marlow. January 28, 2010

It's 5-something pm on Friday as I type these words. I'm at a Panera in Arlington taking advantage of the free WiFi while enjoying coffee. Yeah, I know. I usually go to Barnes and Noble to blog, but just wanted to mix it up a little and try a different place.

Anywayz, it's been a busy week flamenco-wise: every day I've either been performing, rehearsing or going out to a show and supporting my fellow flamencos. Last night (Thursday) was one of those nights. I never really know who will be dancing on a Thursday at Tapas and so when I arrived around 7:30pm (half an hour before showtime) it turned out to be dancers Anna Menéndez and Pam de Ocampo!

Dancer Emily Mazzotti and guitarist Miguelito at Cafe Citron. January 23, 2010 (photo by Jani)

It's Sunday around 5-something pm as I type these words. Seems to be my ritual on Sundays now to blog at my neighborhood Barnes and Noble. It has everything I need: free WiFi, delicious coffee and the occasional distraction of interesting books, magazines and pretty girls.

About last night...so far my efforts promoting the Saturday flamenco show at Citron are paying off: besides the announcements in my blog, website and Facebook status updates, I also tweet regularly. Still…other than seeing the end result of filling Citron with customers every Saturday, it's hard to track the success of my online publicity campaign. But guess what? Last week, I did meet two people who told me they heard about my shows via Twitter!

Last night, however, we didn't pack the place until the second show. There are all kinds of factors that come into play: the weather, traffic delays, competing events around the same time, who knows? But it seems that we're always pushing the showtime later as we wait for customers to arrive in time for their table reservations.

Thankfully, it so happened that my dancer for the evening, Emily Mazzotti, was celebrating her birthday so a bunch of flamenco friends showed up—mostly dancers. Cajón player Jason Vera y Aragón even joined us onstage! (Thanks Jason!)

Sara Jerez and Miguelito. January 16, 2010 (photo by Steve Johnson)

It's 2-something pm on Sunday as I type these words. Apparently, it seems that a LOT of people had the same idea I had on this rainy day: spend the afternoon sipping coffee at the café and do some work on the laptop. Luckily, a table freed up moments after I arrived.

Anywayz, about last night: the attendance was very good! (I know, I know. I'm an artist and my attention should be focused solely on the quality of the show, but as a struggling self-employed musician I can't neglect the business side of making a living in the arts.) You'd think that being that the show is on Saturday, it should be no problem getting people to come out to my show. Thing is that Citron is a very popular club on the weekends but the insanely large crowds don't arrive until 11:00pm-ish. So it's still my job (and the restaurant's) to somehow get the word out and get people to come in at 7:00pm or 8:00pm on a Saturday night in time for the flamenco.

It's still a better night than Mondays, when the flamenco show used to be scheduled. Although I do take pride in saying that my fellow artists (and there have been many!) and I were able to bring in crowds on Mondays from 2001 to 2009 (that's eight years!) which is traditionally a very difficult night to get people come out!

Miguelito (that's me!) opening Cafe Citron's new Saturday night flamenco show with a guitar solo. January 9, 2010 (photo by Rosie)

It's 3-something pm on Sunday as I type these words. I'm at Barnes and Noble, comfortably seated at the coffee shop area sipping a double espresso and listening to a shuffle mix on my iPod—just my way of gettin' myself in the mood to blog. So it's DC Flamenco's 14th birthday? Big deal. It's more like a personal milestone to be acknowledged for a moment but not really celebrated in a big way (Seriously, how many people do you know who have a website that's been around that long?).

So yeah, my website's been around for so long now, it's considered a normal part of the flamenco scene but that's a good thing. It's not like screaming out to the world, "Hey, there's flamenco in DC!" It's more like, "We know you know there's a flamenco scene in DC, here's more info about it." What's cool is that in conversation, local flamencos say things like, "I read it on DC Flamenco..." and have no need to elaborate what DC Flamenco is!

Honestly though, a little glory would be nice...who doesn't like being showered with praise? But I'm just thrilled enough knowing in my mind that in some small way, my work here has had and continues to have an impact on the ever growing awareness of the DC flamenco scene.

(Anywayz, while you indulge my little online party of self-praise, enjoy these photos from last night's flamenco show at Cafe Citron featuring dancer Emily Mazzotti.)

When the topic of DC Flamenco comes up in conversation, there are two types of people I encounter...

Guitarist/singer José Oretea at Cafe Citron. January 4, 2010

It's 4-something on Tuesday afternoon as I type these words. I'm at my neighborhood Barnes and Noble, yet again. Don't know what it is, but between the crème brûlée latte and being surrounded by others furiously typing away on their laptops, I feel very productive!

In any case, I'm working on my second blog in one week—yeah, one of my new year's resolutions is to publish at least one blog entry every week, so I'm doing good so far. :-)

So yesterday (Monday) as I was mulling over the possibilities of where to hang out on my first free Monday night in years, I got a call around 3:00pm from my fellow musician friend, José Oretea, informing me that his rumba flamenca group Duende Camarón was going to be playing in the Monday night time slot at Cafe Citron starting TONIGHT!

So I did what I do best: spread the word via Facebook, Twitter, texts and my well-known website DCFlamenco.com. I didn't expect much of a turnout for a last-minute announcement especially on such a cold windy night. But even though the attendance last night was kinda sparse, I'm pretty confident that most of the flamenco community now knows that Duende Camarón is playing Mondays at Citron and that attendance will start to grow as word gets around.

If you're one of the few people out there that has never heard of Duende Camarón, checkout some music samples at their website.

Enjoy the pics!

Sara Jerez dancing soleá accompanied by Miguelito at Cafe Citron. January 2, 2010 (photo by Jani)

Happy New Year! Welcome to 2010! Remember me? Did you miss my blog posts? Yeah I know...it's like the first time I've posted anything since September last year. To be fair, I have been sort of blogging via Facebook status updates and photo album entries, and while most people I know are on Facebook, I don't want to leave those of you not on Facebook out of the DC flamenco info loop. [If you haven't already, please add me as a friend on Facebook.] So here goes...

It's 6:30pm on a bitterly cold Sunday here in Arlington, Virginia. The temperature is 24°F but with the wind gusts blasting against my face it feels more like 9°F, seriously! In any case, I'm warm and comfortable here at the coffee shop section of the Clarendon Barnes and Noble while I work on this blog and take occasional sips of a tall crème brûlée latte, yum!

So what's new? Hehe...there is an ulterior motive (isn't there always?) for this blog post. Well, after eight years performing every Monday (that's roughly 400 shows!) at Cafe Citron, the management decided to give us the Saturday evening time slot. Hence the title of today's blog post: "Saturday Night Flamenco at Cafe Citron."

What happens whenever there's a change after such a long period of eight years? Well for one thing, there's going to be a short period of confusion amongst the regulars, some of whom will, understandably out of habit, still go to Citron on a Monday and be disappointed not to find any flamenco going on. So I apologize in advance: I'm going to be promoting the Saturday Night Flamenco show ad nauseum!

Why should you come out to my show on a Saturday? Here's a list of reasons...

Singer Hector Márquez, dancers Ginette Perea, Pam de Ocampo, Sarah Hart and guitarist Miguelito at the Science Museum of Virginia in Richmond. September 11, 2009

It's been a long time since I last blogged, I know. So in case you've forgotten who I am (or if this is your first time here), it's me Miguelito, your trusty DC flamenco community blogger chiming in to update you on the local scene and let you know I'm still alive. :-)

I'm not going to lie to you...I've been feeling kinda down lately, which probably explains why I haven't been blogging as much lately. With the budget being cut at just about all the flamenco tablao shows I'm just happy to still have a job. Just as mentioned in my last blog entry in August, the weekly tablao shows where I used to have two dancers (namely Las Tapas and Cabanas), there's still only a budget for one dancer. And the show at Café Citrón, I had to lay off the singer pretty much since the beginning of the summer.

On the other hand, the rumba scene seems to be faring slightly better. Besides the usual rumba shows at La Tasca, Las Tapas, Bambule and Vinoteca, the relatively new shows at Coppi's Organic, Lima and Dulles Hyatt are still going strong. This past Thursday, guitarists Ramin Rad, Richard Marlow and José Oretea started up a new show at where else but Rumba Café in Adams-Morgan.

I'm sure I'm missing a couple of other venues: there are other shows which are popping up here and there as promoter/performers like guitarist RJ Uebersezig scout out new places to present rumba. In any case, I've updated my calendar of events with the latest offering of weekly shows. So be sure to check it out and support your local performers...we need your support!

So that sums up the tablao and rumba scene. What else is going on? I suppose I should say something about the pic at the top of this page...

Miguelito playing a rumba to open the show. August 10, 2009 8:15pm (photo by Rachel Hart)

Wow...it's been like two months since my last blog entry! What can I say? It's been a slow summer business-wise. Just about all the flamenco shows in the DC area have had to cut back on their budget. For example, at Café Citrón, I had to let go of my singer. The show is still pretty good without cante, but trust me on this: live singing brings the performance to a whole other level!

The flamenco shows at Las Tapas and Cabanas also had to cut back. The rumba shows have also been affected too. The Monday night Ozio show has been canceled. Same with the Thursday night show at Aroma.

So that's the latest update on the scene in general. But I'm not going get into why business is slow. Please don't say, "It's the economy." I've heard that too many times. But as they say, the show must go on. And so it is with my flamenco show at Café Citrón.

This past Monday was dancer Sarah Hart's first time to perform at Citrón. Although she has already been actively performing in just about every flamenco tablao in the DC area for years, for whatever reason she never got around to the Dupont Circle area until now. Welcome Sarah! (Not to be confused with dancer Sara Jerez who performs most Mondays at Cafe Citron. Yeah it can be confusing having two dancers named Sarah but they're both very talented and beautiful!)

At DC Dance Collective: upstairs studio converted into a mini-theatre! The audience is just arriving. June 6, 2009 6:49pm

It's 2-something am on Wednesday as I type these words. I got home around midnight feeling tired and was so looking forward to going to bed early for a change. OK, so my body was tired, but I still couldn't fall asleep. So here I am working on a blog—I needed to catch up anywayz. :-)

So this past Saturday, local dancer Flor Pérez Taboada (who has some great ideas to add something a little different to our already active DC flamenco scene) got to see one her ideas come to life: "Verano Flamenco."

Here's a quote from my interview with Flor last month:
...in Madrid, I hosted "Juglar por flamenco." The concept is an "open tablao," where pre-professional or foreign bailaoras, for example, can ask for a show date and perform with great musicians in front of an appreciative audience. Now everyone who knows the Madrid flamenco scene knows about Juglar. 'Cause in Madrid, as here, there are very few opportunities to perform on a real stage with great musicians without being at an advanced level and with lots of experience. Juglar has been going strong every Sunday since 2003, and "Genoveva" was there when I started!! In fact, the first month of Juglar she performed with me!

So it seemed very fitting and sentimental to have Flor and Genoveva dance together in "Verano Flamenco" since this is sort of like a continuation of "Juglar por flamenco" idea transported from Madrid to DC! The featured guest dancers included Pam de Ocampo and Jen.