Ramsbottom - music

Ramsbottom milonga review is here.

Saturday afternoon, 1300-1700. DJ Kirsty Bennett

The music was mostly nice for me. Kirsty had apparently been asked to turn the volume down by the organiser who had been asked by the only couple there just before I arrived. The volume while I was there was fine.

Saturday evening 1900-2300. DJ: Ricardo Peixoto.

When I walked in my first thought was “On no!” It was way too loud. 

The DJ was sitting on the stage behind the speakers. However, he danced off and on through the evening so he was aware of the real sound. There were I think roughly three rows of tables furthest away from the speakers. I chose the middle of these, behind everyone else, because of the volume. I still found it too loud and moved right to the back. 

There was good fast vals which might have been D’Arienzo vals: Adios querida (1941) though perhaps that came later. ”Very Ricardo” I thought. Ricardo in my experience likes to keep energy high and I could see why he might want to with potentially challenging DJ conditions of few people. I do not think relentlessly high DJing is wise - trying to whip up the dancers in to a frenzy does not work.  It leads to at best, unpleasant conditions on the dance floor and is patronising in my view. One reason I avoided this DJ for quite a while is after experiencing a packed floor on Saturday night at Eton a few years ago with dancers whipped up in just this way. It was memorably unpleasant. Though I don't have a lot of experience of his DJing, my sense before I went was that he might have changed a bit in this respect.

Indeed it was not like that next. I liked the upbeat Fresedo 1938 tanda with Roberto Ray. There was Telon danced with less show style than is usual in video but better I feel by the woman here. Men can over-egg Fresedo. But not this guy, dancing to Vuelves. Why this is a show though, I'm not sure. You can see nice social dancing like this in any decent milonga. Then there was the sweet and lovely Angustia.

But I was not going to dance at that volume and nearly left for an early night.  I hung on to see what would happen. The good Troilo instrumentals were ludicrously loud and with the relentless speed of those tracks and the volume I was starting to have a not unfamiliar sense of “Come on, come on” of being harried to dance. It was not relaxing. I had my hand on my bag when my friend arrived and said I was not staying at this volume.

Just as I was about to get up the sound seemed to come down slightly after the Tanturi to still too loud but (barely) bearable. More friends arrived. I wavered, stayed. I enjoyed my time with the friends but my ears regretted it later.

I liked both the D’Arienzo tango tandas. First was D’Arienzo/Echagüe, La bruja (1938) and friends, and played early, after the Tanturi which is what got me up. Here's Noelia overdoing things I feel but sometimes these things aren't only show, they're an expression of personality which is more honest. 

There was D’Agostino/Vargas, music I just love to dance:  Tres esquinas (1941) - No aflojés (1940) - Un copetín (1941) - Adiós, arrabal (1941) but I think No aflojés is the weakest track and also fits least well with the others. It is interesting that there is next to no video of a show with Tres Esquinas - because you can't really dance show to this kind of music. It is purely social dance music. I love it. But my heart sank when I saw her feet tap several times at the start. I feel this couple understands completely different things to me in this music.

There was Di Sarli/Rufino - Corazón (1939), En un beso la vida (1940) and friends. I thought this, at the Triangulo Studio in New York started with some promise from him but if you look carefully even at the start you can tell what is soon going to happen. It reminds of when I drove a TVR Tuscan which wanted to leap ahead at the slightest touch on the accelerator. So perhaps that sort of thing is what you can expect at that venue.

There was Laurenz: De puro guapo  (with Juan Carlos Casas in 1940) & friends, stamped and posed out here by Pablo Inza but it would seem there are girls who love that and guys who'll pay to ape it.  It is not for me but, as you can probably tell from the dance, this is not someone you want to argue with.  I liked his DJing though because he plays what dancers like to dance.  More of him another time.

There was Pugliese/Moran: Mentira and El abrojito both 1945, which a friend once suggested, wonderfully, I use as the name of a milonga  - and others. I like this kind of music, I just get worried because it attracts an approach like this.

There was OTV  - Una vez with (Ortega del Cerro in 1943) and possibly slightly dodgy friends

There was indeed dodgy Donato which improved a bit with La melodía del corazón (with Gavioli in 1940) and the last Donato track was good. But I have never been able to take that track seriously since hearing a recorded version by Richard Clayerman as a child. Here's Sebastian Arce & Mariana Montes dancing it.  Nothing shows personality like a Donato track. I searched and could not find any couple I wanted to show in contrast. So here are the social dancers dancing it in Lo de Celia. Actually (if you ignore the guy with his arm up) I can't find any greater contrast between what Arce/Montes do and what these real social dancers do. How can anyone think it is the same dance?  Why take lessons to do the things teacher-perfomers teach when you consider the conditions of a real milonga?  You are not taught to dance socially in class. You learn to dance socially by doing small movements to the actual music in the real ronda with other people close by on either side.

There was slow Canaro vals - La noche que me esperes (1935), Sueño de muñeca (1935), Amour et printemps (1935)

There was good Troilo/Fiorentino: Una carta, Pajara Ciego, both 1941 and friends

There was great D’Arienzo: Charamusca (1941), De mi flor (1941), Derecho viejo (1948) and Por que razón (1939). This was a tanda that reminded me of Buenos Aires and was my favourite of the day. I used to hear this sort of tanda rarely in the UK but more now though often with poor sound.  You need the right partner for the right music, never more than for this.  A friend obliged me by dancing the last track which would be torture to sit out.  It is one of my favourites.  I often thank god for giving us D'Arienzo for dance music, just as I thank him for Vivaldi on behalf of those who believe in the transformatory power of music on mood and for those of us who find the mornings difficult.

There was a milonga tanda with Di Sarli's La mulateada (1941).  I say this to try and spare a few women who may suffer this:  see this guy.  Watch him completely ignore the phrasing.  That would be bad enough but see what he does to this woman for a horribly long time.  Really, I think you can just drop the guy if he does this.  Or let him feel what it's like to be put through that   I dunno, maybe some people like that sort of thing.

There was Jamás Retornarás (1942) by Caló- Berón.  See how different the dancing is in that clip.

The biggest misses for me were the Demare B sides and the Donato so all in all that wasn't too serious. I am pretty sure there was good Biagi with Amor and with Saavedra as the last track but I can't remember which because I think I was dancing it. There was definitely good Rodriguez.

So there was plenty of good music but it was just badly spoilt by being overloud. There was also frustratingly poor soundcraft with cortinas especially and some tracks of wildly different volume, meaning the DJ, especially when dancing had to rush back to the DJ spot. 

The milonga and vals were good. But the milongas could be fast and twice I felt the milongas getting faster. With knee problems and my new partner’s style I (as the girl) struggled with Canaro-Famá’s Milongueando (1939). More tellingly I struggled (as the guy) with D’Arienzo’s La Espuela (1946) which I know but don’t hear that often in the milongas. I cannot remember when I last danced a milonga so badly and apologised to my partner. My good, experienced (guy) friend said he had struggled with it too. The music is nice but you can hear how jerky and erratic parts of it are. 

Sunday afternoon 1400-1900 

"I danced with few partners on Saturday, but the same ones. I wasn't going to stay at all on Sunday - no one was there when I arrived. I thought to chat to the DJ a little about music and milongas for a bit & go on to a tea dance in Preston. But in the end some different people arrived and I stayed til 7pm... 

I was talking to the DJ since no one was there and there was no tango music playing.  The DJ had a coffee and Larry kindly brought me one too.  I mellowed, easily.

When the next couple arrived the DJ put on shockingly bad Lomuto c1930 and asked me challengingly if it was rhythmic or lyrical. I tried to avoid the question, not wanting to say 'plodding' but without success. Eventually, I settled for 'steady' but I think it was evident I thought it atrocious. He said, honestly that his style of DJing was high energy. He said he knew some believed one way to DJ was to go from fire to embers but his own feeling was that if you go down to embers one cannot often get the embers aflame again. I laughed and said If this [Lomuto] is what you mean by embers, then I'm not surprised. Anyone would struggle to get going again after this. It was the classically awful stuff played in Edinburgh sometimes and that used to be played more but thankfully less now though I have not been a regular there since probably the first part of 2015.

I said there were better Lomuto tangos, naming some. But [Lomuto's] Catamarca was done so much better by Di Sarli he said (both are 1940). I said there are relatively few tangos where I do not hear the superiority of one over another, but sometimes a few are similar and good and a few are so different as to be good in their own ways which for me is the case with Catamarca. 

I think he also made the point that some people like that sort of thing. On cue, the woman in the couple who had lately arrived came over to say could they please have a repeat of that tanda later on. If I hadn't already seen that style of dancing it would have been useful to hear. But a DJ doesn't play for some people, do they? They play for most people. Otherwise we'd hear that kind of ear-bending awfulness rather more than we do. Ricardo is a much-booked DJ but I could see though why I had heard such controversial reports - and that he could play this sort of thing more than I personally had heard him play.  He was an interesting guy to talk to. 

After the Lomuto there was very nice Fresedo, then good Lomuto vals which we had chatted about. 

Friends arrived complaining straight away about the volume and choosing the table right at the back, furthest from the speakers because of it.

There was standard Malerba, then in a return to the early Lomuto style, OTV including Barillito (1927) which I don't think is good enough for dancing. There were Donato milongas, then Troilo-Marino which I regretted dancing but had accepted an invitation from a guy I don't see often. I danced great Rodriguez with Bill, just the kind of bittersweet sometimes fun music I like us to dance together. In a change from the afternoon there was simply great Donato then good D'Arienzo-Mauré including Ya Lo ves (1941). 

But by now 6 people were unhappy about the volume and there had been at least two complaints to the organiser. From others I had heard two or three bizarre excuses from dancers: e.g. Well, the hall is large, and similarly unrelated notions. 

Eventually, after one person spoke directly to the DJ the volume came down a bit. Apparently the volume was down but the gain was up. How a problem with volume or gain was missed by a DJ who was dancing is beyond me. Still, the volume went back up not long after but the tracks and cortinas were not normalised for an even sound so it is not surprising.

There was Pugliese, good Laurenz with Podestá: Recién (1943) and friends and a great Biagi vals.

In chat about DJing several people have noted that Ricardo's style is very rhythmic.  There were smoother tandas - the Fresedo, the Laurenz so I suppose one could make that point stick. Is rhythmic the same as high energy? Not always but things incline that way I guess.  What is La piba de los Jazmines (with Orlando Medina, 1943), which is standard Malerba? I would say that is more rhythmic, because it has a very clear, steady beat.  There are smooth bits but it is not high energy.

On the Saturday, one could say the Fresedo, D'Agostino, OTV and Demare were smooth not high energy but that is only about one tanda an hour and probably, if you were worried about energy dropping in dances about what you might play to give people a rest but but not too much of one.

This DJ plays rather towards high energy.  Besides the tangos his vals are often fast and his milongas can be very fast.  DJs who play in this style often do play loud apparently "to create mood" and "energy" in the dancers but I just find that harrying. I can't bear that "Come on, come on, get up, get up" when there is too much fast, rhythmic or insistent music  - even if it is all good music.  What I do in that situation actually is not dance at all because it just becomes physically and mentally exhausting to dance to music like that most of the time.  Similarly, there are people who like the "Plod plod plod" of Guardia vieja but they are not most people, I believe. Both ends of this scale will make me sit out.

I would not be keen to hear this DJ again until I hear reliably that the volume is not deafening and ideally that the soundcraft has improved too.  I liked most of the music but I think most people would prefer a set more balanced in energy.

- I took paracetamol for a sore ear on way home.
- I think Ibuprofen is better for that.