I don't even know where to begin.

There's so many cool things that happened yesterday that I'm just going to make a list of them:
--I got to interview Seu Jorge right before his S.O.B.'s show
--I attended the concert and enjoyed his amazing performance (and told loud, annoying talkers to shut the fuck up)
--I went backstage with Greg to say hello to Seu Jorge (who he already had met in both NYC and Paris, world-travelling DJ that he is)
--While backstage I immediately noticed Bill Murray hanging out and decided that Greg and I should go introduce ourselves and ask for a photo with him
--After being told by Bill Murray's wife(?) that she'd have to take another photo of the three of us because I'd accidentally blinked, I found myself getting SPANKED by Bill as he yelled at me to "Open! [smack] Your! [smack] Eyes! [smack]" (I think that's the closest I'm ever going to get to sex with a celebrity. It was awesome.)

OK, so as you can see, it's days like yesterday that make normal days seem, well, boring in comparison. All day yesterday I was nervous for the interview--only for the interview to arrive and go so smoothly and wonderfully. Jorge is so very Brazilian and I mean that as the highest compliment: friendly, accomodating, lots to say, very engaging. Between all of his long answers and my long questions and the translating of both by the talented Ms. Tracy Mann, I found that 40 minutes had passed in what felt more like 4 minutes. I'll keep you posted as to when/where you can read the interview, as I'm pitching it to various news outlets right now.

What can I tell you about the show? He did 4 of the Bowie/Life Aquatic covers, including "Space Oddity," "Suffragette City," and "Rebel Rebel", a few songs from the new album, Cru (which comes out stateside in September on Wrasse Records), a few from his first solo album, Carolina (a.k.a. Samba Esporte Fino), and some classic sambas like "Coqueiro Verde" and "E Hoje" along with two Jorge Ben songs: "Mas Que Nada" and "Carolina Carol Bela." I was able to judge the percentage of Brazilians in the crowd based on the sing-along quotient on those cover tunes. (I'd guess maybe 25% of the crowd.)

Backing up Jorge were my two good friends Pedro Ramos (cavaquinho) and Ze Mauricio (pandeiro, cuica) from the Choro Ensemble, who I've written about before. They both did an amazing job considering the fact that they were asked to do the gig only one day beforehand!

Today I got the chance to listen to Cru all the way through and it's really funky, weird, and interesting. My favorites song from it so far is the opening track "Tive Razao", which Jorge performed last night along with "Mania do Peitao" (which is about the dangers of breast implants, an American trend that's unfortunately making inroads in Brazil) and "Eu Sou Favela" ("I am the favela"). Throughout the album he sings a bit in English and Italian along with the majority which is in Portuguese and covers everyone from Serge Gainsbourg to Elvis Presley.

As Greg said last night, Cru would never have been greenlighted by a Brazilian record label (it was done through the French label, Naive). The album's way too cru (the Portuguese word for "raw") for contemporary Brazilian record labels, which are much more focused on safe, manufactured music (kinda like the U.S. record-label giants).