If you saw my music video – A Fantasy Football Love Song – you see that I love music (which is apparently a problem I have). I would love to play rock but apparently that’s not what happened.
It’s true, racial confusion played a part in this and although I’m not Dominican (I will put my hand on a Bible) I do play bass in a Tipico/Bachata band. Enjoy the next 11 minutes:
The history of the band is of interest I guess, and note I also play saxophone and some guitar; so where goes the story: Two friends of mine (that are brothers) are DJs so I joined them at parties a lot. We brought Dominican instruments, namely, a tambora (a double sided drum that you play one hand with a stick and the other with your other hand), a güira (which I think is Spanish for riveted coffee can that is open on both sides and played with a hair pick – it may get lost in translation), and me with the bass. We’d play along with songs and have some fun and one day we met another friend.
This friend was forming a band and took one of the brothers as a singer, and me… as a saxophone player. Not long after we had a full merengue band – two saxes, two trumpets, bass, tambora, güira, congas, piano, and four singers. We wrote some songs that we should have copyrighted and played parties and had a good time. I eventually switched to bass and we added a saxophone player I knew from an R&B band I played in when I was 16.
Things were great and reached their peak at my wedding. When we wrote music, the new friend would write the lyrics, the piano player would come up with the music, and I would write the arrangement. It was a good combo. We came up with our best song at my wedding, with me again at the sax (since I can’t sing obviously).
Like all good things, this had to come to an end. My friend the DJ brother, picked up the accordion and decided to go tipico, and he took pieces of the band and Sonido Punto Com (we actually had a website that does not exist anymore – SonidoPuntoCom – Dot Com) never recovered. I tried to join up and get that great feeling back of playing in front of crowds of people but it wasn’t the same. I tried saxophone but that is harder than jazz in tipico, and then tried to put a guitar in a tipico band. It didn’t work.
Time went on, we split completely, then were finally able to get back together as a tipico band, with some new faces to play bachata as well. I never looked to be famous, and that’s probably why I’m not; that and I’m an amateur at best – but I enjoyed the moment, enjoyed it when people would watch us play in amazement. So to be able to play the other day (on the bass) was a good feeling, despite the blister on my finger. So to all the people I ever played in a band with – thanks.
Reinvent the Lightbulb 