Celebrating Turkey Day in the Land of 'Tacos al Pastor"

One of my favorite foods that is served everywhere in town, practically on every street corner and almost every restaurant, is 'al pastor'. The literal translation is "to the shepard" which probably speaks volumes as to its origins, but as a lay-person I claim no expertise in such areas. It is (usually) seared pork sliced from a large skewer, right onto the tortilla, and then covered with cilantro & onions, and also sometimes with chunks of pineapple. I prefer the salsas or chilies with them, but sometimes it's just great to wolf them down with a Mexican beer while watching a band play in the plaza. It's trully the fast food of this land, and probably holds appeal far beyond the reaches of the borders of Mexico, and for good reason.
a little quote: "Nobody eats turkey in November here, except you Americanos !?!"
In Spanish, turkey is called "pavo" and here it's usually only served for Christmas dinner, which seems quite enough for the majority of my Mexican friends. I was hoping to find a decent semi-traditional turkey served at one of the American chains down here, namely Holiday Inn, whose hotels have restaurants in them. Alas, calling around, not one of them even knew about the holiday, let alone served any kind of turkey dish on Thursday - No Pavo, Senior.

I remembered that there is a large American ex-pat community in San Miguel so googling turkey-san miguel-restaurant-thanksgiving, I found only one place, called 'The Restaurant' in town that was serving, but that was all I needed...! Turns-out that it was a really high-end place there that catered not only to that community, but it's most affluent part. For a Thanksgiving meal the price, not including wine, was in excess of 600 pesos ($50 USD), which was just way out of my price range. It broke my heart to have to say no, but at that point I was ready to just settle for my usual order of tacos al pastor and spend the savings on my groceries for the rest of the month! Luckily the spirit of holidays past was looking out for me...

A little place called Harry's comes to the rescue yet again...!
While chatting with my friend Enrique, who manages Harry's, I complained a bit about missing Thanksgiving and especially, the taste of a good turkey & stuffing, etc, etc. After he had heard enough, (apparently..) he asked why I wasn't planning on having my dinner there at Harry's and pointing at the huge flyer that was spread all over the restaurant and another large sign that I actually was facing the whole time - duh!! Sometimes it's the obvious that we take for granted, and it takes someone to occasionally whack us upside the head to snap us out of it, I guess, perhaps both verbally and also on occasion, literally.

Anyway, needless to say, the dinner was really great and they served the turkey both traditionally and Cajun-style and when it was all over, there was spicy BBQ sauce (from the cajun turkey, of course) all over my tablecloth, my leather jacket, my hands, and anything else that was within a 5 foot radius of yours trully - it was friggin' great! (...and I was using a knife & fork, believe it or not, lol). Harry's is definitely a good place to find a piece of "the States" when needed. The only element of the whole ritual that was missing was anyone to share it with. As usual, I dined alone on Thanksgiving, but at least this time it was in some crappy Chinese take-out eating off paper plates, which is my usual ritual, ever since joining the service - I know, very depressing and I don't even like mentioning it, however it puts the experience in proper context. It's amazing what a person can adjust to when exposed to the broad range of experience that constant travel can offer. Some not so great but so much of it, quite wonderful.

A little band outta Texas - well, more like Mexico...
That evening, to round things out, what I thought was to be the piste de résistance turned out to be something closer to the coup de grâce, lol. Enrique also informed me, mid-pavo, that the stage being set-up in the middle of the bar area was for a series of bands that were to play from that Thursday evening until Sunday, and the first of them was to be a Blues Band, right there from Queretaro! I thought to myself, "self, you've been missing out on the Blues scene this whole time." To think that it's been going on right under my nose, but I had not bothered to sniff it out...! He asked me, as he knew my love of the genre, to please stick around and give them a listen, as he wanted to hire them for more shows if they were any good. My response was something to the effect that they probably couldn't drag me away from this bar tonight, as this was what I had been searching for since I had arrived. Well, it turned-out to be not quite that, honestly.

So naturally, I spent the rest of the day on this thing tapping-away on some work stuff and also working on Gigbag, of course, sitting in my fav spot at Harry's, awaiting this grand event. As the time passed, the place filled-up rather quickly and there definitely was an electricity in the air, as many of the patrons were also awaiting this band. Some were even fans, as was my friend Miguel, who is a fellow British car nut/mechanic. I asked him about the group and he dutifully complimented them on their ability as musicians and included that they had been playing for six years together. "Six years," I thought, "they must be seriously tight and have a great set!"

It turned out that I was right, kinda... lol

a little break - Disclaimer time: Okay, I need to be very clear here: finding a band that even specializes in the blues, let alone is serious about it, here in this part of Mexico, is something of an extreme rarity, so for me to be sitting at a blues show at Harry's was exceptionally lucky. There are no blues clubs here and the ONLY place that I've ever heard it is on the university radio station, and then it's only late at night. There just simply is not a tradition here and these guys most certainly stand alone in the field. With that caveat very firmly in place, I'll proceed.



The band set up their gear quickly, got tuned-up, grabbed a drink before the first set and took their spots on stage; they had obviously done this many times before. The first song was a great slow blues number, all instrumental, and had good solos on both the two guitars and harp (harmonica). Things were progressing nicely.

The second song was "I shoulda quit you baby", which is an old standard covered by everyone from Muddy to Zep to Clapton, and on. The singer even sang it in English, which was really kewl, but I soon realized that the only lyrics he knew were "I shoulda quit you baby, a long time ago" and that was repeated on and off for several minutes! The crowd, mostly Spanish speakers didn't know the difference and applauded wildly when it was over. I was kind of in shock, myself.
The next had to be better than that, right? Well it went from reasonably good to mediocre to flat-out 'jam night average'. After listening to almost two sets of the drummer play only the straight beat and bass player do a completely fundamental riff over and over and over - I felt my brain begining to melt. Out of frustration, I made eye contact with the drummer, who was a younger guy, perhaps 23, and gave him a little coaching from my chair to add something to his turnarounds. He understood, did a quick snare roll on the 5 to 1 transition and the whole band seemed to give him the "WTF are you doing?!! look". He cowered a bit and went back to his boom-tap style and I realized immediately what was happening. The band was not being allowed to develop because they weren't getting it - the blues, I mean.

My little plan's genesis
Turns out, these guys, who all seemed to really love the music, weren't actually very familiar with it. After that set, I introduced myself and after talking for a few mins learned that the band consisted of two father-and-son teams, along with the singer who seemed to be a music teacher, or something to that effect. The fathers, one on bass and one on lead guitar, both invited and apparently inspired their sons to get into the blues, and that's how the band got going. It was really a great story, except that inspiration aparently had a ceiling in the expansion department. I pulled the drummer aside and we had a quick 'come to Jesus' chat and I gave him the straight skinny on what he needed to do to change the dynamic, especially between he and the bass player. The rhythm section had to groove and it was up to him to get these guys trained. The trick to it was that it would have to happen in small increments, not great leaps. These guys had the chops to be something much cooler, much more of 'the real deal', as we like to say, but it would have to start at it's foundation, that guy sitting behind the skins.

So the final set was in the bag and the guys were giddy at having played such a larger venue. I could tell that the bass player, a gent pushing 60 who seemed to really enjoy playing his 50th re-issue American P-bass, was also kind of leaning on the drummer for his deviation from what they normally practice to. I couldn't listen to it, naturally, and he and I chatted for about 15 mins, in my poor Spanish and his limited English, about what he was listening to. I quickly discovered that he was listening to the usual around there, which are the traditional Mexican styles of music like Banda, etc. He was in a blues band but didn't really have a exposure to much of it's variety beyond just perhaps a few songs.

This was the key issue, in my opinion and I gave him a short list of bands that he needed to find on YouTube and give a listen. I borrowed his bass for a moment, showed him some ways to walk a bassline and just a few tricks of the guys over in Austin, however, suddenly he had to pack up his rig - he took back his axe and it was time to go. The band quickly packed-up their stuff, we said our goodbyes, and I returned to my friends and ordered another Havana rum.

Obviously I had rattled the guy's cage a bit, but I think there was some small bit that got through. I knew that the drummer got it, loud and clear and the others seemed to really dig the changed energy that the third set offered, especially with the more distinctive phrasing from the young drummer. Perhaps the bass player felt a little annoyed that some young punk from up north was trying to tell him how to play bass, and the machismo of the society reinforces that obviously, but that really may have been what it took to get his attention also. The real problem was not in the way that people were seemingly unwilling to change, but in their limited view of what was available to them. By offering a peek into the next level that his band would now be moving toward, if he isn't willing to develop his chops, his band will most likely give him that nudge to becoming a much better player and, I'm quite certain, a more enthusiastic blues player. I'd seen it before and also in myself; he looked to now be on the path from being a bass player, to becoming a bassist.
I could see that Queretaro was on the way to having a blues act that would eventually surprise even a tourist from Texas, and thus spread the gospel of the blues to more of the city, but that was only the first step in 'my little plan', but more of that later....!
fs