I first heard of Scottish band Salsa Celtica back in 2004, courtesy of WFMU radio’s Doug Schulkind.

I was just starting to get interested in latin and world music at the time and I hoovered up Schulkind’s Culture Shock collection. The Give The Drummer Some DJ had put together twenty soundclashes in which Latin would rub up against Blues, African musicians did turns on Hawaiian guitar and Brazilians paid homage to the funk of James Brown.

Salsa Celtica’s Fuerte opened the collection. It appears on the band’s second album The Great Scottish Latin Adventure and represents a perfect summary of what the band is about: salsa and bagpipes, Latin and Celtic.

Somehow, against first impressions, the combination works perfectly.

Catching up with them isn’t easy. Their fairly infrequent tours take them to some pretty obscure places. However, only a couple of weeks ago I learned that they were doing a gig in Saltaire, West Yorkshire.

Accordingly, Saltaire became the unlikely destination of our third visit to a UNESCO World Heritage Site in two months.

Salsa Celtica formed in 1995 and has gained considerable popularity since then, receiving acclaim in the UK and further afield. The Saltaire date was their eleventh in a long list that continues until mid August 2008.

There were times during the gig, which was split over two sets, when the wooden floors of the Victoria Hall felt and actually looked like they would cave in. Stacks of sound equipment by the stage wobbled precariously.

The large crowd consisted of those more used to the Celtic-only fare usually heard at the venue, a significant number of salsa dancers and the rest of us there specifically for the band, or just out of curiosity.

Of course, the salsa dancers were by no means the only ones dancing and we all had a bit of a shuffle ourselves. I’d been watching YouTube videos all last week to pick up the basic steps!

The atmosphere was terrific once the crowd had warmed up, with Venezuelan singer Lino Rocha expertly working the crowd. By the second set, the overwhelming majority were on their feet.

With a unusual, totally unique mix of sounds, the eleven members of Salsa Celtica have found a niche but more importantly, an audience.

The problem with being a covers band is that your audience tends to judge you on the quality of your renditions rather than the quality of your musicianship.

Cadillac Jukebox singer Ian McMullen acknowledges this, but for him the enjoyment comes from being able to play a wide, often surprisingly eclectic repertoire. “I don’t even like playing gigs,” he claims, “I do them for the other guys.”

Despite only playing together since March, the band has developed a distinctive sound, making their renditions personal and occasionally peculiar. McMullen’s sharp, high voice is backed by restrained guitars and fizzy keyboards, with time kept by a remarkably florid display of drumming the likes of which the pub circuit is unlikely to see elsewhere.

The music is drawn from styles as diverse as mod, disco, rock and soul. Such a mixed repertoire means taking the odd risk and not every track worked on the night. So whilst the band never seemed completely at ease with Noughties numbers, the barnstorming turns of Town Called Malice, Foxy Lady, Superstition and Land Of 1000 Dances were terrific highlights.

Manu Chao: rocking out

Serendipity. That’s what I thought when I managed to secure a couple of tickets for J and I to see Manu Chao on his short tour of the UK with the Radio Bemba Sound System.

J’s sister had left behind one of those hefty weekend newspaper supplements and I’d spotted the ad for Chao’s dates, of which I’d been hitherto totally unaware, promoting his new album La Radiolina.

Thanks to a well-worn copy of the first solo album Clandestino owned by my French colleague Pierre, José-Manuel Thomas Arthur Chao first popped into my consciousness in 2001.

And though Pierre is now long gone, Manu never left.

Since he was finally here in the UK with Radio Bemba, we didn’t want to miss him, even if that meant rolling up our sleeves and driving to Manchester.

The gig was a bit of a surprise. I’d heard that Chao had supported Rage Against The Machine during the United States leg of his tour, but it was clear from the opening song that he’d been taking notes.

It wasn’t really possible to see the reactions of other fans – we spent the whole gig out of our seats – but I imagine that others will have felt the same surprise. The 46-year old’s recordings are all about world music, reggae and cut-and-paste simplicity.

This was thrashing electric guitars and double-time punk. I said to Justine before the gig got started that a brass section would have been a joy, but now I understood why that would have been unnecessary!

On the night, Radio Bemba consisted of regulars Gambit (bass), Madjid (astounding on lead guitar) and David on drums.

Percussion may or may not have been provided by Philippe Teboul (a little hard to say) who was a member of Chao’s previous band Mano Negra and who worked again with the latter on the Amadou et Mariam album Dimanche à Bamako (2004).

The Apollo’s sound setup was rather poor and the louder moments were just a racket, really, but the concert was generally a success, ending in no less than three encores.

It transpired that Chao had reworked many of his mellower numbers into punk rockouts with inexplicable ease, including such laidback favourites Merry Blues and Me Gustas Tu.

Among Chao’s instantly recognisable tracks (Welcome to Tijuana, Clandestino) several had also undergone considerable alteration, often putting a new and unusual spin on the original songs.

The band kept up the energy right through the gig and the fans certainly appreciated it. A brilliant if rather bamboozling performance.

Grupo Sierra Maestra has been around since the late 1970s.It was founded by Juan de Marcos González, the man responsible for bringing together a diverse group of musicians later known as the Buena Vista Social Club.

Sierra Maestra’s members had been students at the University of Havana. In forming the band, it was their intention to revive the old son tradition that had defined the golden era of Cuban music and formed the bedrock for most modern styles. De Marcos left in 1996 to work on the Buena Vista project and his new outfit Afro-Cuban All Stars.

The group probably weren’t at their best. It didn’t help that the sound at the International Centre was decidedly poor and the lighting system appeared to have baffled their technician judging by the rather messy display. But the crowd was easy enough to please, with a number of couples getting up to dance salsa from the front rows.

Timba is a tough style to pin down – it’s the Cuban adaptation of salsa, but aficionados will tell you that timba is significantly different and certainly not a subset of salsa. In any event, the sound of Manolito Y Su Trabuco was rather cloying, delivered by a tight band and three rather daft looking singers. I guess it’s a case of you win some, you lose some.

As my interest in world music continues to develop, some names come up increasingly often.

Though I had heard only snippets of her music, the voice of cantante mexicana Lila Downs persuaded me to grab a couple of tickets for this rare appearance. My hunch seems to have paid off!

Ms Downs, the daughter of an American father and a Mexican mother, digs deep into the Indian traditions of the Oaxaca region and, it would seem, the recesses of her own soul.

With a composite of multinational session musicians, she managed to thrill her small audience with an extraordinary vocal range that went from heartbreak to extreme joy and even frivolity, often in the same song.

Downs danced merrily through the old standard Quizas, Quizas, Quizas, breathed extra vitality into Indian dance rhythms and even left room for social comment with a paean to itinerant Mexican workers.

After a loud encore, Lila and band left the stage at Harrogate Theatre bound for WOMAD and I fancy many of us wished those energetic 90 minutes could have lasted all night.

Now let’s get one thing straight: Girona is a city in Catalonia. It is not in Italy – if you think that, you’re crossing Genoa and Verona and you’re getting Gerona (sic).

J and I visited Girona last week, right before my 28th birthday, for the 3rd Caixa Sabadell Etnival, a free world music mini-festival held in the city.

Our sojourn was a double-header: part city visit, part gig trip.

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Girona

Between the Costas and Barca, a beautiful and modest city and a great little festival.

3rd Caixa Sabadell Etnival 2007

Seeing Girona was only one half of the reason J and I were in this attractive city.

The Catalan savings bank Caixa Sabadell has organised a small, free world music festival in Girona for the last couple of years.

The festival is called the Caixa Sabadell Etnival and took place over three days in June, this being the third edition, held in the Parc de les Ribes del Ter between the River Ter and the fringe of the city’s Fontajau district.

Information about the Etnival was scarce apart from a nice website put up by the Caixa Sabadell, which was still pretty helpful despite my Latin-informed appreciation of Castilian Spanish and guess-standard Catalan.

Despite two editions of the Etnival in 2005 and 2006, nobody seems to have written on the subject at any length. So I hope this will set an English language precedent: we were there in 2007!

Of the bands and artists billed to appear, we caught up with Macaco and 08001 on the Friday night.

On the long, hot Saturday afternoon, we enjoyed an upbeat set from Gertrudis and the trancy, ethnic Nómhadas before retiring like softies for a bit of a siesta.

On our return in the evening, there were two ripping sets from the marvellous Patriarcas de la Rumba and Sargento Garcia (more commonly known as Sergent Garcia in his native France).

We rounded off Sunday with the highlight of the weekend, and the main driver behind why we were there in the first place: the legendary Toumani Diabaté and the Symmetric Orchestra, making their appearance in the middle of a long European tour whose UK dates are all somewhat difficult to reach for us.

Actually seeing Toumani in Catalonia was much easier, believe me!

The Etnival was quite well attended, though numbers never swelled to completely fill the available area.

However whilst the crowds were therefore relatively small (with the notable exception of the Macaco appearance on Friday night), it did mean that the queues for the bar and toilets were mercifully short.

It could take a few more years and the introduction of a bit of vegetarian catering before the Etnival establishes itself enough to attract a bigger crowd.

Confidence does seem to be growing though: this year’s headliners warranted much bigger type sizes on the poster!

Of course, it would also be great to see the continuing development of the Etnival as a free event. Let’s hope the Caixa Sabadell continues to back it.

The city

Since that champion of cheapness Ryanair began flying to Girona, the city’s small airport some way out of town has swollen to accommodate close to 4 million passengers per year, an 800% increase in the last decade.

Yet few of these passengers actually visit Girona itself. To some, you see, the airport is known as “Girona Costa Brava” whilst to others it’s more familiar as “Girona Barcelona”. And it’s one of these ‘bigger’ attractions for which most passengers are bound once they metamorphose like some indelicate breed of butterfly into Brits abroad.

Just a small number of inquisitive travellers crosses over to the solitary, lonely bus stop opposite those signed for Lloret De Mar and Barcelona. From this joyless outpost the intrepid head downtown.

What these chancers will discover is an extraordinarily beautiful medieval city, compact and peaceful and full of wonderful ice creams in all flavours.

Occasionally the odd loudmouth ignoramus and three generations of his rolled gold Essex dynasty rumbles in for a bit of culcha before the haul home – souring your quiet tapas lunch on the Plaça de l’Independencia – but such cretinous infestations are thankfully rare.

In common with most great Iberian cities, Girona’s long history is tied to religion and siege. Needless to say, the Romans woz ere first, replaced by the Moors and then a co-existing Christian and Jewish population from the early tenth century onwards.

The Jewish enclave in the city was particularly well established, becoming a centre for the study of Kabbala, before the Jews were expelled in the late 15th century by the Catholic kings. The Jewish influence is still in evidence today throughout that part of town known as the Call.

Girona is one of those cities in which every corner you turn gives way to some new and frequently unusual sight.

From finely crafted door handles to lavish funeral parlours, from creepy shop displays to colourful markets, from trompes l’oeil to trainers hanging from wires, Girona is chock full of profound, fleeting images.

Contrasting with the dry plains of Castile and the hot mountains and plateaux of the Sierra Nevada, Catalonia is a green region in the shadow of the Pyrenees.

In Girona, there are several beautiful gardens, including the Alemanys and the Parc de la Devesa, in which a long avenue of plane trees called the Plaça de les Botxes can be found. There was an impressive range of restaurants. J and I counted Chinese, Indian, Thai, French, Basque, Catalan and even that rarest of exotic cuisines in Iberia: vegetarian.

So next time you’re passing by on your way to Barca or the Costas, why not drop in on Girona?

Bing and I both frequented the Showroom Cinema opposite the railway station. One day he returned from one particular screening raving about what he’d seen and insisting I get down there sharpish and catch it.

That was the first run of Wim Wenders’ Oscar-nominated documentary Buena Vista Social Club and I didn’t catch it. Nor did I catch the second run.

It would be eight years more before I finally picked up the original World Circuit album and inevitably a number of those ageing musicians had passed on: Compay Segundo, Ibrahim Ferrer, Pio Leyva, Ruben Gonzalez, Manuel Puntillita Licea.

Four of the original members are currently on tour in the United Kingdom. All of the dates I’ve seen advertised are sold out.

This time I was not prepared to miss out so easily and I booked the tickets three months in advance. It was more than worth the wait, and those four original Buena Vista members (Manuel Galbán, Orlando Cachaíto López, Jesús ‘Aguaje’ Ramos, Guajiro Mirabal) were joined by a fifth, namely nimble-fingered laoud player Barbarito Torres.

The venerable greats were joined by members of an emerging younger generation. Pianist Ronaldo Luna evoked memories of Gonzalez’ beautiful solos. Following in Ferrer’s footsteps came Carlos Calunga, whose extraordinary vocal range was ably backed by Idania Valdès, the daughter of original Social Clubber Amadito.

The set list included elements of son montunos, danzón, cha cha cha, boleros and Cuban jazz. Alongside Social Club favourites such as Candela and Dos Gardenias, there was a lively rendition of Chanchullo and even a tender Somewhere Over The Rainbow, providing a beautiful contrast to the more raucous numbers.

I’ll be joining the 6 Feet Underground collective at the Cathouse at the Brixton Telegraph for a special gig as a guest for the night.

Back when I was playing nights as a student to earn enough money to fund my degree, I used to be into Detroit techno and old skool Chicago house.

Now I will be dropping a selection of the weirdmess of sounds I’ve managed to accumulate in the years since, little of it what you would call dance music.

But it will be nice to hear some of my favourites out loud, a rare opportunity that I could not miss myself, never mind all the lucky people who will hopefully be dancing to them and possibly wondering what on earth these unusual musica are!

So see you down the Telegraph, Brixton Hill, November 26th at midnight!