Sunday, November 6, 2011
Mt. 7 Rec Plex
CHAMPIONED BY
Parky’s Heating & Cooling
The Island Restaurant
Other media files are here.
Alex Cuba
Singer-songwriter Alex*Cuba hails from Artemisa, Cuba (1 hour west of Havana) and resides in Smithers, B.C. (14 hours north of Vancouver). Musically, he lives everywhere in between. His trademark sugarcane-sweet melodies, pop-soul hooks and rock chords subtly subvert commonly held notions of what Cuban music is.
Critical to Alex’ success has been constant touring with a live show that has been described as explosive. Revealing his bass player past, Alex picks, plucks, strums and rocks his Gibson ES355, equipped with the heaviest guage steel strings available, without a pick. With Alex its just skin on steel, with solos that often lead to bleeding fingers. His visionary rebel nature is evident in the fact that contrary to the prevailing Cuban and Latin big band formations, Alex*Cuba performs as a trio (Alex on vocals, electric and acoustic guitars, electric bass and drums). The simplicity, power, and sheer efficiency of this formation has stolen the stage from bands quadruple their size and has confused many production teams expecting the typical big band at load-in. Doing more with less is an ever-present mantra for Alex*Cuba.
With a heart as big as his retro ‘fro, Cuba takes it all in stride and focuses on what he does best: crafting songs that cut through linguistic and cultural barriers like a machete through sugarcane.
