UNFINISHED DOCUMENTARY, KINGDOMS OF THE RADIO | 1995
Zongo Khumalo 5
Music was always a big part of life at Girassol. I was… still am, a huge fan of Ray Barreto, Mongo Santamaria, all those congueros who were bringing a Puerto Rican flavor to all kinds of music in those days. Just about the only thing I went back to the City to grab, once we settled in, was my King Conga.
We were lucky that the big house was in such good shape, so we didn’t have to worry about building any structures for a hot minute, at least until the word got out and the community started to grow too big to live under one roof.
At first, the lack of electricity was a bit of an adjustment, but it forced us to adopt an old school daily schedule. We got up when the Sun came up, worked at the various jobs we found for ourselves, and by nightfall, were ready to gather around a campfire and play.
I’m proud to say that I helped introduce the descarga, the improvised jam session, that I learned from listening to all the players with the Fania All-Stars. Charlie invited this band of legit pickers from Marin that he knew, and we immediately got it on. We ended up coming up with a heady mix of bluegrass, folk, and salsa we called ¡Hierba exuberante! For obvious reasons.
Enrique Bravocado 5
Not having power out at Girassol wasn’t a problem for me. I was used to working the back forty with all the low-profile grows up-county. I preferred it, actually. The one concession I made to modernity, was my radio. As long as I didn’t run out of batteries, I was golden. Of course, the only station I could pull in up there was Floyd’s pirate station, KRTO. Good thing he and I saw eye-to-eye, or ear-to-ear, rather.
Once we got to know each other, I would often ride my bike to town and hang with him at the lighthouse and spin records all night. It was beautiful, man, we had no idea who, if anyone, was listening, but that’s not the point, it is? We weren’t kowtowing to corporate interests and were adding positive vibrations out into the ether. How could that be wrong?
I was talking up our jam sessions one night and was saying that he should come out and tape us one night so he could play it on the air. Now, for a pirate, Floyd is a lot more practical than me, he just looked and me and laughed, asking “How the hell did you imagine that was going to happen since y‘all are are sitting around in the dark out there like Little House on the Goddamn Prairie?” Fair point, Floyd, fair point.
Charlie Perigo 5
Whatever Zongo had picked up at the airport, once he made his connection back down in the City, he was flush for a bit. I had a more-or-less steady paycheck from the Forestry Department, as long as I kept the state from burning down, but the rest of our growing family weren’t exactly Rockefellers. We needed a line of income, at least enough to keep us in beans, rice, and good ol’ Red Mountain Wine.
After Sticky came out to see what we were doing with all the salvage, he and Bravo hit off and decided to get a grow going together. The soil around the ranch had been left to the feral chickens long enough, that whatever we threw down, popped right back out of the ground before you could say, “Johnny Appleseed.”
Román Leão 