{"id":2416712,"date":"2018-12-27T01:00:12","date_gmt":"2018-12-27T08:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=290286"},"modified":"2018-12-27T01:00:12","modified_gmt":"2018-12-27T08:00:12","slug":"rock-flamenco-guitarist-el-javi-to-play-the-temporary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/rock-flamenco-guitarist-el-javi-to-play-the-temporary\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Rock flamenco\u2019 guitarist El Javi to play The Temporary"},"content":{"rendered":"

El Javi<\/a> may be the king of \u201crock flamenco.\u201d
The Denver-based guitarist also coined the term, perfected the form and founded this kingdom himself \u2014 melding the hard-edged electric shredding style of heavy metal with the romantic folkloric Spanish tradition of flamenco.
\u201cI\u2019m still a rocker,\u201d he said in a recent phone interview.
El Javi will headline The Temporary at Willits with his trip on Friday night.
Raised in Mexico City, Javi was a metalhead as a teen. Inspired by Metallica and Led Zeppelin, he dreamed of life as a guitar hero.
When he came to the U.S. to study at the Musicians Institute in Los Angeles, however, his bubble quickly burst.
\u201cI was pursuing the whole rock life,\u201d he explained. \u201cBut when I was there, I realized everybody else was, too. Everybody was a metalhead and a shredder. I was like, \u2018Oh s\u2014.\u2019 I didn\u2019t feel special or unique.\u201d
Disillusioned, he put down his guitar for half a year.
\u201cI was so depressed about it, I was like, \u2018I don\u2019t know what else to do now,’\u201d Javi recalled.
He even sold off his guitar and his amps. But, on a whim, he bought a flamenco guitar and started noodling with it. That instrument would help him find his voice as an artist and would send him on a yearslong creative adventure.
He put aside rock and metal and started teaching himself the flamenco technique, listening and playing along to classics like \u201cFriday Night in San Francisco\u201d by Al Di Meola, Paco de Luc\u00eda and John McLaughlin.
He then went to Spain in 2004 to study flamenco at the source.
\u201cThat changed my life completely,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I went to Spain, it became a passion and I immersed myself in it and the lifestyle.\u201d
When he came back to the U.S. and settled back in Los Angeles, Javi had a light-bulb moment that birthed his \u201crock flamenco\u201d style.
\u201cI was like, \u2018Well, this is all nice but I don\u2019t want to be sitting down and playing the guitar,’\u201d he recalled. \u201cI\u2019m still a rocker. I play hard. So that was when I started experimenting combining the essence of rock \u2014 the chord progressions, the rhythm \u2014 with the flamenco.\u201d
His 2012 album \u201cSelf-Portrait\u201d announced the new style.
His most recent record is \u201cA Gypsy Journey, Part II.\u201d Released in 2017, it is the second in a series of albums based on his travels playing music and immersing himself in world cultures. He\u2019s taken an increasingly elastic approach to genre, bringing in elements of jazz with horns, and folk traditions with violin, moving easily between electric and acoustic guitar.
\u201cIt\u2019s a reflection of the travels, the people we meet, the places we go and finding inspiration to write music about that,\u201d he said.
The new record includes a tribute to his adopted home titled \u201cColorado.\u201d Javi has been based in Denver for three years and has become a regular in Aspen and the Roaring Fork Valley with regular gigs at the St. Regis in Aspen, a summer appearance at the Wheeler Opera House’s Colorado Music Showcase and a spot at the KDNK Hootenanny in Carbondale.
\u201cWhat I feel I get is more of a small-town, quiet nature,\u201d he said of life in the Mountain West. \u201cThat\u2019s something I haven\u2019t ever done \u2014 camping and fishing and all this stuff. It\u2019s more about self-discovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

atravers@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

El Javi may be the king of \u201crock flamenco.\u201dThe Denver-based guitarist also coined the term, perfected the form and founded this kingdom himself \u2014 melding the hard-edged electric shredding style of heavy metal with the romantic folkloric Spanish tradition of flamenco.\u201cI\u2019m still a rocker,\u201d he said in a recent phone interview.El Javi will headline The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2416712","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-11 08:15:39","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2416712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2416712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2416712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2416712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2416712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2416712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}