I just had a friend call to ask me some particulars about the dance at the Hotel Fort Des Moines on Friday. Here are some of the details you may need to know:

• $15 advanced purchase or $18 at the door
• Admission includes: hors d’oeuvres and a champagne toast
• There will be a complimentary dance lesson from 8-9 p.m.
• All ages are welcome
• A cash bar is available

At 9 p.m. DJs Sergio and Henry take over and play some salsa, merengue, etc. for you. We’ll have some classics to help say goodbye to the old year and some new goodies to help usher in 2007.

If you would like to purchase tickets in advance, you can click here and purchase your tickets online or you can email Salsa Iowa to request tickets.

Misc | 1 Comment »

So I am going to be getting a satellite radio for Christmas and I was hoping that you all could offier a little insight on the better choice for Salsa. I have heard a little of both because at different times, I have had DishNetwork and DirecTV satellite TV services which include Sirius and XM respectively. I think they are both pretty good. They both have their good and not so good points.

I like that Sirius has some New York City flavor to it because that is where it is based out of. They have catchy little phrases that a lot of the NY stations use. I don’t like that it mixes reggaeton with salsa, merengue and bachata, and more recently made it the primary style of music. I like Reggaeton somewhat but it is still fairly new as far as genres go and it is too different than the aforementioned genres. XM separates them into two different channels.

As for XM, I like that they have a few more latin channels for other genres. They don’t have as many of the corny one-liner ads but again, I kind of like those

Right now, I have XM through my dish provider so I am leaning a little more toward Sirius so that I can have both but I’d love to see what you all think.

Music | 2 Comments »

Well, in order to be fair to lovers of some other Latin genres that we cater to, I thought it would be a good idea to a couple of other 2006 reviews. Today, we have Merengue as the genre of choice. Here are some of the hits from this year that I have compiled. Remember, I have tried to keep them as chronologically true as possible but I am going from memory. Feel free to help with some suggestions. (more…)

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So, I’ve added a little feature on the site to display songs that contain either a famous lyric/quote or have elicited some type of emotional response from me or people I know. So far, I’ve only been able to think of a few so perhaps you can help out with a quote or lyric from your favorite songs. As I mentioned, it could be something that made you think, “Wow! That was pretty intense!” or a phrase that when you hear it, you and probably everyone around, starts to sing it. One of the ones I used which is a perfect example of this is when you hear the conga and bongos playing quietly and then you hear Ruben Blades start to sing “Por la esquina de viejo barrio lo vi pasar…con el tumbao’ que tienen los guapos al caminar”. I don’t know too many people that don’t start singing after that line. If you can, try to include the performing artist and/or the original author. I’m sure there are some good ones out there that I am not thinking of. Happy singing!!Â

Music | 6 Comments »

A couple of weeks ago I posted an article about being thankful for what we have. Let us not forget about the idea of giving as well as thanking. Today I saw that my friend Jason posted the following about a little girl who was recently diagnosed with Bilateral Wilms Disease (which is cancer in both kidneys). Jason is a person I know to be a man of integrity, hard work (as demonstrated by the fact that he built his house with his own two hands, and of course a little bit of help from his family, but not much :)), a caring dad and husband…just an all around nice guy. So the fact that he wants to help this family is why I am doing this.  Jason has stated in his blog that his goal was to get one person to help this family. Another nice gentlemen named Ed, who I used to work for and am friends with (in fact he helped me build my site), posted his own blog saying that he will be that one person. What a great gift for this time of caring and family.

The goal here is no different folks. If we can get at least one person to make a donation, it would be a huge lift for this family in need. If you host a bog, perhaps you can join in by posting this blog or linking to this one or one of the others on this post. (more…)

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