Did one of Southern California’s most isolated places become even more isolated during the pandemic? You bet. The funky allure of Slab City, which my colleague Priscella Vega calls “the Shangri-La of desert weirdness,” was no match for COVID-19. “The people that come visit me Iceland, Russia, Japan stopped coming,” said Rodney “Spyder” Wild, owner of an RV compound he rents on Airbnb.
The squatter’s paradise, which vaguely feels like a free, year-round Burning Man, is in Imperial County on the eastern shore of the Salton Sea about 50 miles north of the border with Mexico. Locals call it “the last free place in America” where there are no rules, no government, no taxes.
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Both were accustomed to recording in their home studios, so that part wasn’t new. But how to create the energy of the duet from different locations presented a fresh challenge.
“There were endless emails with tracks,” Piacentini says. “And he would play his violin again with my guitar, until we had a take that we liked.”
My story is the textbook immigrant story, where I came over from Mexico by way of Italy, and my artistic voice found a home in the U.S.
Giovanni Piacentini, guitarist
Piacentini was born in Mexico City, the son of a Mexican mother and an Italian father. He landed a spot at the Berklee College of Music in Boston and arrived in the U.S. at age 19.
He started last year with high hopes of touring China and ended it with an album he hadn t intended to make. COVID-19 turned life topsy-turvy that way, says classical guitarist
For this L.A. guitarist, pandemic isolation deepens the music msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.