About this blog

Ionosfera, Carmelo's new thing

Veteran Puerto Rican blogger Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero started a fourth blog last January: Ionosfera (http://ionosferamusic.blogspot.com/). This particular web project is an online resource dedicated to music, comedy, film and science fiction. "Ionosfera is the name of a proposal that I presented to the music programming department of the University of Puerto Rico's radio station WRTU at least a decade ago, but I never heard back from them".

Ionosfera is mostly music, and has an eclectic offering, which spans from links to specific episodes of NPR shows All Songs Considered and Alt-Latino, podcasts like Bandcamp Weekly, Six Degrees Traveler and Machtdose, and DJ sets featured in Resident Advisor and dublab, to classic prog rock from bands like Genesis, Yes and Saga (and side projects of their current and former members), Bandcamp compilations of African and Brazilian pop, and music from the most diverse artists, like Ana Tijoux, Calle 13, Aimee Mann, Groove Collective, José Feliciano, Kansas, Terry Bozzio, Chick Corea, Ralph Towner, Pat Metheny, Brian Eno, Laraaji and Philip Glass. Besides music, there's also comedy (Portlandia, Aubrey Plaza, Flight of the Conchords, The Simpsons, Awkward album covers), and campy sci-fi (Star Wars, Space 1999, The Six Million Dollar Man).

"In this blog I archive and share all that I consider fun, and so keep all these items separate from my 'serious' work on politics and ecology", said Ruiz-Marrero. Few of his readers would even imagine that his first formal education was not in journalism or ecology, but in music. In 1984 he attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, USA. "I turned 17 over there. I was the youngest student there at the time- Believe me, I asked around". In 1991 he graduated from the UPR Humanities faculty, where he majored in music. After that he spent some years in Vermont, where he hosted and produced programs for community radio station WGDR. Upon returning to Puerto Rico he joined the staff of the Claridadweekly newspaper, where he wrote about music- among many other subjects-, reviewed records and concerts, and interviewed artists. "I covered everything from Rush, Chris Botti and Windham Hill to David Torn, Michael Brook, Cultura Profética, Fiel a la Vega and Gema y Pável."

I'm thinking of expanding Ionosfera to include Facebook and Twitter accounts and who knows, maybe starting a podcast someday."