Bouzouki Blues

It seems hard to imagine, but, despite all the great food, golden beaches and warm sunshine, even Greeks get the blues. And they have the music to match the mood: rembetika.

A mix of Western and Eastern influences, rembetika first emerged from the bars and cafés of 1920s Piraeus, Athens' ancient port and onetime home to refugees from Turkey and other parts of Asia Minor. The style — with its gravel-voiced singers and the metallic twang of the bouzouki, a kind of Greek lute — became the sound of the urban underclass, with sharp, poignant lyrics about prison life, drugs and, during the military dictatorship of the 1960s and '70s, politics.

Fans show their appreciation by throwing flowers, usually gardenias. Bring a bunch to Taximi, on 29 Isavron Street, Exarchia, tel: (30-210) 363 9919, where black-and-white photos of rembetika's finest performers invoke the spirit of the genre's origins. Patrons take their music seriously, with old-timers in pinstripes dancing until dawn.