I’ve been in Lima, Peru for three nights now and love it so far. I am impressed by the amount of street art throughout the city. Below are a few of my favorites. I’ll add more to the Street Art in Lima folder on my flickr throughout my stay as I find them.
I’m off to Peru for three weeks. Don’t expect much in the way of posts/updates (not that there have been many recently anyway) though I have a few things queued. I’ll do my best to update while in Peru.
And yes, I am going to visit Machu Picchu.
Low End Theory co-founder and Mexico City native (bet y’all didn’t know that!) The Gaslamp Killer (William Benjamin Besnussen) released his full-length debut album Breakthrough last Tuesday Sept. 18th. He celebrated with a concert at the Mayan Theatre in downtown L.A. with the help of Red Bull Music Academy, Computer Jay, J-Rocc, Adrian Younge with Venice Dawn, Eprom, Flying Lotus and Daedalus.
Check out a few photos from the event below. All photos can be found on my flickr.
Colombian swing (Suin a la Colombiana) group Monsieur Periné made its debut in Los Angeles with a free show at the Levitt Pavilion in MacArthur Park. The group performed tracks from its debut album Hecho A Mano (Handmade) at the BMI-sponsored event, which included headliner Palenke Soultribe. Check out a few photos below and see the full album at my flickr.
Monsieur Periné
Palenke Soultribe
I was the special guest on Culture Remixed on Kill Radio this past Monday.
Afroxander is the guest on Culture Remixed episode 74 on killradio.org. The Remezcla and LA Weekly contributor sits down to talk about his work for each site as well as the current state of Latin Alternative music in Los Angeles and beyond. It’s a very fun conversation with some cool music played between segments.
Check it out at the Culture Remixed website or you can listen to it HERE.
Ondatrópica is a supergroup from Colombia that represents the face of cumbia, the traditional music of Colombia, today. The group is led by Mario Galeano of Frente Cumbiero and Will “Quantic” Holland who gathered more than 40 musicians, veterans and fresh-faces alike, in Disco Fuentes‘ recording studios for a weeks-long recording session that resulted in an amazing self-titled debut that covers the spectrum of cumbia (traditional, modern, international, etc.) from its golden age to the present day.
I had the privilege of interviewing Galeano and Quantic by e-mail for Remezcla and the absolute pleasure of watching Ondatrópica live at The Mayan Theater in L.A. with opening acts Very Be Careful, Buyepongo and Chicano Batman.
An excerpt from Q&A: Ondatrópica, Conquering the World with Cumbia:
Who came up with the idea of covering Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man?”
Q: Covering “Iron Man” was something that came out of thinking about doing versions of English songs. Naturally, we started thinking about Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath. Out of Black Sabbath, we thought it’d be really cool to do a metal song, like a heavy rock song, especially because Colombia is so into Sabbath. There was “Paranoid” and a few other options, but “Iron Man” just seemed like the most useable for a banda. We always imagined a brass band playing that, and I think it came out to be more elegant than we imagined. We thought it was going to be quite drunk and the rum/ron wordplay just came out of being in the studio. I remember we had a bottle of rum at the time and it was just like a quick moment: “Hang on. I. Ron. Man.”
M: Yeah, it was just something very fresh that came out in the studio, as a lot of other things. We were not following a script or something that was prepared 100%. We were laughing, making jokes, playing around, and chilling out. These types of things happen in creative environments, like here in Discos Fuentes studio. I’m pretty sure “I. Ron. Man.” is one song Ozzy Osbourne didn’t imagine having it covered this way. We definitely have to show it to him, and have him drink some Colombian rum.
A few photos from their concert at The Mayan that I took for LA Weekly:
Last Sunday was the inaugural concert for Telemundo/Mun2’s 6th annual Descarga festival at Universal Studios Citywalk. The event featured appearances from cast members of Telemundos’ newest telenovela Rosa Diamante and performances from El Conjunto Nueva Ola, JotDog, and Los Rieleros Del Norte. The complete set of photos can be seen at my flickr.
3Ball MTY, the DJ outfit from Monterrey, Mexico that is partly responsible for the pointy boot craze (and I mean pointy!), spun a long set at the Belasco in downtown LA on Thursday night. The show was part of a larger, nationwide campaign called the Premios Juventud VIP Tour happening throughout the summer used to promote Univision’s upcoming Premios Juventud (Youth Awards) awards show.
Check out the full set of photos on my Flickr.
Afroxander (aka Iván Fernández) 