Keeping Up With The Frodashian

The past few weeks have been pretty busy for me. I have a number of things I’m working on as well as a number of things that were recently published in LA Weekly and in Remezcla. Check ’em out below!

Subsuelo Celebrates One Year of Global Bass Boogie

“With Subsuelo, we wanted to do something different than just a regular dance club,” he says. “We wanted to incorporate elements of live performance, of theatricality that was a little bit different than just playing at a big club. We also really wanted to keep the feeling of a house party, which is how I ended up in Boyle Heights in the first place.”

Don’t Call Them Hooligans: Meet Ultras, L.A.’s Major League Soccer Superfans

L.A. is currently the only city in the country hosting two MLS teams — the L.A. Galaxy and Chivas USA, who share the Home Depot Center stadium in Carson and play each other this Saturday. The former was established in 1995 and is one of the league’s first teams, while the latter was founded in 2004 and is the sister team to Mexico’s Club Deportivo Guadalajara, aka Chivas de Guadalajara.

Each team recognizes three groups per team as official supporters: the Galaxians, Angel City Brigade and the L.A. Riot Squad on the Galaxy side; and Legion 1908, Union Ultras and Black Army 1850 for Chivas USA.

Sick Jacken and Cynic Talk Terror Tapes Vol. 2

Jacken, your brother Big Duke’s still playing a huge part in Psycho Realm despite being paralyzed from the neck down.

J: He does a lot of stuff behind the scenes. He helps out with the merchandising and still helps out with the concepts. He actually got into production now. He produced a track called “Metal Rain” on Stray Bullets. He’s working on two or three records that he’s producing entirely.

When you’re paralyzed, that’s a condition that’s rare for anybody to come back from. For now, he’s using technology to get around it. That guy’s Superman. I’m glad that technology is where it’s at and it helps him let out his creativity. He’s working on beats, running websites, and designing merchandise. I tell him he does more work now than he used to do when he was walking.

Q&A: Chicha Libre’s Olivier Conan, A Musical Cannibal

You were quoted in another interview two years ago as saying that chicha music leads to “late-night drunken violence and suicide attempts.”

I don’t think I said that! [laughs] Say that again [quote is re-read]. Oh, OK, they probably paraphrased something I said but it’s kind of true. A chicha concert in Lima is not necessarily a happy thing. The ritual is that you bring a case of beer [and] put it on the floor. It’s kind of a family thing at the beginning. You’ve got the kids, you’ve got the wife, and you’re all around the crate of beer…and you drink and you drink and you drink! There’s a lot of drinking going on. By the end of the night, it gets a little bit of hardcore. Sometimes there are fights like on Saturday nights in tougher neighborhoods all around the world; people work all week and they’re a little harder edged. Chicha is ghetto music originally. The cliché in Peru is that the really hardcore chichador slits his wrist at the end of the night. I don’t know how often that happens. It’s one of those mythic things.

Q&A: Outernational, Ready for the Revolution

How does that tie in with the album, Todos Somos Ilegales? Why or how are we all illegal?

That’s the heart of the album. It’s a concept record about the border, but that’s just the focal point of these contradictions. The border signifies so much. It signifies the economic situation where businesses can move freely across the border and suck the blood and life out of people, but people can’t. People gotta be policed and hunted down and shot down by KKK-style vigilantes and it focuses on so much of that. Undocumented people in this country are kept in the shadows and kept in fear. They’re invisible. The idea about We Are All Illegals is solidarity. If you’re gonna call them illegal then you better call me illegal too, motherfucker!We’re all illegal. The foundation of this country is genocide, slavery and stolen land.

Mark Ocegueda Q&A ~ Mexicans Played Baseball Too

One of the great stories in this book is of a team from Riverside from the Casa Blanca barrio. This team was comprised of various World War II veterans. All of them may not have been World War II veterans but there were definitely some that [were] and when they would play teams that were mostly Anglo, they would wear their military belts on the field to display to their opponents that they were deserving of equal rights, that they were deserving of full civic membership. They would show these belts while they were playing to show that we served in the military and we gave our blood overseas so we deserve full citizenship back home. These discriminatory polices and segregation that we live through on a daily basis is something that should not be tolerated. Baseball provided this venue for a lot of Mexicans, Mexican-Americans in particular, to display political messages and social messages.

Take A Trip Through Hell On Earth With K. Mennem As Your Guide

Since I wrote about the drug war in Mexico last year (see here and here), I’ve discovered more independent journalists who devote their time to covering drug war-related events in Mexico. One of these journalists is K. Mennem, creator of the Hell On Earth blog. His blog provides analysis of headlines from the drug war plus delves into aspects of the drug war’s cartel culture not covered by other sites, such as his story about Nuevo Laredo’s Boy’s Town.

I swapped a few e-mails with Mennem to learn more about his work and blog. Below is a brief exchange we had about his work and blog.

K. Mennem, Juarez photo — Beneath this calm exterior...

Let’s talk about your journalism background. How long have you worked as a journalist? Where have you been published/are published? Why did you decide to become a journalist?

I do not come from a formal journalism background. My college degree is in business, but I traveled to Mexico frequently with international study groups during college. I started my blog in 2009. The original plan was to write about various global events that are not covered by main stream media. My whole intent was to help bring to light the horrible things that occur daily in our world, yet these are often ignored by the public. I write routinely for the San Diego Reader, my blog of course, and guest spots on various blogs and websites from time to time. I have recently had an increase of interest from universities and politicians on my work. Doing work for these type of groups is currently in the making. I decided to start into journalism after I finally realized how much time I was spending on reading, researching, traveling, and talking to people about these issues. In most ways it had already engulfed my life before I even realized it. I am also an insurance agent. I sell local and international policies to businesses and private customers. I am the marketing director and international sales agent for an agency my brother owns. The flexibility with this job has allowed me to make both of my careers work.

Tell me about Hell On Earth blog. Where/how did you come up with the title? What is your interest in following/investigating narcotrafficking/drug war in Mexico?

The title for my blog came from the original concept of the site. Writing about the “Hell on Earth” that is unknown to many. As the Mexican cartel wars raged on, my blog eventually became focused on issues there. The drug war across the Americas has always been my focal point, but I decided to completely focus on it for the time being. I have always had strong ties to Mexico. I still travel to Mexico when possible. My passion for the country and its people compelled me to write about events often ignored in the United States. The ugly truth is that the U.S. is causing this chain reaction of events by its huge appetite for narcotics. My interest into following these events were naturally drawn in because of my interest in Mexico. I have friends on both sides of the law, friends on both sides of the border, and have spent considerable time along the border. These things have helped me develop into what I do.

How can mainstream media outlets improve their coverage of the drug war in Mexico?

Mainstream media needs to elaborate more on events happening, and not just give short summaries. Almost everything happening is directly tied to the United States, but you can not tell that by reading one paragraph a week in the newspaper. National news stations pick up on stories whenever it is the hot thing to do, but most often it is only when a U.S. citizen is a victim of a crime in Mexico or on the border.

Spain’s Vetusta Morla Makes Its L.A. Debut at the Troubadour

Vetusta Morla is a Rock group from Madrid, Spain who like their Andalusian peers before them made their debut in Los Angeles following SXSW. Pucho, David “El Indio,” Álvaro Baglietto, Jorge González, Guillermo Galván, and Juan Manuel Latorre played at The Troubadour last Tuesday to a loving crowd filled with many Spanish ex-patriots.

The sextet visited a few cities in the U.S. and played a show in Tijuana before ending their North American tour in L.A. Morla played mostly songs off their latest album, Mapas, a collection of songs that sound like a mix of Wilco and Coldplay. After the show, I interviewed guitarist Latorre about the group’s origins and independent work ethic. Below is an excerpt from the interview, which can be read in full at Remezcla:

What about your latest album, Mapas? Was that also released independently? Did you ever consider reaching out to a larger label?

Mapas as well. Everything! Being independent gives us a type of freedom that compensates us because running a label is a lot of work and it can take time away from being a musician. There are times at the end of a week when you ask yourself, ‘what happened? I’ve spent all my time in meetings and filling out paperwork and I’ve neglected my guitar.’ It’s worth the trouble because, at the end of the day, you have lots of freedom to do things the way you want to. No one can tell you to do things a certain way, to release this song as a single, to make a video, you’re the one who decides all that. More importantly, you can personally hire the staff. You can’t run the label by yourself. You need people to help you in specific areas and the beauty about running your own label is that you hire those people yourself. If you sign with a major label, they’ll assign whoever they have. You may get lucky and work with someone you really enjoy working with, or you could be unlucky and the whole thing ends up as a disaster.

Check out more photos of the concert on my Flickr account.

Bigott, Ritmo Machine Make Their L.A. Debut at Eastside Luv

It was a great week for new music in L.A. as Bigott and Ritmo Machine performed at Eastside Luv in Boyle Heights for some post-SXSW action.

Spanish Folk/Pop artist Bigott made his Los Angeles debut on the 20th with some help from the fine folks at Sol Art Radio and Ku De Ta.

Bigott is the project of singer/songwriter Burjo Laudo, a native of Zaragoza, Spain, who has five albums under his belt in almost as many years. He sings in English with a voice that, amazingly enough, fluctuates somewhere between that of Donovan, Colin Meloy, and Tom Waits.

Bigott was a live wire on stage who swung on bars and hooks reserved for the burlesque dancers who are there on the weekend. He and his band played a long set that covered possibly every track they’ve ever recorded and included an encore of his current hit single, “Cannibal Dinner.”

Check out the full set of photos on my flickr.

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The following night featured the L.A. debut of Ritmo Machine at Eastside’s most popular night, Subsuelo, the monthly global bass party presented by Gnawledge. The duo features Eric Bobo, of Cypress Hill and son of Afro-Cuban jazz percussionist Willie Bobo, alongside Chilean dj Latin Bitman who released their debut album, Welcome to the Ritmo Machine, last year on Nacional Records.

Machine played their hits, some stuff I didn’t recognize, and Bobo rocked out with a few percussion solos. A few songs in and Bobo introduced a very special, surprise guest: producer/musician Money Mark!

He played guitar on a number of tracks including “Follow Me,” which he also performs on the album. Later on in the night, Bobo introduced their second guest: Sick Jacken of Psycho Realm. He rapped on a few tracks including “La Calle” and “Sabe.”

Check out the full set of photos on my flickr.

Can Johan Cruyff Save Las Chivas De Guadalajara?

So this announcement appeared yesterday:

And there are thousands of Chivas fans at the Omnilife Stadium right this minute welcoming Johan Cruyff to the organization as the team’s new advisor. The move comes after a 3 – 0 loss against Velez Sarsfield in a Copa Libertadores match this past Wednesday, leaving the team with a win-less streak of 13 games. The club hired a new coach, Ignacio Ambriz, last month and now adds Cruyff to the roster to pull the team out of its slump.

Cruyff, born Hendrik Johannes Cruijiff, is a famous footballer who was incredibly successful as a striker and, later, as a manager. His career began with Dutch team AFC Ajax where he was a star player thanks to his mastery of Total Football under the guidance of manager Rinus Michels. His influence in the Netherlands international team was such that the team never lost a match he scored in.

He then played for FC Barcelona where he scored his most famous goal, known as “The Phantom Goal” and “Cruyff’s Impossible Goal,” during a match against Atletico Madrid:

Cruyff retired from football as an athlete in 1984 and began his career as a coach with the same team he started his career as a player, Ajax, before coaching Barcelona in 1988. He led the team to many championship wins and also trained/mentored a young Josep Guardiola.

Only time will tell how his role will help Guadalajara but a little Dutch influence never hurt any other team.

Highlights of the Week: Big Sir, JotDog, Gustavo Galindo

Three of my stories went up this week:

Big Sir Had Serious Health Scares. So They Made an Album About Life and Death.

Right around the time they were finishing their last album Und Die Scheiße Ändert Sich Immer, they both fell ill and were diagnosed with serious diseases. Alderete discovered he had polycythemia vera, a rare bone marrow disease where the body produces too many blood cells, while Papineau was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. “The bottom fell out,” says Papineau. “In the midst of this juncture, Juan dreamed a song, woke up, recorded it and emailed it to me in Paris. He said, ‘I know it may be corny to say this, but from now on everything we do really has to make a difference … even if only to us … there’s no point any more to do less.'”

Q&A: Jotdog, From Rock en Español to Sci Fi Über Pop

With Jotdog, we’re doing this for the right reasons. The right reasons to be in a group, for us, aren’t money or fame. The right reasons to be in a group, mainly, are to have a good time. Every time you write a song, you need to enjoy yourself. Every time you go on tour, you need to enjoy yourself. When you write a song with the mentality of writing a hit to make millions, you’ve lost the purpose of songwriting.

Gustavo Galindo Says Fuck You to the Latin Grammys

“Once the Latin Grammys happened,” he continues, “I thought ‘well, that’s it for this record cycle. Let’s go focus on Mexico and launch the album down there.'” He cut those plans short in December when, while sitting in traffic, he received a ton of tweets congratulating him. He had no idea what for; when he found out he was nominated alongside huge acts like Mana and Calle 13, he thought there must have been a mistake.

Mexican Dubwiser at Subsuelo

DJ/producer Mexican Dubwiser poked his head out of the production studio last week long enough to spin some latin, cumbiatronica jams. He was special guest at Subsuelo, a monthly party at L.A.’s Eastside Luv, “the Mecca of beautiful Hispanic women” as one of my friends described it.

Mexican Dubwiser – “Revolution Radio”

Mexican Dubwiser – “Cumbia Of The Great” (2008 version)

Dubwiser hails from Monterrey, Mexico, an area where lots of great music has been and continues to be created. He currently lives in LA so, hopefully, there’ll be more Dubwiser DJ sets in town (residency, anyone?).

Check out the full set of photos on my Flickr account.

Two Bands = Two Interviews: Enjambre and Rodrigo y Gabriela

It’s only the second week of the new year and already there have been a number of huge announcements/developments in the music world. Goldenvoice announced the Coachella 2012 lineup, a little-known rock group reunited, and Remezcla published two of my interviews:

Q&A: Enjambre, One more Album before the End of the World

Was the music scene going off there during that time?

Luis: Oh yeah, it still is. There’s a scene for anything. It’s the biggest city in the world and there’s all kinds of people so…we got there and people, when we got on stage, we were opening for this well-known band called San Pascualito Rey and everyone was yelling “Pascual! Pascual!” They wanted us to get off the stage and at the end of our set, they were yelling “Otra! Otra!” Going from “get off the stage” to asking for an encore was really interesting and everywhere we would play, it would be like that. People didn’t really know who we were but they started liking it. We’re like “well, if we keep doing this for a longer period of time then we can build it up and probably do this for a little longer.”

Julian: Also, we’re a band that sings in Spanish.

Rafa: The main music industry is still in Mexico City. Even Spanish or Argentine artists always want to go to Mexico and work their way out of there. It makes total sense for us to be there right now. It’s like for movies, it’d be Hollywood or for theater, it’s New York.

enjambre @ sala de espera, indie 103 — Enjambre at Indie 103.1's Sala De Espera program

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Q&A: Rodrigo Y Gabriela Reinvent Old Favorites With Area 52

It’s refreshing to hear these songs we already know, and suddenly there‘s a sitar solo in the middle. It’s like, “Whoa, what is this?!”

Exactly, I had to! I wasn’t going to play them the same. No way. It was a very different process for both of us to play the solos. I come from the rock side so I normally make the solos and then, once I nail them, I record them. For this album, it was very much on the spot. I was with my engineer and we had already gone to Cuba and had all the background music so it was literally playing around and saying, “Ok, I like this take here.” It was pretty much like that. That’s why I don’t even remember what I did but I listened to it and I really liked it.

Yeah, the introduction to “Anuman” is totally different.

I hope people understand that this is not our new direction but, I think it’s an interesting enough project to support, play a few shows with and we hope people enjoy it as much as we did. When I listen to the album now, for me, it’s like a different band. It’s not like listening to my own albums because I don’t even do that. I don’t go back and listen to the new albums because I’m very judgmental with what we did and I want to change things here and there. For this album, I can just go back, relax and listen to it. There are so many things going on and so many musicians on there that I’m not focused on what I’m doing so I really enjoy listening to it, which is a good thing.

Mink Performs “Dejame Salir” on Acústica Sesión

I’ve recently fallen in love with Mexico City-based Rock/Pop/Jazz trio MINK thanks to a friend of mine who gave me a copy of their full-length album Camino.

mink_grupo2 — MINK - Carla Villagran & Alex Sanchez

The trio, consisting of vocalist Carol Villagrán, guitarist Alex Sanchez and ~~drummer~~ bassist Adrian Paz, released an acoustic version of one of their hits, “Dejame Salir,” yesterday for Acústica Sesión, a production of Art En Stock and Tricyclo Music:

MINK formed in Mexico City in early 2007 months after Villagrán and Sanchez won a contest which led to a performance in Tokyo’s Asia Club. They released their debut, self-titled ep in 2009 recorded with the help of producer Tweety González.

MINK released Camino, also produced by González, the following year to positive reviews. It’s a great Pop record with touches of Rock, Jazz and a few dashes of Electronic music. And for those who noticed, yes, Villagrán does have a timbre similar to Ximena Sariñana.

No word yet on MINK’s plans for 2012 but I hope it includes a tour of the U.S.

Hugo Chavez Can’t Stop La Vida Boheme’s Dance Party!

I’ve been obsessed with La Vida Boheme’s debut album Nuestra for the past few weeks. I’m definitely not the only one enthralled by it as the lp was nominated for Best Latin Pop, Rock, Or Urban Album Grammy last night alongside the works of Calle 13, Gustavo Galindo, labelmates Los Amigos Invisibles, and Mana.

I learned about the Venezuelan dance-rock/post-punk quartet two months ago while listening to the FIFA 12 soundtrack, which includes LVB’s song “El Buen Salvaje.” I liked the song but wasn’t able to get my hands on the full album until a month later in early November when Remezcla put me in contact with Nacional Records. La Vida Boheme was in town and would I like to interview them? Heck yes!

La Vida Boheme by Afroxander! — In the Nacional Records office. Not pictured: the Flinstones rug on the floor.

From the interview:

D’Arthenay: The record [Nuestra], we made it while I was still in college. It was very troublesome because in 2008, we had some of the songs. We started recording it but we didn’t like the record, then went off to record it with another guy, but we still didn’t like it. In 2009, most of the songs had changed. When we recorded the master, it was in 2009. For some of the songs that we initially started recording in 2008, we didn’t feel that they were representative of the things we wanted to say so we made new songs on the spot. So 2009 was a reflection of what happened between 2006 to 2009.

With this new record we just recorded, there’s two songs in it that we were playing for a long time and the second half we made them in one month. We’re very unorthodox in that sense. We’re not willing to release something that we’re not proud of. A work of art speaks for itself. When it’s complete, you know it’s complete. Most of the times, songs are very difficult to get to that point where they’re finished and others, they just flow naturally. We struggled a lot with our second record because of that, and because we don’t want it to be sloppy — we want it to be better. It took us time but we’re very happy with what we have done.

Two days later, I made a trip to Las Vegas to watch LVB perform at Remezcla’s Latin Grammy pre-party:

The set was short but intense and the songs sounded even better live than their studio-recorded counterparts.

Keep your eyes and ears on La Vida Boheme in 2012.