To continue where I left off a few months ago, I present another talented artist/group from Mexico: Ruido Rosa.
Ruido Rosa. Photo courtesy of Revista Plastica
Ruido Rosa is a rock n’ roll quartet from Mexico City featuring Alejandra Moreno (vocals), Daniela Sanchez (guitar), Carla Sarinana (bass) and Pablo Cantu (drums). Drummer Maryluz Alatriste left the band earlier this month for personal reasons and Cantu is serving as a temporary replacement.
The original members started the band in 2005 and had their first huge break in the U.S.A. in 2009 when they performed at SXSW. They recorded their self-titled debut album the following year with the help of Diego Solorzano, a.k.a. Rey Pila but not before opening for KISS during their three-city tour of Mexico. RR returned to SXSW in 2011 where they performed at La Banda Elastica’s showcase.
RR has a rock/classic rock sound which shouldn’t be a surprise as they claim Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, The Kinks and The Raconteurs as their primary influences. The two singles off their debut, “Dentro” and “Miedo A Caer,” have a bit of an early BRMC vibe. Listen below.
No word yet on a proper tour of the U.S.A. but hopefully there’ll be one next year.
Los Abandoned was a latin alternative rock group from L.A. that quit before it had a real chance to thrive. Their debut album Mixtape showed lots of promise from the talented quartet but, unfortunately, a number of issues led to their abrupt and sudden dissolution in October 2007.
Thankfully, Ricky Garay and Mucho Music convinced Los Abandoned to reunite for a special, one-time-only Day Of The Dead resurrection concert. I spent a good portion of the past two weeks covering the band for LA Weekly and Remezcla. Stories and photos are linked below:
The group had ruminated on a reunion since last year, when conflicting schedules forced them to turn down a benefit performance in Chile. They kept the dialogue open until earlier this year when Mucho Events promoter Ricky Garay brought everyone around to his idea for a Day of the Dead reunion.
Garay’d had the idea since promoting a few shows for Diaz’ solo project. “I would always casually mention it,” said Garay, “but I would never bug them about it because I knew it was a personal thing. It was something that I was trying to wrap up before we left La Cita.”
We were very honored by [Gustavo Arellano] putting us such on a high pedestal. We worked for so many years and we went through so much just to get the little that we had in the economic sense, but it all paid off when we’d get great write-ups and people telling us that they were influenced by us, or that we helped them get through a breakup, or helped them feel better about themselves. We had a big queer following and there were a lot of kids that came out of the closet and thanked us because our music helped them do that. It was those things that made it all worthwhile when we were all living on sleeping bags on the floor.
Los Abandoned took a 20 minute intermission after the second encore, and returned to the stage covered in zombie make-up and fake blood. Verde kicked off their final set — a bunch of covers — with the opening lick to Oingo Boingo’s “Dead Man’s Party.”
They finished with Simple Minds’ “Don’t You Forget About Me.” All of it had me secretly hoping that more bands would break up, so that they could later reunite for a proper send-off.
Defying the fury of the winds and the hunger of ship-eating monsters, Admiral Christopher Columbus set sail.
He did not discover America. The Polynesians had arrived a century previous, and the Vikings four centuries before that. And three hundred centuries before them all came the oldest inhabitants of these lands, people whom Columbus called Indians, believing he had entered the Orient by the back door.
Since he did not understand what they said, Columbus was convinced the natives did not know how to speak. Since they went about naked, were docile, and gave up everything in return for nothing, he believed they were not thinking beings.
Although he died insisting his travels had taken him to Asia, Columbus did begin to harbor doubts on his second voyage. When his ships anchored off the Cuban coast in the middle of June 1494, the admiral dictated a statement affirming that he was in China. He left written evidence that his crew agreed: anyone saying the contrary was to receive a hundred lashes, be fined then thousand maravedies, and have his tongue cut out.
At the bottom of the page, the few sailors who knew how to write signed their names.
Columbus deserves the credit or blame only for what he actually did: which was to discover a route that permanently linked the shores of the Atlantic and to contribute–more signally, perhaps, than any other individual–to the long process by which once sundered peoples of the world were brought together in a single network of communications, which exposed them to the perils and benefits of mutual contagion and exchange. Whether or not one regards this as meritorious achievement, there was a genuine touch of heroism in it–both in the scale of its effects and in the boldness which inspired it. There had been many attempts to cross the Atlantic in central latitudes, but all–as far as we know–failed because the explorers clung to the zone of westerly winds in an attempt to secure a passage home. Columbus was the first to succeed precisely because he had the courage to sail with the wind at his back.
…
So which was Columbus: hero or villain? The answer is that he was neither but has become both. The real Columbus was a mixture of virtues and vices like the rest of us, not conspicuously good or just, but generally well-intentioned, who grappled creditably with intractable problems. Heroism and villainy are not, however, objective qualities. They exist only in the eye of the beholder.
Imagine a soundtrack for a blaxploitation film starring Shaft in outer space and you’ll have an idea of what Zechs Marquise’s second album, Getting Paid, sounds like. The album is a harder, funkier successor to the group’s full-length debut Our Delicate Stranded Nightmare, which favored ambience and mellow dub.
I spoke with bassist Marfred Rodriguez-Lopez over the phone about the album as well as a number of other topics including why the band is playing at a strip club in Hollywood, bass lines in latin cumbias and west coast hip-hop, Japanese anime, the period of time the band was named Mastodon, and a certain famous sibling.
(l - r) Marcos Smith, Matthew Wilkinson, Marfred Rodriguez-Lopez, Marcel Rodriguez-Lopez and Rikardo Rodriguez-Lopez
So you have a few shows coming up next week.
We actually start on Saturday. We have one here [in El Paso] and then the next one is in Mesa [AZ]. Then we play L.A., then San Diego, then L.A. again.
I was looking at those shows and I see you guys are playing at Cheetahs. How’d THAT happen?
We have a friend who books bands there and he saw that we were coming out and had a day off. And he’s like “It’s this bikini bar!” and the reason why we took it is because there’s no cover and we get to play all of our stuff. So we thought, cool, we’ll have one free show and one where people have to pay. We’re kind of interested in seeing how that works out.
Yeah, I read that and thought “When did Cheetahs start booking bands?”
[laughs] So is it like a bikini bar or like a strip club? I’ve been told it’s both, kind of.
I was there once for a friend’s birthday. It’s not a full-on strip club but you can get lap dances and all that.
Like a middle ground? [laughs]
Yeah, that’s why when I read about that show, I went “huh?”
That’s weird, yeah. [laughs] We thought the same thing too.
And then you guys are playing at Low End Theory later.
Yeah, we haven’t played Low End in like two years and we used to try to do it at least twice a year. Over the last few years, we never had a chance to schedule a Low End show, especially with how we’ve grown over the past couple of years, but we definitely like playing there. I think they’ve only had a couple of rock bands play there but all the residents there consider us residents so that’s cool considering that we don’t live in L.A.
The first time we did Low End we opened for Daedalus and Busdriver. We were totally stoked on that because we’ve been fans of Busdriver for so long.
And you’re actually playing two shows in El Paso.
Yeah, we have another one in October [at La Parada]. I guess it would be the equivalent of El Paso’s Low End Theory. It’s the first Friday of every month at the San Carlos building, which is a building a huge courtyard. They have lots of stores and stuff and they let these guys rent the whole space once a month with a few dj’s and live art. Sometimes they have a dance troupe play, they’ll have a band play, it’s really cool. We’re booking it as our vinyl release party since we’re playing two shows in El Paso so close together and because it’s mostly a vinyl culture as it is.
Are you going to add more tour dates?
We have a tour coming up in November. As soon as the routing and dates are locked down, we’ll be announcing those. The only reason we’re doing this one so short is because it’s right when the record comes out. We want to get out, play a few shows and give it some time to circulate for a minute before heading back out again.
Let it percolate for a bit?
Yeah, exactly. Let it settle with people. It’ll be nice to do these shows. The way it worked out was great with Low End capping it off and [brother/drummer] Marcel [Rodriguez-Lopez]’s birthday is the following day on the 29th so to come back home after releasing the record, especially after how long and how hard we’ve been working on it, it’ll be nice.
I made my first appearance at the Latin Grammys yesterday as a photographer for Remezcla. The event took place at the Avalon in Hollywood where a number former and current nominees were in attendance.
The announcers pose for a group shot. Photo for Remezcla.Calle 13 being interviewed on camera for CNN en Español. Photo for Remezcla.Members of Zoe being interviewed by a number of outlets. Photo for Remezcla.
Check out all of my photos of the event over at Remezcla.
I’ve done quite a bit of work for Remezcla since my return from Spain. I posted them in my Twitter feed. Here they are in one convenient location in case you missed them:
Ximena Sariñana swung by the Warner Bros. Records office this past Friday for a mini-concert before her trip up north to San Francisco for the Outside Lands Festival. I was lucky enough to receive an invite to the event and, as always, took a few photos while there.
The world-famous WB water tower! No word if the Animaniacs still live inside of it:
Some of Ximena’s younger fans became distracted by the stage props:
Open bar courtesy of Red Bull:
There’s a livestream of the show courtesy of the WB which you can find HERE. Look for my cameo halfway through the show. There are a few more photos on my Flickr as well.
A highlight of my stay in Valladolid, Spain was my group’s trip to the city’s nationally-recognized museum of religious sculpture at Colegio de San Gregorio. The museum hosts an incredible collection of religious sculptures and paintings from the 15th – 18th centuries. Highlights from my visit are below and, as always, all photos from my visit (nearly 200!) can be seen on my Flickr.
KCRW launched its first installment of its Summer Nights series in Pasadena with a concert by artist Diego Garcia this past Saturday. KCRW DJ Anne Litt introduced Garcia and his well-dressed backup band of musician friends to an adoring crowd that packed the European-style courtyard of the One Colorado shopping area.
The show, Garcia’s last in his week-long tour of California, covered every track off his freshly-released solo debut album, Laura, as well as a cover of The Kinks “This Strange Effect” for good measure. Amidst the setting sun and gentle breeze, Garcia poured his heart out as he shared the pain of lost love, the comfort and release provided by time and maturity and the triumph of love regained.
Head over to LA WEEKLY for my full interview with Garcia and concert review.
Drug cartels in Mexico who once operated in the shadows announced their entrance into mainstream society with a number of beheadings in 2006 that marked the beginning of a wave of unprecedented violence that still consumes parts of the country. Gun fights in broad daylight occur regularly in parts of Nuevo Leon, Michoacan and Chihuahua. Cartels have also moved on to methods more sadistic than beheadings via vats of acid and even a car bomb or two.
Flag of Los Zetas by cartoonist Jose Hernandez (monerohernandez.com.mx)
Much of Mexico continues to live normally despite the violence in some areas. Traveler extraordinaire Rick Steves celebrated the coming of 2011 in Mexico City with nary a hint of drug-related violence in sight. My relatives in the state of Jalisco continue to live in peace. My friends with families in Juarez, unfortunately, cannot say the same. They have suffered extortion and violence at the hands of cartels and corrupt law enforcement.
Most Mexican news organizations can’t or won’t cover the situation in-depth because of threats and attacks by cartels on their headquarters and journalists. U.S. news organizations can’t or won’t because it’s not in their interest to do so save for lazy, fear-mongering tales of spillover violence and anarchy.
So where do concerned citizens and interested parties turn to for accurate information and comprehensive analysis of events in Mexico? Read on after the jump to find out:
Afroxander (aka Iván Fernández) 