The national teams of Mexico and Ecuador met at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on Saturday March 28th for an international friendly match. Mexico won the game 1 – 0 thanks to a goal by Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez, his 39th for the national team which moved him past Cuauhtemoc Blanco as Mexico’s second leading goal-scorer.
It goes without saying I attended and got some great photos in the process. The full album of photos is on my flickr. Below are some of my favorites from the event.
Buenos Aires-based label ZZK has long been a champion of both traditional Latin American sounds and modern digital works. The label’s latest foray into both worlds is a celebration of the life and work of one of Bolivia’s most beloved artists. Luzmila Carpio Meets ZZK is a seven-song EP of remixes of four tracks from her upcoming album, Yuya Jap’ina Tapes, by some of the best names in digital cumbia/electropical.
Read the rest of this story at MTV Iggy, my first for the site.
There are easy ways and difficult ways for a football player to cut his teeth and cleats in Europe. Mexican forward Alan Pulido has chosen, to quote the ancient knight from Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, quite “poorly” and has now placed his “current” club Levadiakos FC against his “former” club Tigres UANL in a legal battle over his contract.
At the heart of the matter, is Pulido who has claimed free agency since his return to Mexico from the World Cup in Brazil (as one of the substitutes.) The drama began on July 31st, 2014, when Pulido released a public statement that claimed he was no longer a player at Tigres and was actually a free agent. The announcement arrived days after he skipped a number of training sessions with the team. On August 6th, Tigres president Alejandro Rodriguez claimed/clarified that Pulido’s contract is binding until June 30th, 2016.
Back in early October, Remezcla sent me to a warehouse in Boyle Heights for a story. That warehouse turned out to be the set for Lucha Underground, a lucha libre show produced by the El Rey Network. There, the audience and I were treated to a 10-man battle royale and the company’s first ladder match. I had to wait until the episodes aired (Dec. 3rd & 10th) to share photos from the event.
A little over a month ago, Billboard announced a large bit of news: a partnership between Camilo Lara (a.k.a. Mexican Institute of Sound) and Toy Selectah (formerly of Control Machete) as Compass. The duo visited and recorded in seven different cities with a grand total of 90 collaborators for an album that will be released some time next year.
I actually spent a day at Red Bull Music Studios in Los Angeles this past summer while the duo worked on a few tracks. Below is footage I shot of Lara and Toy working with singer/musician Ceci Bastida on some vocals.
The duo will also tour the world together next year and will be part of Mexico’s Vive Latino festival.
A small group of protesters gathered outside of the Mexican Consulate in downtown San Bernardino to protest the kidnapping/disappearance of 43 student-teachers from a rural area in the state of Guerrero.
I guess it’s no surprise that a festival that catered to a Latino audience would result in a crowd dressed in a variety of football jerseys from local clubs and national teams, as was the case at last weekend’s Supersonico Festival. I photographed as many as I could as a personal project.
Esta nota continua en Panamérika.
Note: This review was originally written for another publication three weeks ago. That website never published it nor did they ever inform me as to why they didn’t publish it despite previously accepting the pitch. In the industry, we call this situation “bullshit.” So I’m publishing it here.
The concert at The Roxy in Hollywood this past Wednesday, August 13th was a homecoming and a public display of reconciliation for singer Cedric Bixler Zavala and guitarist/producer Omar Rodriguez Lopez, the founding members of Antemasque, who wrapped their debut US tour that night. The duo had been here before 14 years ago with At The Drive-In as the opening act for Rage Against The Machine.
A lot happened during that time. Zavala and Lopez left hardcore outfit At The Drive-In and formed the much more experimental The Mars Volta a year after that show. That much-loved, Grammy winning band came to a sudden end in 2013 when Zavala lashed out against Lopez on Twitter and officially ended TMV. Two lifelong friends were suddenly enemies much like Morrissey and Johnny Marr.
But then, earlier this year, the two reconciled and announced Antemasque, their new project together. They quickly released their debut self-titled album online and announced their first tour featuring Le Butcherettes as the opening act.
If anyone ever had any doubt as to the duo’s reconciliation, those doubts were put to rest the instance Antemasque stepped foot on the stage. Zavala and Lopez, flanked by drummer Dave Elitch and Lopez’s brother Marfred on bass, performed together as they have for years.
If there’s one word to describe Antemasque, that word is “freedom.” The duo have long been tied down to one genre or another for much of their careers: Hardcore Rock/Punk with ATDI, Dub with short-lived project De Facto, and Progressive Rock with TMV. As Antemasque, they’re free to do as they wish jumping from Classic Rock to Pop-Punk/Pop-Rock to Punk to Acoustic ballads.
Age has yet to slow Zavala down as he jumped, shimmied, leapt off Elitch’s drum kit, and smashed his cymbals on the floor as he’s done since his days with ATDI. Lopez joined on backup vocals a few times throughout the hour-long set where the band played all but one song from their debut album. They performed an untitled new song in its place.
Lopez, who in the past had a reputation for noodly guitar antics, kept the guitar solos to a minimum until the second-to-last song of the night, “Providence.” Halfway through the song, the band gave its Volta fans a nod with a drawn-out jam session during which Zavala ad-libbed new lyrics on the fly.
Openers Le Butcherettes set the tone for the night as singer/guitarist/keyboardist Teri Gender Bender (Teresa Suarez), drummer Lia Braswell, and tour bassist Chris Commons fired up the crowd for an hour playing a mix of tracks from their latest album, Cry Is For The Flies, and their debut, Sin Sin Sin.
Afroxander (aka Iván Fernández) 