“The reason why at least half the record is more electronic,” said Alderete, “is because Lisa and I can do it ourselves where, before, we always had to ask somebody, we always had to go into the studio. Now we can make these records that, to us, sound like hip-hop records even though they’re not hip-hop records. We just wanted beats! We’ve always wanted that and now that we build it all, we’re just going to get better at it.”
“In this [album], we both started learning engineering skills and a lot of trial and error,” said Paineau. “That’s why it took us so long because we decided we want to do it ourselves. We did have a lot of help though.”
Another year brings another FIFAgame and, with it, another topnotch soundtrack! I picked a few of my favorite tracks from the game to share below. Check out the entire tracklist at FIFA soundtracks dot com. I meant to post this days ago but I got stuck sitting on the couch, posted in front of the tele playing the game demo. Whoops!
I get the feeling I’m going to hate this one eventually because every movie producer on the face of the earth will attach it to their Oscar-baiting trailer. I’ll enjoy it for the time being.
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:
The summer of 2011 quickly became the summer of Kreayshawn, a 21 year-old rapper/pop singer from Oakland who blew up after she released her track “Gucci Gucci” this past May:
It only took a week for the video to reach 1 million hits and it didn’t take long after that for Columbia Records to offer her a contract (yes, she signed it).
Naturally, fame brings its own load of unique baggage along with it such as the eventual parody. Kreayshawn now has her own official parody thanks to the sketch comedy artists at Loud Village. Their version is less concerned with swag and more interested in fish tacos:
“Will [Reese] thought ‘Gucci Gucci’ would be a funny song to parody,” says Jeremy Burke of LV. “I wrote the lyrics and he recruited Wendy McColm, who plays ‘Kreayfish,’ from UCB. She’s on a sketch team there called ‘The Get Go’ and his roommate made the beat. I got the locations and everyone else and made a hilarious video.”
“I wanted it to be just like her video staying very true to vibe and most of the shots. We basically swapped out all the weed for fish tacos. It was pretty funny especially when we took it to Fairfax to shoot because that whole scene is blowing up. There were those kind of kids everywhere and we show up with a girl that looks JUST like Kreayshawn and a fucking dude who’s playing Lil Debbie. It looked ridiculous!”
That fish taco does look like tasty!
“Immediately there were people coming up to us. A lot of them said they were friends with the actual Kreayshawn.”
“They thought it was funny for the most part but not enough to actually be in the video since they didn’t want to offend anyone, haha.”
“We even had a few scary moments like when one guy skated by and yelled out ‘Don’t get yourself killed’ but the best was when this little girl and her big sister went up to Wendy and asked her for an autograph. She had to be like 8 years old!”
“Loud Village is basically the fusion between alternative music and alternative comedy,” says Burke (pictured above at SXSW). “After working in music for years, I decided to start doing what I loved most, which is comedy. With the way that the internet is now, I noticed a lot of parallels between music and comedy, like how it’s distributed and how they connect with their fanbase so I started taking classes again at the Upright Citizens Brigade theatre.”
“While there, I met a lot of other up-and-comers in comedy. I met Will Reese in my sketch writing class and he started helping me on the technical end of things. In the meantime, for work, I started doing freelance social media for anyone I could my hands on.”
Fishy Fishy cast & crew
“Best Fish Tacos In Ensenada {featured in the video. ~Afrox.} is right around the corner from me and one of my favorite spots so I reached out to them. Joseph Cordova, their owner, was all about the idea of me making some videos for him and helping him with social media.”
My friends at Feeding Birds Boutique held their annual Midsummer Flock Party this past weekend. The event featured a number of free shows by local musicians, rare photos of Bob Marley for sale by photographer Kim Gottlieb-Walker, the Calbi food truck and Los Angeles shaved ice truck.
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.
There isn’t, unfortunately, much known about Telephunken, the Funk/Electronic trio featuring Ernesto “DJ Telephunken” Sanchez, bassist/VJ Sergio Zamavirde and drummer Fernando Parrilla.
Para hacerte bailar! Photo courtesy of heraldo.es
The trio was once an Indie-Pop group from Zaragoza who later moved to Madrid and morphed into a Latin-Funk-Dance machine. The group has a handful of releases most notably Antibalas and Que Viva El Ritmo!!! Other than that, there’s not much else. I’ll have to pin Sanchez down in Madrid to learn more.
Watch the band’s short documentary on their trip to SXSW 2010:
Listen to “Shake Your Monkey:”
Ballin'!
Sanchez also creates some killer mixes blending Hip-Hop, Funk, Rock and Jazz such as:
Afroxander (aka Iván Fernández) 