Meet Él Mató a un Policía Motorizado

It didn’t take long to find my new favorite band of 2013. I’ve been obsessed with the music of Él Mató a un Policía Motorizado (He Killed A Motorcycle Cop) since late December. My obsession grew worse after the band released its second full-length album, La Dinastía Scorpio (The Scorpio Dynasty), on Spotify about a month ago.

The band hails from La Plata, a district of Buenos Aires, the capital province/city of Argentina and features Santiago Motorizado on bass/vox, Doctora Muerte on drums, Pantro Puto and Niño Elefante on guitars, and Chatrán Chatrán on keys. Él Mató, who got its name from a line in Die Hard, released its self-titled debut album in 2004 followed by a trilogy of EPs focused on the themes of birth (Navidad De Reserva, 2005), life (Un Millón De Euros, 2006) and death (Dia de los Muertos, 2008).

The group’s sound is similar to that of alternative/indie rock groups of the 1980s-1990s such as Pixies, Dinosaur Jr., Yo La Tengo, Guided By Voices, and Sonic Youth. The characteristic lo-fi sound of the genre is more prevalent in the earlier releases probably due to the fact that it was the best they could afford at the time.

That’s not to suggest that Scorpio sounds like a completely different beast altogether. The guitars are still distorted, the drums still layered enough to sound like there are four drummers in the studio playing simultaneously, and so on but, it’s all cleaner and more polished, an organized mess were no instrument drowns out another. Plus, Santiago’s vocal skills have improved greatly over the past decade.

The band released Scorpio in early December last year in its home country and shared it internationally on February this year. They’ll also make their SXSW debut next week at a few showcases. Listen to four tracks off Scorpio below including my two most favorite songs, “Mujeres Bellas Y Fuertes” and “Mas O Menos Bien.”

Pre-Halloween Shenanigans With Mexicans With Guns, Toy Selectah, Them Jeans, and La Chamba

I returned from Peru (more posts about my trip coming soon, I promise!) with one weekend to recover and prepare for a number of Halloween/Day of the Dead-related events. The first two stops on Oct. 30th were at Los Globos for Indio beer-sponsored event Hola Indio feat. Mexicans With Guns, Toy Selectah, and Them Jeans followed by La Cita for La Chamba’s album release party.

More pictures can be found on my flickr account.

The Gaslamp Killer Celebrates Release of “Breakthrough” at Mayan Theatre

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.

Monsieur Periné Makes Its LA Debut At Levitt Pavilion

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

My Guest Appearance on Culture Remixed Radio

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.

Photos From Bodega’s 3-Year Anniversary Party

DJ Nu-Mark of Jurassic 5

Melaaza

Uproot Andy

Check out the rest of the photos on my Flickr page.

Sargent House Labelmates Fang Island, Zechs Marquise and Adebisi Shank Rock The Troubadour

L.A. label/management group Sargent House hosted a huge bash at The Troubadour last Friday with Fang Island, Zechs Marquise and Adebisi Shank.

Headliners Fang Island were on tour in support of their recently-released second album Major and performed a long set that ended with a million guitarists onstage including Nick of Tera Melos, Marcos of Zechs Marquise and Lar of Adebisi Shank. I think I saw the ghost of Jimi Hendrix near the drum kit.

Zechs performed a shorter version of the set they’ve been playing since they released Getting Paid last year but changed a few of the songs to give them more of a “jam session” feel in the middle. Opening act Shank delivered the goods even harder than they did at their U.S. debut at last year’s SXSW and performed a new song.

Below are some photos of the event. The full set can be found on my flickr page.

Hennessy Unveils V.S. Bottle Design By Futura With Concert feat. Diplo and Santigold

I received a last-minute invite last week to a private party hosted by Hennessy where the company unveiled its latest V.S. bottle design by artist Futura. The event included music by Diplo and Santigold plus a surprise appearance by Kid Cudi.

A few photos from the event are below and the complete can be seen on my flickr.

Ondatrópica : Colombian Supergroup Spans Generations Of Cumbia

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:

Photos From Telemundo/Mun2 Descarga 2012 Event

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.