I was supa excited to get to the Glow event last Saturday. How could I not, it was at the pier, all night long, tripped out art and great music mixed by the likes of Garth Trinidad and Raul Campos.

You’ve probably read how horrible it was gett to SaMo. I got off on Cloverfield and headed south to my homie’s in Venice. We hopped on bikes and rode up.

It was nuts. Some people do well in this situation, others don’t.

I had a great time. The highlight was Raul’s set. He literally gave me chills when he dropped Aly Us’ “Follow Me.” It was so hippy, so we are the world. Everyone on the pier felt the spirit. I think.

After a while I stepped behind the DJ booth to see the action from back there. At one point the crowd started chanting Raul’s name: “RA UL, RA UL, RA UL.” He couldn’t have smiled any bigger.

Raul later dropped Carl Craig’s “Throw” and I knew it was going to get the crowd even more into a frenzy. His next mix killed it. He dropped one of the biggest records in the world, Bob Sinclair’s “World Hold On.” For the chorus he cut the volume and let the people sing it, then slammed back into the beats. Needless to say the energy was so high it scared SaMo PD and they shut Raul’s set down 1/2 an hour early. Seems a Chicano can’t do his job well and be appreciated for it. He might start getting cocky and start asking for his land back. Cops claimed there were too many people on the pier.

After that I hung out and ran into old friends and saw some old ones. Rode back to Venice and called it a night.

Seems we can’t get a break. We are looked at or portrayed as if we are undocumented, meek, sellouts, uneducated, gangsters, and now a study says our teens are doing more drugs, having more sex and most likely to commit suicide than other groups.

Hispanic teens try drugs, suicide at higher rates

By MIKE STOBBE – 22 hours ago

ATLANTA (AP) — Hispanic high school students use drugs and attempt suicide at higher rates than their black and white classmates, according to a new federal survey that shows a continuation of a disturbing trend.

(and then)

“In addition, Hispanic students were more likely than either blacks or whites to attempt suicide, ride with a driver who had been drinking alcohol, or use cocaine, heroin or ecstasy.”

(and then)

“Experts were unable to come up with an explanation for why Hispanic behavior trends differed. However, they speculated that school environments many Hispanics face may differ considerably from what adolescents of other races encounter. Earlier research found that Hispanics and blacks more commonly attend highly segregated schools than whites or Asians.” Continue reading →

I have written a couple of pieces on my blog about my involvement and history with DJ culture in Southern California. My academic focus has been on Chicano DJ culture focused on the Eastside of Los Angeles. Chicano scholars have not included DJ culture as part of our experience and DJ Culture/Rave Culture scholars have not included Chicano DJs in their investigations. This makes Chicano DJ culture a truly Chicano experience: ignored by both (our own scholars and outsider scholars), stuck in the middle between two worlds, not factored in.
This project I am working on with G727 is taking form everyday. We have been holding meetings and gathering friends and participants to make this happen. In researching our experience I have learned that we need to include as many voices as possible. We are not Chicago who has Frankie Knuckles, nor are we New York with a Larry Levan. Detroit’s history looks at the Bellevue Three. Here in L.A. we need to look at the hundreds of thousands. There are many factors that lead to the LA experience being different to the East coast.

We have better weather so we have outdoor parties 10 out of 12 months, in East Los a lot of us had large backyards to host massive parties, we are a car culture so we all could have mobile systems that we could easily transport and we could get to more parties in one night. The list goes on.
Anyhow, please support our first fundraiser at Eastside Luv next Thurs.

This is what I’ve been sending out to all my ‘social networks’:

Based on my Master’s thesis “An Oral History of DJ Culture from East Los Angeles,” I am working with G727 on building a living collaborative archive. All DJs, promoters and dancers who were a part of or were inspired by Chicano DJ culture based on the Eastside are welcome to bring their flyers, memories and music to this project. We are having a few fundraisers for out supplies, please come out and support or send us a check.
Continue reading →