Here’s a nice tune to listen to Always Tell the Voter What the Voter Wants to Hear from Chumbawamba’s Never Mind the Ballots album
and the lyrics with ring tone option.
Photo by Graham Burnett
Election Soundtrack
3
Category Archives: Musica
Saturday Morning
The week had been tough relationship-wise. Everyone I was close to was pissing me off. My roommate set a bug bomb off while I was sleeping (mistake, of course). My mom wasn’t calling me back. And el Venado, the boyfriend, kept screwing up.
He called Friday night. The first ten minutes of the conversation were tense. He was trying, but I insisted on answering his open-ended questions with yeses, nos, okays, and fines. Of course I wasn’t fine or okay, and he could pick up on it. Ten minutes into the conversation he finally received my telepathic clues and said what I wanted to hear.
“I want to see you.”
Continue reading
Latino Punk Fest 2008
Los Angeles, you are in luck! If you haven’t been able to make it to Chicago for the past two Latino Punk Festivals, this time around you’ll only have to figure out how to get to Montebello cuz it’s taking place here! I don’t have much else to say about this event because I haven’t been to the previous ones but I’m quite sure it’s the largest festival of Latino Punk bands in the US. (Err, maybe it’s the only one?) It’s also appropriate that the Fest take place in LA, easily the city with the biggest Latino Punk scene, not that anyone outside of the Eastside would notice. For more info about the event, check out their FAQ where they have helpful info like this great tip:
4. I get out of work late, what can I do?
–If you can afford it, call in sick or take the day off! How many fest like this one will you have an opportunity to attend in your life time? A lot of the bands playing the fest are traveling from out of town so there will be all kinds of shit going on all day, each day, where you can hang out!
Ditch work, nice! You can check out the full 3 day schedule here, though I think most punks are gonna try and get into the Saturday show to see the reunion of Los Crudos, or cuz they just want to get a glimpse of a band that would name themselves “Cara De Mil Putazos“, certainly one of the best band names ever! Hopefully we’ll have some coverage of this event to report back, there’s some young and not-so-young punks here on the staff of LA Eastside!
Latino Punk Fest 3 October 23-25 (Thursday thru Saturday)
All happening at:
Terraza Jamay 104 S. 10th St. Montebello, CA 90640
Click here for google map.
Los Poets Del Norte
   ~ Nico ~
Los Poets Del Norte is a musical group born, raised and based in Boyle Heights, just like its two founding members, Nico and Xavier Moreno.
Immigration, poverty, gentrification and everyday life are just some of the topics Nico and Moreno incorporate into their poetry.
“We’re serious about the issues that we talk about because it’s our reality,†said Nico.
Both Moreno and Nico have their own personal war stories about what it was like growing up with gang violence in their neighborhood.
Getting hit up by different neighborhood gangs on his way to school or seeing drug paraphernalia on the streets was a daily part of life said Moreno, “I got to see that and it showed me that’s the direction I can go if I abuse it.
“I saw my friends that go through that and fall in that trap, losing friends and being shot at affected me.â€
By retelling the stories inside of them, both Moreno and Nico are also giving an oral history of the community they grew up in.
They don’t want others to make some of the same mistakes they made in their youth.
“Growing up you experience all that stuff, you become surrounded by your environment and in turn you become your environment.
“We’re at a point in our lives where we have become reflective of that.
“We’ve become observant of that and survivors because getting shot at and burying your friends is not something everyone goes through.
“Growing up in a community like ours, most of our friends did experience that,†said Nico.
Eagle Rock Music Festival 2008
I hadn’t been to any of the previous ones but since a couple of friends had glowing reviews of last years Eagle Rock Music Festival, I figured it was time to check it out. They were right, it’s a very fun festival with a good mix of bands, food, booths, and most notably, people. (It’s kinda like the Sunset Junction used to be in the early days which just reminds me how bad that “festival” has become.) I was only there for a short time, but click ahead if you want to see what I saw!
Gustavo Dudamel cut his hair! LA Philharmonic.
Gustavo Dudamel (Photo: Marco Anelli) from NY Mag
(Retraction: A reader has confirmed my wrongness. It was Jayce Ogren with a shaved head.)
My boyfriend and I went to a free LA Phil concert at Disney Hall and we got a real treat, Gustavo Dudamel was conducting! (Or someone who looked alot like him with a shaved head.) How very generous of him. Jayce Ogren was scheduled to conduct and from where I was sitting it looked like Gustavo. Gustavo conducting at that event would be like Brad Pitt introducing one his movies at the Arclight on a random Tuesday matinee.
Still going on
I grew up listening to music in Spanish, mostly anything with a mariachi, banda, or conjunto norteño, never even hearing those “oldies” organic to Los Angeles. I’ve had a musical exploration reverse to many people my age or of previous generations. Many I know grew up listening to music in English and started to explore music from México or Latin America later in life (if they ever did), while I started to explore music in English when I was about fourteen. Even now, I mostly listen to and explore different music from México, but that’s due to me playing in mariachis for the past eight years.
Imagine my surprise yesterday when a post over at Guanabee came up on my RSS feed. I scour the internet for news relating to mariachi, especially this week, when the San José Mariachi and Latin Music Festival is on. [During mariachi festival time, new & interesting things come to light, like Rubén Fuentes, longtime former member and director of Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán (64 years and counting), and songwriter extraordinaire, gave an interview (he is very reclusive) and stated that the future of mariachi music was in the United States.] One of the festival’s concerts, last night’s, was headlined by Ersi Arvizu, a name I did not recognize. As I read on, however, it became clear I already knew who she was. Continue reading
We The People: 2008 Festival
(Click on pic for larger flyer)
On Saturday September 27th, the We the People Festival 2008 is scheduled to take place over in that stretch of park between Chinatown and Lincoln Heights. And guess what? We have a few tickets to give away! Click ahead for the exciting details!
UPDATE: The Winners Are In!
Unlocking an Old Memory with Discarded Keys
One of my fondest memories growing up was going to the movies with my parents. Even in San Diego, we had our version of the Million Dollar Theatre, but ours was in Logan Heights.“El Coronet†was where Mexican cinema was a weekly Mecca for the culturally starved and homesick. It didn’t matter if I had a small Spanish vocabulary, at 8 years old I began to understand the tension between women and men giving into love, keeping their principles and resolving their differences to come together. All this visual-audio negotiation took place in a spectacular romantic Ranchera Musical, with fabulous costumes, handsome leading men and strong principled women. It was there that the emotionally charged scaled notes began to send chills up my spine, at the same time made my heart well up with cultural pride. My friend, John Santos an Afro-Cuban drummer told me he feels the same deep emotion when he hears bagpipes, because he is part Irish. Makes me wonder if sounds are also part of our genetic make-up. Denise Chavez’novel Loving Pedro Infante reaffirms that we Chicanitas learn about our ideal hombre through these icons of Mexican cinema.
“La Vida Pronto Se Acaba”: Some Blog Posts On La Vida
(Horse riders on the San Gabriel River. Photo by permission of myself.) If you want a soundtrack, click play on the video below.
—————————————————————-
There’s nothing like a tragedy to remind us that we are all on borrowed time, and hopefully we’ll try to make the most of the remaining stretch. Here’s a few blogs and posts I’ve been reading that put things into context.
Moon over at French Benefits writes about missing the 111 Metrolink train yesterday, that same one that hit a freight train and is now a fatal wreck. She worries if some of the fellow passengers she’s come to recognize are okay.
Miguel of The Los Angeles Eastside Scene sent out an email announcing that “life has gotten in the way of my blogging” thus he will no longer be hosting the monthly Latino blogger meetups. I know his site recently slowed down but I hope he doesn’t stop posting for good.
Alice Bag is putting her autobiography in process online over at her Violence Girl blog, and she’s up to her Stevenson Jr. High days. Retracing your steps to see where you have been in this life must be a good way to estimate what it’s all about.
On a similar note, Evil Chavo (no relation to yours truly!) recounts his experiences about life in City Terrace, casting himself as a “Survivor from the streets of ELA“. It’s sad that surviving your childhood neighborhood is such a common thread when Eastsiders write about their life stories, but that’s just the way it is. Still, I’d like to see more Eastsiders jotting down some notes about life on the Eastside, it definitely helps to fill in the wide gaps in the missing history of our part of town.
Killer Dreamer Record Release
For those of you into good underground punk music check out San Pedro Based band “KIller Dreamer” this Sunday September 14, 2008 for their “1000 Years of Servitude” record release party.
Also check out the new copy of Razorcake, a non-profit magazine dedicated to supporting independent music culture.
This release is not rocking out in LA (which it should of been ) ha! but if you around the area peep it out.
Vinyl Solution Records and Tapes
18822 Beach Blvd Ste Blvd
Huntington Beach, Ca 92648
(714) 963-1919
6:30pm
FREE
back from Puerto Rico and right back in it…
I will write a trip review later, but this is for the now.
I will be on KPCC 89.3 FM today between 5 and 6 pm. Tune in! Below is info from their website.
Don’t forget our upcoming panels:
Saturday August 23rd Panel #5 at Adrian’s house 420 Boyle St. 6:30pm, ARTIST AS DJ
Wednesday August 27th Panel #6 at G727 6:30pm, POWER TOOLS mixshow Panel and 16 th Birthday Party
* KCET Web story “Backyard Parties: A Brief History of DJ Culture in Southern California”
from:
89.3 FM KPCC
Gallery Exhibit Explores East Los Angeles D.J. Culture
Adolfo Guzman-Lopez
August 22, 2008
DJ culture, with its turntables, record scratching, and fashions, is ever-present in mainstream television, movies and advertising. An exhibit at a downtown L.A. gallery argues that East L.A. DJ’s as far back as 30 years ago and the Eastside parties where they played constitute an overlooked chapter of DJ culture. KPCC’s Adolfo Guzman-Lopez reports about the gallery’s efforts to unearth cultural history