El Retorno de Quetzal

What? Quetzal is coming back to the Bay Area? Those of us who kept up with their MySpace page will know that the East L.A. band was in Verzacruz for a while to make some music and since returning have been doing gigs here and there, but not HERE. Those of you who do not know Quetzal can check them out here.

Quetzal is wonderful for many reasons ranging from the compelling vocals of their lead singer Martha Gonzalez, to their musical innovation (think jarana meets electric guitar), to the fact that their 2006 album was entitled Die Cowboy Die (a message to G. W. Bush, I believe, and everything he represents). Not to mention that a man I identify as composer Quetzal Flores himself poses in drag on the album cover. Love it.

Anyway, Quetzal hasn’t done a Bay Area gig in, well, a while (unless I missed something, which is nearly impossible, but stranger things have happened). And now they’re coming back to do a show—and a workshop!—at La Peña. It’ll be good times for sure, and I expect there to be some musical reveal as to what they were up to all that time they were in Xalapa and not with us.

Here’s a visual tribute to Boyle Heights directed by Akira Boch and Joseph "Nuke" Montalvo and set to “This Is My Home,” Quetzal’s own tribute to the neighborhood that grew them.



And here they are playing live for Day of the Dead last year.