Alex Lora y Arizona

Just got through watching Univisión’s debate about immigration laws. It was mostly a lot of people talking mierda about politicians and politicians talking mierda about each other. Use-less. Bor-ing.

I find much more engaging this little rola by El Tri. On certain topics, no one can say it like Alex Lora.



El Tri -- El Muro

"'hora sí ya me voy ahí nos vemos / now I am going, see you later
ahí les dejo mi reputación / I’m leaving you my reputation
para que hagan pedazos con ella / for you all to break into pieces
mientras yo les canto esta cancion / as I sing you this song
el muro de la vergüenza / the wall of shame
por el arco del triunfo / over the arc of triumph
me lo voy a pasar / I’ll pass
y ya cuando esté en el otro lado / and when I’m on the other side
en su muro me voy a orinar / I am going to take a piss on their wall
en su muro me voy a surrar / I am going to take a shit on their wall
y con su muro me voy a limpiar / and I’m gonna wipe myself on their wall"

I can only imagine what Lora would have to say about Arizona’s latest move towards becoming a police state. The beautiful thing is witnessing all the acts of resistance that have been springing up around the country against SB 1070. The Phoenix Suns got new jerseys to play in. Even city governments have responded to the call to divest from the state. And on May 29, people from all over the nation will be converging on Arizona – just as the Freedom Riders did in the South – to stand in solidarity with the resistance movement there.

happy birthday to us!

saludos! we first welcomed you here one year ago today, on the fiestas patrias, 16 september 2008. so it's our one-year birthday, hurray ;) muchísimas gracias for finding us here, reading and listening. ¡abajo el imperialismo! ¡arriba el rock en español!

dedications to you from each of us...

thinking about how things (ie- the struggle) are better when done together and this lovely song came to mind. it goes out from me to all of us.

-la cumbiambera

te quiero : amparo ochoa




This song is for all the generations of roquer@s that have kept rock alive for the next generations.

-la pachuquita

Nostalgia : El Tri




this one is an invitation to rebel & take down the pinche sistema, latin american-style, in the streets against the state with pots & pans. ¡vamos camaradas!

-diabólica

la cacerola : che sudaka

Playing on La Pachiquita's Ipod......

Here is a little mid-day musica for you all......

Enjoy!

Los Prisioneros: Estrechez de Corazon


Ska-P: El Vals del Obrero


El Mago de Oz: La Posada de los Muertos


Babasonicos: Y Que


El Tri: Las Piedras Rodantes


Cafe Tacvba: Avientame

Blame it on los blues

I just got through reading Blues People by Amiri Baraka and Blues Legacies and Black Feminism by Angela Davis. What does this have to do with rock en español, you ask. Considering that rock-n-roll, ska, and so many other beloved musical genres grew out of African and African-American musical traditions, the answer is: everything. But I won’t go on here about how Elvis “borrowed” his style and rhythm from his African-American contemporaries or how the working class British kids grew their ska out of the slower Jamaican version of the same. We’ll save those topics for another time because what’s on my mind at this moment is the blues and my dad blasting BB King from a portable tape deck in 1987 as we sat around a campfire at Yosemite National Park. And Dad was drinking. And signing. And shouting and talking back to the recording just as if he were at a live show. And that was the night I became aware of how much this music meant to him, my dad, who grew up in East L.A. listening to the working class anthems of his time.

Of course, I can’t think in this direction without also thinking of El Tri. And Enrique Bunbury. And Pappo. And this song that features the timeless blues themes of amor fracasado and getting the hell out of town.


"A.D.O" - El Tri

Bunbury, of course draws more indirectly from the blues legacy, although he makes an explicit nod to this palate in the song “Palo de Mayo”—about the Afro-Nicaraguan dance—in the line in which he sings, “igual que sin dolor ya no hay blues.” I would add that without blues, jazz, and swing, there is also no Bunbury.


"Carmen Jones" - Enrique Bunbury

Of course this brings up interesting questions of the international manifestations of appropriation. I’ve always felt a little strange about Bunbury’s reliance on using Latin American and African American musical traditions, even if he is a genius. El Tri, on the other hand, has always hard core represented for the working class, and because of this (and because they are Mexican and not Spanish), it has never bothered me that Alex Lora’s music borrows so unabashedly from the blues. As for Pappo, I don’t know enough about him or his music to comment extensively, but here’s a song, complete with inverted call and response, that speaks for itself.


"Mi Vieja" - Pappo


excerpt...

Mi vieja va a plaza con pancartas
con las pancartas que yo mismo le arme
Ella protesta porque ya esta harta
de que le afanen una y otra vez
de que le afanen una y otra vez

En una de las manifestaciones
vino la cana y se la quiso llevar
por reclamar lo que le corresponde
Se vuelve loco nos quiere matar
Me vuelvo loco y los quiero matar

Nadie se atreva a tocar a mi vieja
porque mi vieja es lo mas grande que hay.


(My mom goes to the plaza with placards
with the placards that I myself armed her with
she protests because she’s fed up
with being worked so hard
with being worked so hard

During one of the demonstrations
the police came and wanted to take her away
for demanding what belongs to her
They go crazy and they want to kill us
I go crazy and want to kill them

Nobody better dare touch my mom
‘cuz my mom is the greatest there is)