Now playing - the latest from Jaguares, Babasonicos, and Los Fabulosos Cadillacs

La Cumbaimbera shares a bit about her most recent acquisitions:

45 (Sept 2008) – Jaguares – If 45 were a painting it’d be hanging in a museo madrileño between a Picasso and a Goya. Exhibiting the same obsession with pain and fragmentation as well as with possibilities for redemption, 45 takes us back to the Jagaures of old. Saúl Hernández’ newest material picks up where El Equilibrio… (the original Jaguares collection) left off, that is, soaking in contemplative moodiness and dark sentiments. With its floating musical interludes, raucous guitar action, and even piano and orchestral arrangements, 45’s real distinguishing feature is that it’s just plain good. So good, in fact, that it hasn’t and won’t be getting any mainstream radio play. But who cares? After all, it’s art.


"Lobo" - Jaguares



Mucho (May 2008) – Babasonicos – Compared to Jaguares, Babasonicos definitely falls on the easy listening side of the rock spectrum. Part electronica, part Hombres G, part classic rock-and-roll, Mucho tackles it all with a good dose of pop sensibility. With this album Babasonicos achieves what Mana seems bent on avoiding, that is, delivering a collection that is tasty and at the same time textured. With its lighthearted musical approach, Mucho will leave you feeling like even your momentos mas rabiosos are something to sing about.


"Pijamas" - Babasonicos



La Luz del Ritmo (Nov 2008) – Los Fabulsoos Cadillacs – A more appropriate name for this album would be “El Buffet de los Ritmos.” Listening to this CD gave me visions of everyone from John Travolta to Gloria Estefan. Disco, salsa, love ballads…you name it, La Luz del Ritmo does it. About half of the material is remakes of previous Fabulosos tunes, including a version of “Mal Bicho” complete with scratching and a funkdafied bass line. There are also (bilingual) covers of “Should I Stay or Should I Go” and “Wake Up and Make Love With Me.” The most intriguing track, “Condenaditos” is aptly described as a “Nueva Orleans Funeral Pop.” And…wait…is that Los Pibes Chorros I hear? Nope. It’s just Vicentico praying un “Padre Nuestro” a lo Fabuloso.


"Padre Nuestro" - Los Fabulosos Cadillacs

boycott!!!!!!!!

come on, joan manuel serrat! get it together. BOYCOTT-divestment-sanctions. te toca a ti.

¡viva palestina libre y soberana!




foto: maysa al-louh, 16, sitting on the rubble of her home with a bombed school in the background. (sarah malian/christian aid, posted in ei)


an open letter to joan manuel serrat posted in the electronic intifada:

The Palestinian community of artists and intellectuals was shocked by the news of your plans to organize a musical tour of Israel in May, despite its continued grave oppression of the Palestinian people and only a few months after its heinous war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) is writing to urge you to cancel this tour. A brave defender of freedom throughout your life, you were exiled from your own country for courageously speaking out against the repression of Franco's regime; but by touring Israel, a colonial and apartheid state, you will be participating in legitimating and supporting a system of colonial subjugation.

...

You are a person of conscience and you have sacrificed a great deal in your own life for the brave pursuit of freedom and justice. In 1968, you defiantly chose to sing in the Eurovision Song Contest in your own native Catalan language and faced, with bravery, the consequences imposed by the dictator Franco. We would expect no less from you than to accept this call for solidarity, and we sincerely hope that you will stand with us in our struggle against colonial oppression. We urge you to cancel your musical tour to Israel and hope that you will convey to Israel that you will not participate in events there so long as it continues to suppress the Palestinian people and deny them their freedom and their inalienable rights in their homeland.

primer

para ti alex, con cariño. feliz cumpleaños :)



image : anti-fascist school primer, spain 1930s


in 10th grade my friend katrina handed me a zine called an anarchist primer. i don't recall much of the content, but i do remember it had a picture of jerry falwell* with a swastika drawn on his forehead. that was exciting. that was also my introduction to the concept of primer. like the first coat of paint that prepares a surface for future coats, that little text aimed to prepare my 14-year-old brain and heart for anti-capitalist theory & practice.

following are tracks from a rock en español primer that i compiled recently for friends. at first i was going for a sort of kitchen sink approach. but then i thought, no, that's not a primer, that's like a colección de oro vol. i, ii, & iii or las 100 mejores canciones or something. that's not what i want, i'm not making any claims of essential or best of. i just want to give a little taste, strong & sweet...


* remember that guy? right-wing lunatic televangelist, defender of apartheid in south africa, the state of israel & zionism, racial segregation in u.s. public institutions, patriarchy, and theocracy. died in 2007. good riddance, hijo de ___!



**

bueno, aquí está. ¡buen provecho!

primer :: rock en español **





a la orillita del mar : los de abajo (méxico)
bolita de trapo : cabas & enrique bunbury (colombia, españa)
va a escampar : la vela puerca (uruguay)
la dosis perfecta : panteón rococo (méxico)
mc dollar : ska-p (españa)
pobre de ti : tijuana no! (méxico)
de música ligera : soda stereo (argentina)
tu cárcel : enanitos verdes (argentina)
esa noche : café tacuba (méxico)
cumbia lunera : el gran silencio (méxico)
sin documentos : los rodríguez (argentina)
veneno es antidoto : división minúscula (méxico)
la colina de la vida : ataque 77 (argentina)
20 de abril : celtas cortos (españa)
electricidad : los abandoned (chile, eeuu)
el listón de tu pelo : jarabe de palo & julieta venegas (españa, méxico)
padre nuestro : fabulosos cadillacs (argentina)
amargo adios : inspector (méxico)
yo tomo : bersuit (argentina)


** countries of origin listed for identification purposes only, and not intended as a scorecard. pero que viva méxico lindo y querido, jajaja!

now!

now!, i think, is agit-prop at its finest...



it's a 6-minute film by santiago álvarez from 1965. álvarez was a cuban journalist and left-wing cultural worker who was jailed a few times during the batista dicatorship. with the triumph of the 26 de julio movement & the cuban revolution in 1959, icaic was established and he was placed in charge of the newsreel division. the camera equipment he was given had been recently expropriated from private newsreel companies; it was antiquated and didn't record sound. undeterred, álvarez improvised an experimental style of noticiero, quite distinct from the kind that was common at the time in the u.s. and elsewhere. they would film silently, then add music or sound effects in the studio afterward.

santiago álvarez worked on the weekly icaic newsreels for years. he also created and collaborated on many films, including the well-known 4-hour la hora de los hornos (the hour of the furnaces), with fernando solanas & grupo cine liberación, about imperialism in south america. alvarez' 6-minute now! draws most directly from his work at noticiero icaic. utilizing cleverly edited newsreel interspersed with pirated images from u.s. magazines like life, it's set to the urgent vocals of lena horne. her single now was banned in the u.s. on many radio stations, and she gave the song to álvarez to use in this film...


now! : santiago álvarez

the workers

hurray!!! the sf chinese progressive association celebrates a great victory today. after a 3-month heroic fight against their former boss for back wages & past-due overtime pay, the workers at new on sang poultry shop in chinatown finally won their demands. regularly joined on the picket lines by other low-wage & immigrant workers and their families, their win is a victory for just compensation but also for worker solidarity. ¡¡felicidades, compañeros!! the celebration is today at cpa @ 1pm. all are welcome.

from shaw san:

new on sang worker leader lin gan sums it up: "long live worker unity!"... this fight isn't just about unpaid wages; it's about standing up against exploitation of immigrant workers in chinatown and elsewhere. we hope you will continue to support all workers who are struggling against wage theft, and for full respect and dignity as workers.


el vals del obrero (the workers' waltz) : ska-p



éste es mi sitio, ésta es mi gente
somos obreros, la clase preferente
por eso, hermano proletario, con orgullo
yo te canto esta canción, somos la revolución.

¡sí señor!, la revolución,
¡sí señor!, ¡sí señor!, somos la revolución,
tu enemigo es el patrón,
¡sí señor!, ¡sí señor!, somos la revolución,
¡viva la revolución!

**

this is my place, these are my people
we are the workers, the most important class
it's why, my proletarian brother, with pride
i sing you this song, we are the revolution.

yes sir, the revolution!
yes sir, yes sir! we are the revolution,
your enemy is the boss,
yes sir, yes sir! we are the revolution,
long live the revolution!


i've recently been working on some curriculum about la crisis económica, and thinking a lot about the working class, increasing productivity & declining real wages, globalization & de-industrialization. and about: how and when will the workers finally seize the means of production?!... hmm, sometimes the picture looks pretty bleak. but thank goodness for the worker leaders of new on sang, republic windows & doors, fasinpat (ex-zanón) & chilvert! they remind us all of what's possible...

¡todo el poder al pueblo! ¡que vivan los trabajadores!

fotos : 1. occupy-resist-produce 2. raúl 3. fermín 4. base & superstructure diagram : chilavert reclaimed printing press, under worker control : buenos aires, argentina

nina simone

damas y caballeros: the lovely... the incomparable... ms. nina simone!!

revolution : nina simone



aahh, just beautiful, ms. nina...

and this from her interview in the french-made film nina simone : la legende :

...i could sing something to help my people. and that became the mainstay of my life, that became most important to me ... civil rights movement music. if i'd had my way, i'd a been a killer, ok? that's true. i would've had guns and i would've gone to the south and i would've gave 'em violence for violence, shotgun for shotgun, if i'd had my way. but my husband told me i didn't know anything about guns, and he refused to teach me, and the only thing i had was music...

**

backlash blues : nina simone




mr. backlash, mr. backlash
just who do think i am
you raise my taxes, freeze my wages
and send my son to vietnam

you give me second class houses
and second class schools
do you think that alla colored folks
are just second class fools
mr. backlash, i'm gonna leave you
with the backlash blues

when i try to find a job
to earn a little cash
all you got to offer
is your mean old white backlash
but the world is big
big and bright and round
and it's full of folks like me
who are black, yellow, beige and brown
mr. backlash, i'm gonna leave you
with the backlash blues

mr. backlash, mr. backlash
just what do you think i got to lose
i'm gonna leave you
with the backlash blues
you're the one will have the blues
not me, just wait and see

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.