I had the pleasure of seeing the band Mystery Hangup at Self-Help Graphics on Saturday. Mystery Hangup are three sisters from Orange County (plus a token guy bass player) that just rock harder than anyone I’ve seen in a while. Their sound and look come straight out of the classic 80’s L.A. Goth compilation Hell Comes To Your House with Sonic Youth and psyche rock influences. From my description, they may not sound all that original. I had the same feeling when I saw their first few songs. I figured it was just another young bilingual band heavily influenced by 80’s Goth and Punk. However, my attention was caught in the middle of the set when lead singer/guitarist Kat put down her guitar and played various percussion instruments as the rest of the band played a Birthday Party-like vamp with folkloric influences. Another thing that caught me by surprise was at end of the set, when the band launched into a full-on Cumbia. It wasn’t a modified Gothic Cumbia ala Caifanes, but a straight up keyboard/bass/drum/guitar Mexican style Cumbia like Los Dinners would have played in the 70’s. So, just to recap, Mystery Hangup is a bilingual Gothic Punk with Latin Music influences. If that was a sport (bilingual Gothic Punk with Latin Music influences), Mystery Hangup would be in the top three. It's not that I don't like the more rocking element of their sound, but it's with cultural influences that sets them apart from the rest of the bands.

This is our opening night. Ray and I will be spinning selections from the Discos Fuentes, Fania, Tico, SAR, and Allegre labels. Also we will play some great music from obscure South American, Mexican & Central American groups from the 70's & 80's.

We will have a performance by the best Cumbia/Vallenato group in L.A. right now, Buyepongo. On top of all that, there is no cover charge.

We hope to have that dance floor moving. I think we should enforce the Midnight Star "No Parking On The Dance Floor" rule that night. Maybe we could have someone in a cop uniform go up to someone who's not dancing and say:

Excuse me, madam
You’re standing still in a no parking zone
You don’t get a move on that body
I’ll be forced to give you a ticket
So get with it

Wednesday, June 4th
Mal's Bar
2331 S. Hill Street
Los Angeles, Ca. 90007
213-746-2177
Starts @ 9 p.m.
21 and over
FREEE!!!!

I thought that Maria Daniela would be the first Fresa to go mainstream with her blend of Electro-Cumbia. I guess she got trumped by Amandititita --the daughter of infamous Mexican rockero Rockdrigo Gonzalez has a hit with "Metrosexual," a song about a too-cute boyfriend that is obsessed with his looks. The lyrics are both catchy and kitchy. For instance:

Tengo un novio metrosexual, usa extensiones, no se deja de peinar,
en todos los espejos se tiene que mirar.Va al gimnasio hasta en navidad.

which roughly translates to:

My boyfriend is metrosexual, He uses extensions and never stops combing his hair. He always has to look in mirror and he works out until Christmas.

and of course, my favorite line:

una vez estuvo en prisión, lo arrestaron por robar productos de avon.
one time he went to prison, they arrested him for stealing Avon Products

Like my mom used to tell me, "It sounds much better is Spanish."



I love the music behind her, it bumps! It sounds like Sonidero Nacional produced the track but I do not have the info to back that up. Mix it all together with that retro 80's cheerleader chorus and you got another big Fresa hit. Maria Daniela might have been just a little too late.
 
Amandititita's album, La Reina De La Anarcumbia (The Queen Of Cumbia Anarchy), hits stores June 10th.

If you have read my blogs in the past, you probably noticed I'm a big fan of Cumbia. So low and behold, bubbling in the city of Norwalk of all places, comes a band that sounds like they came straight from Magdalena, Colombia. They are called Buyepongo. Most of the band is very young, yet they have a sound that rivals Cumbia legends such as Andres Landero, Lisadro Meza and Aniceto Molina.

There are many things I love about this band. They are descendants and citizens from Guatamala, El Salvador, Bolivia and Mexico. Still, it seems these guys have Cumbia running through their veins just by the way they play it. It would be easy to mistake Buyepongo for a Colombian band three times their age.

Another thing is that they are a great live band and they write their own songs. I saw them for the first time in a bar in Pasadena on Monday and I could of sworn they were playing obscure Cumbia covers.

And lastly... at last, there is another local Vallenato group that isn't Very Be Careful! I love the VBC, but it's good to have variety and more than one group in L.A. playing this type of music.

I think I mentioned before that I had the good fortune of meeting Joe Strummer a few times. On those occasions we talked about Cumbia and his love for it. I remember turning him on to Very Be Careful and he went gaga over them, so much so that he had VBC open for him during his last L.A. shows. I wish he was around for Buyepongo, he would have dug these guys.

Buyepongo have nothing released yet but you can go to their myspace page to hear some live tracks.
 

A post-depression era Argentina begot Cumbia Villera, a street electro-cumbia with lyrics that rivaled gangster rap. It started in the ghettos of Buenos Aires by Peruvian and Bolivian immigrants that brought their own style of Cumbia into Argentina in the late 80’s. Most Argentineans considered it lower class, especially by the music critics that have a stronghold on what is deemed important in Latin music. Two of the biggest groups from that scene, Los Pibes Chorros and Damas Gratis, have a widespread fanbase in the villas of Buenos Aires as well as fans all over Latin America. ZZK label co-founder Grant Dull called the success of Cumbia Villera “Argentina joining the rest of Latin America,” which meant the post-depression Argentina was no longer an oasis for the Eurocentric.  Argentina is now just as fucked as the rest of Latin America.

During the eighties, the modern Cumbia groups started using keyboards rather than the traditional accordion or a horn section. One of the coolest features of Cumbia Villera was their use of synthesizers, especially the infamous Keytar.  Pablo Lescano, who fronts the band Damas Gratis, is a master of his axe, as well as the other Keytar players that play in that style. All the bands have a particular look in both dress and in album art that separate them from other Cumbia groups. It’s a hybrid of Heavy Metal, Reggae, Gangster Hip-Hop, Sonidero and Soccer. It would be easy to mistake Pibes Chorros for a Metal band, with their long hair and their use of the Grim Reaper and Jesus Christ. Cumbia Villera’s heyday was in the late 90’s, right after Argentina’s economic collapse. Since then most of the groups continue to play in front of large crowds but it seems like Reggaeton has stole some of its thunder.