November 2016

Month

Nice Going, 2016! (NorteñoBlog talks politics)

shia-trump

Trump Is President, the Cubs won the World Series, and Shia LaBeouf can freestyle… 2016 in a nutshell, I guess. I never thought in a million years this buffoon would get into the White House. I thought, “This country can’t be that stupid.” Boy, do I have pie on my face!

Every feeling has surfaced from the anti-Trump side, everything from anger to sadness to denial. There is apparently a petition to abolish the electoral college, but who knows if that is even possible to do.

One feeling is more common than others: Uncertainty. For millions of undocumented people and their families it means a very uncertain future. Will Trump keep his promise to deport all 12 million undocumented immigrants? Will he only go after habitual criminals? No one knows and that is what keeps people up at night.

I have family that is undocumented. I know undocumented people who have careers and stable jobs, planning their futures; that have been able to use their college education as a direct result of President Obama’s DACA executive action in 2012.

All of that can go flying out the window with the stroke of Trump’s gold plated pen. Muslim Americans are also feeling unsure of their future, along with African Americans. Will Stop and Frisk become a federal initiative with someone like Sheriff Clarke at the helm? Continue reading “Nice Going, 2016! (NorteñoBlog talks politics)” →

November 22, 2016 1

Who’s On the Mexican Radio? 11/17/16

gerardo-ortiz-regresa-hermosa-snap-b

Welcome back to Songwriters’ Showcase, an apparently semiannual feature in which NorteñoBlog checks out the new love songs on Mexico’s radio chart, discovers that the world is a void wherein everything tastes like ashes, and attempts to salvage the post by researching the professional tunespinners who spun the tunes. The winners, as always, are you the readers.

Except they’re not all love songs this week! We start with not one but two big dumb cumbias. At #18, Claudio Alcaraz has written his own exercise in banda-fied minimalism, “El Pú,” about a friend of his who likes to get drunk and insult people. Great swaths of humanity get insulted here. Truckers, cops, Michoacanos, saints, etc. — you name ’em, they’re pú, aka “puro mandilón.” (“DEmasculated,” as my grandpappy and/or Urban Dictionary used to translate it.) In the video, Sr. Alcaraz’s friend appears as a lecherous clown who lights up the party by starting a conga line. Even so, the guy should stop insulting entire classes of people or he’ll never be elected to public office.

The other BDC, at #11, is way more bitchin’: “Que Perrón” by La Séptima Banda. Written by Joel Suarez and Luciano Luna, who is normally not this much fun, it’s an ode to the modern world’s sexually assertive mujeres. As you might expect, such mujeres make La Séptima Banda very happy, especially the dude in the middle of the song who sheepishly admits, “I’m ugly.” Whoever’s singing lead — I think it’s Efrain, but votes for Chino will also be tabulated — plays his wiggly cadence off the tuba/batería lines with a cheerful insouciance that makes me think I’ve been underrating the Séptima album all year. I’ll get back to you on that. In the meantime, a very ornate Pick to Click. (This live video lets you savor some of those internal brass rhythms.)

Also charting this week: Continue reading “Who’s On the Mexican Radio? 11/17/16” →

November 22, 2016 1

Joss Favela en la Jukebox

joss-favela-guitar — “That score saddens me.”

Donde algunas escuchan “banda,” quizás porque el trovador contrató un tubador para tocar, NorteñoBlog escucha una canción muy olvidable, y el combinación de la guitarra, el acordión, y la batería no ayuda. Pero me sigue gustando Joss Favela, porque el compositor de “Te Hubieras Ido Antes” sabe como escribir una melodia. Debería haber escrito una aquí.

Escribí:

Having survived the teen talent show Código F.A.M.A. and worked with electrocumbia dudes 3Ball MTY, the man born José Alberto Inzunza Favela has been busy chiseling his way onto a norteño-pop songwriters’ Mt. Rushmore whose other inhabitants include Espinoza Paz, Horacio Palencia, and Favela’s frequent collaborator Luciano Luna. Like most prolific songwriters, Favela’s virtue lies in his fecundity: if you like at least one of his songs, that just means he wrote 10 others you forgot as soon as you finished making out to them. “Cuando Fuimos Nada” falls into that heap: decent tune, a life lesson out of a novela, and further proof that a small norteño group can’t rescue a pop nonentity the way a banda can.

NO VALE LA PENA

November 16, 2016 0

Culiacán Characters

Gilberton, Chanito, El Pirata — they’ve all found a following on social media. Corrido artists frequently appear with them on video, and some have inspired songs and corridos. They aren’t narcos or even musicians, but they are characters.

In the infamous City of Culiacán, where narcos, musicians and beautiful women usually attract the most attention online, people like Gilberton, an elderly gay man known as a cranky foul-mouthed neighborhood fixture ready give his opinion on various subjects laced with a large amount of curse words, has even inspired a cumbia by Los Alegres del Barranco.

Two youngsters named Chanito and El Pirata have also found online fame. Continue reading “Culiacán Characters” →

November 8, 2016 0

Fiesta Segundo Aniversario: LOS PICKS TO CLICK

el-komander-fiesta

Welcome to year three!

If you’re looking for a handy review of good-to-excellent singles released over the past year, you could do worse than NorteñoBlog’s Picks to Click. They’re all listed and linked below, from Calibre 50’s big dumb cumbia “La Gripa” through El Bebeto’s new “Como Olvidarte.” Along the way you’ll find album tracks, old songs, big hits, and indie videos with a couple thousand views that look like they cost even fewer dollars to make.

Artists appearing twice include waltzing indie rockers Fuerza de Tijuana, the continent’s hardest working singles artist El Komander, La Séptima Banda, Calibre 50 spinoffs La Iniciativa, the aforementioned actually-a-grown-man El Bebeto, and walking cry for help Banda Los Recoditos. Also picked twice were Los Titanes de Durango, who Bandamax reports have split into two groups, the U.S.-based Los de Durango and the Mexico-based Los Titanes de Durango, because singer Sergio Sánchez’s work visa was denied. No word on whether that’s because Sánchez’s dad refuses to stop dressing up like El Chapo.

If there’s a trend here, it’s the surge of Sierreño music. Ariel Camacho’s 2015 death made everyone realize how well tubas, guitars, and true crime short stories go together, so now pretty boys like Adriel Favela and Bebeto are biting the style, and indie bands like Los Grandes del Pardito are receiving more attention.

Let’s get to clicking!

10/23/15: “La Gripa” by Calibre 50
Is this big dumb cumbia repetitive? Yes. Does it repeat itself? Yes. Does Calibre 50 keep singing the same thing over and over? Yes. Just when you think they’ve repeated the chorus phrase all the times they’re going to repeat it, do they repeat it several more times? Yes. BUT! Tubist Alex Gaxiola gets in some wicked syncopated jabs, and the whole rhythm section adds up to a sound much thicker than expected. Continue reading “Fiesta Segundo Aniversario: LOS PICKS TO CLICK” →