¡Nuevo!

Estimado Noel Torres…

noel torres

NOEL.

Noelnoelnoelnoelnoelnoelnoel.

We need to talk.

You may be the most gifted corridero of your generation. You play accordion better than almost anyone, certainly better than Gerardo Ortiz, and I even prefer you to Remmy Valenzuela because I can tell it’s you playing, the way you slide around the main notes of the melody on little flurries of fast notes. It’s a performing tic, but it’s a good and versatile performing tic and you don’t lean on it too hard. If this whole singer-songwriter thing dries up, you could become a session pro — just build yourself a studio and punch your genius into the music of people willing to pay for it. Your fingers could even make Luis Coronel albums worth hearing.

Your playing sounds even better in the middle of a band just as good, if not better, than you are. Not only do you hire the best players, but you get them to play as a band, unequaled in power and sheer density of radness per second. Your corridos are like The Avengers: Fight for Culiacán — only filmed in super widescreen, so we can dispense with all those quick cuts and just observe everyone’s awesome deeds at once. You can be Iron Man or whoever, I don’t care. El Pulpo‘s like the Hulk, bashing away on some narco’s private jets inside the booming expanse of a hangar. Whoever plays bass — you should really start crediting them — can be Captain Norteamérica, holding the team together. Is George Ramos OK with being Scarlet Witch, but reborn as a bajo sexto player? His chords mess with everyone’s minds and alter reality and whatnot. Doesn’t matter. The point is, your small norteño bands are overwhelming and absorbing, up there with some of human civilization’s greatest work. We’re talking Guernica, or Ornette Coleman’s album with Pat Metheny.

I understand why you’d wanna sing romantic banda tunes. Continue reading “Estimado Noel Torres…” →

March 22, 2016 1

Odes to Music Executives and Other Criminals

beto tiger

Ladies and gentlemen, our nation is in the grip of a Sierreño fever, and it´s mostly because — on the charts, at least — the dead are walking the earth. Or at least one dead man. For the second week in a row, Billboard‘s Hot Latin top 25 is 20 percent acoustic trio music, the signature Sierreño style of the late Ariel Camacho. His bandmates Los Plebes Del Rancho just released their first album since Sr. Camacho died, and they occupy four of those slots, one of them (the deathless “Hablemos”) with Camacho himself. The fifth trio spot belongs to Los Del Arroyo, backing up pretty boy gangster Adriel Favela. Had Camacho not died a year ago, it’s unlikely that he and his band would be clogging up the chart to this extent. The Arroyos might have still had their hit — after all, “Tomen Nota” is a really good song and Favela’s an established hitmaker — but it’s equally likely that Camacho’s post-mortem singles have whetted listeners’ appetites for rippling guitars and lurching basslines.

But the old sound of Sierreño is having a moment off the charts, too. NorteñoBlog has already noted the fine new album from Los Migueles “La Voz Original,” who were Sierreño when Sierreño wasn’t cool. Now we’ve got a new tuba trio album from the young guitarist and singer Virlán García. His Y Cambió Mi Suerte (self-released) is a noble attempt to strike while the fever’s hot. (Please do not actually strike feverish people, except with leeches.) García is maybe the millionth person to record an ode to El Chapo Guzmán’s son “Iván Archivaldo,” but to his credit, the song demonstrates what a monster García’s lead guitarist is. This trio tries for different effects than the consistently hypnotic Los Plebes — “El Serio” contains some studied group fills, almost like a pop song arrangement, though the main riff just barely hangs together. In other words, they’re still a little rough, but they’ve got their sites set on bigger things.

I’m pretty sure all of García’s efforts thus far — two self-released albums, an active Youtube channel — constitute a savvy bid for the attention of DEL Records. After all, DEL’s charismatic CEO Angel Del Villar is known for signing musicians (including Ariel Camacho) based on their Youtube presences. García no doubt reads Triunfo magazine interviews about industry hiring practices, so last year he wrote and recorded Del Villar his very own corrido, guilelessly titled “Angel Del Villar,” as part of the self-released album Pobre o Criminal. If you think this sounds familiar, you’re right. Los Plebes recorded a different ode to Del Villar, “DEL Negociante,” that’s currently sitting at #15 Hot Latin. Short story: “Angel Del Villar” is no “DEL Negociante,” but I’m sure the CEO noticed the effort, and that he appreciated it more than he would a giltter-bombed resumé. Continue reading “Odes to Music Executives and Other Criminals” →

March 16, 2016 6

¡Nuevo! (starring Los Plebes, Los Tucanes, y más)

cuisillos

It is the longstanding position of NorteñoBlog that the puro sax styles of Chihuahua and Zacatecas would improve with the addition of more terrible “sax” puns in the titles. The Zacatecan-I-think quintet Luis Ruiz y la Embarcacion de la Musica Norteña has just released their second album Pura Rienda Suelta (Goma) (alternate title: Cuidado Con La Bestia Saxy), and on first listen it stands out from the puro sax pack. Por ejemplo, accordion and sax hang out on a repetitive minor-chord riff in their single “Me Enamoré” (sequel title: “Tuvimos Saxo”). In a subgenre that’s almost oppressively chipper, minor chords count for plenty. But even on chipper tunes like Regulo Caro’s oft-covered “La Buchona” (alternate title: “Labios Saxys”), Ruiz’s clarion voice sells the songs. He’s got a way of making the most heartfelt pleas sound tossed-off. Thumbs up indeed, Sr. Ruiz.

Improbably (and not at all saxily), Los Plebes Del Rancho de Ariel Camacho are climbing closer to the Hot Latin top 10 with their single “DEL Negociante,” written by their DEL Records labelmates Revolver Cannabis. Like “Me Enamoré,” “DEL” boasts a memorable minor-key riff. Unlike “Me Enamoré,” it features the teenaged José Manuel Lopez Castro pinch hitting for previous lead singer Ariel Camacho, who died a year ago, and he’s singing a song about their label boss, Angel Del Villar. This is both crass and wonderful. After Jimi Hendrix died, imagine his rhythm section renamed themselves “Experience Hendrix,” hired the fresh-faced Neil Young as a frontman, and scored a hit with “Lonely at the Top (Reprise),” written by Randy Newman in honor of Reprise Records boss Frank Sinatra. And then they recorded a whole album! While we’ll never know the results of that particular thought experiment, we can hear Recuerden Mi Estilo (DEL), which sounds pretty good. Lopez Castro lacks the immediate charisma of his predecessor, but tubist Omar Burgos has more than enough to share. Continue reading “¡Nuevo! (starring Los Plebes, Los Tucanes, y más)” →

March 7, 2016 5

¡Nuevo! (Starring Kevin Ortiz, El Fantasma, y más)

el fantasma

Out of the dusty wilds of Instagram floats the apparition of a scratchy-voiced corridero and his Sierreño band, Equipo Armado. With a name like El Fantasma, you might expect to find little information on this guy, and you’d be right. El Fantasma is thoroughly frustrating NorteñoBlog’s Googling skills. But think of it this way: when a phantasmagorical Leonardo DiCaprio clawed his way back from bear death in Revenant: El Renacido, did his adversaries start Googling to find out who he was, or did they simply marvel at his acting chops and physical endurance? Before he killed them all, I mean. If I had seen that movie I would humbly submit that the frontier fur trappers did NOT use Google, they simply marveled and died, and so does NorteñoBlog marvel at the chops on display in El Fantasma’s debut album Equipo Armado (AfinArte). Like Los Plebes del Rancho, still going strong a year after Ariel Camacho’s death, Armado features flashy lead requinto effects set against rhythm guitar and a tubist who can’t decide whether he’s playing lead or bass, so he plays both at once. A banda (Banda Los Populares Del Llano?) joins El Fantasma for the final five tunes, and the album sounds better if you accidentally listen to it on shuffle, because then the Sierreño gets all mixed up with the banda. Check out lead single “Mi 45,” in which Fantasma: El Renacido actually shows us his 45. But don’t let your kids watch it.
VALE LA PENA

Almost a year ago, noted national anthem mangler Julio Preciado released a single with La Original Banda El Limón. La Original, you’ll remember, is cladistically related to unstoppable hitmakers La Arrolladora Banda El Limón, having sprung from the common ancestor Banda el Limón sometime in the late Pleistocene. Continue reading “¡Nuevo! (Starring Kevin Ortiz, El Fantasma, y más)” →

March 3, 2016 2

Indie a Go Go Again! (¡Nuevo!)

alex saucedo

Stricken with a rare case of getting to the point, NorteñoBlog directs you cuanto antes to the latest single by El Armenta, aka singer/songwriter/businessman/director Raymundo Armenta from the state of Guerrero. The zero-budget video for “El Perro Se Soltó” (Armenta), presented by Raysunshine Films, does not quite achieve the demented heights of Ed Wood’s Cocaine-Fueled Fever Dream, but it comes close. It cuts repeatedly between two different scenes. In the normcore narrative half, El Armenta stops by the home of his novia, who’s been preparing for his visit by doing the dishes, putting on makeup, and ignoring calls from an unknown number. Armenta brings her a stuffed perro and unsuccessfully tries to throw grapes into her mouth. He abruptly disappears from this narrative, sending novia to the recliner for a nap. She wakes to the sound of a barking perro on the radio, checks her phone, and leaves. This plot summary should be taken as a NorteñoBlog cry for help.

In the second scene, El Armenta dances in a park amid a circle of people wearing sombreros and grotesque rubber masks. They hold sticks the size of baseball bats tied to coils of rope. Although they are frankly frightening, nobody gets hit with a stick. I’m not sure how these scenes relate to one another or to el perro de la novia del Armento; no doubt I’m missing a proud cultural tradition and/or a lyrical plot point. So be a dear and watch this thing, will you? To sweeten the deal, I’ll tell you that of all the big dumb banda cumbias I’ve heard this year, “El Perro” is the best, with horns and clarinets blaring all over the place and a churning beat that doesn’t quit until the dog barks at the end. The sound’s a little clipped in the video, which only adds to the Lynchian daytime nightmare feel of the whole endeavor. An obvious Pick to Click. Continue reading “Indie a Go Go Again! (¡Nuevo!)” →

February 12, 2016 1

Indie Singles a Go Go (¡Nuevo!)

los grandes del pardito

NorteñoBlog starts the day by wandering down to the next continent, as we do sometimes — specifically to Argentina, where the cumbia and its omnivorous psychedelic folk cousin chicha are still going strong, and the gauchos still roam the countryside. (I’m not sure whether “omnivorous psychedelic folk” is the best descriptor since it makes me think of the Grateful Dead, but let’s not worry about that now.) Buenos Aires singer La Yegros is back with her new single “Chicha Roja” (Waxploitation/Soundway); her album Magnetismo will come out in March. Nice song! It’s got a rolling I-wanna-say electro-acoustic cumbia beat, accordion and melodica (you can tell because a melodica appears in the animated Georgia-O’Keefe-on-shrooms video), crowd noises, a dense breakdown with flutes playing out of tune, and the appealing presence of La Yegros herself. Her voice sort of reminds me of Shirley Simms from the Magnetic Fields — only, you know, marshalling a cicha like a friendly dance commander.

Themselves no strangers to cumbias, indie corrideros Los Rodriguez de Sinaloa released a humdinger of one last year; I regret never having Picked to Click “Bye Bye.” Although I should note, norteño/banda cumbias differ from the South American kind, or even from the slow and steady cumbias favored by Mexican bands like Los Angeles Azules. Namely: norteño cumbias are way faster. Witness Julión Álvarez’s “Cumbia del Rio.” At his pace you can still hear the cumbia’s trademark “1 2-and 1 2-and” grind divvied up among the different instruments, but once a band starts approaching hyperspace — as in “Bye Bye” or Calibre 50’s current hit “La Gripa” — the subtleties of the beat smear into one homogeneous oompah.

Anyway, Los Rodriguez’s new single is NOT a cumbia, but the ice-cold breakup tune “Te Tengo De Cortar” (self-released). Taking a cue from K Camp, Los Rodriguez decide they need to leave this particular mujer where she stands, and it’ll be much less painful for the mujer in question if they end it with some quickness. Pulling off Band-Aids and whatnot. Los Rodriguez’s tuba player does his best to be convincing, particularly during the chunky, rapid-fire pre-choruses. The song lasts less than three minutes, but nearly every bar sounds like a big jagged glob of something shoved in your face. That’s a recommendation and a Pick to Click.

Continue reading →

February 8, 2016 2

Fonovisa Phones the Past (¡Nuevo!)

luis humberto

The big new album last Friday was Banda Los Recoditos’ Me Está Gustando (Fonovisa). Based on their track record I’ll assume it’s another shiny, debauched, smutty, jokey, not great but actually pretty good 12-song collection with a couple too many ballads. (See this review of their 2014 album Sueño XXX, for example.) This time around, the album cover comes with a paranoia-inducing game: NAME THE EYES THAT SEEM TO BE FOLLOWING YOU. We’ve already marveled at the lead ~~cry for help~~ single “Pistearé,” currently at #4 in Mexico and threatening to enter the Hot Latin top 10 in the U.S., in which Luis Angel Franco (the lower left set of eyes) vows to drink away the memories of the mujer who done him wrong. (In the video he gets into a fight with co-singer Samuel Sarmiento — the lower right set of eyes — over said mujer. The cycle of booze being a vicious one, this drama also drives her to drink.) Even better is big dumb cumbia “La Cruda, which celebrates the inevitable hangover with way more gusto than I’ve ever felt during a hangover. Pick to Click!

Continue reading →

February 1, 2016 1

Marco Flores y Los Inquietos Saluden a Su Madre

inquietos flores

You may remember that last summer the noted TV game show host Donald Trump announced he was running for president. Because he is a “straight-shooting” “outsider” who “tells it like it is,” he decided it would be a good idea to launch his campaign by insulting Mexican immigrants. (Actually, what percentage of Trump’s actions spring from conscious decision making is open to debate and armchair psychoanalysis, but that’s a different blog.) A bunch of other Republican candidates, being “confident” “Christian” “human beings” who “think for themselves,” decided they would also insult Mexican immigrants. And Syrian immigrants. And Central and South American immigrants, just as, when ebola was all the rage, they wanted us to ban travel to and from Africa. These people know how to discriminate against, but among? Not so much.

Since then NorteñoBlog has seen a healthy number of pro-Latino and, in some cases, anti-Trump songs. The latest comes from blog fave Marco Flores and hyphy-not-hyphy stalwarts Los Inquietos del Norte. With his Numero 1 Banda Jerez, Flores made NorteñoBlog’s favorite album and single of 2015; he’s a proud Zacatecan country dude who fills his songs with crass jokes and parties. When he first arrived on the scene a decade ago, Billboard lauded him for “tell[ing] it like it is.” Like Sr. Trump, he’s also a straight-shooting outsider, saying in a Triunfo magazine cover story that, unlike many of his banda-music colleagues, he doesn’t like El Norte. Flores claims he couldn’t afford to live here; he’d need to buy a car; in Mexico he can just ride his horse wherever he needs to go. The straight-shooting outsider is still an attentive modern businessman, though — dude can quickly rattle off his YouTube counts.

In contrast, Los Inquietos may have cousins in Jalisco and Michoacan, but they’ve based most of their 20-year music career in California. Besides devising new and innovative ways to chinga tu madre in song, they’re enterprising businessmen, starting their own Eagle label and bringing their own crass corridos to fans throughout the U.S. Their new duet with Flores, “Requisito Americano,” addresses this cultural difference before uniting in solidarity: If you discriminate against them, “salude a su madre.” I guess they wanna get this song on the radio.

Blast it at your nearest Iowa caucus!

January 28, 2016 2

¡Nuevo-ish! (doing DEL Records due diligence)

los amos del terror

When we last met the rambunctious corrido quintet Grupo Fernández last June, NorteñoBlog was praising their Regulo Caro and Ariel Camacho feature “La Fuga Del Dorian,” a real barnburner of a corrido. In fact the charisma of the two stars overshadowed Los Fernández themselves, kind of like Nicki and Weezy guesting on a Tyga song, or Jagger and Hendrix sitting in with a slaphappy but faceless British garage band. The band’s runaway rhythm section regularly achieves that sublime rolling feel you find in many of the best new corrido bands, but it’s hard to buy lead singer Elton Aispuro unless he’s singing high and fast. When they attempt a slow song like Camacho’s “Te Metiste,” rhythm and singer sound like they’re wearing lead boots. Unfortunately their new album Las Pacas (DEL) has too many slow ones — actually, too many songs period. 17! Who do these guys think they are, Revolver Cannabis? But they still know how to burn down the barn — witness this week’s Pick to Click “El Pariente De La O,” featuring the high, Keith Richards-worthy backing vocals of bajo sexto player Juan García: