Banda Los Recoditos has made a career of wild party songs fueled by alcohol and sex. We should all be so lucky. Now the Remex label has gotten in on the act with a new-ish band of merrymakers, Banda La Contagiosa, whose album La Fiesta Perfecta rang in el año nuevo. Founded in 2012, their Facebook page describes them as “Banda 100% sinaloense de musicos experimentados,” but I don’t hear the experimentation. They make everything go down so easy. The title singleis pleasantly quick, as is the duet with ex-Tigre del Norte and current mustache consultant Raúl Hernández. There’s also a cover of Codigo FN’s(and Recodo’s, and MS’s, and Ariel Camacho’s…) “Me Gustas Mucho,” and the whole thing ends with a token big dumb cumbia. “Efectos de Alcohol” — the main effect is that Banda La Contagiosa gets laid — is this week’s Pick to Click on the strength of some dramatic octave leaps in the chorus and a video that celebrates the visual glory of creation. Like most hangovers, este album es VALE LA PENA.
Sean Penn interviewed El Chapo. Or so NorteñoBlog has been told. I haven’t actually made it to the part of the article where Penn talks to Chapo, because I’m still wading through Penn’s introduction, which spends 2,300 words just getting out of New York City and uses most of those words to probe the anguished psyche of its narrator. It’s like The Monster at the End of This Book, only with less editing and more penises. (See below.)
Here are some of the items on Sean Penn’s mind: Sean Penn’s inability to use a laptop or a smart phone; an unspecified period in history “when walls were walls”; El Chapo’s history as a prison escape artist (OK, this inclusion makes sense); the failed history of the drug war (this also makes sense, but maybe he could have summarized it in a couple sentences?); the whole storied history of how Sean Penn landed this interview, which I am assured actually exists; Sean Penn’s limited knowledge of Spanish; and the passage no self-respecting blog can resist quoting, the passage that should grace Sean Penn’s tombstone or at least his Pulitzer, the passage that will howl in my ear the next time I’m writing something for money:
I throw my satchel into the open back of one of the SUVs, and lumber over to the tree line to take a piss. Dick in hand, I do consider it among my body parts vulnerable to the knives of irrational narco types, and take a fond last look, before tucking it back into my pants.
Forever seeking new ways to ring in the new year, NorteñoBlog first tried watching Chi-Town Rising, Chicago’s inaugural attempt to steal some of New York City’s televised thunder by running a glowing electronic star up the side of the Hyatt Regency. Unfortunately, NBC’s TV coverage was marred by the presence of congenial twit Mario Lopez and new Rock & Roll Hall of Famers Chicago (the horn-rock band) trying to rouse the crowd from their drunken stupor with a poorly mixed performance of “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” (Considering Chi-Town Rising was 30 seconds late with their countdown, I’m gonna say “no.”) Thoroughly depressed, I switched to ABC, only to discover it had been commandeered by hometown scourge The Vampire Strangler:
Happy New BLAGGGGHHHH!
But in the depths of my despair, a Buchanan’s-soaked hand reached down and encased mine in its sticky grip. Turns out El Komander understands the doldrums afforded by the flipping of the Gregorian calendar, so he released the stopgap album Pisteadera, Vol. 1 (Twiins) on December 30, right when his fans most needed to get pisteando. Continue reading “¡Pisteando! (starring El Komander, Chuy Zuñiga, y más)”→
Here’s the extent of what NorteñoBlog knows about Los Hermanos Madero: They’re a five-piece family norteño band from Culiacán, playing an instantly likable mix of corridos and love songs, and their lineup includes two baby-faced youngsters, Ivan (accordion and high harmonies) and new-ish addition Aldrich (bass). Despite my assignations, they switch off instruments like The Band — one album cover has Ivan holding a bajo sexto, and in this video Aldrich plays the bajo sexto. Sometimes they use a tololoche (stand-up bass) for the bass line, a point of pride. They just released their fourth likably-photoshopped album, Entre Gente De Arranque (Cosalteco/Hyphy). It contains 24 songs and gets a bit samey; more entertaining is this video of Ivan, Aldrich, and the older Jose Luis (I think) previewing the album. Continue reading “¡Nuevo! (starring Banda Maguey, Los Intocables, y más)”→
UPDATE: Los Titanes’ singer has spoken about the mistaken identity:
“We wanted a character that looked like ‘El Chapo,'” Sanchez Ayon said. “We interviewed actors. But it turns out my dad is short, we put the baseball cap on and put him in the video. We didn’t mean to cause a problem.”
A video that surfaced Thursday purportedly showing “the most wanted man in the world,” Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, is actually cellphone video from the set of a music video portraying the famed Mexican drug lord.
The allegedly “leaked” video, published by El Blog Del Narco, shows a group of more than a dozen men, many heavily armed and some wearing military fatigues, at a party with a band playing music and a man performing dressage with a horse.
Dressage? A heavily armed paramilitary force?? I’m surprised nobody mistook the guy for Mitt Romney announcing his presidential bid at a border patrol rally. The Chapo likeness was good enough to fool — with reservations — one former DEA official:
“Based on several factors, there is a very strong possibility — I would say 90 to 95 percent — that it’s (El Chapo) in the video,” Vigil said in a phone interview with mySA.com on Thursday before the video’s origin was revealed. “I don’t know who else it could be.”
So apparently there are El Chapo impersonators in the world, and in the name of verisimilitude Los Titanes de Durango hired one for their “Ando Arremangado” video, and some alternative footage made its way from a phone to a narco site, and then precariously close to official investigation channels. If Los Titanes were angling for some free publicity and a good story to tell at parties, they succeeded. I wonder if the DEA has a file on them now.
It’s no secret that part of norteño music’s thrill comes from its proximity to real-life narco activity. Remember my man Juan Carlos: “Everybody thinks that they know the people [in the songs]. When we’re drunk, we sing a lot of Mexican narcocorridos… We feel good ‘cause maybe one person is from Sinaloa, so it makes you proud of those people.” Whether that proximity is real or implied varies from case to case, and most narco singers live quiet suburban lives and simply put on an act for their fans. So it’s no surprise that Los Titanes would depict themselves hanging out with El Chapo. And no matter who initiated this video leak, maybe it makes them feel more badass — they’ve faked it so real they’re beyond fake.
By the way, the song — in which the family band proclaims itself ready for action — is good. Drums and bass settle into a hard and steady rolling rhythm while the bajo sexto sticks to the offbeats. Occasionally the whole rhythm section joins forces for some syncopated fills that land like thrown punches. The accordion lays a series of nonstop ornamentation over the top, and Sergio Sánchez Ayón sings a sturdy melody. It’s that norteño sweet spot — a simple tune played with deceptive complexity, enfolded in the paratextual layers of the video. Pick to Click; just don’t imagine you’re watching a documentary.
At NorteñoBlog as in life, there’s a handful of generally beloved artists who I wish I liked better, because I can hear what other people hear in their music and it just doesn’t do much for me. I’m thinking of Sleater Kinney, or Taylor Swift before I fell for her Red album (and then promptly fell away from 1989). Intocable may fall into this category as well — I just tried again with their 2008 album 2C (Capitol), and found it accomplished but meh. These artists have obvious talent but they’re a chore to put on; in the words of Half Japanese, they follow no direct line from my brain to my heart.
Into their company waltzes Calibre 50, whose new album Historias De La Calle (Andaluz/Sony) just debuted at #1 on Billboard‘s Latin Albums chart. Led by accordionist/singer/songwriter Eden Muñoz, Calibre plays with clarity and invention. They root half their repertoire in the classic templates of corridos and cumbias. Check out the new album’s lead song, “El Amor No Fue Pa’ Mi,” to hear a band that knows exactly how to shape a four-chord polka for maximum definition and novelty. This song is packed with more hooks — shared among singers, squeezebox, and sousaphone — than many full-length norteño albums. Pick to Click!
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. Nestled in the middle of Billboard‘s Latin Albums chart is the newest album from La Energia Norteña, El Rompecabezas (Azteca) (alternate title: Dolor de Cabeza Saxual), a dance saxtet from Dallas, Texas. Puzzlingly, La Energia doesn’t have ties to one of the usual sax hotbeds; rather, they’re originally from the central Mexican state of San Luis Potosí, also home to singer Ana Bárbara and Mount Wirikuta. (The latter is sacred to a group of indigenous Mexican people and currently under threat of rape by a Canadian silver mining company.) El Rompecabezas is energetic and poppy and I had to double check the first two songs to make sure they weren’t exactly the same. One of them was “Malditos Sentimientos” (alternate title: “Sentimientos, Saxo, y MALDICIóN”). Continue reading “¡Nuevo! (starring Chacaloza, Vicente Fernández, y más)”→
Every once in a while, it’s good for a fanboy like me to get some perspective. I ask myself the tough questions: Is Julión Álvarez really the best singer on the continent, or has Chuy Lizárraga taken his crown? If a dance band from Chihuahua marketed itself as “puro Zacatecas sax,” would any listener be able to tell the difference? And most importantly, how many fans does it take to reach #2 on Billboard‘s Top Latin Albums chart?
The answer according to Billboard: a grand oughta do it. That worked in the case of the corrido quartet Enigma Norteño, whose I-dunno-10th? album La Vida del Rey (Fonovisa) just scraped up to #2 with 1,000 albums sold. Such a low sales tally is nothing new, and it certainly doesn’t reflect on Enigma’s quality — they’re a good little band — but it does remind us that, outside Gerardo Ortiz and a couple others, even the most popular norteño music remains unknown to most of the U.S. music-buying public. Continue reading “Major Corrideros: Enigma Norteño, Lenin Ramírez, & El Komander (AGAIN)”→
Banda Cuisillos is a big bunch of brass-playing hippies. According to their useful biography, they got their name by combining the Mayan word “KU,” a sacred space, with the Spanish word “sillos,” which hasn’t appeared in my Spanish lessons but which apparently means “little (or at least diminutive) pyramids.” They dress in “Indian” garb, with a sentimental fondness for the Apaches who populated Mexico and the U.S. in the halcyon days before our two nations were separated by a border, when everyone lived together in peace and harmony. (Must research.) Besides the requisite love songs, every Cuisillos album includes one or two songs about “diferentes aspectos importantes” of being human; these aspectos include drug addiction, ecology, forming a new world, and single mothers. Their February single “Cerveza,” for instance, addresses the modern epidemic of “beer goggles.” Just say no, kids.
But in general you should say yes to Cuisillos, whose independently released albums have featured fine songs, unexpected sonic touches, and cover art puked up by the Luck Dragon. Unfortunately, their new single “Soñando Despierto” (Independent) has none of those things; it’s your standard-issue happy-go-lucky banda lope, not too far removed from something puked up by Luis Coronel. It’s not nearly as good as Willie Colón’s song of the same name. As daydream songs go, it captures all the cloying bits of the Lovin’ Spoonful but neglects the Monkees’ majesty. NO VALE LA PENA Continue reading “¡Nuevo! (Indie Label Mini-Roundup)”→
Banda Los Recoditos has made a career of wild party songs fueled by alcohol and sex. We should all be so lucky. Now the Remex label has gotten in on the act with a new-ish band of merrymakers, Banda La Contagiosa, whose album La Fiesta Perfecta rang in el año nuevo. Founded in 2012, their Facebook page describes them as “Banda 100% sinaloense de musicos experimentados,” but I don’t hear the experimentation. They make everything go down so easy. The title singleis pleasantly quick, as is the duet with ex-Tigre del Norte and current mustache consultant Raúl Hernández. There’s also a cover of Codigo FN’s(and Recodo’s, and MS’s, and Ariel Camacho’s…) “Me Gustas Mucho,” and the whole thing ends with a token big dumb cumbia. “Efectos de Alcohol” — the main effect is that Banda La Contagiosa gets laid — is this week’s Pick to Click on the strength of some dramatic octave leaps in the chorus and a video that celebrates the visual glory of creation. Like most hangovers, este album es VALE LA PENA.
NorteñoBlog 