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Love those hot Latin licks

A double blast from the barrios rolls through Prague
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By Darrell Jónsson
For The Prague Post
April 18th, 2007 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Bringing the Latino sound to town: Tito, second from left, and friends.
It’s been nearly 50 years since Richie Valens leveraged the Afro-Mexican beat of the traditional Veracruz wedding song “La Bamba” into an international smash hit. Latino rock ’n’ roll now appears regularly on the charts, and nowhere is it brewed more emotionally than in the barrios of Los Angeles and Mexico City.
COURTESY PHOTO
Panteón Rococó
Panteón Rococó

When: Tuesday, April 24, at 7:30
Where: Roxy
Tickets: 350 Kč, available through Ticketpro and at the venue

Tito & Tarantula

When: Saturday, April, 28 at 8
Where: Rock Café
Tickets: 380 Kč, available through Ticketpro and at the venue

Unlike the ancient rural origins of Afro-Caribbean music championed in New York and South America, the Latino rock of Mexico City and L.A. carries a big-city sound. Whether you’re listening to the Spanish lyrics of Valens’ “La Bamba,” Panteón Rococó’s “La Ciudad de la Esperanza” or Tito & Tarantula’s Hispanic version of “Anarchy in the UK,” there is nothing quaint about it. The best of Mexican rock music has a way of combining precise-as-the-Aztec-calendar beats with powerful voices and guitars, and ringing brass lines.
In the case of Panteón Rococó, the band’s sound reflects its political roots. According to lead singer Luis Román Ibarra (aka Dr. Shenka), “Panteón Rococó was born in 1995 in the middle of a socio-political crisis in Mexico. Along with other bands, PR started to organize concerts, information booths and conferences to spread information about the Zapatista Movement and the critical situation of the Indians in the country. Working with civil society, students and NGOs in a movement called Paz, Baile y Resistencia [Peace, Dance and Resistance], we have been trying to solve some primary needs of the Indian communities like schools, libraries and hospitals. As for our music, PR is part of a genre known as ‘Mexico Radical Mestizo’ that joins together bands such as Manu Chao, Sidestepper, Amparanoia, Fermin Muguruza and others.”
Often classified as a ska band, Panteón Rococó offers a hard-rocking shake on a mariachi foundation, topped with a shouting rhythm and blues brass section. It’s a conga and guitar-driven sound that runs a metal-to-reggae spectrum, and moves both the feet and brain. As Dr. Shenka says, “It’s not just music — it’s music with sense.”
That should suit the crowd at Roxy fine. Tito & Tarantula, who will be playing later in the week at Rock Café, are more a product of Los Angeles. Still, for the band’s Mexican-born founder, Tito Larriva, Mexico City provided the initial inspiration. It was while visiting his bullfighter uncle there as a teenager that Tito decided to follow in his elder’s footsteps. Instead of carrying a cape, though, Tito was destined to carry a guitar into the arena.
Tito’s first film appearance was fronting his earlier punk band the Plugz in Penelope Spheeris’ L.A. punk-u-mentary The Decline of Western Civilization. In the Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez action flick From Dusk Till Dawn, he played guitar and sang in a band called Titty Twister. Since then Tito has swerved in and out of the film industry, staying loyal to the rock music that first placed him in the public eye.
At times, Tito & Tarantula’s sound may have a bit of violence. But on stage the band has a broader range of expression than any film by Tarantino or Rodriguez will ever have. That’s not to say they are any less spectacular — a Tito & Tarantula show can appeal to anybody who enjoys their rock ’n’ roll with plenty of edge. The band’s last CD, Andalucia (2002 on BMG), demonstrates a punk path wandering through the strawberry fields of L.A.’s Paisley Underground to the peaks of borderland grunge.
If there are any two bands on the planet with the capacity to compete for the most apocalyptic version of “La Bamba,” Panteón Rococó and Tito & Tarantula certainly qualify. Their styles of Mesoamerican urban rock ’n’ roll may no longer sound much like 1958, but they radiate enough Mexican musical power to make Valens’ ghost twist, shout and smile.

Darrell Jónsson can be reached at features@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (18/04/2007):

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