Wednesday, January 14, 2004
What I sometimes think about when listening to a record dept.
Quetzal
Work songs
"Rhythmically manifested in a perfect sum of their parts, Quetzal's songs of human perseverance echo the pervading marriage of culture and sound. Seldom can a band capture a mindset with rhythm, in this case, its tangible grasp on the notion that change through consciousness will prevail in the end, humanizes every beat, amplifies every word and recognizes every struggle."
-- Rigo Gutierrez, Monica Romero
Dateline: Los Angeles, California (Nestled in the expansive geographic corridors of Aztlan)
While the Posada and the Christmas season tamales are recent enough to still be fond memories, as of today the social tensions in California are increasing. Our beautiful California where, during the hard scrabbling times of the Depression Era, Mexicans (and anyone looking like a Mexican) were rounded up (whether they were born here, a citizen or not) and escorted by the "bulls" to the train yards, where they were loaded into the freight cars that carried them "back" across the border to Mexico.
Today, El Pueblo de California is under the rule of a new Alcalde whose first act in office was to take away drivers licenses which means illegal immigrants can no longer drive legally to work (see Victor Kemperer's I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, for his day-by-day account as a Jew living under the Nazi regime, a personal diary that traces the relentless accretion of insults; among the very first to go were the right to drive and the right to work, then went library cards, tomatoes, and flowers. Little by little, and without pity, all rights were removed -- culminating in even the right to exist.)
Elsewhere, El Presidente decides cheap day-labor in menial, thankless jobs is a crucial component of this country's economic equation and hopes to win an appreciative voting block with his "Temporary Guest Worker Program", and so adds his own mixed message to the current swirl.
In the Los Angeles of today, the RIAA police squads in black "raid" vests hit the streets in Silverlake and shake down a 4'11" parking lot attendant, bullying his collection away from him; all because he had been noticed selling a few CD's a week in a location other than a store with a scanner. The RIAA private police apparently were under no obligation to prove that the discs were counterfeit or bootleg, their suspicions being law enough for them, and they physically took his small supplement to his livelihood away from him.
On the gangster front, Norteños y Sureños (the Norths and the Souths, the reds and the blues) are by all published accounts ready to rumble at the color of a t-shirt and the influences of North and South can't seem to peacefully co-exist anywhere except occasionally in music.
Los Angeles, California, Aztlan -- where everyone lives by the old saying: "Work like crazy. Then you die."
All the influences that quietly simmer underneath until they reach a force to eventually rattle and lift the lid of the cultural pot are building.
(This is what I thought about before I listened to Work Songs again today. Created by Quetzal, this is a lively and imaginative piece on how to move through life in the Los Angeles barrio, and it's got to be complicated. But their message "that change through consciousness will prevail in the end" can cross cultures.
(If I had done a year's best ten list, Work Songs would have been on it. This is "Alt.Mexican" worthy of being heard, especially by any who still long for the extended magic of an album.)
¶ 1/14/2004 04:59:00 PM
Quetzal
Work songs
"Rhythmically manifested in a perfect sum of their parts, Quetzal's songs of human perseverance echo the pervading marriage of culture and sound. Seldom can a band capture a mindset with rhythm, in this case, its tangible grasp on the notion that change through consciousness will prevail in the end, humanizes every beat, amplifies every word and recognizes every struggle."
-- Rigo Gutierrez, Monica Romero
Dateline: Los Angeles, California (Nestled in the expansive geographic corridors of Aztlan)
While the Posada and the Christmas season tamales are recent enough to still be fond memories, as of today the social tensions in California are increasing. Our beautiful California where, during the hard scrabbling times of the Depression Era, Mexicans (and anyone looking like a Mexican) were rounded up (whether they were born here, a citizen or not) and escorted by the "bulls" to the train yards, where they were loaded into the freight cars that carried them "back" across the border to Mexico.
Today, El Pueblo de California is under the rule of a new Alcalde whose first act in office was to take away drivers licenses which means illegal immigrants can no longer drive legally to work (see Victor Kemperer's I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, for his day-by-day account as a Jew living under the Nazi regime, a personal diary that traces the relentless accretion of insults; among the very first to go were the right to drive and the right to work, then went library cards, tomatoes, and flowers. Little by little, and without pity, all rights were removed -- culminating in even the right to exist.)
Elsewhere, El Presidente decides cheap day-labor in menial, thankless jobs is a crucial component of this country's economic equation and hopes to win an appreciative voting block with his "Temporary Guest Worker Program", and so adds his own mixed message to the current swirl.
In the Los Angeles of today, the RIAA police squads in black "raid" vests hit the streets in Silverlake and shake down a 4'11" parking lot attendant, bullying his collection away from him; all because he had been noticed selling a few CD's a week in a location other than a store with a scanner. The RIAA private police apparently were under no obligation to prove that the discs were counterfeit or bootleg, their suspicions being law enough for them, and they physically took his small supplement to his livelihood away from him.
On the gangster front, Norteños y Sureños (the Norths and the Souths, the reds and the blues) are by all published accounts ready to rumble at the color of a t-shirt and the influences of North and South can't seem to peacefully co-exist anywhere except occasionally in music.
Los Angeles, California, Aztlan -- where everyone lives by the old saying: "Work like crazy. Then you die."
All the influences that quietly simmer underneath until they reach a force to eventually rattle and lift the lid of the cultural pot are building.
(This is what I thought about before I listened to Work Songs again today. Created by Quetzal, this is a lively and imaginative piece on how to move through life in the Los Angeles barrio, and it's got to be complicated. But their message "that change through consciousness will prevail in the end" can cross cultures.
(If I had done a year's best ten list, Work Songs would have been on it. This is "Alt.Mexican" worthy of being heard, especially by any who still long for the extended magic of an album.)
¶ 1/14/2004 04:59:00 PM
