MUSEYON GUIDES » Argentina

Build Your Own Collection: Cumbia Edition

Heather C — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:36:50 +0000

Amoeba Music, San Francisco

In Music+Travel Worldwide, Eve Hyman introduces you to some of the hottest new cumbia artists coming out of Buenos Aires. But what can you do if you can’t make it to the record stores in BA’s cumbia hotspots — the stalls of the Constitucion train station or at Miles Discos (Honduras 4912, Buenos Aires; +51 11 4832-0466) and Zivals (Serrano 1445, Buenos Aires; +54 11 4833-7948) in Palermo Soho? Well, if you’re in the States, you’re in luck — there are still some top-notch record stores for fans of every genre. Here are some of our favorites on the East and West Coasts. Don’t see your favorite on the list, then let us know: where do you go for your sound fix?

Amoeba Music: The grandaddy of them all, this West Coast shop has outlets in L.A. (6400 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood; 323-245-6400 ), San Francisco (1855 Haight St., San Francisco; 415-831-1200) and Berkeley, Ca (2455 Telegraph Ave., Berkeley; 510-549-1125). The world’s largest independent record store has been going strong since 1990. The Hollywood location opened in 2001 with more than 250,000 titles. If you can’t find it there, good luck.

Other Music: Other Music (15 E. 4th St., New York; 212-477-8150) is a New York institution known for its impressive selection and too-cool-for-school clerks with their encyclopedic knowledge. Just steps from NYU, the shop has been schooling hipsters-in-training since 1996. In addition to a formidable selection the shop also sells select magazines, books (including our own Music+Travel Worldwide!) and tickets to must-see shows at venues around the city. Stop by to discover a new artist and see them live that night!

Turntable Lab: This tiny East Village shop features the coolest electronic and dance music on wax, including some of the best bets from cumbia label Bersa Records and our friends at ZZK, along with turntables, drum machines and all the DJ essentials.

HOT HOODS
Sometimes a single shop doesn’t have all you need. To fully immerse yourself in the sounds of Latin America, head to these neighborhoods:

Sunset Junction: Located between music hotspots Echo Park and Silverlake in LA, the microneighborhood of Sunset Junction features a number of mom-and-pop shops that offer vintage records, including cumbia direct from Colombia and Mexico.

The Mission: San Francisco’s Mission District is home to a large Latino and Chicano populations, as well as the city’s young and artsy scene. To tap into the area’s Latin music scene check out Julio’s (2884 Mission St., San Francisco; 415-648-1054) on the neighborhood’s main drag, known for its extensive selection of Spanish-language releases.

Sunset Park, Brooklyn: One of New York’s most multi-cultural neighborhoods (it’s home to both “Little Latin America” and Brooklyn’s Chinatown), Sunset Park, Brooklyn, is a hub of Latin American music that features many places to find cumbia — just cruise down Fourth of Fifth avenues from the mid 30s to 60th Street. The neighborhood is easy to reach on the B, D, M and R subway lines.

photo by Sean O’Sullivan/Flickr

OUT NOW! Music + Travel Worldwide: 12 Cities / 12 Scenes

Heather C — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:31:26 +0000

In Music+Travel Worldwide our expert guides take a musical tour around the globe. Check out our sound sampler before you buy the book…

Jazz Land: Chicago by Peter Margasak
Jazz
Hometown Hero: Ken Vandermark and the Ken Vandermark 5

Click to hear 11 more…

Bring the Noise, Bring the Punk: Dublin by James Hendicott
Celtic Punk
Hometown Hero: Blood or Whiskey, “They Say No”

New Rap City: Paris by Miles Marshall Lewis
Muslim Hip-Hop
Hometown Hero: Booba, “Mon Son”

Techno Color: Berlin by Siobhan O’Leary
Techno
Hometown Hero: Ellen Allien Apparat, “Way Out”

Jailhouse Rock: Moscow +St. Petersburg by Alina Simone
Chanson
Hometown Hero: Yanka Dyagileva, “Na Cherniy Den’”

Classical Studies: Istanbul by Alexandra Ivanoff
Classical
Hometown Hero: Fazil Say, “Black Earth”

Swing Shifts: Addis Ababa by Mikael Awake
Ethiopop
Hometown Hero: Mulatu Astatke, “Yekermo Sew” (with the Heliocentrics)

Passage to Indipop: Mumbai by Shamik Bag
Indipop

Hometown Hero: A.R. Rahman, “O Saya” (with MIA)

Experimental Methods: Beijing by Nick Frisch
Experimental
Hometown Hero: Carsick Cars, “Mogu, Mogu”

CARSICK CARS – 蘑菇蘑菇 MOGU MOGU (Music Video) from Maybe Mars / 兵马司 on Vimeo.

Art Rock Confidential: Melbourne, Sydney & Brisbane by Mel Campbell
Art Rock
Hometown Hero: Deloris, “Playing the Spaces”

The Digital Domain: Buenos Aires by Eve Hyman
Cumbia
Hometown Hero: Chancha Via Circuito

Chancha Via Circuito – ZZK Records from ZZK Records on Vimeo.

Folk Lure: Los Angeles by Jessica Hundley
Calicountry
Hometown Hero: Devendra Banhart, “Brindo”

Devendra Banhart – Brindo from Rômulo Martinz on Vimeo.

It’s Good to be King

Stef — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:16:14 +0000

Dick el Demasiado by Patwasi Pat Taylor

Musician. Filmmaker. Producer. Writer. Artist. Dick el Demasiado, known to his legion of fans as the Cumbia king, has done it all. Breaking musical boundaries and relishing in the success of a career that follows its own path, by bucking tradition he has embraced a freedom that enables him to expand horizons most artists only dream of. We wanted to get some insight on who he is and how he’s managed to do it all. Read on for the reveal…
By Stef Schwalb

Dick in “trash mode” playing a low-fi party in Rosario

MUSEYON GUIDES: Traveling seems to be in your blood—you’ve lived in several different countries as a child and now you tour all over the globe performing and creating. How has the experience of interacting with multiple cultures and sounds helped mold your music?
DICK EL DEMASIADO: I know we are living the hyperactive phenomenon of mutations and cross-breeding in culture nowadays, and this in a very manifest way, but life has been like that for me ever since I moved from Eindhoven (in The Netherlands) to Guatemala in 1956. I was one-and-a half years old at the time. I moved more or less 20 times during my first 20 years, and later on I traveled, moved and got mentally displaced by own choice. Thus, I grew up listening (as early as five years old) to Marimba, Arabian nightclub music, Irish flutes, Mariachis, Rancheras, and most of all, since they were my favorites – Cumbia and Nigerian Calypso. I did this all simultaneously. There was simply an ever-growing pile of vinyls we had at home, which I played. I used to sing phonetically those African calypsos, and I even do so now, when I feel particularly happy.

‘Guitar Boy’ by Nigerian joromi superstar Sir Victor Uwaifo

With all that imposed cultural cocktail-shaking, you get to develop yourself in a completely detached way – without religiously holding on to any elements of your surroundings that conditioning imposes on you. You just remember and cherish what struck you the best; it’s as simple as that. Therefore, there is no constraint for me within the perspective of making music, and I am not rooted in rigidity. I never think about particular instrumentations and geography, and I have no false nostalgia whatsoever to any culture I could be curious about. The idea of World Music doesn’t exist for me. For me, it’s breastfed childhood music! I learned that curiosity has to do with intensity and not with displacement, so experimenting in a bold way is always there with me – waiting on the workbench as a song comes afloat.

MG: What attracted you to Cumbia originally? Do you think it’s a genre that lends itself to musical experimentation easier than others?
DED: There are two reasons for the attraction. One is an emotional: It was the music of the women that worked at our house in the ’60s of Argentina. They were joyful people, but nevertheless they had lives that were severely scarred as infants – which was a steep comparison to the splash-allover expats’ culture we lived in (with the loud decorated interiors, homegrown traditions and tennis-fixations). I experienced that contrast as inherent violence as a child, and I have chosen the other side in my sympathy. The other reason is a technical, musical one: I sensed the similarity of the Cumbia with Dub in the ’90s, and obviously – far from the Rasta point – I thought the musical drive of the Cumbia (the little horse: tak-a-tak, tak-a-tak), skinned to its bones, was a perfect flow for poetic information – whether it would be mere sounds or the content sung.

MG: What are some of the differences you find when playing music in Latin America versus Europe and Asia? Do you find the audiences more or less hungry for experimental music depending on where you go? And what about the U.S.?
DED: Well, it is very easy. Playing in Latin America is like a conversation between a tuna and a dolphin, they both know how fine it can be under water and what those particular conditions impose on you. The nearest I got to a Latin feel abroad was in Osaka, Japan. Those people were wild, warm and as a public started up the concert igniting the fuse with their own enthusiasm. It was a complot: tonight we are going to the moon … together! Europe is difficult because they believe in their clichés of Latin America: from Brazilian hips to Cuban cigars and hair-creamed tango. I cannot play that card – I don’t want to. Clichés are the fundament for mismatching. I have not played the USA yet, but by now, I’d like to and I will. I’d like to touch the Latino Butthole Surfers-vein and drill deep into the nerve (of pleasure, I am not a dentist). Bring me to that Big Black Lion’s paw, and I’ll pull the thorn with my two microphones and the skeleton shirt.

Rockin Out, Rockin’ the Skeleton Shirt

MG: Political upheaval (for better or worse) often results in musical inspiration. In terms of Argentina, Cumbia (as it was traditionally known there) was greatly altered by the economic crisis. What else do you think has added/is now adding to the changes Cumbia is experiencing in the country?
DED: What made the Cumbia Villera so effective is also what makes it so tough to digest for Spanish-speaking people … the melody and rhythm are happy yet the lyrics are harsh, vulgar, angry. This is a most incredible phenomenon. As we know, IF rap or hip-hop is revendicatory, by all means it sounds like that. Oddly enough, this is not the case with the Cumbia Villera, it is kindergarten-rock with cadaverous texts – and how I like that incongruence! The Cumbia of Argentina is in a very particular modus these days. Suddenly humoristic and weird sonorous elements have risen and given it some more air. To tell you sincerely too, as you bring up political upheaval etc. as an element, you could say in a tinted comparison that if Cumbia was Che Guevara (it wasn’t), then now comes the industry of its Guevara T-shirts. Beaches of the world will be paved with them. The international limelight brings a for-export disease very fast, and its representatives are coming, and scanning, and sniffing the Cumbia grounds. But that cashing-in is a first reflex. There is a very interesting eagerness within this second generation to develop Cumbia in a digital field, which is incredibly good. I am positive that mechanical buttons and cables have to be given some kind of soul. Cheap trash electronica is there for us, and not the other way around. PC’s are within hand’s reach in faraway villages and require only time to invest and a free mind. It is a challenge to PUT this genius IN the bottle first; it will come out again anyway, and fast.

MG: Any future plans you want to share with our readers?
DED: At the point I am now, I feel like a Brazilian football with a lot of kids around me.
After initiating the Cumbia experimental and Festicumex, I am developing the Facultad de Distorsion Popular, which will bring out the first and truly authentic Cumbia Festicumex compilation (coming in the spring). I am also editing an eight-hour film on exaggeration in music, I am preparing a Festicumex-like concept for the capital of Europe (coming 2010), I am developing an unusual and vast exhibit for a to-stay-secret-museum of modern art in 2011, I am preparing the production of a full-length musical film about the naval battle of Matanzas (in Cuba, a battle that liberated two continents), and I am finishing a short novel “Mis Rejas Son Mas Lindas Que Las Tuyas (My Prison Bars Are More Beautiful Than Yours)”, which will be edited in Colombia. Plus, I have a small bundle of my “Poemas Feos (Ugly Poems)”, which will come out next spring in Spain. You see, my life is not in JPG, but in a true Photoshop file – with all the layers still there, and workable.

Dick’s pick: From the Sundance film ‘Sin Nombre‘, about the Honduras and Salvador gangs. The song is titled “Flaca de las Coloradas.” What is remarkable is that with a sudden new public (with gang-aesthetics), people start making their YouTube gungho clips on my music.

For more on Dick el Demasiado check him out on the web, on MySpace and at www.canalcumex.com (where he dares you to “just visit and get lost in the amount of cowbell-whipping content”). Plus, be sure to pick up Music+Travel Worldwide from Museyon Guides where Eve Hyman is your guide to all things cumbia in Buenos Aires.

Image © Patwasi Pat Taylor

Discovering: Cumbia

Heather C — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:50:54 +0000

Zizek Club, Buenos Aires, Argentina

In Music+Travel Worldwide from Musyeon Guides, Eve Hyman takes you on a tour of Buenos Aires in search of the city’s cumbia scene. But what is cumbia, anyway? From folk music to the street to the club, check out our three-step cumbia crash course, after the jump…

Cumbia was born when Guinean slaves brought cumbe folk music to Colombia from Africa in the 17th century. Since then it’s migrated throughout Latin America, and today cumbia’s folkier variants are the de facto soundtrack of Mexico and Peru. But in Buenos Aires cumbia has taken a different direction. In the 1980s, synthesizers sent the sound to the club, and today the new cumbia is the dominant dance music in Buenos Aires from cumbia villera — the genre’s gangster rap — to newer funky styles. Check out how.

Step 1 Get Dirty: Damas Gratis
Cumbia goes gangster when Damas Gratis introduces cumbia villera, “shantytown cumbia” in 2000. Like its distant cousin gangster rap, the sound glorifies sex, drugs and violence.

Step 2 Get Funky: El Hijo de la Cumbia
Artists such as El Hijo de la Cumbia take the roots of cumbia and mix in reggae and hip-hop to create a danceable sound with a widespread appeal.

Step 3 Get Weird: Chancha via Circuito
Things get experimental with acts like Chancha via Circuito, who mixes traditional Andean music and minimalist electronic sounds.

Image courtesy of ZZK Records and Club Zizek, our favorite spot for new cumbia in Buenos Aires. Check back for more on ZZK coming soon to Museyon.

The Digital Domain: Argentina

Heather C — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:03:27 +0000

Buenos Aires is synonymous with tango, but cumbia is what more Argentines dance to. Also known as tropicál, it’s the sound of small towns and working-class neighborhoods, and it serves to connect Euro-intoxicated Buenos Aires to the rest of Latin America. Museyon Guide Eve Hyman takes you on a tour that extends beyond the city’s limits — head to the outskirts of town to dance at the bailanta, or dance hall, and discover the sounds of cumbia without even leaving the U.S.

photo: iStock