BMI’s Rojo, Caliente y Verde: Generacion Alternativa

Plastilina Mosh

::	BMI’S ROJO, CALIENTE Y VERDE: Generacion Alternativa By Cesar Diaz

Last night seemed a conspiracy of the good fates, who usually flee at the mere sight of me. Despite the fact that there was still much to complain about in my evening, I managed to cobble together a few epiphanies about how to enjoy the clusterfuck and navigate the pitfalls of the sprawled commercial jungle that is SXSW.

For the last five years, the annual South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, has featured a Latin Alternative Music Showcase. Every year, the shows garner strong reviews and are considered one of the largest draws of the entire festival. This year, SXSW expands their Latin showcases to several venues. On opening night, BMI Records kicked off the music festival with their Rojo, Caliente y Verde: Generacion Alternative at The Exodus.

Yes, that’s Red, Hot, and Green: The Alternative Generation for those bilingually impaired. But that doesn’t stop anyone from attending the Latin Alternative showcases, especially when BMI gathers two venerable SXSW veterans and pairs them with three up-and-coming acts. Wednesday night’s BMI Showcase featured the Southern California punk band, Los Abandoned, Mexico City’s art rock bands Vaquero and Zoe, and Latin Hip hop newcomers, Cartel De Santa. The night’s headliners were Monterrey, Mexico’s electronic duo Plastilina Mosh, and Los Angeles’ pride and joy, Ozomatli.

If it’s something that I have learned from attending these SXSW Latin Alternative Showcases is that its going to be loud, brash, and in your face. You’re going to be pushed and shoved, yelled at, and perhaps, if you’re lucky, you’ll have beer spilled all over you. All in the name of a good time — it’s not every day that Latin Alternative acts of this caliber come together on one night. And boy was I ready. However, I wished the folks at BMI and SXSW would have thought ahead and realized that a tiny bar is not conducive for three rock bands, an electronic duo, and two hip-hop acts.

Los Abandoned

The night started off with the five-piece punk/new wave band, Los Abandoned. The lead singer, Lady P, strut her stuff in a lofty emerald green dress. Her shrill, girlish voice wailed on “Live + Direct” as if channeling the intensity of Aterciopelado’s Andrea Echeverry. In fact, their sound is reminiscent of the Columbian band’s early hard-rock sound. Los Abandoned has a leniency towards pop and new wave and they did it well on the kinetic rockers “Thais” and “(I Didn’t Mean to) Stalk U”. The band’s immediate highlights were “Me Quieren En Chile”, a song that morphed from a laid-back Latin Ska-to-hard punk, and the impressive, energetic performance of the late Selena’s “Como La Flor”. Los Abandoned command the stage with such confidence that I’m certain they’ll be back next year.

Mexico City’s Vaquero started their set with equipment failure. Lead singer Mauricio Terracina played it cool then confused the crowd when they sang the gritty roots rock song, “Going Home”. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say these guys were listening to a lot of The Soundtrack of Our Lives. The rest of their English only set was more experimental, relying heavily on melodies and drawn out piano and guitar solos. The crowd warmed over to Vaquero. Unfortunately for both Vaquero and Los Abandoned, this venue didn’t have the best acoustics to fully display their sounds. At times, Lady P’s and Terrecina’s voices were drowned out by their sound systems. I blamed the venue’s narrow stage and the brick-oven walls.

Cartel De Santa

Having unfit venues for live performances is any live music fans’ pet peeve. It’s worse when a band’s performance is undercut because of a venue’s terrible acoustics. Yet, by the time Cartel De Santa took the stage, it didn’t seem to matter. The band’s thick bass lines, and the lead singers’ hoarse lyrical style was loud enough to reverberate across the entire venue. However, MC Babo’s lyrical delivery was rather slow and tame when compared to any of their Latin hip-hop counter parts– ah, Ozomatli’s Kanetic Source could have shown Mr. Babo a thing or two. But on Wednesday night there was no denying that although, the music was felt dense, the crowd was loving it, prepping for the main event.

The Mexican experimental rock band, Zoe, gave the night a change of pace by providing a long driving set of psychedelic rock n’ roll from their lastest record, RocanLover. At times, Zoe swooned with Brit-rock overtones, sounding like a harder-edged Blur. In fact, lead singer, Leon Larregui’s vocals sounded close to Damon Albarn’s. A good compliment of course when it’s not in reference towards anything like Gorrillaz. Zoe’s set was short lived as the two headliners were ready for the stage.

The electronic duo, Plastilina Mosh, took the stage with a strong electronic set. They introduced themselves with the bass heavy “Cosmic Lelos”. Alejandro Rosso, sported a quirky cowboy suit as he played the keyboards, while Jonaz belted out distorted vocals on the opposite end of the stage. Plastilina Mosh wowed the crowd with mostly tracks from their first album, pumping out the electro rock, “Afroman”, and the hip hop fueld “Nino Bomba”. They deconstructed two of their Latin electronic anthems “Mr. Pmosh” and “Human Disco Ball”, before having the crowd sing a long to the new wave pop hit “Peligroso Pop”. Although Plastilina Mosh is considered an electronic group, the band have a shiny pop sensibility and a strong presence on stage. They are kooky like the Beck, with a showman’s performance of the Chemical Brothers. It was unfortunate their set was quite brief.

Ozomatli

Ah, but Ozomatli’s performance, however, was delightful as Wil-Dog Abers and Kanetic Source busted out fierce rhymes and irresistible dance rhythms. The three-year SXSW veterans performed songs from their debut as well as the Grammy-winning Embrace The Chaos. At the end of their set, Wil-Dog lead the band in a drum/conga line through the audience and out of the venue. And of course as the headlines read the following day, bassist Wil-Dog, percussionist Jiro Yamaguchi, and the band’s manager Amy Sue, were arrested outside of The Exodus for violating the City of Austin’s noise ordinance.

It was an unfortunate damper on such an eclectic night. The attention focused keenly on the incident instead of the incredible talent of most of these artists. The band was able to redeem themselves Saturday night when the band opened up for Los Lobos. They escorted their merry Ozoheads outside of Stubb’s outside venue with a percussion and horn rendition of the Sesame Street theme. And I followed merrily on each nights.