Canto CCCXLVIII: "He Was Like Clapton"

Part II in an irregular series about 2004, the most pivotal year in my journalism career…

Gentle cabrones:

Earlier this year, I attended a Gershwin extravaganza at the Hollywood Bowl that I still have to pay my editor for. Great food, great company, and absolutely awesome performance, although I have no idea why the LA Phil ended with “An American in Paris” instead of the obvious choice for a closer, “Rhapsody in Blue.”

It was the first time I had been to the Bowl since Los Tigres del Norte didn’t have the best of shows there in 2018. I wish I could go more: The concert venue is one of my favorite places in Southern California: the concerts, the view, the sound, the stacked parking, the class divide between the people all the way at the top and the folks in the private boxes. The guy who sings with a dog puppet as you walk up the hill.

Every time I think of the Bowl, I think of the best musical performance I ever saw there, and really anywhere: Café Tacuba, the legendary rock en español group. They were the middle act between fresas Kinky and just another band from East Los Angeles called Los Lobos. I’m not going to describe the show here, because you can read my review in the Infernal Rag. I do, twice a year, for my Orange Coast College literary journalism class. For my class on how to do reviews.

It’s the only one of my thousands of articles that I teach — because it’s the best goddamn thing I can ever teach.

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I’ve lived many journalistic lives, and still circle back to most of them. One that I almost never turn back to, however, is how I first made a name for myself as a writer:

Music. Specifically, rock en español — or, as folks were trying to label it in the early 2000s, Latin alternative.

I began covering it with a plausible, informed lie.

The third-ever article I ever did for the Infernal Rag was about a Tigres del Norte show, back when they still played shows at the Anaheim Convention Center — this would’ve been spring 2001. My music writing so impressed the bosses that they asked if I could cover a show at JC Fandango in Anacrime.

Sure! I love rock en español.

I didn’t love rock en español. I didn’t listen to rock en español at all.

My musical upbringing was KRLA, Power 106 and KIIS-FM until like 1997, KWKW La Mexicana until its end, “Breakfast with the Beatles,” and bluegrass. Somehow, rock en español didn’t get in even though cousins of mine were watching Santa Sabina shows wayyyy back in the day.

Cafe Tacuba? Maná? Los Fabulosos Cadillacs? Soda Stereo? Never heard of them. I thought the whole enterprise kinda snooty, honestly, because all the Spanish-language music I knew was for bailes and JuanGa. But a good friend worked at JC Fandango, and my cousin Plas loved rock en español. I told them I had a chance to be a reporter, and I needed to fake my way into a a new profession, and we did it.

I started covering rock en español at the perfect time. The legendary acts were still in their prime; the Amores Perros soundtrack was the genre’s Nuggets and getting American attention. In Southern California, Enrique Lopetegui was writing long, hilarious profiles for New Times LA, Josh Kun and Ernesto Lechner wrote great essays for LA Weekly (and Josh had his own syndicated columna, although it wasn’t specifically about rock en español. There was La Banda Elástica, and Al Borde, and Agustín Gurza and a few others at the L.A. Times and even the Orange County Register did a good job.

Then there was me.

I came at the music with no musical knowledge other than what I listened to: the instruments, the melodies, the voices, the lyrics. Zurdok was amazing, Maná too poppy. I’m still proud that I knew Natalia LaFourcade was going to be incredible when most critics were dismissing her as a wannabe Spice Girl, and that I called out Reventón Super Estrella for being one giant ripoff. I’m laughing right now, remember how they pulled my press credential in 2002 — barely a year into my journalism career! — for trashing that year’s lineup, then JC Fandango co-owner and main brain Javier Castellanos sneaking me in.

JC Fandango was just down the street from where I grew up, so I was going to shows big and small (craziest show: When Inspector made their US debut in maybe 2005, and so many people got in that the Anaheim Fire Department shut it down before it even started. Saddest show? Not going to mention the act because I’m still cool with one of the singers, but a grand total of four people showed up, one for every member). The clubs in those days — both House of Blues, the Key Club, Universal Ampitheatre, even the Coach House.

Writing about rock en español — how to criticize, how to phrase words, how to break stories — was my journalism school. And my review of the Café Tacuba show at the Hollywood Bowl was everything I would be, and am today.

I was prescient — it turned out to be a rocanrol Woodstock, as seemingly every SoCal Latino today who’s between 40 and 51 attended, or knew someone that was there. I was unimpressed by hype — Nic Harcourt who? I paid #respect to the legends (Josh Kun sent me a nice note afterward for shouting him out, which was praise from Caesar). And the writing, while sometimes overwrought — hey, I was just two and a half years into journalism at that point — still stands the test of time, and proved to be the definitive take of that concert.

Don’t take it from me. I only wrote about rock en español in earnest for about five years. It had maybe one more good year in Southern California before the decline happeed. The legends became lazy; the local scene died out. JC Fandango closed for good in 2006. Politics and food and history and The Mexican became my focus. The scene now is approaching Beach Boys/Drifters territory.

But there are still a few old timers out there who remember my music writing. There’s a few folks who say out of all the beats I ever covered, I am best writing about music. And then there was Lopetegui. He ended up moving to San Antonio, where I hung out with him in 2012 and…well, lemme cite Canto XXVI:

(one of the nicest things anyone has ever said about me: rockero god Enrique Lopetegui said that when I came on the scene, all of the other rock en español writers at the time looked at each other and said the game was over—Clapton had arrived).

This is the first time I’ve referenced a previous canto — sorry, didn’t mean to.

I tell all of this to my students — not to brag, but to tell them this:

Praise is very nice, but not the point. Even if you’re good at something, don’t stick to that one thing. You can be great at something, but won’t know untill you try it. And greatness is not innate — you have to work and work and WERK at it forever.

Don’t Believe Your Hype (Canto LXIV). Whistle While You WERK (Canto XXV).

Funny about the passage of time, though: I always thought the Cafe Tacuba Hollywood Bowl show was in 2004, until one of ustedes recently sent me another Cafe Tacuba review I did, dated to The Year it All Changed (I would go on to see Cafe Tacuba about 15 times, but haven’t seen them since their quinceañera show at some random concert venue off Wilshire. They just became too poppy for me, like Julieta Venegas. Rock en español at its best needs to incorporate Latin American themes and instruments, and not be ersatz versions of English-language music.

I digress).

And now I remember why I forgot the Hollywood Bowl show was in 2003: it was a romantic disaster.

The future ex I was supposed to take lagged at the last minute, which meant I couldn’t take someone else who would be a future almost ex. At the Bowl was a future ex, and a future almost ex. All that ex-ing played out in 2004.

It all worked out.

**

Enough rambling. This was the semana that was:

IMAGE OF THE WEEK: The title to the corrido I’ll be singing this Sunday as part of Breath of Fire Latina Theatre Ensemble’s incredible program of SanTana corridos — information below!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “In life you have to take the bitter with the sour” — attributed to Samuel Goldwyn

LISTENING: “Una Aventura,” Banda La Costeña. Modern-day banda classic by an underrated banda — gimme this classic sinaloense setup instead of corrido tumbao maelstroms any day.

READING: “Acclaimed Latino Author and Filmmaker Detained and Accused: Racial Profiling on the U.S.-Mexico Border”: The Border Chronicle is my go-to reading on what’s going on in la frontera, and you should subscribe for at least the free newsletter. Here’s a typical story of migra busybodying.

BUY MY NEW CO-BOOK! People’s Guide to Orange County tells an alternative history of OC through the scholarship and reporting of myself, Elaine Lewinnek, and Thuy Vo Dang. There’ll be signings all year — in meanwhile, buy your copy TODAY. And, yes: I’ll autograph it!

Gustavo Events  

Sept. 8 aka THIS SUNDAY AKA TOMORROW: Breath of Fire Latina Theater Ensemble (run by my fellow jerezana Sara Guerrero, who I need to do a Random Cool People I Know about soon) has been hosting corrido workshops for weeks for “Cantos, Cuentos & Corridos," an afternoon of performances about modern-day corridos about SanTana. I’m going to be part of it because how could I not! See me and others at two performances (2 p.m. and 6 p.m.) at Grand Central Arts Center Theater, 125 N. Broadway. Tickets are FREE, but you should reserve a seat.

Sept. 21, 1:30 p.m.: I’ll be in conversation with Mike Madrid, longtime GOP strategist turned Trump mega-hater and author of the new book The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy at Alta Baja Market, 201 E. 4th St., Ste. 101, SanTana. Lecture is FREE and the first 50 people who show up get a FREE copy of Mike’s book — but you have to register here.

Oct. 11-13: Rancho Gordo Encuentro — the collaboration between the legendary heirloom bean purveyor and my honey’s Alta Baja Market — is BACK. It’s a weekend of beans, and I’m in charge of two events: “The Bean Monologues” (exactly what it sounds like — people tell stories about beans), and “How to Taste a Tortilla,” which is also what it sounds like AND you get to take home good tortillas!. Links to each event in the links I put in said titles, and here are the rest of the events — buy your tickets soon, because they’re going FAST.

Gustavo in the News

“How to Use hypocritical in a Sentence”: Ooh, I get cited by Merriam-Webster two weeks in a row!

“Newport Beach Public Library Foundation Announces 2024-2025 Library Live Series”: Putting this one on your radar WAY in advance: Me in conversation with Solito author Javier Zamora.

Gustavo Stories 

“Grítale a Guti”: Latest edition of my Tuesday night IG Live free-for-all.

“Dispossessed”: I give a well-deserved blurb to Désirée Zamora’s latest great book.

You made it this far down? Gracias! Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram while you’re down here by clicking on their logos down below. Don’t forget to forward this newsletter to your compadres y comadres! You can’t get me tacos anymore, but you sure as hell can give them — and more — to the O.C. Catholic Worker!