LoCura’s “Semilla Caminante”—Latin Fusionistas to the Cor…azon

If fusion is the concept that informs the modern era as much or more than any other, then so it is in music, too.  The more influences the better.  Purity is a lonely existence.  Nothing is truly novel.  Hybrid vigor rules.  For a non-native lover of “latino music” it’s a tough row to hoe, anyway, trying to mentally categorize the sometimes-subtle distinctions between flamenco, salsa, mambo, merengue, bachata, cumbia, and tango as musical DNA jumps from Europe (and Africa) across the Atlantic to North America with a hop skip and a detour across the Caribbean on its way to the lower haunches of South America in some rough zigzag path of evolution.

Fortunately the more obvious genres of mariachi, reggaeton, ranchera, tejano, rock en espanol, and musica andina (huayno) stand out as distinct whether due to geographic or stylistic isolation, because when you get to the more individually localized, obscure, or cross-genre smaller styles of trova, vallenato, chicha, punta, son cubano, son jarocho, son huasteco, danzon veracruzano, mambo Mexicano, boleros, trio, cha-cha-cha, cumbia sonidera and canto nuevo it all starts to get a bit confusing.  Of course if you want to get technical, “the Northeastern part of Mexico is home to another popular style called Nortena, which assimilates Mexican Ranchera with Colombian cumbia and is typically played with Bavarian accordions and Bohemian polka influence. Variations of Norteña include Duranguense, Tambora, Sinaloense, corridos, and Nortec (Norteño-Techno)”—Wikipedia.  Whew!  Thank God for tequila!  Are you ready for fusion yet?

Enter a band called LoCura from San Francisco (I think I got the capitals right, still easier than tUnE yArDs).  Good ol’ San Fran; God knows I love it  and miss it.  A band this eclectic could only come from San Fran, which even in the year 2012 still has more hippies, free-thinkers, and general-purpose weirdos than Nashville has cats.  At the front of this group handling lead vocal chores is one Katalina Miletich, who was raised in Spain, albeit of an American father (no doubt a northern Californian).  The group’s other principal founder is guitarist-bassist-and-flamenco-aficionado (try saying that three times fast) Bob Sanders.  Add in a tight cast of journeymen tunesters, the cultural quirkiness and political in-yo-faceness of SF, and you’ve got the potential for something pretty unique.

Now LoCura has an album coming out called “Semilla Caminante (traveling seed)” and it’s pretty darn good, I’ll have to say.  If it didn’t hit me right at first, it came on strong the second time.  The album starts off slowly in the fogs of mystery with “Prendela,” juggling languages like so many emotions. “Got a glimpse of you dancing, it’s got a way…to move me, to soothe me into breathing, to move me, to light me up in fire… Que uno le da fuego al otro, que uno le da fuego (let each give the other fire)…prendala (light it up).   Then “Gueriller@s” (women warriors) punches up the rhythm without lightening up the mood, not too much anyway, only this time it’s political and existential, not romantic or sexual.  “Y donde vengo y a donde voy (now where do I come from and where do I go?), ‘cause I’m looking to learn my roots…guerillera, mujer magica, curandera (woman warrior, magician, shamaness, etc.)…vamos ya (let’s go!),” all in lively beat with full brass accompaniment, made for dancing…and occupying San Fran’s Mission district carnival-style.  This is good stuff.

“Con El Viento (With the Wind) continues in a similar vein (yes, THAT vein), calling for love, freedom, and justice, or so I imagine: “abre la puerta, abre la ventana, con el viento venimos (open the door, open the window, we come in with the wind)…somos movimiento, somos el agua y el viento (we’re motion, we’re water, we’re wind),” with one important addition.  This song has some pure pop hooks.  The English political back-story is nice in an explanatory way, but almost distracts from the rhythm and verbal cadence that’s already been established in Spanish.  “Squatters' Song” doesn’t make that mistake.  The story of squatters, “paracaidists (que) aqui cai’… a buscar un major futuro…un hogar para vivir (‘parachutists’ (who) just dropped in…looking for a better life…and a house to live in)” requires no long-winded explanation or PhD in economic theory, neither Keynes nor Mills nor Marx.  It’s a sign of the times, and they capture it spot-on, without breaking stride nor style.   If I can hear some Lila Downs in the previous song, then I can hear some Manu Chao in this one.  Having some political smarts and some musical chops is one thing; having some pop hooks to make it go down easy is another.  That’s pure gold, and these guys have got it, when they’re at their best.

There are other influences, too.  If “Desde Las Entrañas” is pure flamenco, or almost anyway, then “To' Pa' Mi” has got Café Tacuba written all over it.  And if “Reflections” has echoes of Violeta Parra, then “Te Sigo”is pure pop en espanol, maybe even Shakira, a reminder that these guys may still have a job even if the whole fusion thing doesn’t work out.  Of course sometimes you have to break stylistic barriers before you can fuse them.  LoCura may not be for purists who like their flamenco with at least eight guitarists and the sound of several dozen hands clapping.  But you know what we say about those people.  If they can’t take a joke, then… you know.  These guys rock…and flamenco, and tango, etc., etc.  That’s “Semilla Caminante” by LoCura, due to be released… tomorrow.  Check it out.

HARDLY STRICTLY SAN FRAN… MONEY NEVER SLEEPS

What’s the greatest music festival in the world… that nobody’s ever heard of? WOMAD Canarias, maybe, or Sauti za Busara in Zanzibar? My vote would have to be for the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in San Francisco, CA. Founded by venture capitalist Warren Hellman and now celebrating its ten-year anniversary, HSB (not the bank) is the best kept secret this side of the International Date Line. While everybody here in LA gets all cummy reminiscing about their favorite Coachella desert encounter or waxing philosophical about the difficulties of maintaining the spirit of Burning Man, in a week when I heard KCRW dj’s exclaiming the unusual bounty of musical talent on display this week, not a word was mentioned about HSB, a short half-day’s drive to the north… likely the cause of much of the synchronous left coast bounty BTW. Down here there was not so much as a word of advertising, nor a blurb of news on the subject. We’re talking about a high six figures in attendance, mind you.

But bluegrass music is not exactly your thing, you say? That’s why it’s called ‘Hardly Strictly.’ In a show that features the likes of Patti Smith, Elvis Costello, Joan Baez, and Steve Earle, they can call it a festival of wedding singers, for all I care. True it IS still heavily roots-oriented, including a heavy dose of alt-country as well as bluegrass proper, but anything that’s heartfelt and genuine seems welcome. Outside the narrow bluegrass genre, artists with lyric-based music seem to predominate. Other than that, the predominant feature seems to relate to the audience themselves, who seem to be… how do you you say it… of a certain age? Ahhh, so that explains the virtual anonymity, doesn’t it? Everybody’s so interested in what the dorky freckle-faced kid down the street is doing when his hands aren’t otherwise engaged, that they could care less about what’s become of the generation that created a revolution in the 60’s… musically at least, politics subject to reinterpretation. HSB featured fairly equal doses of local, Austin, and Nashville artists, with heavy doses of New York, LA and London thrown in for good measure. So there’s not much world music there, but just about everything else.

So the festival stays largely local… and an insider’s pilgrimage. Imagine a Rainbow Gathering or a Grateful Dead New Year’s show, and you’re getting the idea. Many attendees walk or take public transportation, but the best part is that it’s free, yes, FREE… zippo zilch nada nadita, all courtesy of Mr. Hellman. He probably figures ‘why choose the usual Gateways or blow it all in one giant Buffet’… when you can create the world’s greatest party? Thank you, Mr. Hellman. If we’re stuck with cowboy capitalism, we like your horse-riding style. With six stages going more or less simultaneously, everybody’s free to create their own individual show schedule, of course, aided by various real-estate schemes usually involving the creative placement of various tarp-like spreads and items of lawn furniture. It’s almost like Second Life.

My show went something like this: after leaving LA (in the broad daylight) as the sun rose over the Hollywood Hills, we hustled up the central corridor lickety-split so’s to try to make the 2pm Friday half-day opening. Allowing a few stops for corn and various fruit items from the roadside stands, we almost made it. We DID find the righteous parking spaces (Hell no I’m not telling you), so that helped a lot… all three days. So we missed Jerry Douglas with Omar Hakim and Viktor Krauss, but we still got to hear an excellent set by Patty Griffin- with help from special guest Emmylou Harris, and then another by Jenny & Johnny. Worried about losing my street-cred as a musical idiot savant by embracing J & J- after maybe one or two listens- I was relieved when Elvis Costello showed up to help them with a song. So now I feel vindicated. They’re going places. T-Bone Burnett then played MC for his own little revue of current producee clients, but we wandered over to see the Dukes of September, aka Fagen, Boz, and Michael McDonald, a 3-in-1 hitmaking juggernaut anxious to relive the golden days.

Saturday started off with credible performances by Austinites Kelly Willis and Band of Heathens, before moving on to Hot Tuna Electric and a small slice of Fountains of Wayne. Up next then were excellent performances by Joan Baez and David Grisman. It’s always fun to hear Joan going into Dylan-voice to get his songs spot-on, and suffice it to say that the spark never died. Grisman’s set was indeed one of the show’s best, reminding one what string bands might be like if Scruggs never picked, and the heights to which that format can be taken, almost like a string quintet. We then moved on back to the ‘Austin stage’ with a somewhat revived Jerry Jeff Walker and another awesome threesome in the guise of Ely and Gilmore and Butch Hancock’s Flatlanders, but by then the fog had moved in and the temperatures were Arctic. Shivering that much may qualify as a calisthenic work-out.

They save the best for last. Sunday got started with a Peter Rowan hoe-down, before bogging down a bit with the much-respected but hardly exciting Hazel Dickens. As someone commented, that’s ‘a little TOO traditional’. So my friends and I staked out our turf for Randy Newman’s excellent set, and then held our ground while Elvis Costello played over the speakers from the stage next door. He was showcasing a band called the ‘Sugarcanes’, featuring such luminaries as Jerry Douglas in addition to some familiar old Attractions. Hey, if Allison’s gonna play FTSE with Robert Plant, Jerry doesn’t have to sulk alone in the corner now, does he? So they did some Costello standards country style to really nice effect, and even came back for an encore.

But all of this, the entire three days, was only a warm-up for what came next… the closest thing I’ve ever had to a religious experience anywhere… much less a rock music concert. We’re talking about Patti Smith, high priestess of punk, and arguably the best poet since Allen Ginsberg. You had to be there. A third-person narrative would hardly do it justice, but suffice it to say that, yeah, she did ‘G-L-O-R-I-A… in Excelcis Deo’, ‘People Have the Power’… and much more, including quotes from St Francis of Assisi, San Fran’s patron saint. It was incredible. Remember that there would be as many concert stories as there are spectators. Consider it for next year, and bring a friend… but don’t steal my parking space.

HARDLY STRICTLY SAN FRANCISCO; ROOTS TO THE PAST

Good ol’ San Fran; I love it. Where else can you go and find a parade celebrating the so-called ‘Summer of Love’? Where else could you go and find that same parade in the fall, a full week after summer’s demise, a full year after an anniversary ending with a 0 or a 5? Where else could you go and find that parade punctuated by cross-traffic maintaining the same red-light/green-light schedule, as if the parade were just an elaborate wedding procession, designed for a hoot and a holler and a quickie in the Mission District before the rigor mortis of marriage sets into your joints and you forgot why you came in the first place. At least it keeps any competition with LA friendly, not like the venom that spews forth with any mention of Nueva York, Towers to Nowhere or that mayor Julie Annie. Vicious rivalry only occurs between equal matches diametrically opposed, contenders to thrones and royalty rights. Esthetically of course, San Fran has no equal, not in this country anyway. LA’s hippest neighborhoods would hardly rate a mention up north. So what if the clocks run a little slow?

This ‘Love Fest’ was the third-cousin twice-removed anyway, kids who got hip in the early nineties, helping the Grateful Dead rake in millions before Jerry ascended. Wavy Gravy wasn’t there, nor any of the old-timers, musicians included. They were all out at Golden Gate Park for the ‘Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival’, featuring some of the best roots music, broadly defined, from both coasts. Where can you find that in LA? LA has some of the best alt-country musicians in the world, but they have to act freak-folkie to sell themselves, while the hard-core worship at the temple of McCabe’s, have Sunday socials at the Echo and try to get a quorum once a year at Safari Sam’s for the dog-and-pony show.

There must have been at least 20,000 people in Golden Gate park last Saturday for a free show, hardly advertised, with a line-up that would rival the Folk Festivals of any major western Canadian city, all splayed across five major stages and many minor ones. LA’s ‘Indie’ fanaticism serves it poorly in this regard, throwing out the old folks with the bath water, while hanging on every word coming out of an infant’s precious precocious mouth. Welcome to Thailand. As if to add insult to LA’s injury, last Thursday Ry Cooder, LA’s own native son and patriarch to both world music and alt-country, played a benefit show at Great American Music Hall, something he swore he’d never do again in LA, for love or money. Ouch!

Of course with five stages going simultaneously, regardless of how staggered the set times or the carefree gaits, you just can’t see everything. If you try you’ll just end up seeing nothing, lost in the crowd and getting tripped in the pee-pee lines. The list of the acts I saw and heard last Saturday afternoon pale in comparison to the list of who I missed, to wit: Peter Rowan, Richard Thompson, Desert Rose Band (Chris Hillman), Del McCoury, and Global Drum Project were my hits; Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Laurie Lewis, Emmy Lou Harris, Shawn Colvin, Guy Clark, Nick Lowe, Dave Alvin, Robert Earl Keen, Jerry jeff Walker, Steve Earle and Asleep at the Wheel my misses, just to name a few. And that doesn’t even count Friday and Sunday, with such country stalwarts as Robert Plant and Elvis Costello to liven up the vibes. Like the name says, it’s ‘hardly strictly’. My God! What a summit meeting! Some Republican nut with a bottle of anthrax and an ax to grind could have wiped out Palin’s most down-home opposition right then and there. That’s truly scary!

Of course this is a world music blog and most of that wasn’t really world music, but I guess the definitions get looser as the desire becomes greater. Hunger speaks all languages. But Global Drum Project, featuring Mickey Hart and Zakir Hussain, IS world music at its best and I’d never seen them before, so that was great. Zakir Hussain is the great Indian tabla master of course, who already did a solo show at Grand Performances in LA a few weeks ago, so if there’s anything better than seeing him alone, it’s seeing him with others of like mind and talent. If nothing else they prove definitively that percussion is something to be enjoyed for its own sake up front and center, not something to be relegated to the back line, largely forgotten until it’s not there, unusable if ‘rusty’. Think percussion’s easy, just banging a drum? Try it some time. They’ll be in LA next week. Check them out. Myself I’m going home to Argentina; I hear it’s nice there. I’ll be back.