A couple of wrestling matches, pulque and a gentle Sunday sun can make for a special cap-off to a weekend. Always down for an escape from the smog of the city, we tripped up to the mountain in the south called Ajusco.
What led me on that journey was Niña Rap. I saw her the night before along with El Abogado and his Mano Armada Crew, and wanted to check them out again. They were scheduled to perform at a mini music festival on the grounds of a pulqueria called La Frontera. It´s right across the Picacho-Ajusto freeway from the Gotcha compound.
Here´s a slideshow of photos from the day I uploaded to Youtube.
FMX Closing night featured Nortec Collective (March 28, 2010 Mexico City)
At one point during an unseasonably cold and windy Mexico City evening, the video monitors behind Nortec Collective showed some animation that resembled a Kraftwerk video, except the guys playing the machines had mustaches and Norteño style cowboy hats.
An appropriate nod to their forefathers in electro experimentation. Here´s video from Sunday night.
This week´s Google Video is a smart documentary all about how 3 young Black men channeled the cold, rust and depression of 90s Detroit into techno, Europe´s millenial music. Of course, for me, techno used to only remind me of vampires in a club.
¨Dream is Destiny,¨ precedes one of the first beats in Richard Linklater´s 2001 animated feature Waking Life. Since I´m headed to SXSWin Austin, I figured I would post about this movie, which is so imaginatively rendered, and made by a writer/director best-known for catapulting Austin slackers into the film-making limelight.
Linklater, who in some of his older pictures, and with no facial hair, kind of reminds me of a young Richie Sambora, was the poster boy for the indie film era that spawned (Jersey´s most visible movie director) Kevin Smith. And he has a resume as respected as any mildly successful Hollywood movie guy. Most of his films find niche audiences, but he´s made at least one movie everyone saw, School of Rock. His last movie, about Orson Welles, got good reviews.
¨Waking Life,¨ was one of two animated features the Texas director managed to bring to the screen. It uses a technique called ¨rotoscoping.¨ According to this Wired piece, ¨artists digitally trace over some frames of live-action footage by hand with a Wacom pen and tablet,¨ to create the trippy effects.
Pac Man proved his dominance again this weekend. According to the New York Times Manny´s pull on the Filipino people is such that even the gangsters take a break on a Pacquiao fight night. He´s the first from his country to be such a huge international cultural icon. Before him, who were the heroes little Filipino boys and girls looked up to?
For kids wanting a career in music, perhaps Neil Armstrong is someone to take that title. Filipino Djs, especially those from California ( Neil reps NY) are really holding together the art of turntablism, party deejaying and hip-hop mixtape culture. Neil even spoke against the RIAA pressure on the mixtape industry some years ago.
There was this gig as tour DJ for Jay-Z for several years, (here’s a Q&A I did with him in the Spring of 2008), which led to deejaying gigs in China during the Olympics. He no longer tours with Jigga, but has a nice job as spokesman for the Adidas/Star Wars campaign. He also released a free mixtape this month that´s dedicated to Jay-Z.
Rodriguez has crafted a mixtape ouvre that’s taken the concept of a Ron G “blend” tape a lot farther than maybe it was supposed to go. His mixtapes tap into raw nostalgia at times, and sometimes just hinge on an emotion. Check ¨Warmfuzzy¨.
I´m not Filipino, but a Filipino national who immigrated to Newark, NJ, during the turn of the Century did marry into my family. This is him below. I´ve heard he was good at martial arts, but that could´ve been a stereotype passed down through the generations. He was known as ¨Pop¨.
Former Playboy photographer and WWII vet, Russ Meyer, directed this week’s 1965 pick, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Some call it a feminist cult classic, others call it violent trash. This is what Roger Ebert wrote about the director and his movies, when this film was re-released on DVD:
Take away all the jokes, the elaborate camera angles, the violence, the action and the sex, and what remains is the quintessential Russ Meyer image: a towering woman with enormous breasts, who dominates all the men around her, demands sexual satisfaction and casts off men in the same way that, in mainstream sexual fantasies, men cast aside women.
You can stream and download T.I.’s out-of-jail track, “I’m back.” Atlantic Records, in hopes that an incarcerated Gucci Mane (or Lil Wayne) doesn’t snatch all of T.I.’s thunder, had their star southern rapper take media calls yesterday, fresh out of a stint in prison on federal weapons charges. Rappers and guns, rappers and guns. One of my first published stories was a co-byline on a piece about “Naughty by Nature” getting caught with guns.
T.I., wasn’t in trouble for “a” gun, but several. I bumped into him at the fashion industry convention called MAGIC in 2008.
I always like to point out to people the connection T.I.’s global success has to New Jersey. The Great Migration meant a cross-roads such as Jersey would always share a connection with the lands across the Mason-Dixon, including T.I.’s home state of Georgia. But to have this link represented in contemporary pop culture, I mean … that’s what Sinatra lived for. So, what’s the Jersey connection to T.I.?
Jason Geter. As legend has it, Geter was a guy from Montclair, who discovered T.I. in a barbershop, after he moved to Atlanta to stake his claim in music. An internship and a front-desk job later, he struck gold.
He now not only manages the Bankhead rapper, but also runs his Altantic imprint, Grand Hustle records. He even got his 15 minutes of TV fame when he did a co-cameo on HBO’s “Entourage,” above. You can read more about Jason and see pics, here.
XXX
Furthering the N.J. connect, T.I.’s Akoo clothing line got some free publicity in the states biggest city, Newark. A billboard put up down the street from my high school was thought to be too suggestive for the people ambling through Downtown.
I was reading another solid post by my man Daniel Hernandez yesterday, over at his always rich Intersections blog, talking about COLOMBIANOS of Northern Mexico. Months before, Vice magazine enthralled me with a piece on Cholombianos. Basically, cholos who rock to salsa cumbia and bite Colombian style.
Noticing a discrepancy in his spelling of the term, my inner copy editor screamed out, and I commented to my boy that he had it wrong: It’s “Cholombianos.”
No. He wasn’t wrong. But, yes, we’re both right.
To clear this up, I shot an email to Toy Selectah, pictured up top, who was mentioned in the piece. I interviewed Toy at last year’s SXSW for a piece on Niña Dioz. She was his protegé at the time. Toy, a veteran of the music business for about 15 years, helped create Mexican hip-hop. He’s the oracle for all things Monterrey, hiphop, cumbia and Mexico DJ culture.
Says Toy, via email:
“Colombianos” or “Colombians”, here in Monterrey, is definitely referring to the cholo colombian style. “Cholombianos” is just the combination of words to explains these guys looks. Like a typical Monterrey cholo, his aesthetic is being a Colombian wanna-be!!”
channibalsmith.com 
