¡Reconquista! The Latin
Rock Invasion
Liner Notes
The epitome of great rock 'n' roll is a synthesis of great melodies, socially relevant and rebellious lyrics combined with a hard rockin' beat that inspires your heart, mind, and soul at once.
While this spirit has been missing from U.S. music for the last 25 years, a new movement has emerged that combines all of the above along with third world rhythms. Music that includes all of the elements that made rock 'n' roll the revolutionary soundtrack of the '60s but with a contemporary sound and setting en español!
While rock 'n' roll was quickly co-opted by the establishment in the '60s, it still had a far-reaching impact, which shook our culture from its very foundation. In the same way, rock en español has proven to have the potential to completely reshape the Spanish speaking world's culture and values.
Rhino/Zyanya Records has made the commitment to bring you the best that rock en español has to offer. Our first installment is a diverse collection of some of the world's best rock en español bands rich with passion and commitment to the movement that has made its impact felt across the world and now here in the United States. There is a new army poised to breathe life back into rock 'n' roll: ¡Reconquista! The Latin Rock Invasion has come to town.
-- Richard Foos
President,Rhino Entertainment
Two 20th century rebel icons permeate the soul of this compilation while reflecting the essential character of rock 'n' roll: Emiliano Zapata, the Mexican/Zapotec revolutionary leader (who along with Francisco "Pancho" Villa led the largest Indian uprising and victory -- the 1910 Mexican Revolution -- in the history of the so-called New World), and the urban, zoot-suited pachuco of 1940s Los Angeles and Mexico City fame: a dangerous rebel of art and style who, as Chicano poet Alurista once described, "does not care to make something beautiful in his life, but rather, to make of his life -- a work of art."
Zapata and the pachuco are examples of the perfect rock 'n' roll metaphor: a defiant, stylized aesthetic that incites, ignites, shakes, rattles, and transforms the psychic core of society.
Rockers are outsiders, misfits, underdogs, the forgotten; rockers create a voice for the voiceless, the marginalized, the dispossessed. Rock is music for the minds and mouths that have been sealed by social, political, sexual, and economic tyranny.
The greatest rockers rock it hard, slow, with a dangerously cool cocked character ready to shoot sweet soul rock 'n' roll anthems of rebellion, victory, loss, freedom, and love.
Many of the songs in this collection are simply the blues in a different and broader context. Rock and the blues have evolved in Latin America as a way of purging the horrors of history. Latin rock has become a raw, sensory channel, airing wounds of terror, anger, and sorrow. Rock as exorcism. Rock as salvation. Rock as grace.
Historically, the primal guts of rock are a fusion -- a mestizaje -- of American musical cultures: African-American blues and gospel, Euro-American mountain and country music, and the sultry, sensual rhythms of Africa and indigenous Latin America which keeps the rock burning, rolling, yet firmly grounded.
But what is "American" or "America" anyway? First of all, the United States is not "America." It is the United States of America. The U.S. is only one country among many that share a continent called "America." (Latin Americans usually refer to "America" -- North, South, or Central -- as a continent, not as a country). So, are the Latin Americans from Mexico and Argentina any less "American" than those from the United States? And is their rock 'n' roll any less "American"?
We hope this compilation will alter that U.S.-centric myopia.
And furthermore, we believe that the music contained in this collection also will prove, once and for all, that if it rocks, it's Rock! -- regardless of language or country of origin. Punto final.
We hope this collection will ignite a sonic fire storm, spreading the world Latin rock movement into the non-Latin U.S. and Canadian rock communities, reigniting its primitive howl, which is now sadly a whimper, a cold shadow of its former self, regurgitating tired, safe clichés.
We also hope this '90s Latin rock invasion will do for U.S. Chicano/Latino rock bands what the '60s British Invasion did for U.S. blues musicians: create recognition, new careers and respect.
The criteria for selecting these 17 tracks of blood, sweat, and tears were the scathing power of the bands' unflinching, incisive lyrics; their inventive, intercultural fusion of world musical styles; and their impassioned, incendiary, kick-ass recorded performances -- not necessarily their "hits" (or hair). We selected tracks that reflect the bands' blistering socio-political commentary, which reveal the abscesses of Latin American political history, as well as the current social malaise of their respective cities and homelands.
Ironically, one of the bands leading the world Latin rock vanguard, Negu Gorriak, is not from Latin America, but from the vasco country of the Iberian Peninsula, where the vascos have been engaged in a centuries-long struggle to secede from Spanish rule. Their struggles for cultural/social/political autonomy and self-determination underscore the integrity and spirit of the international Latin rock movement. Fermin Muguruza of Negu Gorriak, alongside Tijuana No from Tijuana, Mexico, Manu Chao of Mano Negra from France, and Los Fabulosos Cadillacs from Argentina, among many others, are fiercely advancing the front line.
This anthology's title, ¡Reconquista! The Latin Rock Invasion, refers to a "reconquering" of the arrogantly christened "New World," with a counter-conquest and invasion of dangerous mind-altering music and ideas. This post-Quincentennial rock insurrection is led by a new generation of radical rock alchemists, who are concocting inspiring, transformative music that burns and blows away all fixed social and cultural borders, birthing a post-New World: a global rock culture and community of cool intercultural consciousness, respect, and humanity.
This isn't some kind of futuristic, quixotic hippie vision. This is happening right now. Just listen: It's in the grooves. It lives in the air we breathe.
And finally, the best part of this Latin rock invasion/revolution/counter-conquest is that you can dance to it -- literally and figuratively -- echoing turn-of-the-century anarchist Emma Goldman, who once said, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution."
Well, awright then! What are you waiting for? Slip on your shiny AK-47 dancin' shoes and your cool lime-green Uzi zoot suit, grab your rock 'n' roll honey/ruca an' get all trucha, 'cause as my friend and mentor -- rock's first avant-iconoclast -- Frank Zappa used to say: "The present-day pachuco refuses to die!"
So, let the Post-New World Pachuco Hop begin!
Ready...aim...ROCK!!
--Rubén Funkahuatl Ladrón de Guevara II
Yangna, Losangelescalifaztlán
16 September 1996
C/S
Los Fabulosos Cadillacs (The Fabulous Cadillacs)
Los Fabulosos Cadillacs cook up a style that fuses rock, punk, and rap with the Latin rhythms of ska, salsa, and reggae to create a musical text of potent verbal rhythms that explore and explode issues of social protest in Argentina.
"El matador," from 1993's Vasos Vacíos (Empty Glasses), tells the story of a poet-activist whose prose could "kill," hence the nickname "El matador". The song begins with a musically politicized batucada (Brazilian carnival drumming style), which is blessed by Santa Maria, the patron saint of Buenos Aires. The song could be metaphorically interpreted as the life of singer-poet-activist Victor Jara who had his hands amputated by the Chilean military police for his subversive art.
"V Centenario," from the same album, suggests that Christopher Columbus was an executioner and scourge of the indigenous populations of America. The song begins with the chorus from West Side Story: "I want to live in America," etc., adding a new last line: "They will kill me in America," (which alludes to the current threat in the United States to Latino/Latina immigrants).
--O.H.
--Octavio Hernández-Díaz
Octavio Hernández-Díaz is a journalist, critic, and tireless
promoter of Latin rock. Has contributed to La Jornada, Mix
Up (Mexico City), L.A. Weekly, La Opinión, and
Guitar Player (California). Co-editor of El Acordeón,
the first bilingual publication on Latin rock in the U.S., he is
currently a writer and editorial consultant for La Banda
Elástica, an L.A.-based international Latin rock magazine.
¡! The Latin Rock Invasion Hits The Streets April
LOS ANGELES -- Rhino Records/Zyanya announces a April debut for the single-CD collection entitled ¡! THE LATIN ROCK INVASION, the first global Latin alternative rock compilation ever released.
¡! THE LATIN ROCK INVASION features not only well-known bands from South America and Mexico, but also from Europe. This CD features central tracks from twelve key bands in the genre of alternative Latin Rock. Not only does their music attack old cultural boundaries, but their songs are also filled with socio/political commentary and rich with the poetry of the Spanish language.
Featured on Rhino/Zyanya's Latin revolution are tracks by Mano Negra (Black Hand), a band of French and Spanish musicians blending a mixture of funk, ska, hip hop and reggae in their music; Seguridad Social (Social Security), a Spanish band heavily influenced by The Clash, and from the Basque region of Spain the turbulent punk fusion of Negu Gorriak.
From Mexico, there's Tijuana No, whose style is Border Punk and were produced by Fermin Muguruza of Negu Gorriak, the hard-core band Cuca; Maldita Vecindad, a punk fusion band; and Caifanes, a quartet influenced early in their careers by English Gothic rock. From Argentina, Los Fabulosos Cadillacs fuse rock, punk, and rap with the Latin rhythms of ska, salsa, and reggae, and Divididos go from funk to acid to electric blues.
¡! THE LATIN ROCK INVASION was compiled and produced by Ruben Guevara, who in 1983 founded Zyanya Records with Rhino cofounder Richard Foos, for the specific purpose of releasing CDs that focused on documentating the music of East Los Angeles' Chicano rock community and the contemporary Latino artists emerging from that fertile scene. In the '70s he was Ruben of Ruben & The Jets, produced by Frank Zappa, and led the band Con Safos in the '80s. Ruben also authored the first published article on the history of Los Angeles Chicano rock, View From The Sixth Street Bridge: A History Of Chicano Rock.
The single-volume, 17-track CD features liner notes in both in English and Spanish. It will be available at a suggested retail list price of $15.98, and will also be available through RhinoDirect at 1-800-432-0020.
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