MAS Magazine / 9 - 21 - 2007

¡AY MUJER! Is it time for ‘ the talk?’

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September 21, 2007 Volume 3, Issue 1

www.masbakersfield.com P.0. BOX 2344, Bakersfield, Ca 93303

C U LT U R E • P R I D E • C O M M U N I T Y

THIS WEEK

CONTENTS 12-15

COVER STORY

Los Lobos : See them at the fair, but learn about them in MÁS

ENTERTAINMENT

6

SHOUT-OUTS

9

¡Bienvenidos El Piolín! Popular radio host adds voice to airwaves in Bakersfield

Finally! Something new on TV, including new Latino faces for fall

COSITAS WE LOVE

Planning a fiesta? Add a few of these colorful touches to get things started

GENTE

Some local Kodak moments FORE you from golf tourney; Little Joe

CALENDAR

Get in the know & In the Mixx

CLASSIFIEDS Buy, sell and hire

SEPTEMBER ■ 21 ■ 2007

12-15

6

9

11

18-19

18-19

20-21 23-26

WE ARE MÁS EDITORIAL OLIVIA GARCIA Managing Editor TERESA ADAMO Chief Copy Editor DEBBIE WEAVER Copy Editor

FEATURES LAUREN HELPER AME/Staff Writer LUZ PEÑA Staff Writer TERESA ADAMO Staff Writer Contributing Writers NOE GARCIA, JACKIE GIBSON, MARIAN MACIAS, MARIA MACHUCA, MATT MUÑOZ, DENISE ORNELAS, GABRIEL RAMIREZ, DEBORAH RAMIREZ, ISAAC SAUCEDO, NORMA TAKAHASHI

PHOTO

Contributing Photographers DANIELA GARCIA, ROGER HORNBACK, DEAN JOHNSON, TANYA LEONZO, MATT MUÑOZ, LEIA PERKINS, TYLER THOMPSON

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September 21, 2007

MÁS

ART IRMA CASTILLO ERIC DUHART DEAN JOHNSON LEIA PERKINS ORLANDO GALVAN TYLER THOMPSON

General Manager

Production Manager Graphic Designer Advertising Artist Artist Intern Artist Intern Publications Asst.

Delia Carson dcarson@masbakersfield.com 716-8632

Managing Editor

Olivia Garcia ogarcia@masbakersfield.com 395-7487

ADVERTISING SHAWNA SMITH SYLVIA SANCHEZ STEPHINA BREWER ELAINE ESTRADA KARLA AGUILAR LEANNA CARSKADDON

Inside/Outside Sales Outside Sales Outside Sales Outside Sales Outside Sales Marketing Coordinator

Editorial / Advertising 716-8640

Cover photo: Hollywood Records Mas Magazine (USPS number pending) is a weekly publication of Mercado Nuevo LLC with main offices at 1522 18th Street Bakersfield, CA 93303. Application to Mail at Periodicals Postage Rate is pending at 1822 Pegasus Drive, Bakersfield, CA 93303. POSTMASTER: Please send address changes to: Mercado Nuevo Publications PO Box 2344 Bakersfield, CA 93303. MÁS is a new weekly magazine focused on Hispanic people, style, culture and issues in Kern County. MÁS is a publication of Mercado Nuevo, LLC, a subsidiary of The Bakersfield Californian. For questions or for more information about MÁS or other publications of Mercado Nuevo, contact us: Mercado Nuevo LLC P.O. Box 2344 Bakersfield, CA 93303; (661) 716-8640 www.mercadonuevocorp.com or www.masbakersfield.com. The MÁS name and logo design are trademarks of Mercado Nuevo and cannot be used without the company’s permission.

Don’t look now, but Los Lobos are still howlin’ up the music scene, supplying the Mexican American experience with its own soundtrack

Leaders of the pack

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HOLLYWOOD RECORDS

B Y

M AT T

M U Ñ O Z

Los Lobos aren’t just another band from East LA. The quintet of David Hidalgo, vocals, guitar and accordion; Conrad Lozano, bass; Louie Perez, guitar; Cesar Rosas, guitar and vocals; and Steve Berlin, saxophone; have been responsible for entertaining —as well as educating — a new generation of listeners about what it is to live and survive within the colorful fabric of American life, and supplying a soundtrack to the Mexican American experience since 1972.

Appearing live for a free show at the Kern County Fair’s Budweiser Pavilion this weekend — 8 p.m., Sunday, Sept. 23 — Bakersfield will once again get a chance to hear what many music critics have proclaimed “one of the greatest American rock bands of all time.”

Combining rock, cumbia, Tejano, bolero, blues, soul, mariachi and a tip of the sombrero to punk rock, it’s hard to categorize these kings of East Los.

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S TA F F

Relaxing at his present home in Orange County, Calif., guitarist Perez, who originally began playing drums for Los Lobos, is attempting to do the impossible — take a break.

“The band’s doing good,” said Perez, who will be 54 on Sept. 29, of their latest tour in support of the group’s current release, “The Town And The City.”

“We’ve been working a lot, so it’s good to be home for just a little piece o’ change for a few days.”

By this time, you’d think that life on the road would be easier, but that isn’t always the case, even for a veteran like Perez.

“I find myself moaning and groaning about having to get up at 3:45 a.m. to drive an hour and a half to an airport, make connections, then drive to a gig,” he said. “Then I have to remind myself, ‘Just a second, Louie, you got the best job in the world. What are you complaining about?’”

HOLLYWOOD RECORDS

out, and we just figure, ‘You know, why don’t we learn a couAnd what a ride it’s been for the band of friends who ple of Mexican songs for her? We’ll do Las Mananitas.’” started making noise in neighborhood garages during their Digging through their parents’ record collection to find a years at historic Garfield High –– the same school that also copy of the traditional Mexican serenade to learn, Perez and introduced the world to another famous East LA figure, company were faced with a musical chalteacher Jaime Escalante, immortalized in lenge. the movie “Stand & Deliver” by actor “We pulled out the records, and sat there Edward James Olmos. and tried to learn a few songs to play for “We four all met in high school as Mom, and we realized, ‘Man, it’s not easy!’ friends first. We were all musicians, but we We always took rock ‘n’ roll for granted,” he never played together,” explained Perez said. “That was so fascinating to us as musiabout how the group, with the exception of cians that we just dove into learning.”

Berlin, began their musical journey as Despite being raised on rock and soul neighborhood teens. music, the foursome continued to expand Their lives would ultimately follow simitheir repertoire, scoring more gigs as tradilar paths after graduation. tionalists than rockers.

“You know the dynamic. You’re out of “It got to the point that we were playing a high school, living at home, three square couple of local gigs like tardeadas in the meals, mamacita is making some killer park, or a VFW hall,” said Perez. “It started food,” he said. to collide with the bands we were playing But even though they were close budwith, and we got to the point where we had dies, their early musical projects develto make a decision. Do we want to do this oped outside their circle of friendship. full time?”

“David and I played in a rock band, ConDisbanding all of their groups to focus on rad had a band, Cesar had a 15-piece soul their newfound direction, the guys dubbed band. We’d hang out during the day, — Louie Perez themselves Los Lobos del Este (de Los Angerehearse at night with our bands, but we’d les), parodying another traditional Mexican find ourselves together in the back yard music group from the north. Now thoroughly hanging out again.”

Busy individually, the four would finally come together as immersed in folklorico style and technique, the band almost completely turned its back on rock ‘n’ roll, but not completely. an early-morning gift for one of their mothers on her birth“We became aware of Mexican music, and because of the day.

“This is the true story,” said Perez. “We’re all hanging Please turn to LOS LOBOS, page 14

“We had started out wanting to redefine what most people perceived as ‘Mexican music.’”

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Continued from page 12 challenge it presented us, we put away our amps and Strats (electric guitars) and it’s all we did for 10 years,” said Perez.

“Rancheras, mariachi, music from Veracruz, Huasteco — all of that stuff. We collected Mexican instruments and asked older musicians how they were played.”

Fast forward 10 years, and the band began feeling the stress of familiar territory. Meanwhile, lives were changing — marriages, children. The band needAP / THE NEWS-GAZETTE, DARRELL HOEMANN ed a new avenue.

David Hidalgo of Los Lobos thanks the “Toward the end of crowd at the Wall to Wall Guitar Festithe ’70s, until about val/Take 2 at Krannert Center for the 1980, we found ourPerforming Arts in Urbana, Ill., Sept. 14. selves playing in a Mexican restaurant because we needed to make an income,” he said. “All of our families supported us during this time, and I think they recognized that there was something special going on. And so it was worth the sacrifice, even though it got very difficult.”

To change things up a little, the band decided to add TexMex into their sets, with Hidalgo picking up the accordion, Rosas on bajo sexto and Perez assigned to drums.

“We had started out wanting to redefine what most people perceived as ‘Mexican music,’” explained Perez. “I mean, if you look at a norteño band, it’s kind of like a rock band. Of course, we got so damn loud that we ended up getting fired from the restaurant we were playing at.”

Stuck as a wedding band, Perez and Hidalgo would make frequent concert trips across the LA River into Hollywood.

It was there that they discovered punk rock and the roots revival through bands like The Blasters, The Plugz, Fear and Circle Jerks.

“The punk rock thing was just really raw and exciting in the ’80s. We’d be packed into these basements inside Chinese restaurants that weren’t even clubs,” he said. “And there were bands like The Blasters playing jump blues and rockabilly with punk rock.”

During one of their Hollywood trips, Perez met up with Plugz frontman Tito Larriva, a Chicano punk vet who many now recognize from the vampire band in the Robert Rodriguez film, “From Dusk ‘Til Dawn.”

“Tito called me up one day and asked us if we’d like to open up for PIL (Public Image Limited, a band fronted by

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former Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten) at the Olympic Auditorium,” he said. “This was a big deal. We brought our wives and somebody even brought like a tia or something.”

The band hit the stage, but lasted only eight minutes.

“We were spit at, but we literally ran off as soon as they started throwing the serious projectile,” laughed Perez.

“Backstage our family was in tears, but we had these silly, weird grins on our faces, like, ‘Wow, let’s do it again, dammit.’”

Now with some added punk rock street cred to their name for surviving the show, Los Lobos began to rock more, scoring another legendary gig opening for The Blasters at the famous Whisky A Go Go in ’81. This show proved to be a turning point in the band’s career.

“Finally, because we opened for them, the scene kind of opened up to us,” said Perez.

Blasters’ saxophonist Steve Berlin also became close to Los Lobos, showing up to jam with the band after his own

The Wolf Survive,” with Warner Bros. in 1984, every critic around the globe made sure one thing was ■ 8 p.m., Sunday, Sept. 23 clear: Los Lobos are ■ Budweiser Pavilion, Kern County Fair leaders of the pack. To this day, the memory ■ Concert free with paid fair admission still amazes Perez.

■ Details: www.kerncountyfair.com “We put out that ■ Hear the entire Los Lobos interview on record, and Rolling Bakotunes Podcast, episode 56 at: www.bakotopia.com/blogs/bakotunes Stone names us ‘Band of The Year’ tied with Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band. I mean, how does this stuff happen?”

After another critically acclaimed sophomore effort, the band scored its biggest success to date, being asked to be the voice and sound of the late Richie Valens in “La Bamba,” the 1987 film and music project to which they will be forever connected.

“It just happened at the right time. It was really an American story that touched a lot of people, and we never had a clue it would be as huge as it did,” he said.

After the commercial craze of “La Bamba” had died down, the band was faced with a decision on whether to capitalize on that success or retain their integrity and move forward. Los Lobos chose the latter.

Releasing “La Pistola y La Corazon,” a traditional album of Mexican music, Los Lobos decided it was time to revisit the neighborhood.

“We decided to take all that incredible focus, all that attention, and direct it to something that really meant something to us — it’s the music of our culture,” said Perez. “We definitely weren’t going to make a ‘La Bamba 2.’”

Following with more critically acclaimed albums like “Kiko” and “The Neighborhood” through the ’90s, the spirit of the Los Lobos message never showed signs of waning.

“We’re not just creating music for Latinos, and we’re not playing to packed houses filled with just brown faces,” he said. “We are taking our experience and sharing it with people around the world.”

Celebrating 35 years together this November, Perez and Los Lobos continue to broaden the scope of Mexican music to create more ethereal sounding masterpieces for generations to enjoy and learn from as a real American success story.

“We’re an example of a very seamless combination, of being American and being Mexican. It’s very natural — the way it’s supposed to be.”

MÁS magazine presents

Los Lobos

HOLLYWOOD RECORDS

shows. He soon joined the group permanently.

“We left a window open and he just jumped in the van one day while we were driving through Hollywood,” said Perez jokingly.

Continuing their experimentation with Latin fusion, the industry kept a close eye on the band as their “it” band reputation grew stronger. Signing with indie label Slash in ’82, the band released an EP “… And A Time To Dance,” earning them their first Grammy win for the song “Anselma” the following year.

“It was an amazing time,” remembered Perez. “We were touring out of a 1978 Dodge Van, all sleeping in one motel room. We’d take the beds apart and have a coin toss to see who was getting the mattress or the box spring.”

When they were notified by their publicist of the Grammy win, it seemed like things were finally looking brighter.

And they were.

After they released their full-length debut, “How Will

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