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February 29, 2008
THIS WEEK
CONTENTS
FEBRUARY
29
2008
9 10-13 COVER STORY
Friends/musicians mix styles for victorious band formula
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COMMUNITY NOTICIAS
Keep up on those scholarship deadlines, application information now available
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SHOUT-OUTS
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Making ‘her’ story: RoseMary Wahl first woman promoted to chief deputy
Fruits of a new wine label by the UFW to launch in honor of Cesar Chavez
Did you catch the Academy Awards? We did! Check out our Shout-Out worthy Oscar picks
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EDITORIAL
OLIVIA GARCIA General Manager TERESA ADAMO Managing Editor LAUREN HELPER Asst. Managing Editor
FEATURES LAUREN HELPER AME/Staff Writer LUZ PEÑA Staff Writer MATT MUÑOZ Staff Writer Contributing Writers IRENE CLANCY, NOE GARCIA, MARIA MACHUCA, LEONEL MARTINEZ, DENISE ORNELAS, RAY PRUITT, DEBORAH RAMIREZ, NORMA TAKAHASHI
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February 29, 2008
GLENN HAMMETT ERIC DUHART ORLANDO GALVAN ROBERT NUÑEZ
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Design Editor Graphic Designer Graphic Designer Graphic Designer
ADVERTISING SHAWNA SMITH ELAINE ESTRADA MICHAEL WHITTAKER SYLVIA SANCHEZ
Sales Executive Sales Executive Sales Executive Sales Assistant
OFFICE MARISOL SORTO Office Administrator
Contributing Photographers ORLANDO GALVAN, ROGER HORNBACK, TANYA X. LEONZO, GREG MARQUEZ
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Editorial / Advertising 716-8640
Cover photo: Joseph Gomez Volume 3, Issue 23 Mas Magazine (USPS 000-000) is a weekly publication of Mercado Nuevo LLC with main offices at 1522 18th Street Bakersfield, CA 93301. Application to Mail at Periodicals Postage Rate is pending at 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 Mas name and logo design are trademarks of Mercado Nuevo and cannot be used without the company’s permission.
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Victory for Velorio!
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PHOTOS BY JOSEPH GOMEZ
Opposite page, clockwise from to left: Velorio members — Eric Powers, Evan Phillip Ware, Alex Lopez, Ben Gomez Below, left to right: Evan Ware on the Fender Rhodes piano, Jallah Koiyan, Eric Powers, Jorge Antonio Urbina, and Alvaro Caceres during a rehearsal on Feb. 20.
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Band of local amigos takes musical fusion from cable airwaves & online contests to streets of Bakersfield, picking up new fans all along the way BY M AT T M U Ñ OZ ■ M Á S STA F F
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here’s something about Velorio. Since 2006, the Bakersfield-based band of friends continue carving out their own musical Abraxas — combining Latin, rock, blues, and jazz fusion — for fans everywhere. Enjoying a wave of good prospects on the independent music circuit, the septet of Alvaro Caceres, guitar/vocals; Ben Gomez, bass/vocals; Alex Lopez, percussion; Eric Powers, synth/percussion; Jorge Antonio Urbina, percussion; Jallah Koiyan, drums; and Evan Phillip Ware, keyboards, has always been about allowing fate to take its course. “For me, this band is about absolute freedom,” said Caceres, 24, from his southwest Bakersfield home, where the band rehearses and regularly congregates with friends. Collectively, the members of Velorio came together much like a typical jam session — unpredictably.
“Alvaro and I knew each other back in the day,” said Gomez, 28, the band’s co-lead vocalist and bassist. “We were in a band called Maltratos together back in 2005. It was just Alvaro and I.” As a duo, the two guitarists started out writing numerous songs and performing regularly at Las Molcajetes Mexican Restaurant in Bakersfield. The two were an immediate hit with patrons. “We’d pack that place out,” remembered Caceres of the band’s earliest pre-Velorio incarnation. Like most musicians, Caceres and Gomez also relied on help from local friends like Eric Powers who enjoyed the music. Powers, 22, was a fan of the project, volunteering to run sound for the group during shows. He made a natural progression to become a full-time member of Velorio on a variety of instruments, including percussion, guitar and synth. Gomez is quick to recognize Powers’ skills in the band. “Eric has always been the engineer for the band, and helps out
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PHOTO BY JOSEPH GOMEZ
The band enjoys cutting up during their evening photo shoot for MÁS outside “Velorio manor” in southwest Bakersfield.
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things in so many ways — sound, recording,” he said. The evolution of Velorio continues in much the same fashion — friendly alliances. Velorio percussionist Alex Lopez, 28, who attended Maltrato’s home jam sessions, added some spice to the already potent mix on congas. “I was playing congas in church,” said Lopez. “I got invited to go play with Ben and Alvaro, and I just joined the band when they were ready to move on.” After the original Maltratos concept began to fade, the group’s members continued performing very loosely around Bakersfield for a few years, together and with different groups. This was also a very experimental time for the band, as writing and recording their first four-song demo started getting underway heading into 2006. Inside their former home on F Street in downtown Bakersfield, the residence — described as a “rock n’ roll flophouse” — became their first recording studio. Putting their garage band skills to work, Gomez and crew built
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acoustic barriers using discarded office cubicles courtesy of Kern Schools Credit Union, where Gomez worked. “We did anything we could with what we had,” laughed Gomez. “Dealing with power outages, computer problems …” Powers also remembered the trial-by-error process of home recording. “Sometimes we’d have to scrap the drum tracks, and the conga tracks would get erased on accident,” he said. After a year of toiling in the black-widow infested garage, the demo was complete. Those sessions produced four songs — “Maltratos,” “Respirar,” “Hijos del Sol,” and “Cumbia del Marijuanero” — all representative of the Velorio spirit and style. Helping to polish up some rough edges, engineer Pete Lyman (of Mars Volta fame), also a friend of Gomez’s, was sought to master the project at his studio, Infrasonic Sound in Los Angeles. The result is a world soundscape of folkoric guitar, cumbias Amazonicas reminiscent of the “Chicha” pop movement of ’60s Peru, Bay Area Latin rock and eclectic rhythms of the current roc
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VELORIO ■ On the Web: www.veloriomusic.com See Velorio live! ■ With guests: Mento Buru, Upground, and DJ Mikey ■ Saturday, March 1 ■ Narducci’s Café, 622 E. 21st St. ■ 7 p.m. ■ $10, all ages admitted
Shows at BB Kings in Universal City were booked, along with some sporadic house parties. But a pivotal moment in the band’s fresh career came in September 2007 when Latin cable network mun2 was filming another L.A. band, Los Burbanks, perform at rockero hangout the Westchester Bar & Grill in Los Angeles. “‘Crash’ a VJ from mun2 was there filming Los Burbanks,” said Caceres. “But she saw us and asked if she could use footage of us for her show ‘The Late Night Shift.’” Although the televised clip was about as long as the blinking of an ojo, other opportunities materialized for the band — some better than others. The ill-fated Arka Fest musical festival, which was to host bands from all over the world, was cancelled that October, leaving Velorio, who’d made the line-up, left to play at club Safari Sam’s in Hollywood to make the best of the moment, along with travelling performers in need of a venue. Wowing the audience once again, Velorio’s name continued to flourish, giving them their biggest opportunity to date — returning to cable TV. Another Latin-themed cable network, SiTV, courted Velorio to participate in an online/TV contest, “Jammin.” “Jammin” can best be described as an online battle of the bands, where groups compete for votes from fans to see who would make subsequent cuts. The winner receives $10,000 in cash, a Gibson equipment endorsement, a mentorship with Nacional Records President Tomas Cookman, a trip to the LAMC (Latin Alternative Music Conference) in New York City, and, of course, national TV fame. The winner will be announced in early March. Keyboardist Ware asked filmmaker friends, Ian Mayberry and Richard Javier to film the band performing one afternoon at Replay Lounge in Bakersfield. Done without a budget, the band was more than thankful for the work put into the short form music video by Mayberry and Javier. “Those guys did a fantastic job for us,” said Ware. “When we saw it, we were all blown away. Since we kept getting different deadlines from the network, the guys just worked until 3 or 4 in the morning just to get it back to us. Then we found out we had a month to work on it.” Making it into the final round of judging, thanks to a growing, rabid fan base, the members of Velorio await the next phase of a very promising career. But although riding high at the moment, the band wants fans to know it’s really all about the music, win or lose. “We’re just trying to get a lot of exposure for the band, but the money will help,” smiled Caceres. Gomez agrees — almost. “I hope we make a really good record,” he said.
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Drummer Jallah Koiyan keeps the beats coming to anchor Velorio’s rhythm section.
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en español genre. “It was a huge learning experience put together with all the knowledge we had,” said Caceres. At the tail end of that same year and into 2007, the band began taking its current shape with new members Urbina, Koiyan and Ware to complete the line-up. The new name, Velorio — referring to a funeral “wake” in Spanish — was inspired by the song “Cruz de Madera” by Norteño singer, Ramon Ayala. “We were singing the song one night,” said Caceres. “And I think Ben or I said, ‘We should call ourselves Velorio.’” Like the rest of the band, each member tells a different tale of how they got involved. “I went to check out Velorio on Cinco de Mayo last year at Fishlips, but when I got there they had finished,” remembered Urbina, 27, of his first encounter with the band. “But I knew I would like them since Ben was my friend.” Drummer Koiyan, 21, was an in-the-pocket drummer who had also performed in church with Powers during his days at Liberty High in Bakersfield. “We were the hottest worship band in town,” described Koiyan of how his beats were the obvious choice to bring the Velorio’s live shows to life. “I knew how to play jazz, so the Latin thing came easy to me.” Keyboardist Ware, who along with the rest of the band can switch instruments mid-song if they choose and also a longtime friend of Caceres, had just moved back from Portland, Oregon, and became a full-fledged member after hearing a distinct similarity between Velorio and a band he and Caceres had also performed in years before — The Musical Chairs. “I heard the Velorio songs on MySpace,” he said. “I remembered some of them from when they had just started being written. The sound had really changed a lot.” With demo in hand, the band started out doing the unconventional — promoting the band in L.A. first rather than Bakersfield.
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