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The Bakersfield Californian Thursday, June 5, 2014
Eye Street
Party time for new Mento Buru release One of Kern County’s most respected bands celebrates 23 years of musicmaking with their unique
spin on classic tunes. Mento Buru will release its latest recording this weekend at two events — a release party at Sandrini’s on Friday evening, and
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during the Kern County Nut Festival at the Kern County Museum on Saturday morning. The band, which has built its reputation, and its fan base, by combining disparate musical elements, has done the same with this new recording: two reimagined classic songs pressed on a seveninch vinyl record. “We really wanted to do something special,” said Matt Munoz, lead vocalist and tenor sax player. “We talked about waiting to do an entire album, you know 10 songs, but we realized we weren’t going to get that done.” What the band focused on instead is a recording of “Sabor a mi,” the 1959 Latino classic by Alvaro Carillo, and recorded by almost every major Mexican performer; and the rocksteady classic “A Message to You, Rudy,” made famous by The Specials in the 1970s. What’s unique about the recordings is the Mento Buru “treatment”: “Sabor a Mi” has been re-imagined as a reggae song; and “A Message to You, Rudy” is a performed in a Latin cumbia style with Spanish lyrics as “Rudy, Un Mensaje Para Vos.” “This took a lot of painstaking work to get this
FRANK SULLIVAN / SPECIAL TO THE CALIFORNIAN
Mento Buru, from left: Paul Perez, Matt Munoz, Salvador Galindo, Caleb Moore, Joe Vazquez, Jay Smith, Cesareo Garasa.
right,” Munoz said. “There’s never been a reggae recording — at least that we know of — for “Sabor a mi” and then with ‘A Message to You, Rudy’ with the Spanish lyrics for such a classic song.” Munoz (a contributing columnist for The Californian) said the entire project has been a collaboration of
old friends. The group has reunited with Luis Correa of Steady Beat Recordings, who introduced the band to the Southern California ska scene decades ago, and also advised the band to keep current with the trends. “He told us the Latin cumbia dance movement in Los Angeles and Southern California is booming,”
Munoz said. If you listen to both recordings, and especially to “Sabor a mi,” you will hear the band’s new ideas, but also a vintage sound, a result Munoz credits to another old friend, Brian Dixon of Volcano Lounge Studios, who mixed and mastered the recordings. See RELEASE / PAGE 29
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Thursday, June 5, 2014 The Bakersfield Californian
Eye Street RELEASE CONTINUED FROM PAGE 22
Mento Buru release parties 9 p.m. Friday at Sandrini’s, 1918 Eye St. $5. 10 a.m. to noon Saturday at the Kern County Nut Festival, 3801 Chester Ave. $10 advance, $12 at the door; $5 advance for children, $7 at the door.
“He takes the recordings and gives them that classic ’60s-style reggae sound,” Munoz said. Mento Buru began 23 years ago as the Triple R Sounds, which stands for “roots, rock and reggae,” playing reggae “all the time,” as Munoz put it. A year later, the band had already run through a number of players and were booked to perform at the Bakersfield Reggae festival. “We needed a new name; we were changing our sound,” Munoz said. One band member suggested Mento Buru, two words that come from the Jamaican music scene of the 1950s and ’60s: “mento,” a corrupted form of the word “mention,” refers to the Jamaican folk movement in which political messages were “mentioned,” or subtly stated; and “buru” refers to a style of drumming. “We went with the name and we stayed with it ever since,” Munoz said. Mento Buru’s current roster includes Munoz on vocals, tenor sax and percussion; Joe Vazquez on trombone; Paul Perez on saxophone; Caleb Moore on bass; Cesareo Garasa on drums; Jay Smith on keyboards; and Salvador Galindo on guitar. Regardless of the personnel, the band has held on to its singular mash-up of musical styles: Latin, reggae, ska, jazz, and now cumbia. For a band that simultaneously looks
forward and back, it seems particularly fitting that they embrace the current resurgence of vinyl records, not only for bands like Mento Buru, but especially among punk and alternative bands. “It’s really happening all over the world,” Munoz said. “There’s always going to be a vinyl vendor somewhere. People love the artwork, the book inside, the sound.” Like many others, Munoz feels a bit nostalgic about playing vinyl records; for new fans, there is a sense of something new. “It’s the concept of being hip,” Munoz said. “You put out this recording, and not everybody is going to have it.” The band will sell the recordings for $7 at Friday’s release party and at Saturday’s Nut Festival. But he’s right —not everybody is going to have it. “We put a lot of care in this,” Munoz said. “It’s a limited edition —there’s only 500 copies. We don’t know if there’ll be a second pressing.”
ARTS
Director Chris Morales is being assisted by Ruthanne Jennings. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 24
wife, Sarah, due to their concern about human trafficking. According to the Selah’s River website, the funds raised are given to organizations working directly to rescue children from abuse, both in foreign countries (such as Brazil and Cambodia) and in the United States.
Musical in Tehachapi Tehachapi Community Theatre’s summer show, “110 in the Shade,” is a musical based on Richard Nash’s 1954 play, “The Rainmaker,” which also was a movie starring Burt Lancaster. It opens Friday at the BeeKay Theatre, the home of TCT, and runs through June 29. Guy Martin portrays Starbuck, a charismatic charlatan who promises to bring rain to a small town that’s experienced a lengthy drought. Others in lead roles are Opal Lawler, Thaer Irvin, Kenny Chugg, Spencer James and Kasey Brockelsby.
HISTORY CONTINUED FROM PAGE 23
other, especially from nature,” she said. “We’re all part of the bigger picture. If we understand that, it makes us more special and more important, keeping nature in our everyday lives.” Sheehey will next speak at the Mona Basin Bird Chautauqua on June 20, but this time she’ll be speaking about a different project. “Bucket List on a Budget” will tell of Sheehey’s time visiting all 50 states on less than $8,000. After several years visiting
Japanese artwork A two-day exhibit of sumi-e, or ink wash painting, will be held next Wednesday and Thursday at the Bakersfield Museum of Art. The visit by seven amateur artists from Japan is sponsored by the Wakayama Committee of the Bakersfield Sister City program. Sue Stone, past president of the program, said sumi-e is a beautiful and fascinating art form that dates back to the seventh century. “When Matthew Stevens (the American liaison at Wakayama City Hall) first contacted me about the group, he said that they had done something similar in Washington state last year,” Stone said. “So it appears that these men — all retired — have made teaching about Japanese culture through their art a mission of their own.” Demonstrations of how the painting is done will be given at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Wednesday, with a reception and tea at 2:30 p.m. the same afternoon.
a number of states, Sheehey completed her journey last year. In addition to all 50 states, she also visited four Canadian provinces and 38 national parks. An avid birder, Sheehey saw 559 species of birds. Setting out on trails throughout the country, Sheehey would often meet other nature lovers. She was sometimes surprised to find they already knew who she was from her website. “I would introduce myself, and they’d sometimes say ‘I know you!’” she said. “I’m Nature Ali. I’m known around the world by my pseudonym.”
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