Sunday, July 6, 2008

Orale: Mexican_American Las Vegas Rock





ORALE, is a Mexican term meaning "right on". It is also the current band I am in with fellow vato locos, Cheech and Ali Sanchez. I starting hanging out with these guys back in 4th grade. They got me into me†al music and other things associated with it like long hair, concert t-shirts and eventually switching to bass guitar. Previously I was playing lap steel guitar but you can't be a me†alhead playing a lap steel. Our first band was called. "Coda". We pretty much just rocked around. Cheech used his bed as a drum and Ali didn't have an amp yet. So we jump 13 years later to 1998. We started up again this time with legit instruments and created an all instrumental band with fellow "frijolero" Hugo Davila. We played a mixture of Dark Me†al, Psychedlic, Punk and Prog Rock. Very similar to Desert Sessions Volume 1. The fact is I didn't hear Desert Sessions up until a few months ago. Weird, so we were playing the same style of music without knowing it. It was fun and we quickly adapted to improvising especially when Ali would go off on his solos. The fact is the rest of band wouldn't stop him considering he was in his moment .He would take us off to who knows where. It was fun but eventually me and Cheech would have to bring us back to earth. Hugo left but we continued. We haven't played together in over a year but our hearts still keep those songs alive. Here are a few images I believe back in the Summer of 2001. We played outside in the afternoon heat . We nearly melted but it was our chance to play downtown Vegas. Some people couldn't comprehend since we didn't have a singer nor dressed flashy. Nevertheless we had all the music geeks come up to us after the show. One day we hope to do a movie soundtrack until then we just need to record our music to share it. ¡Orale!


Yaqui Doodler Dandy_070608

Yaqui Doodler Dandy.The name comes from my Yaqui Indian roots and my compulsion to create doodles on everything. Favorite tools are .3mm and .5mm ink pens preferably Sakura, Uniball and Z-roller, flair pens, calligraphy and sumi paint brushes and plain ole' Sharpies. I usually have scrap paper everywhere. I tried working with spray paint but I couldn't master the fine lines. This is a way for me to release and to sharpen my steadiness. My font "Modern Cholo", which is an off shoot of Cholo graffitti writing has benefitted from the doodles. Although I start to question now, I have been writing in Cholo letters since the 4th grade (1979). So maybe the Cholo letters actually influenced the doodles. Confusing but then again look at the doodles. What the hell is going on? Fascination with arrows, Dali type figures, Flyer for shows that didn't happen from bands that don't exist, Unfunny Brothers, High School Hallucinations, 120 degree heat, Psychedelic Music both old and new like Caribou or Pink Floyd when Syd was semi-coherent, all-nighters and lotsa of drinking especially of Yerba Mate, German Beer and Malbecs from Argetina. Oh yeah and rambling on and on and on about whatever comes to mind in the stream of consciousness. Ciao wa bunga!