I really can’t get enough cumbia this summer. Bringing things full circle, several or all of the members of Twin Tones are in Sonido Gallo Negro. I wish there was a better version of a live performance where they are wearing their masks and have the live graphics projected by the theremin player (theraminist?).
Speaking of videos I wish I could feature, both Natalia Lafourcade & San Pascualito Rey seem to be stifled by rights contracts that forbid embedding of live performances at radio stations like KEXP. That was disappointing; tunes by those two were sonic pillars of my trip hoped to feature.
Thanks for hanging out with me this week.
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La Marisoul is the front lady of Los Angeles’ La Santa Cecilia. Los Cenzontles are doing the important work of preserving and promoting Mexican roots music from their base, which includes an academy, in San Pablo, CA. Los Lobos need no introduction, of course.
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We have a well-traveled group hereabouts. How do you folks prepare a sonic journey for yourselves to accompany your travels outside your home range? (Context for travel matters and varies considerably, of course.)
Are bespoke playlists tailored to a purpose for your trip or the destination part of getting yourself excited & ready to travel? Or if you’re returning to a place you’ve visited before and that’s gotten under your skin, do you find your ear tuning itself to music you associate with that place ahead of your trip?
What do you bring with you to ensure you can enjoy your music while on the go?
We’re headed out to the Sonoran desert now, via Route 111, Route 86, and the curiously-named census designated place called Mecca. A shambling, trippy, psych & surf tune about a popsicle vendor seems appropriate for the heat coming our way down at the Salton Sea.
When I was at the Ski-Inn* late one night, sucking down pints of Mango Cart to replace the water my body has lost in its effort to keep my insides from cooking during the day, I got to chat with a few local folks. One fella told of a recent summer night in which he went to bed in 115° F heat at midnight, and got up for work before sunrise to find it had cooled off to 110°.
Yes, that makes two cumbia tunes in one week. If we’re playing Bacon rules, three bands I’ve played this week share a common connection to a fourth. Sergio Mendoza leads Orkesta Mendoza & plays keyboards in Calexico; Joey Burns & John Convertino co-founded Calexico; Xixa is fronted by Brian Lopez, a guitarist in Calexico, and Gabriel Sullivan. Lopez & Sullivan also play in Giant Sand, while Burns & Convertino are former members of that band.
* Don’t miss the patty melt, which is made with wonderfully sweet locally-grown onions. If it was good enough for Tony Bourdain, it is good enough for me
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Time to get back on our way. Back on Route 62, we’ll pass the site of my first rodeo in Yucca Valley, then shed about 2000 feet of elevation on our way back through the fields of wind turbines in the lower desert and then on out to Palm Springs, Cathedral City, Indio, and Thermal, where we’ll drop to 138 feet below sea level. A road groove is what we need. Where we are headed is a constellation of no-places with names trading on dreams never realized.
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I don’t think two voices were ever meant more for each other than those of Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris. This video can’t convey the quality of their vocal mix, but thankfully we have Grievous Angel to document the exquisite blend the achieved. That we have any live footage of them at all is close to a miracle; video recording of any performance not intended for television broadcast was pretty darn rare in 1973. This is not the tune I would’ve chosen had any of my favorites been available, but beggars can’t be choosers.
While I was out in the Mojave, I stopped at a site I’ve passed an uncountable number of times, but never properly visited: the Joshua Tree Inn, the place where Gram departed from this plane of existence. The clerk at the desk was very gracious and let me wander through the public spaces, which have a variety of GP memorabilia, and, after obtaining a promise that I not knock on the door of Room 8, let me go out to pay my respects at the shrine outside the place where Gram spent his last days.
I’m glad I stopped. Grievous Angel is one of my favorite albums, and Gram came out to his beloved Joshua Tree after finishing the recording sessions that ultimately became that album. I put it on after exiting I-10 onto Route 62. The rest of the story from September 1973 is bizarre and more than a little sad; if you’re going to read about it, choose a reputable source. Gram’s musical dream lives on through people like Emmylou, Dwight Yoakam, Steve Earle, Robbie Fulks, and (particularly, in my mind) Sturgill.
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Let’s depart from the coast and head inland to Fallbrook, where we’ll start to wind north-northeast through the avocado & citrus groves and vineyards of De Luz Canyon, curving up into the Santa Ana Mountains on a private road along Sandia Creek. When we reach Temecula we join CA-79 to head out to the desert via Winchester and Hemet, and finally get onto I-10 at Beaumont. We head east into San Gorgonio Pass, the valley between the southern edge of the San Bernardino Mountains and Mt. San Jacinto, both of which climb from the pass floor to 9,000-foot peaks.
Here we find the climate transitions from one supporting Mediterranean-style agricultural crops into the Mojave desert. It gets hotter with each passing mile, but keep your window down and the A/C on your feet to help acclimatize. We’ll pull off at Cabazon to see the dinosaurs, of course. There’s plenty of wind — and due to that, the San Gogonio Pass wind farm sprawls across the open land on both sides of the freeway, the rows of wind turbines spilling out nearly to the horizon like enormous, rotating mecha-sunflowers.
What better than a tune with some big, gusty brass to push us from the pounding surf through the pass and into the beautiful, treacherous wastes? We get three trumpets, a trombone, and a flugelhorn-wielding accordionist on a ripping hot track. Pair it with some nopales, grilled onion, & charred corn tacos slathered with an extra picante chile guisado & lime crema. Just be careful despising that cactus…
(Oh, right; Sergio Mendoza’s other band is Calexico.)
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And that’s the way we start CH Week. My theme this week is music that formed my soundtrack to my recent trip to a conference in San Diego, which I followed with five days out in the Mojave & Sonoran deserts.
Let’s start with a sonic tribute to the drive I took up the coast from UCSD in La Jolla to Colima’s Mexican Food Oceanside. Surf rock is just what we need — we’ll pass three locations mentioned in “Surfin’ U.S.A.” — but let’s make it Latin-inflected in honor of the destination. The route runs straight along the coast, formerly the southernmost portion of Old US-101, now variously called County Route S21, N Torrey Pines Road, Camino del Mar, Highway 101, and North Coast Highway. It’s a beautiful drive — easily worth the extra 15 minutes it’ll take compared to a run up the Five.
Colima’s was the first place I think I can say I had “real” Mexican food, unless we count items made for family meals by dishwashers and prep cooks in various kitchens across the Cities. The Chicano guys in my unit preferred Colima’s to all other local options, and revisiting the hefty Baja and carnitas tacos confirmed they are every bit as delicious as they were sixteen years ago. ¡Gracias por la comida, amigos!
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