Paso A Paso
por Daniel Kandell
fotos por Brenda Zamudio

La Jerga had the opportunity to interview the members of Tex Tex, La Lupita and La Maldita Vecindad y Los Hijos del Quinto Patio at the Paso a Paso rock festival last October 22nd in San Miguel de Allende at the Sterling Dickinson Baseball Stadium. The festival was primarily designed to disseminate music and culture, while lending support to cultural and environmental issues such as the Centro de Crecimiento AC and Salvemos al Laja AC. While attendance fell short of expectations, the concert proceeded without a hitch and both the organizers and performers delivered an extremely professional and entertaining show. La Jerga would like to commend Enrique Cervera, Germán Iucciolino and their entire team for taking on the challenge of successfully organizing such a large-scale event in San Miguel (we know it ain’t easy) and we hope to see more such events in the future. Thanks for a great rock concert!

Interview with Roco, lead singer of La Maldita Vecindad y Los Hijos del Quinto Patio:

La Jerga: What’s brought you to San Miguel?
Roco: The project, more than anything, was what caught our attention. We’ve always liked participating in cultural festivals. And I think that San Miguel is a very cool place, because there aren’t many festivals in this entire area. What you had was the Cervantino, but now the Cervantino has totally changed its line-up, and they almost don’t program rock anymore. So I think it’s very important that this festival grows some roots and that it occurs each year, that would be very good for the people of this area.

LJ: When was the last time you were in San Miguel?
Roco: Well personally it’s been about 5 years or something like that, it’s been a while, I see it’s changed. And with the group, with Maldita, well it’s easily been 12 years since we played very close to here, though it wasn’t in San Miguel. So it’s been a long time since we last came.

LJ: Where are you coming from now?
Roco: Right now from Mexico City, last week we were in Salón 21, in the Cultural Festival of Chihuahua, in Los Angeles, before that in the October Festivals in Guadalajara, we’ve really been moving. But in this case we’re coming from the city.

LJ: When did you release your last album?
Roco: At the end of ’99.

LJ: And do you have another recording planned?
Roco: Yes, next February, we’re going to have a new album.

LJ: What are you personally listening to right now?
Roco: I’m really into a band from New York called Yerbabuena, I like them a lot. I also like a band called Sidesteppers from Columbia. I like P-18 very much, which is a Cuban-French ensemble. And I’m listening to various bands, lots of music from Cuba, because right now a friend is out there. So I’ve been listening to plenty of things, more than anything a band called Free Hole Negro and son. The Cuban hip-hop, Anónimo Consejo, La Fábrica, and all those bands. And also hip-hop from here in Mexico, I don’t like Empty Luck very much, everything that is DJ Artek...And also a lot of chicano music, I also like very much the new stuff from Tomate which is very good. And I’m also listening to Arabic music, which I also enjoy a lot, and I also really dig some hip-hop from Senegal.

LJ: Do you guys incorporate a lot of hip-hop?
Roco: I always have, for years, I’ve put my rhymes in everything that is the fusion of Maldita and now we just finished a track for the tribute to Tin Tán, which is called Los Agachados, and we did a total hip-hop arrangement, I think the track came out pretty silly.

LJ: Have you used a Dj before?
Roco: Yeah, in this track we have a Dj and now we’re using one, not in this show, but in the new album we’re going to have a Dj integrated into the band.

LJ: Any plans to collaborate with other artists?
Roco: Yes, suddenly. I haven’t stopped collaborating, I have a ton of buddies.

LJ: What year did you guys start?
Roco: In 1985.

LJ: Right on, so you just turned 20...
Roco: Exactly. This next year, since we’re putting out an album, we’re going to do a 20-year celebration, coinciding with the release of this album we’ll have a series of activities that we want to deploy.

LJ: What direction is the group moving in?
Roco: Well, you see with Maldita, our direction is not to have any direction. Right? Exactly. What we do is a fusion of all popular Mexican music with punk, reggae, ska, afro-beat, Arabic music, with any music that we enjoy. Socially, well Maldita is a continual fusion, a mix of different traditions and musics, always from the perspective of the ‘hood, from the perspective of popular Mexican music, which is what we make and what we’ve grown up with.





Interview with Héctor Quijada, lead singer of La Lupita:
La Jerga: How are you doing?
Héctor: Good, good, good...in between hot and cold.

LJ: You’re coming directly from Mexico or?
Héctor: We came directly from Mexico, got in yesterday evening. It’s been nice, very happy, we walked around, ate, hung out...

LJ: It’s great that you guys came.
Héctor: We’re very happy. I don’t think there are many events in San Miguel and its important that in the end the show goes on. That the promise be kept.

LJ: When were you last in San Miguel? Have you played here before?
Héctor: In San Miguel, not that I recall, no. We’ve played a lot in Guanajuato, but not in San Miguel. In León too, less in Queretaro, but in San Miguel, never. We’ve been here a few times but only as tourists.

LJ: How long have you been together as a band?
Héctor: We turned 14 years just this August, next year we’ll celebrate our sweet-15th.

LJ: And you’ve been locked-up in the studio?
Héctor: Right now we’re pimping Lupitología, the second single is being released on radio next week on Reactor in DF and then on Cuarenta Principales and we hope it goes onto other networks and the video comes out a few weeks later. We filmed it with Osvaldo Benavides, who is known as an actor but is now beginning as a director. He’s a very talented young actor who has a couple of years preparing himself as a director, with lots of ambition, talent and a lot of good vibes. The protagonist is Martín Altomaro and of course there are appearances by La Lupita along with Miguel Rodarte and other actor and actress friends. It’s a very fun video, kinda punk.

LJ: How many albums have you made?
Héctor: With this one, between compilations, greatest hits, etcetera, this would be our seventh. We have four studio albums, two compilations and a VCD with all the videos which is Lupitología. It comes to one, two, two, three, seven. As well as tributes, collaborations, remixes and we have various other projects.

LJ: And does this represent a new direction for you, what can we expect from this album?
Héctor: They’re 16 hits from our four previous albums, five new songs but with a much more technological touch, after this album, we recorded a song for a tribute [to Mexican cumbia legend Rigo Tovar] that’s called “Todos somos Rigo”, we also recorded “Cómo será la mujer”, which is the first [Rigo] song that we recorded together. Fortunately there’s a lot of singles being released, the second one is coming and it’s called “Hasta morir” and later comes a third single which is the theme for a film which is called “Historias del desencanto”. They gave me a roll and during the development process we came up with the idea to make music, we made it with La Lupita, and it’s called “Con frenesí” which is the third single from “Lupitología”. The last few months until halfway next year we’ll be touring on “Lupitología” and then we’ll see what happens.

LJ: Very good, then this is part of a tour?
Héctor: This is part of a tour, we’ll be in Los Cabos. We went to Mexicalli, then to DF, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, the United States and then we party here in Mexico and then we start again in February.

LJ: Welcome to San Miguel. Many thanks.
Héctor: See you.