Artificial Radio Hour with Rev. Dr. Dr. Phill Part 41

Hey folks!

A bit of a vague theme this week. Almost all of these groups are Latin American, mostly from Mexico but also Brazil and the United States.

Os Mutantes (The Mutants) are a psychedelic group from Brazil. Their songs have a lot of different sections, like this one does.

Los Chijuas are (were?) a garage rock type of group from Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. This song showed up on the compilation Nuggets II: Original Artyfacts from the British Empire and Beyond. That was a sequel to the popular compilation Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era 1964-1968, which had a bunch of garage/psych bands from roughly the post-Beatles/Stones/Yardbirds era. Nuggets II was basically the international version, with bands from Mexico, England, Austrailia, Japan & more. Fun stuff, I may use more of that stuff in the future.

Lafayette Afro Rock Band were an American funk-rock group from Long Island who relocated to Paris in 1971. They show up on a lot of African music compilations, although they are not from Africa.

Maria Sabina was a Mazatec Curandera from the Mexican state of Oaxaca who was one of the first people to perform the traditional Velada mushroom ceremony for outsiders, specifically for R. G. Wasson, who recorded the ceremony for Folkways Records and wrote an article about it for Life Magazine. This resulted in a stream of magic mushroom-seeking hippies beating a path to her small village. She late regretted the whole experience, saying

"From the moment the foreigners arrived, the 'holy children' lost their purity. They lost their force, they ruined them. Henceforth they will no longer work. There is no remedy for it."

 Meanwhile I used her voice as a background to a guy talking about wandering around Disney's California Adventure on MDMA...

There are four tracks this week from a compilation called "Mexican Rock And Roll Rumble And Psych-Out South Of The Border", by Los Apson (from Agua Prieta, Sonora), Los Crazy Boys (Ciudad de México), Los Sinners (Ciudad de México), and Los Santos Del Rock (from... somewhere in Mexico?). They're a lot of fun.

Nat "King" Cole released two albums of songs in Spanish in the late 50s. They're pretty good, his pronunciation isn't bad even though it wasn't his first language.

Elis Regina recorded an album of Antonio Carlos Jobim tunes with Antonio Carlos Jobim. Their version of Águas de Março basically became the most well-known version. Listen for the part near the end when she starts laughing, it's wonderful.

Marc Ribot is a guitarist from New Jersey who has played many styles of music. He has played with musicians as diverse as Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, and John Zorn (I should put those guys on a podcast, huh?) Los Cubanos Postizos (The Prosthetic Cubans) was a band he formed in the 90s. Their albums mostly consist of songs by Cuban bandleader and composer Arsenio Rodriguez, although the song I included here is by Puerto Rican songwriter Pedro Flores. (Also, I have just noticed that the album, ¡Muy Divertido!, was released on my 24th birthday. That does not seem like a long time ago, but I guess it was.)

David Byrne's 1989 album Rei Momo is similar in that it is by a New York-based artist who has worked on the artier areas of pop music, working in a Latin American style. Byrne uses a different style for each track and labels them. "The Rose Tattoo" is a Bomba/Mozambique, according to the liner notes.

Sandie Shaw is a British singer who was the first performer from the UK to win the Eurovision Song Contest (in 1967). She recorded her 1965 single "Long Live Love" in English, German ("Du weißt Nichts von deinem Glück"), French ("Pourvu que ça dure"), Italian ("Viva l'amore con te"), and Spanish ("¡Viva El Amor!"). This wasn't an uncommon practice; even the Beatles recorded a couple singles in German.

Finally, Chingo Bling. I was hoping to find a little more info about this guy, but there's not a whole lot out there. He's a Mexican-American rapper from the Houston area, whose persona was not a drug kingpin, but rather a Tamale kingpin. He mostly does stand-up comedy now. This song is about his pet rooster.

As usual, please leave any comments or questions wherever you read this, and I'll talk to you next week!

Enjoy!

-Rev. Dr. Dr. Phill

Welcome to Night Vale 95 - Zookeeper 9/30/2016 (music by Disparition)

Panis et Circensis (Bread and Circuses) - Os Mutantes (1968)

Changing the Colors of Life - Los Chijuas (1968)

Racubah - Lafayette Afro Rock Band (1974)

Movie Fighters Episode 69: VS Horror Express 10/19/2016

Na Ai - Ni Tso - Maria Sabina (1957)

Sueno De Amor - Los Crazy Boys (1967)

Quizas, Quizas, Quizas (Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps) - Nat King Cole (1958)

Águas de Março (Waters of March) - Elis Regina & Antonio Carlos Jobim (1974)

Jordan, Jesse GO! Ep. 455: Live at Now Hear This Festival with the Doughboys 11/21/2016)

Soft Singing - Maria Sabina (1956)

Satisfaction - Los Apson (1965)

No Puedo Frenar - Marc Ribot & Los Cubanos Postizos (2000)

The Rose Tattoo (Bomba-Mozambique) - David Byrne (1989)

Jordan, Jesse GO! Ep. 455: Live at Now Hear This Festival with the Doughboys 11/21/2016)

Humming, Etc. - Maria Sabina (1956)

La Noyia De Mi Mejor Amigo - Los Sinners (1961)

¡Viva El Amor! - Sandie Shaw (1965)

"Walk Like Cleto" - Chingo Bling (2005)