May 21, 2009
The second annual ¡Pachanga! Latino Music Festival (Austin’s only Latin-themed music, cultural arts, and food festival) closes out Austin’s Latino Music Month next Saturday, May 30, 2009, at Fiesta Gardens.
Click on each flyer to get to each official site.
May 4, 2009
logo courtesy of austinlatinomusic.com
ALMA (Austin Latino Music Assocation) presents the fourth annual Latino Music Month in Austin. For more information and a calender of shows and events for the month check out ALMA’s official site. “The Sound is Brown.” Go on and support and get down.
April 20, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009 9:15 PM
To Whom It May Concern:
Well, it’s that time again. Boy, do the days go by fast. I think I’m going to try to keep it short and sweet this month. What’s been nice about April has been that I’ve been doing this long enough now that we can re-feature artists we’ve featured before. It’s a nice feeling to go back to someone you’ve already featured and feature them in a different way. Don’t get me wrong, I always want to bring artists we haven’t covered before to you, too. So, don’t worry about that. I’ll keep trying to provide a nice mix.
Once they’ve been featured a few times I kind of consider them popolio artists. I don’t want to tell them that, though, because I don’t want them to think they owe us something or vice-versa. What it really is is that I’m just happy to have them be part of the blog and excited to have them come back.
Some of April’s familiar faces are VITERA (April 2009′s already-posted first pop quiz), Wayna (a popolio podcast — look for it in two days!), and The Executive Life (this Friday’s pop quiz). VITERA and The Executive Life are local artists. Featuring local talent always feels good in a little bit of a different way. It’s like a fizzle in your tummy or a buzz in your cortex. Something like that. Or not. Can’t explain it. It’s just a little extra special.
Anyway, enjoy the rest of April and I’d like to pose a challenge to all of you this month. I want you to listen to one artist that you otherwise would not have ever listened to. Burst your genre-bubble! Comment on here or email me and let me know who the artist was, what CD you listened to, and what you thought about it.
9:28 PM
peace, love, and all that jazz
Freddie Rodriguez aka freddie beat
popolio creator/editor
March 17, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009 6:27 PM
To Whom It May Concern:
Two things are on my brain right at this moment — St. Patrick’s Day and SXSW. So, Happy St. Patrick’s Day and for those in Austin for SXSW this week — Enjoy!
Right off the bat, we’ve had the most pop quizzes featured in March 2009 than any other month since popolio started in September 2008. The reason being that in addition to our two March pop quiz artists, I also hosted a special SXSW Week (last week!) featuring a different SXSW Artist pop quiz daily. That’s five (seven total) for those doing the math. The last artist of the week is a 2009 Grammy Nominee as well. Our first Grammy Nominated pop quiz Artist at that. How exciting is that?
I tried to reach out to artists of different genres to have a nice variety and I think we achieved that. R&B, Club, Folk, and Roots are all well-represented. All their shows are tomorrow, Wednesday, March 18, 2009, except for Clarence Bucaro’s whose show is this Saturday, March 20, 2009. I didn’t plan it that way. It’s just coincidence that the artists that were most receptive to popolio have shows on the same day. And the other March Artist pop quiz is still coming up and will close out the month. So, watch for that one. Check out their pop quizzes by clicking below (and go see these SXSW Artists’ shows!):
And the SXSW Artists featured last week –
So, I think that’s the biggest news for March 2009 at popolio. All our other features are to be continued. I will be bringing a new MY TOP 10 at the end of the month. Check for that.
Enjoy our SXSW content; all of our March 2009 content; and to all those music fans, artists, and industry people alike in Austin for SXSW this week welcome to Austin and have a blast.
6:53PM
Sincerely, Freddie Rodriguez aka freddie beat
popolio creator/editor
February 25, 2009
Profile Shot.
Representing Méjico.
Workin' it.
Doin' his thing. Dinner crowd is hard, y'all!
BONUS Shot.
February 3, 2009
January 30, 2009
So, I left the headliners for last. They are known as The Executive Life. Lead by Eduardo Fajardo, they’re an indie post-punk rock outfit. I could tell they were genre-based but there were 2 to 3 stand-outs songs. That is, I’ve heard what they were doing before, but they do it well and had a couple of more-than-just-good/quality songs.
What was interesting was that the 3 acts were of different genres. What was the connection? A Latin connection – believe it or not. Jeder is what I like to call American-Columbian. Not really a concept in the world; just my own. American girl raised in Latin country. Inverse of me being Panamanian-American. Her Spanish is beautiful. Arthur Yoria is Columbian. And, so is Eduardo Fajardo.
Jeder and Arthur threw in some Spanish; The Executive Life did not. But, it was still a Latin show to me by all rights because Fajardo is Latin. It was nice to attend a music show by Latin folks that was genre-busting. A nice turn on its ear of what Latin music can be.
Don’t get me wrong. I like salsa and merengue like the next person; I grew up with my dad playing those records (literally, records) in my house. Loudly. My point is that I’m not less proud to be Latino because I prefer pop/hip-hop/R&B. We’re multidimensional and come in different shades as clichéd as it sounds. But, I digress.
You’d think it’d be jarring — the different styles. But, it wasn’t at all. It flowed quite nicely. Arthur’s funky vocal-guitar audio experiment was a nice connect between Jeder’s soulful Spanglish folk and The Executive Life’s melodic indie rock. Jeder set it off right, Yoria kept it going, and The Executive Life brought it down. I like all 3 styles of music and all 3 acts were good performers with good music, so it didn’t bother me.
I heard some complaints about the sound not being the best; but the talent outshone the technical difficulities for me. Besides, it wasn’t their fault. And, it wasn’t so bad you wanted to get up, leave, and ask for your money back. If I had to use my scale for reviewing singles, I’d give this show a “featured soloist” rating of 4 musical notes.
The Executive Life MySpace Page
The band.
Justin Nova, guitars.
G-Money, bass (no close-up).
Waynie Danger, keys.
Rapper Avery joined The Executive Life for a rock/hip hop number.
Eduardo Fajardo, vocals/guitar and Travy Baby, drums with Nova.
January 29, 2009
So, the second act of The Executive Life show was special guest, Arthur Yoria. Actually, Jeder got to play a little longer as we awaited his arrival. And we, in the audience, didn’t mind as we were enjoying her sweet melodies.
I saw him make his entrance and didn’t realize who he was. Don’t get me wrong he made his presence known with his shaved head and clean-shaven face and what seemed to be a maroon vinyl trench jacket. I definitely noticed him and I dug his coat. I just didn’t know that he was THE Arthur Yoria.
I knew of him because co-editor JW Richard had posted about him before. But, he looked different than the pic J. Dub used on that post. And, yes, J. Dub was doing his R&B thing back in the day in Houston as part of a duo known as Tru Sol and, apparently, shared some stages with Arthur. You can check out Tru Sol’s stuff and, perhaps, buy thier CD here. Not sure we have any popolio completists out there…yet…but, there you go. 
Anyway, I liked Arthur’s set, too. I didn’t know he did the audio thing. Not sure how to explain it. You kind of have to see it. It’s like pre-recording in the moment and playing it back and then intertwining live performance with the recorded vocals and/or sounds. Interacting with yourself. The host asked us if we’d ever seen something like that. Jeder said she had. I hadn’t. Still, Arthur was doing his thing. Jeder gave him props, too.
Kind of hard to pin down a genre for Arthur Yoria. I’m not sure what I would call what he did and sounded like. I can say I liked what I saw and heard. His MySpace Page describes him as Ghettotech/Southern Rock/Melodramatic Popular Song. Check out his Official Site, too, while you’re at it.
Sound Check.
The show goes on.
Doin' his techno-daddy thing!
Anotha' one!
Using La Jeder's acoustic guitar; he couldn't find his.
Exit Close-Up (as the photographer please forgive me the red eye).
January 28, 2009
Remember that show at The Hideout Theatre that I posted a few weeks ago? Well, I went to it. It was a night of many firsts. It was The Executive Life’s first official show. It was Jeder’s first time opening a show like this. And it was my first time taking pictures of a show for popolio. The show also featured the more established Arthur Yoria who seems to be friends with The Executive Life. The Morakestra were on the bill, too, but never showed.
Drum roll, please because, though it took me a little while, this kicks off a new feature. Introducing: pic-olio. Title speaks for itself, I think. I took pictures of all 3 of the acts, so I’m going to divide this into 3 parts.
Part 1 features Jeder the artist also known as La Jeder and Heather Coleman. Folk is going hip hop with all these aliases. Seriously, though, she kicked things off nicely. She set it off with her beautiful voice and her mix of English and Spanish folk stylings.
I especially liked her between-song banter and audience interaction. She seemed like she’d been doing this for a little while at least. Imagine my surprise when she intimated this was her first time. Definitely, an up-and-coming-one-to-be-watched kind of artist. You heard it here first at popolio. Check out the pic-olio and Jeder’s MySpace Page, too.
Sound Check.
Sound Check, too!
The show begins.
Exit Close-Up.
