Mexican rock

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Mexican rock, often referred to in Mexico as Rock nacional ("national rock"), is rock music created by Mexican groups and soloists. Originating in the 1950s with covers of standards by Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley and The Everly Brothers, among others, bands such as Los Rebeldes del Rock, Los Locos del Ritmo, Los Crazy Boys and Javier Bátiz soon arose with original compositions, often in English. Initially, the public exhibited little interest in them, because of media attention paid to La Ola Inglesa (British Invasion). However, after the substantial success of Mexican-American guitarist Santana in the United States in the late 1960s, a large number of bands sprung up, especially in Mexico City. Most of these bands sung in both Spanish and, with foreign commercial exposure in mind, English. Important bands of this period were Enigma, Kaleidoscopio, El Tarro de Mostaza, El Ritual, Peace and Love, Ciruela, The Spiders, Love (El Amor), Three Souls in My Mind, Toncho Pilatos, Los Dug Dugs, La Semilla del Amor, Love Army, Tinta Blanca, La Revolucion de Emiliano Zapata, La Tribu, 39.4, La Division del Norte, and Bandido.

1 Early years
2 Progressive Scene
3 Música Rupestre Scene
4 Metal Scene
5 Melting Pot: Chopo Bazaar
6 The Middle Eighties

[edit] Early years

Rock activity at this time in Mexico took place in either Mexico City and the nearby area or in northern cities such as Monterrey, Nuevo Laredo, and Ciudad Juarez, and Tijuana, whose proximity to the United States resulted in more exposure to American sounds. Rock, as elsewhere, was tied in with the youth revolt of the 1960s. Many Mexican rock stars became involved in the counterculture. The three-day Festival Rock y Ruedas de Avándaro, held in 1971, was organized in the valley of Avándaro near the city of Toluca, a town neighboring Mexico City, and became known as "The Mexican Woodstock". Nudity, drug use, and the presence of the American flag so scandalized conservative Mexican society that the government clamped down on rock and roll performances for the remainder of the decade. The festival, marketed as proof of Mexico's modernization, was never expected to attract the masses it did, and the government had to evacuate stranded attendees en masse at the end of the festival. This occurred during the era of President Luis Echeverría, an extremely repressive era in Mexican history. Anything that could possibly be connected to the counterculture or student protests was prohibited from being broadcast on public airwaves by the powers that be, who feared a repeat of the student protests of 1968. Few bands survived the prohibition; though the ones that did, like Three Souls in My Mind (now El Tri), remained popular due in part to their adoption of Spanish for their lyrics, but mostly as a result of a dedicated underground following. While Mexican rock groups were eventually able to perform publicly by the mid-1980s, the ban prohibiting tours of Mexico by foreign acts would last until 1991.

In the 1990s and 2000s, a number of performers have attained internationally renown, including pop-rock acts such as Gloria Trevi, Café Tacuba, Caifanes (now Jaguares), Maná, and ska band Maldita Vecindad y Los Hijos del Quinto Patio. Control Machete, Delasónica and Molotov explore rap/rock fusion, with lyrics containing social commentary mixed with urban vulgarity.

[edit] Progressive Scene

In the middle 1970s, the counterculture had absorbed the progressive music generated in the Anglo-Saxon world, which expanded to Europe and the rest of the world. Many groups existed in that period, but few of them left recorded legacies, like Cosa Nostra, Al Universo, Musica y Contra Cultura (MCC) and El Queso Sagrado. Decibel, the prototype of experimental music and the only Rock in Opposition group in this land, set the table for the growing progressive rock scene that surged In the late 1970s and early 1980s. Bands like Chac Mool and Iconoclasta were the pioneers of this style, although groups like Syntoma and others went techno. These bands were followed by others, like Arturo Meza, Nobilis Factum, The High Fidelity Orchestra, Metamúsica, Cast, 0.720 Aleacion, Carlos Beltrán, Delirium, Oxomaxoma and Praxis. Groups like Nazca, Culto Sin Nombre, and Vector Escoplo had explorations in a more avant garde direction. Guitarist Victor Mendez developed a unique soloing style, collaborating in different projects with many of the musicians of the scene. Also Alquimia has made significant contributions. The progressive scene continued to thrive in the 1990s with Banda Elástica, Frolic Froth, Kromlech, Germán Bringas, Cabezas de Cera, Galie, Humus, Ulisses, Jose Luis Ledesma, Jaime Villarreal, Nirgal Vallis and Smoking The Century Away. Most of these groups have gained international acclaim in international forums, and some continue to evolve as of 2005. Jorge Reyes is somehow the "superstar" of the movement, since he is highly appraised in Europe, and has also moved (with not much success) to the mainstream scene.

[edit] Música Rupestre Scene

Since the late 1960s, there existed poets that sang with acoustic guitars and played in the then prosperous Café cantante scene. These forums showcased the folkloric music that came from South America, specially from Peru and Chile. Performers like Victor Jara, Violeta Parra, Inti Illimani, Los Folkloristas and local Oscar Chavez among many others denounced in their songs the atrocities of the military juntas that governed most of the countries from Nicaragua to Tierra del Fuego, and curiously the cafes cantantes thrived, as long as nothing was sung against the local government. The scene eclipsed by the early 1980s, but several musicians like Rockdrigo developed an own Mexican folk style, which came to be known as 'Música Rupestre'. Later on they were dubbed 'Los Urbanos', because although they played acoustic guitars, the themes of their lyrics revealed the adverse conditions the working class had to face in the big cities, and blues forms were then incorporated in their compositions. When El Tri made an electric rendition of Rockdrigo 's 'Metro Balderas' the fusion of rock and música rupestre was consummated. Many others had continued to surface, but Rockdrigo's untimely death during the earthquake of 1985 in Mexico City skyrocketed his already legendary status, and thus he is considered the most influential exponent of both rock urbano and música rupestre.

[edit] Metal Scene

Since the 1960s hard rock had been assimilated by several groups, like the aforementioned Dug Dugs and El Ritual, and later by others like Náhuatl, Nuevo México and Bloody Rock. During the following decade it continued to exist in forms of heavy blues, which was an authentic underground movement, which peaked in the late 1970s when the Hoyos Funky came to notoriety around 1977. Groups like Ramses and La Cruz are veterans of the era and were some of the first to be labeled as "heavy metal", but then again it was not until the 1990s that bands like Transmetal (band), Next and Semefo contributed to the scene with original approaches, when the most radical forms of the genre like death metal, Hardcore punk, Grindcore, etc.. were fully digested. The early bands were followed by myriads of other groups, that exist in an evergrowing underground movement of sports arenas weekend concerts all over the Country.

[edit] Melting Pot: Chopo Bazaar

In 1980 an unprecedented event took place: The National University of Mexico UNAM, through one of its cultural departments, invited the public in general to bring over their L.P. records and participate in trading them with other attendants. The gathering place was The Museo Universitario del Chopo, (popularly known as "Museo del Chopo") located in the heart of Mexico City, every Saturday morning. For the first time since Avándaro rock musicians and record collectors had the opportunity to meet each other and exchange records, which created a collective conscience about rock and subculture in general that nevertheless had existed but didn't have a "proper" site to develop. In the beginning the trading took place inside the facilities of the museum, but by the end of the year it couldn't contain an evergrowing crowd interested in finding records that were otherwise impossible to get from the established outlets, and the trading had become selling in many cases, where commerce sharks took advantage of the incipient new market for rock "rarities". So the gathering extended to the street right in front of the museum, and several stands were erected, transforming all the affair in a tianguis, a kind of street bazaar. Despite this the record trading was still the main attraction, but other problems emerged. The resident neighbors of the museum saw how their calm Saturday morning became disturbed by a menacing motley crowd, that now included punks, new wavers, hippies, rastafaris, and every other extravagant people that found could express themselves freely at the weekly gathering, and as said before, met others with the same likings and inclinations, but with eventual sneaking inside the surrounding buildings to smoke a joint, or worse. Soon the government tried to ban the tianguis, and as a matter of fact, the museum had already closed its doors to the whole event, stating that it or the National University "had nothing to do with the current state of affairs". They had created a monster, and it had grown so out of hand, that now it was on its own, and was being put down, like in the old days. But now the participants knew each other well, and the "heads" of the tianguis organized themselves, and as a group presented a proposition to the local government dependency, offering reliable and uncompromising security, and most important, a permanent fee. However, the officials were reluctant, and between 1982 and 1989 the "Chopo"(as it was now known) changed locations no less than six times, from parks to parking lots to faculty gardens, always because of pressure from officials. And against all odds, it was still growing. Finally, since 1990 it has been taking place on a street behind the Buenavista Train Station, not three blocks away from the original 'Museo del Chopo' location. From the original one hundred people that began attending in 1980, it is estimated that more than ten thousand people visit the tianguis every week. From the original record trading, it now displays all kinds of clothing, posters, movies, handicrafts, magazines, books, instruments, and all paraphaernalia related to the subculture, and rock in general. There have been interesting social studies about the Tianguis Cultural del Chopo(the official name), and people from around the world have marveled at display of such intense variety of subculture, when they have had the opportunity to watch it first hand. The Chopo has been a launching platform for many artists of different disciplines (not only rock music) to the world.

[edit] The Middle Eighties

Mexican Rock was somewhat dormant to the British Invasion of the early 1980s. Spanish rock bands like Hombres G, Mecano, Radio Futura and La Unión took over the spotlight. The national music scene at the time was mostly underground except for a few mainstream bands like Botellita de Jerez, Todos Tus Muertos, and El Tri. Mexican Pop bands like Timbiriche, Pandora, and Flans as well as Spanish pop bands like Olé-Olé dominated the airwaves.