Austin, Texas. What a great city for music. What many outside of Austin fail to realize is in between the madness of South By Southwest and ACL Fest, Austin has a plethora of locally based musical talent playing here on a daily basis. Austin is the city that is home to Spoon, Alejandro Escovedo, Black Joe and The Honeybears, The Sword, The Riverboat Gamblers and Grupo Fantasma just to name a few. Speaking of Grupo Fantasma, its funky little brother and Austin staple, Brownout, is releasing their new album this month. The follow up to Homenaje, the new Aguilas y Cobras album out does its predecessor by leaps and bounds.
Austin’s own Latin rock band, Bocastria, released their first full length album in October. We have it here on cdFuse. Texicana is unique combination of rock en Espanol, traditional Mexican ranchera and Tejano. Led by vocalist Tanya Martinez, Bocastria offers Latin music lovers in a variety of influences on one CD. Texicana picks up where their debut 2006 EP, Enter The Groove, left off.
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Last Thursday at Antone's, New York's own Pacha Massive played a free show sponsored by Pacifico Beer. Pacha Massive is a bilingual band who blends Latin, jazz, funk and some electronica. Their sound is something I have been looking for in Latin music for a while. I have discovered some real Latin music gems this year at the local level, such as Maneja Beto and Grupo Fantasma, but not anything new in the Latin mainstream.
This past Friday I was lucky enough to be invited to attend new in studio tapings of M.E. Live! here in Austin. The tapings came before two Latino Music Month showcases.The first being a Conexion Rockera production at Stubbs featuring Pinata Protest, and two groups I saw Friday. The other showcase was the first ever Pachanga Music Festival. Since I was unable to attend either this weekend due to other obligations, the M.E. Live taping allowed me to experience what I missed.
