We’re super excited to DJ for “El Rebelde del acordeón” aka Celso Piña and Gina Madrid on Sat 1/20 at The New Parish in Oakland! Get your tickets 👉🏽 HERE
If you’ve had your ear to cumbia music over the past decade then you already know this man has been leading the way with modern cumbia torpical. If you need a little taste…
Last night our residency as the house DJs for Friday Nights @ OMCA (Oakland Museum of California) wrapped up. For those unfamiliar, every Friday night OMCA closes down 2 blocks, and it basically hosts a big family after work “happy hour” with live music. This month featured: Bang Data, Fito Reinoso, Los Rakas, and Phillip Montalbán and the Bluefields Sound. Big thank you to event’s organizer, Preston Freedom, for the continued love and support. Typically for anything we are a part of we bring our crates full of vinyl, however last night due to other circumstances I rolled with just the laptop. Even though I have a lot of my vinyl digitized when I play them through Serato it just doesn’t feel as good. So for my contribution I went with all newish digital-only tracks that skew dance floor-ready. Here’s a playlist from what I had going last night. Shoutouts and big congrats to DJ Papicultor’s students who just graduated and had the dance floor lit.
Our favorite brown knights, Chicano Batman are coming back to the Bay on Friday, May 15 in San Francisco at The Brick and Motor and then the following night, May 16 in Oakland at Leo’s Music Club. La Pelanga will be teaming up with them for both shows along with Thee Commons for two nights of connecting past with present and soul to somos. In other words—you best be ready to rock out and dance.
Be warned, every show they have had in the Bay has sold out. There’s nothing we’ve hated more than having to turn beautiful gente away. Get your tickets now while they are still available!
For this podcast we decided to try something we have never done before — set out to do a show without any records from our collection. Instead we went to a local record swap meet with a set budget of $50 each to create our playlist for the day.
North Oakland record swap meet—time to start digging
Arjuna (DJ Smokestack) is in his happy place
May-Li (DJ China Tu Madre) previewing a possible winner
Jacob (Dj Pozole) scrutinizing each track
Federico (DJ Papicultor) sampling West African treasures
After a full afternoon of digging through many boxes of records from all over the world we headed straight back to La Sala to see if we spent our money wisely. We think we did pretty well, but have a listen and let us know what you think.
Playlist:
Fela Ransome-Kuti and Africa ’70 with Ginger Baker – Let’s Start
20th Century Steel Band – Heaven and Hell is on Earth
Monarco – Silenciar A Mangueira
Avohou Pierre Et L’Orchestre Black Santiago – Makoba Houi Dé O