SOUNDTRACK: Y LA BAMBA-Tiny Desk Concert #893 (September 20, 2019).
It used to be that no one was invited back to play a Tiny Desk Concert. The rules have been relaxed somewhat as of late (I would have thought that maybe they’d wait until 1000 shows).
The blurb explains why they (she) was invited back though.
Luz Elena Mendoza has such a far-reaching creative spirit that it’s almost impossible to confine her to a single musical identity. Which is why she’s one of just a handful of artists who’ve been invited back to the Tiny Desk to offer a revised musical vision.
Y La Bamba was on back in 2011 and they played a more acoustic style of music–accordion, percussion, guitar and lot of singers. For this show, lead Bamba, Luz Elena Mendoza looks quite different. In 2011, her hair was black and long, here it is silver and short–the neck tattoo is the same, though.
When she was here last with the band Y La Bamba, it was a vocal-heavy, folk outfit. The band’s sound has always been about vocals and her music has become even more so over the years.
Back in May, Y La Bamba played Non-Comm and Mendoza was pretty confrontational. She is less so here, allowing the music to speak for her.
And the music is quite different. It’s almost all in Spanish this time. There’s a second guitarist (Ryan Oxford), a bass (Zachary Teran), and a drummer (Miguel Jimenez-Cruz). She also has two backing singers, Julia Mendiolea who also plays keyboard and Isabeau Waia’u Walker.
I knew that Y La Bamba was the project of Mendoza, but i didn’t realize she did everything herself:
Y La Bamba’s albums are meticulously crafted sonic treats with her vocals layered like a choir made with a single voice. But in our offices, she called on vocalist Isabeau Waia’u Walker to replicate their distinct sound.
There’s a great variety of styles in this Tiny Desk.
“Paloma Negra” (“Black Pigeon”) [also played at Non-Comm] benefits from the voices of the entire band in a high-energy mediation on rhythm and voice.
It’s got a groovy, funky bassline and some cool echoing guitars. There’s a tension in the verses that is totally relieved in the super catchy chorus.
This song segues into “Rios Sueltos” which is a kind of rap–but sung. It’s bouncy and catchy but I sense is probably not a happy song, despite the catchy “hey ey ey heys” in the middle.
The song ends with a rumbling from Mendoza’s guitar as she starts up “Bruja de Brujas” [also played at Non-Comm].
There is a bruja energy and spirit to their performance, and not in the negative connotation that is the Spanish word for “witch.” In Luz Elena Mendoza’s hands a brujeria spirit is all about conjuring the kind of magic that took place on this video.
The song opens with a cool bass line and a somewhat menacing feel. It starts quietly, but when all three vocalists sing together it’s really lovely.
At the end of the song she sinks to the ground to play with her effects as the song fades out with trippy sounds. She jokes, “And aliens came down.:
Then she realizes, “we forgot to do one more. Sorry the aliens did come down… and took my brain.”
The final song is the fantastic “Cuatro Crazy” [also played at Non-Comm]. It is sweet and pretty and has echoing guitars and a vocal style not unlike a Cocteau Twins song. It even ends with a lot of “dah dah dah dahs.”
I really enjoy their music quite a lot and should really look into their stuff more.
[READ: October 6, 2019] “Abandoning a Cat”
This essay is, indeed, about abandoning a cat. The cat story has a happy ending (although another one might not). But mostly the essay is about how mundane events trigger memories of our parents.
He says that when he was little, his family had an older cat and they needed to get rid of it. “Getting rid of cats back then was a common occurrence, not something that anyone would criticize you for. The idea of neutering cats never crossed anyone’s mind.”
His father took the bike and he sat on the back with the cat in a box. They rode to the beach about 2 km from their house, put the box down, and headed back.
When they returned home, they opened the door and there was the cat “greeting us with a friendly meow, its tail standing tall.” His father’s expression of blank amazement “changed to one of admiration and, finally, to an expression of relief. And the cat went back to being out pet.”
Another memory concerns prayers. Every morning before breakfast, his father would sit in front of the butsudan shrine and recite Buddhist sutras. Once when he asked what his father prayed for, his father answered that he prayed for his fellow Japanese soldiers as well as the Chinese who had been their enemy.
When his father was younger, it was common for younger songs to become Buddhist priests. His grandfather was a priest and when he died it was assumed that one of his six sons would take over the temple (a great financial burden). When his father went to grieve, Haruki’s mother told his father “don’t agree to take over the temple.” In the end, his uncle Shimei took over the responsibility–he left his job and everything to take over the temple.
His father was also drafted into the military even though as a student he was not supposed to be–it was an administrative error. Haruki thought he knew about his father’s service but he had some dates and locations incorrect. Haruki was always concerned that his father had participated in the infamous march into Nanjing, but his father was drafted a year after the event. And yet once, his father told him about the time when his battalion captured and executed a Chinese soldier. The solider knew he was to be executed, but he didn’t struggle or show fear, “the man’s attitude was exemplary,” his father said. Obviously this cold-blooded story of decapitation, stuck with young Haruki.
His father was released from service eight days before the attack of Pearl Harbor, “After that attack, I doubt the military would have been generous enough to let him go.”
In total his father was drafted into service three times.
His father became a teacher. He loved and studied haiku. He even wrote one based on the good-will visit by the Hitler Youth”
They call out, singing
to bring the deer closer,
the Hitler Youth
Although when his father was younger he drank a lot and occasionally hit his students. And yet he must have been an excellent teacher as many students paid their respects when he died. His mother was also an excellent teacher and many of her pupils would stop by for a visit.
But his father must have been very disappointed in young Haruki who was not a very good student. He and his father were estranged when he was a teenager. Later, after he got married they were estranged even further.
The were able to talk again just before his father died.
I will spare the (possibly) sadder cat story, but it does kind of tie things together.
I really enjoy Murakami’s writing, even these essays. This was translated by Philip Gabriel.
I Just Read About That... 
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