The Bronx are a hardcore punk band from LA. In that respect, to my ears, they’re fairly predictable – the sort of thing you’d expect to hear turn up on the soundtrack to a Tony Hawk Pro Skater game.
Mariachi El Bronx though, are their mariachi alter ego. It seems they are their own support act and in this guise they are brilliant. I love those mariachi horns on these songs about jail, murder and hookers.
This is the opening track from their album El Bronx which is pretty much in the same vein. I’m enjoying this album a lot.
Oh and don’t refer to them as a mariachi band, that’s like saying band band.
I was listening to London Calling whilst at the gym this evening. I’m still looking for my perfect gym music. When I used to go, I’d listen to Slayer whilst on the running machine. I’d end up nearly killing myself, running too fast and throwing the horns \m/ which is not really a good way to carry on.
Anyway this evening it was London Calling which worked reasonably well. This track is the Clash’s take on Stagger Lee. I featured Missisippi John Hurt’s version a couple of weeks back.
…was the original title of this classic. At the request of Virgin it got changed to a Certain Manchester Megastore so you have to correct it for yourself when you hear it. Either way it’s a great title. Of course the Manchester Virgin Megastore doesn’t exist anymore and if there is still a Zavvi in Manchester, I suspect its days are numbered too.
This song really is a monument of sorts to an almost defunct part of music culture. Record shops are fighting a losing battle now against supermarkets, Amazon and iTunes. Some proper record shops, like Swordfish in Birmingham still cling on, but last time I was in HMV they had two racks of CDs and the rest of the huge store was shifting DVDs and computer games.
I love the bit in this song where it lists a load of record labels. It sounded so exotic. I can just picture the labels on releases for quite a lot of these. In the final days of the “big four” record labels not many exist any more.
“As she sells here records on such labels as,
EMI, CBS, A&M, RCA, Hansa, Stateside, Creole, Apple, Decca, Charisma, Virgin, Zapple, RSO, Island too,
Stiff, Jet, Logo, Factory, Zoo, who all turned me down,
And not forgetting there’s,
Bell, Gull, Cube, MAM, WEA, RAK, Phonogram, Rediffusion, Swan, Atlantic, Caroussel, Transatlantic, Chrysalis, Polydor, Warner Brothers, Manticore…”
Chris Sievey of the Freshies went onto become my favourite papier maché artiste from Timperley, Frank Sidebottom.
Stooges guitarist, Ron Asheton, was found dead today in his home in Ann Arbor, near Detroit. He died a few days ago of a heart attack it seems. Not much more to say really, other than to put forward this track from their debut album as some sort of tribute. His guitar playing on this pretty much sums up his importance and influence in popular music. That was him, second from the left.
