Tesoro

I once believed flamenco, a beautiful harmony of rhythm, passion and lust, was a dying art form. In my mind it was a solitary silhouette of a once great ship sinking on the horizon, lost to the ages as it slowly fell beneath the blackened sea. That may sound overly dramatic, but I do have an overactive imagination. I suppose it doesn’t matter. My wild fantasies of sunken ships and forbidden flamenco treasures were all about to change.

It was another late night in the production booth at KAMP Student Radio on the University of Arizona campus. Former KAMP engineering director Matt Brailey and I were reviewing a few mixes we prepared for our next show. It was 10:30 p.m. on a white-hot Arizona night and the band we scheduled for an in-studio recording still hadn’t shown any signs of making an appearance.

“They did say they were gonna be a little late,” Brailey said as I impatiently checked my cell phone for the time. “Here, bring the levels on that guitar up a little more…You know what, check this band out. I think you’ll like them. I mixed this one a while back. Tell me what you think.”

I laughed. He was always good at holding my attention with his rapid change in subjects. He pulled up a file on his hard drive and tilted the studio speakers in my direction. What I heard sounded like a piece of history. If it’s possible for a song to have an old soul, this song certainly did. It had all the elements of a classic flamenco song with speedy finger picking solos, brief yet forceful guitar strokes and a dash of hot spice that left your throat burning for more.

“What is this?” I asked him, consumed in curiosity.

“Tesoro,” he said.



(Click the pic to hear the Live at KAMP Studio recording with Tesoro)


And that was that. I had to know more. Brailey was a great sound engineer, but he wasn’t too keen on organization. The song he played me didn’t even have a name besides “Song 6_mixdown – take1.” It didn’t matter though. I wanted more.

After a few failed Google searches (apparently I’m not the world’s greatest typist when I’m excited), I stumbled upon the band’s Web site. Little did I know their musical repertoire was is no way confined to flamenco stylings. The remarkable Tucson locals managed to fuse classic Spanish flare, jazz and rock to both create original material and perform popular flamenco covers. I leaned back triumphantly in my desk chair with a broad smile on my face as I scanned the site, their song “Trampoline” happily bouncing out my speakers.

New, innovative music to a college DJ is like tripping over a pot of gold. You could spend hours sifting through the stacks of new CDs and never find something this good. I suppose the best way to describe it is, it just feels right. You get chills down your arms as you push the slider on the control board up to “Max” and hear the song spilling out onto the airwaves. It’s a legal high and the station was essentially paying me at that moment to take a hit. Tesoro was my new favorite drug, in a metaphorical sense of course.

To my dismay, the Web site doesn’t promise any upcoming shows as far as I can tell. I placed a call to Ultragroove Entertainment, Tesoro’s management company, in the hopes of posting the band’s tour schedule here. Sadly, their manager Alan Thomas was unavailable.

In the meantime, check out the Tesoro official Web site or their Myspace page and see what the “high-pe” is all about.

El Guitarrón

It was Labor Day weekend and my family decided to make the two hour trek down to good ol’ T-Town to see their daughter. I sped down the corridors and burst out the front doors of Kaibab-Huachuca (my dorm) to meet them in the parking lot just outside. Weeks had come and gone since I’d seen them. My mom, in the true spirit of her Italian heritage, hopped down from the GMC Safari, took one look at me and said, ‘You must be hungry. Let’s get some food.”

And so we did.

We headed to El Charro, a restaurant my Mom and I discovered during my freshman orientation nearly four years ago. As we carefully browsed the menu for something that would silence our starving stomachs, I noticed five brightly dressed musicians stream into the crowd of ravenous, munching spectators. There was a flute player, a classical guitarist, two violinists and a woman holding what looked like a cello that was converted into an exceptionally large, and rather bulky, guitar. It was the first time I ever saw a guitarrón and I was fascinated by its sheer size and smooth, rhythmic sounds.

I noticed the instrument, which seemed to function as an acoustic bass guitar, had no frets and a very short neck. Its strings were so taught that I could have sworn they hovered a full inch above the stocky neck. For all the non-musicians out there, that means the guitar has extremely high action. Basically, the higher the action on an instrument, the more pressure your fingers have to exert to press down the strings and make a clean, crisp sound. Translation: lots of bleeding, calloused fingers. My left hand seemed to curl back in pain just watching the woman’s powerful fingers swoop down methodically and pluck the monstrosity hanging from her neck.


(Video Recording of the Song “La Bella Italia” Courtesy of YouTube)

“Now that,” I thought, “is harcore!” I laughed in spite of myself. I’m sure it was the first time in history anyone ever referred to a mariachi five-piece as “hardcore.”

The guitarrón, I later found, literally means “large guitar.” It is in fact fretless and is known for its heavy gauge strings and incredibly high action. The traditional mariachi bands of the 1800s included a harp, according to a Stanford University Web page. Because of the harp’s cumbersome shape, it took two people to move through the streets while the mariachi musicians played. In the 1920s, the groups decided to downsize and replaced the harp with the guitarrón. I suppose, putting it in perspective, the guitarrón isn’t all that bulky. Since then, the guitarrón’s relatively light frame and deep bass range is a staple of the mariachi music scene. For more on this fascinating piece of Mexican history, check out Stanford’s Mariachi Cardenal Web page. You might also browse the Candelas Guitars business Web site, a company that crafts traditional guitarróns by hand. You may not be a musician, but everyone can appreciate a beautifully crafted instrument.

Eric Holland

My first introduction to Eric Holland’s music and way of life was in a little plastic protector sheet resting on my desk at work. At the time I was interning for the Tucson Citizen’s Calendar and Weekend Plus sections. My current project was to bridge the gaps in geography and music to define the term that would later evolve into this blog, border rock. My editor, Polly Higgins, received the slightly disheveled plastic-protected press package detailing Holland’s latest release “American Inmigrante” in the mail. The enclosed CD had a picture of Holland walking across a patch of lonely desert with his trusty dog and guitar in hand. It was then that she posed the burning question: “What is the difference between border rock and desert rock?” Maybe Holland had the answer. After all, his songs were entirely about the trials and tribulations of the immigrant in what I warmly refer to as “Spanglish.” There was only one way to find out.

Flash forward to a few weeks later.

Holland’s frequent travels to Mexico made him hard to get a hold of, but he was extremely determined to meet. Finally, after phone calls and emails, I was sitting in Gentle Bens, pen and notepad in hand at the first available table nearest the door. Holland agreed to meet me there on his tour route through Tucson.

Holland strode in just as I’d pictured him, relaxed long hair trailing behind his ears, a button up shirt and khakis. He took a seat at my table, ordered a tonic water to take the edge off the heat outside, and was ready to talk.



He spent the last 10 years teaching as an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher in Mexico after retiring from being a world renown tennis pro. At some point, he explained promptly, your body breaks down and you have to find something else to do. His travels on pro-tennis tours left him tired but also trilingual in English, Spanish and French. Teaching just seemed like the natural way to go. Little did he know his students would become the inspiration for most of his music. As his lyrics go, “tip the sombrero low, feel the sand between your toes, your new life begins in Mexico.”

“I didn’t start writing until this immigration thing came up. There’s a voice for the silent that needs to be out there,” said Holland. “There’s no time to hate we all have belly buttons.”

With influences like Marty Robbins, Joe Ely and the Eagles, Holland’s sound falls somewhere in Tom Petty land with a cloud of dust rising in the background for desert flavor.

“Like Elvis said, ‘it’s all rock and roll.’ I’m just a different subspecies of rock and roll,” Holland said.

Though his sound is familiar, his lyrics are unique heartfelt tales that speak of life torn between two borders. Admittedly categorizing himself as border rock, Holland believes the term encompasses the political realm as much as the musical one.

“The message has to get out there of the people dying in the desert,” he said, attempting to define the term. “And I think of the old ballads of the frontier and corridos.”

In the end, Holland decided trying to delve too deep into a subject that’s too new to define was pointless. Whatever border rock was, I was only inches closer to finding it. I left Gentle Bens with less answers than I’d hoped, but the Eric Holland detour was definitely worth the experience.

For more information on Eric Holland, check out the Web site at http://www.erichollandaz.com.

The Voodoo Glow Skulls Promise To Hypnotize Audiences Again

It was a hot St. Patrick’s Day at the Mesa Amphitheater in 2007. The crowd was biding it’s time until the moment Flogging Molly would take the stage. Lounging in the unforgiving, sharp desert grass my brother and I watched opening band after opening band and were exponentially disappointed with each stage switch. With the exception of the boisterous Irish folk-punk band The Liar’s Handshake, the openers did little to distract our attention from the blazing sun.

Then, without warning, the lazy sun-soaked crowd rose to its feet and groggily headed toward the stage. The Voodoo Glow Skulls were up next and everyone seemed to awaken from their heat-induced coma. I had never heard of them before and, determined to save my last remaining bit of energy for Flogging Molly, I waited in the grass to see what the commotion was about. The band of brothers Frank, Eddie and Jorge Casillas, Jerry O’Neill, Brodie Johnson and Eric Fazzini took to the stage. The stage security fence was thick with people now. Layers of fans crammed against the chain links looking to catch a glimpse. Suddenly, I knew why. The band’s high powered guitar riffs and brass section blasted out into the amphitheater like a battle cry to ska fans everywhere. It was just the slap in the face my brother and I needed to rise to our feet and cram toward the stage. Their energy was contagious. More and more people flocked to the amp-laden set up. I looked over at my little brother, whose usual concert stance was a furrowed brow and crossed arms, only to find he was head banging and biting his lip with a wide smile.

That was my first memory of the Voodoo Glow Skulls.

"Bulletproof" by the Voodoo Glow Skulls provided by YouTube.
(***WARNING: The introduction to this song contains strong language***)


The ska-core punk band has been building momentum since 1988. Encompassing a wide array of almost contradictory musical elements, the Skulls combine upbeat ska rhythm and horns, heavy guitar, Mexican-American politics and forceful, edgy vocals. Their latest album is set to be released September 18 on Victory Records and has been in the works for nearly a year, according to the band’s official Web site at www.voodooglowskulls.com. The project, entitled “Southern California Street Music,” was largely the brainchild of guitarist Eddie Casillas. Recorded in installments inside Casillas’ Riverside, Calif., home production center Dog Run Studios, the project marks the band’s eighth full-length album. Soon after the launch, the band will set out for yet another exhaustive U.S./European tour.

I highly recommend checking out the show. The Skulls are going on 19 years now, so they must be doing something right.

Their scheduled stops according to the Web site are:
09-15 Simi Valley, CA
Venue: SIMI VALLEY MUSIC FESTIVAL
09-21 Apple Valley, CA
Venue: ANGEL’S ROADHOUSE2
09-22 Riverside, CA
Venue: TREMORS
09-29 Bullhead City, AZ
Venue: CORNFEST
10-01 ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.
Venue: LAUNCHPAD
10-02 Salt Lake City, UT
Venue: AVALON
10-03 Colorado Springs, CO
Venue: BLACK SHEEP
10-04 Oklahoma City, OK
Venue: THE BLUE NOTE
10-05 Tulsa, OK
Venue: MERCURY LOUNGE
10-06 Springfield, MO
Venue: REMINGTON’S
10-08 Chicago, IL
Venue: TBA
10-09 Detroit, MI
Venue: TBA
10-10 Cleveland, OH
Venue: AGORA BALLROOM
10-11 Pittsburgh, PA
Venue: MR. SMALL’S
10-12 Buffalo, NY
Venue: MOHAWK PLACE
10-13 NY, NY
Venue: TBA
10-14 Philadelphia, PA
Venue: TBA
10-15 Portland, MN
Venue: THE STATION
10-16 Hartford, CT
Venue: WEBSTER THEATRE
10-17 Boston, MA
Venue: HARPER’S FERRY
10-18 Albany, NY
Venue: VALENTINE’S
10-19 Syracuse, NY
Venue: CLUB POLSKI
10-20 Baltimore, MD
Venue: OTTO BAR
10-21 Pompton Lakes, NJ
Venue: MAIN STAGE
10-23 FT. Lauderdale, FL
Venue: STUDIO A
10-24 Orlando, FL
Venue: THE SOCIAL
10-25 St. Petersburgh, FL
Venue: STATE THEATRE
10-29 Tempe, AZ
Venue: THE CLUBHOUSE
10-30 San Fran, CA
Venue: BOTTOM OF THE HILL
10-31 Riverside, CA
Venue: ROMANO’S
11-02 Hollywood, CA
Venue: THE KNITTING FACTORY
11-03 Lancaster, CA
Venue: CEDAR CENTER