last night we went to echo park to see aterciopelados. i have never gone to echo park for anything. i think it's one of those places that LA suburbites avoid like the plague. even though i was armed with directions from yahoo maps as well as directions from the club's own web site, we could not find the place right away. it wasn't clear which way to go from the freeway exit so we went the wrong way and had to turn around. then we missed the street to turn onto because it wasn't one with a signal. when we finally got to where it should be according to the map, we couldn't see any damn club. we parked the car walked around. i noticed that people were gather behind a building. we walked over there. bingo. the place is called explex (echo plex), with the subtitle of "below the echo". honey, you should call it "behind the echo". you should tell people to look behind the main stores at the front of the street. or at least put a "echo" sign with arrow pointing the way towards the back.

the club staff had everyone get into 2 lines. 1 line was for those that wanted to purchase tickets. the other line was for those that had tickets or had tickets at will call. um, that doesn't make sense. usually you put those that need tickets in any way in 1 line, and all those with tickets already in hand into another line. it just moves faster that way! so we stood there for awhile before we were finally let in. once we were inside, the place was a lot bigger and nicer than i thought it'd be. it was some nightclub with 2 bars. we saved a spot for ourselves right against the small stage. i noticed there was a guitar pick at the front of the stage. it looked funky, kinda like the ones andrea uses. could she have dropped it during soundcheck? could it belong to a band from the previous night or a house band? who knows. i pocketed it anyway.

i was hoping there wouldn't be an opening band again but the several chairs and acoustic guitars at the front of the stage indicated that there would be one. i could see the setlist already taped to the floor and ay dias mio, there were so many! i was not looking forward to it. since it was all acoustic instruments, i was thinking it would be some slow, boring hippy crap. i was wrong. it was < a href="http://www.lospinguos.com/">los pinguos who performed. i didn't realize it then but i already knew one of their songs from a compilation cd i have (they didn't perform it). reading about them online, the group is originally from argentina but they moved to LA to make it big. they play really energetic latin-flair acoustic music. everyone in the group sings along. 2 members play acoustic guitar and the singer seems to do a fair amount of lead for being the lead singer in the group. 1 member plays the cajon, that box you sit on. his cajon sounded damn good. i haven't heard too many people play cajon but everytime, it must not have been mic-ed properly. this cajon sounded amazing! i could hear this sounds i didn't expect from it, kinda like there was something inside the box, little balls rustling. then there was a bassist and another guy who played i don't know what the hell. it was like a small guitar but the strings were paired up into sets of 2 each. i thought perhaps they are tuned to be the same (double) or maybe an octave apart or even possibly at a 4th or 5th apart. reading about them, i was close. it's often called a cuban tres guitar and the paired strings can be tuned an octave apart. his instrument was mic-ed the lowest and he was pissed about it. i couldn't hear his playing so much but overall they were really good and it surprised me how much i liked them. their songs weren't short but the time went by quickly because the songs were fun and everyone in the audience was into it. in fact, their cds were sold out after the show.

hector and andrea giving it their all

when aterciopelados took the stage, i tried to focus on taking pictures and watching what chords andrea plays during the songs. several others were taking pictures as well and i was happy that they were allowing people to take pictures. the vibe of the show was really good, so much so that the band decided to play more than what was on the setlist, though they only added 1 more song. when their set was over, the band again handed out presents. this time i was able to get one! the drummer handed it to me. thanks! it's a necklace again, but this time only a single ear. i feel like van gogh, hahaha.

me with andrea's guitar (big jesus sticker not visible)

we stuck around and didn't leave right away. we were able to get a setlist and have the guitarist and percussionist sign it. i saw the roadie was letting a girl pose with andrea's guitar for a picture and even though my battery had died several times already, i hoped there would be enough juice left to squeeze out one more picture. i walked up to the roadie and said something like "y yo tambien" and he handed me the guitar and i handed him my camera. he asked, "listo?" and i replied in spanese, "listo yo!" in spanish that's "ready i" which makes no sense but "yo" at the end of a sentence in japanese is very common. it's more of a casual thing that emphasizes what you're saying, like "yeah ready". we hung out for awhile outside and had the drummer sign the setlist. he said they're coming back to play in september/october. cool!

setlist:
(coming shortly)