Thursday, April 23, 2009

Jazz Fest is coming, sure, so is Chicha Libre and Dengue Fever

I'm going to be blogging my Jazz fest experience on the fly for WWOZ and linking to that once it's underway. For other days I'm probably going to post my gameplan, but to be honest there's not an awful lot catching my eye on Friday, so chances are I'm going to float around and see what I see.

But after all that hooplah, there's a great show at One Eyed Jacks. Chicha Libre is playing with Dengue Fever. For those unfamiliar, neither are particularly RRHHWW standard fare, but each have little touches that would appeal. OK, those touches are surf rock, but in a very obscured manner.


Chicha Libre in particular is exciting. I would have a few preview MP3s and all sorts of details, but to be honest, they've already done things better than I could have. Follow this link, listen to the entire album and read as much as you'd like. It's a little less impressive when you realize that some of these are straightforward covers from the Roots of Chicha compilation (still in print).


OK now, take that formula and apply it to Cambodia and you've got a horrible but semi-functional description of Dengue Fever. I remember getting this in at WESU while I was a music director and seeing the description. These usually read as total bullshit and the rule of thumb is the more unrelated the recommendations, the better the album. Dengue Fever read something like Yma Sumac, Link Wray and Os Mutantes. I knew it was going to be good. Well, it wasn't as good as their older albums but regardless, I'd bet they're absolutely worth seeing live. So I will.

2 comments:

Mr. W said...

Great recommendation- the show was fantastic!

Brandonio! said...

Thanks for reminding me of this band Dengue Fever.I read a cool review in a magazine a few years ago,and was very intrigued to say the least.Now I'm going track down some of their albums!