It would be an
appropriate homage, since Amezuca
and Mogt are both Tijuana natives
whose work and worldviews are heavily
inspired by the border-straddling
city.
The nomination
is their first here, despite winning
international acclaim for their
previous two albums — "Tijuana Sessions"
and "Tijuana Sessions, Vol. 3" —
with the larger Nortec Collective,
whose name comes from the combining
of traditional Mexican Norteno music
and techno. "Tijuana Sound Machine"
is credited to Nortec Collective
Presents: Bostich & Fussible, a
designation that underscores it
is a duo project by Amezuca and
Mogt, not a full group collaboration.
While laptop computers
and an array of high-tech accouterments
are their chosen instruments for
creating sonic adventure, Mogt and
Amezuca's music together fuses electronica
and Norteno with such styles as
banda, cumbia and Tambora, a rural
brass-and-percussion style from
Sinaloa.
Ironically, both
Mogt and Amezuca had shunned these
traditional Mexican idioms for years,
preferring the music they heard
on various San Diego radio stations
as teenagers.
"We listened to
groups like Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk
and Cabaret Voltaire on 91X and
KPRI, and we loved Steve Roach's
show, 'Music From the Hearts of
Space,' on KPBS," said Amezuca,
46, a classically trained cellist
who works as an orthodontist and
dentist in Tijuana when not performing
Nortec concerts around the world.
Their disdain
for Norteno, Tambora and similar
idioms changed when Amezuca and
Mogt co-founded Nortec Collective
in 1999 with fellow musicians Pedro
Gabriel "Hiperboreal" Beas, Jorge
"Tre/Molo" Ruiz and Jorge "Clorofila"
Verdin, and video artist Roberto
A. Mendoza "Panoptica" Lopez, who
left Nortec recently.
"We used to have
a lot of prejudice about our culture,"
said Amezuca, who in 2003 collaborated
on the traditional Mexican song
"El Sinaloense" with the Kronos
Quartet.
"When we started
combining Sinaloense music and electronica,
a lot of people rejected it and
started to attack us."
The controversy
ended soon after the 2001 release
of "Tijuana Sessions." It was the
group's debut for Palm Pictures,
the New York label founded by Chris
Blackwell, who in the 1970s helped
make Bob Marley a global superstar.
By deftly embracing
the traditional Mexican music its
members had once spurned, then turning
it inside out with synthesizers
and sequencers, the Nortec Collective
earned rave reviews from New York
to London and beyond.
Released last
year by Nacional Records, "Tijuana
Sound Machine" is the most fully
recognized of such musical fusion
to date. Last year's tour by Nortec
Collective Presents: Bostich & Fussible
marked the first time any Nortec
members had performed live with
a band, instead of just triggering
samples of a band on laptops.
Amezuca and Mogt's
only scheduled Southern California
performance so far this year is
in mid-May at the seventh annual
Joshua Tree Music Festival. By then,
they may be billed as Grammy Award
winners, assuming the duo triumphs
Feb. 8 when the Grammys are given
out in Los Angeles.
"'Tijuana Sound
Machine' has more meaning for Pepe
and me, because the other albums
were like a compilation with all
of Nortec Collective's members,"
said Amezuca, as he and Mogt sat
for an interview in the tiny Chula
Vista, Calif., studio where the
two record.
Mogt, who is nearly
a decade younger than Amezuca, immediately
concurred with his musical partner's
assessment.
"The 15 tracks
on this album reflect our lives
from both sides of the border,"
Mogt said.
"That's why there
is an old car on the album cover.
You listen to it and its like being
in a car, crossing back and forth
between San Diego and Tijuana. Plus,
you have all these military checkpoints
now in Tijuana, so some of the songs
have military police radio samples
that we made."
The profound changes
in Tijuana over the past few years
will be mirrored on the next album
by the two, who had previously earned
multiple MTV Latin America nominations
for their Nortec Collective work
and as a duo but had never been
nominated before in this country.
"The changes in
Tijuana, which has become a city
of violence, will be reflected on
our next album," Amezuca said. "But
it's not only a matter of channeling
what is happening in Tijuana. We
can also take things we grew up
with, like the techno and Acid House
music we grew up listening to in
the 1980s."
Neither Amezuca
nor Mogt have ever watched the Grammy
Awards telecast before, let alone
attended as nominees.
"It's great that
they gave us a nomination and it
will mean more exposure for Nortec.
But a Grammy is not something we're
looking for," said Mogt, who will
arrive at the awards directly from
a solo DJ gig in Tahiti. "So, if
we don't win, it won't hurt my feelings."
(set image) pta020209-vis.jpg
(end image) (set caption) With the
success of "Tijuana Sound Machine,"
the future looks bright for Tijuana-based
Grammy Award nominees Pepe Mogt
(left) and Ramon Amezuca. Photo
courtesy of Nelvin Cepeda. (end
caption)
To find out more about George
Varga and read features by other
Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists,
visit the Creators Syndicate website
at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE
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