Mexican-American superstar Pepe Aguilar's first public radio interview; Jefferson Starship's Craig Chaquico emits Beamz with a new instrument for the non-musical masses; facing death rationally; and gourmet ghosts.
Mexican Ranchera singer and pop superstar Pepe Aguilar gets his due at The Grammy Museum
UPDATE: On May 20, 2014, Pepe Aguilar gets his due at The Grammy Museum at LA Live, with a new exhibit called "Pepe Aguilar…La Leyenda Contunúa." The exhibit includes the charro suit and saddle he used as a kid when he made his Madison Square Garden debut; family photos; and letters written by his late father, Don Antonio Aguilar. And on May 21, he'll be onstage for an interview in the Museum’s Clive Davis Theater.
For a fifth of our audience, he needs no introduction, but the rest of you have been missing out.
Pepe Aguilar sings Mexican ranchera music, and has sold more than 12-million records. He was born in San Antonio, Texas, 45 years ago, but he was brought up on tour.
BELOW: Listen to Pepe Aguilar's favorite tribute songs
His father was the late Antonio Aguilar, one of the greats of ranchera music, and his mother is Flor Silvestre, a singer and actor from Mexico's golden age of cinema. Last year, he got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Pepe Aguilar's new album — his 24th — is a tribute to yet another of the greats, his father's rival Vicente Fernández. It debuted on iTunes at #1, and is called "Lástima Que Sean Ajenas," a joking reference to the Vicente Fernández song, "Lástima Que Seas Ajena," which translates roughly as "it's too bad she doesn't belong to me." The album's title, switching out "they" for "she," could be read as "I wish those were my songs."
"If you have grown up in the last three decades and you are a ranchera singer like me, Vicente Fernández has to be one of your idols," said Aguilar. "It's the Last of the Mohicans, that guy. It's a different story. People listen to many genres, not only one or two. For me it was important to close that era with my tribute to the last of the Mohicans."
Many children of stars who follow their parents' footsteps are tormented because they can never measure up. You can hear in that quote that Pepe Aguilar doesn't seem to have that problem. If anyone is allowed to close a door, it's him.
Aguilar says music is all he ever wanted to do, whether or not he made money from it. And if changing times means he may never experience the cultural dominance his parents enjoyed, 12-million records and a #1 debut on iTunes — coming in his 13th year as an independent artist — is nothing to sneeze at. And, in my opinion, where his father's voice had character, Aguilar's is fuller, more soaring and beautiful.
Aguilar says he strives to make music that has no boundaries, and there's no good reason more Anglos shouldn't buy his albums, even though they're sung in Spanish. The voice, the arrangements, the production values, the pure romance — they're all irresistible.
Frankly, isn't it better to not speak the language when you put a make-out album on the turntable? (Barry White's lyrics are distracting.)
Pepe Aguilar puts on a hell of a show, in charro costume, with a full band, and he has two concerts coming up. Thursday, Nov 21, at San Manuel Casino in Highland and Friday, Nov 22, at Valley View Casino Center in San Diego.
Aguilar shared his favorite tribute songs with KPCC. Listen to his Spotify playlist and tell us who else deserves a tribute album on Twitter using #PepeAguilarKPCC — or in the comments below.
'Invisible Cities' is a new interactive opera at Union Station
If you travel through Union Station this weekend, you might walk right into the middle of an opera performance and not even realize it. You might even brush it off, thinking you've run into some ordinary wackjobs singing to themselves and dancing at no one in particular. But then you might keep watching and notice something more spectacular afoot.
Saturday marks the opening of 'Invisible Cities', an interactive opera collaboration between The Industry and the LA Dance Company based on Italo Calvino's novel. Offramp's Jerry Gorin spoke with composer Christopher Cerrone, who says that if you're just passing by, expect the unexpected.
How does the opera work?
What we have is a live orchestra who are being amplified and projected into your ears live (through wireless headphones). They're all in a single location, where you'll start, and then you're free to wander the station. Throughout the station you have both opera singers and dancers, who are strategically placed in many places throughout the station. So as you wander throughout the station, sonically you'll hear the exact same work because all the sound is being mixed into your headphones, but the visual experience is at your own discretion.
What happens if the audience bunches up and crowds a certain actor? Might they have to change their routine?
The actors have been prescribed to go about their actions as if no one is there, and unless we have an extraordinarily obstinate audience member, I think they'll all be respectful of the cast. But they're all invited to crowd around as much as they want to. I find, as I walk through dress rehearsals, getting excited to find things as I hear them. When a new cast member comes in singing, I have felt compelled to go find them, because even I haven't discussed with our director, Yuval Sharon, exactly where everyone is at all times. I have a general idea of the trajectory of the show, but I still might go "Hey, I wonder what's going on over here" and then I'll see.
On top of that, what's interesting in the show is that you might see something and not be sure whether or not it's being staged. The show is very much designed to start that way. Discovery is absolutely part and parcel, it's not something that would be an impediment.
You were approached by Yuval Sharon with this idea. Did it make sense at first?
Well I'm from New York, so my idea of a train station was much more Grand Central than it was Union Station. So I think when he told me about Union Station as the setting I was hesitant simply because my default train station is so crowded and busy that it would never be possible. But he took me to LA, and I think the space is, in a sense, underutilized. There's a lot of space in that station-- a beautiful old ticket counter which is not used at all, the Harvey restaurant, the gardens-- and given that Los Angeles is the 2nd largest city in America, it's pretty calm.
What's been the most rewarding part of working on this?
I think the most rewarding part is to see an idea I had many years ago finally realized in a way that makes me very excited. I'd fallen for Calvino's work for years and used his novel as the basis for a number of instrumental pieces before finally deciding to adapt Calvino to opera. We'd done a stage production at Columbia University before this, and it did not feel right. It felt like it was trying to impose a work-- which is not a dramatic work in a traditional sense-- onto a stage, and it felt very flat to me. Whereas now I feel the work is alive and you live in it. To experience it physically felt much closer to what I was hoping to have the opera be in the first place, but it took quite a few years to actually get there.
'Invisible Cities' is a collaboration of Yuval Sharon's The Industry and Benjamin Millepied's LA Dance Project. The show has a limited run from October 19-November 8, and tickets can be found at www.invisiblecitiesopera.com
'Gourmet Ghosts' finds scary stories in LA landmarks
Maybe Yelp is your first stop when looking for a place to grab a drink. Or maybe you leave it to writers and critics. But, if you'd rather read a ghost story than a food review when deciding on a place for your next night out, "Gourmet Ghosts" is the book for you.
When "Gourmet Ghosts" author James Bartlett came to L.A. from London about 10 years ago, he says he couldn't find the city guide book he was looking for. "I was looking for something with some interesting stories, some unusual stories, maybe ghostly stories, something certainly about history as well. ... And I couldn't really find anything," Bartlett says.
So Bartlett wrote his own. Packed with the mystery, murders and ghost stories surrounding more than 40 local bars and restaurants, "Gourmet Ghosts" takes a historical look at some of L.A.'s best haunts, like the Roosevelt in Hollywood, Mid-City's El Carmen and the Redwood Bar and Grill downtown.
Located near the L.A. Times building, the Redwood has hosted lawyers, bail bondsmen, politicians like Bobby Kennedy and Richard Nixon, and, not surprisingly, hundreds of journalists.
So many L.A. Times reporters frequented the bar that, for several years, the Times paid for a direct phone line to the Redwood. And that bright red phone still hangs on the wall by the door at the Redwood. "It was installed by the L.A. Times so they could call across to here to get ahold of a reporter or photographer — because they were in here so often. Up until a couple of years ago, it was still live," Bartlett says, "It even has an extension number on it."
These days the Redwood has a charming nautical theme, and they keep the lights dim enough that it's easy to imagine an apparition sitting in one of their high-topped booths. And Bartlett has plenty of paranormal stories to tell in his book, too. Like the "tall man in the gray suit" who lurks in the Redwood's basement, or unnatural shifts in light and shadow.
From "Gourmet Ghosts":
"The days of booze-soaked journalists may have gone, and more hipsters than pirates prop up the bar these days, but no matter where you're headed it's worth coming on board the Redwood."
Visit the "Gourmet Ghosts" website to find where you can pick up the book in L.A. — just in time for Halloween.
Jefferson Starship's guitar god Craig Chaquico 'Beamz' onto Catalina with a new instrument for the masses
"I think with music particularly, it's somewhere between science and spirituality, between karma and coincidence, something between the angels and the algorithms, where you have to study and you have to be kinda dedicated and there is a science to it, there’s also a magic to it, too." -- Craig Chaquico
Most people go to Santa Catalina for the island life, maybe to see the wild boars or the buffalo. But I took the ferry to Catalina to see and hear the “Beamz,” a new musical instrument.
Craig Chaquico plays the Beamz
Chaquico Performance With Beamz
I’d heard about the Beamz back on the mainland, but by the time I got to the island, nobody was saying a thing. Most people I talked to on Catalina were here for Buccaneer Days where everyone dresses like pirates and drinks heavily.
No thanks, I said, I’m here to hear Craig Chaquico, guitar god with Jefferson Starship, who was opening Catalina’s 27th annual JazzTrax Festival and word was he was gonna play the Beamz, too.
So what exactly is the Beamz? Chaquico explains:
"Essentially it’s a musical library of recorded instruments that you can trigger by running your hands through the laser beams. So you can play along with a song, you can write your own songs, you can program it, or you can play along with the radio with this thing and pick an instrument – you wanna play guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, saxophone, trumpet. The idea is without any musical training, you can reach into this device and start playing music instantly."
Craig Chaquico, does music therapy with Beamz and guitar for the Starlight Children’s Foundation near his home in Ashland Oregon. He opened the 27th annual Catalina JazzTrax Festival, which runs through this weekend.
To live and die in LA: Caitlin Doughty, star of YouTube hit 'Ask a Mortician' tours LA's oldest cemetery
Death is one of those things we don't think about much, until someone we know is dying. But Caitlin Doughty wants to change that. She's a licensed mortician in Los Angeles, and she's taken on a lofty goal: to make death a part of Americans' daily culture. She's using her blog and YouTube channel to help spread the message. Off-Ramp contributor Avishay Artsy caught up with her.
Doughty has provided an outlet for people to ask questions, and its popularity shows that people are curious to learn about something they often avoid. She's on her fifth YouTube episode, with each video getting tens of thousands of views. She said she gets all sorts of questions.
"Everything from really, really basic things – what is embalming, how do you cremate a body — to really interesting, weird, you know – if the zombie apocalypse happens tomorrow, what is the rate of decomposing bodies, or can you tattoo a corpse. The more ridiculous, the better," Doughty noted.
Perhaps it's the cheesy music and video effects or her comedic, truthful responses that make the subject more palatable to her viewers. But Doughty's own comfort with death came with time. Her interest was sparked by a traumatic death she witnessed when she was only eight or nine years old.
"I saw a girl fall from a balcony at my local mall and hit the ground – tremendous screams – it was a real, real turning point in my life," she said. "It was quite a psychological thing for me for quite awhile, and I think part of my interest in death might just be a way to figure it out."
Doughty took her fascination with her through college. After studying medieval history left her unsatisfied, she got a job as a crematory operator, earned a degree in mortuary science at Cypress College in Orange County and now works as a licensed funeral director in L.A.
On a visit to Evergreen Cemetery in Boyle Heights, Doughty detailed one of the more hidden features of L.A.'s oldest cemetery.
"Every year, Los Angeles County cremates roughly about 1,600 indigent dead, so homeless, people who can’t afford to pay for a funeral," she explained. "They cremate them and they bury them in a mass grave here."
The burial place is surrounded by barbed wire fencing and flat ground markers that show the year each group was cremated. "It's not like 'Come one, come all, to see the indigent dead.' It's probably not something they're particularly proud of," Doughty added.
While the thought of thousands being buried together may seem morbid, Doughty gets philosophical. "We try so hard in our lives to keep control over our body, and control over individual selves, that the idea of just having everybody in a big pile is kind of strangely appealing," she said.
Her plan is to run her own funeral home, where the dead are buried naturally. Families could even help prepare the body. This runs opposite from the status quo, where bodies are chemically treated in various ways, placed in a big casket and locked in a concrete and metal vault to keep the body from decomposing. Doughty said she prefers natural burials.
"It's just body, dirt, ground, decomposition, done-zo. Two or three weeks, just a skeleton left," she said. "It’s what bodies are meant to do. It’s bodies in their natural state.”