Los Lobos' Louie Pérez offers insights into the band's new album, "Gates of Gold"; Margaret Cho has become a role model for a new generation of Asian-American comedians; J.A. Micheline is glad Ta-Nehisi Coates will write some Black Panther comic books, but she says the industry has more work to do regarding diversity.
Louie Pérez and Los Lobos: Still howlin' after all these years
In just a couple of months, Los Lobos will mark its 42nd anniversary. In many ways they are the quintessential L.A. band, having started out playing traditional Mexican music in East L.A., then branching out to explore their wider musical interests, including rock, folk, blues and jazz.
The band has a new album out Sept. 25 called “Gates of Gold” and it marks Los Lobos’ first studio album in five years.
Most of Los Lobos’ songs are written by David Hidalgo and Louie Pérez. When Pérez came into The Frame’s studios recently, he spoke with Oscar Garza about the five years since the band's last studio album and how the process of writing songs has evolved with his longtime partner over the years.
Interview Highlights
Why has it taken so long to produce a new album?
Time certainly just evaporates. I can’t believe it’s been five years. It’s not intentional. As you know, we tour incessantly. We’re on the road all the time. Even the whole proposition of writing and recording seems like a huge undertaking because we work so much. And then it takes awhile to find somebody who’s crazy enough to pay for a new record.
There’s a lot of bands like yours, who have been around for awhile and for whom touring is an essential part of your income. But how do you keep that experience fresh for yourselves? Because you are at it quite a bit.
Things have changed a great deal. That's why, as you mentioned, many bands like ours are on the road. But because of the industry changing as it has, nobody’s buying [physical CDs] anymore. The way that music is accessed and purchased these days, there’s no such thing as artist royalties, unless you’re Taylor Swift. But you’re working, you’re on the road, you’re playing live — which is good. It just means that bands who have been around as long as we have, we have to work hard. We have to work just as hard as the young bands. The 22 hours aside from the two hours on stage are what really beats you up. The two hours on stage is great. That, I think, is where we try to live. The business part, it’s kind of tough.
Do you go into the making of a record with a vision of what you want it to sound like?
No, there’s no formula. When we finally get to writing and recording, sometimes it feels like I’m inventing the wheel again because it’s been a while. I’m not always writing. I’m not always calling David up in the middle of the night at the Comfort Inn in Duluth and saying, “Hey, I got an idea for a song.” You know, there’s time we need to spend with our families. We’ve been gone from them for the past 30 years [of touring]. The band’s been together for 42 years as of November. Thirty years we’ve been saying goodbye. So we need to spend more time at home.
You mentioned David Hidalgo, who is a guitarist and singer with the band. You and he have been writing songs together since right after high school. How has that process evolved with you and David over the years?
It hasn’t changed very much. The logistics have changed. But to say that I’m the lyricist only and that David is only the musical component would be discounting us, because we are [both] songwriters. We start to put down a track, an idea that David might have, and I’ll be in the control room and that will inspire something. And we start talking and things sort of evolve from there.
I’ve been listening to this band for long time. And it’s still really emotional for me to hear David’s voice on a new song. I’ve always described his voice as having a plaintive quality. What do you hear in his voice that wasn’t there five or 10 years ago?
A deeper, deeper soul, absolutely. He can sing just about anything. He’s one of the greatest interpreters of song. You think about people like Sinatra — they weren’t singing songs that they wrote. They were interpreters and they were incredible doing it. And David just gets better and better... So when I write, I think of his voice all the time.
What are you listening to these days?
Not much of anything right now. I think my head is still kind of recovering from [making] this record. I just got the courage to listen to it again. Because you go through this sort of post traumatic record syndrome... One thing I think maybe we should touch on is that we’re literally writing as we record. This record, we came in with absolutely nothing. David had a couple ideas sketched on his cell phone. And that very first sketch, one of them became “Made to Break Your Heart.” So we’re writing as we record... And after the whole thing’s done I have to get away from it for a bit.
The band just received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Americana Music Awards in Nashville. Where does that rank with all the honors and awards you’ve been given over the years?
...I guess being a band that’s been together for as long as we have, they give you an award for just not going away. And we appreciate it. We don’t take all these awards and platitudes lightly. We appreciate it. We’re glad to be doing what we do. We’re very fortunate coming from where we were in East L.A. to where we are now. We’re deeply grateful for our fans and the opportunity to be in this business. And, hey, I’ve got these great guys, these great musicians I hang out with and happen to be my best friends. You know, we’re still out there.
Margaret Cho is more reserved on stage than you think
In 1994 Margaret Cho made history by starring in the first primetime sitcom to feature an Asian American. "All American Girl”was on ABC and was loosely based on Cho’s life. Although the series lasted only one season, it made Cho a household name and helped pave the way for other Asian American comedians.
Now, she's back on ABC as part of the cast on another sitcom with an Asian American star. It’s called “Dr. Ken” and Cho plays the sister of Ken Jeong’s character.
Cho also has a new Showtime special, "psyCHO." (Note the clever spelling.) In the show she candidly riffs about her sexuality, inequality towards women, and Asian-Americans in Hollywood —and she's not afraid to talk about her embarrassments.
But while Cho appears to be an open book on stage, she tells The Frame that she's actually calculated in what she reveals about herself. "The more forthright you are," says Cho, "the more you can control your image."
The Frame's Oscar Garza talks with Margaret Cho about how she paved the way for Asian-American comics, her brutal honesty about her life on stage, and how she uses that to her advantage:
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
In your comedy special, "psyCHO," you mentioned that one of your mentors was Joan Rivers. How did that come about and how did she help you along in your career?
We had met in the '90s. I was doing a show here in New York and it had received an award and she had come secretly to the show in disguise and loved it and volunteered to present me with the award. So it was this special occasion where I was being given this award by my absolute hero. We sat, we talked, we had dinner. We had gotten along very well and at the end of the night she offered to send me all of her jewelry. She was starting to sell that on Home Shopping Network. And I told her I don't wear jewelry and then she turned her back to me and did not speak to me again for two years.
[Laughs]
But then she came to terms with it and really was just the best friend you could have. She was so warm and so loving and so encouraging, and you could really go to her for anything. I asked her for so many favors, to work with me to help me in so many ways. She did everything I asked her to do. I'm just so grateful to her. And she was the example of comedy. She was the kind of comedian I wanted to be. When I saw her first — when I was a child — on television, I realized that's what I'm supposed to do with my life. I'm supposed to be a comedian like her and to have enjoyed this friendship for so long. I'm truly fortunate.
You mentioned she showed up to a show of yours secretly. You recently did something similar at The Comedy Comedy Festival, which featured only Asian-American female comedians and you showed up. All of them said, I'm told, that you were an inspiration to them. Have you tried to now return the favor that Joan Rivers did for you?
Yeah, I'm trying. I love that show. It was put on by my friends — Jenny Yang and all of these wonderful Asian-American comedians. It's a real pleasure for me to attend those shows and perform with them. For me, the landscape of comedy was very lonely 'cause I didn't have other Asian-American comedian peers for a long time. So when I attended that show I felt such a sense of gratitude that they've come along and now I'm not alone anymore.
And what do you find them asking you most commonly?
I think they just want to know about show business and they want to know about their specific careers, but also, they're so grateful that I decided to do what I did. And for me, it was not really a choice. I had to be a comedian and I think they all feel the same way. When you do comedy, it's not really anything that you choose. You just have to, so I think they feel the same way.
You broke ground in another way when you had your sitcom on ABC back in 1994, "All American Girl." It's taken more than 20 years until this year for another Asian-American sitcom to come along — "Fresh Off The Boat." Is that bittersweet for you to see that take so long?
It took a long time but it's a dream realized. For me, the triumph of "Fresh Off The Boat" and now also "Dr. Ken," which is about to start on ABC — the next Asian-American family television show out there — I feel so much gratitude, warmth, excitement, and relief that finally they're able to do it.
There's so much talk these days about the role in women in Hollywood. You recently put together a Funny or Die video called "If Women Ran Hollywood." How many times were you in a room with all men executives and writers?
[Laughs] All the time! Everyday. Well no, that's not true, but it's more often than not. All of [TV] is told from a male perspective. Even female characters, their stories are from a male perspective.
How much of that has changed?
I don't think it's changed very much. I think that there are more women. There needs to be more women in all of these roles, whether it is writing, producing, directing. It's just a really important thing and I'm encouraged by the way that we saw more women of color at the Emmys than ever. We saw more women of color winning than ever at the Emmys this year. So there's strides being made and I'm thrilled about that.
You've been performing comedy for more than 20 years. You're very open about who you are and you joke about your sexuality, race, and faults in a very candid way. What is it about that experience that attracts you to being completely open?
Well, it's great because it's actually a lie, because you can be open to an extent. When you reveal certain things that seem very personal, you don't have to reveal everything. But people assume that you're an open book. That is very appealing to a lot of people. The more forthright you are, the more you can control your image. That's sort of the big secret of people who appear to lay it all out there. They're really in control of what they're laying out there.
I don't feel that privacy is that big of a deal. My own privacy is not that important to me. I would rather have an interesting story to tell or prove a point through an example that I've lived through. I think that nobody is free of pain. And the human experience is about pain and suffering. When you can share that suffering in a way that is actually entertaining, you're doing a great service to people. You not only alleviate your own burden, but you do something to theirs as well. You can really share their burden with them. It's a really profound thing. I try to be as honest as I can, but also knowing that I control how much I do say.
Margaret Cho's comedy special, "psyCHO," premieres on Showtime on September 25.
Ta-Nehisi Coates to write Black Panther, but mainstream comic books still struggle with diversity
Earlier this week it was announced that the author and prominent black intellectual, Ta-Nehisi Coates, will write a new series of comic books featuring Marvel’s superhero, Black Panther.
Created in 1966, Black Panther was the first black superhero, and Coates — a Marvel fan and a writer whose work frequently explores the black experience in America — seems like a great fit for the gig.
More female and non-white comic book writers are being recognized with some of the medium’s major honors — like the Ignatz Awards, which recognize small press comics, and the Eisner Awards, the comic book world’s equivalent of the Oscars. But the mainstream industry continues to grapple with issues of diversity.
J.A. Micheline, a writer for the websites Women Write About Comics and Comics Alliance — and a vocal critic of Marvel and their struggles with diversity — joined us on The Frame to talk about Coates and Black Panther, the lagging diversity among mainstream comic book writers, and the progressive aspects of indie and web comics.
Interview Highlights:
What do you make of the news that Ta-Nehisi Coates will write a series of Black Panther comics for Marvel?
I think it's a bittersweet announcement. The great thing about it is that he's an amazing writer who really understands the semiotics of race, of how black people have been depicted in media, and really understands the nuances of history. I think he's going to have so much to bring to the table, and it's amazing to have someone like that writing comics. It's fantastic, and kind of unprecedented.
The only bitter thing about it is that I look at the announcement and I say to myself, Okay, is this what it takes for Marvel to hire a black writer? Do you have to have two books out? Do you have to be a household name and a writer for The Atlantic in order to be considered for a role?
(Photo courtesy of Marvel Comics)
Marvel's editor-in-chief, Axel Alonso, is half-Mexican, and they've recently introduced a half-black, half-Latino Spiderman named Miles Morales. It seems like Marvel is making some strides toward better representation.
Absolutely, and this isn't to say that Marvel is awful and not doing anything at all, because that's absolutely not true. They've done a lot of great things in the past and the present. This announcement with "Black Panther" is indicative of that, as is the announcement of "Angela Queen of Hell," a queer, solo lead that I'll be reading in October.
It's not that Marvel's moving backwards, but I'm more thinking about the way that Marvel has listened to criticism and perhaps been a little abrasive about it. And I'm also thinking about whether this movement towards diversity is something that they're genuinely interested in because it's socially important and responsible, or if it's just a thing that will make them money.
When met with complaints about their lack of diversity, comic book publishers will often point to the diversity in their ranks of artists and illustrators. Why is their track record not as good when it comes to writers?
That's really complicated, and I think there are a couple things at work. Firstly, I think we've seen a tide turn — it used to be that artists were the most prominent and most lauded people in comics, but it's shifted towards the writers.
Now you'll have people talking about runs written by specific writers, people like Brian Michael Bendis, Matt Fraction or David F. Walker. And so now people are also paying attention to the race, class, gender and [physical] ability of these writers.
I think it's a power thing — historically, power has been held by cisgendered, heterosexual white men, and so it's not that surprising to see that reflected in a staff of writers at Marvel or DC.
So which comic book companies get it right when it comes to diversity?
In terms of who's doing well, I would look at indie comics and very small publishers that people probably haven't heard of.
If you look at the Ignatz Awards that came out recently at the Small Press Expo, all of those were won by women. That's enormous. And even with the Eisner Awards that were announced recently at San Diego Comic-Con, so many of the winners were women.
Indies and web comics show that so many of the marginalized people who have been locked out of mainstream comics are doing fantastic work on the outskirts.