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"I always wanted to do a Spanish record," says Fernando Viciconte, the amiable frontman for the Portland country-rock ensemble known by the singer's first name. "It was hard to find people who know about that kind of music and who can play it." Last October, Viciconte hooked up with singer-songwriter Luther Russell, who shared a love of Latin music, and the two began charting a path that's notably different from Fernando's previous work. The band, which has had a variable lineup with Viciconte and multi-instrumentalist Dan Eccles as constants, has released two albums filled with starkly personal and musically raw American folk and country. After last year's Widows, however, the singer-guitarist became enamored of Argentinean music. His meeting and subsequent collaboration with Russell has led to Pacoima (Cravedog), probably the first straightforward Latin-rock album to come out of Portland. Born 29 years ago in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Viciconte moved with his family at age 4 to the barrio town of Pacoima in the eastern San Fernando Valley. In his early 20s, the aspiring musician found some success on the Los Angeles rock circuit, but after a divorce he decided to get away from California and his past. In 1994, he settled in Portland, playing as a solo artist and eventually with local rock veterans including Eccles and members of Gern Blanston and Golden Delicious. In his early songs, Viciconte reflected on a troubled history, exploring themes of pain, sin and redemption, all of which he conveyed with his reedy, impassioned vocal delivery. For Pacoima, he took a drastic turn, writing Spanish narratives about his boyhood home; the only track sung in English is "Ooh, My Head," a cover of a hit by Ritchie Valens, the Pacoima-born Latin rock hero who died in the 1959 plane crash that also killed Buddy Holly. "It is a record that has a lot to do with the mood of Pacoima," Viciconte says. "It's a trippy little town. It's not too safe, but there are a lot of good families there, and a lot of that kind of barbecue-Chicano-low-rider-cruiser stuff." The songs on Fernando's Latin-rock entrée resound with detail and gutsy musicality--from the opening Tex-Mex stomp of "Oye Mamacita" to the slide-guitar driven "Wiseman" to the waltzing sway of "Ay, Mi Amor," which sounds like a lost track from the West Side Story soundtrack. On "El Curda de Buenos Aires," Fernando conjures a clipped tango beat that's strikingly traditional, then launches into a James Brown-gone-Chicano tune called "Peligro del Brujo." On the instrumental title song, a heavy shuffled beat, expansive guitar and Mexican trumpet line evoke a hot, dusty night riding in the back of a pick-up truck near the United States/Mexico border. "It's basically an American-influenced rock 'n' roll record done through someone who speaks Spanish," Viciconte says. Even for listeners who don't understand Spanish, Viciconte's expressive voice is enough to get across his strong feelings and let you in on his secrets. Since it's his first language, the songs sound genuine and unforced. Adding to the authenticity of the Latin-rock mood, the barbed wire and burning heart cover art was done by Omar Ramirez, a respected muralist from East Los Angeles. These ingredients have already met with approval in major Chicano markets like Austin and Los Angeles, where songs from Pacoima have made it onto Spanish rock radio station playlists. In this realm, Fernando is a rarity. Not only is the band from the Anglo enclave of Portland, but it has the backing only of the three-release-a-year local label Cravedog Records. Without the larger recording budgets of Latin-rock peers such as Buenos Aires' Los Fabulosos Cadillacs and Mexico's Maná, both of which are signed with major U.S. labels, Fernando and Russell had to improvise: they taped the songs on Pacoima to 8-track tape in their Portland homes. They topped off the homemade effort with a professional-looking CD booklet, which includes English translations of Viciconte's songs. Russell says he persuaded his friend to include the lyrics, unlike on previous Fernando albums. "I thought people would be missing half the story if they didn't know Spanish," Russell says. "It would just be sounds." The presentation and music on Pacoima follow the DIY tradition of American punk and indie-rock bands, and Viciconte says he's proud to have achieved what he has without the support of the music industry machine. Nevertheless, he and Eccles will pack up and head to L.A. for two months in May, hoping to earn wider recognition. "The whole Spanish [rock] thing is very commercialized, so independent music that is going on right now in Spanish is even smaller than on the English indie scene," Viciconte says. "But those who are involved help you more and are not as pretentious and conceited as a lot of people you deal with in indie rock. The response has been amazing." |
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