Chicanonautica: Laboratorio Setenta y Cinco Efe Eme, Tijuana

by Ernest Hogan

 

¡Anímate! It’s not all pre-apocalyptic dystopia. Really. And I’m not just giddy from having a new book out. For the first time in decades, I have a favorite radio station. It’s like when I was teenager in SoCal, cruising the FM dial (AM had gone solid bubble gum and my tastes had gotten edgy) in search of something that would not only provide a suitable soundtrack for my life, but expand my horizons.

Ah! Those were some days . . . “But,” to quote Frank Zappa, “ I digress.”

These peculiar days, I do such searching through radio.garden. Radio stations from all over the planet online. Kinda utopian if you ask me.

A few months back I discovered Laboratorio 75FM, Tijuana, Mexico, and my world exploded in a good way. It was like discovering an interdimensional portal, worlds I never imagined were revealed to me. It blew my mind, as we said back in the day . . .

Seems that while I was struggling to make a living, and keep my writing career going, cultural revolutions were going on . .  . not just in what I like to call the Latinoid Continuum, but in the peculiar overlapping sections of the planet that were affected by the Spanish Empire, but also other cultures, because people tend to move around and ignore borders. Music and countercultures (note the plural) that are not owned by corporations have been developing all over. As Ishmael Reed said about the black experience, “It’s not a ghetto, it’s a galaxy.”

Some of it’s on the Norteamericano side of the Rio Grande/Bravo, Los Angeles, San Diego, Riverside, Chicago, others all over Mexico, with a lively Mexico City scene. Then there’s Central and South America, with some connections to Europe and Asia. A vast, multi/recombocultural/rasquache, nonAnglo-centric, Global Barrio.

And it’s not the stuff that the music industry is pushing through Latin Grammys. There’s a definite postpunk sensibility, though they did play something by the Dead Kennedys, and it crosses and mixes genres. Oaxaca has an underground electronic Goth scene. Mexican punk has a horn section, and shows its mariachi roots. Argentina has an angry metal sound. Yucatan-A-Go-Go is outrageous, rambunctious, humorous rock and roll. There’s also what sounds like mutant cool jazz, folkloroid tunes (sometimes with indigenous lyrics), apocalyptic and dystopian visions, and now and then, lyrics in English.

And just because the words, and even the band name, are English or Spanish, you can’t be too sure where it's coming from. This is radio, hooked up to the internet, and satellites. Quaint old concepts like national borders are fading away here.

The serious, anonymous female disc jockey (how different from the sonic sexy symbols of ancient rock radio) provides background on the bands, where they’re from and the genres and subgenres in español. Now and then she gets excited and rrrrocks las palabras.

There’s also a website that lets you know not only what’s playing, but what they’ve been playing for the last five days. You can click and get videos and links to find videos, streaming, band websites, and other sources. 

Though sometimes there is no link. A lot of this stuff comes from far flung hometown outfits like Tijuana’s own El Topo Records. I like that. The street finding its own way to create culture.

And all this is just the tip of this rocking iceberg. New worlds to explore. One more step toward the Intergalactic Barrio, triggering a utopian vision of Swinging Tijuana becoming the cultural capital of the planet.

Ernest Hogan's latest book, Guerrilla Mural of a Siren's Song: 15 Gonzo Science Fiction Stories, has been longlisted for the British Science Fiction Association award for Best Collection. He will be teaching "Gonzo Science Fiction, Chicano Stye" at the Spring 2024 Palabras del Pueblo workshop.