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August 2007

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Thoughts on...20 Aug 2007 07:12 pm

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Published Articles16 Aug 2007 12:45 pm

A must-see band from Texas

Pimp and circumstance
On the road with Grupo Fantasma
By Molly Coulter
Published on 08/16/2007

The Prince’s boys: Fast-rising music royalty Grupo Fantasma takes a quick break from their quest for total world domination. Photo courtesy of Grupo Fantasma.

Ignore your urge to take it easy this Sunday night. Save the last few chapters of that paperback and after dinner put on your coat, not your pajamas. Austin, Texas’ 11-piece marvel Grupo Fantasma is playing at Mogollon Brewing Co. and despite reading this line many times before, you shouldn’t miss this show. Remember when you realized you should have heard that one band instead of all your buddies raving about it for the next month? Well, this band blows that other one away and you have an exclusive opportunity to get up close in a small venue.
     Highly regarded as one of the top contemporary Latin musical acts nationally, Grupo Fantasma also has earned distinguished honors at home in a city famous for heaps of stunning artists. The band is a fireball on stage blazing up the room with its irrefutably passionate and skillful sound. Music icon Prince, whose influence jumpstarted a notable list of musicians and celebrities, felt the heat and invited the band to back him up at a Golden Globes after-party. Then came the after-party following Prince’s sensational show at the Super Bowl this year and a weekly spot playing with him at his Las Vegas nightclub 3121. And as if that wasn’t enough accolade to keep Grupo Fantasma’s members beaming for life, the legend asked them to tour London with him this summer.
     “It’s been nuts,” says guitarist Adrian M. Quesada. “He just brings so much. Even if he’s doing a huge stadium, he’ll always play the most intimate feel. You actually capture the moment of this music, instead of being somebody in the upper deck. He loves people to get into the music, which is something we’ve learned from him. It’s inspired genius music school 101.”
     Quesada explains when the members initially played with Prince they were fixed on playing Prince’s music like we all know and love it, but the mogul put a stop to that practice. “We didn’t want to ruin his songs, but he’s been pretty adamant about interpreting it in our style,” Quesada says. “He actually said it’s about our interpretation. We feel a lot more comfortable and it changed it. We play it like we play our own music and sometimes we’ll just play our music and he’ll play with us. Hopefully we’re turning him on to some Latin music.”
     As for past or future collaborations with other artists, he says, “That’s about as big as it gets. It sort of came out of the blue and we’ve opened for and shared the stage with lots of bands, but nothing compares to Prince. No pun intended.” (Prince wrote “Nothing Compares 2 U,” the hit pop song that catapulted Sinead O’Connor’s career when she covered it in 1990.)
     Having Prince fly the members into Las Vegas every Thursday for three months and embracing the chance to get all 11 of them overseas is a far cry from the birth of Grupo Fantasma. “When we originally started touring we had one van. Those early years were interesting,” Quesada says. “We learned to know when to give each other space. But now everybody knows everybody else’s personalities and we all know the main objective is the music.”
     The band members split their paychecks more ways than most groups, which keeps them on the road and dedicated to their objective. “Because it’s such a large band and we do this for a living, we tour non-stop,” Quesada says. The countless gigs gained an audience and the band listens to it.
     “Everybody at our live shows wanted something to take home so we put out the first album,” Quesada says of their 2001 release, Grupo Fantasma. “The second album we spent a lot of time in the studio trying to get it right, but our bread and butter is always the live show. The CD never quite lived up to it, so we decided to make a live album last year and get it right.”
     Quesada says Grupo Fantasma mainly records and performs original songs, but “we play the occasional traditional song, revamped in our style for fun. One of our strengths is reinterpreting old songs.” Quesada says “the Latin, funk orchestra” has a repertoire that includes Columbian dance music called cumbia, ’70s funk music and “we’ll throw in the occasional James Brown song. It’s not traditional music in the traditional way.”
     Grupo Fantasma will play Sun, Aug. 19 at Mogollon Brewing Co., 15 N. Agassiz. The show starts at 9:30 p.m. and handing the band a $10 cover charge will be well worth it. For more information, go to www.grupofantasma.com or call 773-8950.

Thoughts on...01 Aug 2007 02:45 am

Time stamp: 2:41 a.m.

Mood: crazy

Apologies: give them up. I say sorry too often…

Life: the way you like it.

Message: Life is really worth living because of you and your peers and enemies and friends and all of ‘em, but most off… Van Morrison…

August 2007

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