B-SIDES PLAYERS / “B-Sides Players Mixtape”

We’re proud to be on the frontline of a new musical movement that no longer represents the minority. We now represent the Brown Majority. The surfer, suburban stereotype of California is changing fast; it’s not all bleach blondes any more. It’s nappy, Afro, rice bowled, dirty, dusty, wet, happy struggling people and we’re right there in the struggle with our music.” —Karlos Paez
The world is changing. The music is changing. True. But often we live (or try to live) beneath a blanket of denial. We be looking for things the way they used to be rather than either digging what is or creating what we think is missing. b-sides players 05.jpg The B-Side Players represent the new and, as they exemplify, the new is a mixture of the margins coalescing to reconstitute the  center. Especially in terms of culture, the United States in particular and the whole world in general is becoming more and more a world of color rather than Euro-dominated. We bemoan the absence of jazz and “quality” popular music, and complain of the paucity of good music on the radio, but today there is more good music being produced than at any time in human history. However to get to the music we have to move outside our comfort zone—the hard fact of our “comfort” is that in the United States even our exploitation can be comfortable. It usually seems easier to deal with the devils we know than to get used to gods we’ve never seen before, precisely because the new ways require us to learn skills and acquire information we don't know. From economics to the environment, from music to public education, in all phases of life, no longer can we get by just by going along with the old ways.
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b-sides players 02.jpg I was looking for something else when I first encountered B-Side Players. Hearing a bunch of Mexican-heritage dudes playing funky reggae and talking a truckload of trash in Spanish, Spanglish and English took me out for a minute—especially since the lead singer sounds like a cross between Bob Marley and David Hinds of Steel Pulse. But on the other hand, if you know the history of the music, this development is neither a surprise nor a mystery. First of all, Mexican music, musicians and music teachers, collectively are one of the basic ingredients of New Orleans music dating back to Reconstruction. Second, reggae is directly influenced by New Orleans R&B. Third, all of this music is produced by people who are marginalized by the mainstream. Day by day in this Obama-era the American mainstream is drying up and becoming simply a tributary rather than remaining dominant and trendsetting. Moreover, from both an aesthetic and a production standpoint, the musics produced in the African diaspora have set the tone for popular music worldwide.
The root of all pop music is African. Our sound acknowledges that fact. That’s why the music is so soulful. We’re playing the ancient beats that came from Africa to create reggae, son, Afro-beat and funk and mixing ‘em all together. —Karlos Paez
Add to this mix, more and more musicians of consciousness forwarding both their sensibility as well as their sound, and what we get is a group like The B-Side Players. The current and former members of B-side are: Karlos "Solrak" Paez: vocals, guitar and trumpet Damian DeRobbio: bass Luis “The General” Cuenca: timbales, percussion and vocals Victor Tapia:congas and percussion Michael Cannon: drums Camilo Moreno: congas and percussion Aldo Perreta Jamal Siurano: alto sax Russ Gonzales:tenor sax Kevin Nolan: trombone, trumpet Andy Krier: keyboards and musical director b-sides players 07.jpg The son of active Mexican band leader, Karlos Paez is the founder and leader of B-Side, which was created in 1994 when he took a class in African drumming at Southwestern Community College in San Diego.
We were all playing with bands in the local funk and acid jazz scene in the early 90s. When we started playing together, our sound was different because we brought an Afro-Latin edge to the music. —Karlos Paez
There is more. B-Side also brings a strong political consciousness to their popular music. Quoting revolutionaries and openly advocating revolution is not what mainstream pop musicians do. In America we are brought up to believe that politics is a turn-off in popular culture. B-Side is clearly a populist dance band who feel a responsibility to directly address day to day issues confronting working people, especially Mexican heritage people. Paez's lyrics step far beyond merely reciting complaints and pointing to ills. Most of his songs are exhortations and encouragements addressed directly to el pueblo, i.e. the people.
Everything that's coming out of me now has to do with my family and with my culture. I'm singing about what really lives inside of me - my family, my culture, my country. —Karlos Paez
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b-sides players 03.jpg The lyrics from B-Side challenge the listener even as their rhythms invite people to dance and have a good time. The juxtaposition of getting down to dance while standing for a cause is the essence of B-side Players. Plus, they are a proudly multi-cultural outfit and as such are setting the pace as we move deeper into the 21st century. Fifteen years of traveling around the country in a van and pulling a trailer with equipment; fifteen years of being a local band trying to go national while dreaming of being international; fifteen years of grinding it out town to town, gig to gig before achieving even a modicum of critical acclaim; fifteen years—it took fifteen years to become an overnight success. And such is the story of all successful revolutions. Most people know the revolution based on the success, on the inauguration of a new administration; most people are completely ignorant of the long build up and the hard, hard toil it took to get to the beginning of a new day. The Obama campaign's victory march seemed like it came out of no where but consider the years spent working in virtual anonymity on the South Side of Chicago. Ditto for the B-Side Players. B-Side Players may be new to us but they are old news who have become new news because they have stayed steady forward for a long time. There was a time when a band like B-Side Players would have been frozen out by the powers that be were and restricted, at best, to a local, home-town phenomenon. But the internet and online distribution, particularly iTunes, has established new parameters and made it possible for any band to have a worldwide audience.
Our music has always been so hard to categorize and put into a genre, as far as singing in Spanish and in English and mixing different musical rhythms. Yes, we are a Latin band but we always use other musical influences in our music. That has always been a bad thing for people because they don’t know how to help us and who to put us with. They put us with a reggae group because we have a little reggae sound but when we sing in Spanish they don’t understand us. Then they put us with a salsa group because we have a Latin sound but people don’t like it when we mix funk and reggae because they want to dance salsa. But now it is being accepted more because people are seeing the future of music is “la mezcal” (the mix), which is mixing cultures, mixing people, and uniting different cultures and it is all a matter of timing before it is widely accepted. —Karlos Paez
I heard B-Side because of the internet. You are hearing B-Side because of the internet. The system no longer determines what is available to us. Where formerly bands such as B-Side were rejected because they could not be easily labeled for commercial purposes, today B-Side and many others represent the future music. Give thanks—the sound of America increasingly sounds like us. —Kalamu ya Salaam B-Side Players Mixtape Playlist b-sides players 06.jpg Karlos Paez is the primary song writer for B-side Players. Although they have produced numerous albums since 1994, only their recent work is easily available. Maiz is a 2003 independently produced release. It has a heavy reggae flavor and unfortunately is not commercially available. Movement is a 2001 compilation drawing on two earlier, self-produced albums. Fire In The Youth is the last album produced (2007)—a new album is expected by the summer. b-side maize cover.jpg From the album Maiz 01 “La Raza” 02 “Fuck You!” 03 “Esperanza II” 04 “New Crop” b-side movement cover.jpg From the album Movement 05 “Souldier” 06 “Soulboat” 07 “How You Want” 08 “B-Side Boogaloo” b-side youth cover.jpg From the album Fire In The Youth 09 “Unplug This Armageddon” 10 “Pleasure and Pain” 11 “Nuestras Demandas” 12 “Fire in the Youth” 13 “Crossroads” 14 “Warrior Culture”  

This entry was posted on Monday, April 27th, 2009 at 12:05 am and is filed under Contemporary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.


One Response to “B-SIDES PLAYERS / “B-Sides Players Mixtape””

Tuta Says:
April 27th, 2009 at 7:57 am

Maiz and Fire in the Youth seemed to be better records to me. Movement was too poppy. They sound pretty good though.


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