Sorry for the long hiatus here at Macha Mexico, but what better to lure us out of hibernation than the Kumbia Queers‘ new Mexican tour!

That’s right, Macha Mexico’s favorite queer-core Mexican/Argentine cumbia/punk band is back in Mexico for a month long tour. The majority of the shows are in Mexico City (with a few She Devils shows mixed in), but they’ll also heading north to Querétaro and Guanajuato, south to Oaxaca, east to Cuernavaca, and west to Veracruz.  Check out the Kumbia Queers’ website for complete dates and details of the Mexico: Te Quiero de a Madre tour.

The tour kicks off this weekend when the Kumbia Queers perform at Vive Latino, the tenth incarnation of Mexico City’s annual international festival of rock en español at the Foro Sol. This is a huge festival drawing big names in Spanish-language music. The names that most caught my attention were rocker/accordionist Julieta Venegas, gay-friend Puerto Rican reggeaton duo Calle 13, and chilango klezmer geniuses Klezmerson. (Find times and stages at the complete schedule for Vive Latino.)

The Kumbia Queers will be opening Sunday afternoon’s shows on the escenario azul at 1:00 pm, so go and show them some macha love!

El Imperial; 293 Álvaro Obregón, at the corner of Oaxaca; Colonia Condesa

Here at Macha Mexico, we’ve been busy interviewing some amazing queers and feminists working on interesting projects in Mexico City. By translating and publishing this series of conversations, our hope is to introduce their voices and ideas to new audiences. It is with great pleasure, then, that we inaugurate this series with Mexican/Argentine tropical-punk band the Kumbia Queers.

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After meeting at the Belladona festival in Buenos Aires in late 2006, five Argentine girls and one Mexican got together to experiment playing cumbia, and the Kumbia Queers were born. Although they’ve been playing live shows for a little over a year, all are veteran musicians; bassist Patricia “Kumbiadaver”, guitarrist Pila “Zombie” Jackson, and drummer “Inspector” also play in the Argentine queercore band the She Devils. Strumming the charango is accoustic punk musician Juana Chang, and lead singer Ali “Guaguanco” is a successful DJ and front-woman for Mexican dyke punk band the Ultrasonicas. In the past year, the Kumbia Queers have toured in both North and South America, and the 2007 video of their cover hit “La Isla con Chicas” was considered “Revelation of the Year” on YouTube and currently has over fifty thousand hits.

We sat down with the Kumbia Queers in Ali’s apartment in Colonia Doctores a few days after their packed show at the Centro Cultural España. Over a bottle of tequila we discussed their opinions about the difference between punk and cumbia, women in the music industry, and the meaning of the word queer.

MM: So, why “queers”?

Juana Chang: Why not?

MM: The name “Kumbia Queers” is very political, but is also very bilingual. It’s almost like you have to have all these English and Spanish references to really “get” the title [with its reference to established male cumbia bands like the Kumbia Kings as well as to the word "queer"].

Patricia Kumbiacadaver: For some people, it’s the word “kumbia” that gets their attention.

Pila “Zombie” Jackson: For me, it’s really great. For me, it’s political and at the same there is no need to explain anything. Those that understand, understand and those that don’t—maybe say, “What is queer?” And I tell them it’s everything that isn’t normal, that isn’t what they impose as “normal.” I think it’s something that is impossible to define, and, for that, I love it. It’s so many things.

Ali Guaguancó: First came the name, and then came the band.

MM: Has the ambiguous nature of your name allowed you to get gigs in places where you wouldn’t otherwise? Has the word “queer” in your title kept you out of traditional cumbia venues?

AG: No, because in Mexico or in Argentina it’s not likely that someone would know what “queer” is. For someone putting on a show, the least important thing is the name of the band. What’s important is whether they will draw a crowd or not.

JC: To me it doesn’t seem that important.

MM: We noticed that at your shows you say stuff like, “Are you ready, chicas?” even though the crowd often has more men in it than women. It’s as if you were only addressing a specific part of the crowd…

PZJ: The men enjoy themselves too. Chicas, chicos… it doesn’t matter to them. To me, what’s cool is that everyone is included, which doesn’t always happen. It’s like a party for everyone.

MM: So, for you guys, can the word queer include straight people?

I: Yeah, absolutely. Maybe there are some straight people that don’t fit anywhere. Queer means so many different things, and no one has to feel uncomfortable.

AG: [Queer] is an urban tribe made up of the people that don’t want to belong to any tribe.

MM: We heard a paper by Canadian academic Jasmine Rault in which she discusses your music as an alternative to the melancholy and apathy that seems to characterize a lot of American queer discourses (music, culture, activism…). What do you think?

PK: [Seeing our show,] she was struck by what she saw and processed it in a way that brought in everything she’s studied about that. But playing with the band, actually being there, everything feels more spontaneous.

JC: We know that there is a political thing here, but we didn’t conceive it as something political.

MM: So how did you go from making punk and rock music to playing cumbia?

PK: I have no idea… The day they began to play, it was a very hot day, I was depressed… I went over and everything came naturally. It just seem very natural to me…

PZJ: We all have our punk bands. I think it happened sort of the same way. For me it’s amazing to grab the guitar and sing a song with all your anger and your sadness, sing about how ugly things are out there. For me, that’s great. And then, to play a song just for fun and debauchery is a trip. I love being able to do both things. If I had to do just one… that would be cruel. If I had to only do the fun part, I’d feel like the protest was missing. Doing both things is fucking awesome.

AG: It’s a response to euphoria…

PZJ: Darkness comes along with all that fear and sadness. So, the more diverse the better.

JC: [by doing cumbia] I discovered that I like things that I would never imagined.

MM: What’s it like being an all-girl cumbia band in a “man’s world”?

I: I’v never had a problem.

PZJ: I think it has to do with your attitude. Every member of the band is very grounded on stage.

PK: In Argentina, some time ago, it was more difficult for girls to go up on a stage. I remember, when I was playing with another girl, the audience threw unimaginable things at us, including stones… This was during the dictatorship.

AG: I think now [sexism in music] is much more pronounced here in Mexico.

JC: You realize it when you see the husbands here doing all the sound tech stuff. I’ve always had to plug everything in by myself!

AG: You see that no one helps us carry our equipment. That’s a luxury we don’t give ourselves.

PZJ: Joan Jett said in an interview, “No one asks me what kind of pedal I use”, but that is also part of what’s on your mind [as a musician].

PK: And we do talk about that stuff in everyday life…

MM: So, there seems to be this double standard for women in rock, that you have to be beautiful, but if you’re too beautiful, then no one takes you seriously. What’s so cool about the Kumbia Queers is how you guys seem to play with being beautiful and being ugly, like how when you play “Kumbia Zombie” you tease the audience by taking off your shirts and revealing Ali’s red lacy bra, but then put on these ripped up zombie outfits.

PZJ: But we are gorgeous! (laugh). From my perspective, I am a woman, in my own way, like Ali, like Patricia… Patricia is the “femme” of the band, but with those huge hands she has, she can slap you on the face and kill you, you know?

MM: You guys get laid in your shows?

PZJ: No, we are very professional. (laugh)

MM: What do you think about the lesbian scene in Mexico?

PZK: I don’t know it.

I: I don’t know what “lesbian scene” means, neither here nor in Argentina. I am not interested in it at all.

AG: The lesbian scene is very boring. It doesn’t catch my attention, or my curiosity, I just don’t feel identified with it.

PK: Like any other groups or urban tribes, or however you want to call them, there are people who have to turn to different ways of identification in order to come out of their shell, to feel safe, to feel more comfortable.

AG: [The lesbian scene] is too formal, too serious.

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JC: They should lower their guard.

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PZJ: I mean, I do think there is homophobia, but I don’t see as a good response to close yourself and create a circle with rules…. That doesn’t motivate me. Back when my sexuality was first exploding, I explored a bunch of places [in Argentina's lesbian scene] but I ran away from them. I didn’t want to be a part of that.

AG: It’s like, for gay men… If they don’t like [gay icon] Paulina Rubio, what can they do…?

PK: That’s why we are a group that loves many different kinds of people….

The Kumbia Queers have said goodbye to Mexico City for the summer, but are currently on tour in the United States, with shows coming up this week in Chicago, Bloomington, and New York City. We highly recommend their music and seeing them live is unforgettable. Check out the Kumbia Queers’ myspace for tour dates.

From their website:

Celebrate México Now, a groundbreaking citywide festival, offers an introduction to the vanguard of contemporary Mexican art and culture. In the 1980s and 1990s, Mexico experienced a cultural boom that generated new artists, ideas, and forms of expression. Cross-disciplinary collaborations and collectives, focused on reexamining and redefining Mexican identity within a global context, sprung up in the country?s major urban centers. Celebrate Mexico Now presents this thriving generation of artists in an annual festival that encompasses architecture, cuisine, dance, film, music, theatre, and visual art.

For those who live in New York and can’t make it to the D.F. this year, this festival offers a peek at the kinds of cultural happenings that are coming out of Mexico right now.

Highlights include a screening of new Mexican short films, a photography exhibition featuring images of Mexico City and New York’s respective subway systems, a dance party at The Delancey on Saturday, September 13th, produced by Fresa Salvaje, who routinely bring hot (and often queer) latin american DJ’s and performers to the big apple.

Blending influences from Bariloche (Argentina) and Tijuana (México), FACA’s “Bari-juana” sound mixes surf, garage and techno, with kitsch and retro iconography invading the duo’s live shows. Sonido Discoyoácan spins eclectic mixes that include vintage barrio beauties like mambo, cha cha cha, Mexican soap opera classics and wedding anthems, all seamlessly intertwined with psychedelic, early punk, indie rock, and electronica; DJ Papichulo (Fresa Salvaje’s DJ de la casa) is inspired by the music he grew up with in the 80´s in Mexico and the cumbia poblana he discovered later on.

There are also poetry, dance, and other events, as well as a guide to “authentic” Mexican Restaurants, which are having their own mini-restaurant week. All of which can be viewed on the main calendar.

Everyon’s favorite Mexican/Argentine kumbia punk band, the Kumbia Queers, play tonight at 9pm in the Centro Cultural de España in the Centro Historico.

This band, composed of members of the Mexican dyke punk band Las Ultrasonicas and Argentine dyke punk band the She Devils, are really worth catching if you are in Mexico City at the same time as one of their shows. They describe themselves as “six ‘punk and rollers’ who got bored of playing rock and decided to explore their ‘queer and kumbia sides,’ writing kumbia songs by chicas, for chicas.”

Here is the music video of their hit song “Chica del Calendario” starring Mexico City queer performance artist Alejandra Bogue.

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In addition to their own original numbers, the Kumbia Queers also do amazing queer kumbia covers of the Cure’s “Love Song,” Madonna’s “La Isla Bonita” (which is transformed into “La Isla con Chicas”), and Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’”. Their shows are always fun and high energy; sometimes it’s hard to decide whether to dance to their music or just watch them perform.

Be warned, girls have been known to take their shirts off during the song “El Veraneo”…

(For those who don’t want to miss the opening night of the Second Annual Rock and Sexual Diversity Film Festival tonight, don’t worry, the Kumbia Queers also have shows in the Distrito Federal on September 4th, 7th, and 13th, as well as a mini-tour in the midwest of the United States in late September.)

Centro Cultural de España is located at Guatemala 18, behind the Cathedral Metropolitano in the Centro Historico. Free admission.