It is a summer Saturday, at the end of the afternoon on the grass of the backyard of the Plaza de Cultura y Artes, with the type of warmth and variety of sounds, views and odors that have defined on weekends in many neighborhoods of Los Angeles during generations. This is for an event Kcrw Summer Nights headed by EAST la Soul Revivalists The Altans, but the combination of demography, cultures and history on display gives it an authentically local sensation that could be confused with an informal block party in any decade, except perhaps by the printing printing of the screen and a band design and a swumply design and a swump about immigration and customs.
That same combination of history and cultures that has gathered Los Angeles in all generations is also what has given the Altans its exclusive sound and made them one of the last stars of the city. When they go on tour and bring their unique mix of “old” moving, modern rock and bilingual R&B worldwide, they not only share their music but also their culture.
“On any weekend, you can make a party on the street playing cumbia or music in which your parents grew up, their neighbor next door could have a Punk Rock show, and another guy on the street that only listens to the old and the art of Art Laboe,” explains the vocalist and guitarist Bryan Ponce on the roots of the various of the Altans of the Chicitos of the Chicitos of the Chicitos of the Chicitos of the Chicitos of the Collectives of the Collectives of Los Angeles. “We all grew in all this music that we would hear in our neighborhoods, so all our influences joined and came out in our music.”
The members of the Altans Adriana Flores, Caitlin Moss, Bryan Ponce and Joseph Quinones act in the Plaza de Cultura y Artes on June 28.
(Brian Feinzimer / For the Times)
For a band that began with modest expectations almost a decade ago, the Altans are now in international tours and touching thousands of people at the same time, as they will do on Saturday when they will rock the show Oldies 2 Soullos with the Lonely Boys in the Greek theater. And although his ascent has been more a gradual inclination than anything particularly stratospheric, they have carved their own path without commitment. They are willing to merge genres, languages, tempos and sounds, as they consider convenient and, according to what they feel, it will work better for the songs and messages they want to deliver instead of attending what can be popular at the time, an choice that makes them the face of the “revival of the old” now that millennials and the Z generation are going back in love with Tunes from their grandparents.
“It's amazing to play in a program in which a grandmother is there with her daughter and grandchildren, and just having several generations of people come together,” says vocalist Adriana Flores. “There are not many programs that I would even lead to my father, so I think it makes music even more special and I would like to be one of the bands that shed light on what has been happening in Los Angeles, we have been doing for years and just sharing the types of music we like, which is the retro sound of soul mixed with other elements. We like to show people what has been happening in Los Angeles that is not only Hollywood.” “
Adriana Flores and Bryan Ponce de los Altans act in the Plaza de Cultura y Artes at the end of June.
(Brian Feinzimer / For the Times)
That desire to show the “real” the one they know and love is a driving force for the Altans, particularly as they go more and farther from home. All of them: Flores and Ponce together with Joseph Quinones in the guitar voices/backup, Chris Manjarrez in the bass, Christian “Elyzr” Meraz on keyboards and drummer Caitlin Moss, are proud to represent their east roots for those who only see California that they appear on television. The group anxiously remembers about a fan that they met in a show in France that I had never set foot in California, but loved the culture that dressed the part of a classic cholo. “It seemed that I could have been related to me or went to school with me,” Ponce says with a smile. “I was bald, I had the Locs, the Pendleton and was shouting our neighborhoods.” They remember the times they have felt as cultural ambassadors that carry their inheritance from their hometown to cities like Boston.
But the weight of itself of representing and sharing their life of a lifetime is not always very fun and games. Only a matter of weeks before they walked through the halls of the Plaza Museum to see their new exhibition on the importance of East La Musicians, they were on tour in the United Kingdom feeling helpless while watching ice raids and protests flooded the city.
Bryan Ponce and Adriana Flores on stage in the Plaza de Cultura y Artes.
(Brian Feinzimer / For the Times)
“You really couldn't understand what was happening,” says Ponce. “I looked at videos and watched things online, but I really didn't see it until we got home for a couple of days before we left. [Manjarrez] And I live close to each other, and we begin to watch videos of all these places, stores and people in our community. It was devastating to have to go again and see that they are getting closer to their home and seeing that it happened in their street. You are trying to play music to entertain people, but you are also trying to find a balance. It's like 'Are we going to talk about what is happening?' Because some people thought it was running out, and that is not really the case. “
“Seeing the community go through something so heartbreaking while being outside was really difficult,” adds Flores. “It was really difficult to see our community being attacked, but I would like to believe that music and being creative and spreading joy is a form of resistance. I hope people can come to our shows and escape. Although this is much larger than us, we have to use our platform to be a vowel on what happens. It is terrifying times, but another terrifying time was the '60 when all the movement of civil rights was happening and some of the best music came from that. People and people were and that people were happening.
