October 8, 2006

Very Be Careful

This is not a rock ‘n’ roll post. A few years ago I was attending the Sunset Junction street fair with a friend, and we came upon a band playing on the sidewalk. They were incredible – their unpretentious energy, the funky rhythm and mournful accordian sound – anyone within earshot felt the pull. Oh, and the cowbell; can’t forget the cowbell.

Something set these guys apart from your average backyard barbeque band. They were young, handsome latinos and the audience was liberally seasoned with lots of pretty chicas that made the “dance floor” fun for creeps like me to watch. In fact, the band seemed to be far too busy getting their groove to sell any showbiz; for the most part, the crowd became the show. The quintet known as Very Be Careful were an instant party.

Others can give you a more technical description of what Columbia’s Vallenato folk music is. A muttly blend of European, indigenous and Caribbean influences, it’s not to be confused with Cumbia, although the huge popularity of both forms has apparently led to some crossover. Keep in mind that I don’t know fuck about shit.

The Very Be Careful lineup is accordian, standup bass, cowbell, cajón drum and guacharaca (a scrape percussion instrument). I’d always assumed that this minimal instrumentation – and their Echo Park hipster roots – meant that Very Be Careful weren’t playing in the traditional vein of vallenatos, but after schooling my blanco ass, hearing some of the music of Columbian legend Alejandro Duran (thanks to the fact that VBC cover a number of his songs) I can attest that this is the real deal: the simple, soulful sound of South American blues.

They’ve been together for many years and put out several albums on their own Downtown Pijao label. Yet, though I’ve seen them at the most modest of venues (most recently at Little Pedro’s in East L.A.), VBC have also performed on huge bills with international stars. Their neighborhood-centric attitude is the exact opposite of the commonly seen superambitious, ugly, anything-to-get-a-record-deal approach. It’s hard to tell what would give them more satisfaction: blowing up on MTV, or just cutting loose at a local Quinceañera celebration.

The core of the band are Arturo and Ricardo Guzman (who I could swear I’ve seen switch up on bass and accordion, but I might be wrong), with Dante Ruiz, Richard Panta and guacharaquero Craig Martin. The three tunes below are taken from their great 2002 album El Grizz. My favorite here is “Los Gavilanes” (written by Eusebio Campillo), which was obviously recorded in the subway; the screech of the air brakes merges well with the haunting echo of the squeezebox. VBC play a lot of traditional covers, but many of their original lyrics were penned by Deicy Guzman, Arturo and Ricardo’s mom(!). Their latest release is called Ñacas.

Very Be Careful – “Los Gavilanes”

Very Be Careful – “Planchame la Ropa”

Very Be Careful – “Maria No Te Cases”

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I can’t remember ever liking the band The The, but the folks at dead website Ambiguous.org do, and they discovered that Google has a bit of a problem with the name of the band. So I’m linking out of compassion. Doing this blog has made me very dependent on looking things up to keep my factual errors to a minimum. Hence, I’ve had my own weird issues with search engine grammar – for instance, hyphens that vanish from my search and completely change the phrases/name/title I’m searching for. I hate that. Therefore, overly clever band-namers like The The have my digital-age sympathy, whether or not their records are any good.

Rick at 10:18 pm

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