Voices from the Mexican Underground: Spreading Independent Music in Mexico

Christian Michel and a friend from Cholula

In the unassuming rural college town of Cholula, Puebla, a small group of promoters going by the moniker Albino.Mx are slowly making the Mexican city more indie music-friendly, opening up possibilities for young local bands and smaller international acts to perform. I talked to Christian Michel, the Vice Director of Albino, the morning after Festival Nrmal as we enjoyed our last free hotel breakfast. Besides organizing shows in the area, Michel also runs the Albino.mx art/music blog, as well as directs and produces a weekly radio show called AlterEXA focusing on cutting-edge music from around the world, one of the few that exist in the country, broadcast, ironically, on 98.7 FM, one of the largest commercial radio stations in Mexico. On May 3, Albino will present the first-ever Día de Campo, a one-day festival taking place at the Jardín El Fresno and featuring more than 25 Mexican independent bands.

As promoters, we're always between the commercial—what we have to do to make money—and the noncommercial. We try to find alternative bands that are good and have a potential for success. It's a very delicate balance," Michel said. "What we want to do with Día de Campo is have a big event with a lot of bands. The main act is a popular Mexican band, commercially speaking, that will bring out a lot of people, which enables us to involve smaller, lesser known bands. It's give and take." Carla Morrison will headline the festival. A singer-songwriter and guitarist on the LA-based independent label Cosmica Records, she's gained a significant following in recent years. Part of Mexico's indie mainstream, Morrison is distinct enough from pop music to be considered "alternative" by industry professionals yet has mass appeal. In 2012, the Latin Grammy Awards awarded her two gramophones for Best Alternative Song and Best Alternative Music Album. As in the US, the words "alternative" and "indie" no longer necessarily signify originality or diversion from the norm.

While commercial indie acts make up about half of the bands at Día de Campo, the festival also provides space for more groundbreaking bands presently existing in relative obscurity, like Verano Peligroso (translation: Dangerous Summer). The Mexico City-based band creates intriguing hybrid dance music, drawing from cumbia music, twee pop and dream rock at times reminiscent of Lower Dens in their repetition and melodic, drowned-out vocals. Urss Bajo El Arbol (translation: USSR Under The Tree), also from Mexico City, evokes Radiohead in their multilayered approach to rock music, with standout elements like improvised saxophone. Other more experimental bands performing at Día de Campo include the dance-punk band Maniquí Lazer (translation: Lazer Mannequin) out of Mexicali, Baja California and the Guadaljaran electronic band Childs, both of which took hiatuses from the underground music scene the last few years, have reemerged and are preparing new records to be released sometime this year.

By using a mainstream vocabulary to express the underground, Michel helps make indie music accessible to a larger audience. In a place where indie music is still a novelty and remains a foreign concept, this democratic combination of the commercial and the alternative almost seems necessary. "We want to bring people out to shows, and that's why we do things this way. You have to use conventional forms creatively," Michel said. "People might come for a commercial band, but they might also see a new band they've never heard before and discover this other world of music that exists. It's a formative process." Home to the Universidad de las Américas Puebla, Cholula attracts young people from various parts of southern Mexico, like Veracruz, Oaxaca and Chiapas. Michel attempts to appeal to this significant student population to build an audience for Albino.Mx events. The challenge for Albino, as well as Nrmal and other DIY promoters in Mexico, is inspiring appreciation for new independent music in a place that has little or no history of it. According to Michel, just dressing alternatively in Cholula can attract strange looks. There is a strong Catholic presence in the town. Generally, the young people there prefer going to clubs with Djs who play commercial music to going to shows with experimental bands. The few venues that do exist tend to be unprofessional, and businesses often cater more to tourists than to locals. There simply aren't many things for young people to do. This is what Michel is up against.

Michel has lived in Puebla for the last 16 years. He's organized one-off festivals in the past, but Día de Campo is a new concept, including exclusively Mexican indie bands. "The last festival we did had three stages and tons of bands, both national and international. It was difficult--and expensive. With Día de Campo, we wanted to do something small, and realizable. We wanted it to be unpretentious and affordable," Michel said. Día de Campo costs just 250 pesos, about 20 US dollars. "People who come to the festival put themselves in our hands. They don't have to worry if they don't know 80 percent of the bands. If they come, they will discover things. We intentionally involved bands in Día de Campo that were lesser known with this in mind."

Michel has taken some cues from Festival Nrmal in this respect. "I love it. It's incredible, right? And I really don't like festivals. I came here because it's not like other festivals. It's a new way of doing things—lots of people, super cheap, tons of bands," Michel said. It was Michel's first time at Festival Nrmal. "There's a lot to learn from Festival Nrmal. I saw bands that I've never heard of before. You can come to the festival and not know any of the bands playing. It didn't feel impersonal or robotic. Everyone was very friendly and laid-back. It's an experience. I'll definitely be coming back next year."

Michel plans to make Día de Campo an annual event. Currently, Albino.Mx presents shows in soccer fields, public gardens and parks. Eventually they hope to have their own venue for large-scale events. Though Cholula's underground music scene is far from established, two mentionable area acts to have emerged in recent years are the garage-punk band Sex, Sex, Sex and the electro-house duo Damn Disko, both of which will perform at Día de Campo.

"It's ridiculous that almost everything is centralized in Mexico City. There are maybe ten venues in all of Mexico, and five of them are in Mexico City. Some years ago, I saw that Unknown Mortal Orchestra was doing a US tour of tons of places, even small towns like Ames, Iowa. There's always a place to perform. Here, it's different," Michel said. "What we're trying to do is create a new place where bands can play, so that they can perform in Mexico City, Monterrey, Guadalajara—and Cholula. Someone can say, 'You know these guys from Cholula? They can help you organize a show.' There are a lot of people who go to Mexico City because they say nothing's going on in their town, or nobody listens to good music where they live, but no one wants to do something for their community," Michel said. "That's why I'm there."

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