The hidden city

Son Rompe Pera, CDMX, Three Punk Tales

Greetings from Mexico City

A few months ago I got a message from my friend Andrés, who writes

Later Than You Think

, telling me the Mexican cumbia band Son Rompe Pera was playing Mexico City and we needed to go.

“What if we interview Son Rompe Pera for Razorcake? I wrote back.
“Let’s do it!” he replied.

Little did he know he’d fallen into my trap. Yes, “we” would interview the band, but since the interview would be in Spanish and Andrés is fluent, guess who would be doing all the work?

What makes Son Rompe Pera remarkable is that they are a cumbia band with a punk rock twist. And how do they do that?

With the marimba. Here’s a taste from the show last week.

For a fuller experience check out the band’s Tiny Desk concert, which was filmed in Mexico City during the pandemic. The three players up front are the Gama brothers from Naucalpan: Kacho, Mongo, and Kilos.

This video was filmed at the same venue where Andrés, Nuvia and I went to see Son Rompe Pera on Saturday night: the historic Salon Los Angeles, which has been open for 85 years.

Salon Los Angeles

It will take a minute to translate and transcribe the interview, but once it runs in Razorcake I’ll have more behind-the-scenes photos and quotes. In the meantime, Son Rompe Pera is going on tour next month and will be playing at Pappy & Harriet’s in Pioneertown on May 28 and at the Quartyard in San Diego on May 29. See you there?

Dreaming Empires

Earlier this year, I wrote about Álvaro Enrique’s incredible You Dreamed of Empires about the first contact between Cortés and Moctezuma. The novel deepened my desire to go back to the Templo Mayor Museum, which sits on the grounds of the Main Temple of Tenochtitlan, where some of the action takes place.

The Templo Mayor is actually a series of seven temples that were built on top of each other beginning in the 14^th century and continuing for the next two hundred years with each emperor trying to outdo his predecessor until the Spaniards showed up. After demolishing the Main Temple they built a cathedral on top of it using the stones of the ruined temple because of course they did.

Treasures of the Templo Mayor

The museum is an incredible piece of living history that’s still under excavation, steps from the Zocalo, right in the middle of the largest city in the Americas. It’s incredible to think that on Sunday morning before our visit, President Claudia Sheinbaum along with boxing legends like Julio César Chávez held the largest boxing class in national history—in the same place where the ancients lived and loved and died. By the time we showed up a little after noon the crowds had dispersed and crews were taking down the stage. Just another day in la ciudad.

On Sundays, the museum is free to Mexican nationals and it was full of families, couples, and young people on dates, walking through the ruins of the ancient temple, looking at its treasures inside the museum.

Afterwards, we walked to Casa de Azulejos or The House of Blue Tiles, a gorgeous 18^th century palace that eventually became home to a Sanborns restaurant. I’m struggling to come up with an American analog. Marie Callender’s? Mimi’s Cafe? Anyway, there are Sanborns in every major city in Mexico but this is the flagship location. It was crowded and we were seated in a gallery upstairs where a pianist played popular songs.

At the table next to us, was a family of five and the children all clapped every time the pianist finished a song. The tables around them followed suit, including ours, until the whole restaurant joined in. It was kind of funny, kind of sweet. It became apparent why these kids were so attentive to the music when the boy, who looked all over twelve, went up to the piano and played the next song, and he was really good. What bowled me over was the reaction he got from his sisters who embraced him like he’d just done the most amazing thing ever. And you know what? He kind of did.

You Dreamed of Empires is a hilarious book, and one of the running jokes in the novel is how much the Spaniards are freaked out by all the religious rituals but can’t get enough of the bowls of steaming hot cacao. A few nights ago one of Nuvia’s former students, a talented artist named Renata, invited us to her parents’ new chocolate shop where for the last four months they have been making chocolate, something they had been doing for many years in Tijuana.

Well, after sampling several hot cups of cacao, with and without milk, with and without spices, etc. we could see why those Spaniards were addicted. I’d never had cacao that was so fresh and the overall effect on my body felt stronger than coffee. Nuvia and I had trouble sleeping that night and when we did we had vivid dreams. Apparently, in the middle of the night, I let out a yell and kicked the hotel wall. I wasn’t exactly dreaming of empires, but something powerful visited me in my sleep.

Black Van and WIP

It’s wild to think that when I came to Mexico City in the summer of 2023 I had the idea for Black Van and that less than two years later I’ve completed multiple drafts. That summer I walked around with a copy of Savage Detectives under my arm like a literary lightning rod—and it worked. This time I carried a journal so I could write down ideas for my new work-in-progress.

The weather is exceptionally pleasant right now and the jacarandas are in bloom and I spent part of every day outdoors in parks and cafes writing down notes for the novel for the novel. Andrés captured a moment while we were waiting outside a taco shop when I had an idea for a scene. When I copied it into my laptop the next morning I realized how important that scene was and it just might be the key to the whole story.

There’s no way of telling if that’s true just a few weeks into the project, but there’s something about Mexico City inspires me. Whether it’s the tacos or the cacao, the ghost of Bolaño or the influence of the ancients, I love being here even if it’s for a few days. In a few hours we’ll make our way to the airport, fly to Tijuana, and cross the border to the Republic of California.

Scenes from the city

Thanks for reading! Don’t forget, I have an event in San Diego this Sunday April 13th at 7pm Three Punk Ales on 2021 India Street in Little Italy. It’s called Three Punk Tales because, well, you don’t need me to spell it out for you…

If you liked this newsletter you might also like my latest novel about healthcare vigilantes Make It Stop, or the paperback edition of Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise & Fall of SST Records, or my book with Bad Religion, or my book with Keith Morris. I have more books and zines for sale here. And if you’ve read all of those, consider checking out my latest collaboration The Witch’s Door and the anthology Eight Very Bad Nights.

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