Friday MIS

I'll let you in on a little secret: I'm a lazy cultural critic. And an anti-snob to boot.

Because I really cannot listen/see/read pop culture 24/7, I fall behind on some pieces/performances/acts. And sometimes, when said pop cult point is hyped, I tend to turn away. This is why I didn't check Calle 13 for a long time, or MIA. Mea culpa.

My new latecomer act? Mexican Institute of Sound. I heard the description -- ironic Mexican electronica, à la Nortec Collective, made by a label rep -- and I thought, que Dios me libre from so much hipness.

But as Maegan Ortiz and I discussed extensively in a bathroom at the LAMC last week after her "Blogueando" panel, even in soundscapes that are now shaped so much online, there is a connection that can sometimes only be made sharing the same meatspace.

And Camilo Lara, Mr. MIS, was a much more convincing advertisement of himself in the flesh -- he too was on the bloggers panel -- than a thousand Filter raves.

Insightful, self- and others-deprecating, he imagined a near future in which bloggers become a new indie combo of A&R and producers, commissioning mixes, album-length projects and otherwise extending their roles as curators/tastemakers. "Blogs will be sub-labels, because they can generate music," he said.

On the owning-vs.-subscription debate, he said, "Entertainment is a more zen thing, no? You don't need to have anything. We live in such small spaces you don't have room to store 1,000 records. If you want to hear a crappy Gwen Stefani song, you can hear it and not keep it."

All of which sent me running to MySpace and my stack of promos (where IS my copy of Piñata? I could swear I got one), where Lara's goofy old-school lazy-rap vocals all of a sudden seemed charming rather than DF hipster pretentious, more Beck than Austin TV.

How can you not love a guy who writes a song about how breakups remap your city, because you avoid the places you went to with an ex? In the video below for "Katia, Tania, Paulina y la Kim," Camilo skates through DF's Natural History Museum with a tail attached, and concludes that

I no longer like to go out at night
because I remember my girlfriends in the car
all pretty and gorgeous, with one defect:
they no longer go out with me, instead they go out with a perfect guy.

[Camilo Lara pix by Oscar Zagal via his site]

Comments

[Sovietiko]

Me gustaba esta version mas:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=icr0eW1fRSs

[richard]

I have to admit I was mildly avergonzado when my therapist recommended IMS to me. From what I've heard, I've enjoyed. I've had a terrible penchant for sleeping on new things, especially because new things have to compete for my attention against the many other things I already like.

[Kiko Jones]

[yawn]

Sovietico: OUCH!