When Worlds Collide
Red Earth
Third Mesa Music
<http://www.tribalstew.com>
REVIEW BY BILL NEVINS
ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico — Peruvian Christian Orellana's well-amped peace pipe cuts through the rattle and gibber of a crowded south-western USA pub. He then sets the pipe down and slams on his congas while Carlo "Bluehouse" Johnson slices mean blues guitar into the ears of those not yet paying attention.
Then Chilean Matias Pizarro (on loan from rebel punk band Stoic Frame) leaps on stage from the audience, lifts a huge Brazilian marching drum and beats on the thing like a man possessed. The crowd starts jumping up and down with the band's heavy riddim, chanting in unison, "Matador! Matador!". Tribal beat and sway take over as sweat and smoke fill the room.
A line of drummers forms, with Canadian percussionist Jeff Duneman and bassist Adrian Wall backing up the relentless bullfight march-time until the brass section of their Japanese trumpeter, Chicano saxophonist and Quebecois trombonist Ken Beaupre step forward to inject a fast ska beat.
Navajo lead singer Ira Wilson screams a blunt question at the bouncing audience: "Crazy Horse kicked Custer's what?". Wilson only has to repeat the question one time. The crowd roars back: "Crazy Horse kicked Custer's arsssssse!"
Some crazy-quilt mix of styles! A jazzy start which flows into fiesta-rock then careens into a victory dance for the Little Big Horn. And it works! Everybody in the place is up and dancing, hard. Just who the hell is that band on stage?
Red Earth. Seven strong players and at least seven musical approaches, from Latin hip hop to Native-American blues, and on to reggae, driving rock, soul and punk. All stirred together with joyful attitude into what Red Earth call a "tribal stew" of damn good dance music.
Since Wilson, Wall and Duneman escaped their metal cover-band jobs to start Red Earth as a three-piece combo in the mid-1990s, the band has morphed and grown to absorb, digest and synthesize disparate musical personalities.
Now eight members strong, this "Latin-Native-French-Anglo-Japanese Big Band" defies simple categories. What they are truly about, according to founding member/drummer Jeff Duneman, is change.
"Look at the stage", says Duneman, "we've got three Native Americans, two Latinos, an Anglo, a Japanese and a French Canadian! And we mash it all together. That's real change."
Red Earth's lyrics, in English, Spanish and Native-American tongues, are penned jointly. They look sharply at history, particularly the brutal histories of indigenous peoples in the northern hemisphere. And they call out in hope of radical, positive change for the future.
"Now's the time to save our legacy, even after all the loss we've seen", asserts Red Earth in "Sacred". Their anthems, "Para La Mentira" and "Revolucion Caliente" decry the long hard centuries of rape and exploitation suffered by native Peruvians, Chicanos and other people of the land.
But instead of sadness, the songs celebrate defiance and pride. Wall says, "What we are about is everybody thinking for themselves, but moving towards unity at the same time. We aren't trying to change the whole world, but we talk about some serious issues".
On Red Earth's CD, When Worlds Collide, guest artists Star Nayea, Shkeme and Keith Sanchez further deepen the band's mix. The CD includes their Indian-country rap-soul hit, "Honey Be", the funky "Phat Albert" and "Astro Daddy", as well as Red Earth's more politically charged, Bob Marley-like battle-cry songs, and even some inter-tribal pow-wow music (Wall is a traditional dancer as well as a sculptor, and the other band members speak with great respect of their links to family, tribe and homelands).
Red Earth is a dynamic, even explosive musical conglomeration. They are a band aimed at preserving and building community among fans and listeners and in the wide world in general. And there is no grimness to their determination.
Red Earth aim to have fun while they do some very serious work. Cheerful, dancing revolutionaries. As they sing in "Children of Tomorrow": "As we sweep the streets of sorrow, pray for a brand new day/And for the children of tomorrow, we join together and clear the way".
[Bill Nevins is a teacher and writer based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the most militarised state in the US. More of his writings are online at < http:A HREF="//www.hollowear.com"><//www.hollowear.com>.]
From Green Left Weekly, January 23, 2002.
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