MySpace
myspace music my music  featured playlists  top artists  music videos  karaoke  shows  forums 


MySpace.com | rss | sign in
Bella Novela



Last Updated: 12/17/2009

Send Message
Instant Message
Email to a Friend
Subscribe

Status: Single
City: Long Beach
State: California
Country: US
Signup Date: 8/10/2007

Blog Archive
[Older      Newer]
 /  / 
Thursday, August 13, 2009 
A MATTER OF TRUST
Kevin FergusonWed. August 12
 
Jamming econo in the 21st century with Fidotrust Records
PHOTO by JOHN GILHOOLEYIf the world really is falling to pieces, then Long Beach is a city built for the end. Nestled in a sort of south-facing coastal armpit, we suffer first and we suffer the most: wretched chemicals and bacteria routinely wash up on our technically unswimmable beaches; foul-smelling gasses pour out from refineries and into the windows of our technically uninhabitable, lead-infested apartments (or am I the only person worried by Prop. 65 warnings outside almost every building?); streets rot with abandoned homes owned by banks too rich and reckless to care; giant bulldozers unearth decades of half-decomposed waste and filth where once grew a verdant wetlands sanctuary for birds and plants. Yes, if these are the end days, Long Beach is the canary to America’s unwitting coalminer, treading carefully into oblivion.But if this isn’t the end, Long Beach will be fine. Better than fine, actually: we’ll be the first to make it out of the tunnel and back into classical American prosperity. And for the optimists out there, the strongest evidence one can offer isn’t the price of durable goods or consumer spending rates, but Jackie Ojeda and Oscar Rey, co-owners of Long Beach’s own Fidotrust Records. Despite all accounts of America and the music industry descending slowly into irrelevance, Fidotrust is not only producing new records, but thriving. Their success isn’t thanks to some kitschy marketing model, there’s no high-minded synergy scheme—they’re following in the footsteps of legends.Mike Watt—founder of freak-punk forefathers the Minutemen, Stooges bassist and full-time fountain of local wisdom—is talking about the old days in front of San Pedro’s Sacred Grounds when he gently sets down his coffee: “We [the Minutemen] saw records as fliers. Interviews were fliers, too. Anything that got people to the gig was a flier,” he says. “The gig had the least amount of middlemen, and that’s what we wanted.”As hundreds of underground pioneers did before them, Watt and the Minutemen opted for day jobs, inexpensive recording methods and utilitarian equipment to avoid compromising their stridently anti-commercial art. They not only took pride in their frugality but made it a mantra of sorts. They called it “jamming econo” and owed their careers to the practice. The Minutemen’s double-LP opus Double Nickels on the Dime (currently enjoying its 25th anniversary) was recorded late at night in Venice’s Radio Tokyo Studios over the course of less than a dozen break-neck sessions for a budget barely approaching $1,500. The song order was drawn from straws with little attention given to the “flow” or transition, overdubs were minimal, everything was econo. Double Nickels is, for most intents and purposes, a straight-to-tape documentation of the Minutemen’s live act.Fast-forward to a modern-day Long Beach and it turns out the Minutemen’s hyper-frugal econo creed was uncannily prescient for today’s post-major-label music economy. Recordings are simply a means to an end, the end being the most human, real-life experience you can get: seeing a band live. Many times the only thing that stands between a musician and a recording is just a computer. “Recording is way more econo today,” observes Watt, who, along with his group, the Secondmen, will perform on Aug. 22 at Fidotrust Fest, a music festival celebrating the release of this year’s Fidotrust compilation CD featuring mostly local bands (including the Secondmen).“A lot of people have studios in their houses!” Watt continues. “You can make your own record for next to nothing.”Fidotrust launched slowly at first. In the early ’90s Oscar Rey piloted the record label alone as an outlet for whatever music he made at the time. A musician from first grade on, Rey recalls the moment he picked up his first instrument: “This traveling salesman came to my family’s door pitching accordion lessons,” he says. “My mom was trying to talk me into it, but I thought it was lame until the salesman showed me this photo of a kid playing the accordion and said, ‘Do you know who played accordion? The king of rock and roll!’” (For the record: the King never played accordion, tragically.) No word on what happened to the salesman, but Rey grew up and sang in punk bands. He now plays bass in Long Beach’s expert ear-wreckers Horns.His solo shift at the helm of Fidotrust changed after Rey met Jackie Ojeda, who in the little time she has left between serving drinks and booking shows at Alex’s Bar plays keyboard and sings with Rey in his other band, Bella Novela. According to Ojeda, the two were driving together on a long road trip when they decided to open Fidotrust to other bands, to make it a “real” label—one that would give Long Beach’s best a legitimate outlet for their recorded sound. “We realized there are so many bands in Long Beach, and we all have the same goals,” says Ojeda. “Why don’t we form a hub for these bands to launch off of? Why not make it something cohesive?!”In April of 2008, to properly introduce their label to the hungry masses, Ojeda, Rey and a few friends organized a blowout multi-bar festival and compiled a CD comprising their favorite musicians. They called the compilation Trust Us, either a polite request or an aggressive command (I’m inclined to assume the latter), and it was Long Beach at its purest: all bands were local, and all tracks were fresh rippers from heavyweights like the Valley Arena, Greater California and Crystal Antlers.“I think when everyone heard about the label from the two of them, they immediately said, ‘Great!’” says Matt Fry, frontman for the Soft Hands, who were also included on the disc.And Fidotrust is back now with another festival and compilation, this time expanding the tracklist past Long Beach’s hazy skyline to Los Angeles and beyond: dive-bar punks Stab City hail from Los Angeles, while devout party-rockers Juanita and the Rabbit call San Francisco home. The label even stretches as far east as Las Vegas with Fat Dukes of Fuck.But Fidotrust remains a community project first: nearly every person on the company’s roster is a friend of both Ojeda and Rey. Fry, whose band saw its debut album, Hours Pass By, released on Fidotrust last year, has known them since he first began playing shows in Long Beach. But Fry admits there was more than just friendship behind the decision to join the label. “Even had we not known them before, we would’ve seen very quickly that they were professionals,” he says. “They’re clear, transparent people.”Fidotrust’s business model takes music back to simpler, more human times, when business was done with cooperation—not corporations—first in mind. Once a band is signed to the label, its members enter into an equal partnership with Ojeda and Rey: they don’t work for Fidotrust, butwith. Being musicians, Ojeda and Rey know both sides of the coin. “I think that since Jackie and Oscar have been in bands, they’re always doing things in a creative and positive way,” says Fry. “That works really well with us.”Live performances fuel the bottom line. “The album is a business card,” says Ojeda. “One of the first things we ask bands is, ‘Are you a weekend warrior? Or are you gonna tour your ass off?’ That’s the only way we’ll see any kind of a return from our investment. Instead of the album being the product now, it’s the band!” Speaking from his experience, Watt agrees wholeheartedly: “If you look at the history of music—I don’t know, [maybe] mankind, too—only in the last hundred years did we start recording stuff,” he says. “It’s really a blip. Music has always been performed.“In the old days I remember talking to [Minutemen singer and guitarist] D. Boon,” adds Watt. “He said, ‘Let’s divide the world up into two categories: there are fliers, and there are gigs.’ At a gig, I could go up and talk to the dude who just played, meet him up on stage. It was a trippy thing! Very profound.”In that tradition, Fidotrust is moving on to new ways of spreading sound around. Rey and Ojeda believe today’s MySpace-centric universe has devastated the full-length album’s de factorelease status. And if you factor the time and money spent recording versus what return you get, a full-length CD is now financially disastrous. Ojeda learned this the hard way: “There are probably at least 10 to 15 bands, myself included, who have closets full of CDs from old projects. It changed on us like that!” Many times singles and compilations are the most efficient way extend the most music to the most people. “It’s just a whole different kind of world,” says Ojeda. “There isn’t a market for albums anymore. If you can put one or two really great songs on your MySpace or Web site, that’s where you’re going to get recognition.”Of course, DIY bands like the Minutemen have been supporting one another for years. But as the music industry collapses and America’s economy recedes, a new workable model is needed. As it turns out, what Ojeda and Rey found with Fidotrust isn’t new at all. But it works. Trust them.FIDOTRUST FEST 2009 ALEX’S BAR | QUE SERA | THE PROSPECTOR | THE CELLAR | SAT AUGUST 22 | 8PM | $10 GETS YOU A CD, ADMISSION TO ALL FOUR SHOWS AND TRIPS ON THE BIG RED BUS | 21+ | FIDOTRUST.COM

5:18 PM 
0 Comments
(Add Comment) |
Translate
Thursday, June 11, 2009 
Hosted By:
Bella Novela

When:
Friday, June 12, 2009

Where:
Alex's Bar
2913 E. Anaheim St
Long Beach
90804

Description:
Platypus Beats Presents: El Manifesto, Los Mysteriosos, Bella Novela and DJ WestenShow - $5 This is our last show until we get back from tour! Come on down and support! We play at 10pm

Click Here To View Event
7:10 PM 
0 Comments
(Add Comment) |
Translate
Sunday, August 31, 2008 
What you should learn in school, but won't

Some nights, deciding where to eat or what band to see can be as difficult as settling on an elective course to round out your schedule. Whether you're new to town or have been here since graduating college (in 1983), here's our cursory course catalogue of Long Beach life—the beer (Chemistry), the Spanish rock (Latin American Studies), the antique markets (Marketing). Also, for fun, we sat down with some teachers whose subjects—guns, bicycles, God—show that no matter your degree, there's always more to learn.

LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
LOS MYSTERIOSOS Spanish songs about wild west drama delivered with Sergio Leone flair—waltz-time marauder ballads and Reis-rock rippers add extra exclamation points to a band who perform in mariachi regalia with the élan of a Rocket From the Crypt. Often spotted at Alex's Bar, where they go after riding into each sunset. EXTRA CREDIT: BELLA NOVELA High-drama high-energy rock from a band whose fervent hope is to outnova the Mexican daytime soaps: "The bigger, the sadder and the more overdramatic the better," singer Jackie O says. // CZ - The District Weekly
2:38 AM 
0 Comments
(Add Comment) |
Translate