Punk Outlaw

Dorados Rockabilly Trio “Lucky Ones” Video

// April 28th, 2013 // No Comments » // Videos

Check out our boys from Medellin, The Dorados Rockabilly Trio performing their song “Lucky Ones” for Locomotora Live TV. Nice job fellas!

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A Blues Storm in Medellin

// January 30th, 2013 // No Comments » // Photos

By Felipe Ossa / Dorados Rockabilly Trio

Something special was happening in my hometown of Medellín, Columbia, during this year. Three big blues artists visited the town for the first time and shared with us their music and experiences, making us feel like we were in the Mississippi Delta, or maybe rolling down a long road.

On May 17, the legendary Bill Homan, professionally known as Watermelon Slim, who has been linked to several artists such as John Lee hooker, Robert Cray and Joe McDonald, reached Medellín. Before the show he was talking with us about his slide technique in a private guitar class.

The show was just amazing. It was a gig never seen before in this city. That was the first time we listened to the slide guitar played by a master. In fact, that was the first time we saw a blues legend in action. Watermelon made us feel like we were old friends, he made us feel like family.

CHECK OUT THE REST OF THE ARTICLE IN LA LOCA MAGAZINE HERE

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What We’re Listening To Now

// November 10th, 2012 // No Comments » // Music

Have you ever noticed how every now and then you will rediscover a song that you had heard before but hadn’t gone nuts over initially? Then suddenly, weeks, months or sometimes even years later, you stumble across it again and this time it gets embedded in your conscious and you just have to listen to it over and over again… maybe even add it to your top 10, 50 or 100 of all time songs or something?

To me it feels a little like a metaphor for love or a relationship actually, I find these “rediscovered” songs often grab me the most, at least over the long term. Many times with a song that I instantly fell in love with on the 1st or 2nd listen, a few days, weeks or a month or so later, I’ll end up discarding them to the “every now and then” bin and more often than not, skipping the song after it pops up in shuffle on the ipod.

These songs I like initially are sometimes just bubble gum and it was all surface stuff I fell in love with, nothing really long term there and just as quickly, I’ll stop listening. Just like a relationship when you get to that 2nd level and you find the the things you liked the most about that person (song) you thought you dug so much, suddenly annoy the hell out of you and you need to get away before you say something rude or just end up being callous and cruel.

Dorados’ Felipe Ossa with a young Colombian Elvis fan

Then there are songs like this one from Colombia’s Dorados Rockabilly Trio’s “Conflicto de Espacio Blanco” (White Space Conflict) a collection of 6 songs we put out earlier this year via Punk Outlaw Records.

I’m not a huge rockabilly fanatic personally, I mean I like it, but I don’t love, love, love it like most rockabilly cats. But I DO like it and I DO get a good kick out of it. It’s very listenable music, especially live.

However, when I hear Dorados I tend to LOVE rockabilly suddenly. Something in the music, makes me want to throw away all inhibition and dance a silly dance and not give one iota about who sees me.

Especially, when I hear this “rediscovered gem”, which had been “with me all along”, “Little Baby”. Maybe I didn’t connect so powerfully initially because it takes a little patience to get through the intro.

I mean I like the intro, a lot. It makes the song, but in this day and age of quick, snap judgements and remote controls, and short, tight songs, I guess I may have clicked Fast Forward to “next” before “Little Baby” got completely up and running to it’s finger popping, bootie shaking rhythms, which now, I can’t get out of my head.

I envision even the most hardcore hip hop/R&B/Blues fan digging this song along with Rockabilly fanatics and any of the plethora of other type of music fans. But then again, maybe I’m just obsessed.

I can’t seem to get enough of “Little Baby”. But maybe it’s just me? “Little Baby”, I’m sorry I ignored you early on. You have me now, so please, please, please… don’t break my heart.

ON A RELATED NOTE:

We’re casting a rockabilly vixen for Dorados Rockabilly Trio “Diamond Girl”. Most of the video is shot, but we need the following:
- Vintage Motorbikes and / or Vintage Hot-rods
- Cool Rockabilly gal that wants to dance & star as “Diamond Girl”.
- Some rockabilly guys & gals as extras
- Cool location

If your in the Los Angeles area and know someone interested in participating, please comment or email us at info@punkoutlawrecords.com and we’ll be in touch.

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Elvis’ Drummer was from Bogota, Colombia?

// September 13th, 2012 // No Comments » // Videos

I bet you didn’t know that Elvis drummer for many years was from Bogota, Colombia. Bill Lynn was born in Bogota and move to the U.S. at age 11 then returned there and died in 2006, but not before opening up an Elvis tribute bar called “Legends & Superstars” that drew tourists from around the world.

These are all little tid bits I picked up in a brief but very interesting article penned by our buddy Felipe Ossa from Medellin’s Dorados Rockabilly Trio for La Loca Magazine. It’s a short history but damned interesting. Check it out HERE.

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Los Suziox Performs “Miseria”, Que Chimba!

// August 29th, 2012 // No Comments » // Photos, Videos

I’m back in the U.S. of A. now, memories of Colombia still fresh on my mind. I was all over the place, Popayan, Cali, Medellin and Bogota, in just 11 days. As posted here earlier, we were able to cobble together a video shoot of the Medellin’s rockabilly band “Dorados Rockabilly Trio” for their song “Diamond Girl” which we hope to edit and debut for you guys sometime this fall.

But I also was able to sit in with my punk rock buddies “Los Suziox” (The Dirty), who’ve been rocking the entire country of Colombia since 1996. Los Suziox is somewhat of an open secret, playing to huge crowds in Colombia but never having toured outside of there. Hopefully that will change someday as more and more people in North America, Europe and even Australia get turned on to their melodic and politically charged songs. I know I’ve been getting emails from new fans from all over the world ever since we premiered their really excellent CD “El Fin Justifica Los Medios” (The End Justifies the Means) a couple years back and made it available on iTunes & Amazon Music.

Here are a few photos from that rehearsal which features one of those fans, Rocky, who happened to be visiting from Hungary at the time I was there (he’s the other gringo, with the Los Suziox guitarist in a headlock in the group photo) and who also happens to be in a punk band called Lecsa Punk in Hungary. Why didn’t I cover them when I was visiting Hungary you ask? Nothing gets by you loyal reader, but Rocky was in Colombia when I was in Hungary? Dig? (I’m talking jive from the 70s these days, must be all this travel exposing me to cheezy 70s and 80s music)

A special treat for our readers; a very rare performance of their song “Miseria” which is a Los Suziox song from back in the early days. Miseria and other songs from their extensive catalog are currently being rerecorded into a re-release at Andres Ocampo’s (lead singer) home studio.

Let me know what you think about this tune “Miseria” that I was able to capture the boys performing n the old flipcam. Que chimba (How cool) is that?

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Gracias Amigos

// August 25th, 2012 // No Comments » // Photos

We’re #2! We’re #2!

Voting for MTV’s Artist of the Week is finished (it ended Friday at 9AM not 9PM as I had mistakenly been posting/saying all along…woops!) and after a lot of back and forth toggling between 1st and 2nd place, our boys Dorados Rockabilly Triofinally finished a strong 2nd pulling in just under 40% of the vote. Congratulations to Kenya’s Xtatic who won with a little over 50% of the vote and to all the artists who were nominated.

And of course a big thank you to our friends who voted for us and have supported Los Dorados. If you don’t know the guys personally, let me tell you this, they are really good guys and are as appreciative as any artists I’ve worked with, which is why I personally work so hard for them.

Have you ever given money to a homeless person or someone in need and they sort of sneered at you and said something like “is that all?”. I have too and it has been my experience with a surprising number of artists in the past. But not the Dorados Rockabilly Trio. These guys are humble, thankful and appreciative, and perhaps like their music, are a bit of a throwback to a simpler time when people were less privileged and didn’t expect fame and fortune to fall into their laps just because they played music they enjoyed.

I’m glad the whole thing is over. I hate campaigning and I hate begging people for their vote. These voting contests are rarely fair and typically only benefit the website hosting the voting (through increased traffic). That’s why they do them.

I should know. Waayyy back in the day in 2004, we created an online voting awards campaign for what would become the “American Latino Awards” where musicians, actors, artists, activist etc. that had been featured on the show that season were up for a cheap trophy and bragging rights. The contest created hundreds of thousands of hits for our website, usually thanks to the efforts of the nominees who campaigned on their behalf.

I don’t think I realized back then how pioneering it was to have this type of online voting awards show for TV. Now I get hit up daily to vote for people that I’ve never heard of for pin-up contests, artist of the week contest like this one, etc. and it’s exhausting.

Lack of creativity and repetition in the media industry is endemic and it depresses me. It’s hard to stay fresh in a world so fickle and that changes it’s notion of what’s good or not so frequently but at the same time, has nothing new to offer.

Back in the day, when I Executive Produced the show “American Latino TV”, a very talented artists whom I respect, once said in an interview, “I hate repetition”. His name was Robi “Draco” Rosa and he has brought the world lots of good and diverse music, but unfairly he is perhaps best known for penning the song “Living La Vida Loca” for his ex-Menudo band mate Ricky Martin.

Now you may snicker at the song now, but that song helped light the fuse of what was to become the “Latin Explosion’ in the music industry near the close of the last century. When Ricky Martin performed that song on the Grammys that year to a wild, stomping and hooting crowd of mostly music executives (who are notoriously unenthusiastic at these type of events) chills ran down my arm.

No, I’m not gay and neither was Ricky back then (at least publicly). No, I never thought the song was a great work of art (but damn, it was catchy, you must admit), but I recognized at that moment something big was coming. People were finally going to see what I’d known for a few years by then which was that Latin music and culture was going to FINALLY become mainstream in the U.S. It felt good to be in on something that was finally starting to get recognition.

I’ve almost always worked on the fringe of the media business, sometimes on the leading edge of something that would later get big. Other than bragging rights, there is not much good in being a pioneer in anything. You can always spot the pioneers in anything, the saying goes, because they will be the ones with the arrows sticking out of their back. And more often than not (though not always), I might add, the ones with the empty bank accounts. Being first at something is greatly overrated and does not guarantee success (just ask the inventor of the light bulb, it wasn’t Thomas Edison). Sometimes it pays off, often it doesn’t.

Yet it’s the only thing I really enjoy, well that and travel, and helping old ladies across the street and puppies and little kids and good punk music and my family and eating good Mexican food and sushi, learning new cultures, NYC…. OK, it’s one of the many things I enjoy.

Being on the fringe of something, sometimes on the leading edge heading the charge and sometimes just on the edge, on the side, about to fall off is a wild ride. The amazing thing is the feeling is the same in both instances, like “what the hell am I doing here?”

For Punk Outlaw Records, what edge are we on? The front or side? Right now I might even say the back.

Nothing really cutting edge about what we are doing other than giving some exposure to some cool artists like my buddies Los Dorados or Normandie Blue or Los Suziox or putting together some themed compilations or what not. Hardly anything cutting edge about that. Yet it feels good to connect more people who might like this music with the music and musicians who otherwise would be limited in their audience.

Maybe we’ll do something really fresh and cutting edge that will set the music world on fire soon. Or maybe we’ll just work when we feel like it and see where this ride takes us, if anywhere (maybe to bankruptcy court?! ha, ha).

Well, thanks again for your support for Los Doraodos and all our artist on Punk Outlaw Records. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an arrow I need to remove from my back. It’s been killing me.

PS Robi Rosa is ill. We wish him a speedy recovery. He’s a great musician and a good family man who gives back to his native Puerto Rico and others in need. We need him in the music world and in the world period. Get better soon Robi.

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Bomb in the Backseat!

// August 22nd, 2012 // No Comments » // Videos

Wow! Thanks to all our friends for your votes and comments for the The Dorados Rockabilly Trio as they try to do the impossible and beat the hip-hop and indie genre to become MTV’s Artist of the week this week. Voting is good until 9PM EST (NYC time) on Friday 8/24/12, so remember my motto, vote early, vote often.

You can vote HERE and vote for Los Dorados and follow the action down to the wire. Now say to yourself, Go Dorados Go Go! Go Dorados Go Go! to the melody of Johnny B Goode and your rockabilly transformation will be complete.

Now in case you think I’ve become nothing more than a shrill shill for MTV and my buddies Los Dorados, here is a cool video for you that’s been tearing up the You Tube bandwidth.

I had a brief convo with Doug Ratner (yes, that Doug) of Doug Ratner and the Watchmen who are from the Springfield Mass. area today and he told me the video is really opening some door for these guys, who up until now have mostly just toured the New England area. Look for that to change real soon as their video “Bomb in the Backseat” is closing in on 40,000 views.

Be sure and check out their other straight ahead rock-n-roll music on their new EP out on itunes HERE as well.

Congrats Doug. Hope the momentum keeps up buddy.

Now, what are you waiting for, get out there and vote.. and vote, and vote some more.

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Need Your Help… Vote for Dorados as MTV’s Favorite Artist of the Week

// August 17th, 2012 // No Comments » // Events

We know why people do voting contest right? It’ drives mad traffic for their website. And we act like monkeys and respond by voting, and asking our friends to vote, etc., etc.

Yet it’s not every day one of our artists gets a chance to be MTV’s favorite artist of the week, so I’m going to be the monkey now and ask you to vote for our buddies Dorados Rockabilly Trio.

You have until next Friday 8/24/12 @ 9PM EST. The future of Colombian rockabilly rest squarely on the tips of your hairless (hopefully) little fingers. Remember, with great power comes great responsibility.

VOTE HERE PLEASE:

And PS. if you happen to live in Colombia, here is your shot to see Dorados perform live. But only after you vote, ok?!

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Behind the Scenes Dorados Music Video Shoot

// August 16th, 2012 // 3 Comments » // Photos

MEDELLIN, COLOMBIA:

I finally made it to my “2nd home” of Medellin, Colombia and despite the big “Feria de los Flores” (Festival of Flowers) festivities going on all week, I immediately got to work.

First stop was lunch with my amigo and Dorados Rockabilly Trio founder and lead singer Felipe Ossa.

Felipe and I discussed the recent lineup changes, (San the new bass guitarist has joined Felipe on guitar & vocals and Camilo on drums to round out the trio), the surprising success of their first music video “Bettie Page… Donde Estas?” (missed it? See below!) and their future plans (could 2013 could see a U.S. Dorados tour?).

We decided that we should follow up the smashing success of Bettie Page with another music video and we selected the infectious “Diamond Girl” from their release “Conflicto de Espacio Blanco” (White Space Conflict) as a good follow up.

Felipe secured a local Harley Motorcycle paint and repair shop in the neighborhood of Estadio, just past the casinos and gaming halls of downtown Medellin.

The location was perfect and Felipe’s brother Pablo really saved the day, helping me out with a 2nd camera for the shoot. I’m really happy with the footage and can’t wait to get back to the U.S. to see what the Russians and I can do with it.

We were able to fire off a few low quality stills of the evening for your viewing pleasure. Note the sick Dorados Rockabilly Trio T shirt I’m sporting! Never fear that shirt design should be coming soon to a Punk Outlaw Store near you real soon.

In the meantime, we are in search of a rockabilly video vixen for the Diamond Girl lead role, preferably in the Los Angeles or New York City area, but all should feel free to apply. If interested, just shoot us an email to info@punkoutlawrecords.com and we’ll be back in touch as soon as we can.

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