Imagine if Mandy Moore/Hilary Duff/Jessica Simpson made her LA debut not at some slick club in Hollywood but at a mall in Thousand Oaks (actually, probably one of them did), and she wasn't some polished blond teenager, but a homely brunette in her thirties. And imagine if one of the members of Hot Chip, or Ratatat, or Junior Boys, became more well known for his pop project than his real band. Combine these two fruity ideas, throw some Spanish into the blender, and the smoothie you'll get is María Daniela Y Su Sonido Lasser, and what's happening tonight in Montebello.
Mexico has always had its fair share of shit pop and bubblegum rock, but like Sweden, it's also been a fountain of deliriously catchy, amazingly goofy music. Now, current acts like Faca and Jessy Bulbo (her "Maldito" was the "Cannonball" of this genre) mix disposable lyrics with bouncy backing and wind up with a legion of fans much younger than the artists themselves. The highlight of this scene though is María Daniela, a project started by Emilio Acevedo of Titán, the legendary Mexican electronic group whose albums got released Stateside by the late, great LA labels Grand Royal and Emperor Norton. Acevedo, during Titán's turn-of-the-century hiatus, created a project called Sonido Lasser Drakar, and after asking his friend María Daniela Azipiazu to sing on a track, María Daniela Y Su Sonido Lasser was born.
Their cheeky covers of songs by Daniela Romo and Aerolíneas Federales have won the group fame, but it's original songs like "Miedo" and "Chicle de Menta" that have resulted in their 25K+ friends on MiEspacio and gigs at Six Flags México. But what I like most about Maria Daniela (and for that matter Faca and Jessy Bulbo), is that the music and the personalities all seem very approachable. When I added Jessy Bulbo on MySpace, she responded with a comment in Spanish along the lines of "Now that you're my friend, my friends are your friends, and we can all be friends." Sure, it might be an asinine example of the transitive property, but it's nice to have musicians seem like they could be your friends, rather than people like Britney Spears, who has always seemed like a fake (did anyone believe her when she said she was a virgin?).
So I was pleasantly surprised when I learned that María Daniela Y Su Sonido Lasser would be making their LA debut at an all-ages spot in Montebello, and that the presale would be at a pizza joint in Monterey Park. Those tickets are already sold-out, but there will be some available at the door, starting at 7PM. LA hasn't seen a third-world frenzy like this since M.I.A.'s engagement at the Echoplex, but for some reason I have the feeling that the Times and Weekly won't be there to document it.
