Tag Archives: kamikaze

# 105 / Things to do in 2015: Listen to the Official Selena Radio 24/7

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selena-quintanilla

While getting ready for New Year’s Eve, I received a text message from a man I love and respect.

“Hola, Enrique, cómo te va a ti y tu familia,” read the text. It came from Abraham Quintanilla Jr., Selena’s dad. “Just to let you know that I started an internet radio which is on 24/7. It’s all Selena’s music.”

According to Quintanilla, the online free radio (the only official Selena radio) was launched on November 13, but I suspect it started a little earlier than that (one website says it started on October 18). The station can also be heard through the TuneIn app.

“I haven’t done much publicity yet,” Quintanilla told Kamikaze in Spanish from his home in Corpus Christi, “but I’m glad to confirm what we always knew: that Selena still has fans all over the world.”

Since the station launched, it has received almost 12,000 visitors from as far as Argentina, Africa, Europe and New Zealand (still a low number, given Selena’s popularity, but the figure will probably explode as soon as more people find out about the radio). Quintanilla said he got inspired to create a Selena radio station after he was interviewed in October by the San Antonio-based Robert Rivas Radio show, and quickly instructed his team at Q Productions to develop the station. The present format features 10 straight Selena songs, one by her brother A.B. Quintanilla III and, for the time being, one song by up-and-coming bachata singer Angel Castillo, a new artist produced by Abraham Quintanilla. You also hear from time to time the voices of Quintanilla himself and Joseph Valdez, in charge of promotions at Q Productions and listeners can leave messages and engage in chats with other fans while listening. The station was mostly set up by Chris Domínguez, keyboardist of A.B. Quintanilla’s Kumbia All Starz, but longtime, ultra-loyal Selena mixer/engineer Brian “Red” Moore is also part of the mix.

“We’d like to add more Spanish talking for the benefit of our Spanish-speaking listeners, and talk more about the history behind the songs,” added Quintanilla. “But I’d like to see that each song correspond with the proper album cover when you look at the app. We’re still working on that.”

The best thing about Selena Radio is that, unlike conventional radios, it is not based on hit-oriented song rotation: at Selena Radio you hear every single Selena song, even those never played on any radio; in two days listening to the station I didn’t notice any song repeats.

“You’ll be able to hear every song recorded by Selena since age 6 until her death,” said Quintanilla. “That includes remixes and rarities. Even before Selena signed with Capitol and became a superstar, she had already recorded five albums, which I own. Add to that the Capitol albums, and there’s a whole bunch of other songs there. We’ll letting people hear them all for free. So there’s a lot of music in there.”

#108: The original kamikaze

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 kamikazes
ka·mi·ka·ze
ˌkäməˈkäzē/
noun
noun: kamikaze; plural noun: kamikazes.
1. (in World War II) a Japanese aircraft loaded with explosives and making a deliberate suicidal crash on an enemy target. The pilot of an aircraft making a deliberate suicidal crash.
adjective
adjective: kamikaze.
1. Of or relating to a kamikaze attack or pilot.
Reckless or potentially self-destructive.
“He made a kamikaze run across three lanes of traffic.” Japanese, from kami (‘divinity’) + kaze ‘wind,’ originally referring to the gale that, in Japanese tradition, destroyed the fleet of invading Mongols in 1281. (Taken from one of those free online dictionaries).
OK, that’s a kamikaze. But I’ve got my own kind of kamikaze, and this is is what he looked like in 1982:
spinetta1982

His name was Luis Alberto Spinetta (1950-2012), he was/is from Argentina, and he was arguably the greatest Spanish-language rocker ever born. He also never gave a shit and did what he had to do, with zero concern for fashion, popularity, or “serving my fans, without whom I wouldn’t be here” and all that crap so often uttered by minor entertainers. Spinetta was an artist, and he wouldn’t just write songs: the guy could draw, as shown in the cover of the iconic 1969 debut by Almendra, his first band.

Almendra_front

From that first album is the following song, in my book the ultimate rocanrol ballad.

In 1982, Spinetta released Kamikaze, his most minimalist, acoustic album. Listen while you read.

In the album’s liner notes, Spinetta asks, “…are there any more kamikazes out there in creative life?”

I have my kamikazes, you have yours. This is a blog about those kamikazes who write songs or make movies or do whatever it is that they do in order to remain sane, and that sanity is the sanity as described by the kamikaze’s own conscience, not that of society’s. I’ll update it whenever I feel like it and, every once in a while, I’ll stray away from art and write about other topics that move me or piss me off.

It’ll be long, and it’ll be short. Sometimes you won’t see it for weeks. At other times, it’ll be a daily bombardment of words, songs, and videos. Not the most recommended recipe in these days of idiotic immediacy and “keeping with the pulse of the city.” I don’t keep with nobody’s pulse but mine; that’s what jobs are for. But this, this is one of my two little gardens (the other one is here).

It’ll be good, and it’ll be bad.

But it’ll be mine, and it will self-destruct after 108 postings (or not). Such is the post-Big Meat Grinder life.

It’s unedited, uncensored, and bad for business.

But that’s what a kamikaze does. Destination Nowhere.

I only hope that at least one person out there discovers one of the artists I write about and shares my passion and love for them with me.

In other (better) words written by the Ultimate Kamikaze:

“I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive. A year ago, six months ago, I thought that I was an artist. I no longer think about it, I am. Everything that was literature has fallen from me. There are no more books to be written, thank God.

This then? This is not a book. This is libel, slander, defamation of character. This is not a book, in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty … what you will. I am going to sing for you, a little off key perhaps, but I will sing. (…)

To sing you must first open your mouth. You must have a pair of lungs, and a little knowledge of music. It is not necessary to have an accordion, or a guitar. The essential thing is to want to sing. This then is a song. I am singing.” (Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer)

Get it?

So, sing. I wanna hear it.