photo by Marco Torres

Navidad en el Barrio

Personally, this member of Rocks Off has been a bit of a grinch these last several years. But in an attempt to turn away from our Scrooge-like ways, we'd like to offer an alternative list of Christmas songs that you can play while visiting family, opening presents, or eating an unhealthy amount of tamales.

Photos by Marco Torres

Rocks Off caught up with the Watsonville, California native at the House of Blues last night where we asked him about his upcoming solo album Souleros, how he got his start with Santana, and what inspires him.

Photos by Marco Torres

If Aftermath were forced to assign Mexican equivalents to famous Anglo and/or American musicians, the list would go like this:

Los Tigres del Norte = The Beatles

Maná = The Rolling Stones

Vicente Fernández = Elvis, Frank Sinatra & Johnny Cash

Yes, Fernández is that big of a deal. His fans call him "Chente," and Saturday night at Toyota Center, a nearly three-hour set in front of a packed house further cemented his status as El Rey, the king of ranchera music.

Photos courtesy of Brown Beauty Productions/HBO

Pitbull (right) and photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders talk angles during their Latino List photo shoot.

The Black List portrait exhibition premiered in July 2008 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Wu-Tang Clan mastermind/producer RZA, Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, Russell Simmons and Slash from Guns N' Roses were all part of the first or second volumes of The Black List in the portrait and film versions.  

It occurred to us after our chat that as much as we grew up alongside blacks and in black communities, and as much as we are immersed in the hip-hop pioneered and dominated by black artists, as a contributing writer to this music blog, we still learned something - many things - about being black in America.

Photo by Cimela Kidonakis/Optix Studios

If you felt the earth shake last night, it was because one of Houston's most popular performers, Walter Suhr, was on stage with the original members of Mango Punch! celebrating the group's 20th anniversary.

Coming together for a concert/party at Talento Bilingue de Houston, Brian Torres (vocals/drums), Oscar Larranaga (vocals/percussion) and Julio Céspedes (bass), along with Suhr (piano/guitar/percussion/vocals), were the first lineup of the Latin band, formed in 1991. Five CDs, dozens of awards - including a slew of Houston Press Music Awards and several prestigious songwriting honors - and thousands of performances later, Suhr's group has a different lineup but the same infectious party vibe.

Photos by Liana Lopez

The audience was already getting rowdy as we photographers claimed our spots in the soon-to-be drop zone for crowd surfers in front of the House of Blues stage. The concert hadn't even started and there were several 20-oz. Bud Light cans littering the floor in the photo pit.

This being Aftermath's first Molotov concert, we had no idea how hard the four-time Latin Grammy award winners were about to rock it.

When Tito, Miky, Paco and El Gringo Loco took the stage, our first observation was how unimpressive the light show was compared to bands like Café Tacuba or Los Amigos Invisibles. However, before we knew what was happening, our body was trying to figure out how to dance, take pictures and not trip over the metal barricade supports dripping with beer.

Photos by Marco Torres

Timeless. Classic. Legend. OG - all classifications that tend to be distributed loosely in the music industry these days. Yet for Carlos Santana, the skinny Mexican kid who played at Woodstock and has since accumulated 10 Grammy Awards and several platinum albums, classifying him as anything less would be incongruous. (That vocabulary word-of-the-day calendar is really paying off!)

On a steamy yet breezy Saturday night in The Woodlands, a diverse crowd filed into the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion to witness the spiritual experience that is a Santana concert. Older rock and roll fans sat on the lawn next to low-riders, Harley owners and dread-locked hippies.

Everyone seemed to be in a good mood, aided by second-hand incense smoke - that was incense, right? - and booze. For $35, you can now buy a chilled bottle of White Zinfandel, delivered in a bucket of ice with a stack of plastic cups. Classy!

Photos by Marco Torres

Ana Gabriel is the unrivaled queen of Mexican music. Rancheras, mariachi, torch songs, ballads - she does them all with a cry in her voice that breaks your heart. So when Gabriel shared the bill with Marco Antonio Solis Saturday night, Aftermath fully expected to be taken on a roller-coaster of emotions, and we weren't disappointed. Gabriel's "Soy Como Soy" especially won us over - again.

As did her story about her first gig in Houston. "How many memories I have of Houston," she said in Spanish, before going on to discuss her time at local restaurant Las Casuelas. (It's closed now, but years ago was a favorite late-night haunt on Houston's north side.)

Gabriel sang with Casuelas' house band, which, unfortunately for her, was a cumbia band with a couple of salsa musicians thrown in. "You can imagine my songs with a little salsa beat," she said. We kept thinking how strange it all was.

Photos by Marco Torres

It takes a special combination of hype and talent to sell out a concert, let alone two in a row. In recent memory, only two other artists have been booked to perform on consecutive nights at Toyota Center: Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga.

Mexican Rock en Español band Maná accomplished the same achievement on Saturday night as they rocked, rolled, and serenaded the first of two capacity weekend crowds at the downtown arena.