While next month is the fifth anniversary of Drink & Draw at Art Boutiki, this week marks two years since Carlos Velazquez and Alca Ulsan began co-hosting the monthly, all-ages event. To celebrate that milestone—and their engagement—the couple invited Sonido Clash–cofounder Fernando Julian Perez (a.k.a. DJ Tlacoyo), Chulita Vinyl Club–founder Claudia Saenz (a.k.a. Teardrop) and special-guest Monica Robles (a.k.a. Moniloca), cofounder of Lowrider Sundays. As for visual art, Ulsan’s original designs for Drink & Draw fliers will be on display.

Drink & Draw 
Thu, 7pm, free
Art Boutiki, San Jose

La música y el arte están vivos y buenos. Sonido Clash, a cultural arts collective, emerged in 2009 to address a lack of creative diversity in local nightlife. The group celebrates and explores the diaspora of Latinx sound and art, from the traditional to the contemporary, and hosts this summer fiesta. Sonido Clash has found international footing, making friends across the country, as well as in Tijuana and Mexico City through collaborations and partnerships. At Summer Vibras, attendees may browse arts, crafts and jewelry—or, swap records, clothing and other goods while relishing comida y música buena. ¿Entiendes la vibra?

Summer Vibras
Sun,noon, Free
Friendship Hall, San Jose

Mateo Gonzales presses play and the track springs to life. The window on his laptop shows various layers of composition scrolling by. There’s a sample of Bobby Day’s “Rockin’ Robin.” The trilling whistle of the early rockabilly hit leaps from the small computer speakers, as do the more tinny rhythmic elements: the high hats and snare of a boom-bap beat are clearly audible, as is the scratchy güira, which plays a consistent shuffle. Less audible is the slouching bass that will ultimately help punch-up the song when Gonzales plays it for a crowd on a dancefloor with a decent subwoofer.

With this mashup, Gonzales, who makes music as Philthy Dronez, has pulled together three genres of music to produce a fourth. Sometimes called “cumbia bass,” the style owes no small debt to the inclusion of the güira—the colander-like percussion instrument that is played by scraping a spoon or stick along a corrugated metal cylinder. It’s a familiar sound for those who grew up in the South Bay.

Cumbia, a traditional form of Latin dance music, is a part of the sonic fabric of just about every country south of the Rio Grande. From Mexico and the Caribbean through Colombia—the genre’s country of origin—on down to Argentina, cumbia has been moving people for generations. While cumbia bass music is comprised of many long-extant sounds and musical styles, it’s new to the U.S., according to a number of tastemaking DJs and musicians who are actively producing the tropically inflected style in San Jose.

Here, in the cultural melting pot that is Silicon Valley, a generation of Latin-American musicians, like Gonzales, are helping to spread the sound through mashups, DJ sets and bands informed by the music of their ancestors, as well as what they grew up hearing on KMEL 106.1, Live 105 and Wild 94.9.

Two Worlds

There’s an expression, Gonzales says: “Sus pies en dos lados.” Literally translated, “Your feet on both sides.”

In this context, it means being a part of two cultures at the same time. Growing up, he explains, cumbia was everywhere. He heard it at home, at parties and on TV every time Selena came on. Banda, mariachi and corridos were also inescapable.

But growing up in San Jose, hip-hop, punk, R&B, rock & roll and soul were also ubiquitous. So was DJ culture. That Gonzales would ultimately seek to blend it all together may have been inevitable. Just ask Fernando J. Pérez and Roman Zepeda. Two of the founding members of local Latino party-production collective Sonido Clash, the pair understand where Gonzales is coming from.

“Being Mexican-American you’ve got one foot on one side and the other foot on the other side,” Pérez says, echoing Gonzales. “We’re not from here, we’re not from there—so what are we?”

It’s a question that can lead to a very specific anxiety—which actor Edward James Olmos summed up so succinctly playing Abraham Quintanilla in the 1997 biopic of ’90s Mexican-American pop icon Selena: “I mean, we gotta know about John Wayne and Pedro Infante,” Quintanilla says, bemoaning his dual identity’s burden. “We gotta know about Frank Sinatra and Agustín Lara.” He goes on to lament how “exhausting” it can be attempting to be “more Mexican than the Mexicans and more American than the Americans.”

Whether this philosophical stance was imprinted on the young Selena Quintanilla explicitly, or whether the scene was the product of the writers room, it’s abundantly clear that the singer and her band sought to incorporate two worlds into their music. The same can be said for the music and events curated by Sonido Clash. Most recently, Sonido Clash threw a party in celebration of the late Selena’s 46th birthday. The sold-out bash at Back Bar in San Jose featured a lookalike contest, music from a local cumbia band and multiple Latin-inflected DJ sets.

The Sonido Clash Crew.

Although the events Pérez and Zepeda produce with their partners—Thomas Aguilar, Angel Luna and Quynh-Mai Nguyen—all tend to have a dance and hip-hop bent, the influences extend to other avenues of culture. Over the course of an hour-long conversation, Pérez and Zepeda bounce around from the San Jose-based founder of Lowrider Magazine to local gutter punk and powerviolence acts. They reminisce about hunting for obscure music at the Berryessa Flea Market, spinning freestyle at house parties and listening to Los Tigres Del Norte in their childhood homes.

Pérez and Zepeda have been drawn to different sounds, from punk and metal to funk and soul. However, of late, Zepeda says, the music he makes under his DJ moniker Turbo Sonidero, and as a member of Corazón Salvaje, there is one constant—cumbia.

“I was playing punk before,” Zepeda says. “I was doing hip-hop beats and rap beats and one day, I was like, ‘I wanna make people dance.’” By incorporating a cumbia beat into his productions, he was able to find a middle ground between his family’s home state of Puebla, Mexico, and his home in San Jose. Recently, he and fellow Sonido Clash affiliate Luna—a.k.a. the emcee Mextape—put out a collaborative project, Vatos, under the moniker Turbomex. On the full-length album, Mextape spits rhymes mostly in Spanish, with some English and Spanglish mixed in, while Turbo Sonidero handles production. Listen to the project and it won’t take long for you to hear the güira, chk-chking away.

Cumbia Punks: Corazón Salvaje | Cinco De Mayo Guide

To mark the late Selena’s 46th birthday, Sonido Clash is throwing a party at BackBar SoFa, headlined by San Jose cumbia band Corazon Salvaje. The third annual Selena-themed bash Also this week: Vector Hold, a locally based synthwave duo who deploy heavy metal guitars and a Commodore Amiga 500 to craft the kind of blippy chiptune that might have soundtracked early-’90s Sega titles like “Road Rash” come to The Caravan.

Dinners @ Wax Wednesday
Wed, 8pm, Free
Cafe Stritch, San Jose
The guys in Dinners don’t like to make a fuss. Over the course of two excellent releases—their 2013 full-length debut, Black Rabbits, and the 2014 EP, Who is Lee B?—the San Jose indie rock quartet have kept it real by focusing on the music. Their Cafe Stritch shows are always a good time: just as much about booze and brotherhood as they are about the band’s fuzzy tangles of lo-fi riffs and slacker melodies. They take the Stritch stage for this week’s installment of Wax Wednesday. (NV)

Casey Donahew
Wed, 7pm, $10-$15
Rodeo Club, San Jose
Born in the Fort Worth suburb of Burleson, country singer and band-leader Casey Donahew is proud of his Lone Star State heritage—that much is clear in his ode to Texas, “One Star Flag.” The song’s accompanying video features scenes of bull riding, cattle wrangling and good-old country living. All that and one hell of a fiddle solo. Donahew got his start playing local bars in his hometown, building a following with his blend of roadhouse riffs and outlaw country swagger. His most recent record, 2016’s All Night Party, claimed the No. 3 spot on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart when it debuted last fall. (BS)

BackWords
Fri, 7pm, Free
Cukui, San Jose
San Jose lettering artist Alissa Rosete is flipping her world around—or at least her art. The illustrator-turned-graphic designer is taking words of admiration and some of silliness, and inverting them so they read as if you were viewing them from the other side of the glass. She creates her bold and finely detailed type by hand with ink, though her calligraphy game is so on point, it could pass as computer-generated. You can find Rosete’s typography emblazoned on the menus, signs and even the tip jars at Iguana’s, where she works on the marketing team. (VS)

Erik Griffin
Fri, 7:30pm, $20
The Improv, San Jose
Eric Griffin—a.k.a. Montez, the gruff, fun-loving cubicle jockey in Comedy Central’s Workaholics—is currently on tour, headlining clubs and college campuses across the country in support of his multiple comedic endeavors. In addition to putting up with Adam, Anders and Blake’s tomfoolery, he has a full-length comedy album, Technical Foul: Volume One, and will play the character of Ralph on Showtime’s upcoming dramedy, I’m Dying Up Here. Griffin has also appeared in NBC’s Comics Without Borders, Showtime’s Comics Unleashed and TNT’s Franklin & Bash. (BS)

Out of Slumber Party
Fri, 6pm, Free
Seeing Things Gallery, San Jose
Hosted by Drew Roulette and Billy Barnes, this one-night benefit for local pediatric research will feature work by the organizing artists, as well as many more South Bay illustrators and painters. Metro contributors and masters of pen and ink Tad Malone and Jeremiah Harada will be showing—along with Carlos Agrillo, Sarah Collins, Megan Curry, Ben Henderson, Josh Bays, Myca Tran and more. Proceeds from sales of original art go to Stanford Children’s Health. The show will also feature live music and drinks. (NV)

Overwatch Tourney + Silent Disco
Sat, 12pm, $5+
AFK Gamer Lounge
Spend the day blasting your enemies with the squad, noshing on snacks and throwing back beers—then dance the night away as you revel in sweet, sweet victory. That could be you, if you and yours have what it takes to go all the way in AFK Gamer Lounge’s Overwatch tournament this Saturday. The day begins at noon, with check-in, and the tourney is slated to run until at least 8pm. That’s when the silent disco begins, with DJ Patrix, DJ Smoov and J.Slay all spinning all the jams. (NV)

Irina Kulikova
Sat, Apr 15, 7:30pm, $25+
Trianon Theater, San Jose
Consistently ranked as one of the best living classical guitarists in the world, Irina Kulikova comes to San Jose for the final concert of the South Bay Guitar Society’s 2016-17 concert season. She is known for her deft touch and ability to blend clarity with fluidity—striking out well-defined melodic and rhythmic lines without ever losing the flow of a composition. Over the course of her 22-year career, Kulikova has performed at some of the world’s most renowned concert halls, including Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow and the Oriental Arts Centre in Shanghai. (BS)

Selena Tribute
Sat, 9pm, $15+
Back Bar SoFa, San Jose
“Baila! Baila esta cumbia!” Since her passing, Latin pop superstar Selena Quintanilla—better known by her given name alone—remains one of the biggest influences in Latino music. To mark the late Selena’s 46th birthday, Sonido Clash is throwing a party at Back Bar SoFa, headlined by San Jose cumbia band Corazón Salvaje. The group’s contemporary-yet-traditional sound echoes the vibe that Selena so expertly captured in the early ’90s. Hosted by Andrea Garcia, Mex Tape and a Selena impersonator, the third annual Selena birthday bash is fast becoming a can’t-miss fiesta. (VS)

Vector Hold
Sat, 9pm, Free
Caravan Lounge, San Jose
“I played a lot of old school side-scrollers and button mashers back in the day,” says Pete Rice, the man behind Vector Hold. Rice is still punching plastic buttons, but now, instead of gunning for first place in Road Rash, Rice is using his Commodore Amiga 500 to craft the kind of blippy chiptune that might have soundtracked the early-’90s Sega Genesis motorcycle racing game—in an alternate and much more badass, heavy metal universe. His crunchy, nostalgia-heavy tracks are catching on in a major way, as he rides at the vanguard of a major synthwave revival, led by the likes of Carpenter Brut and S U R V I V E. (NV)

In decades past, five big arts groups dominated the Silicon Valley culture scene, slurping up the majority of public support and private donations, while dozens of much smaller organizations fought over the table scraps. With annual budgets that in better times passed the $5 million mark, Ballet San Jose, San Jose Rep, San Jose Museum of Art, Opera San Jose and the Symphony were big companies that were dominated for years on end by big artistic forces—Dennis Nahat, Timothy Near, Jim Reber, Leonid Grin or the late Irene Dalis and George Cleve.

The local arts scene looks quite different these days. San Jose Symphony declared bankruptcy after its 2001 shutdown, ending a 64-year run. Silicon Valley Ballet called it quits earlier this year, while the Rep gave its final curtain call in 2014.

The 13-year-old Symphony Silicon Valley, a nimble successor to the original company, recently took a hit when Target ended its sponsorship of the annual Summer Pops series, and Opera San Jose dipped into its cash reserves from 2009 until this past season, when the organization’s new director put together a program that actually put the opera—barely—back into the black.

Still, even as these major groups have struggled, the performing and visual arts have proved resilient. The companies are younger and more diverse, both artistically and in terms of their leadership, virtualizing their operations and striving to do more with less. They are breaking out of the rigid confines of European tradition.

“There are a lot of things that aren’t right with the arts,” says Andrew Bales, executive director of Symphony Silicon Valley. But, he continues, that doesn’t mean the South Bay has given up on culture. In fact, according to Bales, “There really has been quite a resurgence of young folks in the arts—and it’s not even that they’re so young—it’s just a new generation of people.”

While there are fewer concentrations of power in Silicon Valley’s art scene today, there are many more important players—all of them working hard to bring relevant music, art and stage productions to the Bay Area’s most populous metropolis. Read about these new arts and culture leaders here and plan your fall calendar by checking out our Fall Arts 2016 listings.

Matt Gonzales is a busy man. When he’s not playing guitar for local fusion-soul group Anya and the Getdown or for hip-hop cumbia duo Raul y Mexia, he’s producing beats for his own solo Latin dance project, Philthy Dronez.

Gonzales has been performing as Philthy Dronez consistently here in the South Bay at the monthly Sonido Clash neo-Latin dance parties every first Fridays at the Pagoda Lounge. Now, Philthy Dronez is reaching for a larger audience with his debut EP Wepa Life, which will be released on Arizona label, Global Bass Experience. The release show is Friday November 1st at the Pagoda—the final show before the venue switches formats under new management.

Wepa Life is a short listen with seven songs in about fifteen minutes. It has a nice blend of Philthy Dronez’ style, which contains some classic cumbia beats with some modern dance, trap and electronica. His first single, “Don Sandia”, is one of his more traditional cumbia tracks. The content however is not so typical—it’s about a watermelon that gets all the ladies. The “watermelon” (or rather Gonzales’ friend in a watermelon outfit) made his debut during Sonido Clash’s portion of the Music in the Park. “Don Sandia” features guest vocals by Jazmin Lopez (aka Jazzy Drone).

One of the heaviest dance songs—and the farthest removed from classic cumbia—is “Ratcheta,” featuring vocals by Mexia from Raul y Mexia. “Mira Como Mueve” is the best representation to the “nu-cumbia” sound that is growing increasingly popular. Wepa Life is also strung together with a lot of clips from various radio programs and commercials. One of the best of them is the old Frito Bandito commercial for Fritos chips which closes the EP.

Philthy Dronez plays the final Sonido Clash at Pagoda Lounge on Friday November 1st with Los Macuanos. More info.