LA Boyz, welcome to LACMA
CULTURE MIX
A family band broadens its reach through a museum show.
Miguel Garcia has lived in Los Angeles for 16 years but until recently had never visited the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The working-class immigrant and musician from Oaxaca had never even heard of the place. And neither had his two teenage sons, who play in a band led by their father, the LA Boyz.
Next week, the Garcias will become VIP visitors to the museum as stars of an unusual audio/video exhibit that's part of a landmark Chicano art show titled "Phantom Sightings: Art After the Chicano Movement," which opens April 6. The installation, called "Migrant Dubs," takes the form of a 10-by-10 cube that visitors can enter and watch videos of the band in its home studio. The cube is meant to mimic the studio Garcia built in the converted garage behind the family's bungalow in South L.A., not far from the infamous intersection of Florence and Normandie that marked the flash point of the L.A. riots of 1992, the year after he crossed the border illegally and settled here.
The sound cube is the brainchild of two artists who call themselves Los Jaichackers (Spanglish for hijackers), because they commandeer music to transform it. They are Julio Cesar Morales, 41, of San Francisco, and Eamon Ore-Giron, 34, of Los Angeles. By transplanting sounds from South L.A. to the Miracle Mile, the artists seek to show how people creatively navigate cultures in L.A.'s global environment.
"Essentially, it's about the translation of culture when you come to California," Morales says. "It's not about adapting to the culture, but translating the culture and creating your own way to come to terms with it. In a way it's how they negotiate being Latino, and at the same time being in this modern contemporary environment."
The theory may be a little highfalutin for the kids, who play a crowd-pleasing repertoire of cumbias, salsa, merengue, ranchera, reggaeton and rock en español. The band is a family affair, like the Osmonds or the Jacksons, composed of Garcia's sons, drummer Alan, 16, and keyboardist Elvis, 14, along with three cousins, guitarist Andy, 16, bassist Kevin, 14, and singer Fito, 13. Founded three years ago, the band has played for big crowds at Fiesta Broadway and for tips on weekends at Olvera Street.
That's where they were discovered by Ore-Giron, who recruited them as the first in a series of artists to be featured in Migrant Dubs. As "Phantom Sightings" travels to different cities, including Mexico City, the artists plan to find other "underground" musicians and add their work like a growing playlist in a "video mix tape."
