'Travel Tips for Aztlan' rides cutting-edge of Latin radio

In 1995, Torres finally got the green light to launch "Travel Tips for Aztlan" (the name refers to the Aztecs' legendary ancestral home) from then-KPFK program director Pamela Burton. For many young Chicano musicians listening in, the program validated their aspirations. "What Mark presented was a real alternative, something that was not given a chance," said Quetzal Flores of the Chicano progressive-rock band Quetzal. "It wasn't just the Chicano community and the rock en espanol community. He was open to everybody."

Because most of these emerging bands weren't yet being played by radio stations or signed to record labels, Torres decided to give them a showcase by booking them to perform live on his show. He used his own microphones and sound-mixing console that he'd haul in from home.

"People ended up calling it rock en espanol, but this was before that term was even around," he said, ticking off such groups as Ozomatli, Los Olvidados and Maria Fatal. Among his on-air guests around that time was Colombia's Juanes -- not yet the Colombian pop superstar who performed at this year's NBA All-Star Game, but at the time a guitar player with the metal band Ekhymosis.

Torres continued to expand his show's vision of what alternative Latin music could be, introducing listeners to scores of new artists and helping some to get on stage in L.A., although not at the velvet-rope venues. "We weren't going to wait for the Sunset pay-to-play clubs to invite us," he said.

The show's lineage

Mariluz Gonzalez is Torres' third co-host, following Anjanette Gonzalez (no relation) and Mari G. (who continues to co-host occasionally). Rather than relying on market surveys, in the manner of corporate radio chains, Torres and Gonzalez put together their playlists based on their own tastes, friends' recommendations, field research at local bars and periodic scavenger hunts at Amoeba Records. Gonzalez also is constantly trolling the Internet in search of promising new bands from Santa Ana to Patagonia.

"Somebody in the industry asked me how do I get my music," said Gonzalez. Her answer is that, since graduating from UCLA, where she started booking Latin bands, she has paid her dues by managing the Latin ska outfit Quince Letras; working for several record labels (and starting one of her own, SourPop Records); befriending artists on both sides of the border; sticking by them through career ups and downs (and accompanying them on epic pub crawls); sifting through obscure CDs at Mexico City's sprawling El Chopo flea market in search of hidden gems; and logging hundreds of bus and air miles shuttling between Mexico and the Pacoima home that she shares with her parents.

"I had to work my way in to get la confianza and the trust," Gonzalez said. Mentioning a rival at a competing station, she continued: "He doesn't have the music that I have because he doesn't live the life that I live."

While Torres said he doesn't know how much longer he'll keep doing the show, his dream is to pass it on to people "who don't see their musical tastes represented," the kind of people that he and his friends were many years ago. "My grandparents were farmworkers," he said. "We didn't know anybody in the media, we didn't know anybody in television or radio. There was no exposure to that. So I would love to expose youngsters, young students or anybody, really, to what the medium's all about, so that they might have an opportunity."

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reed.johnson@latimes.com