SXSW ’09: Sounds from Colombia

On the first night (Wednesday) of the SXSW Music festival I landed at Speakeasy. They had seven Colombian bands playing that night. I didn’t know much about any of them, other than one song by Bomba Estéreo that came with a free sampler I got at the last Plastilina Mosh concert.

I forgot my camera this day, so pardon the crappy iPhone photos. On the plus side, there is a post (in Spanish) over at Chichipanguanorrea about it with better pictures.

Read more to check out photos, the bands, videos, reviews, etc. from that night.

Poper: Members of this band may play with Juanes… but I still thought they were a pretty generic and boring rock band. Nothing to get excited about.

Popper at SXSW 2009

Bomba Estéreo: They call their style “electro vacilón”… whatever that means. Their songs sounded similar to one another, but it was a good sound. I really liked them. They get bonus points for having a very hot lead singer that sounds like a female El General.

Bomba Estéreo's lead singer Li Saumet with The MKX® correspondent Marcos Kirsch.

Bomba Estéreo at SXSW 2009

Doctor Krápula: There were some guys playing on the sidewalk outside the bar earlier that day. Turns out it was Doctor Krapula, Bogota-based rock band that plays a mix of rock, merengue, salsa, reggae, ska, and punk (their words, not mine). They have impressive energy and absolute control of the stage and the crowd. Their lyrics are a little too “message heavy” for my taste, but they can put on a show. These guys played again on Thursday so I have a looong YouTube video that I had to break it up in two parts. Doctor Krapula gets The MKX® Seal of approval (logo pending).

Doctor Krápula at SXSW 2009

Doctor Krápula at SXSW 2009

Andrés (of Learning English with Andy fame), Doctor Krápula's unhappy bassist, and The MKX® correspondent Marcos Kirsch.

Choc Quib Town: A great show in spite of one of their band members being stuck back home due to not getting his travel visa on time. You can listen to some of their Hip Hop Funk Afrocolombiano music in their MySpace page.