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Named to Washington Life magazine's Hot List September 2010

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Latin sounds
Aterciopelados

Published March 15, 2007 Washington Times

A lot has happened since 2003, the last time lead singer Andrea Echeverri and her Colombian rock band Aterciopelados came to the Washington area. She took time off to be with her newborn daughter, had a stellar debut solo album and is now back touring the U.S. to promote "Oye," the group's critically acclaimed new LP. She still fondly remembers the night at the Kennedy Center's packed Millennium Stage when the Latin Grammy winners (who have sold out numerous major venues throughout Latin America and Europe) performed free for several thousand lucky fans. "They were incredibly warm," Miss Echeverri said earlier this month in soft-spoken English during a phone interview from her home in Bogota. "A Puerto Rican couple invited me to their cafe," she recalls, adding that she still thinks about the funky crowd and all the "amazing hairstyles" in the audience. This is the sort of fuzzy, happy vibe that Aterciopelados (Spanish for Velvety Ones) has been putting out for years. Their music has gone from electronica to funk, to pop, to more traditional rock and roll. Through it all, the band has managed to blend traditional Latin rhythms such as bossa nova, vallenato, sambuco, cumbia and salsa while singing on range of topics from violence and corruption in Miss Echeverri's homeland to abusive relationships.
In the new album, she speaks about the "hypersexualization" of society in "Oye Mujer" ("Hey girl"), a song that makes women "forget how powerful and beautiful we really are." There are several songs with lighter moods in the new album as well. "Complemento" ("You complement me"), for example, is an upbeat love ballad about her husband, with a catchy hook and melodic use of South American panpipes.
"La Pipa de La Paz" ("The Pipe of Peace") the hit song from their 1996 debut album "El Dorado" features panpipes, heavy percussion and deep, sultry vocals from Miss Echeverri, who talks about people doing the rain dance in a paradisiacal setting while passing along a peace pipe — a perfect example of her sometimes spacey persona. Aterciopelados performs Monday at the State Theatre, 220 N. Washington St., Falls Church (http://www.thestatetheatre.com/) with D.C. Latin rock group Stone Gato as the opening act. Doors open at 7 p.m., with showtime at 8:30 p.m. — Alfredo Flores

Monday, March 19, 2007

Mana delivers some heat
By ALFREDO FLORES
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published March 19, 2007

What a great day to be from Guadalajara. Less than 24 hours after their beloved Chivas of Guadalajara faced D.C. United in a rare East Coast visit, proud natives of that city turned out Friday to see Mana, the biggest Mexican rock band of them all at the sold-out Patriot Center. It made 8,000 people forget about the frigid weather and sleet outside -- at least for two hours. Seeing Mana perform live was like being in a Latin music time capsule of sorts. One can instantly recognize the big-hair look and arena rock sound their genre made famous in the late 1980s with such ballads as "Rayando El Sol" ("Lining the Sun"). Lead singer Fher Olvera, wearing a black suit jacket and striped black and white pants, urged the swaying crowd to sing along, cigarette lighters in hand, with the chorus "O-e-ooo" as he paced the stage shaking his long, flowing curly brown hair. Their hit "Clavado En Un Bar" ("Stuck to a Barstool"), which set the standard for Latin pop-rock of the mid-1990s, features a singalong chorus and pulsating guitar riffs. As expected, it ignited the crowd, especially the women (a few brave souls wore only miniskirts and tank tops) holding on to their boyfriends as they screamed, shouted and danced in the aisles. Soon, however, the performance took a dark turn when the band lit candles on stage, changed into spooky cloaks and capes and donned Jason and Leatherface Halloween masks to sing the emotional environmental awareness song "Donde Jugaron Los Ninos?" ("Where Will the Children Play?"). The concert was filled with breathtaking special effects that included smoke machines, gigantic pyrotechnic fireballs during powerful guitar riffs, a spinning hydraulic mini-stage for drummer Alex Gonzalez and a cascading waterfall in front of the stage. In the song "Sigue Lloviendo el Corazon" ("The Heart Keeps Raining"), Mr. Olvera showed off his deep soulful voice as he reached out to wet his hand. Mana was the first major band to sing rock en Espanol in 1986 -- back when other Latin bands only did English-language rock covers -- and to make it commercially successful to the tune of three Grammy and four Latin Grammy awards, 22 million albums sold and more than 12 million in attendance at concerts leading up to their U.S. "Amar Es Combatir" tour. There seems no end in sight for the group's dominance in a genre it helped create.