Sound, Space, and the City: Civic Performance in Downtown Los Angeles

Chapter 4. Sonic Civilities

4 Sonic Civilities Music is . . . a way of perceiving the world. —Jacques Attali Thank you for playing my music. I’m from Veracruz. —Grand Performances audience member El Vez begins the second half of the performance dressed as Uncle Sam, with white vest, huge white bell-bottom pants, and billowing satiny blue sleeves. His band, the Memphis Mariachis, wears straw hats and white shirts. An American flag hangs at the back of the stage. ‘‘El Vez for Prez’’ opens with a rendition of ‘‘God Bless America.’’ Between songs, screens on the side of the stage show videos of people—purportedly audience members —asking El Vez about his position on various issues. Taped beforehand, they are framed as a performance of direct participatory democracy. ‘‘What is your position on immigration?’’ one asks. ‘‘I love it!’’ El Vez replies, ‘‘The country is built on it! Viva la raza!’’ ‘‘What do you think of the problems of the inner city?’’ ‘‘El barrio?’’ he asks, launching into song. As she shoos the flies On a hot and smoggy summer morn Another brown little baby is born En El Barrio [The Elvettes echo: ‘‘En El Barrio’’] La Mamacita cries Porque there’s one thing that she don’t need And that’s another hungry little vato to feed En El Barrio Sonic Civilities 105 ‘‘El Barrio,’’ set to the tunes of—as a rockabilly fan explained—‘‘In the Ghetto,’’ Traffic’s ‘‘Dear Mr. Fantasy,’’ and the Beatles’ ‘‘I’ve Got a Feeling’’ (Washburn 1994) continues, So he joins a gang Porque there’s one thing that he can’t stand And that’s to have to join a mariachi band En El Barrio Until the boy steals a car, and the mother, in despair, decides to move Out of east L.A. With no more gangs and no more crime To the promised land out in Anaheim (near Disneyland) En El Barrio El Vez rails against President Bush and the Patriot Act. When his backup singers, the Lovely Elvettes, rip posters of Bush’s face in half the audience screams in approval. True Americana, the evening ends with fireworks. Representation, recognition, and participation, tenets of democracy, structure public concerts as civic performances. At civic performances these terms are at once performative and political, organizing cultural identity and civic membership. El Vez’s performance sounds civic space by performing the intersection of cultural identity and electoral politics. Touching on subjects ranging from immigration to the Patriot Act and life in East L.A., he raises issues pertaining to overlapping civic, national, and international politics with humor and spectacle. Sustained throughout is an underlying expression of Chicano identity politics that expresses how, though the American condition is built on inequality and exclusion, there is hope for change and greater inclusion (Habell-Pallán 1999; Rubin 2004). Identifications are drawn along multiple axes as cultural identification and political identification converge, made accessible and inclusive to all through the familiar tunes of Elvis songs and other popular music. Five years before, at El Vez’s last performance at California Plaza, some audience members came dressed in rockabilly attire, presenting a subcultural style of Latin rockabilly; other men sported large sideburns and one dressed as Elvis. That year’s theme was a quinceñera party, and fifteen-yearold girls in white dresses and tiaras ate cake onstage, performing a Mexican 106 Chapter 4 American tradition to celebrate El Vez’s fifteenth year as the Chicano Elvis. I worked in the information booth during the performance, and streams of people came by to sign up to be on the mailing list. In the space asking them to ‘‘please describe your ethnicity,’’ many listed Chicano/a, though some wrote Mexican, Latin, or Mexican American. A few self-identified as Asian. Whites responded with ‘‘white boy,’’ ‘‘blanco,’’ and ‘‘it’s rude to ask.’’ ‘‘Viva La Raza’’ was sung to the tune of ‘‘Viva Las Vegas’’ while El Vez waved an American flag. The call, with its accompanying fist raised in the air, was raised without disruption. Though at other events it was considered divisive when screamed from the audience, here it was laughed at. Humor, spectacle, and Elvis allow things to be expressed that might otherwise be curtailed. The civic of public concerts is a space of consent, a space safe for difference and a space where difference is made safe. Music organizes and supports the...