Mariachi Battles

When I go to a Mexican Restaurant, I do not assume that there will be a 10 piece mariachi band playing directly at my table for practically the entire meal. We were completely surrounded by them, and although they were playing for the table next to us, it was completely impossible for us to leave the table to piss, get served or get the waitresses’ attention. I'd like to pretend that I can just be cool and roll with it like Fonzie, but space issues (especially when you are not on a crowded bus or in a situation where it is totally reasonable for people to be clumped together) do tend to aggravate me. It is weird having the violinist’s ass pressed up against your arm while you try to eat crab and shrimp nachos. Also, a trumpet is really loud when it is pointed directly at your face: especially when the trumpet player is trying to play as loud and punchy as possible. Plus they played the same song twice in a twenty minute period. Totally fucking unacceptable. This isn’t drum and bass: you can’t just rewind the track. Do mariachi bands work like drinks at the bar? You can always buy a round at the bar and have the bartender send it over to some girl or guy that you don’t know (in fact, if you do wanna hit on a girl at the bar, its best to buy 5 drinks at once and have the bartender send them all over simultaneously, and point right back at you). Do those rules apply at the restaurant? Can you send the band over to the republican tourist white couple that clearly doesn’t belong there, and have them play the same song 3x in a row as loud and out of tune as possible? It doesn’t seem that people have taken advantage of the options available with Mariachi bands. They are basically drunken mobile taqueria jukeboxes. Maybe you could pay two Mariachi bands to play for each other at the same time, or duel each other in the street. Is that messed up? Also, I want to make it clear that I am not featured in the above picture, although that guys face kinda sums up my reaction to the whole ordeal (I guess it would be called annoyed excitement).

I’m gonna post up a couple Arpadys tracks today. They were French and present in the late 70s and early 80s and have got that funky cosmic disco thing down. They just recently put out a two part comp of their shit which I high recommend checking out, since tracking down all of these original singles is very tough and very expensive. I think you might have to look for it at some UK based websites; I found my copy on Juno. Check their page since my description is super vague http://www.myspace.com/arpadys.

Arpadys - Black Cars
Arpadys - Cold Coke
Arpadys - Baby's Band