Southern California Chicanx Music Research

This is a guide to Southern California Chicanx music research. 

You may suggest additions to this guide by contacting the guide owners.

This guide was created by Chantel Diaz in summer 2019. 

Chicanx music derives from Chicanx culture and experience and incorporates different styles of music. Early 1960's Chicanx rock (e.g Thee Midniters and the Romancers) which was influenced by R&B. pop, and Jazz reached the Chicanx audience with the help of disc-jockeys Art Laboe and Huggy Boy who also played artists like Chuck Higgins, Big Jay McNeely, and Johnny Guitar Watson. In the late 1960's  early 1970's Chicanx rock artists like Los Lobos began to assert their cultural identities through their music which was shaped by Chicanx politics but still keeping to their American influences. In the early 1980s Chicanx punk bands like Los Illegals and The Brat emerged with music that was more political than early Chicanx artists. 

1965 Shrine Auditorium - February 21, 1965

This is a 60's Eastside Flyer from Mark Guerreros' website which has more related flyers and content. 

ILLEGAL interns feat. Lysa Flores 1999 from ILLEGAL Interns on Vimeo.

The 1990 ILLEGAL Interns was an open access cable show that began improvised chats about music and featured sound from Alternative Rock and Electronica genres and then Latin America's flourishing Rock en Español scenes in México, Puerto Rico, Central America, Colombia, Argentina, etc, (Jorge Leal, @rockarchivola ). 

At the Music Library 

The Music Library subscribes to the  Razorcake Zine that includes pieces about Chicanx rock. Razorcake "provides consistent coverage of do-it-yourself punk culture that you won’t find anywhere else. [They] believe in positive, progressive, community-friendly DIY punk" (Razorcake Mission Statement).