Punk Rock Goes Son Jarocho

I thought this was an interesting story about how one man transformed The Clash’s “Straight to Hell” into a son jarocho tune. Adolfo Guzmán-López reported for KCET:

Inside a hilltop house in City Terrace a few months ago seven musicians recorded a son jarocho version of The Clash’s “Straight to Hell…”

The Clash released the song during a dark time in the United Kingdom. The economy was tanking, unemployment was at record highs, the conservative government was cutting social spending to make up the deficit at the same time that it went after labor unions. The former glory of empire was dead and buried…

The song’s called “Al Infierno.” It’s performed by the Cinco De Mayo Septet. That’s the day they recorded the song. And that’s the day that its creation brought together Chicana feminist theory, folk music from Veracruz, punk rock, and music as social activism. The orchestrator of all these overlapping circles is George Sanchez, a former news reporter at the Daily News, who grew up in Arcadia raised by parents from Guatemala and New Mexico.