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Eric Cubiche
 Joey MedinaGala Awards & Dinner, March 5, 2005 With his new job as producer, writer and host of SiTV’s first scripted television show, ‘Circumsized Cinema,” comedian Joey Medina is well on his way to becoming one of the hottest Latino television personalities working today. Executive produced by award-winning film producer, Moctesuma Esparza (“Selena”) the show re-edits campy Mexican movies into 30-minute “mini-movies” with totally new, scripted English audio tracks for a hilarious and utterly original half-hour television show (Premieres February 27th). In addition, Joey is also recognized as one of the hosts (and producers) of “Loco Comedy Jam,” a stand-up comedy show featuring some of the best Latino comedians in the country on Mun 2 Television. “I feel very lucky,” says Joey, “I always have a great time doing what I do, no matter if it’s entertaining our American soldiers around the world or entertaining a bunch of business people at a corporate event. No matter who we are, we all need to laugh.” Joey is a veteran over 20 television shows, including A&E’s “Evening at the Improv” and “The Roseanne Show.” In 1996, he won the “Master’s Video, Comedian of the Year Award” and he is also rated one of the top ten Latin comedians in the country and the funniest Puerto Rican in American by www.LatinoComedy.com. In 1998 he released his award winning comedy album “Below the Belt.” In addition to his successful comedy and television career, Joey can also be seen starring in Paramount’s motion picture “The Original Latin Kings of Comedy” with Cheech Marin, Paul Rodriguez, George Lopez and Alex Reymundo. He also co-stars with movie star, Danny Trejo and B Real from the rap group, Cypress Hill, in the upcoming horror film, “The Devil Inside” executive produced by Danny Rodriguez and Geno Taylor. His first screenplay, “El Matador” in which he made his directorial debut, swept the 8th Annual East Los Angeles Chicano Film Festival in 2002 by winning Best Film, Best Director and Best Acting awards. The film is currently available on video and DVD through Maverick Entertainment. A Puerto Rican who was born and raised in the Bronx, Joey spent most of his teen years perfecting his boxing skills that would one day earn him a shot at the world title. He even held the title of Arizona State Boxing Champion. He went on to spend his early adult years as a police officer before becoming a heavy-hitter in the comedy arena. Joey has headlined almost every major club in the country and has also toured Japan, Hong Kong, Germany, Egypt, Israel, and was proud to perform for the US Armed Forces before wartime in Bosnia. He was hand picked by fellow comedian Paul Rodriguez to join his very successful national comedy tour. In the year 2000 alone, he performed to nearly 100,000 laughing fans. Latin Heat Magazine describes Joey as “the new Freddie Prinze” while Latin Style Magazine says “Joey is one of the few comedians that can bridge together urban with mainstream comedy to make his style a hit throughout the country. Randy Warner, former director of Television for John Wells Productions says “Joey Medina is the next biggest talent to emerge from the shadows of the Hollywood community. Joey has demonstrated his abilities as a talented director, writer and producer along with being an outstanding comedian and actor. As a television executive in Hollywood, I have no doubt that Joey’s phone will be ringing off the hook in the coming months.” With several other scripts being written and two television projects under development, this young comedian looks like he has a long future ahead of him. |
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 Mixtress Lisa JGala Reception, March 5, 2005 Mixtress Lisa J’s been capturing audiences with her unique turntable skills for over 15 years. Her innovative and fresh approach to "spinning" and “sound” manipulation has provided Lisa J with the atmosphere and desire to cultivate a rare connection between DJ, producer, and performer. This personal relationship with music has allowed Lisa J to create tantalizing riffs of music uncharacteristic of traditional scratching and mixing, yet transcendental and funkdified in nature. The end result is a plethora of grooves and moods inviting club goers to enter into her realm for the evening’s journey into musical euphoria as she plays her unyielding set. In order to create those unique sounds and rhythms infused by Hip-Hop, House, Soul, Funk, Reggae, Cumbia and Latin Jazz influences; Mixtress Lisa J has flooded herself with study and appreciation of musical works from amongst the world’s musical genres available from all continents. From avid record collector, to mobile DJ, Lisa J started her hip-hop career after being discovered at a local L.A. record store. She became a live mix show deejay for AM Radio 1580 KDAY, the only station of its kind playing rap music in the late 80’s. Lisa J was honored to hold the exclusive crown of the only female in the now famed KDAY Mixmaster Crew. In addition to her extensive Hip-Hop background, Lisa J studied Recording Engineering. In 1995, she launched her own “dance” club Passion Planet where she served as promoter, resident dj and sound girl for two years. Lisa J continues on her path of music, working with an array of dynamic and innovative djs, musicians and rappers. Her unique style, creative blend of rhythmic scratches and ability to rock a party gives her an edge in a world of rising new superstars. Never one to compromise her integrity and passion for promoting great music, Lisa J is considered the one to go to by local Los Angeles rappers, where she places her production and turntable trickery to work on their latest & greatest projects. Today, Lisa J’s ongoing focus is aimed at recording and her residency at Cultura. For the past two years Lisa J has created a special Wednesday night dance ritual mixing media, hip-hop, soul, salsa & dancehall rhythms while exercising her reflexes and ability to also pick up the Mic. It is here where her skills have come full circle as she promotes, produces and plays alongside the talented all-female crew, Cultura Collective, which she co-founded in 2002. Lisa J also demonstrates her turntable passion at various other events, performing with groups such as The Tao of Groove, F.I.L.T.H.E.E. Immigrants, Blackalicious and Goapele. Lisa J stands apart from the rest, a master of her trade, leaving her distinct mark of quality combined with a long-lasting party vibe. Look to see more of The Mixtress as she travels internationally displaying her talent to the world. |
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 QuetzalGala Awards & Dinner, March 5, 2005 A nine-piece ensemble, Quetzal grew out of the artist-activist community of East Los Angeles that was shaped by the tumultuous political events that shook Los Angeles and Mexico in the 1990’s. Fueled by the drive to bring a contemporary urban reality to foundational forms of music like son — a Latin American song form that contains a story and different combinations of African, indigenous and Spanish rhythms, depending on its region — Quetzal is equally fueled by the drive to affirm human dignity through art. In 1993, in the midst of a Chicano arts renaissance ignited by the Rodney King verdict and subsequent uprisings, Quetzal Flores, a guitarist and the son of two activists who came of age during the Chicano Movement of the late 60’s and early 70’s, decided to put together a band. The band would follow in the Chicano arts tradition. It would address the economic marginalization and cultural denigration that most of the various band members had experienced and observed all around them, using Spanish, English, Spanglish and Mexican forms and icons as cultural affirmation. The idea was to return to a more blatant grass-roots agenda, yet more spiritually infused than the one that the previous generation had forged. A politicized Chicano art scene was flourishing in Los Angeles, once again, with poets, painters, musicians and hundreds of young people who came to hear, in their own cultural context, uncompromising critiques of the intolerable disparities the riots had exposed. With guitar driven folk-rock and melancholic melodies — the first incarnation of its sound — the band Quetzal began painting neighborhood portraits that revealed a community with profound strengths and profound wounds thus becoming one of the Chicano scene’s cornerstones. Then another political earthquake hit. On January 1st 1994, calling themselves the Zapatista Army for National Liberation, indigenous people from the jungles of Mexico’s southern state of Chiapas attacked local governments, announcing that they would no longer tolerate the conditions that were killing their communities from hunger and disease and they demanded the right to basic needs, education and dignity. The Zapatista movement catalyzed the L.A. Chicano art scene, the parallels were clear. The band Quetzal, along with the other artists, responded by organizing and playing for fundraisers in support of the Mexican indigenous movement and making pilgrimages to Chiapas. Most importantly they became ardent students of “Zapatismo” and of their central concept of autonomy, as Flores explains it, “That what we have in our community is enough to create what we need.” According to the Zapatistas, a community can address injustice, by examining its own reality and posing the questions that will eventually lead to finding solutions. Infused and on fire with these principles, Quetzal ferociously made and played music. This experience climaxed in 1997’s cultural Encuentro between Chicanos, Mexicanos and Indigenous people, held in Mexico, that the band helped organize. They participated in exchanges of performances, discussions, and in workshops in which they wrote songs collaboratively with the Zapatistas. Although still rock and folk driven, they had started their exploration of son — especially son jarocho from Veracruz, Mexico and son montuno from Cuba — and bolero the popular Mexican romantic ballad, originally from Cuba, that relies on guitar and voice. Flores started to play jarana and cuatro, the guitars used for jarocho. Lead singer Martha González, brought a powerhouse voice. From the moment she joined the band, she became part of the songwriting team and contributed to the percussion section with congas and zapateado, a Mexican style of dancing on a box (during the inquisition, the playing or owning a drum was illegal, therefore instead of hands on skin, the people used feet on wood). With a long history of singing in traditional Mexican styles, Gabriel Gonzalez sang background and duets that brought vocal polish to the group. Dante Pascuzzo, an award winning bassist, expanded the band’s R&B and jazz feel, with his expertise in both these genres. Martha remembers the first album fondly, “It was uncontrolled energy and like any untamed force, it came with a big bang, and it was beautiful.” Brazilian born Edson Gianesi brings his expertise in percussion instruments from around world therefore creating deftly organized percussion arrangements together with drummer Kiko Cornejo who was trained in western classical and world percussion. In addition to the training on the streets and in the jungles, many of the members of Quetzal have music related degrees from some of the best Universities around the world and they all either currently or in the past work as directors, coordinators and workshop teachers of after-school arts programs in Los Angeles public school system. www.quetzalmusic.org |
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