Fosforo - Mosquito 12" Vinyl EP

by Sergio T. Ruiz
April 2005

After awhile, you almost want to laugh out loud halfway through a band member’s spiel about how they are the next big thing. Or, you just want to hire a hit on them after they have dropped you an email saying “Come to www.ourbandsucksass.com and see the future of music.” Not that you wish those people to be sitting in a McDonald’s somewhere and have a bullet pierce their skull fired by your hard earned cash. That’s not the point. The point is, you want to clear the gene pool of such horrendous PR. Then again, sometimes you just stumble onto a band that turns you onto them by accident.

A few months ago, I made a blog entry about a radio DJ in Southern California that I was madly in love with, Miss Wirewaist. She had a show on KPFK called “Sounds of Jamaica.” You can read the original post here: http://blog.nearlifeart.com/index.php?title=miss_wirewaist&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 A few months later, this cat wrote a response to my post saying that he too listened to Miss Wirewaist, and it formed some of his musical ideas. He left a link at the end. About a band he played in, if I was interested.

I clicked.

The band is Fosforo.net.

I stumbled onto Raya Records, and Fosforo. It sounded interesting. I clicked the audio, and I was blown away. Growing up in Southern California, you do find yourself in a melting pot of musical flavors. In my neighborhood, even the ice cream man played cumbias and mariachi music. While this was going on, I was tuning into Miss Wirewaist. As I grew older, jungle was invented. Those were like cornerstones for me.

I clicked “store” and these guys had one item for sale. A copy of the songs I had just heard on vinyl. A few clicks later, and the LP was on my doorstep.

One play through, and I was sure that whoever the hell fosforo was, they grew up not too far from me. Some place where you can smell orange blossoms, and the snow cone man has flavors like leche and tamarindo. A place where if you don’t eat chile by the time you’re five, you might as well wear a dress and lipstick.

Now, if someone here in the Midwest could be turned onto this stuff, we might have a mini cultural revolution. Hell, I’ll make the menudo.

For more info:

www.fosforo.net

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