La Orquesta de Baja California joined forces with Nortec Collective artists Bostich and Fussible on Sunday for a free concert in the plaza outside Tijuana’s cultural center. It was the final day of Entijuanarte, a three-day contemporary art festival featuring work ranging from painting and photography to digital and performance arts.

I’ve seen Nortec Collective artists perform before and it usually involves a lot of sitting behind laptops. But Sunday was a much improved live performance. Nortec’s signature sound comes from layering samples of banda brass over electronic beats. And for a city increasingly recognized for cultural hybridity, it’s only more fitting to have a high-brow orchestra perform pop culture riffs alongside electronic music for free in the public space.

The concert started with “Tijuana Makes Me Happy,” which garnered cheers despite a bad audio mix early on. “Tijuana Sound Machine,” the title track from the latest release by Bostich and Fussible, was well received; the song’s music video recycles the city’s campy heritage in a fun, sequin-covered spectacle.

In its early stages, the Nortec Collective seemed to be more widely received internationally than on its home turf. But that seems to be changing as the youth embrace the city as their own, taking pride in Tijuana’s cultural identity.

YouTube videos from Sunday, October 4, 2009:

Rosario surprises her nephews with a few cascarones, hollowed out eggs full of confetti (luckily these weren’t full of flour!). This is a great example of the innocent play and spontaneous laughter that fills our time in Tijuana.

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The rolling hills above Tijuana’s sprawling suburbs define the physical landscape of a city not often thought of for its geology. The highest peak, Cerro Colorado (Red Hill), stands about 500 meters (1,640 ft) above sea level. The western edge of the summit is marked in white with the phrase “Jesucristo es el Señor” (Jesus Christ is Lord). Local radio and television stations broadcast from antennas on top of hill. A dirt trail carved out by maintenance trucks runs up from the eastern edge of its base in the neighborhood El Florido. People use the trail to hike to the top. In addition to the panoramic view, there are a couple small caves along the sides of the peak.

Here are a few photos and a video from a recent trip up Cerro Colorado:

The Tijuana Convention & Visitors Bureau offers $500 to the best video birthday card for Tijuana’s 119th birthday. The deadline is July 9th by midnight. Submit your video to the Tijuana Birthday group on YouTube. Judges will announce the winner on Tijuana’s official birthday, July 11th.

Rules:

• Videos should be between 60 to 90 seconds in length
• Video must reference Tijuana’s 119 years and its birthday
• Video must include images, icons, or visual references to Tijuana
• Videos can be in Spanish or English or both
• Video must include text promoting “TijuanaOnline.org” at end
• Video must not be vulgar, offensive, negative, or in bad taste
• Submit your 60-90 seconds video no later than July 9th

Heading north through Tijuana on the Via Rápida, getting gas for $3/gallon, crossing the border, driving on the I-805 in San Diego.

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From left: Panóptica (Roberto Mendoza), Bostich (Ramon Amezcua), Hiperboreal (P.G. Beas), Clorofila (Jorge Verdin), Fussible (Pepe Mogt)

A few weeks ago, the progressive Tijuana magazine ZETA published a candid interview with Pepe Mogt (Fussible). In the interview, he expresses his outrage that fellow Nortec Collective member Roberto Mendoza (Panóptica) individually trademarked the name “Nortec” as his own:

Nortec isn’t something between just the five of us. Nortec is part of the same people of Tijuana that made it possible to define the sound and its own cultural movement. Nortec is a sound. Nortec isn’t a brand, nor is it something that belongs to one person alone, or a specific group of people. At least to those of us in the collective it’s ours in the musical sense, but Nortec came from many people that gave an aesthetic and musical life to this movement; and if we have to mention names, we’d say Torolab, Acamonchi, Ángeles Moreno and an uncountable group of others. (Translation of Pepe Mogt’s comments in ZETA)

Mogt describes the name Nortec as an abbreviation of “Norteño Techno.” He clarifies that the collective registered the name “Nortec Collective” for international distribution, but says he’s unsure of the legalities in Mexico. He says this all came out of nowhere; he was notified on paper and hadn’t yet spoken to Mendoza.

Another collective member, P.G. Beas (Hiperboreal), blogged about the controversy. He confirms the group had no plans to tour in 2008 as each member works on individual or duo projects.

I haven’t the least idea of Robert Mendoza’s plans with his band named Nortec Panóptica Orchestra. The use of the name Nortec like this pisses us off; it’s already disingenuous that a band that isn’t the Nortec Collective uses the name Nortec. It’s obvious that no one in the collective knew that Robert Mendoza would register the name Nortec in Mexico as his own. This would seem obvious, but in some news it wasn’t made clear. Another thing that would seem obvious, but I’d like to underline it, is that we have said a thousand times that without Tijuana, Nortec simply wouldn’t exist. It would be nothing. (Translation of P.G. Beas’ blog post)

Bloggers (BeamTV, Xeelee) clearly agree with the anti-Mendoza sentiment, using words that just don’t have the same ring in English :)