above: ¡Socialismo Americano! album cover/Mister Entertainment & the Pookiesmackers
below: Zira's guitars
Humbert, The Holy Terrors, The Postmarks, Kill Miss Pretty, The Gruntled, Bling Bling, Map of the Universe, Tongues of the Heartworm, Mister Entertainment and the Pookiesmackers, the Curious Hair, Clambake, Trapped by Mormons, Kreamy 'Lectric Santa, Whirlaway, I Am Stereo, Zombies! Organize!!, the Freakin' Hott, Secret PE Club, Secret French Kissing Society, Secret Service, The Brand, Livid Kittens, The Eat, the Creepy T's, The Laundry Room Squelchers, To Live and Shave in LA, Harry Pussy, Xela Zaid, Ex-Cretins, Load, the Dharma Bomb, Catalonia, The 18 Wheelers, The Avenging Lawnmowers of Justice, Machete, Milkcan, Sixo, Natural Causes, Los Diablos, Baby Robots, Frosty, Number 3 Pencils, The Heatseekers, Mongo, Dakota, Shuttle Lounge, The Enablers, Doersam, Postface, The Bikes, Psycho Daisies, Dooms de Pop, FivesixsixFive, Plutonium Pie, For Squirrels, See Venus, Spam Allstars, the Cichlids, Monotract, Zira, Boise Bob, Angry Pudding, Rimsky, I Don't Know.
Notes:
[ All of the above bands are, or were, from South Florida. ** I've seen them playing one smoky club or another over the course of many years. ****Writing this list reminds me of late nights followed by a morning visit, in my pajamas, to the Cuban coffee walk-up window down the street from my apartment.******The guy who owned it was named Manny.****** The list also brings to mind a line from "Heat," by Denis Johnson, whose poems I was quite taken with in grad school. ******I used to write in my contributor's bio that I tended bar at the Incognito Lounge.********Here in the electric dusk your naked lover/tips the glass high and the ice cubes fall against her teeth ]
What follows: some Cuban-son-meets-Afro-urban-funk beats from the Spam Allstars, playing at Hoy Como Ayer in Little Havana.










