Sunday, November 9, 2003
PAGE 5D
Laredo Morning Times
Local News
Latin Music
Eccentric fusion just part
of this three-ring Circo
BY RAMIRO BURR
The Puerto Rican group Circo has been
drawing rave notices for the odd mix of pop
and rock on its debut CD, “No Todo lo que es
Pop es Bueno.”
But the responses haven‘t all been positive.
Hard rock groups decry Circo
as a lightweight, while traditionalists consider the band
too radical.
Keyboardist Eggy Santiago
said the group doesn‘t mind
the attention either way.
“On this record, we wanted
to fuse many elements of pop
RAMIRO BURR but we wanted it to be interesting,” he said in a recent
conference call with the band. “We‘re rockers
who don‘t think pop is a bad word. Pop has
become a bad word for many people in the
rock world, because they think it‘s lost its
essence or the interest of musicians.”
One source of friction is the band‘s left-bank
reading of the bolero classic “Historia de un
Amor.”
For those familiar with the original 1950sera hit made famous by Trio Los Panchos or
Javier Solis, the tune is almost unrecognizable.
Its electronica-trance-rock rhythms would
be strange enough, but lead singer and songwriter Jose Luis “Fofe” Abreu has the same
ghostly vocal style of the Cure‘s Robert
Smith.
“When we were picking songs, we wanted
to choose one that was a classic of international pop of all time and make a unique version, Circo-style,” Santiago said. “We looked
at many songs and settled on ‘Historia de un
Amor,‘ which is a song many of our parents
identify with, and procreated us with.
“And if a song could do all that, we should
keep enjoying it, so we wanted to make this
version. We like it, and the people enjoy it a
lot.”
Despite the echoey vocals and futuristic
ambience, the tune still connects with its
powerful lyrics about looking back on a time
when your life was being lived to the fullest.
Elsewhere, Circo is all over the map. On
“Estrella de los 100 Mares,” the group fades
between early Yes and the Smiths, while
“Libelula” fascinates with its tribalistic percussion and trancelike atmosphere. But everywhere, Abreu‘s light tenor and plaintive vocal
style infuses the music with an ‘80s new
wave nostalgia.
The songs also range widely in their
themes. The mellow ballad “Cualquier Dia es
Gris” reflects on what it takes to survive the
blue days we occasionally encounter.
The odd, tempo-shifting, danzon and rapflavored “Odiame” ponders the concept that
hate is better than no emotion at all when it
comes to a relationship.
By contrast, “El Beso” is a beautiful, sunshiny ballad about how true love can inspire
happiness far beyond expectations.
And there‘s the instantly catchy “Nubes,”
with its sinister lyrics about balancing
lovesick emotions against resentment for
being abandoned.
“The CD is a record that has different
themes about personal experiences. There‘s
a lot of metaphor and poetry,” Abreu said. “It
has many images. It‘s very sensory. It
explores universal feelings and emotions. It
invites you to reflect. It‘s an homage to the
Caribbean superstition that characterizes we
Latinos. There‘s material about love and
breakups.
“There‘s also a lot of fantasy, eroticism, sensuality. The songs are made like works of art
where anyone can give them the meaning
they want, given their own experience.”
Abreu began his career with the tropicalrock band El Manjar de Los Dios in 1994 but
split for a solo career in 2000. He took
Santiago and drummer Jose David Perez to
Market Talk
CIRCO
form Circo, which made its debut at the 2001
Latin Alternative Music Conference in New
York.
Fans of the previous band were surprised to
hear an eclectic pop-rock fusion instead of
the previous tropical-rock sound.
“When the band broke up, because not
everyone had the same motivation, we decided to form Circo,” Abreu said. “We invited
Nicolas Cordero to play bass and Orlando
Mendez on guitar. They‘re two musicians we
know from the Puerto Rican scene. We wanted to make a musical fusion. We holed up in
the studio for three months in order to come
up with songs, fuse rhythms, making a mix
that we hoped would be accessible to the
public - something with pop elements but that
was also interesting for the musicians.”
Circo‘s odd look is also part of the band‘s
charm. Half of the members sport mohawks.
Loud, colorful shirts, thick ‘70s ties, patterned
slacks and tennis shoes are the “look.”
The band‘s debut CD was nominated for a
Latin Grammy for best rock album last year. It
originally was released independently in
2001. The group was signed up by Universal
earlier this year, and that label re-released
the CD with several new tracks. It includes a
bonus live CD with five tracks, including
“Nubes,” “Libelula” and “Sufro.”
UPCOMING ROCK SHOWS
Rock fans can check out the McXimo De La
Musica Latino rock festival on Thursday (Nov.
13) which will feature Molotov, Maldita
Vecindad, Akwid, Los Rabanes and El Gran
Silencio at the Verizon Wireless Theater in
Houston. Tickets through Ticketmaster.
Mexican rocker Alejandra Guzman swings
through several Texas cities in a few weeks
on her current tour including San Antonio on
Nov. 28, Dallas on Nov. 26, Laredo on Nov.
29 and Houston on Nov. 27. A venue has yet
to be determined for Houston.
(Ramiro Burr covers the Latin music scene
each week. Burr is also the author of “The
Billboard Guide to Tejano and Regional
Mexican Music,” on Billboard Books. For
questions or comments call Burr at (800)
555-1551, ext. 3429, or e-mail to
rburr@express-news.net.)
Law Notes
Nation’s debt not excessive Texas Public Information Act 2
BY ARCHIE RICHARDS
Tom questions the optimism I
expressed in my Sept. 29 column (see
Www.archierichards.com).
I
said
America is approaching its golden age.
Tom writes that the U.S. financial system and the big banks
are shaky because of
risky loans and excessive reliance on derivatives. Underfunded pension liabilities and the
growing debt of consumers and government
are serious problems.
A. RICHARDS
The unfunded pension
liability
of
General
Motors alone is greater than the company‘s current market value.
I can‘t remember a time, Tom, when
some market pundit didn‘t proclaim that
the United States had excessive debt.
Yet for the most part, the economy has
kept moving up.
Bear markets (those are the disagreeable kind) are caused by bad government policies, not excessive debt.
Policies are better than they were in the
1970s and a great deal better than the
ones that caused the Great Depression
in the 1930s. Our economy is not teetering on the edge of disaster. If it were, it
would have fallen over the edge during
the 2001 recession.
Actually, high-tech stocks did fall over
the edge. From March 2000 to October
2002, the Nasdaq fell 76 percent.
(Nasdaq is an index of 5,400, large,
mostly high-tech stocks not traded in
any one place, such as the New York
Stock Exchange. They‘re traded electronically in cyberspace.)
In 2000, many high-tech companies
had enormous debt. But this didn‘t
cause the failures. As described in my
column of March 3, 2003, high-tech
companies faltered mostly because of
damaging regulatory policies of the
Federal Communications Commission. I
doubt that the commission will repeat
them.
U.S. banks survived the bankruptcy of
hundreds of high-techs in 2001 and
2002, and are not riddled with bad loans
now.
In some parts of the economy, derivatives are potential problems. (An investment company that incurs risk in one
market acquires opposing investments
in other markets to offset the risk. A
mutual fund manager who‘s bearish
short term, for example, might sell S&P
500 futures contracts instead of liquidating his long-term holdings. If the market
falls, the money lost in the portfolio is
offset by gains in the futures contracts.
This is a simple example — most derivatives are highly complex.)
The major mortgage companies,
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the
Federal Home Loan Banks, are too big.
They hold too many of the nation‘s
mortgages and depend too much on
derivatives. If they guess wrong about
the derivatives needed to offset their
risk, big trouble could result. The fault
is the federal government‘s. It has
given an implicit guarantee that if those
companies falter, the government
(that‘s you and me, kid) will cover the
losses. Whenever the government
guarantees against loss, people take
advantage by incurring excessive risk.
Congress is now addressing this issue.
I doubt it will revoke the implicit guarantees, as it should. But Congress will
probably resolve the problem well
enough before disaster strikes.
In general, derivatives hedge risk. The
U.S. banking system and the entire
economy would be more vulnerable
without them.
As you say, General Motor‘s unfunded
pension liability ($28 billion) exceeds the
company‘s current market value ($24
billion). But most of GM‘s pension payouts will occur in the future, while the
company‘s market value is current. After
U.S. stock prices rise by 50 percent (this
won‘t take many years), unfunded pension liabilities will seem less of a problem.
Besides, General Motor‘s market value
is only 0.2 percent of the nation‘s $11
trillion Gross Domestic Product. (GDP is
a measure of the entire economy.) Even
if the company went bust (which it certainly won‘t), the economy is too diverse
and resilient to be brought down by it.
Personal debt is high, but mostly
because tremendous increases in mortgages, which are secured debt.
Federal debt is 37 percent of the GDP.
That‘s relatively low. In 1946, federal
debt was 108 percent of the GDP!
Despite that, stock prices rose. In 1993,
federal debt was 50 percent of the GDP.
Stock prices again went up. With the
debt now only 37 percent, stock prices
have every reason to do the same.
I‘m bullish. The U.S. stock market is
taking off, and foreign stock markets are
rising even faster. Buy stocks from
throughout the world!
(Archie Richards welcomes reader
questions.
E-mail
him
via
www.archierichards.com or write him
c/o Creators Syndicate, 5777 W.
Century Blvd., Suite 700, Los Angeles,
CA 90045. Correspondence is treated
confidentially and not quoted without
changing names)
BY RONALD RODRIGUEZ
Last week we discussed generally the
Texas Public Information Act (the Act) also
known as the Texas Open Records Act.
This week we will discuss the procedure,
deadlines, remedies and
penalties under the Act.
After an application for
public information is made,
an officer for public information of a governmental body
shall promptly produce public information for inspection, duplication, or both.
R. RODRIGUEZ
Tex. Gov‘t Code § 552.221.
The officer for public information complies
with the Act by providing the public information for inspection or duplication in the
offices of the governmental body; or by
sending copies of the public information by
first class United States mail if the person
requesting the information requests that
copies be provided and pays the postage
and any other applicable charges that the
requestor has accrued. Id. at Section (b).
If the requested information is unavailable
at the time of the request to examine
because it is in active use or in storage, or
if the officer cannot produce such information within 10 business days after the
request is mailed, the officer for public
information shall certify this fact in writing
to the requestor and set a date and hour
within a reasonable time when the information will be available for inspection or duplication. Id. at Section (c) and (d).
“The charge for providing a copy of public
information shall be an amount that reasonably includes all costs related to reproducing the public information, including
costs of materials, labor, and overhead. If a
request is for 50 or fewer pages of paper
records, the charge for providing the copy
of the public information may not include
costs of materials, labor, or overhead, but
shall be limited to the photocopying costs,
unless the pages to be photocopied are
located in (1) two or more separate buildings that are not physically connected with
each other; or (2) a remote storage facility.”
Tex. Gov‘t Code 552.261 (a).
A governmental body that receives a written request for information that it wishes to
withhold from public disclosure and that it
considers to be within one of the exceptions, must ask for a decision from the
attorney general about whether the information is within that exception if there has
not been a previous determination about
whether the information falls within one of
the exceptions. Tex. Gov‘t Code 552.301. If
the governmental body fails to make such a
request a presumption arises that the matters are subject to required disclosure. Tex.
Gov‘t Code 552.302.
There are both civil and criminal remedies
for violation of the Act. A requestor or the
attorney general may file suit for a writ of
mandamus compelling a governmental
body to make information available for public inspection if the governmental body
refuses to request an attorney general‘s
decision or refuses to supply public information or information that the attorney general has determined is public information. A
suit filed by a requestor under this section
must be filed in a district court for the county in which the main offices of the governmental body are located. A suit filed by the
attorney general under this section must be
filed in a district court of Travis County,
except that a suit against a municipality
with a population of 100,000 or less must
be filed in a district court for the county in
which the main offices of the municipality
are located. Tex. Gov‘t Code 552.321.
There are also criminal penalties if a person commits an offense if the person willfully destroys, mutilates, removes without
permission as provided by this chapter, or
alters public information. Tex. Gov‘t Code
552.351. An offense is a misdemeanor
punishable by: (1) a fine of not less than
$25 or more than $4,000, (2) confinement
in the county jail for not less than three
days or more than three months; or (3)
both the fine and confinement. Id.
A person also commits an offense if the
person distributes information considered
confidential under the terms of the Act. An
offense under this section is a misdemeanor punishable by (1) a fine of not
more than $1,000; (2) confinement in the
county jail for not more than six months; or
(3) both the fine and confinement. A violation under this section constitutes official
misconduct. Tex. Gov‘t Code 552.352.
With certain exceptions and affirmative
defenses an officer for public information,
or the officer‘s agent, commits an offense
if, with criminal negligence, the officer or
the officer‘s agent fails or refuses to give
access to, or to permit or provide copying
of, public information to a requestor as provided by the Act. Tex. Gov‘t Code 552.353.
An offense under this section is a misdemeanor punishable by (1) a fine of not
more than $1,000; (2) confinement in the
county jail for not more than six months; or
(3) both the fine and confinement. A violation under this section constitutes official
misconduct.
This article highlights some of the many
detailed provisions of Texas Public
Information Act. However, for specific
advice regarding a particular set of facts
and circumstances, an attorney skilled in
this area of law should be consulted.
(Ron Rodriguez is a prominent local attorney and President of the Laredo-Webb
County Bar Association. He can be contacted via e-mail at ronlaw@rio.bravo.net
and by calling (956) 796-1000.)