Listen: La Leyenda del Gato Sucio

Give a listen to La Leyenda del Gato Sucio. Click play at the landing page.

Song by Radio Insecto, playing Oaxacabilly Music.

Check out my weekly comics at my Patreon page.

Thanks!
Steve Lafler

New Music: The Skinny

Andy Keith and Steve Lafler comprise The Skinny (so far.)

We are a couple of guitar slinging guys with a fresh batch of our own tunes, working up our sound in the city of Oaxaca de Juarez in southern Mexico.

Andy is a midwestern son of Minneapolis, bringing his cracker-barrel Buddha, country infused songs to life with a warm, familiar voice and an ingenious signature rhythm all his own.

Steve is a longtime Californian by way of Western Massachusetts with a penchant for short bursts of surreal country punk narrative.

We went into the studio in Oaxaca in April, 2014 and laid down basic tracks for a bunch of our original tunes. Our ten song initial release is available from Amazon at this link for $7.99

Oaxacabilly Shows

My nascent band Bughouse is doing two shows in Oaxaca, coming right up.

We'll have Bill Stair on bass and mandolin, Mikey Hillard on guitar and backing vocals, Marcia Goldenberg on vocals and myself on guitar and vocals.




A tip of the hat to Todd Spiehler, the bad boy who gave me a wee push into playing music a few years back. C'mon back to Oaxaca any time for some tasty playing, Todd!

The Ballad of the Bug

Here is Ballad of the Bug, pretty much the theme song for my new graphic novel, El Vocho. I wrote the lyric and the music was composed by Todd Spiehler.



This summer I'll be in the states promoting El Vocho and performing my tunes. I'm setting up dates now, so far I'm confirmed at the Mercury Cafe in San Francisco for 7:30 p.m., Thursday July 22. It will be a fun night as I'll be joined by my old friend Scott Hoover on bass, and we'll be playing with two guitars, bass and drums.

You might ask, why is this here cartoon dude gettin' into guitar slinging?

It started when I moved to Oaxaca in southern Mexico close to three years ago with my wife and two kids, looking to enjoy this cultured city, and an easier pace of life.

Before long, I met the aforementioned Todd Spiehler, a great guy who extended an invitation to jam on Thursdays with a loose confederation of musicians known as the Bodega Boys.

Not only do the Bodega Boys have a heck of a lot of fun playing musical styles from country blues and bluegrass to rock & roll, but they embrace the Oaxacan tradition of enjoying fine mezcal, the local spirit distilled from the maguey cactus. This is smokey, smooth stuff with a real mystique -- the best mezcal is made at country stills in the villages and valleys of Oaxaca state.

Did I mention that the Thursday night host of the Bodega Boys, Tony Raab, is a master distiller who crafts the best Mezcal this side of Monte Alban about 60 meters from the Bodega where we jam? You get the picture, we never fail to have a good time when we tune up and howl out a few tunes.

I really caught the fever for playing live music, I've pretty much gone Oaxacabilly. So, as I've worked on my El Vocho book these last couple years, I simultaneously penned a stack of tunes. I've been beating them into performable shape (I hope) and I'm gonna put myself on the line with them when I hit the states this summer. Maybe I'll see you then.



You never know who is gonna turn up at the Bodega! I'm jammin' here with Kim Berly of the Stampeders, premier Canadian rockers, and on stand up bass is John Harlin, noted expert mountaineer. Photo by Tania Roman

Ripe Pineapple Drunk

Here's a rough version of Ripe Pineapple Drunk, a song I wrote about Corn, Biodiversity and the Monsanto Corporation. And about being a hippy and a punk.



I'm gonna polish up my tunes and get around the states this summer, caterwauling with my guitar and promoting my new book El Vocho. Also gonna get some decent recordings done.

I've been fumblin' around like a Caveman trying to figure out how to embed my tunes in this here blog. I done got sore thumbs bangin' away at Google, messing with code. Me sorta dumb about this stuff, and I could not get a handle on it.
So I went beggin' to Nate Beaty, world class cartoonist and webster supreme. It took Nate like 5 seconds to generate the info I needed (try DivShare). Hey Nate, I owe you a Mezcal. Or an ice cream cone, or something as good as your advice! Thanks!