Omar Rodriguez Lopez: Un Corazon De Nadie
Without warning, it looks like Omar Rodriguez Lopez has dropped a new solo album, today! Check out Un Corazón De Nadie, released on Thursday, May 17, 2012. You can stream the 10-track album via Omar’s Bandcamp. It’s also available for purchase as a $6.99 download. The album is trippy and sexy, with progressive tones and ambient beats that will have you on your toes. You’ll here lyrics in both Spanish and English on this mysterious album. Click below to give it a listen.
(Source: grimygoods.com)
Rolling Stone: Interviews Omar Rodriguez Lopez On Pulling Double Duty in Le Butcherettes & At The Drive In
Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Teri Gender Bender & Lia Braswell of Le Butcherettes in their trailer at Coachella.
Inside a small trailer backstage at Coachella yesterday, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez was trying to cool down after his first performance of the day, and the dressing room wasn’t much cooler than the triple-digit heat outside. Rodriguez-Lopez pulled double duty on both festival weekends in Indio, California, playing lead guitar with the reunited At the Drive-In on the main stage just hours after a full set on bass with Le Butcherettes, the fiery garage-punk band whose next album he is currently producing in Los Angeles.
Rodriguez-Lopez is a full permanent member of Le Butcherettes, and during the trio’s raging 45-minute set, he stood back with a smile as Guadalajaran singer-guitarist Teri Gender Bender roared through anxious pop hooks with sharp edges, at one point tossing a big Casio keyboard into the moshing crowd. New drummer Lia Braswell slammed a heavy beat from stage left and fans waved Mexican flags, as they would again later for At the Drive-In. Soon after, Rodriguez-Lopez sat with Le Butcherettes for several rounds of bottled water and talked with Rolling Stone about their busy Coachella week.
Is playing two sets a day a challenge?
Rodriguez-Lopez: No, it’s a blessing. Go play music all day? I should be so lucky. Last weekend we played, then we cooled off, we ate, and then just when you really feel like you’re winding down, “Oh, it’s time to play.” It’s perfect.
Omar Rodriguez Lopez Video Interview With Details Magazine at SXSW about Los Chidos & At The Drive In
Film maker Omar Rodriguez Lopez sits down to talk with Alanna Raben for Details Magazine about his new film “Los Chidos” and the At The Drive-In reunion. Shot in Austin, TX at the Driskill Hotel during SXSW 2012.
Flixclusive Interview: Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (Los Chidos)
Omar Rodriguez-Lopez is a very passionate man. As a huge fan of At the Drive-In, I was never truly aware of just how passionate he is. Most may know him as a guitarist for At the Drive-In and The Mars Volta, but he’s also an aspiring filmmaker, having written, directed, and produced a few films under the Rodriguez-Lopez Productions name. Read on as we discuss what drives him as a person and his thoughts on gender roles in society and how that translated into the dialogue being created in Los Chidos.
Could you tell me a bit about Los Chidos and why you wanted to make the film?
Omar Rodriguez-Lopez: Just to open a dialogue, to get a dialogue open about things that aren’t really discussed, but are there in plain sight. I thought that satire was the best way to do it, because otherwise, it would be a mean film. If you use humor and satire, and the over-dub, you know, to keep an arm’s distance from the thing, then you remember you’re actually looking at something that’s actually supposed to provoke questions more than anything else.
The over-dub was a huge thing. Why did you choose to do that instead of just recording live?
ORL: Again, to keep an arm’s length from the whole story in and of itself, and to remind the viewer constantly that it’s a fantasy, that it’s a farce, that it’s a fable, that’s it allegory. It’s not about, like normally, films are about being emotionally invested in the characters and all that sort of thing. I did an interview earlier with a man who said, “Well, there’s too much crazy stuff and I couldn’t be emotionally invested in it.” That’s not the point of the film. That’s not the film I made. The film is to, again, get a dialogue going about a very real problem, not only in our culture, in Latin culture, but every culture in the world. For women who see the film, for the majority of them, they say, “Thank you. Finally someone who did this.” And there’s people who really like the film, and then there’s men who say, “Why?” They’re sort of off-put by it because it’s a critique on male culture, that’s the culture I’m talking about when I’m saying I’m critiquing my own culture. Yes, I’m a male Latino, but you have to see it in a broader perspective and not, you know… I’m talking about male culture, I’m talking about domination, oppression, exploitation, and the relationship between The Exploiter and The Exploited.
You do keep the film at an arm’s distance, but do you feel that distance could possibly undercut what you’re trying to say?
ORL: No, because there’s other films that can do it as a drama. That’s not the path I chose. Again, my intent is to have a dialogue going, like how one speaks is up to the individual. I chose to speak in a very particular way here during this dialogue. And I understand that it’s not for everybody, some people will be put off by it and not want to have the dialogue… It could because they don’t want to talk about the issues, it could be because, quite frankly, they didn’t like the film, and it wasn’t their cup of tea. All things being equal, that’s completely valid and just as important as the people who like my film.
For the over-dub, you did everything in post-production, I remember you saying that at the Q&A [following the premiere of Los Chidos]. You mentioned that your own Father did the voice of the Father. Did all the other [actors] do their own voices?
LA WEEKLY Interview: The Mars Volta and At the Drive-In’s Omar Rodriguez-Lopez
Omar Rodriguez-Lopez wears the same thing every day: teal-colored jeans and a fitted canvas jacket. His eyes are intent behind his glasses; his focus is acute. For the bulk of his 35 years he’s been consumed with expressing his creative vision. Relentless in the pursuit of his own voice, he has alienated friends and collaborators. By his own admission, he’s behaved like a dictator.
The brain behind Grammy-winning progressive rock group The Mars Volta, Rodriguez-Lopez has written all the band’s music, mixed the recordings by himself and fired musicians at will — sometimes without so much as an email to let them know.
“I’ve been a real bastard over the years,” he admits, perched on a couch in the top-floor sun room of his Echo Park production offices, looking out over L.A.’s sun-soaked Eastside hills. “All in the name of following my vision.”
Wiry thin, he has an Einstein-style wild mess of dark hair and big, round, smudgy spectacles. He’s the kind of guy who forgets to eat, shower or brush his teeth when he gets on a roll writing music.
He certainly has his admirers; devoted Mars Volta fans liken the band’s members to gods. They obsess over their innovative, genre-shattering, long-winded compositions, full of changing time signatures, singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s high-pitched howling vocals and Rodriguez-Lopez’s experimental guitar riffs.
New Zealand Herald: Interview
As The Mars Volta releases its impressive sixth album, Omar Rodriguez Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala also prepare for the much anticipated At The Drive-In reunion.
In a short period The Mars Volta mastermind relays more wisdom than many artists struggle to achieve in far longer exchanges.
Clearly Rodriguez Lopez is a musician who through struggle and an inexhaustible drive has achieved an acute insight into what he does and precisely why he does it.
It’s a wisdom that has been won over the course of the guitarist and his vocalist song-writing partner Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s long, productive collaboration - first in defining Texan post-hardcore act At The Drive-In, and subsequently over six albums with The Mars Volta.
“Self analysis is what’s happening all through the process,” Rodríguez-López says of creating music, with reference to The Mars Volta’s new album Noctourniquet. “Because you do things instinctually, just by nature. Then through the process you start examining what it is that you’re doing. I don’t mean it to be cold or clinical or intellectual, I’m talking about that instinct that says ‘why exactly this and why not something else?’”
That process has led to certain re-evaluations by the duo. It’s impacted on how they work in The Mars Volta, and also in the form of a reunion of At The Drive-In for this year’s Coachella Festival in California.
Rolling Stone Exclusive Full Album Stream: The Mars Volta “Noctourniquet”
The new album Noctourniquet from The Mars Volta is now streaming in full exclusively at Rolling Stone.
Pre-Orders for the first and limited edition version of the Noctourniquet VINYL with 3-D lyric sleeves and glasses plus limited edition Poster is now ONLY available at the Rodriguez Lopez Productions Store HERE will ship on or around May 28th. Then only limited amounts will be going on to stores of this pressing at a later date TBA. 
INDIE WIRE: SXSW ‘12 I Omar Rodriguez Lopez - Chauvinism and Capitalism Inspired His Exploitation Movie ‘Los Chidos’
In addition to his rock-star duties as the guitarist for The Mars Volta, Omar Rodríguez-López has technically made seven movies, but he won’t let you see most of them.
The eccentric musician-filmmaker (formerly of At the Drive In, which recently announced plans for a reunion at Coachella) has worked on movies with a close-knit group of friends in Mexico, but has only allowed the last two to screen at festivals: “The Sentimental Engine Slayer” played at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2010, while the outrageous exploitation movie “Los Chidos” premiered in competition at SXSW this week.
A gross-out spectacle done in the style of Spanish telenovelas but positioned as a satire of male chauvinism, “Los Chidos” technically revolves around a Mexican family dealing with crime and other misdeeds while sorting out their interpersonal dramas. Intentionally dubbed and filled with countless provocative images, “Los Chidos” is one of those movies that begs for further explanation.
So I tracked Rodríguez-López down at Austin’s Driskill Hotel this week to figure out what he was going for. And boy, did I get some answers — not to mention a lengthy diatribe against the music industry and capitalism as a whole (he also trashed fellow Mexican filmmaker Alejandro Gonzalez Iñaritu). Frequently out of breath as he spoke, Rodriguez-Lopez sounded like one of The Mars Volta’s lively compositions.
It seems like you’re only making movies to satisfy yourself and your friends. But these last two have played film festivals. What made you more comfortable about getting them out there?
I wasn’t comfortable getting them out there, but I had to be responsible in terms of having a concept of other people. My editor and sound person sat me down and said, “Hey, listen, we respect your philosophy but we work really hard on these films and want to be able to put them out there.” I have to honor that, because they do work very hard. I can’t take the credit for it. Adam Thompson, my editor, he’s the reason we’re here and had the last one at Tribeca. He’s the one who fills out all the paperwork and is very passionate about that.
Los Angeles Times: SXSW 2012: Omar Rodriguez Lopez targets male ego in ‘Los Chidos’
When Omar Rodriguez Lopez picks up an electric guitar with The Mars Volta, his playing is usually defined by its otherworldly, psychedelic effects. But as a producer-director picking up a camera for his latest film, “Los Chidos,” his artwork has medicinal properties that are more akin to ipecac than acid. That is to say, he’s more interested in purging and exposing the worst parts of reality than escaping from them.
Ahead of next month’s reunion with his landmark band At the Drive-In at the Coachella festival in Indio, Calif., the El Paso native headed to the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, this week to unveil his latest film, “Los Chidos.” Speaking on the phone with Pop & Hiss, he says that the main objective of this dark comedy about a Mexican family destroyed by machismo, misogyny, classism and homophobic values was to help him heal and become a better person.
And, of course, making movies forces the often reclusive guitarist to get out of his house.
“Anytime I make a film, I have to go out and meet people, I have to go book a place to rehearse, I have to meet strangers,” Rodriguez Lopes said. “That’s therapy for me. Because I’m the type of person that would rather hide from what I perceive to be a very crazy world and just be at home with people that know me and understand me.”
The film premiered this week at SXSW and has already garnered some buzz for its fearless, forthright and gut-churning commentary on the destructiveness of the male ego and long-held social stereotypes within Latin culture.
“On the posters for the movie, we wrote, ‘If you don’t criticize your culture, you don’t love your mother.’ You say that to someone and they’re either on-board [with the film] or they’re not,” Rodriguez Lopez said.
SXSW ‘12 Interview: Omar Rodriquez Lopez Talks Spirituality, Storytelling & The Symbolism Of ‘Los Chidos’
One of the more talked about films of this year’s SXSW has been Omar Rodriguez Lopez’s “Los Chidos.” Shocking, violent, funny and made in a style unlike anything else at the festival this year (unlike anything you’ve probably ever seen), the film is divisive, but its differences are what make it interesting and worth talking about (read our review here). Using, but also breaking convention, stereotype and tropes, “Los Chidos” is a crazy fable that explores socially ingrained cultural problems like misogyny, abuse and consumption. Not everyone is going to get it, but Rodriguez Lopez doesn’t seem worried about scaring off those viewers who don’t in order to maintain the clarity of his vision.
The great thing about festivals, is that after you see a movie like “Los Chidos,” you can sit down and ask the director what was going on while the film was made. We got a chance to do just that with Rodriguez Lopez in Austin last week. It’s a wide ranging conversation that spans religion and spirituality to Rodriguez Lopez’s filmmaking inspirations and his creative process, to deconstructing the meaning of some of the symbolism in the movie. There are a few spoilers ahead about some of the more shocking moments in the movie, but we’ll warn you before you get there.
How did you transition from doing music into making films? What inspired you to want to start creatively working in film instead of other channels of expression?
I never understood music as something that could be done as a career. Music is just something that happened. I come from a very musical culture and a musical family. I have no musicians in my family but everyone plays music, everyone plays piano. My mother sings, my father sings. In our culture, dinners usually revolve around writing songs about what’s happening in the room. Actually, I always wanted to make movies. In 1987, my father got his first VCR and camcorder and I started playing with that; that was really where my energy was focused all of the time. That’s what I wanted to be doing. Music is something that just happened that I was fortunate enough to have happen to me as a career. All along the way, I made short films, and then I made my first feature in 2000 and I just thought I’d put myself directly inside of the process, which is the most important thing. I can’t articulate enough how much that is the thing. The end result is just like icing on the cake.
Is 2000 when your filmmaking collective started to come together?
That’s when I started forming it. Very much in the way that a theater group functions or a musical group of like minded people that were interested purely in the process and expression as a form of therapy. The expression as having some sort of medicinal property to it and not just entertainment… Musicians are some of the most awful bunch that you’ll find on this planet, and the drive usually is girls first and foremost, and second to that money, and I just didn’t relate to that at all. Right away it’s like going through a crowd and then you find someone who’s not talking about either of those things, and is talking about the things that are important to you, and you grab onto them. You grab onto them and twenty years later I still know those people.
What was the shoot like? What it was like working for with these people and doing this crazy, wacky film?
It was amazing. It served exactly what it was supposed to serve, which was the addiction to the process and to therapy. Everybody, the crew that didn’t live in Guadalajara, mainly the editor and the cameraman and one of the lighting guys came and stayed at my house. This is where I lived until recently, and the rest of the actors and the rest of the people who were involved were all people that I met while living in Guadalajara and going to see theater and going to see plays and seeing children’s plays. There’s this theater group called Opa, they do anything from kids stories, to issues about the murdered women of Juarez. Immediately I said, “I have to know these people.” I snuck backstage one day and I said “It was beautiful, I want to make a film, would you like to be a part of it?” And once we sat and talked about it and understood where I was coming from and saw the script and realized that, more than anything, it was this social commentary, they were on board, and said anything we can do to help. So they gave me access to all of their facilities where they rehearsed, their own actors, their people, their locations, I really couldn’t have done it without them. The shoot itself is like any independent movie, which is 18 hour days, absolutely insane, but also done in a third world country, which means that the rules are made up as you go along. The hotel that we shot at was in a very dark part of town. Very nice people who run it, but it was a place where people come to do drugs and to have sex and things like this. They gave us full run of the place but we definitely had to respect the ecosystem there and not get in anybody’s business—just stay focused on what we were doing. And humor anyone if they wanted to, if they had questions or wanted to be a part of it somehow.
How did you come to cast Kim [Stodel, who plays the American interloper]?
Kim worked before on the previous film called the “Sentimental Engine Slayer,” and I thought he was interesting, and I needed a character that would represent consumerism and globalism and corporate America. I knew that he would get it and he had enough of a sense of humor about himself and his culture to participate.
TWITCH : SXSW 2012 REVIEW: LOS CHIDOS IS A BRILLIANTLY ABSURD JOURNEY
Leave it to Omar Rodriguez Lopez to create one of the wildest, most innovative, and full on challenging films of the year. As a founding member of The Mars Volta, Rodriguez Lopez helped define a brand of progressive hard rock music known for its wild, innovative, and challenging nature. In LOS CHIDOS, Rodriguez Lopez shows he just about has the directing chops to be the force on screen he has long been on stage.
Set in a modern day Mexican metropolis (it was filmed in Guadalajara), LOS CHIDOS is a fable that revolves around a family who run a roadside tire repair shop. The term run, however, should be applied pretty loosely, as the Gonzales family spends more time gorging themselves on tacos and watching TV than repairing tires, telling most customers to come back mañana. While service may not be their forté, these folks do excel at the art of drinking; their watering hole providing refuge at the end of each long day, usually leading to debaucherous nights indulging their sexual urges, perhaps even with each other.
The excitement really begins when a handsome foreign man arrives at the tire stand in need of a repair. Dressed in his Sunday best and barely speaking a word of Spanish, the man waves around American money like the Gonzaleses have never seen. The Gonzaleses are immediately interested the opportunity to get a taste of both the stranger’s sex appeal and his cash. Naturally his car can’t be fixed until mañana, giving them the night to drink, fawn over, and incessantly berate the stranger for his poor language skills. One night turns into three or four as the man finds his place among the family and falls hard for one of the neighborhood girls.
Indie Wire Exclusive: Poster For Omar Rodriguez Lopez’s ‘Los Chidos’ Premiering at SXSW
Music and film worlds will be overlapping in more ways than one at this year’s SXSW Film Festival, and we’ve got the exclusive poster debut of The Mars Volta guitarist Omar Rodriguez Lopez’s feature film “Los Chidos,” which will be making its debut in the narrative feature competion. Surprise surprise, this is the fifth film he’s directed, but only the second one to be seen on the fest circuit. His previous effort, “The Sentimental Engine Slayer” played numerous festivals around the world, and was financed by former Red Hot Chili Peppers axeman John Frusciante.
The official synopsis reads: Set amid the noisy outskirts of some unnamed Mexican metropolis, “Los Chidos” tells the story of the Gonzales Family. Proprietors of a tire repair junkyard sandwiched between two busy freeways, the Gonzales clan’s days are spent wallowing in lazy, mindless routine. When a confused American industrialist happens into the shop with a flat tire, the family’s place in the shame-free food chain is called into question. Family secrets begin emerging as love blossoms in Omar Rodriguez Lopez’s satirical dark comedy.
The satirical dark comedy was shot with a micro-budget and micro-crew in a Guadalajaran whorehouse and we’ve heard it bears a bit of an early John Waters-esque edge. It’s got a serious bent to it though, as in his director’s statement, Rodriguez Lopez says the film “served as a meditation that exposes the unfortunate size of our otherwise beautiful and unique culture. Namely, the inherent machismo, misogyny, classism and homophobic values passed down by our grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc.” He adds, “God is a black lesbian” at the end. Rad. We can’t wait to check this one out. SXSW Film runs from March 9-17.
Guitar Player Interview with Omar Rodriguez Lopez
Omar Rodriguez Lopez keeps his creative throttle set to interstellar overdrive. He doesn’t bask in the achievements of his previous band, At the Drive-In, his ten-years-and-counting blockbuster The Mars Volta, his production company, or any of his myriad film scores or solo releases. Rodriguez Lopez is always fully engaged, generating off-balance riffs, cosmically effected tones, and mind-bending song arrangements.
This year saw the release of Telesterion [Rodriguez Lopez Productions], a sprawling collection of all things Omar outside of The Mars Volta. Its seemingly boundless range spans everything from ear-melting monolithic rock to what sounds like salsa music on acid to intergalactic battle scene soundtracks. Subtlety is scarce. You might think that such a dedicated artist would have mountains of information about the material he creates and produces at his fingertips, but the Puerto Rican native and current Mexico City resident has difficulty detailing past tracks. He uses everything around him as inspiration for the day’s music. The next day, he clears his internal Etch A Sketch, and begins anew.
This interview took place in the wake of a GP Presents event with the Omar Rodriguez Lopez Band at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall—and another show when the Mars Volta opened up for Soundgarden.
The Mars Volta - Listen to “The Malkin Jewel”
The first track, “The Malkin Jewel” from the upcoming album Noctourniquet by The Mars Volta is now streaming in full HERE . Instant download when you Pre-order the album, out on March 27, 2012. Vinyl will be released on Rodriguez Lopez Productions - release date is to be announced.
Omar Rodriguez Lopez’s Film - Los Chidos to Compete and Premiere at SXSW 2012
Set amid the noisy outskirts of some unnamed Mexican metropolis, Los Chidos tells the story of the Gonzales Family. Shady proprietors of a tire repair junkyard sandwiched between two busy freeways, the Gonzales clan’s days are spent wallowing in lazy, mindless routine. Barely able to converse without resorting to misogyny and homophobia, the six of them pass the time glued to a decrepit television and stuffing their faces with tacos, preying on the occasional unlucky motorist. When a confused American industrialist happens into the shop with a flat tire, the family’s place in the shame-free food chain is called into question. With his vehicle “out” for repairs indefinitely, a strange scenario unfolds whereby the pale stranger finds himself welcomed into their unpleasant fold. To complicate matters, he soon becomes infatuated with the newlywed bride of the family’s neighbor. As a new love blossoms, dark secrets begin emerging, and both the family and their guest are in for some surprises. Los Chidos is at once both delightfully funny and desperately depraved; a satirical, sociopolitical commentary on the dynamic relationships between exploiter and exploited.
- SXSW OFFICIAL COMPETITION PAGE
Director: Omar Rodriguez Lopez
Executive Producer: JOHANN SCHEERER
Producer: Omar Rodriguez Lopez
Screenwriter: Omar Rodriguez Lopez
Cinematographer: Michael Rizzi
Editor: Adam Thomson
Additional Credits: Unit Production Manager/1st AD: Laura Vella, Production Coordinator: Ramon Villa, Gaffer: Kristofer May
Principal Cast: Kim Stodel, María De Jesús Canales Ramírez, Manuel Ramos, Cecillia Gutiérrez, Erasmo Rodríguez, Bruno Champiz, Maimuna Achleitner Jiménez
Director Bio
Omar Rodriguez Lopez is an intensely prolific Grammy-winning artist whose genre-defying career has resulted in over 40 albums. In the early 2000s, Rodriguez Lopez began film making. His debut, 2009’s The Sentimental Engine Slayer premiered at International Film Festival Rotterdam, and Tribeca Film Festival, screening at over 20 film festivals worldwide.
