Los Angeles Negros

Artist: Los Angeles Negros

LP: Con Todo Mi Amor
Song: "Porque No Soy Poeta"
[ listen ]

The annual Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival is in full swing, and I've decided to post something from Latin America today in honor of the two documentaries I watched last night. Amancio: Two Faces on a Tombstone explores the hate-crime murder of 23-year-old gay female impersonator Amancio Corrales in Yuma, Arizona in May of 2005. Frustrated with the lack of response from the local sheriff's investigation unit, Michael Baughman—an elderly gay man and long-time Yuma resident—starts a community project in order to raise awareness and hopefully bring Amancio's killer to justice. The filmmaking is a little clunky, but it's a moving story and I recommend watching it if you get the chance. Unfortunately I can't say the same for the other film, Paolo, about a melodramatic and self-absorbed Peruvian clotheshorse living in NYC who decides to return to Peru to visit family and search for his estranged father. For a doc purportedly focused on cultural alienation and long-lost family connections, Paolo spends an alarming amount of screen time prancing around in his underwear. The women in Paolo's life are generally more interesting and charming than he, but they're relegated to duties of constant fawning, as Paolo seems to grow impatient with any conversation that isn't about him. Ultimately, we learn that finally meeting his father face-to-face is lower on Paolo's priority list than an upcoming Madonna concert. You can see what other films are playing in the festival here, and you can read about the band Los Angeles Negros on Wikipedia here, though the site's dates may be slightly off. According to the back of the LP, "Con Todo Mi Amor" was recorded in Argentina in 1973, which—according to the online encyclopedia—would be three years before the Chilean band reformed in Argentina. Here are the notes from the back of the LP:

LOS ANGELES NEGROS, el grupo Argentino que se consagro
con el super-hit "Y VOLVERE," ahora forma parte del elenco
UA Latino. PRESENTAMOS estas ultimas grabaciones,
efectuadas por la prestigiosa marca ODEON de Argentina,
en este LP titulado "CON TODO MI AMOR," que sera
un exito mas de LOS ANGELES NEGROS.