2008 Pop Conference Bios/Abstracts

Jim Mendiola

Jim Mendiola is a Los Angeles based writer/director. His movie Come and Take It Day was developed at the Sundance Filmmaker''s Lab and broadcast nationally on PBS in 2002. Mendiola's latest narrative project, a rock and roll digital feature called Speeder Kills, screened at various film festivals across the country. Mendiola has directed a one-hour documentary pilot about Latino indie bands for cable television, music videos and blogs about Latino culture and politics on Kenburnshatesmexicans.comPanel(s):
Post-Latino: Beyond the Modern-Tradition Bind
Friday, April 11, 2008, 11:00 - 12:45

Moderator:
Shake-Ups Across Greater Mexico
Saturday, April 12, 2008, 4:00 - 5:45Abstract:

"Girl in a Coma: Straight Outta Tejas. And England. And All Points In Between"
I'm taking the two-years and ongoing journey of the all-girl, Mexican American rock group Girl in a Coma as a case study for the issues faced by bicultural rock bands in a music business universe that, even in the age of MySpace, YouTube and other internet marketing, is still racially segregated. In two years, GiaC, an American band comprised of 3rd generation Latinas singing in English, has gone from a local San Antonio, TX, band playing hometown punk clubs for $25 beer tabs to opening for Morrissey's European tour. I have been filming, photographing and interviewing the band from the beginning, starting with a documentary show featuring the band for SiTV, a youth oriented, English language cable channel, through the production of two of their music videos. I will present an audio-visual tour that illustrates the way the band has navigated business, marketing and self-promotional aspects not only within the primarily white North American indie rock scene, still unused to an all-Brown band singing in English, but also within the Latin alternative or rock en espaņol scene, where Brown bands usually come from Latin America and sing in Spanish. The videos I've directed for GiaC will be screened, and we will analyze constructed visuals of Mexican American, Tejano, punk and historical iconography, illustrating how the band consciously and sometimes unconsciously embraces diverse cultural elements.