By Daily Press staff
Tonight’s free concert at the Santa Monica Pier features cutting-edge, Latin-inspired music.
Presented in association with the Latin Alternative Music Conference taking place this year in Los Angeles, the concert features Latin-leaning bands from around the world.
Acida, a musical partnership between two of Argentina’s most talented Latin pop artists, Alina Gandini and Tweety Gonzalez, fuses tango, jazz, rock and bossa nova.
Their music is electronic, though both insist they are not an electro-pop band, but rather a duo who uses technology to create good songs.
The group Sidestepper is headed by Richard Blair, a producer from England who blends the urban cool sounds of Europe with salsa’s seductive rhythms. Blair employs a full band of horns, vocals and percussion. He perfected the merging of hi-tech, beat-heavy drum and bass with traditional Latino percussion and horns to create a new progressive style of Latin dance music.
Los Amigos Invisibles, a lounge party band from Venezuela, will close the event with their fusion of French house music and tropical swing.
The band has been together since 1991 and recently released “Arepa 3000,” described by critics as the consummate party CD.
The Los Amigos include Mauricio Arcas on the percussion, Julio Briceno on vocals Armando Figueredo on keyboards, Jose Luis Parado on guitar and Juan Manuel Roura on drums.
Tonight’s concert runs from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. at the parking deck of the Santa Monica Pier.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 14, 2003. Read the original PDF.