What is known about bass player Johnny “Chano” Martinez, is that he began his musical career in the early 50’s and ended up becoming a staple for the Los Angeles/Southern California salsa scene from the 70’s onwards. “Tin Marin” is like a Latin American made-up word game and/or tongue twister. I think it is pretty universal throughout Latin America, even my cousins from Nicaragua used to say it. Tin, marin de dos pingue, cucara macara, titere fue….or something like that. ¡Báilalo!

1. Johnny “Chano” Martinez: Tin Marin

1. Los Mozambique: Descarga Mozambique

A super rare track from the Afro Peruvian Descarga scene. The unfortunate thing is that I couldn’t find out much about this group and this is the only item of theirs which I own.  But oh man….what a killer song.

This is a far cry from Eddie Palmeri’s María Caracoles  or his LP Mozambique.  But leave it to a bunch of Peruvians to adopt a genre of music and take it into some other awesome direction. The repetition and vigor are there, but like always, performed in a much more relaxed and informal manner.

2. Los Pachas: El Hueleguiso

Whoever is reading this, you must think I’m the worst audio blogger in the world. Yet again I have absolutely no information about these guys. In fact, I researched this label years ago and I actually found the website for Dinsa. But now I can no longer find it. Man I suck.

Pretty much the only thing I can tell you is that the Peruvian artist Manzanita does a version of this song (which i’ll put up some day). And I found out what huele (smell) guiso (stew) actually means. From what I gathered from other Peruvian blogs, a hueleguiso is an uninvited guest that comes over because he smells the food that you’re cooking. It’s slang for a freeloader I suppose.  

This song is considered a boogaloo number. Like the first song, just a bunch of dope hybrid sounds from Peru.

On a side note, I’ve had more luck with Peruvian pressings than any other South American record. Not only can they be colorful and thick, but they’re super fucking loud. Anyway, I just thought I’d throw that out to all the diggers out there.