By Vivian Ponte-Fritz
This weekend on Saturday March 9th from 11 am to 6 pm the Mounds at Pitzer College were taken over by a time warp. The grassy hills were covered by booths and vendors and many friendly people and their cars. Thats right, their cars. All low and draggin on the ground, these old beauties rolled onto the college’s campus to celebrate and expose the revival culture of Rockabilly. The festival put on by Pitzer’s Latino Student Group featured bands all day long including Jonny Come Lately, The Moonlight Trio, The Wiseguys Big Band Machine, Los Bandits and Vicky Tafoya and the Big Beat. The sound was bumpin, tacos were consumes, hair was gelled, prizes were won.The sounds of the fifties rang out as engines roared and skeletons rattled.
Rockabilly is a movement that is mostly upheld by chicano and latin american people from Los Angeles. Their aesthetic is specific and finely tuned. Elvis-esque hair sculptures and Grease Lightning type cars are melded with the dark images of Dia De Los Muertos and gang tattoos. While not true rockabilly, many contemporary indie pop, blues-rock and country-rock groups from the US, like Kings of Leon, Black Keys, Blackfoot, Prima Donna, Kitty Daisy and Lewis or the White Stripes, were also heavily influenced by rock and roll from the early 1960s, prompting a resurgence of interest in early bands among their younger fans. Many of these bands and more legitimate Rockabilly crooners like Carl Perkins, Elvis, Johnny Cash and Bill Haley can be heard on KSPC so keep your ears perked for that swangin sound that swept the nation and seems to be sweeping again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVbl-ujcI4c
It was altogether one hell of a time. If you didn’t make it out this year I highly recommend swingin round next time.
Here are some photos I took of the beautiful madness:
 
 
  
  
   