Mexican Spaghetti Western - Chingon > Reviews > CHINGON - Mexican Spaghetti Western (KILL BILL)

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Definitely a cut above the rest
Lyrics	Sublime
Quality and consistency of tracks	Flawless
Value for Money	Good

Advantages:	Don't be put off by importing from the USA, it's very easy .
Disadvantages:	The rest of your CD collection will gather dust .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Being a bit of a late developer, I only recently discovered the joys of the Quentin Tarentino movies KILL BILL Vols 1 and 2. Not only was I mesmerised by the story and the tremendous acting but also the music, which was so evocative and captured the whole essence of the movie. I set out on a quest to find the true sound track for the film. Luckily the KILL BILL DVD extra features had some footage of the band in concert and identified them as CHINGON (Spanish for BAD ASS before you reach for your Spanish dictionaries).

Now that I knew who they were I just had to find the album. I sat myself down at the computer and duly called up the AMAZON website and was delighted to find 3 results. Sadly, there was only one by the group and this was their follow up album, Azteca de Ora (£11.99), which may well be my next purchase. Unfortunately, this didn’t have the tunes I had so enjoyed on the KILL BILL soundtrack so the search was still on. Next I tried both PLAY.com and CDWOW.com but to no avail. The trusted GOOGLE search engine was the next call and there at the top of the pile was the CHINGON website – www.chingonmusic.com. There is a page where you can see their albums and hear 30-second clips of each song as well as photos and links to associate websites.

MEXICAN SPAGHETTI WESTERN is the band’s first studio album and, in my humble opinion is just fantastic. There are 11 tracks:

SE ME PARO
MALAGUENA SALEROSA
FIDEO DEL OESTE
SEVERINA
AL CRAN Y PISTOLERO
EL REY DE LOS CHINGONES
BAJO SEXTO (SIX BELOW)
CIELITO LINDO
MEXICAN SAUSAGE LINK
SIENTE MI AMOR
CUKA ROCKA (EXTENDED)

What do they sound like? Well, it is sort of traditional Spanish music with a modern rock edge. The best way to define the sound is to imagine Clint Eastwood with a cheroot between his clenched teeth standing in a dusty, deserted Western town with the fingers of his right hand slow twitching as he waits for the bad guy to draw. This would be the music in the background but fused with an electric guitar and some raspy vocals giving it a massive edge.

CHINGON is a band started by Robert Rodriguez, the director of ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO and DESPERADO. His band is made up of members from the Austin music community, including members of the Spanish Rock band DEL CASTILLO. The conglomeration was originally formed to create songs such as CUKAROCKA and SIENTE Mi AMOR (featuring Salma Hayek on vocals) for the ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO soundtrack. When Rodriguez was contracted to score KILL BILL 2 for Quentin Tarantino, Quentin heard Rodriguez's version of Malaguena Salerosa, fell in love with it and designed the film's end titles around it.

OK, GREAT BUT HOW MUCH? Well that would be the deciding factor, specialist music from their own website and postage across the Atlantic …… the signs were looking ominous. However, I was in for a pleasant surprise, even with shipping, the grand total was only $18.90 (for those of you who can’t quickly convert this using the latest conversion rate, it works out at a snip over £10) and there is no tax or duty to pay either; far cheaper than buying a regular CD in the High Street. Being an impulsive kind of guy, within 5 minutes my order was winging its way over the pond.

It took just over 3 weeks for the CD to arrive in a large box with lots of protection, which I didn’t think was too bad.

The CD hasn’t left my player since it arrived, it is great whether you are doing housework, driving around in the car or just sitting and enjoying the music. It may be that in a couple of months the novelty will wear off and make it’s way to the back of my CD collection but until then I’m going to play it a lot and loud!

Would I recommend it? Too blooming right!!
 

Pictures for the review

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CD COVER