One of the desert’s most prolific rockers has a new band that’s releasing a new EP that combines social issues with groovy riffs.
The Royal Chicano Underground is the latest project from Bolin Jue, the guitarist/vocalist of Town Troubles. After producing more than a decade of desert rock, Town Troubles called it quits late last year—before the band’s final lineup of Jue, Mario Estrada and Jeronimo Arellano Contreras reappeared in March as the Royal Chicano Underground, taking the riff-tastic jams of Town Troubles out of the gritty and drone-y desert rock space, and adding in more dance-filled disco beats.
The band’s debut EP, Menu for Machismo, released on May 17, features a whirlwind of psychedelic rock jams that hit hard—and groove even harder. Between head-spinning drum mania, Latin-infused guitar rhythms and funky basslines are lyrics relating male stereotypes to a food menu.
During a recent phone interview with Jue, he explained the concept behind the EP.
“It came out of a light-hearted approach to trying to understand the mindset of a misogynist, or someone with a boomer mentality, and thinking, like, ‘How could you possibly think that?’” Jue said. “I just thought that a lighthearted way of answering that question would be if there was a menu for these different character flaws … if you get a ‘Menu for Machismo,’ and you just ordered the items off of that menu. Obviously, that’s not how these things happen, but it’s a way of dealing with the reality that we live in this patriarchy. This is how these men come to these conclusions. … They have a menu that’s handed over to them, and they pick which item on the menu they want to be that day.”
An example of Jue’s satire: “This dish comes with a false soup / Boiled in a liar’s pot / Seasoned with fresh BS / So that you’re right even when you’re not,” from “Macho Cheese.” And: “How will u have it? / With sweetness or spice? / He’ll try anything if it buys him your likes,” from “Nice Guy Sauce.” Physical copies of Menu for Machismo come with a lyric zine made to look like a restaurant menu.
“There are men who victimize themselves strategically as a way of not having to deal with the choices that they’ve made,” Jue said. “There are men who are image creators, and they want you to see them a certain way, because who they are behind closed doors is so grotesque that they themselves don’t even want to see that. As opposed to being a decent person, or growing up and dealing with your choices, how about just picking how shitty you want to be off of something like a menu? I’m not making this menu and trying to promote these types; it’s satirical.”
Jue relates awful male behavior to being able to order a burger and french fries.
“They are both very common, so much so that it’s been normalized by men and women, and so much so that we’ve voted twice now for a dude who seems to be ordering these items,” he said.
The Royal Chicano Underground, although the band features the same members as Town Troubles, marks a new era for Jue’s songwriting. In our last interview, he mentioned having to “mask certain ideas” in Town Troubles for the band to have a distinctive sound and lyrical style.
“They are both very common, so much so that it’s been normalized by men and women, and so much so that we’ve voted twice now for a dude who seems to be ordering these items.”
Bolin Jue, comparing bad male behavior to ordering a burger and fries
“I feel like I’ve grown as a songwriter, as a musician, and as a person, and so having a new band feels right,” Jue said. “I get to do things that are new, and then I get to push myself. What’s cool about this band is, as far as the songwriting goes: These songs are really difficult for me to play and sing at the same time, or just play even if I wasn’t singing. It’s a way of getting better by having to challenge yourself and push yourself and write songs that are in a style that is new to me. It’s a space to grow, and I feel Town Troubles is a whole other thing.”
Throughout Menu for Machismo, the band explores moody and mystic tones, upbeat disco funk jams, and irresistible psychedelic and Latin grooves, while still maintaining Jue’s endless supply of catchy riffs and poetic songwriting.
“You could tell it’s the same dude writing the songs,” Jue said. “One of the many differences between this band and Town Troubles is the drum setup. The drum setup in Town Troubles was a very specific one that I had thought up years ago as a very stripped-down setup, and this new one is also not a typical setup, like most drum sets are.” (A video on the band’s Instagram page features drummer Contreras going over his unique kit in-depth; the kit includes cymbal stacks and timbales for toms!)
Jue said the main goal for the Royal Chicano Underground is to “be political and dance about it.”
“Dance used to have this place in culture and society, pre-Founding Fathers,” he said. “My ancestors, they would dance to mourn; they would dance to celebrate; they would dance for all sorts of purposes. I feel like dance was sort of taken away and eradicated from those people, and it’s funny: It was taken away by white men, and it was also brought back by white men. Elvis brought it back after it was gone for hundreds of years or whatever. This idea of making music that we ourselves can dance to is important, and it’s also a political act. Dancing is a form of protest, and it is also a form of healing. That’s a pattern … to have a certain uplifting liveliness juxtaposed with some lyrics that can talk about depressing shit.”
Most desert musicians don’t record and release new music on a consistent basis. Jue is not part of that majority.
“We have another EP that’s supposed to be coming out (in June),” Jue said. “It’s a three-song EP called Red Waves, and that one’s about some of the executive orders that Trump has been signing, and the current state of all that horribleness. We want to spend the next couple of months after that working on an LP that’ll hopefully get done before the end of the year.”
Jue and his partner are also expecting a baby boy soon.
“I do feel like I have a responsibility to show this little feller the ways,” he said. “Something that my girl and I talked about is we’re going to make sure that he takes accountability for his actions, and we’re not going to baby him. That’s sort of how a lot of these realities emerge.”
For more information, visit www.instagram.com/theroyalchicanounderground.