Event Date: Friday, November 30, 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Event Location: Jan Popper Theater - Room 1200, Schoenberg Music Building, UCLA
Rubén Funkahuatl Guevara will present his newly published book, Confessions of a Radical Chicano Doo-Wop Singer (University of California Press, 2018), which is a memoir of his life and a counterhistory of the city of Los Angeles. Guevara is a native Angeleno, a Chicano singer-songwriter, a record producer of Chicano rock-and-roll and rock en español compilations, and a performance artist, poet, short story writer, historian, journalist, and activist.
Books will be available for purchase at the event. A reception will follow.
Please register via Eventbrite here.
Praise for Confessions of a Radical Chicano Doo-Wop Singer:
“I relate to Rubén Funkahuatl Guevara not because he spent his early youth in Santa Monica like me, not because we went through the ’60s side by side on the Sunset Strip, but because he is obsessed with the creative process. It’s in his blood. He gets sidetracked by constantly, impulsively, being caught under the spell of the Goddess, but art is his lifeline as it is mine. Respect.” —John Densmore, author of Riders on the Storm: My Life with Jim Morrison and the Doors
“Hilarious and heartbreaking, Guevara’s memoir chronicles decades of artistic and spiritual fire. I cannot recommend this work highly enough as a wonderful and wonder-filled resource for students of multicultural Los Angeles, Chicano masculinities and identities, the music industry, performance art, and spiritual seekers in the Southwest. Since it is a treat to read and a joy to teach, I urge my colleagues to share Confessions of a Radical Chicano Doo-Wop Singer with their students.” —Jacqueline M. Hidalgo, author of Revelation in Aztlán: Scriptures, Utopias, and the Chicano Movement
“A man sings and in his singing he carries the grace, pains, missteps, and triumphs of his life. Guevara’s memoir is such a song—de aquellas y beyond. A con safosdefiance against systemic injustices and erasures of Chicanos and all oppressed people, Guevara’s book is also flesh and bone, blood and brains, beauty and truth. Sing on, brother, sing on.” —Luis J. Rodriguez, author of Always Running: La Vida Loca—Gang Days in L.A.
“Rubén Funkahuatl Guevara, polymath Azteca warrior and Chicano superhero—it is difficult to imagine that there was ever a Los Angeles without him. It was as if he rose with the first East Los Aztlán sun that gave creative light to the barrio. In this book, Guevara gives us the opportunity to grab hold of his belt loop and walk with him through his sometimes glad and sometimes sad but always-inspiring life. Hang on tight.” —Louie Pérez, musician, songwriter with Los Lobos
“Hilarious and heartbreaking, Guevara’s memoir chronicles decades of artistic and spiritual fire. I cannot recommend this work highly enough as a wonderful and wonder-filled resource for students of multicultural Los Angeles, Chicano masculinities and identities, the music industry, performance art, and spiritual seekers in the Southwest. Since it is a treat to read and a joy to teach, I urge my colleagues to share Confessions of a Radical Chicano Doo-Wop Singer with their students.” —Jacqueline M. Hidalgo, author of Revelation in Aztlán: Scriptures, Utopias, and the Chicano Movement
“A man sings and in his singing he carries the grace, pains, missteps, and triumphs of his life. Guevara’s memoir is such a song—de aquellas y beyond. A con safosdefiance against systemic injustices and erasures of Chicanos and all oppressed people, Guevara’s book is also flesh and bone, blood and brains, beauty and truth. Sing on, brother, sing on.” —Luis J. Rodriguez, author of Always Running: La Vida Loca—Gang Days in L.A.
“Rubén Funkahuatl Guevara, polymath Azteca warrior and Chicano superhero—it is difficult to imagine that there was ever a Los Angeles without him. It was as if he rose with the first East Los Aztlán sun that gave creative light to the barrio. In this book, Guevara gives us the opportunity to grab hold of his belt loop and walk with him through his sometimes glad and sometimes sad but always-inspiring life. Hang on tight.” —Louie Pérez, musician, songwriter with Los Lobos
This event is co-sponsored by the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music Center for Latino Arts and the Chicano Studies Research Center. This event is free and open to the public.