SHALLA MINGLES with VICTORe of the band, Tokadiscos

“Tokadiscos Reggaes”

by Shalla DeGuzman


First off, who’s VICTORe?

Well, I was born and have lived in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico my whole life, I’m 25. I’m the youngest of a family of five (My two older sisters always enjoyed to make me cry when I was a kid). I Studied Industrial Engineering here in Ensenada and I’m going thru a Professional Certificate in Construction Safety in the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).

I like to learn new things in all aspects of life. Love roller coasters, rappel and willing to skydive as soon as I have some spare money. Recently I learned to scuba dive, and has become my new passion, I just love it =)

Ensenada is a quite small town, and that’s what I like about it, it’s not crowded and if you want to see big concerts or the advantages of a big city, you just need to travel an hour to the north to get to Tijuana or cross the border and get to San Diego.

We started Tokadiscos eight years ago (almost nine) with the idea of making music that we enjoy. There were no other bands in the town that would do anything like it. A curse of the small town is that 98% of the bands follow the trends instead of creating something because you feel it. Back then, everyone was playing like Nirvana, then Deftones, then Blink 182 and now Emo. I don’t mean to be rude to any style of music (I like Emo), but after the trend is over you can tell who actually liked it and who is migrating to a new trend. Pretty much like a mainstream Mexican band called Panda.

So far we have two records and are working on the third one. The band hasn’t given us enough money to live yet, but has given us a lot of personal satisfaction. We’ve been in many places around Mexico and a few important cities in the US (San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix and Chicago). Roco and Pato form Maldita Vecindad recorded in our first record and we have some surprises for the next one.

Shalla: Hello VICTORe, nice band. Have you been performing long?

VICTORe: I’ve been playing for about ten years right now. I started a the School band and then moved to make my own music with some friends. In the band there are some older guys that have a longer road and some younger ones that have way less. We as a band as I said we have almost nine years and counting.


Shalla: When did you know you wanted to be a musician?

VICTORe: When I was about four years old I wanted to be a police officer (how wrong was I? Jaja), fireman or an Ice Cream Seller (I could get all the Ice Cream I could eat, can you imagine that???). After that I wanted to be a Professional Basketball player. As every average kid I used to play to be a singer with the comb as microphone, played the Air guitar since I started listening alternative music about the age of ten. But was at the age of 15 when I got my hands into a real drum set that I knew that I wouldn’t be able to drop the drumsticks anymore.


Shalla: Which musical instruments do you play? What’s your favorite musical instrument? Did you take music lessons or just learned on your own?

VICTORe:
I Love and have respect for all instruments. But my passion is all kind of percussion. I play drums most of my time, but I play a little (very little jaja)of congas, guitar, bass and trumpet.

Shalla: Do you play the drums? Is it hard to play the drums?

VICTORe:
Yes, Is as hard as any other instrument. There’s no hard or easy instrument. Drums attract most common people because they think it’s just hit, hit, hit. The truth is that anyone can play an instrument as long as you dedicate enough (a lot) time to practice really slow and then gain speed. It becomes a second nature, like breathing, you never think about it, but do it all the time. When you start you only focus in that specific rhythm and any single distraction takes you out of the beat. But as you keep doing it, you can talk, sing, or even think about the after party and keep playing without even think about it.


Shalla: Do you write your own music? What’s your inspiration?

VICTORe:
We as a band write our own music. I personally only work with the arrangements. Most of the time Tozzy (lead singer) comes to a rehearsal with an idea and we all together work it out. As I told you, our ages are quite spread (from 17 to 31), so we all have different influences and all put a little of ourselves into the songs.


Shalla: Any tips for other musicians on how to get your music out there?

VICTORe:
Well, forget about the record companies, the future of music is on-line. Make your own demos, records, and try to get it to all the audience possible. If they like your music they’ll start to ask for your shows and that’s how you start touring.

Shalla: Oh, and can we feature more of your music on SHALLA Magazine? (we can put a link to it or something)

VICTORe:
Well, you can find our music, videos or info in:
Music.com
myspace.com/tokadiscos
tokadiscos.com
youtube.com/profile?user=victoretkd

THANKS for the space =)

Shalla: Thanks so much! Best with your projects!

or more on Tokadiscos: http://www.tokadiscos.com/




Shalla DeGuzman's short stories have appeared in the Mosaic Literary Journal and Mad Hatters Review, her articles in The Scriptorium and L.A. Freepress, her skits at the Stella Adler Theatre.

Her flash fiction Fish In My Bed recently won the FISH AND PLANE Competition and is featured in Issue 6 of Mad Hatters Review.


Shalla, a former writer and producer of a health and fitness cable show, is currently writing a novel. She is President of The ShalladeGuzman Writers Group
( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ShalladeGuzman/ ) where she interviews literary agents, publishers, editors, etc.

For more about Shalla: http://www.shalladeguzman.com/

and

http://www.myspace.com/shalladeguzman