La Chango Family

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Will add a complete bio soon et une en français des que possible.
La Chango Family is a band born at the start of the 21st century that is based both in Montréal and France that plays what is generically called ’world beat’ music, mestizo or patchanka because no one single label describes their sound and everyone has a different opinion of what it is. From the plaintive voice of gypsy violin, to raucous ska-punks, groovy funk and mellow reggae, all find their way in La Chango’s music. The original music and texts composed by Lundo are sung in french, spanish and english as well as wolof, arab and a few other, very often in the same song accompanied by the cream of of Montreal’s and Europe’s indie scenes.
This road tested collective of musicians does its best work live and has played over 600 shows in their first 6-7 years, with over 140 shows in europe including stages at Montreux Jazz festival (winning the public choice award in 2004 and closing off the festival in 2005), Esperanzah!, ReggaeSunska as well as the Francofolies at la Rochelle, Spa and Montreal on many occasions.
The road is also where the band writes and tries out their newest material, honing it down in concert before putting it down on cd (while also releasing limited edition bootlegs beforehand).
La Chango has stayed true to its original intentions of using music as a social catalyst and not to sell laundry detergent, whether it be at the Quebec 2001 summit or cancelling a Barcelona gig in 2005 to play in support of a Confederation paysanne court case, doing the right thing always takes precedence over the easy thing. Instead of preaching their beliefs and ideals, they encourage young people to take action, express themselves and stand up for what they believe in, not allowing themselves to be manipulated but rather educated.
Over the years, the geometrically variable configurations (most often between 5 to 10 members) have seen the band also perform accoustically as Chango Family Akustik Stylee and Los Changolos to the more elaborate and larger Chango Family Soundsystem and Chango Family Circus, enhanced by either DJ’s or 7-8 circus performers.
||| LA CHANGO ||| Mailing list/lista/liste
| 2007 | EUROPE |
To celebrate their fifth year touring EUROPE, La Chango Family will be based in the south west (wine region!!) of France and will play about 60 club dates and festivals in France, Spain, Galicia, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, Holland and Germany in 2007 from late-April to the end of summer.
| 2008 | TRAVELS |
Afterwards, Lundo will spend the autumn in europe to work on various collaborations as well as compose the music for documentary film maker Tamas Wormser’s upcoming project. Once the music is recorded by the end of the year, he will then take his backpack, guitar and mp3 recorder and spend a few months travelling through latin america.
LA CHANGO RECOMMANDE :