Unlike your typical band from, say, Austin or Philadelphia, it’s hard to geolocate the band Making Movies, appearing this Thursday, February 23rd at The Green Room at Crosstown Arts. Technically, they’re from Kansas City, but the band’s diversity showcases just what a world city that Missouri metropolis has become.
Consider the personnel: founding singer, guitarist, and songwriter Enrique Chi, and his brother, bassist Diego Chi, are Panamanian; percussionist Juan-Carlos Chaurand is of Mexican descent; and drummer Duncan Burnett specializes in Black gospel.
Together, they’ve crafted a unique brand of rock blended with African, African American, and Latin American rhythms and structures. Singing in both English and Spanish, playing electric guitars and indigenous instruments, Making Movies has developed a sound that Rolling Stone calls “an eclectic blend of rumbero percussions, delicate organs, and grungy fuzz rock.”
Percussive, grungy fuzz rock? Sounds pretty Memphis. But recently the band took it a step further and recorded with Hi Rhythm organist Rev. Charles Hodges (featured in this Memphis Flyer cover story) and the Sensational Barnes Brothers (featured here). With these cameos, “Calor,” from their 2022 album Xopa, puts a Memphis flavor front and center. The song is also featured in the band’s PBS music documentary AMERI’KANA, aired in April 2022 in various markets.
Thursday’s show will feature the Barnes Brothers, lending the band’s Memphis appearance a special magic. Soon they’ll be South by Southwest (SXSW)-bound, where they may well connect with other collaborators. That list often includes longtime band champion Steve Berlin of Los Lobos, but Panamanian songster Rubén Blades has also cowritten with them, and other Making Movies collaborators include Hurray for the Riff Raff, trumpeter Asdru Sierra of Ozomatli, Puerto Rican salsero Frankie Negròn, and the women’s mariachi group Flor de Toloache.