With Clandestino parties, he opens eyes to Latin music

SOMERVILLE - Christian Hinojosa doesn't like the spotlight.

At the end of a recent Cinco de Mayo rock en español party at Samba Bar, he shifts his weight as his friend Gregorio Uribe calls him onto the stage to bursts of applause from a packed audience.

The crowd, along with an accompanying mariachi band, launches into a Mexican birthday song. But Hinojosa, who has just turned 34, shakes his head and smiles, bashfully looking around and quickly darting back to his behind-the-scenes perch where he makes the magic of his Clandestino rock en español parties happen.

The dance nights, which Hinojosa has been putting on for five years, started because he says he couldn't find anywhere to party to the music he grew up hearing in his native Peru.

So Hinojosa, an arts and entertainment editor for the weekly Spanish-language newspaper El Mundo, began to scout out possibilities for creating his own parties.

"There was reggaetón, salsa, bachata, and merengue," he says of the Latin music offerings in Boston. "But we're much more than that."

The first Clandestino party, at the Middle East Upstairs in Cambridge in 2003, drew 270 people, he says. But marketing was mainly through word-of-mouth and friends. Now, the parties draw as many as 500 and Clandestino has a website, clandestino.us, complete with pictures, videos, and an online radio. The parties are also advertised on Facebook. Hinojosa says future plans include bringing big-name acts to town, such as Mexican pop singer Julieta Venegas, who plays at the Roxy July 10. Tomorrow night's Clandestino party at the Hard Rock Cafe includes a concert by Argentine party band Los Auténticos Decadentes.

"The party is a concept," he says. "I wanted to make it different. It started out with more of an adolescent spirit. Now it's more open."

Hinojosa first experimented with world music, mixing different beats with Latin rock. Word quickly spread and all kinds of people started showing up at the parties, even though the core audience is college and graduate students of Latin American descent.

Alex Alvear, performing arts manager for the IBA/Center for Latino Arts, says he met Hinojosa over the years because he kept hearing all the buzz.

"I think he just found the right niche," Alvear says. "He's been very smart to cater to that crowd."

The name for the parties, Clandestino, which literally translates to "clandestine," comes from a song by French-Spanish singer Manu Chao. The song's lyrics, about the plight of the immigrant, are an anthem of sorts for the displaced or dispossessed. Hinojosa says he chose the title for the parties because he wanted to bring a piece of Latin America to his fellow immigrants. Each month has a different theme.

"Clandestino represents a minority culture in a faraway country," he says. "We're all clandestinos."

Uribe, 23, a former Berklee student who has played with a band at the parties, says Hinojosa is highlighting an important Latin American musical tradition that defies the stereotypes of salsa as the archetypal musical style.

"I think maybe Americans don't know that rock en español is a genre of its own," he says. "It's a movement that has inspired generations."

The parties are nearly always at Samba Bar on Somerville Avenue, just blocks from Porter Square. The outside leaves much to be desired, and the bar sits on a lonely corner near a long string of construction.

But inside, the ambience is transformed by a spacious, wood dance floor and dark-blue walls. Wooden benches rest on the side, and a lone poster of the Who hangs prominently on the right side of the club as red and blue lights flash overhead.

At the Cinco de Mayo party in May, Hinojosa was wearing a gray T-shirt over a charcoal-gray long-sleeved cotton shirt with dark blue jeans. Black frames hid his dark brown eyes and caramel complexion. When he smiles, two deep dimples appear in his fleshy cheeks, making him seem like a giddy kid playing with his favorite toy.

"I consider myself to be a DJ by accident," he says as he hovers over his silver Mac, where he has specific playlists on iTunes. "I enjoy this almost as much as journalism, if not more."

Hinojosa's set list includes everything from hit-makers such as Colombian rocker Juanes and '80s Argentine supergroup Soda Stereo to more obscure acts to get the crowd pumped up for the local bands, usually from Berklee College of Music, that play live later in the evening.

Pepe Domínguez, who sings and plays keyboards for La Cupula, a band partly made up of MIT students, says Clandestino has opened up the door for other local groups to perform. "Everybody comes here," he says. "[Hinojosa] has big crowds all the time, and it's grown over the years."

By 10:50 p.m. on a recent night, Samba Bar is full, and people are pushing to the front of the stage to hear La Cupula.

"Tonight, we're going to travel through Latin America," says lead singer Alberto Ortega.

Screams of "Viva México!" shoot up from the audience.

An hour later, people are demanding one more song before the band wraps up. "Otra! Otra!" they chant. But Hinojosa strictly plays by the rules: Bands can play only for an hour. In Somerville, last call is at 1 a.m.

Maria "Assunta" Scofield, owner of Samba Bar, says Hinojosa isn't an amateur promoter.

"He knows what he's doing," she says. "From the beginning, he knew what he wanted."

Once Hinojosa has the crowd going with his music, that's when Berklee students Pablo Souza, 23, and Santiago Hernández, 25, seem to come out of nowhere. Souza, with his white sunglasses and Afro, and Hernández, with his shiny sunglasses, goatee, and shaggy brown hair, throw themselves into the flurry of the crowd and start banging on their drums in what seems to be a spontaneous jam session in the middle of the dance floor.

But really, they're just part of what makes Clandestino unique.

Hinojosa's next project is an online Spanish-language arts and entertainment magazine slated for debut sometime in the next few months. It's already staffed by a crew of Hinojosa's doctoral student friends and will focus on local Latino fare.

Hinojosa's attempts to show another side of Latin American culture has inspired new innovators, too.

Andrés Preciado, 28, who along with friends started La Bohemia Boston, another brand of monthly Latin parties (see sidebar), says Hinojosa has set the standard.

"Clandestino is the pioneer of rock en español events in Boston," Preciado says. "No one can take that away from him."