Reuben Abel Salazar and Daniel Benito Salas, two mild-mannered record enthusiasts, joined forces one day and together they became the Cult Heroes!
“We thought, ‘What if we had a house party where we were in control of the music,’” Salazar said. “What if we just base a party around music?”
The Stereophonic Duo have made their vision a reality and have cultivated a rather large EP cult following. Their mission is to spread the gospel of rock and roll through their extensive vinyl collections and bring people together with their increasingly popular Souldies house parties.
“We were trying to do something at a club, but we really couldn’t find a venue,” Salas said.
They decided to throw house parties and not charge. Salas said these parties are a way to have a good time in an old fashioned kind of way, just playing records and dancing.
“That’s how my parents partied in the sixties,” Salas said. “They would get together in their neighborhood, invite all their friends, everybody would bring their records and just dance.”
Salazar said he always romanticized the idea of how house parties were back in the 60’s.
“It has a lot to do with movies like Animal House and Quadrophenia, you see those movies and its real rock and roll,” Salazar said. “For us it created this fantasy that we’ve always had in our minds of all the stuff that we would see and read about. All the stuff that influenced us, it all comes down to roots, I just think that house parties, they’re as close to the roots as it gets.”
Salas said that the thing about the Souldies parties is that he and Abel feel they’re approach is traditional in the sense of what a DJ is and used to be.
“We don’t go home and practice a set list,” Salas said. “It’s pretty much balls to the wall – what’s in my crate, what do I want to throw on there – it’s at that moment where we decide what we’re going to put on.”
Like all heroes, these guys have special abilities that set them apart from the rest of humanity. Salazar has the uncanny psychic ability to scan the crowd and know which record to put on next during a Souldies event.
“It’s reading the crowd, you just feel the vibe,” Salazar said. “You see people dancing, so you’re just going to keep it at that level. I know what’s going to keep the party going and rocking.”
And Salas has the unique power to uncover gems and nuggets (that’s obscure long plays and 45s) of long forgotten garage bands.
“I don’t like to spend too much,” Salas said. “I’d rather go and find 50 cent records at the Good Will.”
These two forces for good music have been chums for quite a while and it was Salas who recruited Salazar in the ongoing battle to turn on people to rock and roll.
Salazar said he has always been a record collector and they have always had that in common. He said Danny had been spinning records at Club Dedo and one day he asked him to bring his records and join him on the turntables. Salazar was hesitant at first because he didn’t know how to work the equipment, but Daniel showed him the ropes.
“Ever since then, I’ve been in love with it, it’s just evolved from there,” Salazar said.
These heroes have a deep love for El Paso’s early rock and roll history and valiantly defend the cultural significance of what most would consider an obscure period in popular music.
Abel and Danny cite legendary El Paso radio personality Steve Crosno as a major influence. Back in the 60’s and 70’s, Crosno was an avid event promoter and would give exposure to local music and the Chicano soul scene in the southwest and help local acts produce recordings.
“We’d like to see ourselves as a continuation of what he was doing,” Salas said.
Salas said El Paso in the 60’s had tons of record labels and tons of bands making records.
“It’s something that we are interested in and like to play,” Salas said. “Even though sometimes people don’t know what they’re listening to. We like for them to experience that music because it’s from El Paso.”
Salazar said just being from El Paso, it’s a natural thing to be into oldies.
“Everybody knows the sound because they probably grew up with that sound,” Salazar said. “But a lot of the stuff we play was the underrated stuff that didn’t get much radio airplay back then. We have these nuggets in our possession and we want to celebrate them with people.”
The Cult Heroes will continue to be crusaders of good vibes and their Souldies parties serve as the secret underground headquarters for their cause.
“There’s never been any violence, everyone is cool and interacts with each other. It’s a good time,” Daniel said.
Abel said the parties bring old friends together and makes new friends. “There’s all kinds of love going on everywhere.”
by M. De Santiago
photographs by Joey Lozano
