MUSIC: PACHANGA FEST

'No more angry music'

Break from Number One Family Mover was like 'messy divorce'

By Joe Gross
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, May 28, 2009

Ani Cordero sounds a little flustered when I mention her first big gig as a touring rocker — drummer for a later iteration of indie surf-nerd powerhouses Man or Astroman's 'girl clone" band, the Gamma Clones.

'Ah, that was ages ago,' the 35-year old songwriter says, sounding slightly annoyed.

That was back when she lived in Atlanta, after the implosion of her old band Number One Family Mover and a gig with former Velvet Underground drummer Moe Tucker.

In 1999, she split Atlanta, where she was raised a Puerto Rican gal in a city not exactly known for its Spanish-speaking population, for the Spanish-friendlier climes of Tucson, Ariz. She started playing guitar and songwriting with the help of Howe Gelb of Giant Sand and Joey Burns of Calexico under the name Cordero. 'My band (Number One Family Mover) was tough,' she says, 'the majority of my identity based on this one act. It was sort of like a messy divorce.'

She wood-shedded in Tucson, writing songs about whatever came to mind, getting her first solo apartment, sleeping with the guitar and the four track in the bed. 'It was romantic in its way,' Cordero says. 'I didn't have a goal except to learn how to write songs.'

In 2000, she headed for New York City to relaunch the band with her husband, Chris Verene, and various cohorts.

On albums such as 'En Este Momento' (2006) and 'De Donde Eres' (2008), Cordero blends Latin vibes with straight-forward indie rock and Ani Cordero's striking voice, fragile one moment, resilient the next.

'Now I still definitely use songwriting as a way to process what's going on around me, but my life has changed quite a bit,' Cordero says. 'I'm still quiet but I'm not shy and I've been on tour for more years now that not.' These days, she says she listens to music that ranges from Iron & Wine to Blonde Redhead. 'No more angry music,' she says. 'I'm finished, I think.'

While Ani Cordero says she used to spend every possible minute in Puerto Rico — 'every summer from the day after school ends to the day before it starts and a few times in the middle of the year' — she says she's never played a show there.

'Isn't that strange? I go there on vacation and I go there to visit family and be with them,' Cordero says.

Well, there's nothing wrong with leaving work at the door when one goes on vacation.

'Maybe,' she says. 'I've never fully understood the way my brain compartmentalizes experiences in Spanish or English. I have noticed that topics that revolve around family and things that are really personal tend to be stored in Spanish. But me talking to you will be in English. Stuff that's needs to be explained in a logical way ends up in English. Concepts that are more emotional are easier in Spanish.'

No wonder her music works so well.

jgross@statesman.com; 912-5926