Bicicletas Por La Paz: A Latin Funk Circus, Belief on Two Wheels with Musica Por Puppets

There’s a quiet revolution going on. A very quiet revolution, just pedals and tires on blacktop. A bicycle revolution. And that band up ahead? That’s the soundtrack to it all, made by Bicicletas Por La Paz, a group of musicians and bike activists. And their debut, Musica Por Puppets (released June 30, 2015) is their manifesto.

“We’re completely a band,” states guitarist and singer Adley Penner, “but we’re also part of the bike movement, people who use bikes as their main transportation. We’ve been together for two years now. This is a mission for us. We carry our equipment with us on our bikes, we set up and we play.”

When they perform, Bicicletas Por La Paz put on a true Latin funk circus. The eight-piece pumps up the rhythm with a skanking beat, the horns take it all higher, while the singers sound as if they’ve just escaped from a twisted cabaret.

“It really is like a circus, a show,” Penner says. “We have jugglers, skits, and dancers who dive into the crowd. There’s plenty of call and response on songs. We like the audience to take part and become involved in it all.”

Many of the songs on Musica Por Puppets deal with bike activism “Gigante Elefante,” for instance, confronts the situations all cyclists face every day.

“It’s about almost being hit by cars when riding in the city,” Penner explains. “All the close calls with drivers and dodging bullets every time we’re forced off our bikes, and the motorists who don’t stop to check we’re okay.”

Lyrics like that make the music political. But the song “Fruitvale” is an overt statement of outrage, a throwing down of the gauntlet. On New Year’s Day 2009, Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police shot and killed Oscar Grant III at Fruitvale Station in Oakland, and event that triggered protests and the 2013 film Fruitvale Station.

“I saw that film and it inspired the song,” Penner explains. “It moved me. What happened was outrageous, and I just felt I needed to say something about it. Politics is at the forefront of what we do. Yes, we want people to feel good, but we want them to think, too. Think and dance.”

But Bicicletas Por La Paz aren’t just the commentators on change; being part of it, being involved is important. This is music full of passion and belief. This is what they do, this is how they live. So when the band goes on the road, it’s by bike of course.

“We recently took our third trip down to Mexico,” Penner says. “Last year six of us went on tour down there. We played shows in Ventura, Los Angeles, and plenty more after we crossed the border. Most of it was busking, because that’s a huge component of the band, simply setting up and playing somewhere. That kind of grass roots, musical guerilla aspect is vital to who we are. And as we play, we get to know people and build connections.”

The major gigs all coincided with Biketopia festivals and mass rides around towns, finishing with the band performing in the plaza, preceded by acrobats and circus acts. A real bike fiesta.

Staging a tour by bicycle is challenging. But ingenuity and technology means it’s perfectly possible.

“We use small, solid state amps and tiny speakers that are very powerful,” Penner observes. “And there are drum kits now that fold in on themselves. It’s not easy, but we’ve proved that we can do it. And we’ll keep doing it.”

Recorded with reel-to-reel analogue equipment, Musica Por Puppets not only features the band, but also an all-star cast of Bay Area talent helping out. It’s a venture that draws in the community, that makes them a part of it all. But cycling is about inclusion, slowing the pace of life and making it human again in an age when we’re all carried away by speed.

Bicicletas Por La Paz will be celebrating the release of Musica Por Puppets with a show on August 29 at Great American Music Hall in San Francisco.

“When we’re ready for a gig we just say, ‘Get on your bike, we’re going to play a show’,” says Penner.

The quiet revolution just turned up the volume.